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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1183 ***
+
+THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU
+
+By Sax Rohmer
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. A MIDNIGHT SUMMONS
+
+
+“When did you last hear from Nayland Smith?” asked my visitor.
+
+I paused, my hand on the syphon, reflecting for a moment.
+
+“Two months ago,” I said; “he’s a poor correspondent and rather soured,
+I fancy.”
+
+“What--a woman or something?”
+
+“Some affair of that sort. He’s such a reticent beggar, I really know
+very little about it.”
+
+I placed a whisky and soda before the Rev. J. D. Eltham, also sliding
+the tobacco jar nearer to his hand. The refined and sensitive face of
+the clergy-man offered no indication of the truculent character of the
+man. His scanty fair hair, already gray over the temples, was silken and
+soft-looking; in appearance he was indeed a typical English churchman;
+but in China he had been known as “the fighting missionary,” and had
+fully deserved the title. In fact, this peaceful-looking gentleman had
+directly brought about the Boxer Risings!
+
+“You know,” he said, in his clerical voice, but meanwhile stuffing
+tobacco into an old pipe with fierce energy, “I have often wondered,
+Petrie--I have never left off wondering--”
+
+“What?”
+
+“That accursed Chinaman! Since the cellar place beneath the site of the
+burnt-out cottage in Dulwich Village--I have wondered more than ever.”
+
+He lighted his pipe and walked to the hearth to throw the match in the
+grate.
+
+“You see,” he continued, peering across at me in his oddly nervous way,
+“one never knows, does one? If I thought that Dr. Fu-Manchu lived; if
+I seriously suspected that that stupendous intellect, that wonderful
+genius, Petrie, er--” he hesitated characteristically--“survived, I
+should feel it my duty--”
+
+“Well?” I said, leaning my elbows on the table and smiling slightly.
+
+“If that Satanic genius were not indeed destroyed, then the peace of the
+world, may be threatened anew at any moment!”
+
+He was becoming excited, shooting out his jaw in the truculent manner I
+knew, and snapping his fingers to emphasize his words; a man composed of
+the oddest complexities that ever dwelt beneath a clerical frock.
+
+“He may have got back to China, Doctor!” he cried, and his eyes had the
+fighting glint in them. “Could you rest in peace if you thought that he
+lived? Should you not fear for your life every time that a night-call
+took you out alone? Why, man alive, it is only two years since he was
+here among us, since we were searching every shadow for those awful
+green eyes! What became of his band of assassins--his stranglers, his
+dacoits, his damnable poisons and insects and what-not--the army of
+creatures--”
+
+He paused, taking a drink.
+
+“You--” he hesitated diffidently--“searched in Egypt with Nayland Smith,
+did you not?”
+
+I nodded.
+
+“Contradict me if I am wrong,” he continued; “but my impression is that
+you were searching for the girl--the girl--Karamaneh, I think she was
+called?”
+
+“Yes,” I replied shortly; “but we could find no trace--no trace.”
+
+“You--er--were interested?”
+
+“More than I knew,” I replied, “until I realized that I had--lost her.”
+
+“I never met Karamaneh, but from your account, and from others, she was
+quite unusually--”
+
+“She was very beautiful,” I said, and stood up, for I was anxious to
+terminate that phase of the conversation.
+
+Eltham regarded me sympathetically; he knew something of my search with
+Nayland Smith for the dark-eyed, Eastern girl who had brought romance
+into my drab life; he knew that I treasured my memories of her as I
+loathed and abhorred those of the fiendish, brilliant Chinese doctor who
+had been her master.
+
+Eltham began to pace up and down the rug, his pipe bubbling furiously;
+and something in the way he carried his head reminded me momentarily of
+Nayland Smith. Certainly, between this pink-faced clergyman, with his
+deceptively mild appearance, and the gaunt, bronzed, and steely-eyed
+Burmese commissioner, there was externally little in common; but it was
+some little nervous trick in his carriage that conjured up through the
+smoky haze one distant summer evening when Smith had paced that very
+room as Eltham paced it now, when before my startled eyes he had rung up
+the curtain upon the savage drama in which, though I little suspected it
+then, Fate had cast me for a leading role.
+
+I wondered if Eltham’s thoughts ran parallel with mine. My own were
+centered upon the unforgettable figure of the murderous Chinaman. These
+words, exactly as Smith had used them, seemed once again to sound in my
+ears: “Imagine a person tall, lean, and feline, high shouldered, with a
+brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and
+long magnetic eyes of the true cat green. Invest him with all the cruel
+cunning of an entire Eastern race accumulated in one giant intellect,
+with all the resources of science, past and present, and you have a
+mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the ‘Yellow Peril’ incarnate in one
+man.”
+
+This visit of Eltham’s no doubt was responsible for my mood; for this
+singular clergyman had played his part in the drama of two years ago.
+
+“I should like to see Smith again,” he said suddenly; “it seems a pity
+that a man like that should be buried in Burma. Burma makes a mess of
+the best of men, Doctor. You said he was not married?”
+
+“No,” I replied shortly, “and is never likely to be, now.”
+
+“Ah, you hinted at something of the kind.”
+
+“I know very little of it. Nayland Smith is not the kind of man to talk
+much.”
+
+“Quite so--quite so! And, you know, Doctor, neither am I; but”--he was
+growing painfully embarrassed--“it may be your due--I--er--I have a
+correspondent, in the interior of China--”
+
+“Well?” I said, watching him in sudden eagerness.
+
+“Well, I would not desire to raise--vain hopes--nor to occasion, shall
+I say, empty fears; but--er... no, Doctor!” He flushed like a girl--“It
+was wrong of me to open this conversation. Perhaps, when I know
+more--will you forget my words, for the time?”
+
+The telephone bell rang.
+
+“Hullo!” cried Eltham--“hard luck, Doctor!”--but I could see that he
+welcomed the interruption. “Why!” he added, “it is one o’clock!”
+
+I went to the telephone.
+
+“Is that Dr. Petrie?” inquired a woman’s voice.
+
+“Yes; who is speaking?”
+
+“Mrs. Hewett has been taken more seriously ill. Could you come at once?”
+
+“Certainly,” I replied, for Mrs. Hewett was not only a profitable
+patient but an estimable lady--“I shall be with you in a quarter of an
+hour.”
+
+I hung up the receiver.
+
+“Something urgent?” asked Eltham, emptying his pipe.
+
+“Sounds like it. You had better turn in.”
+
+“I should much prefer to walk over with you, if it would not be
+intruding. Our conversation has ill prepared me for sleep.”
+
+“Right!” I said; for I welcomed his company; and three minutes later we
+were striding across the deserted common.
+
+A sort of mist floated amongst the trees, seeming in the moonlight like
+a veil draped from trunk to trunk, as in silence we passed the Mound
+pond, and struck out for the north side of the common.
+
+I suppose the presence of Eltham and the irritating recollection of his
+half-confidence were the responsible factors, but my mind persistently
+dwelt upon the subject of Fu-Manchu and the atrocities which he had
+committed during his sojourn in England. So actively was my imagination
+at work that I felt again the menace which so long had hung over me; I
+felt as though that murderous yellow cloud still cast its shadow upon
+England. And I found myself longing for the company of Nayland Smith.
+I cannot state what was the nature of Eltham’s reflections, but I can
+guess; for he was as silent as I.
+
+It was with a conscious effort that I shook myself out of this morbidly
+reflective mood, on finding that we had crossed the common and were come
+to the abode of my patient.
+
+“I shall take a little walk,” announced Eltham; “for I gather that you
+don’t expect to be detained long? I shall never be out of sight of the
+door, of course.”
+
+“Very well,” I replied, and ran up the steps.
+
+There were no lights to be seen in any of the windows, which
+circumstance rather surprised me, as my patient occupied, or had
+occupied when last I had visited her, a first-floor bedroom in the front
+of the house. My knocking and ringing produced no response for three or
+four minutes; then, as I persisted, a scantily clothed and half
+awake maid servant unbarred the door and stared at me stupidly in the
+moonlight.
+
+“Mrs. Hewett requires me?” I asked abruptly.
+
+The girl stared more stupidly than ever.
+
+“No, sir,” she said, “she don’t, sir; she’s fast asleep!”
+
+“But some one ‘phoned me!” I insisted, rather irritably, I fear.
+
+“Not from here, sir,” declared the now wide-eyed girl. “We haven’t got a
+telephone, sir.”
+
+For a few moments I stood there, staring as foolishly as she; then
+abruptly I turned and descended the steps. At the gate I stood looking
+up and down the road. The houses were all in darkness. What could be the
+meaning of the mysterious summons? I had made no mistake respecting the
+name of my patient; it had been twice repeated over the telephone; yet
+that the call had not emanated from Mrs. Hewett’s house was now palpably
+evident. Days had been when I should have regarded the episode as
+preluding some outrage, but to-night I felt more disposed to ascribe it
+to a silly practical joke.
+
+Eltham walked up briskly.
+
+“You’re in demand to-night, Doctor,” he said. “A young person called
+for you almost directly you had left your house, and, learning where you
+were gone, followed you.”
+
+“Indeed!” I said, a trifle incredulously. “There are plenty of other
+doctors if the case is an urgent one.”
+
+“She may have thought it would save time as you were actually up and
+dressed,” explained Eltham; “and the house is quite near to here, I
+understand.”
+
+I looked at him a little blankly. Was this another effort of the unknown
+jester?
+
+“I have been fooled once,” I said. “That ‘phone call was a hoax--”
+
+“But I feel certain,” declared Eltham, earnestly, “that this is genuine!
+The poor girl was dreadfully agitated; her master has broken his leg and
+is lying helpless: number 280, Rectory Grove.”
+
+“Where is the girl?” I asked, sharply.
+
+“She ran back directly she had given me her message.”
+
+“Was she a servant?”
+
+“I should imagine so: French, I think. But she was so wrapped up I had
+little more than a glimpse of her. I am sorry to hear that some one has
+played a silly joke on you, but believe me--” he was very earnest--“this
+is no jest. The poor girl could scarcely speak for sobs. She mistook me
+for you, of course.”
+
+“Oh!” said I grimly, “well, I suppose I must go. Broken leg, you
+said?--and my surgical bag, splints and so forth, are at home!”
+
+“My dear Petrie!” cried Eltham, in his enthusiastic way--“you no doubt
+can do something to alleviate the poor man’s suffering immediately. I
+will run back to your rooms for the bag and rejoin you at 280, Rectory
+Grove.”
+
+“It’s awfully good of you, Eltham--”
+
+He held up his hand.
+
+“The call of suffering humanity, Petrie, is one which I may no more
+refuse to hear than you.”
+
+I made no further protest after that, for his point of view was evident
+and his determination adamant, but told him where he would find the
+bag and once more set out across the moonbright common, he pursuing a
+westerly direction and I going east.
