THE NOTE ON THE DOOR
I saw little of Nayland Smith for the remainder of that day.
Presumably he was following those "promptings" to which he had
referred, though I was unable to conjecture whither they were leading
him. Then, towards dusk he arrived in a perfect whirl, figuratively
sweeping me off my feet.
"Get your coat on, Petrie!" he cried; "you forget that we have a most
urgent appointment!"
Beyond doubt I had forgotten that we had any appointment whatever that
evening, and some surprise must have shown upon my face, for--
"Really you are becoming very forgetful!" my friend continued. "You
know we can no longer trust the 'phone. I have to leave certain
instructions for Weymouth at the rendezvous!"
There was a hidden significance in his manner, and, my memory harking
back to an adventure which we had shared in the past, I suddenly
glimpsed the depths of my own stupidity.
He suspected the presence of an eavesdropper! Yes! incredible though
it might appear, we were spied upon in the New Louvre; agents of the
Si-Fan, of Dr. Fu-Manchu, were actually within the walls of the great
hotel!
We hurried out into the corridor, and descended by the lift to the
lobby. M. Samarkan, long famous as _mâitre d'hôtel_ of one of Cairo's
fashionable _khans_, and now principal of the New Louvre, greeted us
with true Greek courtesy. He trusted that we should be present at
some charitable function or other to be held at the hotel on the
following evening.
"If possible, M. Samarkan--if possible," said Smith. "We have many
demands upon our time." Then, abruptly, to me: "Come, Petrie, we will
walk as far as Charing Cross and take a cab from the rank there."
"The hall-porter can call you a cab," said M. Samarkan, solicitous for
the comfort of his guests.
"Thanks," snapped Smith; "we prefer to walk a little way."
Passing along the Strand, he took my arm, and speaking close to my ear--
"That place is alive with spies, Petrie," he said; "or if there are
only a few of them they are remarkably efficient!"
Not another word could I get from him, although I was eager enough to
talk; since one dearer to me than all else in the world was in the
hands of the damnable organization we knew as the Si-Fan; until,
arrived at Charing Cross, he walked out to the cab rank, and--
"Jump in!" he snapped.
He opened the door of the first cab on the rank.
"Drive to J---- Street, Kennington," he directed the man.
In something of a mental stupor I entered and found myself seated
beside Smith. The cab made off towards Trafalgar Square, then swung
around into Whitehall.
"Look behind!" cried Smith, intense excitement expressed in his voice--
"look behind!"
I turned and peered through the little square window.
The cab which had stood second upon the rank was closely following us!
"We are tracked!" snapped my companion. "If further evidence were
necessary of the fact that our every movement is watched, here it is!"
I turned to him, momentarily at a loss for words; then--
"Was this the object of our journey?" I said. "Your reference to a
'rendezvous' was presumably addressed to a hypothetical spy?
"Partly," he replied. "I have a plan, as you will see in a moment."
I looked again from the window in the rear of the cab. We were now
passing between the House of Lords and the back of Westminster Abbey ...
and fifty yards behind us the pursuing cab was crossing from
Whitehall! A great excitement grew up within me, and a great curiosity
respecting the identity of our pursuer.
"What is the place for which we are bound, Smith?" I said rapidly.
"It is a house which I chanced to notice a few days ago, and I marked
it as useful for such a purpose as our present one. You will see what
I mean when we arrive."
On we went, following the course of the river, then turned over
Vauxhall Bridge and on down Vauxhall Bridge Road into a very dreary
neighborhood where gasometers formed the notable feature of the
landscape.
"That's the Oval just beyond," said Smith suddenly, "and--here we are."
In a narrow _cul de sac_ which apparently communicated with the
boundary of the famous cricket ground, the cabman pulled up. Smith
jumped out and paid the fare.
"Pull back to that court with the iron posts," he directed the man,
"and wait there for me." Then: "Come on, Petrie!" he snapped.
Side by side we entered the wooden gate of a small detached house, or
more properly cottage, and passed up the tiled path towards a sort of
side entrance which apparently gave access to the tiny garden. At this
moment I became aware of two things; the first, that the house was an
empty one, and the second, that some one--some one who had quitted the
second cab (which I had heard pull up at no great distance behind us)
was approaching stealthily along the dark and uninviting street,
walking upon the opposite pavement and taking advantage of the shadow
of a high wooden fence which skirted it for some distance.
Smith pushed the gate open, and I found myself in a narrow passageway
in almost complete darkness. But my friend walked confidently forward,
turned the angle of the building and entered the miniature wilderness
which once had been a garden.
"In here, Petrie!" he whispered.
He seized me by the arm, pushed open a door and thrust me forward down
two stone steps into absolute darkness.
"Walk straight ahead!" he directed, still in the same intense whisper,
"and you will find a locked door having a broken panel. Watch through
the opening for any one who may enter the room beyond, but see that
your presence is not detected. Whatever I say or do, don't stir until
I actually rejoin you."
