"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 rendezvous3!"
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 eavesdropper4! 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 descended5 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, abruptly6, to me: "Come, Petrie, we will walk as far as Charing7 Cross and take a cab from the rank there."
"The hall-porter can call you a cab," said M. Samarkan, solicitous8 for the comfort of his guests.
"Thanks," snapped Smith; "we prefer to walk a little way."
"That place is alive with spies, Petrie," he said; "or if there are only a few of them they are remarkably10 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 stupor11 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 dreary12 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 apparently13 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 wilderness14 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, silhouetted15 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 dictated16 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 deserted17 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 entirely18 unrelieved by any speck19 of light, I became aware of the fact, by dint20 of tense listening, that Smith was retiring by means of some gateway21 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.
"All right, cabman!" came more distantly now; "back to the New Louvre— jump in, Petrie!"
The cab went rattling23 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 draught24 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 rusty25 fireplace.
Some one had partly raised the front window and opened the shutters26. A patch of moonlight shone down upon the floor immediately below my hiding-place and furthermore enabled me vaguely27 to discern the disorder28 of the room.
A bulky figure showed silhouetted against the dirty panes29. 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 suspense30. Then, fully31 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 concealed32 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, aquiline33 nose, confirmed the impression.
I suppressed a gasp35 of astonishment36. Small wonder that our plans had leaked out. This was a momentous37 discovery indeed.
And as I watched the portly Greek who was not only one of the most celebrated38 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, illegible39 writing.
Samarkan quickly scanned the message scribbled40 upon the white page; then, exhibiting an agility41 uncommon42 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, plunged43 in a sea of wonderment concerning the damnable organization which, its tentacles44 extending I knew not whither, since new and unexpected limbs were ever coming to light, sought no less a goal than Yellow dominion45 of the world! I reflected how one man—Nayland Smith—alone stood between this powerful group and the realization46 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?"
"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!"
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1
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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2
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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3
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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4
eavesdropper
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| 偷听者 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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6
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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7
charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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8
solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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9
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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10
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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11
stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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12
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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13
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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14
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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15
silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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16
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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17
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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18
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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19
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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20
dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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23
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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24
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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25
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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28
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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29
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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30
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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31
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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32
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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33
aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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34
follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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35
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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36
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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37
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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38
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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39
illegible
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| adj.难以辨认的，字迹模糊的 | |
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40
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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41
agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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42
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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43
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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44
tentacles
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| n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 )；触角；触须；触毛 | |
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45
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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46
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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47
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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