+
+Some three hundred yards I had gone, I suppose, and my brain had been
+very active the while, when something occurred to me which placed a new
+complexion upon this second summons. I thought of the falsity of the
+first, of the improbability of even the most hardened practical joker
+practising his wiles at one o’clock in the morning. I thought of our
+recent conversation; above all I thought of the girl who had delivered
+the message to Eltham, the girl whom he had described as a French
+maid--whose personal charm had so completely enlisted his sympathies.
+Now, to this train of thought came a new one, and, adding it, my
+suspicion became almost a certainty.
+
+I remembered (as, knowing the district, I should have remembered before)
+that there was no number 280 in Rectory Grove.
+
+Pulling up sharply I stood looking about me. Not a living soul was
+in sight; not even a policeman. Where the lamps marked the main paths
+across the common nothing moved; in the shadows about me nothing
+stirred. But something stirred within me--a warning voice which for long
+had lain dormant.
+
+What was afoot?
+
+A breeze caressed the leaves overhead, breaking the silence with
+mysterious whisperings. Some portentous truth was seeking for admittance
+to my brain. I strove to reassure myself, but the sense of impending
+evil and of mystery became heavier. At last I could combat my strange
+fears no longer. I turned and began to run toward the south side of the
+common--toward my rooms--and after Eltham.
+
+I had hoped to head him off, but came upon no sign of him. An all-night
+tramcar passed at the moment that I reached the high road, and as I ran
+around behind it I saw that my windows were lighted and that there was a
+light in the hall.
+
+My key was yet in the lock when my housekeeper opened the door.
+
+“There’s a gentleman just come, Doctor,” she began--
+
+I thrust past her and raced up the stairs into my study.
+
+Standing by the writing-table was a tall, thin man, his gaunt face brown
+as a coffee-berry and his steely gray eyes fixed upon me. My heart gave
+a great leap--and seemed to stand still.
+
+It was Nayland Smith!
+
+“Smith,” I cried. “Smith, old man, by God, I’m glad to see you!”
+
+He wrung my hand hard, looking at me with his searching eyes; but there
+was little enough of gladness in his face. He was altogether grayer than
+when last I had seen him--grayer and sterner.
+
+“Where is Eltham?” I asked.
+
+Smith started back as though I had struck him.
+
+“Eltham!” he whispered--“Eltham! is Eltham here?”
+
+“I left him ten minutes ago on the common--”
+
+Smith dashed his right fist into the palm of his left hand and his eyes
+gleamed almost wildly.
+
+“My God, Petrie!” he said, “am I fated always to come too late?”
+
+My dreadful fears in that instant were confirmed. I seemed to feel my
+legs totter beneath me.
+
+“Smith, you don’t mean--”
+
+“I do, Petrie!” His voice sounded very far away. “Fu-Manchu is here; and
+Eltham, God help him... is his first victim!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. ELTHAM VANISHES
+
+Smith went racing down the stairs like a man possessed. Heavy with such
+a foreboding of calamity as I had not known for two years, I followed
+him--along the hall and out into the road. The very peace and beauty of
+the night in some way increased my mental agitation. The sky was lighted
+almost tropically with such a blaze of stars as I could not recall to
+have seen since, my futile search concluded, I had left Egypt. The glory
+of the moonlight yellowed the lamps speckled across the expanse of
+the common. The night was as still as night can ever be in London. The
+dimming pulse of a cab or car alone disturbed the stillness.
+
+With a quick glance to right and left, Smith ran across on to the
+common, and, leaving the door wide open behind me, I followed. The path
+which Eltham had pursued terminated almost opposite to my house. One’s
+gaze might follow it, white and empty, for several hundred yards past
+the pond, and further, until it became overshadowed and was lost amid a
+clump of trees.
+
+I came up with Smith, and side by side we ran on, whilst pantingly, I
+told my tale.
+
+“It was a trick to get you away from him!” cried Smith. “They meant no
+doubt to make some attempt at your house, but as he came out with you,
+an alternative plan--”
+
+Abreast of the pond, my companion slowed down, and finally stopped.
+
+“Where did you last see Eltham?” he asked rapidly.
+
+I took his arm, turning him slightly to the right, and pointed across
+the moonbathed common.
+
+“You see that clump of bushes on the other side of the road?” I said.
+“There’s a path to the left of it. I took that path and he took this. We
+parted at the point where they meet--”
+
+Smith walked right down to the edge of the water and peered about over
+the surface.
+
+What he hoped to find there I could not imagine. Whatever it had been he
+was disappointed, and he turned to me again, frowning perplexedly, and
+tugging at the lobe of his left ear, an old trick which reminded me of
+gruesome things we had lived through in the past.
+
+“Come on,” he jerked. “It may be amongst the trees.”
+
+From the tone of his voice I knew that he was tensed up nervously, and
+his mood but added to the apprehension of my own.
+
+“What may be amongst the trees, Smith?” I asked.
+
+He walked on.
+
+“God knows, Petrie; but I fear--”
+
+Behind us, along the highroad, a tramcar went rocking by, doubtless
+bearing a few belated workers homeward. The stark incongruity of the
+thing was appalling. How little those weary toilers, hemmed about
+with the commonplace, suspected that almost within sight from the car
+windows, in a place of prosy benches, iron railings, and unromantic,
+flickering lamps, two fellow men moved upon the border of a horror-land!
+
+Beneath the trees a shadow carpet lay, its edges tropically sharp; and
+fully ten yards from the first of the group, we two, hatless both, and
+sharing a common dread, paused for a moment and listened.
+
+The car had stopped at the further extremity of the common, and now with
+a moan that grew to a shriek was rolling on its way again. We stood
+and listened until silence reclaimed the night. Not a footstep could be
+heard. Then slowly we walked on. At the edge of the little coppice we
+stopped again abruptly.
+
+Smith turned and thrust his pistol into my hand. A white ray of light
+pierced the shadows; my companion carried an electric torch. But no
+trace of Eltham was discoverable.
+
+There had been a heavy shower of rain during the evening just before
+sunset, and although the open paths were dry again, under the trees
+the ground was still moist. Ten yards within the coppice we came upon
+tracks--the tracks of one running, as the deep imprints of the toes
+indicated.
+
+Abruptly the tracks terminated; others, softer, joined them, two sets
+converging from left and right. There was a confused patch, trailing off
+to the west; then this became indistinct, and was finally lost upon the
+hard ground outside the group.
+
+For perhaps a minute, or more, we ran about from tree to tree, and from
+bush to bush, searching like hounds for a scent, and fearful of what we
+might find. We found nothing; and fully in the moonlight we stood facing
+one another. The night was profoundly still.
+
+Nayland Smith stepped back into the shadows, and began slowly to turn
+his head from left to right, taking in the entire visible expanse of the
+common. Toward a point where the road bisected it he stared intently.
+Then, with a bound, he set off.
+
+“Come on, Petrie!” he cried. “There they are!”
+
+Vaulting a railing he went away over a field like a madman. Recovering
+from the shock of surprise, I followed him, but he was well ahead of me,
+and making for some vaguely seen object moving against the lights of the
+roadway.
+
+Another railing was vaulted, and the corner of a second, triangular
+grass patch crossed at a hot sprint. We were twenty yards from the road
+when the sound of a starting motor broke the silence. We gained the
+graveled footpath only to see the taillight of the car dwindling to the
+north!
+
+Smith leaned dizzily against a tree.
+
+“Eltham is in that car!” he gasped. “Just God! are we to stand here and
+see him taken away to--”
+
+He beat his fist upon the tree, in a sort of tragic despair. The nearest
+cab-rank was no great distance away, but, excluding the possibility of
+no cab being there, it might, for all practical purposes, as well have
+been a mile off.
+
+The beat of the retreating motor was scarcely audible; the lights
+might but just be distinguished. Then, coming in an opposite direction,
+appeared the headlamp of another car, of a car that raced nearer and
+nearer to us, so that, within a few seconds of its first appearance, we
+found ourselves bathed in the beam of its headlights.
+
+Smith bounded out into the road, and stood, a weird silhouette, with
+upraised arms, fully in its course!
+
+The brakes were applied hurriedly. It was a big limousine, and its
+driver swerved perilously in avoiding Smith and nearly ran into me.
+But, the breathless moment past, the car was pulled up, head on to the
+railings; and a man in evening clothes was demanding excitedly what had
+happened. Smith, a hatless, disheveled figure, stepped up to the door.
+
+“My name is Nayland Smith,” he said rapidly--“Burmese Commissioner.” He
+snatched a letter from his pocket and thrust it into the hands of the
+bewildered man. “Read that. It is signed by another Commissioner--the
+Commissioner of Police.”
+
+With amazement written all over him, the other obeyed.
+
+“You see,” continued my friend, tersely--“it is carte blanche. I wish to
+commandeer your car, sir, on a matter of life and death!”.
+
+The other returned the letter.
+
+“Allow me to offer it!” he said, descending. “My man will take your
+orders. I can finish my journey by cab. I am--”
+
+But Smith did not wait to learn whom he might be.
+
+“Quick!” he cried to the stupefied chauffeur--“You passed a car a minute
+ago--yonder. Can you overtake it?”
+
+“I can try, sir, if I don’t lose her track.”
+
+Smith leaped in, pulling me after him.
+
+“Do it!” he snapped. “There are no speed limits for me. Thanks!
+Goodnight, sir!”
+
+We were off! The car swung around and the chase commenced.
+
+One last glimpse I had of the man we had dispossessed, standing alone by
+the roadside, and at ever increasing speed, we leaped away in the track
+of Eltham’s captors.
+
+Smith was too highly excited for ordinary conversation, but he threw out
+short, staccato remarks.
+
+“I have followed Fu-Manchu from Hongkong,” he jerked. “Lost him at Suez.
+He got here a boat ahead of me. Eltham has been corresponding with some
+mandarin up-country. Knew that. Came straight to you. Only got in this
+evening. He--Fu-Manchu--has been sent here to get Eltham. My God! and
+he has him! He will question him! The interior of China--a seething
+pot, Petrie! They had to stop the leakage of information. He is here for
+that.”
+
+The car pulled up with a jerk that pitched me out of my seat, and the
+chauffeur leaped to the road and ran ahead. Smith was out in a trice, as
+the man, who had run up to a constable, came racing back.
+
+“Jump in, sir--jump in!” he cried, his eyes bright with the lust of the
+chase; “they are making for Battersea!”
+
+And we were off again.
+
+Through the empty streets we roared on. A place of gasometers and
+desolate waste lots slipped behind and we were in a narrow way where
+gates of yards and a few lowly houses faced upon a prospect of high
+blank wall.
+
+“Thames on our right,” said Smith, peering ahead. “His rathole is by the
+river as usual. Hi!”--he grabbed up the speaking-tube--“Stop! Stop!”
