Emperor Fu-Manchu (5 page)

He returned to the stern of the boat. Yueh Hua had washed and tidied up considerably. She was smiling shyly.

“Do I look any better?”

He thought she looked very well indeed. There were few Mongolian characteristics. Prominent cheekbones and very slightly slanting eyes, yes. But many Celts had these. Now that her face was clean, he saw that she had a fresh, healthy complexion. In fact, he decided that Yueh Hua was quite pretty in a quaint way.

He planned to remain hidden where they were until the searchers returned and passed on the way up to Chia-Ting. Yueh Hua shook her head.

“When they don’t find the sampan anywhere we could have gotten to in this time, they will search again on the way back. Someone may tell them of this place. It was once used as a duck decoy.”

Tony thought of his .38 and wondered how many of the crew, beginning with Colonel Soong, he could knock off as they came into the decoy. But he dismissed the idea quickly.

“We shall have to cross the river before they come back, and hide in a creek I know there,” she continued.

“Is it used much?”

“No. It is too shallow.”

This idea was a desperate venture. Should the motor cruiser turn about sooner than anticipated, they could be trapped on the way over. He pointed out that Soong might search the creek.

“It is upstream. They will have searched it coming down.”

Tony grasped the long sweep and began to pole along the bank, edging the boat toward the opening through the rushes.

“Nearer the middle,” Yueh Hua directed. “Look—where the dragonfly is.”

He gave a powerful thrust. The bow of the sampan was driven in about three feet, then progress was checked.

“Another push from this side, hard.”

He swung the oar over, found a firm spot, and thrust with all his weight. The boat glided along an unseen channel, and they were out again in the main part of the pool.

“Let me go ashore first and see if the river is clear,” Yueh Hua said.

Tony rowed in to the spot against which he had first tied up, and she leaped ashore lightly and ran off through the cactus lining the bank. He waited, listening. And as he listened, he heard voices singing some monotonous song, and discerned the faint sound of a reed pipe.

Yueh Hua came running back.

“A big raft coming down! They may have been told to look out for us. We must wait until they pass.”

He nodded. But every minute’s delay might mean capture.

The sounds drew nearer. The song was a bawdy thing once popular on the Hong Kong Flower Boats. Tony glanced at Yueh Hua, but read only anxiety in her face. They stayed quite silent until the raft had gone by.

Then he swung the sampan through the opening. The stream was deserted. Piloted by Yueh Hua, they crossed. Tony found the narrow creek and rowed the boat into it until Yueh Hua called, “Stop here.”

There was a rough hut under the trees. He turned to her in sudden doubt.

“Are there people here?”

“I hope not. It is used sometimes by fishers, but nobody lives in it.”

In fact, the tumble-down place proved to be deserted. It was so far decayed that not even an eel fisherman would have consented to live there. The palm roof was full of holes and the bamboo framework largely collapsed. When he had tied up the boat, he secretly charged his .38 and slipped its comforting weight into a pouch inside his ragged pants.

“I must find my way along the bank to the end of the creek, Yueh Hua, and watch for the motor boat.”

She touched his arm. “Please, let me come, too.”

* * *

They set out together in blazing sunshine. There was a sort of path through thick undergrowth, but evidently it hadn’t been used for a long time. Then came the bare banks lower down. There was a wandering gully, though, which gave good cover and led them to the river only some yards above the creek.

They had trudged along in silence. Now both looked upstream. The raft was no longer in sight. The river appeared deserted. They sat down side by side among the rushes and wildgrass, watching a slow tide go whispering by. Tony felt that Yueh Hua was furtively studying him. He glanced at her.

She smiled. “What is your honorable name, if you please?”

“My family name is Wu. I am called Chi Foh.”

“Mine is Kwee. You don’t belong in this part of China?”

He looked at her searchingly. She was still smiling.

“No. My father—” He hesitated. He had nearly said “was a merchant.”—“is a storekeeper in Hong Kong. I was brought up there.”

