The Green Mandarin Mystery Page 4

  It was Scotland Yard. Ellis was gratified to learn that the big black saloon in which he was so interested had been reported heading north and would in all probability shortly be halted.

  After thanking them for the news, and saying he would remain on hand if they would let him know at once when anything more happened, he rung off and went back to a close study of the various cases relating to the Green Mandarin mystery.

  But Ellis was not to be left in peace for long.

  Within a few minutes the front door buzzer sounded.

  The detective looked up curiously and went to answer it.

  Standing close to the door as it opened was a tall man in a smartly tailored black overcoat and black hat. His face was expressionless, pallid in colour, handsome in a queer, deathlike fashion, but wholly sinister for all that.

  Before Ellis could make a move to retreat and shut the door the man in black had thrust his foot forward and jammed the door open, pushing with his shoulder at the same time.

  Ellis himself, who had instantly guessed that his visitor was the man who had warned him off on the phone, suddenly grinned to himself and stepped back quickly, allowing the man to come with the door in such a hurry that he almost lost his balance.

  So far neither of them had spoken a single word.

  Ellis stood aside and watched his visitor with narrowed eyes. He fully expected the man to pull a gun on him and try to enforce his warning to lay off the Green Mandarin. But instead the man merely shrugged and eyed him coldly for an instant.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” said Ellis quietly. “Why this sudden keenness to push your way in?” He raised his eyebrows slightly as he spoke. His hands were in his pockets and his head a little on one side. He showed no fear of the man in black.

  “We do not need to meet,” answered the other, “I was speaking to you during the night, warning you. Now I find you do not intend to heed what I told you.” He shrugged. “So, I must take other steps to protect the interests of the Green Mandarin.”

  “You’re going to kill me, are you? “ Ellis made it sound as if it really didn’t matter one way or the other.

  He was surprised, however, when the man in black shook his head and smiled for the first time. It was not a particularly humorous kind of smile, but at least it showed he was human.

  “To kill a man of your intelligence would be gross waste,” he murmured quietly. “There are far better uses we can put you to. And your brain as well, of course. No, my friend, you will not die, but you will suffer if you pit your will against that of the Green Mandarin.”

  Ellis suppressed a thin smile. He felt that this man’s opinion of himself was pretty high. However...

  “So what do you plan to do?” he asked gently. If he had been carrying a gun at the moment he would very quickly have shown the man in black what he himself intended to do, but as luck would have it he was unarmed. The best thing he could do under the circumstances was to play for time and hope that Baine would return before long.

  But the man in black had other notions.

  While thoughts of Gerry Baine were running through Ellis’s mind the man stepped forward suddenly, whipping something from his pocket as he moved. Ellis put up an arm instinctively to ward off the expected blow. But all that confronted him was the man’s hand, harmlessly grasping a small jade statuette that was held before Ellis’s eyes as if for inspection.

  And the curious thing about it was that Ellis could not take his eyes from it. The man was holding it up on a level with his face. Ellis stared at it helplessly, not quite understanding the peculiar feeling that was coming over him. He was conscious of a faint humming noise that seemed to come from the little jade statuette. He realised, too, that the statuette was in the form of a cross-legged figure like a mandarin. It was green in colour, and its eyes, which were made of some kind of jade-like stone, were so intensely green as to have an hypnotic effect on his sight. While the man continued to hold it steady Ellis kept on staring at it, unable to take his gaze from its jewelled eyes, helpless to close his ears to the persistent hum that issued from somewhere inside the figure.

  He felt the surroundings melt about him. His entire world became focused on the statuette held before him. He was no longer conscious of his body or the floor beneath his feet.

  “In exactly one hour from now,” said the man in black, “you, Ray Ellis, will follow the instructions I shall give you. You will follow them closely. You will answer the call of the Green Mandarin because he needs you as he needs your fellow scientists who have already joined him.”

  Ellis said nothing. He merely nodded slowly and kept on gazing at the little statue’s eyes.

  The voice of the man in black droned on tonelessly for nearly a minute. Ellis was barely aware of what it said. He simply leaned against the wall, lacking any will of his own to fight the insidious effect of the statuette’s bright green eyes.

  The man in black suddenly finished what he was saying.

  He put the figure back in his pocket and stood looking at Ellis thoughtfully for a second.

  “That will be all for now,” he said quietly. “We shall meet again, my friend.”

  Ellis heard himself answer: “Of course. Thank you for coming and making it all so clear. I shall naturally do as you wish.”

  He straightened up from where he was leaning and moved to the door of the flat, opening it and holding it for the man in black to pass. Then he closed it behind him and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. Things were a little hazy, but gradually they cleared in his mind and everything was plain. .

  He was going to join the Green Mandarin. In an hour’s time he would leave the flat and be met by someone who would act as his escort. A deep-seated excitement infused him. He must be careful to hide it from Baine, he thought. The Green Mandarin had called him and nothing must interfere with the orders he had received.

  Chapter 6

  A Plan is Made

  Gerry Baine returned to the flat a short time after Ellis’s visitor had gone. He found his chief in the lounge, sitting back in an armchair with his eyes half closed.

