Читать книгу THE DEVIL DOCTOR - Sax Rohmer - Страница 9

"I don't blame you!" rapped Nayland Smith. "Suppose we say, then, a

thousand pounds if you show us the present hiding-place of Fu-Manchu,

the payment to be in no way subject to whether we profit by your

information or not?"

Abel Slattin shrugged his shoulders, racially, and returned to the

armchair which he had just quitted. He reseated himself, placing his

hat and cane upon my writing-table.

"A little agreement in black and white?" he suggested smoothly.

Smith raised himself up out of the white cane chair, and, bending

forward over a corner of the table, scribbled busily upon a sheet of

notepaper with my fountain-pen.

The while he did so, I covertly studied our visitor. He lay back in

the armchair, his heavy eyelids lowered deceptively. He was a thought

overdressed--a big man, dark-haired and well-groomed, who toyed with a

monocle most unsuitable to his type. During the preceding

conversation, I had been vaguely surprised to note Mr. Abel Slattin's

marked American accent.

Sometimes, when Slattin moved, a big diamond which he wore upon the

third finger of his right hand glittered magnificently. There was a

sort of bluish tint underlying the dusky skin, noticeable even in his

hands but proclaiming itself significantly in his puffy face and

especially under the eyes. I diagnosed a labouring valve somewhere in

the heart system.

Nayland Smith's pen scratched on. My glance strayed from our Semitic

caller to his cane, lying upon the red leather before me. It was of

most unusual workmanship, apparently Indian, being made of some kind

of dark brown, mottled wood, bearing a marked resemblance to a snake's

skin; and the top of the cane was carved in conformity, to represent

the head of what I took to be a puff-adder, fragments of stone, or

beads, being inserted to represent the eyes, and the whole thing being

finished with an artistic realism almost startling.

When Smith had tossed the written page to Slattin, and he, having read

it with an appearance of carelessness, had folded it neatly and placed

it in his pocket, I said:

"You have a curio here?"

Our visitor, whose dark eyes revealed all the satisfaction which, by

his manner, he sought to conceal, nodded and took up the cane in his

hand.

"It comes from Australia, doctor," he replied; "it's aboriginal work,

and was given to me by a client. You thought it was Indian? Everybody

does. It's my mascot."

"Really?"

"It is indeed. Its former owner ascribed magical powers to it! In

fact, I believe he thought that it was one of those staffs mentioned

in biblical history--"

"Aaron's rod?" suggested Smith, glancing at the cane.

"Something of the sort," said Slattin, standing up and again preparing

to depart.

"You will 'phone us, then?" asked my friend.

"You will hear from me to-morrow," was the reply.

Smith returned to the cane armchair, and Slattin, bowing to both of

us, made his way to the door as I rang for the girl to show him out.

"Considering the importance of his proposal," I began, as the door

closed, "you hardly received our visitor with cordiality."

"I hate to have any relations with him," answered my friend; "but we

must not be squeamish respecting our instruments in dealing with Dr.

Fu-Manchu. Slattin has a rotten reputation--even for a private inquiry

agent. He is little better than a blackmailer--"

"How do you know?"

"Because I called on our friend Weymouth at the Yard yesterday and

looked up the man's record."

"Whatever for?"

"I knew that he was concerning himself, for some reason, in the case.

Beyond doubt he has established some sort of communication with the

Chinese group; I am only wondering--"

"You don't mean--"

"Yes--I do, Petrie! I tell you he is unscrupulous enough to stoop even

to that."

No doubt Slattin knew that this gaunt, eager-eyed Burmese commissioner

was vested with ultimate authority in his quest of the mighty Chinaman

who represented things unutterable, whose potentialities for evil were

boundless as his genius, who personified a secret danger, the extent

and nature of which none of us truly understood. And, learning of

these things, with unerring Semitic instinct he had sought an opening

in this glittering Rialto. But there were _two_ bidders!

"You think he may have sunk so low as to become a creature of

Fu-Manchu?" I asked, aghast.

"Exactly! If it paid him well I do not doubt that he would serve that

master as readily as any other. His record is about as black as it

well could be. Slattin is, of course, an assumed name; he was known as

Lieutenant Pepley when he belonged to the New York Police, and he was

kicked out of the service for complicity in an unsavoury Chinatown

case."

"Chinatown!"

"Yes, Petrie, it made me wonder, too; and we must not forget that he

is undeniably a clever scoundrel."

"Shall you keep any appointment which he may suggest?"

"Undoubtedly. But I shall not wait until to-morrow."

"What!"

"I propose to pay a little informal visit to Mr. Abel Slattin

to-night."

"At his office?"

"No; at his private residence. If, as I more than suspect, his object

is to draw us into some trap, he will probably report his favourable

progress to his employer to-night!"

"Then we should have followed him!"

Nayland Smith stood up and divested himself of the old

shooting-jacket.

"He _has_ been followed, Petrie," he replied, with one of his rare

smiles. "Two C.I.D. men have been watching the house all night!"

This was entirely characteristic of my friend's farseeing methods.

"By the way," I said, "you saw Eltham this morning. He will soon be

convalescent. Where, in Heaven's name, can he--"

"Don't be alarmed on his behalf, Petrie," interrupted Smith. "His life

is no longer in danger."

I stared, stupidly.

"No longer in danger!"

"He received, some time yesterday, a letter, written in Chinese, upon

Chinese paper, and enclosed in an ordinary business envelope, having a

typewritten address and bearing a London postmark."

"Well?"

"As nearly as I can render the message in English it reads: 'Although,

because you are a brave man, you would not betray your correspondent in

China, he has been discovered. He was a mandarin, and as I cannot write

the name of a traitor, I may not name him. He was executed four days

ago. I salute you and pray for your speedy recovery.--FU-MANCHU.'"

"Fu-Manchu! But it is almost certainly a trap."

"On the contrary, Petrie, Fu-Manchu would not have written in Chinese

unless he were sincere; and, to clear all doubt, I received a cable

this morning reporting that the Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat was assassinated

in his own garden, in Nan-Yang, one day last week."