Free The Shadow of Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer Page B

larger—dominated that yellow, passionless face—merged—became a still sea in which she was drowning.
    Camille heard herself shriek as she fought her way back to consciousness. She sprang up, choked with the horror of her dreams; then:
    “Did it really happen?” she moaned. “Oh, God! What did I do last night?”
    Grey light was just beginning to outline the slats of the Venetian blinds.
    Manhattan was waking to a new day.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    N ayland Smith crossed and threw his door open as the bell buzzed.
    “Come in, Harkness.”
    There was an irritable note in his voice. This was his third day in New York, and he had made no progress worthy of record. Yet every hour counted.
    They shook hands. Raymond Harkness was a highly improbable F.B.I. operative but a highly efficient one. His large hazel eyes were ingenuous, almost childish in expression, and he had a gentle voice which he rarely raised. Of less than medium height, as he stood there peeling a glove off delicate-looking fingers he might have been guessed a physician, or even a surgeon, but never a detective.
    “Any news?” rapped Smith, dropping restlessly into an armchair and pointing to its twin.
    “Yes.” Harkness sat down, first placing his topcoat and hat neatly on a divan. “I think there is.”
    “Good. Let’s have it.”
    Smith pushed a box of cigarettes across the table and began to charge his foul briar.
    “Well”—Harkness lighted a cigarette—“Mrs. Frobisher had an appointment at three o’clock this afternoon with Professor Hoffmeyer, the Viennese psychiatrist who runs a business on the top floor of the Woolton Building.”
    “How did you know?”
    “I’m having Falling Waters carefully covered. I want to find out who was responsible for the burglary there last week. Stein, the chauffeur-butler, drove Mrs. Frobisher into town, in their big Cadillac. When she had gone in, Stein’s behaviour was just a bit curious.”
    “What did he do?”
    “He parked the car, left his uniform cap inside, put on a light topcoat and soft hat, and walked around to a bar on East Forty-eighth.”
    “What’s curious about that?”
    “Maybe not a lot. But when he got to the bar, he met another man who was evidently waiting for him. One of our boys who has ears like a desert rat was soon on a nearby stool.”
    “Hear anything?”
    “Plenty. But it wasn’t in English.”
    “Oh!” Nayland Smith lighted his pipe. “What was the lingo?”
    “My man was counted out. He reports he doesn’t know.”
    “Useful!”
    “No, it isn’t, Sir Denis. But Scarron—that’s his name—had a bright thought when the party broke up. He didn’t tail Stein. Knew he was going back to his car. He tailed Number Two.”
    “Good work. Where did the bird settle?”
    And when Harkness, very quietly, told him, Nayland Smith suddenly stood up.
    “Got something there, Harkness,” he rapped. “The job at Falling Waters may have been Soviet-inspired, and not, as I supposed, a reconnaissance by Dr. Fu-Manchu. What’s Stein’s background?”
    “Man at work, right now, on it.”
    “Good. What about details of the bogus doctor who saved Moreno’s life? To hand, yet?”
    “Yes.” Harkness took out a notebook and unhurriedly turned the pages. “It’s a composite picture built up on the testimony of several witnesses. Here we are.” He laid his cigarette carefully on the edge of an ash-tray. “Tall; well-built. Pale, clear-cut features. Slight black moustache, heavy brows; dark, piercing eyes.”
    “H’m,” Smith muttered. “Typical villain of melodrama. Did he carry a riding whip?”
    “Not reported!” Harkness smiled, returning the notebook to his pocket. “But there’s one other item. Not so definite—but something I wish you could look into personally. It’s your special province.”
    Nayland Smith, who had worn tracks in more carpets than any man in England, was pacing the room, now, followed by a wraith of tobacco smoke.
    “Go ahead.”
    Harkness