The Drums of Fu-Manchu Read Online Free PDF Page A

opponent.
    He ducked it perfectly. The first sprang behind me and seized my ankles. The house door was thrown open and Inspector Leighton raced down the steps. Fey came up at the double, so did the driver of the police car. The attack ceased. I spun around, andsaw the black-haired men sprinting for the corner.
    “After that pair,” cried Leighton gruffly. “Don’t lose ’em!”
    The police driver and Fey set out.
    “ ’E was maulin’ ’er about!” growled one of the loiterers. “They was in the right. I ’eard ’er cry out.”
    But the girl with the amethyst eyes had vanished…

CHAPTER FIVE

THREE NOTICES
    “ S he has got clear away,” said Nayland Smith, “thanks to her bodyguard.”
    We stood in the library, Smith, myself, Mr Bascombe and Inspector Leighton. Sir James Clare was seated in an armchair watching us. Now he spoke:
    “I understand, Smith, why General Quinto came from Africa to the house of his old friend, secretly, and asked me to recall you for a conference. This is a very deep-laid scheme. You are the only man who might have saved him—”
    “But I failed.”
    Nayland Smith spoke bitterly. He turned and stared at me. “It appears, Kerrigan, that your charming acquaintance who so unfortunately has escaped—I am not blaming you—differs in certain details from Mr Bascombe’s recollections of the general’s visitor. However, it remains to be seen if they are one and the same.”
    “You see,” the judicial voice of the home secretary broke in, “it is obviously impossible to hush this thing up. A post-mortem examination is unavoidable. We don’t know what it will reveal.The fact that a very distinguished man, of totally different political ideas from our own, dies here in London under such circumstances is calculated to produce international results. It’s deplorable—it’s horrible. I cannot see my course clearly.”
    “Your course, Sir James,” snapped Nayland Smith, “is to go home. I will call you early in the morning.” He turned. “Mr Bascombe, decline all information to the press.”
    “What about the dead man, sir?” Inspector Leighton interpolated.
    “Remove the body when the loiterers have dispersed. Report to me in the morning, Inspector.”
    It was long past midnight when I found myself in Sir Denis’ rooms in Whitehall. I had not been there for some time, and from my chair I stared across at an unusually elaborate radio set with a television equipment.
    “Haven’t much leisure for amusement, myself,” said Smith, noting the direction of my glance. “Television I had installed purely to amuse Fey! He is a pearl above price, and owing to my mode of life is often alone here for days and nights.”
    Standing up, I began to examine the instrument. At which moment Fey came in.
    “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “electrician from firm requests no one touch until calls again, sir.”
    Fey’s telegraphic speech had always amused me. I nodded and sat down, watching him prepare drinks. When he went out:
    “Our return journey was quite uneventful,” I remarked. “Why?”
    “Perfectly simple,” Smith replied, sipping his whisky and soda and beginning to load his pipe. “My presence tonight threatened to interfere with the plot, Kerrigan. The plot succeeded. I am no longer of immediate interest.”
    “I don’t understand in the least, Smith. Have you any theory as towhat caused General Quinto’s death?”
    “At the moment, quite frankly, not the slightest. That indefinable perfume is of course a clue, but at present a useless clue. The autopsy may reveal something more. I await the result with interest.”
    “Assuming it to be murder, what baffles me is the purpose of the thing. The general’s idea that he could hear drums rather suggests a guilty conscience in connection with some action of his in Africa—a private feud of some kind.”
    “Reasonable,” snapped Smith, lighting his pipe and smiling grimly. “Nevertheless, wrong.”
    “You mean”—I