+
+The limousine swung in to the narrow sidewalk, and pulled up close by a
+yard gate. I, too, had seen our quarry--a long, low bodied car, showing
+no inside lights. It had turned the next corner, where a street lamp
+shone greenly, not a hundred yards ahead.
+
+Smith leaped out, and I followed him.
+
+“That must be a cul de sac,” he said, and turned to the eager-eyed
+chauffeur. “Run back to that last turning,” he ordered, “and wait there,
+out of sight. Bring the car up when you hear a police-whistle.”
+
+The man looked disappointed, but did not question the order. As he began
+to back away, Smith grasped me by the arm and drew me forward.
+
+“We must get to that corner,” he said, “and see where the car stands,
+without showing ourselves.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE WIRE JACKET
+
+I suppose we were not more than a dozen paces from the lamp when we
+heard the thudding of the motor. The car was backing out!
+
+It was a desperate moment, for it seemed that we could not fail to be
+discovered. Nayland Smith began to look about him, feverishly, for a
+hiding-place, a quest in which I seconded with equal anxiety. And Fate
+was kind to us--doubly kind as after events revealed. A wooden gate
+broke the expanse of wall hard by upon the right, and, as the result of
+some recent accident, a ragged gap had been torn in the panels close to
+the top.
+
+The chain of the padlock hung loosely; and in a second Smith was up,
+with his foot in this as in a stirrup. He threw his arm over the top and
+drew himself upright. A second later he was astride the broken gate.
+
+“Up you come, Petrie!” he said, and reached down his hand to aid me.
+
+I got my foot into the loop of chain, grasped at a projection in the
+gatepost and found myself up.
+
+“There is a crossbar on this side to stand on,” said Smith.
+
+He climbed over and vanished in the darkness. I was still astride the
+broken gate when the car turned the corner, slowly, for there was scanty
+room; but I was standing upon the bar on the inside and had my head
+below the gap ere the driver could possibly have seen me.
+
+“Stay where you are until he passes,” hissed my companion, below. “There
+is a row of kegs under you.”
+
+The sound of the motor passing outside grew loud--louder--then began to
+die away. I felt about with my left foot; discerned the top of a keg,
+and dropped, panting, beside Smith.
+
+“Phew!” I said--“that was a close thing! Smith--how do we know--”
+
+“That we have followed the right car?” he interrupted. “Ask yourself the
+question: what would any ordinary man be doing motoring in a place like
+this at two o’clock in the morning?”
+
+“You are right, Smith,” I agreed. “Shall we get out again?”
+
+“Not yet. I have an idea. Look yonder.”
+
+He grasped my arm, turning me in the desired direction.
+
+Beyond a great expanse of unbroken darkness a ray of moonlight slanted
+into the place wherein we stood, spilling its cold radiance upon rows of
+kegs.
+
+“That’s another door,” continued my friend--I now began dimly to
+perceive him beside me. “If my calculations are not entirely wrong, it
+opens on a wharf gate--”
+
+A steam siren hooted dismally, apparently from quite close at hand.
+
+“I’m right!” snapped Smith. “That turning leads down to the gate. Come
+on, Petrie!”
+
+He directed the light of the electric torch upon a narrow path through
+the ranks of casks, and led the way to the further door. A good two feet
+of moonlight showed along the top. I heard Smith straining; then--
+
+“These kegs are all loaded with grease!” he said, “and I want to
+reconnoiter over that door.”
+
+“I am leaning on a crate which seems easy to move,” I reported. “Yes,
+it’s empty. Lend a hand.”
+
+We grasped the empty crate, and between us, set it up on a solid
+pedestal of casks. Then Smith mounted to this observation platform and I
+scrambled up beside him, and looked down upon the lane outside.
+
+It terminated as Smith had foreseen at a wharf gate some six feet to
+the right of our post. Piled up in the lane beneath us, against the
+warehouse door, was a stack of empty casks. Beyond, over the way, was a
+kind of ramshackle building that had possibly been a dwelling-house at
+some time. Bills were stuck in the ground-floor window indicating that
+the three floors were to let as offices; so much was discernible in that
+reflected moonlight.
+
+I could hear the tide, lapping upon the wharf, could feel the chill from
+the river and hear the vague noises which, night nor day, never cease
+upon the great commercial waterway.
+
+“Down!” whispered Smith. “Make no noise! I suspected it. They heard the
+car following!”
+
+I obeyed, clutching at him for support; for I was suddenly dizzy, and my
+heart was leaping wildly--furiously.
+
+“You saw her?” he whispered.
+
+Saw her! yes, I had seen her! And my poor dream-world was toppling about
+me, its cities, ashes and its fairness, dust.
+
+Peering from the window, her great eyes wondrous in the moonlight and
+her red lips parted, hair gleaming like burnished foam and her anxious
+gaze set upon the corner of the lane--was Karamaneh... Karamaneh whom
+once we had rescued from the house of this fiendish Chinese doctor;
+Karamaneh who had been our ally; in fruitless quest of whom,--when, too
+late, I realized how empty my life was become--I had wasted what little
+of the world’s goods I possessed;--Karamaneh!
+
+“Poor old Petrie,” murmured Smith--“I knew, but I hadn’t the heart--He
+has her again--God knows by what chains he holds her. But she’s only
+a woman, old boy, and women are very much alike--very much alike from
+Charing Cross to Pagoda Road.”
+
+He rested his hand on my shoulder for a moment; I am ashamed to confess
+that I was trembling; then, clenching my teeth with that mechanical
+physical effort which often accompanies a mental one, I swallowed the
+bitter draught of Nayland Smith’s philosophy. He was raising himself, to
+peer, cautiously, over the top of the door. I did likewise.
+
+The window from which the girl had looked was nearly on a level with our
+eyes, and as I raised my head above the woodwork, I quite distinctly
+saw her go out of the room. The door, as she opened it, admitted a dull
+light, against which her figure showed silhouetted for a moment. Then
+the door was reclosed.
+
+“We must risk the other windows,” rapped Smith.
+
+Before I had grasped the nature of his plan he was over and had dropped
+almost noiselessly upon the casks outside. Again I followed his lead.
+
+“You are not going to attempt anything, singlehanded--against him?” I
+asked.
+
+“Petrie--Eltham is in that house. He has been brought here to be put
+to the question, in the medieval, and Chinese, sense! Is there time to
+summon assistance?”
+
+I shuddered. This had been in my mind, certainly, but so expressed it
+was definitely horrible--revolting, yet stimulating.
+
+“You have the pistol,” added Smith--“follow closely, and quietly.”
+
+He walked across the tops of the casks and leaped down, pointing to that
+nearest to the closed door of the house. I helped him place it under the
+open window. A second we set beside it, and, not without some noise, got
+a third on top.
+
+Smith mounted.
+
+His jaw muscles were very prominent and his eyes shone like steel; but
+he was as cool as though he were about to enter a theater and not the
+den of the most stupendous genius who ever worked for evil. I would
+forgive any man who, knowing Dr. Fu-Manchu, feared him; I feared him
+myself--feared him as one fears a scorpion; but when Nayland Smith
+hauled himself up on the wooden ledge above the door and swung thence
+into the darkened room, I followed and was in close upon his heels. But
+I admired him, for he had every ampere of his self-possession in hand;
+my own case was different.
+
+He spoke close to my ear.
+
+“Is your hand steady? We may have to shoot.”
+
+I thought of Karamaneh, of lovely dark-eyed Karamaneh whom this
+wonderful, evil product of secret China had stolen from me--for so I now
+adjudged it.
+
+“Rely upon me!” I said grimly. “I...”
+
+The words ceased--frozen on my tongue.
+
+There are things that one seeks to forget, but it is my lot often to
+remember the sound which at that moment literally struck me rigid with
+horror. Yet it was only a groan; but, merciful God! I pray that it may
+never be my lot to listen to such a groan again.
+
+Smith drew a sibilant breath.
+
+“It’s Eltham!” he whispered hoarsely--“they’re torturing--”
+
+“No, no!” screamed a woman’s voice--a voice that thrilled me anew, but
+with another emotion--
+
+“Not that, not--”
+
+I distinctly heard the sound of a blow. Followed a sort of vague
+scuffling. A door somewhere at the back of the house opened--and shut
+again. Some one was coming along the passage toward us!
+
+“Stand back!” Smith’s voice was low, but perfectly steady. “Leave it to
+me!”
+
+Nearer came the footsteps and nearer. I could hear suppressed sobs. The
+door opened, admitting again the faint light--and Karamaneh came in. The
+place was quite unfurnished, offering no possibility of hiding; but to
+hide was unnecessary.
+
+Her slim figure had not crossed the threshold ere Smith had his arm
+about the girl’s waist and one hand clapped to her mouth. A stifled gasp
+she uttered, and he lifted her into the room.
+
+I stepped forward and closed the door. A faint perfume stole to my
+nostrils--a vague, elusive breath of the East, reminiscent of strange
+days that, now, seemed to belong to a remote past. Karamaneh! that
+faint, indefinable perfume was part of her dainty personality; it may
+appear absurd--impossible--but many and many a time I had dreamt of it.
+
+“In my breast pocket,” rapped Smith; “the light.”
+
+I bent over the girl as he held her. She was quite still, but I could
+have wished that I had had more certain mastery of myself. I took the
+torch from Smith’s pocket, and, mechanically, directed it upon the
+captive.
+
+She was dressed very plainly, wearing a simple blue skirt, and white
+blouse. It was easy to divine that it was she whom Eltham had mistaken
+for a French maid. A brooch set with a ruby was pinned at the point
+where the blouse opened--gleaming fierily and harshly against the soft
+skin. Her face was pale and her eyes wide with fear.
+
+“There is some cord in my right-hand pocket,” said Smith; “I came
+provided. Tie her wrists.”
+
+I obeyed him, silently. The girl offered no resistance, but I think
+I never essayed a less congenial task than that of binding her white
+wrists. The jeweled fingers lay quite listlessly in my own.
+
+“Make a good job of it!” rapped Smith, significantly.
+
+A flush rose to my cheeks, for I knew well enough what he meant.
+
+“She is fastened,” I said, and I turned the ray of the torch upon her
+again.
+
+Smith removed his hand from her mouth but did not relax his grip of her.
+She looked up at me with eyes in which I could have sworn there was no
+recognition. But a flush momentarily swept over her face, and left it
+pale again.
+
+“We shall have to--gag her--”
+
+“Smith, I can’t do it!”
+
+The girl’s eyes filled with tears and she looked up at my companion
+pitifully.
+
+“Please don’t be cruel to me,” she whispered, with that soft accent
+which always played havoc with my composure. “Every one--every one-is
+cruel to me. I will promise--indeed I will swear, to be quiet. Oh,
+believe me, if you can save him I will do nothing to hinder you.” Her
+beautiful head drooped. “Have some pity for me as well.”