  “Hello!” said Baine cheerfully. “What news, Ray? They haven’t got the man in black’s car yet, but they’re optimistic about finding it soon. It’s been reported more than once, so it won’t be long before they catch up with it.”

  Ellis eyed Baine in silence for a moment. Someone else was driving that car of course. There was a vaguely cunning light in Ellis’s eyes, thought Baine. He wondered why. Maybe the Chief had something up his sleeve and meant to spring a surprise on him.

  Ellis said: “That’s fine, Gerry. But I’m following a line of my own at the moment. I’ve been waiting for you to come back so that I’m free to leave the flat for a time. It’s no good both of us going out. Now you’re here I’ll be going.”

  He rose to his feet.

  Baine watched him curiously. “What’s cooking?” he asked. “Where are you off to, Chief?”

  “You’ll learn in time,” answered Ellis with a smile. “Right now all I want you to do is hold the fort.”

  Baine gave a nod. But he started using his head at the same time. To his certain knowledge Ellis had never yet kept him in ignorance of any fresh step or move in a case on which they were both engaged. He found it exceedingly strange therefore that his chief should act in this secretive fashion all at once.

  For the moment, however, he gave no sign of his inner misgivings.

  Instead of speaking again he went out of the lounge and into the kitchen. There was a nagging sort of idea at the back of his mind that everything was not as it should be. He was suspicious of Ellis’s attitude, yet there was nothing on which he could put his finger. To Baine it was a singularly worrying situation. He was loyal to Ellis to the last degree, but if something was going on about which he knew nothing it would be difficult to handle it without stepping on his chief’s toes.

  Staring sourly round the kitchen, he wondered what he should do. He could hardly a
ccuse Ellis outright of playing some queer game of his own, yet he felt sure that something of the kind was going on. Either that or...or he didn’t quite know what to think. Hell, he thought. His eyes caught sight of the array of electrical switches that lined the kitchen wall so neatly. He scowled at them as if they offended him. Then he suddenly stiffened as his gaze took in something not quite as it should be.

  One of the switches near the kitchen door was in the “On” position. He could not remember turning it on, but there it was. Vaguely puzzled, he looked at it with a frown, then snapped his fingers silently as he recalled his sleeve catching it when he hurried out to get the car and call at the Yard.

  Going closer, he saw it was a switch which controlled one of several sound recording circuits fitted in the flat. A sudden idea entered his head, giving him cause to hesitate uncertainly. Suppose something had happened in the flat during his absence? Ellis was a different man to what he had been last time Baine was there. It was a subtle change, but there all right, no doubt about it.

  Baine hesitated again, fingering the switch. If anyone had called, he mused, everything that passed would have been recorded by the concealed microphones.

  He turned the switch off and went back to the lounge, watching Ellis closely. Ellis himself appeared a little tense as if suffering under some hidden strain. Baine thought he was concealing something.

  “Anyone call while I was out?” asked Baine casually.

  “Eh, what’s that?” said Ellis. “Oh...no. That is no one who matters. I’ll be going out in a minute. You run along and rustle up some food. I’d like a meal before I go.”

  “Sure,” said Baine quickly. “You hang on and I’ll soon fix things up.” He left the lounge, passed through the kitchenette and entered his own room, closing the door carefully behind him.

  This room was the sort of brain centre where all the recorders, and sound track apparatus were gathered together.

  Baine stood looking round for a moment, then went across to a corner of the room and turned on a recorder, tuning down the sounds that came from the speaker till they were little more than a whisper.

  He listened for several minutes with growing amazement and anger. The recording came to an end with the closing of a door, after which there was silence from the speaker.

  Baine, his forehead deeply furrowed by the knowledge he had gained through a mischance on his own part, went into the kitchen again and started getting a meal. As yet he could not quite make up his mind what to do for the best. It was plain from what he had discovered that the Chief had been made the subject of hypnotism, and was even now still labouring under its deeply implanted effects. In fact, thought Baine savagely, if he himself had not hit on the recorder accident Ellis would have disappeared as completely as the rest of the Green Mandarin victims.

  It would be useless to go to Ellis and tell him what had happened. He would not believe, and the post-hypnotic influence would protect him from giving away the fact that he intended to join the Green Mandarin.

  Baine decided that before anything could be done Ellis must be brought out from under the spell that the man in black had worked on his mind. Once that was accomplished he had only to play back to the Chief all that was on the recording and Ellis would quickly realise how nearly he had been fooled and caught in the trap. Baine was elated by one thing. This attempt to get Ellis proved beyond all doubt that the enemy were clever people, and it also showed the manner of persuading the previous victims to leave their homes as if by their own free will.

  “Post-hypnotic suggestion!” he muttered. “It’s cunning, and the man who does it must be good because all folks aren’t subject to being hypnotised. I shouldn’t have imagined the Chief was, come to that.” Baine was not to know the intense power wielded through the little jade statue’s deep green eyes. He was not yet to know a lot of things.

  He made a decision and went back to the lounge, to find Ellis seated at his desk with a writing block in front of him. Baine moved forward, eager to see if his suspicion as to what Ellis was doing was correct. Ellis instinctively covered the writing block with a sheet of blotting paper, glancing up in some annoyance as he did so.

