Chapter 26 - A Strange Rendezvous

WE sat on the terrace in a corner near the entrance to the American Bar. It was getting on towards lunch time, and this was a fairly busy season in Cairo. I had seen several people I knew, but had deliberately avoided them. Now I faced Sir Lionel across the cane-topped table, and:

“There’s one thing I can’t stand, Greville,” he said, “and that’s being ordered about! Latterly, I’ve had too much of it—altogether too much of it.” He brought his fist down on the table with a bang. “But we shall see who scores in the end. As for that slimy swine Aden, he’s no more a solicitor than I’m a barber.”

“Wrong again, Barton,” came quietly, and glancing up I saw that Nayland Smith had just come out through the doors behind us.

“I’m apparently always wrong,” growled the chief.

“Not always,” said Sir Denis, drawing up a chair. “But it happens that the Mr. Samarkan whom I mentioned an hour ago—you remember him, of course?”

“My memory isn’t failing me, Smith! He died in England, in those damned caves—near my own place. Of course I remember him! Thanks to you, the sticky business was hushed up!”

“Ah!” murmured Nayland Smith, and his stern face suddenly broke into a smile.

That smile rather cleared the air.

“You know, Barton,” he went on, “although you’re the last man to admit it, you’ve been behaving like a sick cow ever since Ramin disappeared. I understand your feelings, but I don’t understand why you should vent them on your friends. However (it was Petrie who gave me the clue), the record of M. Samarkan—one-time manager of a hotel no great distance from this, and, later, of the New Louvre in London—is filed at Scotland Yard. Therefore I happen to know that he had a brother. I know also that his brother changed his name by deed poll and took out naturalization papers.”

He paused, staring hard at Sir Lionel.

“I saw the resemblance, of course,” the chief admitted, “but . . .”

“So did I,” Nayland Smith went on. “But it was Petrie who placed him. I have just been checking up on the gentleman. He has a legal practice in Cairo, as he stated. But it’s of a very shady character.”

“So I imagine,” I interjected.

“In short, there’s no doubt whatever that his main source of revenue is the affairs of the Si-Fan. He’s one of their spies, and an agent of Dr. Fu Manchu, as his brother was before him.”

Simply eaten up with impatience and anxiety, I could scarcely contain myself during this conversation. And, as Sir Denis paused again:

“This doesn’t help me in the least to understand,” I said, “why you let the brute slip!”

“Same here,” growled the chief. “Personally, I should have thrown him out of the window.”

Sir Denis lay back in his chair, giving an order to a waiter who had just come up; and, as the man went away:

“Your primitive tactics, Barton,” he remarked coldly, “would probably result in the total disappearance of Ramin. If that’s what you are after—take charge.”

“But——” the chief began.

“There’s no ‘but’!” snapped Nayland Smith impatiently. “We have absolutely no clue to Ramin’s whereabouts. Greville, here, has been doped—his brain on that point is useless. The man you wanted to throw out of the window probably knows no more than we know. But he’s a link—a link which you would have snapped!”

He paused so suddenly, staring obliquely across the street at a high window, that automatically I turned and looked in the same direction. And as I looked, I saw what he had seen.

From the window of a native house—for Shepheard’s borders closely upon the Oriental city—a woman was leaning out, apparently watching us where we sat on the stoep. She withdrew from the window immediately, but as she did so I turned and met a piercing glance from Sir Denis.

“Was I right, Greville?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

Even without his confirmation I should have been certain that Fah Lo Suee had been watching us from across the street!

I jumped up.

“Let’s search the house!” I cried. “I know you have powers, Sir Denis!”

My excitement had attracted attention, and I suddenly realized with embarrassment that a number of people were looking at me.

“Sit down, Greville,” was the quiet reply. “Your tactics are as bad as Barton’s.”

I dropped back in my chair and met his steady gaze—not, I believe, with too great an amiability.

“What the devil’s all this about?” growled the chief. “I can’t see anything.”

“Outside your particular province,” Nayland Smith returned, “you rarely do see anything. Petrie, with his stolid mentality, is worth both of you put together when it comes to grasping facts. If I hadn’t been here last night, Barton, all Cairo would know now that Ramin was missing.”

“Why shouldn’t all Cairo know?”

“Because it would result in his being smuggled away. If you can’t see that, you can see nothing.”

Nevertheless, I could not refrain from glancing up at that high window at which, I was assured, Fu Manchu’s daughter had been stationed—watching us. And Nayland Smith suddenly detected this.

“For heaven’s sake!” he snapped irritably, “pretend you didn’t see her.” He pulled out pouch and pipe and threw them down on the table. “I must smoke!”

As he began to load the cracked old briar:

“What I want to know——” Sir Lionel began.

“What you want to know,” Sir Denis took him up, “is why I selected so strange a meeting place. If you’ll be good enough not to interrupt me, I’ll explain. Ah! here’s Petrie.”

I saw the doctor, who had just come up the steps, looking about in search of us, and standing up I waved my hand. He nodded, and threading his way among the tables, joined us.

“Sit down, Petrie,” said Nayland Smith; “here’s a chair. You will notice that, anticipating your arrival, I thoughtfully ordered a drink for you.”

“Tell me, Smith,” Petrie began eagerly, “have you come to terms? For God’s sake, say that you have.”

“I have, old man,” Nayland Smith replied, laying his hand upon the speaker’s arm, and squeezing it reassuringly. “But neither Barton nor Greville seems to appreciate my purpose.”

