The Green Mandarin Mystery Read online

  THE GREEN MANDARIN MYSTERY

  Denis Hughes

  Copyright © 1950 by Denis Hughes;

  Copyright © 2016 by the Estate of Denis Hughes

  Denis Hughes has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1950 by Curtis Warren Ltd.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Venture, an imprint of Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter I: “People Just Disappear!”

  Chapter 2: Ellis Takes an Interest

  Chapter 3: Flying Start

  Chapter 4: The Man in Black

  Chapter 5: “Watch Your Step, Ray Ellis!”

  Chapter 6: A Plan is Made

  Chapter 7: Unknown Destination

  Chapter 8: Accommodation

  Chapter 9: Ellis Explores

  Chapter 10: The Mandarin’s Temple

  Chapter 11: Eyes of Evil

  Chapter 12: Deadlock

  Chapter 13: The Green Mandarin Talks

  Chapter 14: Ellis in Trouble

  Chapter 15: Baine Investigates

  Chapter 16: The Final Count

  Chapter I

  “People Just Disappear!”

  The tempo and atmosphere of London were disturbed. People glanced at one another in a suspicious manner as they hurried about their business; policemen used their eyes more keenly than they were wont to do. There was an air of expectancy, of tension, of doubt in the faces and actions of those who crowded the city. It was a feeling that extended from the highest to the lowest. Reactions varied, but taken as a whole the population of London—and of the entire country—was troubled in a way it had never been before.

  Crime waves had been common tendencies of the post-war years, but this latest thing was something different. It was not a matter of rebellious youth or twisted minds turning to criminal activities out of boredom or streaks of viciousness. It was something deeper than that; something that had every police force in the country on its toes and left them where they started.

  The disappearances had begun with an eminent doctor of science named Talan Rong. Talan Rong was a man of eastern descent, and although thoroughly westernised by the fact that his father had been born in England, he was always looked on as retaining some trace of his Mongol ancestry. He was amazingly clever, and had been of inestimable value to the country of his adoption.

  Then he disappeared. He vanished as completely as if the street outside his London home had opened and taken him down to the bowels of the earth. It had happened while Talan Rong was in town for a weekend’s rest from his scientific research activities that were being carried on at his country laboratory in Hampshire. It had happened entirely without warning. At one moment the be-spectacled scientist had been sitting down to dinner with a small but select company of friends. Then he had risen, excused himself, and left the elegantly furnished room. No one had seen him after that. The police had a clue, but it seemed so bizarre that at first it was looked at doubtfully.

  Lying on the hall table, and discovered some hours after Talan Rong had vanished, was a plain white card. Under examination it revealed no fingerprints, and the few words printed on its smooth surface were enigmatic in the extreme. All they said was: “The Green Mandarin needs me.” Nothing more; no clue as to the mysterious meaning of the title “Green Mandarin”.

  And there the matter had rested for nearly a week. The police failed to trace Talan Rong. His friends were completely in the dark. TV and radio appeals and widespread searching were unsuccessful in bringing to light any sign of the missing man. There was plenty of speculation. Questions were asked in the House. Were the police doing all they could to find such a valuable member of scientific circles?

  The search was flung further afield, but still without result. Talan Rong had vanished completely, and if anyone knew where he was, or how he had come to disappear, they kept their secret remarkably well.

  Ten days later the second disappearance occurred.

  Severil Shortly, a brilliant metallurgist employed on aircraft research construction at a famous manufacturers, walked out of his house one morning and had not been seen since. His wife, thinking nothing was amiss till he failed to return that night or the following morning, got in touch with the police. She was worried at his continued absence, but it was not until an examination of Shortly’s study was made that a hurriedly scribbled note was brought to light.

  On this occasion the note left by Shortly was a little more explicit than that left by Talan Rong. It said: “I have received my instructions and am joining the Green Mandarin. Please do not attempt to find me, and believe me when I say that what I do is for the good of mankind as a whole. Severil.”

  The metallurgist’s wife, distracted and more deeply troubled than she had ever believed possible, broke down. She could give the police no assistance whatever. Her husband, she said, had received no visitors either on the evening before his disappearance or on the morning prior to going out. He had not seemed strange in his manner or behaved unusually in any way. The only thing she could think of was that he had appeared slightly pre-occupied over breakfast, though that was not entirely unknown as a rule.

  So much for Shortly. Like Talan Rong, he had been swallowed the moment he left his home.

  The police were naturally worried. It was bad enough for one eminent scientist to disappear, but when two of them did the vanishing trick things were getting serious. The aspect that puzzled them most of all was the fact that there appeared to be no coercion in the case. The missing men had gone of their own free will, or so it seemed to everyone concerned. Yet the connecting link between the two disappearances was there. Behind this business was the shadow of the mysterious Green Mandarin.

  People began asking each other what it meant. As yet there was no sense of national disturbance. It was just a feeling that some new threat had stepped into everyday life—just as crime waves had a way of doing every now and again.