+
+“Karamaneh” I said. “We would have believed you once. We cannot, now.”
+
+She started violently.
+
+“You know my name!” Her voice was barely audible. “Yet I have never seen
+you in my life--”
+
+“See if the door locks,” interrupted Smith harshly.
+
+Dazed by the apparent sincerity in the voice of our lovely
+captive--vacant from wonder of it all--I opened the door, felt for, and
+found, a key.
+
+We left Karamaneh crouching against the wall; her great eyes were turned
+towards me fascinatedly. Smith locked the door with much care. We began
+a tip-toed progress along the dimly lighted passage.
+
+From beneath a door on the left, and near the end, a brighter light
+shone. Beyond that again was another door. A voice was speaking in the
+lighted room; yet I could have sworn that Karamaneh had come, not from
+there but from the room beyond--from the far end of the passage.
+
+But the voice!--who, having once heard it, could ever mistake that
+singular voice, alternately guttural and sibilant!
+
+Dr. Fu-Manchu was speaking!
+
+“I have asked you,” came with ever-increasing clearness (Smith had begun
+to turn the knob), “to reveal to me the name of your correspondent in
+Nan-Yang. I have suggested that he may be the Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat, but
+you have declined to confirm me. Yet I know” (Smith had the door open
+a good three inches and was peering in) “that some official, some high
+official, is a traitor. Am I to resort again to the question to learn
+his name?”
+
+Ice seemed to enter my veins at the unseen inquisitor’s intonation of
+the words “the question.” This was the Twentieth Century, yet there, in
+that damnable room...
+
+Smith threw the door open.
+
+Through a sort of haze, born mostly of horror, but not entirely, I saw
+Eltham, stripped to the waist and tied, with his arms upstretched, to a
+rafter in the ancient ceiling. A Chinaman who wore a slop-shop blue suit
+and who held an open knife in his hand, stood beside him. Eltham was
+ghastly white. The appearance of his chest puzzled me momentarily, then
+I realized that a sort of tourniquet of wire-netting was screwed so
+tightly about him that the flesh swelled out in knobs through the mesh.
+There was blood--
+
+“God in heaven!” screamed Smith frenziedly--“they have the wire-jacket
+on him! Shoot down that damned Chinaman, Petrie! Shoot! Shoot!”
+
+Lithely as a cat the man with the knife leaped around--but I raised the
+Browning, and deliberately--with a cool deliberation that came to me
+suddenly--shot him through the head. I saw his oblique eyes turn up to
+the whites; I saw the mark squarely between his brows; and with no word
+nor cry he sank to his knees and toppled forward with one yellow hand
+beneath him and one outstretched, clutching--clutching--convulsively.
+His pigtail came unfastened and began to uncoil, slowly, like a snake.
+
+I handed the pistol to Smith; I was perfectly cool, now; and I leaped
+forward, took up the bloody knife from the floor and cut Eltham’s
+lashings. He sank into my arms.
+
+“Praise God,” he murmured, weakly. “He is more merciful to me than
+perhaps I deserve. Unscrew... the jacket, Petrie... I think ... I was
+very near to.... weakening. Praise the good God, Who... gave me...
+fortitude...”
+
+I got the screw of the accursed thing loosened, but the act of removing
+the jacket was too agonizing for Eltham--man of iron though he was. I
+laid him swooning on the floor.
+
+“Where is Fu-Manchu?”
+
+Nayland Smith, from just within the door, threw out the query in a tone
+of stark amaze. I stood up--I could do nothing more for the poor victim
+at the moment--and looked about me. The room was innocent of furniture,
+save for heaps of rubbish on the floor, and a tin oil-lamp hung, on
+the wall. The dead Chinaman lay close beside Smith. There was no second
+door, the one window was barred, and from this room we had heard the
+voice, the unmistakable, unforgettable voice, of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
+
+But Dr. Fu-Manchu was not there!
+
+Neither of us could accept the fact for a moment; we stood there,
+looking from the dead man to the tortured man who only swooned, in a
+state of helpless incredulity.
+
+Then the explanation flashed upon us both, simultaneously, and with a
+cry of baffled rage Smith leaped along the passage to the second door.
+It was wide open. I stood at his elbow when he swept its emptiness with
+the ray of his pocket-lamp.
+
+There was a speaking-tube fixed between the two rooms!
+
+Smith literally ground his teeth.
+
+“Yet, Petrie,” he said, “we have learnt something. Fu-Manchu had
+evidently promised Eltham his life if he would divulge the name of
+his correspondent. He meant to keep his word; it is a sidelight on his
+character.”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“Eltham has never seen Dr. Fu-Manchu, but Eltham knows certain parts of
+China better than you know the Strand. Probably, if he saw Fu-Manchu, he
+would recognize him for who he really is, and this, it seems, the Doctor
+is anxious to avoid.”
+
+We ran back to where we had left Karamaneh.
+
+The room was empty!
+
+“Defeated, Petrie!” said Smith, bitterly. “The Yellow Devil is loosed on
+London again!”
+
+He leaned from the window and the skirl of a police whistle split the
+stillness of the night.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CRY OF A NIGHTHAWK
+
+Such were the episodes that marked the coming of Dr. Fu-Manchu to
+London, that awakened fears long dormant and reopened old wounds--nay,
+poured poison into them. I strove desperately, by close attention to
+my professional duties, to banish the very memory of Karamaneh from my
+mind; desperately, but how vainly! Peace was for me no more, joy was
+gone from the world, and only mockery remained as my portion.
+
+Poor Eltham we had placed in a nursing establishment, where his
+indescribable hurts could be properly tended: and his uncomplaining
+fortitude not infrequently made me thoroughly ashamed of myself.
+Needless to say, Smith had made such other arrangements as were
+necessary to safeguard the injured man, and these proved so successful
+that the malignant being whose plans they thwarted abandoned his designs
+upon the heroic clergyman and directed his attention elsewhere, as I
+must now proceed to relate.
+
+Dusk always brought with it a cloud of apprehensions, for darkness must
+ever be the ally of crime; and it was one night, long after the clocks
+had struck the mystic hour “when churchyards yawn,” that the hand of
+Dr. Fu-Manchu again stretched out to grasp a victim. I was dismissing a
+chance patient.
+
+“Good night, Dr. Petrie,” he said.
+
+“Good night, Mr. Forsyth,” I replied; and, having conducted my late
+visitor to the door, I closed and bolted it, switched off the light and
+went upstairs.
+
+My patient was chief officer of one of the P. and O. boats. He had cut
+his hand rather badly on the homeward run, and signs of poisoning
+having developed, had called to have the wound treated, apologizing for
+troubling me at so late an hour, but explaining that he had only just
+come from the docks. The hall clock announced the hour of one as I
+ascended the stairs. I found myself wondering what there was in Mr.
+Forsyth’s appearance which excited some vague and elusive memory. Coming
+to the top floor, I opened the door of a front bedroom and was surprised
+to find the interior in darkness.
+
+“Smith!” I called.
+
+“Come here and watch!” was the terse response. Nayland Smith was sitting
+in the dark at the open window and peering out across the common. Even
+as I saw him, a dim silhouette, I could detect that tensity in his
+attitude which told of high-strung nerves.
+
+I joined him.
+
+“What is it?” I said, curiously.
+
+“I don’t know. Watch that clump of elms.”
+
+His masterful voice had the dry tone in it betokening excitement. I
+leaned on the ledge beside him and looked out. The blaze of stars almost
+compensated for the absence of the moon and the night had a quality of
+stillness that made for awe. This was a tropical summer, and the common,
+with its dancing lights dotted irregularly about it, had an unfamiliar
+look to-night. The clump of nine elms showed as a dense and irregular
+mass, lacking detail.
+
+Such moods as that which now claimed my friend are magnetic. I had no
+thought of the night’s beauty, for it only served to remind me that
+somewhere amid London’s millions was lurking an uncanny being, whose
+life was a mystery, whose very existence was a scientific miracle.
+
+“Where’s your patient?” rapped Smith.
+
+His abrupt query diverted my thoughts into a new channel. No footstep
+disturbed the silence of the highroad; where was my patient?
+
+I craned from the window. Smith grabbed my arm.
+
+“Don’t lean out,” he said.
+
+I drew back, glancing at him surprisedly.
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, why not?”
+
+“I’ll tell you presently, Petrie. Did you see him?”
+
+“I did, and I can’t make out what he is doing. He seems to have remained
+standing at the gate for some reason.”
+
+“He has seen it!” snapped Smith. “Watch those elms.”
+
+His hand remained upon my arm, gripping it nervously. Shall I say that
+I was surprised? I can say it with truth. But I shall add that I was
+thrilled, eerily; for this subdued excitement and alert watching of
+Smith could only mean one thing:
+
+Fu-Manchu!
+
+And that was enough to set me watching as keenly as he; to set me
+listening; not only for sounds outside the house but for sounds within.
+Doubts, suspicions, dreads, heaped themselves up in my mind. Why was
+Forsyth standing there at the gate? I had never seen him before, to
+my knowledge, yet there was something oddly reminiscent about the man.
+Could it be that his visit formed part of a plot? Yet his wound had been
+genuine enough. Thus my mind worked, feverishly; such was the effect of
+an unspoken thought--Fu-Manchu.
+
+Nayland Smith’s grip tightened on my arm.
+
+“There it is again, Petrie!” he whispered.
+
+“Look, look!”
+
+His words were wholly unnecessary. I, too, had seen it; a wonderful and
+uncanny sight. Out of the darkness under the elms, low down upon the
+ground, grew a vaporous blue light. It flared up, elfinish, then
+began to ascend. Like an igneous phantom, a witch flame, it rose,
+high--higher--higher, to what I adjudged to be some twelve feet or more
+from the ground. Then, high in the air, it died away again as it had
+come!
+
+“For God’s sake, Smith, what was it?”
+
+“Don’t ask me, Petrie. I have seen it twice. We--”
+
+He paused. Rapid footsteps sounded below. Over Smith’s shoulder I saw
+Forsyth cross the road, climb the low rail, and set out across the
+common.
+
+Smith sprang impetuously to his feet.
+
+“We must stop him!” he said hoarsely; then, clapping a hand to my mouth
+as I was about to call out--“Not a sound, Petrie!”
+
+He ran out of the room and went blundering downstairs in the dark,
+crying:
+
+“Out through the garden--the side entrance!”
+
+I overtook him as he threw wide the door of my dispensing room. Through
+it he ran and opened the door at the other end. I followed him
+out, closing it behind me. The smell from some tobacco plants in a
+neighboring flower-bed was faintly perceptible; no breeze stirred; and
+in the great silence I could hear Smith, in front of me, tugging at the
+bolt of the gate.
+
+Then he had it open, and I stepped out, close on his heels, and left the
+door ajar.