He stepped back across the floor and was gone. One glimpse I had of
him, silhouetted against the faint light of the open door, then the
door was gently closed, and I was left alone in the empty house.
Smith's methods frequently surprised me, but always in the past I had
found that they were dictated by sound reasons. I had no doubt that an
emergency unknown to me dictated his present course, but it was with
my mind in a wildly confused condition, that I groped for and found
the door with the broken panel and that I stood there in the complete
darkness of the deserted house listening.
I can well appreciate how the blind develop an unusually keen sense of
hearing; for there, in the blackness, which (at first) was entirely
unrelieved by any speck of light, I became aware of the fact, by dint
of tense listening, that Smith was retiring by means of some gateway
at the upper end of the little garden, and I became aware of the fact
that a lane or court, with which this gateway communicated, gave
access to the main road.
Faintly, I heard our discharged cab backing out from the _cul de sac_;
then, from some nearer place, came Smith's voice speaking loudly.
"Come along, Petrie!" he cried; "there is no occasion for us to wait.
Weymouth will see the note pinned on the door."
I started--and was about to stumble back across the room, when, as my
mind began to work more clearly, I realized that the words had been
spoken as a ruse--a favorite device of Nayland Smith's.
Rigidly I stood there, and continued to listen.
"All right, cabman!" came more distantly now; "back to the New Louvre--
jump in, Petrie!"
The cab went rattling away ... as a faint light became perceptible in
the room beyond the broken panel.
Hitherto I had been able to detect the presence of this panel only by
my sense of touch and by means of a faint draught which blew through
it; now it suddenly became clearly perceptible. I found myself looking
into what was evidently the principal room of the house--a dreary
apartment with tatters of paper hanging from the walls and litter of
all sorts lying about upon the floor and in the rusty fireplace.
Some one had partly raised the front window and opened the shutters.
A patch of moonlight shone down upon the floor immediately below my
hiding-place and furthermore enabled me vaguely to discern the disorder
of the room.
A bulky figure showed silhouetted against the dirty panes. It was that
of a man who, leaning upon the window sill, was peering intently in.
Silently he had approached, and silently had raised the sash and
opened the shutters.
For thirty seconds or more he stood so, moving his head from right to
left ... and I watched him through the broken panel, almost holding my
breath with suspense. Then, fully raising the window, the man stepped
into the room, and, first reclosing the shutters, suddenly flashed the
light of an electric lamp all about the place. I was enabled to
discern him more clearly, this mysterious spy who had tracked us from
the moment that we had left the hotel.
He was a man of portly build wearing a heavy fur-lined overcoat and
having a soft felt hat, the brim turned down so as to shade the upper
part of his face. Moreover, he wore his fur collar turned up, which
served further to disguise him, since it concealed the greater part
of his chin. But the eyes which now were searching every corner of
the room, the alert, dark eyes, were strangely familiar. The black
mustache, the clear-cut, aquiline nose, confirmed the impression.
Our follower was M. Samarkan, manager of the New Louvre.
I suppressed a gasp of astonishment. Small wonder that our plans had
leaked out. This was a momentous discovery indeed.
And as I watched the portly Greek who was not only one of the most
celebrated _mâitres d'hôtel_ in Europe, but also a creature of Dr.
Fu-Manchu, he cast the light of his electric lamp upon a note attached
by means of a drawing-pin to the inside of the room door. I
immediately divined that my friend must have pinned the note in its
place earlier in the day; even at that distance I recognized Smith's
neat, illegible writing.
Samarkan quickly scanned the message scribbled upon the white page;
then, exhibiting an agility uncommon in a man of his bulk, he threw
open the shutters again, having first replaced his lamp in his pocket,
climbed out into the little front garden, reclosed the window, and
disappeared!
A moment I stood, lost to my surroundings, plunged in a sea of
wonderment concerning the damnable organization which, its tentacles
extending I knew not whither, since new and unexpected limbs were ever
coming to light, sought no less a goal than Yellow dominion of the
world! I reflected how one man--Nayland Smith--alone stood between
this powerful group and the realization of their project ... when I
was aroused by a hand grasping my arm in the darkness!
I uttered a short cry, of which I was instantly ashamed, for Nayland
Smith's voice came:--
"I startled you, eh, Petrie?"
"Smith," I said, "how long have you been standing there?"
"I only returned in time to see our Fenimore Cooper friend retreating
through the window," he replied; "but no doubt you had a good look at
him?"
"I had!" I answered eagerly. "It was Samarkan!"
"I thought so! I have suspected as much for a long time."
"Was this the object of our visit here?"
"It was one of the objects," admitted Nayland Smith evasively.
From some place not far distant came the sound of a restarted engine.
"The other," he added, "was this: to enable M. Samarkan to read the
note which I had pinned upon the door!"