  It was only at Scotland Yard and the Home Office that brows were furrowed gravely. Men such as Talan Rong and Severil Shortly were important people. Rather more so than the man in the street fully realised. And they also had knowledge in their brains that it was vital to keep secret. The gravity of their disappearance, therefore, increased. Top secret notes were passed between chiefs of departments. Warnings were given to the men in charge of the cases. Telephone calls were made in guarded language. The net was thrown wider still in an effort to locate the two scientists.

  But there was still no trace of them. No vestige of their whereabouts came to light.

  And so it went on for almost a month. Then the Green Mandarin struck again.

  Public opinion being what it is, there was a feeling of outrage in the country when news leaked out that the latest victim of the shadowy threat was a woman. The population of Britain can disregard with almost callous indifference the vanishing of men, but when it comes to women being swallowed by the air there is always a strong feeling of resentment at once. People take far more interest in the matter. Such is human nature.

  The third disappearance was a young and reputedly attractive doctor of mathematics from the staff of a well-known university. She, like the other two victims, simply went out of her apartments and was not seen again. And, as in the previous cases, a brief note was found shortly afterwards. It merely stated that the lady concerned was leaving to serve the Green Mandarin in the interests of future generations. No search was to be made for her, it added. It was written in her own handwriting and there could be no doubt as to its authenticity.

  And so the tension grew throughout the country. It was felt that something of a siniste
r character was at work in the ranks of the scientific world. Something that struck and called away valuable members of a very select circle. And the puzzling thing about it was that they all disappeared of their own free will.

  During the course of two months from the time Talan Hong went to serve the Green Mandarin a total of twelve intelligent people were missed. All were connected in some way with the world of science. They were drawn from medicine, metallurgy, mathematics, research, radiology and all the allied subjects which in this modern life have become so important to progress. And every one left the usual kind of note with its reference to the Green Mandarin. The twelve missing people were seven men and five women. Where they were, or what they were doing, no one knew, and the police made no headway whatever in finding out. It was not their fault that they failed. The fact of it was that there was nothing to go on. The only link between the disappearances was that of the Green Mandarin, for very few of the people concerned were known to one another. Nor was it a matter of mutual friends being involved. All that had been checked rigorously without result. Whatever agency had been used to call on the persons involved it was something of which the police and their friends were in ignorance. In only one case had a stranger been seen to speak to the missing person. Efforts to trace this stranger had so far failed completely, which gave the police grounds to think that he might know more than he was ready to divulge. Either that or the man was scared and had decided to hold his tongue.

  That, then, was the general position when another person vanished and things took a fresh turn.

  Mr. Cosmo Carrondell was a very important person. He was a member of the Diplomatic Corps and a leading light in the Home Office. In fact, he was in such a high position that even heads of foreign states showed a marked deference when they called on him. And Cosmo Carrondell had a very clever and studious daughter. It would be cruel to call this girl a bluestocking type because she was far from being dull, but she certainly possessed an amazing amount of brain power when it came to dealing with intricate problems connected with physics and allied subjects. Her name was Fleurette, which her parents had decided would suit her. Intimate friends were wont to call her anything but that, and the most common name by which she was known was Bill. This did not mean she was masculine in any way, but somehow it suited her better than Fleurette. Bill was twenty-five, dark haired, of middle height. She moved through life with a sense of humour for company and a ready willingness to help her fellow creatures. Her actual physical movements were quick and lithe. She liked being in company and enjoyed herself with a genuine disregard for convention of the stilted variety. She was unattached and it looked as if she would remain that way for quite a time, yet men sought after her and kept up the pursuit till either they tired of the game or Bill herself made it plain that she wasn’t interested.

  However, all that was no more than a sidelight on the character of Fleurette. She was popular without being a spectacular national figure. And she was a thoroughly competent scientist in her own branch of study.

  It was therefore hardly surprising that interest should be aroused when Fleurette Carrondell joined the ranks of the missing scientists and disappeared without trace.

  Mr. Cosmo Carrondell was a man of action as well as diplomacy. He went immediately to the highest member of the national police force and demanded the instant return of his daughter. He impressed on the Commissioner that his daughter was a valuable member of society as well as being a Carrondell. If she was not found within the next twenty-four hours, said Cosmo, the Commissioner would suffer. It was a matter of urgency.

  The Commissioner listened with an imperturbable face. He knew Carrondell of old, and although he was naturally worried by this latest claim by the Green Mandarin he was not going to be bull-dozed by the girl’s father.

  “Everything will be done that can be done,” he said quietly. “Be sure of that, Mr. Carrondell!” He picked up the typewritten card that lay before him. It had been left by Fleurette.

  “There is work I must do with the Green Mandarin,” it read. That was all. Nothing more. No apology for causing inconvenience or worry. Just a plain statement.