+
+“We must not appear to have come from your house,” explained Smith
+rapidly. “I will go along the highroad and cross to the common a hundred
+yards up, where there is a pathway, as though homeward bound to the
+north side. Give me half a minute’s start, then you proceed in an
+opposite direction and cross from the corner of the next road. Directly
+you are out of the light of the street lamps, get over the rails and run
+for the elms!”
+
+He thrust a pistol into my hand and was off.
+
+While he had been with me, speaking in that incisive, impetuous way of
+his, with his dark face close to mine, and his eyes gleaming like steel,
+I had been at one with him in his feverish mood, but now, when I stood
+alone, in that staid and respectable byway, holding a loaded pistol in
+my hand, the whole thing became utterly unreal.
+
+It was in an odd frame of mind that I walked to the next corner, as
+directed; for I was thinking, not of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the great and evil
+man who dreamed of Europe and America under Chinese rule, not of Nayland
+Smith, who alone stood between the Chinaman and the realization of his
+monstrous schemes, not even of Karamaneh the slave girl, whose glorious
+beauty was a weapon of might in Fu-Manchu’s hand, but of what impression
+I must have made upon a patient had I encountered one then.
+
+Such were my ideas up to the moment that I crossed to the common and
+vaulted into the field on my right. As I began to run toward the elms I
+found myself wondering what it was all about, and for what we were
+come. Fifty yards west of the trees it occurred to me that if Smith had
+counted on cutting Forsyth off we were too late, for it appeared to me
+that he must already be in the coppice.
+
+I was right. Twenty paces more I ran, and ahead of me, from the elms,
+came a sound. Clearly it came through the still air--the eerie hoot of a
+nighthawk. I could not recall ever to have heard the cry of that bird on
+the common before, but oddly enough I attached little significance to it
+until, in the ensuing instant, a most dreadful scream--a scream in which
+fear, and loathing, and anger were hideously blended--thrilled me with
+horror.
+
+After that I have no recollection of anything until I found myself
+standing by the southernmost elm.
+
+“Smith!” I cried breathlessly. “Smith! my God! where are you?”
+
+As if in answer to my cry came an indescribable sound, a mingled sobbing
+and choking. Out from the shadows staggered a ghastly figure--that of a
+man whose face appeared to be streaked. His eyes glared at me madly and
+he mowed the air with his hands like one blind and insane with fear.
+
+I started back; words died upon my tongue. The figure reeled and the man
+fell babbling and sobbing at my very feet.
+
+Inert I stood, looking down at him. He writhed a moment--and was still.
+The silence again became perfect. Then, from somewhere beyond the elms,
+Nayland Smith appeared. I did not move. Even when he stood beside me, I
+merely stared at him fatuously.
+
+“I let him walk to his death, Petrie,” I heard dimly. “God forgive
+me--God forgive me!”
+
+The words aroused me.
+
+“Smith”--my voice came as a whisper--“for one awful moment I thought--”
+
+“So did some one else,” he rapped. “Our poor sailor has met the end
+designed for me, Petrie!”
+
+At that I realized two things: I knew why Forsyth’s face had struck me
+as being familiar in some puzzling way, and I knew why Forsyth now
+lay dead upon the grass. Save that he was a fair man and wore a slight
+mustache, he was, in features and build, the double of Nayland Smith!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE NET
+
+We raised the poor victim and turned him over on his back. I dropped
+upon my knees, and with unsteady fingers began to strike a match. A
+slight breeze was arising and sighing gently through the elms, but,
+screened by my hands, the flame of the match took life. It illuminated
+wanly the sun-baked face of Nayland Smith, his eyes gleaming with
+unnatural brightness. I bent forward, and the dying light of the match
+touched that other face.
+
+“Oh, God!” whispered Smith.
+
+A faint puff of wind extinguished the match.
+
+In all my surgical experience I had never met with anything quite so
+horrible. Forsyth’s livid face was streaked with tiny streams of blood,
+which proceeded from a series of irregular wounds. One group of these
+clustered upon his left temple, another beneath his right eye, and
+others extended from the chin down to the throat. They were black,
+almost like tattoo marks, and the entire injured surface was bloated
+indescribably. His fists were clenched; he was quite rigid.
+
+Smith’s piercing eyes were set upon me eloquently as I knelt on the path
+and made my examination--an examination which that first glimpse when
+Forsyth came staggering out from the trees had rendered useless--a mere
+matter of form.
+
+“He’s quite dead, Smith,” I said huskily. “It’s--unnatural--it--”
+
+Smith began beating his fist into his left palm and taking little,
+short, nervous strides up and down beside the dead man. I could hear a
+car humming along the highroad, but I remained there on my knees staring
+dully at the disfigured bloody face which but a matter of minutes
+since had been that of a clean looking British seaman. I found myself
+contrasting his neat, squarely trimmed mustache with the bloated face
+above it, and counting the little drops of blood which trembled upon
+its edge. There were footsteps approaching. I stood up. The footsteps
+quickened; and I turned as a constable ran up.
+
+“What’s this?” he demanded gruffly, and stood with his fists clenched,
+looking from Smith to me and down at that which lay between us. Then his
+hand flew to his breast; there was a silvern gleam and--
+
+“Drop that whistle!” snapped Smith--and struck it from the man’s hand.
+“Where’s your lantern? Don’t ask questions!”
+
+The constable started back and was evidently debating upon his chances
+with the two of us, when my friend pulled a letter from his pocket and
+thrust it under the man’s nose.
+
+“Read that!” he directed harshly, “and then listen to my orders.”
+
+There was something in his voice which changed the officer’s opinion of
+the situation. He directed the light of his lantern upon the open letter
+and seemed to be stricken with wonder.
+
+“If you have any doubts,” continued Smith--“you may not be familiar with
+the Commissioner’s signature--you have only to ring up Scotland Yard
+from Dr. Petrie’s house, to which we shall now return, to disperse
+them.” He pointed to Forsyth. “Help us to carry him there. We must not
+be seen; this must be hushed up. You understand? It must not get into
+the press--”
+
+The man saluted respectfully; and the three of us addressed ourselves
+to the mournful task. By slow stages we bore the dead man to the edge
+of the common, carried him across the road and into my house, without
+exciting attention even on the part of those vagrants who nightly slept
+out in the neighborhood.
+
+We laid our burden upon the surgery table.
+
+“You will want to make an examination, Petrie,” said Smith in his
+decisive way, “and the officer here might ‘phone for the ambulance. I
+have some investigations to make also. I must have the pocket lamp.”
+
+He raced upstairs to his room, and an instant later came running down
+again. The front door banged.
+
+“The telephone is in the hall,” I said to the constable.
+
+“Thank you, sir.”
+
+He went out of the surgery as I switched on the lamp over the table and
+began to examine the marks upon Forsyth’s skin. These, as I have said,
+were in groups and nearly all in the form of elongated punctures; a
+fairly deep incision with a pear-shaped and superficial scratch beneath
+it. One of the tiny wounds had penetrated the right eye.
+
+The symptoms, or those which I had been enabled to observe as Forsyth
+had first staggered into view from among the elms, were most puzzling.
+Clearly enough, the muscles of articulation and the respiratory muscles
+had been affected; and now the livid face, dotted over with tiny wounds
+(they were also on the throat), set me mentally groping for a clue to
+the manner of his death.
+
+No clue presented itself; and my detailed examination of the body
+availed me nothing. The gray herald of dawn was come when the police
+arrived with the ambulance and took Forsyth away.
+
+I was just taking my cap from the rack when Nayland Smith returned.
+
+“Smith!” I cried--“have you found anything?”
+
+He stood there in the gray light of the hallway, tugging at the lobe of
+his left ear, an old trick of his.
+
+The bronzed face looked very gaunt, I thought, and his eyes were bright
+with that febrile glitter which once I had disliked, but which I had
+learned from experience were due to tremendous nervous excitement.
+At such times he could act with icy coolness and his mental faculties
+seemed temporarily to acquire an abnormal keenness. He made no direct
+reply; but--
+
+“Have you any milk?” he jerked abruptly.
+
+So wholly unexpected was the question, that for a moment I failed to
+grasp it. Then--
+
+“Milk!” I began.
+
+“Exactly, Petrie! If you can find me some milk, I shall be obliged.”
+
+I turned to descend to the kitchen, when--
+
+“The remains of the turbot from dinner, Petrie, would also be welcome,
+and I think I should like a trowel.”
+
+I stopped at the stairhead and faced him.
+
+“I cannot suppose that you are joking, Smith,” I said, “but--”
+
+He laughed dryly.
+
+“Forgive me, old man,” he replied. “I was so preoccupied with my own
+train of thought that it never occurred to me how absurd my request must
+have sounded. I will explain my singular tastes later; at the moment,
+hustle is the watchword.”
+
+Evidently he was in earnest, and I ran downstairs accordingly, returning
+with a garden trowel, a plate of cold fish and a glass of milk.
+
+“Thanks, Petrie,” said Smith--“If you would put the milk in a jug--”
+
+I was past wondering, so I simply went and fetched a jug, into which he
+poured the milk. Then, with the trowel in his pocket, the plate of cold
+turbot in one hand and the milk jug in the other, he made for the door.
+He had it open when another idea evidently occurred to him.
+
+“I’ll trouble you for the pistol, Petrie.”
+
+I handed him the pistol without a word.
+
+“Don’t assume that I want to mystify you,” he added, “but the presence
+of any one else might jeopardize my plan. I don’t expect to be long.”
+
+The cold light of dawn flooded the hallway momentarily; then the door
+closed again and I went upstairs to my study, watching Nayland Smith as
+he strode across the common in the early morning mist. He was making for
+the Nine Elms, but I lost sight of him before he reached them.
+
+I sat there for some time, watching for the first glow of sunrise. A
+policeman tramped past the house, and, a while later, a belated reveler
+in evening clothes. That sense of unreality assailed me again. Out there
+in the gray mists a man who was vested with powers which rendered him a
+law unto himself, who had the British Government behind him in all that
+he might choose to do, who had been summoned from Rangoon to London on
+singular and dangerous business, was employing himself with a plate of
+cold turbot, a jug of milk, and a trowel!
+
+Away to the right, and just barely visible, a tramcar stopped by the
+common; then proceeded on its way, coming in a westerly direction. Its
+lights twinkled yellowly through the grayness, but I was less concerned
+with the approaching car than with the solitary traveler who had
+descended from it.
+
+As the car went rocking by below me, I strained my eyes in an endeavor
+more clearly to discern the figure, which, leaving the highroad, had
+struck out across the common. It was that of a woman, who seemingly
+carried a bulky bag or parcel.
+
+One must be a gross materialist to doubt that there are latent powers in
+man which man, in modern times, neglects, or knows not how to develop. I
+became suddenly conscious of a burning curiosity respecting this lonely
+traveler who traveled at an hour so strange. With no definite plan in
+mind, I went downstairs, took a cap from the rack, and walked briskly
+out of the house and across the common in a direction which I thought
+would enable me to head off the woman.