“Fah Lo Suee——” I began, glancing towards that window across the street.

“Greville!” snapped Sir Denis, “there will be plenty of time later; at the moment I wish to explain the position to Petrie.”

His manner was overbearing to the point of rudeness. I felt like a recruit in the hands of a company sergeant major. But I suffered it and took out my cigarette case.

“I have arranged,” he continued, “with Mr. Aden—who is, as you suspected, Petrie, a brother of the lamented Samarkan——”

“I knew it!” Petrie cried.

“You were right,” Nayland Smith admitted, “and I am indebted to you for the clue. But, as I was saying, I have arranged that the relics of the Masked Prophet—which God knows have caused sufficient misery already—shall be handed over to those who demand them, and Ramin returned to us to-night at twelve o’clock in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid.”

Probably no more perfect registration of astonishment could have been achieved by any Hollywood star than that now displayed by Dr. Petrie. He stared from face to face in positive bewilderment, and:

“You think what I think, Petrie,” the chief shouted; “that it’s stark, raving lunacy!”

Sir Denis began to light his pipe.

“Frankly, I don’t know what to think,” Petrie confessed. “It sounds fantastic to a degree. Really, Smith, in the circumstances . . .”

Sir Denis, having failed to light up with the first match, turned irritably to the speaker.

“Have you ever had occasion to observe, Petrie,” he inquired acidly, “that my average behaviour tends to the absurd?”

“Not at all.”

“Very well.” He struck a second match. “I will quote, from memory, the terms of the agreement to which Barton and I have set our hands, witnessed by Greville, here.”

The second match failed also. Laying his pipe upon the table:

“The phrasing doesn’t matter,” he went on, “but the hub of the thing is this:

“Dr. Fu Manchu’s agent was authorised to propose that at a meeting place to be mutually agreed on, but one not less than half a mile from any inhabited dwelling, no more than two persons should present themselves with the relics of the Prophet. Of the other part it was agreed that no more than two persons should be with Ramin. Ramin having been accepted on our side, and the relics on the other, all should be permitted to depart unmolested.”

“Well?” said the chief, leaning across the table; “it was playing into our hands!”

“Listen,” Nayland Smith’s even voice continued: “Knowing with whom I was dealing, I made a further condition. It was this: that after the interchange of valuables (pardon me, Greville, but I don’t quite know how otherwise to express myself) there should be a ten minutes’ truce. Note the time—ten minutes.”

“I still remain in the dark,” I confessed.

“So do I,” said Petrie.

“Wait!” the chief growled, watching Nayland Smith intently. “I begin to see—I think I begin to see.”

“Good for you, Barton,” was the reply. “I naturally anticipated an ambush. If Fu Manchu can secure what he wants and at the same time dispose of two people in the world who know much of himself and his methods, this would be a master stroke. I looked for loopholes in the agreement. While the doctor would not hesitate to murder any of us, he is incapable of dishonouring his bond. I played for safety.”

“Hopeless!” I exclaimed. “It appears to me that to-night we are walking with our eyes open right into a trap.”

“Wait!” With a third match the speaker got his pipe going. “By the courtesy of Mr. Aden it was left to me to suggest this meeting place. And I selected the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid. It was a momentary inspiration, and I may have been wrong. But consider its advantages.”

He paused, and now we were all watching him intently.

“Apart from the condition that we shall be represented by no more than two persons at the meeting place, there is no clause in the agreement prohibiting our being covered by as many persons as we care to assemble!

“Police headquarters are advised. To-night at twelve o’clock Gizeh will be deserted; there’s no moon. A cordon will be drawn around the Pyramid. Nothing in my agreement with Mr. Aden prohibits this. When Ramin is brought there from whatever place they have her in hiding, the fact will be reported to me.”

“By heaven!” cried the chief, and banged the table so violently that Petrie’s glass was upset; but, as if not noticing the fact. “By heaven! This is sheer genius, Smith. Your pickets will get her on the way?”

“It’s possible.”

Sir Lionel laughed boisterously and clapped his hands for a waiter.

“They won’t even get——” he began—and then paused.

I saw Sir Denis watching him, and I realized that he, as well as I, had noticed that schoolboy furtiveness creeping over Sir Lionel’s face. The arrival of a waiter interrupted us temporarily, but then:

“You see, Greville,” said Sir Denis, turning to me eagerly, “even if they slip past the pickets, and we have to enter the Pyramid, those inside will be at our mercy. Because the police will close around the entrance behind us, and——”

“And there’s only one entrance!” I concluded. “I see it all! We can’t fail to regain the relics?”

“This would be playing into our hands,” cried the chief, “if Fu Manchu agreed to it. We began cheering too soon! I admit the brilliancy of the scheme, Smith; I can see your point, now. But when a meeting place half a mile from any inhabited dwelling was suggested, Fu Manchu hadn’t thought about the Great Pyramid! He’s a devil incarnate and could probably work conjuring tricks almost anywhere else within the terms of the agreement. But the Pyramid! He’ll veto the whole thing when the slimy Aden reports.”

“I had fully anticipated it,” Nayland Smith admitted, “but only ten minutes ago, just before I joined you, the arrangement was confirmed on the telephone.”

“By whom?” I asked.

“By the only voice of its kind in the world—by the voice of Dr. Fu Manchu.”

“Good God!” I exclaimed—“then he’s here, in Cairo!”