  Carrondell stared at it thoughtfully. He knew what it said and was troubled by its meaning, but with him it was a matter of principle rather than personal feeling that his daughter should be returned without delay. He made it quite evident when he added a further warning to the Commissioner. The Commissioner listened in silence and then politely dismissed the Home Office man with a promise of even greater efforts to trace the missing people—Fleurette included.

  Carrondell had to be satisfied. He stamped out and left the door open behind him as evidence of disapproval. The Commissioner frowned and sent for one of the men still working on the case. Fleurette’s name was added to the list, together with what scanty details there were to hand on her disappearance. The search started with renewed endeavour. It met with as little success as before. Mr. Cosmo Carrondell, breathing threats of all kinds, dismissed the police as being utterly incapable of solving anything, even a simple disappearance. He told the Commissioner so at length, and the Commissioner had a hard time to contain his patience. In the end he said something which started Carrondell’s mind on a different track and made him think for a moment.

  The Commissioner said: “Really, Mr. Carrondell, if you are not satisfied with the efforts we are making perhaps you had better bring in outside assistance. It is not for me to decry the work my men have put in on this business, but you appear to have different ideas. We shall continue to do our best, and in due course I have little doubt of success in tracing this mysterious Green Mandarin. However, if that is not good enough for you I suggest you employ your own investigators—or a competent private inquiry agent if you prefer it.” Cosmo Carrondell stared at him angrily for an instant. Then he rose abruptly to his feet and fingered his tie.

  “I shall take your advice, Commissioner!” he snapped. “You will be hearing from me shortly no doubt. Goodbye!”

  The Commissioner smiled without humour. There was little cause for mirth in his feelings as he watched the Home Office man depart. It was certain that the series of disappearances were having a disturbing effect on the life of the nation, and more than Cosmo Carrondell would share the same feelings. Some headway must be made before the population lost confidence in what the Commissioner had every right to look on as the finest police force in the world.

  Cosmo Carrondell, however, did not feel as the Commissioner did regarding the qualities of the police force. He was a selfish man and nothing but immediate success was good enough when it came to the work of his own or anyone else’s department. And in this matter he was ruthlessly determined to find his daughter. Leaving Scotland Yard, he returned home and made a telephone call, the result of which was to be of vital importance.

  He called Ray Ellis.

  Chapter 2

  Ellis Takes an Interest

  Cosmo Carrondell was a shortish, thick-limbed man. His head was covered in glossy brown hair that was always neatly brushed and barbered. His clothes were invariably smart, the latest men’s fashion, immaculately tailored. His voice, except when angered, was precise and perfectly modulated. And he also boasted a ready smile that was aimed at brushing aside people’s natural resentment against his success and thrusting power.

  On the telephone he could sound so persuasive that few people would have realised what a stony will lay behind his words. They were unable to see the glint in his eyes as he talked. For this reason Carrondell often carried out the initial moves in his business affairs by using the telephone. It kept his opponent at arm’s length till the softening-up process was completed. Then Carrondell could press his points in a determined “tete-a-tete” that was rarely unproductive.

  But in choosing such methods of approach in his dealings with Ray Ellis he had picked on a man who was uncannily alert and sensitive to human weakness or guile.

  Ellis was almost a counterpart to Carrondell. He was tall, very thin,
with hawkish features and long, gangling limbs that always appeared to get in his way when he walked, which he did as frequently as he could. He was a man who seemed almost to despise comfort, lived in a state of stark simplicity, and gave his keen brain every opportunity of wrestling with the innumerable scientific problems that confronted him.

  He lived, from choice, on an isolated island off the West coast of Scotland. When he was not working in his laboratory or study, he was to be found striding across the heather-clad hills of the island, a walking-stick in one hand and an old hat dangling from the other. He never wore the hat, but always carried it. No one, let alone Ellis himself, could have said why.

  When not engaged on inventing some intricate mechanism or detector or trick apparatus designed to foil crime, he was happy enough to set about and solve any difficult problem that offered interest outside his love of science. More than once that addiction to science had been vital in proving a man innocent or guilty as the case might be.

  Ellis was forty years of age, a man of amazing ability. There were many who said he wasted his life in seclusion, but they were wrong. Ellis delighted in the way he lived, and was always ready to lend his services if the need arose and the circumstances appealed to him. He could afford to be choosy, and although first and foremost a scientist his love of defeating criminals and bringing them to justice was nearly as strong as the desire to work undisturbed in his perfectly equipped laboratory and workshop adjoining the bleak-looking stone-built house that hid in a fold of the rugged coast on his island.

  His only companion in this wild retreat was a younger man called Gerald Baine. Baine was a qualified assistant, a competent aircraft pilot and navigator, an expert driver and handy with a gun if the need for shooting ever arose. More than once these two oddly assorted men had fought crime on behalf of justice, then retired again to the island and turned their backs on praise or reward. As Ellis usually said: “It’s been a change, and we’ve done a bit of good, so forget it, will you?” He used the same formula to private individuals or high ranking police officers alike.