+
+I had slightly miscalculated the distance, as Fate would have it, and
+with a patch of gorse effectually screening my approach, I came upon
+her, kneeling on the damp grass and unfastening the bundle which had
+attracted my attention. I stopped and watched her.
+
+She was dressed in bedraggled fashion in rusty black, wore a common
+black straw hat and a thick veil; but it seemed to me that the dexterous
+hands at work untying the bundle were slim and white; and I perceived a
+pair of hideous cotton gloves lying on the turf beside her. As she threw
+open the wrappings and lifted out something that looked like a
+small shrimping net, I stepped around the bush, crossed silently the
+intervening patch of grass, and stood beside her.
+
+A faint breath of perfume reached me--of a perfume which, like the
+secret incense of Ancient Egypt, seemed to assail my soul. The glamour
+of the Orient was in that subtle essence; and I only knew one woman who
+used it. I bent over the kneeling figure.
+
+“Good morning,” I said; “can I assist you in any way?”
+
+She came to her feet like a startled deer, and flung away from me with
+the lithe movement of some Eastern dancing girl.
+
+Now came the sun, and its heralding rays struck sparks from the
+jewels upon the white fingers of this woman who wore the garments of
+a mendicant. My heart gave a great leap. It was with difficulty that I
+controlled my voice.
+
+“There is no cause for alarm,” I added.
+
+She stood watching me; even through the coarse veil I could see how her
+eyes glittered. I stooped and picked up the net.
+
+“Oh!” The whispered word was scarcely audible, but it was enough; I
+doubted no longer.
+
+“This is a net for bird snaring,” I said. “What strange bird are you
+seeking--Karamaneh?”
+
+With a passionate gesture Karamaneh snatched off the veil, and with
+it the ugly black hat. The cloud of wonderful, intractable hair came
+rumpling about her face, and her glorious eyes blazed out upon me. How
+beautiful they were, with the dark beauty of an Egyptian night; how
+often had they looked into mine in dreams!
+
+To labor against a ceaseless yearning for a woman whom one knows, upon
+evidence that none but a fool might reject, to be worthless--evil; is
+there any torture to which the soul of man is subject, more pitiless?
+Yet this was my lot, for what past sins assigned to me I was unable to
+conjecture; and this was the woman, this lovely slave of a monster, this
+creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
+
+“I suppose you will declare that you do not know me!” I said harshly.
+
+Her lips trembled, but she made no reply.
+
+“It is very convenient to forget, sometimes,” I ran on bitterly, then
+checked myself; for I knew that my words were prompted by a feckless
+desire to hear her defense, by a fool’s hope that it might be an
+acceptable one.
+
+I looked again at the net contrivance in my hand; it had a strong spring
+fitted to it and a line attached. Quite obviously it was intended for
+snaring.
+
+“What were you about to do?” I demanded sharply--but in my heart,
+poor fool that I was, I found admiration for the exquisite arch of
+Karamaneh’s lips, and reproach because they were so tremulous.
+
+She spoke then.
+
+“Dr. Petrie--”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“You seem to be--angry with me, not so much because of what I do, as
+because I do not remember you. Yet--”
+
+“Kindly do not revert to the matter,” I interrupted. “You have chosen,
+very conveniently, to forget that once we were friends. Please yourself.
+But answer my question.”
+
+She clasped her hands with a sort of wild abandon.
+
+“Why do you treat me so!” she cried; she had the most fascinating accent
+imaginable. “Throw me into prison, kill me if you like, for what I have
+done!” She stamped her foot. “For what I have done! But do not torture
+me, try to drive me mad with your reproaches--that I forget you! I tell
+you--again I tell you--that until you came one night, last week, to
+rescue some one from--” There was the old trick of hesitating before the
+name of Fu-Manchu--“from him, I had never, never seen you!”
+
+The dark eyes looked into mine, afire with a positive hunger for
+belief--or so I was sorely tempted to suppose. But the facts were
+against her.
+
+“Such a declaration is worthless,” I said, as coldly as I could. “You
+are a traitress; you betray those who are mad enough to trust you--”
+
+“I am no traitress!” she blazed at me; her eyes were magnificent.
+
+“This is mere nonsense. You think that it will pay you better to serve
+Fu-Manchu than to remain true to your friends. Your ‘slavery’--for I
+take it you are posing as a slave again--is evidently not very harsh.
+You serve Fu-Manchu, lure men to their destruction, and in return he
+loads you with jewels, lavishes gifts--”
+
+“Ah! so!”
+
+She sprang forward, raising flaming eyes to mine; her lips were slightly
+parted. With that wild abandon which betrayed the desert blood in her
+veins, she wrenched open the neck of her bodice and slipped a soft
+shoulder free of the garment. She twisted around, so that the white skin
+was but inches removed from me.
+
+“These are some of the gifts that he lavishes upon me!”
+
+I clenched my teeth. Insane thoughts flooded my mind. For that creamy
+skin was red with the marks of the lash!
+
+She turned, quickly rearranging her dress, and watching me the while. I
+could not trust myself to speak for a moment, then:
+
+“If I am a stranger to you, as you claim, why do you give me your
+confidence?” I asked.
+
+“I have known you long enough to trust you!” she said simply, and turned
+her head aside.
+
+“Then why do you serve this inhuman monster?”
+
+She snapped her fingers oddly, and looked up at me from under her
+lashes. “Why do you question me if you think that everything I say is a
+lie?”
+
+It was a lesson in logic--from a woman! I changed the subject.
+
+“Tell me what you came here to do,” I demanded.
+
+She pointed to the net in my hands.
+
+“To catch birds; you have said so yourself.”
+
+“What bird?”
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+And now a memory was born within my brain; it was that of the cry of
+the nighthawk which had harbingered the death of Forsyth! The net was
+a large and strong one; could it be that some horrible fowl of the
+air--some creature unknown to Western naturalists--had been released
+upon the common last night? I thought of the marks upon Forsyth’s face
+and throat; I thought of the profound knowledge of obscure and dreadful
+things possessed by the Chinaman.
+
+The wrapping, in which the net had been, lay at my feet. I stooped and
+took out from it a wicker basket. Karamaneh stood watching me and biting
+her lip, but she made no move to check me. I opened the basket. It
+contained a large phial, the contents of which possessed a pungent and
+peculiar smell.
+
+I was utterly mystified.
+
+“You will have to accompany me to my house,” I said sternly.
+
+Karamaneh upturned her great eyes to mine. They were wide with fear. She
+was on the point of speaking when I extended my hand to grasp her. At
+that, the look of fear was gone and one of rebellion held its place. Ere
+I had time to realize her purpose, she flung back from me with that wild
+grace which I had met with in no other woman, turned and ran!
+
+Fatuously, net and basket in hand, I stood looking after her. The idea
+of pursuit came to me certainly; but I doubted if I could have outrun
+her. For Karamaneh ran, not like a girl used to town or even country
+life, but with the lightness and swiftness of a gazelle; ran like the
+daughter of the desert that she was.
+
+Some two hundred yards she went, stopped, and looked back. It would seem
+that the sheer joy of physical effort had aroused the devil in her, the
+devil that must lie latent in every woman with eyes like the eyes of
+Karamaneh.
+
+In the ever brightening sunlight I could see the lithe figure swaying;
+no rags imaginable could mask its beauty. I could see the red lips
+and gleaming teeth. Then--and it was music good to hear, despite its
+taunt--she laughed defiantly, turned, and ran again!
+
+I resigned myself to defeat; I blush to add, gladly! Some evidences of
+a world awakening were perceptible about me now. Feathered choirs hailed
+the new day joyously. Carrying the mysterious contrivance which I had
+captured from the enemy, I set out in the direction of my house, my mind
+very busy with conjectures respecting the link between this bird snare
+and the cry like that of a nighthawk which we had heard at the moment of
+Forsyth’s death.
+
+The path that I had chosen led me around the border of the Mound Pond--a
+small pool having an islet in the center. Lying at the margin of the
+pond I was amazed to see the plate and jug which Nayland Smith had
+borrowed recently!
+
+Dropping my burden, I walked down to the edge of the water. I was filled
+with a sudden apprehension. Then, as I bent to pick up the now empty
+jug, came a hail:
+
+“All right, Petrie! Shall join you in a moment!”
+
+I started up, looked to right and left; but, although the voice had been
+that of Nayland Smith, no sign could I discern of his presence!
+
+“Smith!” I cried--“Smith!”
+
+“Coming!”
+
+Seriously doubting my senses, I looked in the direction from which the
+voice had seemed to proceed--and there was Nayland Smith.
+
+He stood on the islet in the center of the pond, and, as I perceived
+him, he walked down into the shallow water and waded across to me!
+
+“Good heavens!” I began--
+
+One of his rare laughs interrupted me.
+
+“You must think me mad this morning, Petrie!” he said. “But I have made
+several discoveries. Do you know what that islet in the pond really is?”
+
+“Merely an islet, I suppose--”
+
+“Nothing of the kind; it is a burial mound, Petrie! It marks the site of
+one of the Plague Pits where victims were buried during the Great
+Plague of London. You will observe that, although you have seen it every
+morning for some years, it remains for a British Commissioner resident
+in Burma to acquaint you with its history! Hullo!”--the laughter was
+gone from his eyes, and they were steely hard again--“what the blazes
+have we here!”
+
+He picked up the net. “What! a bird trap!”
+
+“Exactly!” I said.
+
+Smith turned his searching gaze upon me. “Where did you find it,
+Petrie?”
+
+“I did not exactly find it,” I replied; and I related to him the
+circumstances of my meeting with Karamaneh.
+
+He directed that cold stare upon me throughout the narrative, and when,
+with some embarrassment, I had told him of the girl’s escape--
+
+“Petrie,” he said succinctly, “you are an imbecile!”
+
+I flushed with anger, for not even from Nayland Smith, whom I esteemed
+above all other men, could I accept such words uttered as he had uttered
+them. We glared at one another.
+
+“Karamaneh,” he continued coldly, “is a beautiful toy, I grant you; but
+so is a cobra. Neither is suitable for playful purposes.”
+
+“Smith!” I cried hotly--“drop that! Adopt another tone or I cannot
+listen to you!”
+
+“You must listen,” he said, squaring his lean jaw truculently. “You are
+playing, not only with a pretty girl who is the favorite of a Chinese
+Nero, but with my life! And I object, Petrie, on purely personal
+grounds!”
+
+I felt my anger oozing from me; for this was strictly just. I had
+nothing to say, and Smith continued:
+
+“You know that she is utterly false, yet a glance or two from those dark
+eyes of hers can make a fool of you! A woman made a fool of me, once;
+but I learned my lesson; you have failed to learn yours. If you are
+determined to go to pieces on the rock that broke up Adam, do so! But
+don’t involve me in the wreck, Petrie--for that might mean a yellow
+emperor of the world, and you know it!”
