CHAPTER XVIII. THE SILVER BUDDHA
Museum Street certainly did not seem a likely spot for Dr. Fu-Manchu toestablish himself, yet, unless my imagination had strangely deceived me,from the window of the antique dealer who traded under the name of J.Salaman, those wonderful eyes of Karamaneh like the velvet midnight ofthe Orient, had looked out at me.
As I paced slowly along the pavement toward that lighted window, myheart was beating far from normally, and I cursed the folly which,in spite of all, refused to die, but lingered on, poisoning mylife. Comparative quiet reigned in Museum Street, at no time a busythoroughfare, and, excepting another shop at the Museum end, commercialactivities had ceased there. The door of a block of residential chambersalmost immediately opposite to the shop which was my objective, threwout a beam of light across the pavement, but not more than two or threepeople were visible upon either side of the street.
I turned the knob of the door and entered the shop.
The same dark and immobile individual whom I had seen before, and whosenationality defied conjecture, came out from the curtained doorway atthe back to greet me.
"Good evening, sir," he said monotonously, with a slight inclination ofthe head; "is there anything which you desire to inspect?"
"I merely wish to take a look around," I replied. "I have no particularitem in view."
The shop man inclined his head again, swept a yellow handcomprehensively about, as if to include the entire stock, and seatedhimself on a chair behind the counter.
I lighted a cigarette with such an air of nonchalance as I could summonto the operation, and began casually to inspect the varied objects ofinterest loading the shelves and tables about me. I am bound to confessthat I retain no one definite impression of this tour. Vases I handled,statuettes, Egyptian scarabs, bead necklaces, illuminated missals,portfolios of old prints, jade ornaments, bronzes, fragments of rarelace, early printed books, Assyrian tablets, daggers, Roman rings, anda hundred other curiosities, leisurely, and I trust with apparentinterest, yet without forming the slightest impression respecting anyone of them.
Probably I employed myself in this way for half an hour or more, andwhilst my hands busied themselves among the stock of J. Salaman, my mindwas occupied entirely elsewhere. Furtively I was studying the shopmanhimself, a human presentment of a Chinese idol; I was listening andwatching; especially I was watching the curtained doorway at the back ofthe shop.
"We close at about this time, sir," the man interrupted me, speaking inthe emotionless, monotonous voice which I had noted before.
I replaced upon the glass counter a little Sekhet boat, carved in woodand highly colored, and glanced up with a start. Truly my methods wereamateurish; I had learnt nothing; I was unlikely to learn anything. Iwondered how Nayland Smith would have conducted such an inquiry, and Iracked my brains for some means of penetrating into the recesses of theestablishment. Indeed, I had been seeking such a plan for the past halfan hour, but my mind had proved incapable of suggesting one.
Why I did not admit failure I cannot imagine, but, instead, I began totax my brains anew for some means of gaining further time; and, asI looked about the place, the shopman very patiently awaiting mydeparture, I observed an open case at the back of the counter. The threelower shelves were empty, but upon the fourth shelf squatted a silverBuddha.
"I should like to examine the silver image yonder," I said; "what priceare you asking for it?"
"It is not for sale, sir," replied the man, with a greater show ofanimation than he had yet exhibited.
"Not for sale!" I said, my eyes ever seeking the curtained doorway;"how's that?"
"It is sold."
"Well, even so, there can be no objection to my examining it?"
"It is not for sale, sir."
Such a rebuff from a tradesman would have been more than sufficientto call for a sharp retort at any other time, but now it excited thestrangest suspicions. The street outside looked comparatively deserted,and prompted, primarily, by an emotion which I did not pause to analyze,I adopted a singular measure; without doubt I relied upon the unusualpowers vested in Nayland Smith to absolve me in the event of error.I made as if to go out into the street, then turned, leaped past theshopman, ran behind the counter, and grasped at the silver Buddha!
That I was likely to be arrested for attempted larceny I cared not;the idea that Karamaneh was concealed somewhere in the buildingruled absolutely, and a theory respecting this silver image had takenpossession of my mind. Exactly what I expected to happen at that momentI cannot say, but what actually happened was far more startling thananything I could have imagined.
At the instant that I grasped the figure I realized that it was attachedto the woodwork; in the next I knew that it was a handle ... as I triedto pull it toward me I became aware that this handle was the handle of adoor. For that door swung open before me, and I found myself at the footof a flight of heavily carpeted stairs.
Anxious as I had been to proceed a moment before, I was now treblyanxious to retire, and for this reason: on the bottom step of the stair,facing me, stood Dr. Fu-Manchu!