“I suppose, Chi Foh, he was ruined by the war?”

But he didn’t answer. He had heard the asthmatic coughing of Colonel Soong’s motor craft. They were coming back, close to the right bank.

Yueh Hua grasped his hand. He saw that her lips trembled. “We must lie behind these rushes, Chi Foh. We can see from there, but they won’t see us.”

They crept back from the bank and lay down next to each other. The old cruiser was very close now.

Almost unconsciously, he put his left arm around Yueh Hua’s shoulders.

From where he lay, he couldn’t see Soong in the stern. But he could see a man who stood up in the bows. It was the giant Nubian.

Then he heard a clear, imperious voice. It sent a trickle of ice down Tony’s spine.

“I fear, Colonel Soong, that you are wasting valuable time.”

The motor boat had swung around slightly on the current. He saw Soong in the stern, field glasses in hand, and he saw someone else seated in the cabin behind the man at the wheel. A figure wrapped in a dark cloak.

Yueh Hua shuddered so violently that he glanced at her anxiously. Every trace of color had left her face.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, and held her closely. “They can’t see us.”

But she didn’t answer. Colonel Soong’s harsh voice was raised unsteadily. “I assure you, Most High, it is not so. The escaped prisoner must certainly have come this way.”

“I regret that I cannot share your confidence.” The words were spoken in sibilant, cultured Chinese. Then in another language, which Tony thought might be Arabic, a short sentence followed.

The Nubian spun around and stood at attention. He shook his head and answered briefly in the same guttural tongue.

“I was inclined—” Fu-Manchu was addressing Soong—“to send Mahmud ashore again to search the hut on the creek. But he assures me no one has been there. I believe him, for he has the instincts of a hunting leopard.” The motor cruiser had drifted now to within a few yards of the bank. It was plain enough that “Mahmud” on his former visit must have followed the gully in which they lay, that if he did come ashore again he could hardly fail to stumble over them.

Tony fingered the useful weapon in his pocket. The big Negro, if he came, might carry a gun. Soong was armed. There might be other arms on board. But there were only four men to deal with. Given luck, and surprise to help him, he thought he could deal with them.

Silence for a few seconds, and then, “Shall I go, myself, Highness?” Soong volunteered.

Tony was planning his tactics. If Soong came ashore, he would shoot the big Negro first, then, before the colonel could grasp what had happened, he would try for Soong.

“Proceed upstream,” the imperious voice commanded. “We passed no other possible hiding place on our way down. Therefore, we cannot have left the sampan behind.”

* * *

Late that evening, Dr. Fu-Manchu sat at the lacquered desk, reading. Old General Huan, from his favorite seat on cushions, watched him.

“I notice that André Skobolov is expected here tomorrow. You have instructions from Peiping to entertain him. Why was the presence of this dangerous Soviet agent in China not reported to me?” Fu-Manchu glanced up from the notes which lay before him on the desk. “It would seem that our intelligence service is sleeping.”

General Huan Tsung-Chao shook his head slightly. “This man Skobolov travels almost as secretly as you do, Master.”

Dr. Fu-Manchu’s eyes glittered wickedly from under half-lowered lids. “I have perhaps been misled in my belief that the elusive escaped prisoner was a British agent acting under Nayland Smith. His remarkable disappearance is more easily explained if he is a secret agent of the Soviet. They have facilities here which are denied to Nayland Smith.”

“If that were so, why should he have been imprisoned?”

“Wake up, Tsung-Chao. The identity of such an agent would not be known to the blundering Colonel Soong, nor to the prison governor. It pains me to think that I may have saved the life of a Soviet spy.”

Old General Huan smiled a wry, wrinkled smile. “There is unfortunate news, Master, which may confirm your suspicions. But I am assured that Wu Chi Foh had no documents in his possession nor on his boat.”

