THE SILVER BUDDHA
Museum Street certainly did not seem a likely spot for Dr. Fu-Manchu
to establish himself, yet, unless my imagination had strangely
deceived me, from the window of the antique dealer who traded under
the name of J. Salaman, those wonderful eyes of Kâramanèh, like the
velvet midnight of the Orient, had looked out at me.
As I paced slowly along the pavement toward that lighted window, my
heart was beating far from normally, and I cursed the folly which,
despite all, refused to die, but lingered on, poisoning my life.
Comparative quiet reigned in Museum Street, at no time a busy
thoroughfare, and, excepting another shop at the Museum end,
commercial activities had ceased there. The door of a block of
residential chambers almost immediately opposite to the shop which was
my objective, threw out a beam of light across the pavement; not more
than two or three people were visible upon either side of the street.
I turned the knob of the door and entered the shop.
The same dark and immobile individual whom I had seen before, and
whose nationality defied conjecture, came out from the curtained
doorway at the back to greet me.
"Good evening, sir," he said monotonously, with a slight inclination
of the head; "is there anything which you desire to inspect?"
"I merely wish to take a look round," I replied. "I have no particular
item in view."
The shopman inclined his head again, swept a yellow hand
comprehensively about, as if to include the entire stock, and seated
himself on a chair behind the counter.
I lighted a cigarette with such an air of nonchalance as I could
summon to the operation, and began casually to inspect the varied
articles of _virtu_ loading the shelves and tables about me. I am
bound to confess that I retain no one definite impression of this
tour. Vases I handled, statuettes, Egyptian scarabs, bead necklaces,
illuminated missals, portfolios of old prints, jade ornaments,
bronzes, fragments of rare lace, early printed books, Assyrian
tablets, daggers, Roman rings, and a hundred other curiosities,
leisurely, and I trust with apparent interest, yet without forming
the slightest impression respecting any one of them.
Probably I employed myself in this way for half an hour or more, and
whilst my hands busied themselves among the stock of J. Salaman, my
mind was occupied entirely elsewhere. Furtively I was studying the
shopman himself, a human presentment of a Chinese idol; I was
listening and watching: especially I was watching the curtained
doorway at the back of the shop.
"We close at about this time, sir," the man interrupted me, speaking
in the emotionless, monotonous voice which I had noted before.
I replaced upon the glass counter a little Sekhet boat, carved in wood
and highly coloured, and glanced up with a start. Truly my methods
were amateurish; I had learnt nothing; I was unlikely to learn
anything. I wondered how Nayland Smith would have conducted such an
inquiry, and I racked my brains for some means of penetrating into the
recesses of the establishment. Indeed I had been seeking such a plan
for the past half an hour, but my mind had proved incapable of
suggesting one.
Why I did not admit failure I cannot imagine, but, instead, I began to
tax my brains anew for some means of gaining further time; and, as I
looked about the place, the shopman very patiently awaiting my
departure, I observed an open case at the back of the counter. The
three lower shelves were empty, but upon the fourth shelf squatted a
silver Buddha.
"I should like to examine the silver image yonder," I said; "what
price are you asking for it?"
"It is not for sale, sir," replied the man, with a greater show of
animation than he had yet exhibited.
"Not for sale!" I said, my eyes ever seeking the curtained doorway;
"how's that?"
"It is sold."
"Well, even so, there can be no objection to my examining it?"
"It is not for sale, sir."
Such a rebuff from a tradesman would have been more than sufficient to
call for a sharp retort at any other time, but now it excited the
strangest suspicions. The street outside looked comparatively
deserted, and prompted, primarily, by an emotion which I did not pause
to analyse, I adopted a singular measure; without doubt I relied upon
the unusual powers vested in Nayland Smith to absolve me in the event
of error. I made as if to go out into the street, then turned, leapt
past the shopman, ran behind the counter, and grasped at the silver
Buddha!
That I was likely to be arrested for attempted larceny I cared not;
the idea that Kâramanèh was concealed somewhere in the building ruled
absolutely, and a theory respecting this silver image had taken
possession of my mind. Exactly what I expected to happen at that
moment I cannot say, but what actually happened was far more startling
than anything I could have imagined.
At the instant that I grasped the figure I realized that it was
attached to the woodwork; in the next I knew that it was a handle ...
as I tried to pull it toward me I became aware that this handle was
the handle of a door. For that door swung open before me, and I found
myself at the foot of a flight of heavily carpeted stairs.
Anxious as I had been to proceed a moment before, I was now trebly
anxious to retire, and for this reason: on the bottom step of the
stairs, facing me, _stood Dr. Fu-Manchu!_