+
+“Your words are unnecessarily brutal, Smith,” I said, feeling very
+crestfallen, “but there--perhaps I fully deserve them all.”
+
+“You do!” he assured me, but he relaxed immediately. “A murderous
+attempt is made upon my life, resulting in the death of a perfectly
+innocent man in no way concerned. Along you come and let an accomplice,
+perhaps a participant, escape, merely, because she has a red mouth, or
+black lashes, or whatever it is that fascinates you so hopelessly!”
+
+He opened the wicker basket, sniffing at the contents.
+
+“Ah!” he snapped, “do you recognize this odor?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Then you have some idea respecting Karamaneh’s quarry?”
+
+“Nothing of the kind!”
+
+Smith shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Come along, Petrie,” he said, linking his arm in mine.
+
+We proceeded. Many questions there were that I wanted to put to him, but
+one above all.
+
+“Smith,” I said, “what, in Heaven’s name, were you doing on the mound?
+Digging something up?”
+
+“No,” he replied, smiling dryly; “burying something!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. UNDER THE ELMS
+
+Dusk found Nayland Smith and me at the top bedroom window. We knew, now
+that poor Forsyth’s body had been properly examined, that he had died
+from poisoning. Smith, declaring that I did not deserve his confidence,
+had refused to confide in me his theory of the origin of the peculiar
+marks upon the body.
+
+“On the soft ground under the trees,” he said, “I found his tracks right
+up to the point where something happened. There were no other fresh
+tracks for several yards around. He was attacked as he stood close to
+the trunk of one of the elms. Six or seven feet away I found some other
+tracks, very much like this.”
+
+He marked a series of dots upon the blotting pad at his elbow.
+
+“Claws!” I cried. “That eerie call! like the call of a nighthawk--is it
+some unknown species of--flying thing?”
+
+“We shall see, shortly; possibly to-night,” was his reply. “Since,
+probably owing to the absence of any moon, a mistake was made,” his jaw
+hardened at the thoughts of poor Forsyth--“another attempt along the
+same lines will almost certainly follow--you know Fu-Manchu’s system?”
+
+So in the darkness, expectant, we sat watching the group of nine elms.
+To-night the moon was come, raising her Aladdin’s lamp up to the star
+world and summoning magic shadows into being. By midnight the highroad
+showed deserted, the common was a place of mystery; and save for the
+periodical passage of an electric car, in blazing modernity, this was a
+fit enough stage for an eerie drama.
+
+No notice of the tragedy had appeared in print; Nayland Smith was vested
+with powers to silence the press. No detectives, no special constables,
+were posted. My friend was of opinion that the publicity which had
+been given to the deeds of Dr. Fu-Manchu in the past, together with
+the sometimes clumsy co-operation of the police, had contributed not a
+little to the Chinaman’s success.
+
+“There is only one thing to fear,” he jerked suddenly; “he may not be
+ready for another attempt to-night.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Since he has only been in England for a short time, his menagerie of
+venomous things may be a limited one at present.”
+
+Earlier in the evening there had been a brief but violent thunderstorm,
+with a tropical downpour of rain, and now clouds were scudding across
+the blue of the sky. Through a temporary rift in the veiling the
+crescent of the moon looked down upon us. It had a greenish tint, and it
+set me thinking of the filmed, green eyes of Fu-Manchu.
+
+The cloud passed and a lake of silver spread out to the edge of the
+coppice, where it terminated at a shadow bank.
+
+“There it is, Petrie!” hissed Nayland Smith.
+
+A lambent light was born in the darkness; it rose slowly, unsteadily, to
+a great height, and died.
+
+“It’s under the trees, Smith!”
+
+But he was already making for the door. Over his shoulder:
+
+“Bring the pistol, Petrie!” he cried; “I have another. Give me at least
+twenty yards’ start or no attempt may be made. But the instant I’m under
+the trees, join me.”
+
+Out of the house we ran, and over onto the common, which latterly had
+been a pageant ground for phantom warring. The light did not appear
+again; and as Smith plunged off toward the trees, I wondered if he knew
+what uncanny thing was hidden there. I more than suspected that he had
+solved the mystery.
+
+His instructions to keep well in the rear I understood. Fu-Manchu, or
+the creature of Fu-Manchu, would attempt nothing in the presence of a
+witness. But we knew full well that the instrument of death which was
+hidden in the elm coppice could do its ghastly work and leave no clue,
+could slay and vanish. For had not Forsyth come to a dreadful end while
+Smith and I were within twenty yards of him?
+
+Not a breeze stirred, as Smith, ahead of me--for I had slowed my
+pace--came up level with the first tree. The moon sailed clear of the
+straggling cloud wisps which alone told of the recent storm; and I noted
+that an irregular patch of light lay silvern on the moist ground under
+the elms where otherwise lay shadow.
+
+He passed on, slowly. I began to run again. Black against the silvern
+patch, I saw him emerge--and look up.
+
+“Be careful, Smith!” I cried--and I was racing under the trees to join
+him.
+
+Uttering a loud cry, he leaped--away from the pool of light.
+
+“Stand back, Petrie!” he screamed--“Back! further!”
+
+He charged into me, shoulder lowered, and sent me reeling!
+
+Mixed up with his excited cry I had heard a loud splintering and
+sweeping of branches overhead; and now as we staggered into the shadows
+it seemed that one of the elms was reaching down to touch us! So, at
+least, the phenomenon presented itself to my mind in that fleeting
+moment while Smith, uttering his warning cry, was hurling me back.
+
+Then the truth became apparent.
+
+With an appalling crash, a huge bough fell from above. One piercing,
+awful shriek there was, a crackling of broken branches, and a choking
+groan...
+
+The crack of Smith’s pistol close beside me completed my confusion of
+mind.
+
+“Missed!” he yelled. “Shoot it, Petrie! On your left! For God’s sake
+don’t miss it!”
+
+I turned. A lithe black shape was streaking past me. I
+fired--once--twice. Another frightful cry made yet more hideous the
+nocturne.
+
+Nayland Smith was directing the ray of a pocket torch upon the fallen
+bough.
+
+“Have you killed it, Petrie?” he cried.
+
+“Yes, yes!”
+
+I stood beside him, looking down. From the tangle of leaves and twigs
+an evil yellow face looked up at us. The features were contorted with
+agony, but the malignant eyes, wherein light was dying, regarded us with
+inflexible hatred. The man was pinned beneath the heavy bough; his back
+was broken; and as we watched, he expired, frothing slightly at the
+mouth, and quitted his tenement of clay, leaving those glassy eyes set
+hideously upon us.
+
+“The pagan gods fight upon our side,” said Smith strangely. “Elms have a
+dangerous habit of shedding boughs in still weather--particularly after
+a storm. Pan, god of the woods, with this one has performed Justice’s
+work of retribution.”
+
+“I don’t understand. Where was this man--”
+
+“Up the tree, lying along the bough which fell, Petrie! That is why he
+left no footmarks. Last night no doubt he made his escape by swinging
+from bough to bough, ape fashion, and descending to the ground somewhere
+at the other side of the coppice.”
+
+He glanced at me.
+
+“You are wondering, perhaps,” he suggested, “what caused the mysterious
+light? I could have told you this morning, but I fear I was in a bad
+temper, Petrie. It’s very simple: a length of tape soaked in spirit or
+something of the kind, and sheltered from the view of any one watching
+from your windows, behind the trunk of the tree; then, the end ignited,
+lowered, still behind the tree, to the ground. The operator swinging it
+around, the flame ascended, of course. I found the unburned fragment of
+the tape last night, a few yards from here.”
+
+I was peering down at Fu-Manchu’s servant, the hideous yellow man who
+lay dead in a bower of elm leaves.
+
+“He has some kind of leather bag beside him,” I began--
+
+“Exactly!” rapped Smith. “In that he carried his dangerous instrument of
+death; from that he released it!”
+
+“Released what?”
+
+“What your fascinating friend came to recapture this morning.”
+
+“Don’t taunt me, Smith!” I said bitterly. “Is it some species of bird?”
+
+“You saw the marks on Forsyth’s body, and I told you of those which I
+had traced upon the ground here. They were caused by claws, Petrie!”
+
+“Claws! I thought so! But what claws?”
+
+“The claws of a poisonous thing. I recaptured the one used last night,
+killed it--against my will--and buried it on the mound. I was afraid to
+throw it in the pond, lest some juvenile fisherman should pull it out
+and sustain a scratch. I don’t know how long the claws would remain
+venomous.”
+
+“You are treating me like a child, Smith,” I said slowly. “No doubt I
+am hopelessly obtuse, but perhaps you will tell me what this Chinaman
+carried in a leather bag and released upon Forsyth. It was something
+which you recaptured, apparently with the aid of a plate of cold turbot
+and a jug of milk! It was something, also, which Karamaneh had been sent
+to recapture with the aid--”
+
+I stopped.
+
+“Go on,” said Nayland Smith, turning the ray to the left, “what did she
+have in the basket?”
+
+“Valerian,” I replied mechanically.
+
+The ray rested upon the lithe creature that I had shot down.
+
+It was a black cat!
+
+“A cat will go through fire and water for valerian,” said Smith; “but I
+got first innings this morning with fish and milk! I had recognized the
+imprints under the trees for those of a cat, and I knew, that if a cat
+had been released here it would still be hiding in the neighborhood,
+probably in the bushes. I finally located a cat, sure enough, and
+came for bait! I laid my trap, for the animal was too frightened to be
+approachable, and then shot it; I had to. That yellow fiend used the
+light as a decoy. The branch which killed him jutted out over the path
+at a spot where an opening in the foliage above allowed some moon rays
+to penetrate. Directly the victim stood beneath, the Chinaman uttered
+his bird cry; the one below looked up, and the cat, previously held
+silent and helpless in the leather sack, was dropped accurately upon his
+head!”
+
+“But”--I was growing confused.
+
+Smith stooped lower.
+
+“The cat’s claws are sheathed now,” he said; “but if you could examine
+them you would find that they are coated with a shining black substance.
+Only Fu-Manchu knows what that substance is, Petrie, but you and I know
+what it can do!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. ENTER MR. ABEL SLATTIN
+
+“I don’t blame you!” rapped Nayland Smith. “Suppose we say, then, a
+thousand pounds if you show us the present hiding-place of Fu-Manchu,
+the payment to be in no way subject to whether we profit by your
+information or not?”
+
+Abel Slattin shrugged his shoulders, racially, and returned to the
+armchair which he had just quitted. He reseated himself, placing his hat
+and cane upon my writing-table.
+
+“A little agreement in black and white?” he suggested smoothly.