  “I was making a few notes,” said Ellis defensively. It was totally unlike him, thought Baine. Ellis went on: “Be a good chap and don’t disturb me for a minute or two.”

  “Making notes, eh?” countered Baine quietly. “Don’t you mean writing a farewell note, Chief?”

  The words spanged across the space between them like a stream of machine-gun bullets. Ellis stiffened and whirled in his chair, confronting his assistant with a gleam in his eyes that was dangerous. Baine knew then that his shot had gone home. And he realised as well that now was the time to act. If he waited any longer the Chief would be slipping off. It would be too late to stop him.

  Gerry Baine bunched his fist and crashed it full on the side of Ellis’s lean-boned jaw before the detective knew what had happened.

  Baine stood for an instant staring down at his fallen employer. He blew gently on his stinging knuckles. There was no need for a second blow, Ellis was out for the count as effectively as if a pile driver had hit him.

  Baine wasted no further time. He was sorry he had had to hit Ellis, but there had been no alternative course. Now he had to go to work and bring him out from under the malignant influence of the hypnotic spell woven by the man in black.

  In this he was unconsciously assisted by Ellis himself, for the scientist had only recently perfected an electrical appliance which was capable of reinstating a person to normal thoughts after the brain had been affected by accident or design. In effect it had the power of wiping out distortions in the mind. Ellis was hoping it might be of considerable use in dealing with cases of split personality, and the apparatus was here in the London flat ready to demonstrate when a suitable patient was available.

  Baine carried his unconscious chief into the bedroom and connected up the wires and leads of the clarifying apparatus. It struck him as vaguely ironic that the first person on whom it was to receive a test was its own inventor.

  The test, when completed, was entirely satisfactory.

  By the time Ellis recovered from unconsciousness Baine had sent the necessary currents through his brain and was waiting results.

  Ellis groaned, opened his eyes and struggled up on one elbow, blinking as he caught sight of Baine. Then he grinned and rubbed his jaw reflectively. The contact made him wince so that he realised something had happened.

  “Feels as if something hit me,” he said curiously. “What’s been going on, Gerry?”

  “That’s rather what I want to know myself,” answered Baine a trifle grimly. “Our friend pulled a fast one while I was out some time ago, Chief. He hypnotised you or something! You may not be aware of it now, but you were all set to go off and join the Green Mandarin!” He broke off. Then: “I took the liberty of stopping you. Sorry I had to knock you out, but it couldn’t be helped.”

  Ellis was genuinely puzzled at first. But Baine soon convinced him of the truth of what he was saying by playing back the recording of all that had been said in the flat when the man in black called and worked his spell on Ellis. He also explained how he had come to discover it, and the chance accident that had led to the switching on of the automatic recorder. He and Ellis listened intently to the metallic words of the man in black as they came thinly through the speaker of the play-back apparatus.

  Ellis could now remember the initial stages of the visit. It was clear up to the time when the visitor had produced that devilish little statuette and held it in front of his eyes with such evil effect. But all the rest, the instructions as to what he must do afterwards, had been wiped from his brain by his assistant’s action in making use of the electrical appliance he himself had invented.

  The man in black’s orders were clear and concise:

  “An hour after the time I leave you,” he had said, “you will go to Victoria Station. You will buy a single ticket to Newhaven. You will
then walk to the Newhaven platform and stand just outside the barrier. A woman will approach you. She will be wearing a very small image of this statuette in the form of a ring on her left little finger. She will give you an opportunity to see and recognise it. After that you will follow her to a car outside the station. From then on you will be in her care. She will take you to the Green Mandarin, so have no fear and co-operate in everything she tells you to do. Bring no luggage with you, and before you leave here write a note for your assistant to find, telling him you have answered the call for the good of mankind. That is all. Above all on no account let anyone realise you are leaving London. Nothing, I say, must appear unusual.”

  At the end of the instructions the listeners heard the sound of the door closing and the muffled noises that Ellis himself had made when he returned to the lounge and sat down as Baine had found him on returning from the Yard.

  Ellis and Baine looked at each other grimly. Baine said nothing, preferring to let his chief make the running.

  Ellis sighed. “It looks as if I owe you a lot, my lad,” he said at length. “If it hadn’t been for your suspicious mind I’d have been well on my way by now. But I think we can turn this business to good effect, Gerry.”

  He paused, frowning thoughtfully. Then he banged one fist into the palm of his other hand. “Yes, by heaven, we certainly can!”

  “You’re thinking the same as I am, Chief?” said Baine.

  Ellis nodded quickly. “I’m keeping that appointment with the woman at Victoria,” he announced. “No one but you and I realise that I’m no longer under the influence of hypnotism or post-hypnotic suggestion. If I do just as I’ve been told to do we shall know more about the Green Mandarin in a matter of hours than we might have done in a week of patient investigation. It’s a cinch!”

  “But we can’t both go, Chief!” Baine pointed out. “I’m not being left out of this on any account.”

  Ellis grinned. “I never said you were,” he said in a soothing tone. “You’ll be covering me in a manner that they can’t even begin to suspect.”