CHAPTER I

THE TRAVELLER FROM TIBET

“Who’s there?” I called sharply.

I turned and looked across the room. The window had been widely opened
when I entered, and a faint fog haze hung in the apartment, seeming to
veil the light of the shaded lamp. I watched the closed door intently,
expecting every moment to see the knob turn. But nothing happened.

“Who’s there?” I cried again, and, crossing the room, I threw open the
door.

The long corridor without, lighted only by one inhospitable lamp at a
remote end, showed choked and yellowed with this same fog so
characteristic of London in November. But nothing moved to right nor
left of me. The New Louvre Hotel was in some respects yet incomplete,
and the long passage in which I stood, despite its marble facings, had
no air of comfort or good cheer; palatial it was, but inhospitable.

I returned to the room, reclosing the door behind me, then for some five
minutes or more I stood listening for a repetition of that mysterious
sound, as of something that both dragged and tapped, which already had
arrested my attention. My vigilance went unrewarded. I had closed the
window to exclude the yellow mist, but subconsciously I was aware of its
encircling presence, walling me in, and now I found myself in such a
silence as I had known in deserts but could scarce have deemed possible
in fog-bound London, in the heart of the world’s metropolis, with the
traffic of the Strand below me upon one side and the restless life of
the river upon the other.

It was easy to conclude that I had been mistaken, that my nervous system
was somewhat overwrought as a result of my hurried return from
Cairo—from Cairo where I had left behind me many a fondly cherished
hope. I addressed myself again to the task of unpacking my
steamer-trunk, and was so engaged when again a sound in the corridor
outside brought me upright with a jerk.

A quick footstep approached the door, and there came a muffled rapping
upon the panel.

This time I asked no question, but leapt across the room and threw the
door open. Nayland Smith stood before me, muffled up in a heavy
travelling coat, and with his hat pulled down over his brows.

“At last!” I cried, as my friend stepped in and quickly reclosed the
door.

Smith threw his hat upon the settee, stripped off the great-coat, and
pulling out his pipe began to load it in feverish haste.

“Well,” I said, standing amid the litter cast out from the trunk, and
watching him eagerly, “what’s afoot?”

Nayland Smith lighted his pipe, carelessly dropping the match-end upon
the floor at his feet.

“God knows what is afoot this time, Petrie!” he replied. “You and I have
lived no commonplace lives; Dr. Fu-Manchu has seen to that; but if I am
to believe what the chief has told me to-day, even stranger things are
ahead of us!”

I stared at him wonder-stricken.

“That is almost incredible,” I said; “terror can have no darker meaning
than that which Dr. Fu-Manchu gave to it. Fu-Manchu is dead, so what
have we to fear?”

“We have to fear,” replied Smith, throwing himself into a corner of the
settee, “the Si-Fan!”

I continued to stare, uncomprehendingly.

“The Si-Fan——”

“I always knew and you always knew,” interrupted Smith in his short,
decisive manner, “that Fu-Manchu, genius though he was, remained
nevertheless the servant of another or others. He was not the head of
that organization which dealt in wholesale murder, which aimed at
upsetting the balance of the world. I even knew the name of one, a
certain mandarin, and member of the Sublime Order of the White Peacock,
who was his immediate superior. I had never dared to guess at the
identity of what I may term the Head Centre.”

He ceased speaking, and sat gripping his pipe grimly between his teeth,
whilst I stood staring at him almost fatuously. Then—

“Evidently you have much to tell me,” I said, with forced calm.

I drew up a chair beside the settee and was about to sit down.

“Suppose you bolt the door,” jerked my friend.

I nodded, entirely comprehending, crossed the room and shot the little
nickel bolt into its socket.

“Now,” said Smith as I took my seat, “the story is a fragmentary one in
which there are many gaps. Let us see what we know. It seems that the
dispatch which led to my sudden recall (and incidentally yours) from
Egypt to London and which only reached me as I was on the point of
embarking at Suez for Rangoon, was prompted by the arrival here of Sir
Gregory Hale, whilom attaché at the British Embassy, Peking. So much,
you will remember, was conveyed in my instructions.”

“Quite so.”

“Furthermore, I was instructed, you’ll remember, to put up at the New
Louvre Hotel; therefore you came here and engaged this suite whilst I
reported to the chief. A stranger business is before us, Petrie, I
verily believe, than any we have known hitherto. In the first place, Sir
Gregory Hale is here——”

“Here?”

“In the New Louvre Hotel. I ascertained on the way up, but not by direct
inquiry, that he occupies a suite similar to this, and incidentally on
the same floor.”

“His report to the India Office, whatever its nature, must have been a
sensational one.”

“He has made no report to the India Office.”

“What! made no report?”

“He has not entered any office whatever, nor will he receive any
representative. He’s been playing at Robinson Crusoe in a private suite
here for close upon a fortnight—_id est_ since the time of his arrival
in London!”

I suppose my growing perplexity was plainly visible, for Smith suddenly
burst out with his short, boyish laugh.

“Oh! I told you it was a strange business,” he cried.

“Is he mad?”

Nayland Smith’s gaiety left him; he became suddenly stern and grim.

“Either mad, Petrie, stark raving mad, or the saviour of the Indian
Empire—perhaps of all Western civilization. Listen. Sir Gregory Hale,
whom I know slightly and who honours me, apparently, with a belief that
I am the only man in Europe worthy of his confidence, resigned his
appointment at Peking some time ago, and set out upon a private
expedition to the Mongolian frontier with the avowed intention of
visiting some place in the Gobi Desert. From the time that he actually
crossed the frontier he disappeared for nearly six months, to reappear
again suddenly and dramatically in London. He buried himself in this
hotel, refusing all visitors and only advising the authorities of his
return by telephone. He demanded that I should be sent to see him;
and—despite his eccentric methods—so great is the chief’s faith in Sir
Gregory’s knowledge of matters Far Eastern, that behold, here I am.”

He broke off abruptly and sat in an attitude of tense listening. Then—

“Do you hear anything, Petrie?” he rapped.

“A sort of tapping?” I inquired, listening intently myself the while.

Smith nodded his head rapidly.

We both listened for some time, Smith with his head bent slightly
forward and his pipe held in his hands; I with my gaze upon the bolted
door. A faint mist still hung in the room, and once I thought I detected
a slight sound from the bedroom beyond, which was in darkness. Smith
noted me turn my head, and for a moment the pair of us stared into the
gap of the doorway. But the silence was complete.

“You have told me neither much nor little, Smith,” I said, resuming for
some reason, in a hushed voice.

“Who or what is this Si-Fan at whose existence you hint?”

Nayland Smith smiled grimly.

“Possibly the real and hitherto unsolved riddle of Tibet, Petrie,” he
replied—“a mystery concealed from the world behind the veil of
Lamaism.” He stood up abruptly, glancing at a scrap of paper which he
took from his pocket—“Suite Number 14a,” he said. “Come along! We have
not a moment to waste. Let us make our presence known to Sir
Gregory—the man who has dared to raise that veil.”