near to it. And I found time to wonder where it could possibly be going.
We were leaving the European city behind and heading for the Oriental. In fact, it began to dawn upon me that Fah Lo Suee was making for the Muski—that artery of the bazaar streets, hives of industry during the day, but desolate as a city of the dead at night.
I was right.
The last trace of native night life left behind us, I saw the yellow car, proceeding in leisurely fashion, head straight into that deserted thoroughfare. My driver followed. We passed a crossways but still carried on, presently to turn right. I saw a mosque ahead, but my brain was so excited that at the moment I failed to identify it. My knowledge of native Cairo is not extensive at the best.
We left the mosque behind, the narrow street being far from straight and I in a constant fever lest we should lose sight of the yellow car. Then, I saw it—just passing another, larger mosque.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Sukkariya,” he replied, slowing down still more and negotiating a right-angle turn.
Empty shops and unlighted houses were all about us. For some time now we had met not a single pedestrian. It was utterly mystifying. Where could the woman possibly be heading for?
“Where does this lead to?”
“Mosque of Muayyad-Bab ez-Zuwela…”
Fah Lo Suee, of course, must have known now that she was pursued, but this I considered to be unavoidable, since in that maze of narrow streets that only a native driver could have negotiated, to lose sight of her for a moment would have meant failure.
Right again went the long, low French car.
“Don’t know the name,” my driver announced nonchalantly.
We turned into the narrowest street we had yet endeavoured to negotiate.
“Pull up!” I ordered sharply.
The place was laden with those indescribable smells which belong to the markets of the East, but nowhere could I see a light, or any evidence of human occupation. Narrow alleys intersected the street—mere black caverns.
Ahead, I saw the yellow car moving away again. But, for the second time that night, I had a glimpse of an arched instep, of a golden shoe.
Fah Lo Suee had alighted from the car, which evidently someone else was driving, and had walked into a narrow alley not twenty yards along.
I jumped out.
“Stay here,” I ordered. “Don’t move, whatever happens, until I come back.”
I set out at the double, pulling up when I gained the entrance to the alley, and peering into its utter blackness. I heard the distant rumbling of thunder. It died away into oppressive silence.
No sound of footsteps reached me, and there was no glimmer of light ahead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DR. FU-MANCHU
I began to grope my way along a dark, unevenly paved passage, but I had taken no more than two steps forward when the folly of my behaviour crashed upon me like a revelation. If the woman who had disappeared somewhere ahead were indeed she whom we had known as Madame Ingomar, what a fool I was to thrust myself into this rat trap!
For a man to experience such terrors in regard to a woman may seem feeble; but from bitter experience I knew something of the weapons at command of Fah Lo Suee. That I might be mistaken about the identity of the gold mask was remotely possible, but no more than remotely so.
In a few fleeting seconds I reviewed the queer episode from the moment when I had seen that green-robed figure in Shepheard’s garden—and I realised with bleak certainty that her behaviour had been directly to one end and to one end only. A trap had been baited... and I had fallen into it like the veriest fool.
I pulled up sharply, stretching out my hands to learn if any obstruction lay ahead. In the heat of the chase I had thrown precaution aside. I realised now, too late, that I was unarmed, alone; no one but the driver of the taxicab had the slightest idea where I had gone.
This same counsel came in the same moment that panic threatened. What else I could have done if the
We were leaving the European city behind and heading for the Oriental. In fact, it began to dawn upon me that Fah Lo Suee was making for the Muski—that artery of the bazaar streets, hives of industry during the day, but desolate as a city of the dead at night.
I was right.
The last trace of native night life left behind us, I saw the yellow car, proceeding in leisurely fashion, head straight into that deserted thoroughfare. My driver followed. We passed a crossways but still carried on, presently to turn right. I saw a mosque ahead, but my brain was so excited that at the moment I failed to identify it. My knowledge of native Cairo is not extensive at the best.
We left the mosque behind, the narrow street being far from straight and I in a constant fever lest we should lose sight of the yellow car. Then, I saw it—just passing another, larger mosque.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Sukkariya,” he replied, slowing down still more and negotiating a right-angle turn.
Empty shops and unlighted houses were all about us. For some time now we had met not a single pedestrian. It was utterly mystifying. Where could the woman possibly be heading for?
“Where does this lead to?”
“Mosque of Muayyad-Bab ez-Zuwela…”
Fah Lo Suee, of course, must have known now that she was pursued, but this I considered to be unavoidable, since in that maze of narrow streets that only a native driver could have negotiated, to lose sight of her for a moment would have meant failure.
Right again went the long, low French car.
“Don’t know the name,” my driver announced nonchalantly.
We turned into the narrowest street we had yet endeavoured to negotiate.
“Pull up!” I ordered sharply.
The place was laden with those indescribable smells which belong to the markets of the East, but nowhere could I see a light, or any evidence of human occupation. Narrow alleys intersected the street—mere black caverns.
Ahead, I saw the yellow car moving away again. But, for the second time that night, I had a glimpse of an arched instep, of a golden shoe.
Fah Lo Suee had alighted from the car, which evidently someone else was driving, and had walked into a narrow alley not twenty yards along.
I jumped out.
“Stay here,” I ordered. “Don’t move, whatever happens, until I come back.”
I set out at the double, pulling up when I gained the entrance to the alley, and peering into its utter blackness. I heard the distant rumbling of thunder. It died away into oppressive silence.
No sound of footsteps reached me, and there was no glimmer of light ahead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DR. FU-MANCHU
I began to grope my way along a dark, unevenly paved passage, but I had taken no more than two steps forward when the folly of my behaviour crashed upon me like a revelation. If the woman who had disappeared somewhere ahead were indeed she whom we had known as Madame Ingomar, what a fool I was to thrust myself into this rat trap!
For a man to experience such terrors in regard to a woman may seem feeble; but from bitter experience I knew something of the weapons at command of Fah Lo Suee. That I might be mistaken about the identity of the gold mask was remotely possible, but no more than remotely so.
In a few fleeting seconds I reviewed the queer episode from the moment when I had seen that green-robed figure in Shepheard’s garden—and I realised with bleak certainty that her behaviour had been directly to one end and to one end only. A trap had been baited... and I had fallen into it like the veriest fool.
I pulled up sharply, stretching out my hands to learn if any obstruction lay ahead. In the heat of the chase I had thrown precaution aside. I realised now, too late, that I was unarmed, alone; no one but the driver of the taxicab had the slightest idea where I had gone.
This same counsel came in the same moment that panic threatened. What else I could have done if the
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