Fu-Manchu’s eyes opened fully. They blazed. His expression remained immobile as a mask. But when he spoke his tone was very subdued, oddly sibilant.

“Unfortunate news? Documents? What have you to tell me?”

Outwardly calm, as always, Huan Tsung-Chao replied, “My house in Chungtu was entered last night and important papers stolen from my office. Among these documents—for no other valuables are missing—was the Si-Fan Register…”

Slowly, Dr. Fu-Manchu stood up. His hands were clenched. Yet, when he spoke again, his voice remained unemotional.

“The register is in the Si-Fan cipher, which has never been broken.”

“
No
cipher is unbreakable, Master.”

“Spare me your platitudes. But whether the register has been stolen by British or Soviet agents, it cannot be deciphered except by an expert, either in London or in Moscow. Was your safe forced?”

“The register was not in my safe. I kept it in what I believed to be a secret hiding place. Not even my steward, who sends me this bad news, knew of it.”

“You mean,” Fu-Manchu suggested softly, “that some supernatural agency has been at work?”

Huan Tsung-Chao maintained his phenomenal calm. “I mean that some spy armed with powerful binoculars has watched me through my study window, from a tree in my garden possibly, and has seen me open the receptacle. Entrance was made through this window by someone who silently climbed the vine outside.”

Dr. Fu-Manchu slipped his hands into the loose sleeves of his robe and stared into space, standing perfectly still. There was a long, silent interval; then he spoke again.

“Why is Skobolov coming
here?
”

“Officially, as an attaché of the Soviet Embassy, to promote relations between Communist China and Soviet Russia. He wishes to meet prominent figures in the Chinese movement.”

“But why
here
at your summer villa rather than at the official residence in Chungtu?”

“I frequently entertain here. It is more pleasant, except in winter.”

“He is aware that I am here?”

Tsung-Chao smiled his wrinkled smile. “It is improbable since even I did not know of your arrival in China until you stood at my door.”

Fu-Manchu remained as motionless as a statue. “He has courage. It was he, or a professional thief in his employ, who stole the register. While he is your guest he knows he is safe. We dare not make the attempt. But he will obey his orders and be here tomorrow. We cannot be sure that he has the register in his possession, but whether he has the register or is to meet the man who stole it, he is far too dangerous an enemy to be permitted to return to Moscow. For it is to the Kremlin he would report such a triumph, not to Peiping. André Skobolov must never reach Russia.”

Y
ueh Hua broke a long silence when she looked at Tony and asked, “Were you educated in Hong Kong, Chi Foh?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I knew you had more education than most fishermen. You are so kind to me.”

“Aren’t most fishermen kind?”

“Not the way you are.”

Yes, he was hamming the part. He had shown her his small stock of un-Chinese provisions and told her that his father, the storekeeper, who knew he had acquired a taste for foreign delicacies, had packed a case for him when he left Hong Kong. She had laughed happily, clapped her hands. But he wondered if she had believed him. Except for the lime juice and the fresh fruit, she seemed to prefer the national monotonous rice. But she went for the cigarettes. All the same, Yueh Hua’s keen feminine instincts might have detected some chink in the façade. He decided to shift the focus of interest.

“Yueh Hua, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.” She lay very still. “Why are you so afraid of the tall man who wears a long cloak, the man they call ‘Most High’? Has he ever done you any harm?” Yueh Hua was so long in replying that he turned and looked at her.

“Shall I tell you, Chi Foh?” she asked softly.

“Of course. I want to know.”

And as she stared up again at the broken roof of the mat-shed, he knew that she had been trying to make up her mind how far she could trust him, and that she had failed to reach a decision. He was sure that whatever she told him now wouldn’t be the truth.

“Very well.” She seemed to be thinking hard. “When I came away from the house where I thought I should find my sister, it was dark. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I had no money. I was afraid to speak to anyone. And there were soldiers in the streets. I was hiding from two of them in the shadow of a big gateway, when the gate was opened.”