+
+Smith raised himself up out of the white cane chair, and, bending
+forward over a corner of the table, scribbled busily upon a sheet of
+notepaper with my fountain-pen.
+
+The while he did so, I covertly studied our visitor. He lay back in
+the armchair, his heavy eyelids lowered deceptively. He was a thought
+overdressed--a big man, dark-haired and well groomed, who toyed with a
+monocle most unsuitable to his type. During the preceding conversation,
+I had been vaguely surprised to note Mr. Abel Slattin’s marked American
+accent.
+
+Sometimes, when Slattin moved, a big diamond which he wore upon the
+third finger of his right hand glittered magnificently. There was a sort
+of bluish tint underlying the dusky skin, noticeable even in his hands
+but proclaiming itself significantly in his puffy face and especially
+under the eyes. I diagnosed a laboring valve somewhere in the heart
+system.
+
+Nayland Smith’s pen scratched on. My glance strayed from our Semitic
+caller to his cane, lying upon the red leather before me. It was of most
+unusual workmanship, apparently Indian, being made of some kind of dark
+brown, mottled wood, bearing a marked resemblance to a snake’s skin; and
+the top of the cane was carved in conformity, to represent the head
+of what I took to be a puff-adder, fragments of stone, or beads, being
+inserted to represent the eyes, and the whole thing being finished with
+an artistic realism almost startling.
+
+When Smith had tossed the written page to Slattin, and he, having read
+it with an appearance of carelessness, had folded it neatly and placed
+it in his pocket, I said:
+
+“You have a curio here?”
+
+Our visitor, whose dark eyes revealed all the satisfaction which, by his
+manner, he sought to conceal, nodded and took up the cane in his hand.
+
+“It comes from Australia, Doctor,” he replied; “it’s aboriginal work,
+and was given to me by a client. You thought it was Indian? Everybody
+does. It’s my mascot.”
+
+“Really?”
+
+“It is indeed. Its former owner ascribed magical powers to it! In
+fact, I believe he thought that it was one of those staffs mentioned in
+biblical history--”
+
+“Aaron’s rod?” suggested Smith, glancing at the cane.
+
+“Something of the sort,” said Slattin, standing up and again preparing
+to depart.
+
+“You will ‘phone us, then?” asked my friend.
+
+“You will hear from me to-morrow,” was the reply.
+
+Smith returned to the cane armchair, and Slattin, bowing to both of us,
+made his way to the door as I rang for the girl to show him out.
+
+“Considering the importance of his proposal,” I began, as the door
+closed, “you hardly received our visitor with cordiality.”
+
+“I hate to have any relations with him,” answered my friend; “but we
+must not be squeamish respecting our instruments in dealing with Dr.
+Fu-Manchu. Slattin has a rotten reputation--even for a private inquiry
+agent. He is little better than a blackmailer--”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Because I called on our friend Weymouth at the Yard yesterday and
+looked up the man’s record.”
+
+“Whatever for?”
+
+“I knew that he was concerning himself, for some reason, in the case.
+Beyond doubt he has established some sort of communication with the
+Chinese group; I am only wondering--”
+
+“You don’t mean--”
+
+“Yes--I do, Petrie! I tell you he is unscrupulous enough to stoop even
+to that.”
+
+No doubt, Slattin knew that this gaunt, eager-eyed Burmese commissioner
+was vested with ultimate authority in his quest of the mighty Chinaman
+who represented things unutterable, whose potentialities for evil were
+boundless as his genius, who personified a secret danger, the extent
+and nature of which none of us truly understood. And, learning of these
+things, with unerring Semitic instinct he had sought an opening in this
+glittering Rialto. But there were two bidders!
+
+“You think he may have sunk so low as to become a creature of
+Fu-Manchu?” I asked, aghast.
+
+“Exactly! If it paid him well I do not doubt that he would serve that
+master as readily as any other. His record is about as black as it
+well could be. Slattin is of course an assumed name; he was known as
+Lieutenant Pepley when he belonged to the New York Police, and he was
+kicked out of the service for complicity in an unsavory Chinatown case.”
+
+“Chinatown!”
+
+“Yes, Petrie, it made me wonder, too; and we must not forget that he is
+undeniably a clever scoundrel.”
+
+“Shall you keep any appointment which he may suggest?”
+
+“Undoubtedly. But I shall not wait until tomorrow.”
+
+“What!”
+
+“I propose to pay a little informal visit to Mr. Abel Slattin,
+to-night.”
+
+“At his office?”
+
+“No; at his private residence. If, as I more than suspect, his object
+is to draw us into some trap, he will probably report his favorable
+progress to his employer to-night!”
+
+“Then we should have followed him!”
+
+Nayland Smith stood up and divested himself of the old shooting-jacket.
+
+“He has been followed, Petrie,” he replied, with one of his rare smiles.
+“Two C.I.D. men have been watching the house all night!”
+
+This was entirely characteristic of my friend’s farseeing methods.
+
+“By the way,” I said, “you saw Eltham this morning. He will soon be
+convalescent. Where, in heaven’s name, can he--”
+
+“Don’t be alarmed on his behalf, Petrie,” interrupted Smith. “His life
+is no longer in danger.”
+
+I stared, stupidly.
+
+“No longer in danger!”
+
+“He received, some time yesterday, a letter, written in Chinese, upon
+Chinese paper, and enclosed in an ordinary business envelope, having a
+typewritten address and bearing a London postmark.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“As nearly as I can render the message in English, it reads: ‘Although,
+because you are a brave man, you would not betray your correspondent in
+China, he has been discovered. He was a mandarin, and as I cannot write
+the name of a traitor, I may not name him. He was executed four days
+ago. I salute you and pray for your speedy recovery. Fu-Manchu.’”
+
+“Fu-Manchu! But it is almost certainly a trap.”
+
+“On the contrary, Petrie--Fu-Manchu would not have written in Chinese
+unless he were sincere; and, to clear all doubt, I received a cable this
+morning reporting that the Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat was assassinated in his
+own garden, in Nan-Yang, one day last week.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. DR. FU-MANCHU STRIKES
+
+Together we marched down the slope of the quiet, suburban avenue; to
+take pause before a small, detached house displaying the hatchet boards
+of the Estate Agent. Here we found unkempt laurel bushes and acacias
+run riot, from which arboreal tangle protruded the notice--“To be Let or
+Sold.”
+
+Smith, with an alert glance to right and left, pushed open the wooden
+gate and drew me in upon the gravel path. Darkness mantled all; for the
+nearest street lamp was fully twenty yards beyond.
+
+From the miniature jungle bordering the path, a soft whistle sounded.
+
+“Is that Carter?” called Smith, sharply.
+
+A shadowy figure uprose, and vaguely I made it out for that of a man in
+the unobtrusive blue serge which is the undress uniform of the Force.
+
+“Well?” rapped my companion.
+
+“Mr. Slattin returned ten minutes ago, sir,” reported the constable. “He
+came in a cab which he dismissed--”
+
+“He has not left again?”
+
+“A few minutes after his return,” the man continued, “another cab came
+up, and a lady alighted.”
+
+“A lady!”
+
+“The same, sir, that has called upon him before.”
+
+“Smith!” I whispered, plucking at his arm--“is it--”
+
+He half turned, nodding his head; and my heart began to throb foolishly.
+For now the manner of Slattin’s campaign suddenly was revealed to me. In
+our operations against the Chinese murder-group two years before, we had
+had an ally in the enemy’s camp--Karamaneh the beautiful slave, whose
+presence in those happenings of the past had colored the sometimes
+sordid drama with the opulence of old Arabia; who had seemed a fitting
+figure for the romances of Bagdad during the Caliphate--Karamaneh, whom
+I had thought sincere, whose inscrutable Eastern soul I had presumed,
+fatuously, to have laid bare and analyzed.
+
+Now, once again she was plying her old trade of go-between; professing
+to reveal the secrets of Dr. Fu-Manchu, and all the time--I could not
+doubt it--inveigling men into the net of this awful fisher.
+
+Yesterday, I had been her dupe; yesterday, I had rejoiced in my
+captivity. To-day, I was not the favored one; to-day I had not been
+selected recipient of her confidences--confidences sweet, seductive,
+deadly: but Abel Slattin, a plausible rogue, who, in justice, should
+be immured in Sing Sing, was chosen out, was enslaved by those lovely
+mysterious eyes, was taking to his soul the lies which fell from those
+perfect lips, triumphant in a conquest that must end in his undoing;
+deeming, poor fool, that for love of him this pearl of the Orient was
+about to betray her master, to resign herself a prize to the victor!
+
+Companioned by these bitter reflections, I had lost the remainder of the
+conversation between Nayland Smith and the police officer; now, casting
+off the succubus memory which threatened to obsess me, I put forth a
+giant mental effort to purge my mind of this uncleanness, and became
+again an active participant in the campaign against the Master--the
+director of all things noxious.
+
+Our plans being evidently complete, Smith seized my arm, and I found
+myself again out upon the avenue. He led me across the road and into the
+gate of a house almost opposite. From the fact that two upper windows
+were illuminated, I adduced that the servants were retiring; the other
+windows were in darkness, except for one on the ground floor to the
+extreme left of the building, through the lowered venetian blinds
+whereof streaks of light shone out.
+
+“Slattin’s study!” whispered Smith. “He does not anticipate
+surveillance, and you will note that the window is wide open!”
+
+With that my friend crossed the strip of lawn, and careless of the fact
+that his silhouette must have been visible to any one passing the gate,
+climbed carefully up the artificial rockery intervening, and crouched
+upon the window-ledge peering into the room.
+
+A moment I hesitated, fearful that if I followed, I should stumble or
+dislodge some of the larva blocks of which the rockery was composed.
+
+Then I heard that which summoned me to the attempt, whatever the cost.
+
+Through the open window came the sound of a musical voice--a voice
+possessing a haunting accent, possessing a quality which struck upon my
+heart and set it quivering as though it were a gong hung in my bosom.
+
+Karamaneh was speaking.
+
+Upon hands and knees, heedless of damage to my garments, I crawled up
+beside Smith. One of the laths was slightly displaced and over this my
+friend was peering in. Crouching close beside him, I peered in also.
+
+I saw the study of a business man, with its files, neatly arranged works
+of reference, roll-top desk, and Milner safe. Before the desk, in a
+revolving chair, sat Slattin. He sat half turned toward the window,
+leaning back and smiling; so that I could note the gold crown which
+preserved the lower left molar. In an armchair by the window, close,
+very close, and sitting with her back to me, was Karamaneh!
+
+She, who, in my dreams, I always saw, was ever seeing, in an Eastern
+dress, with gold bands about her white ankles, with jewel-laden fingers,
+with jewels in her hair, wore now a fashionable costume and a hat that
+could only have been produced in Paris. Karamaneh was the one Oriental
+woman I had ever known who could wear European clothes; and as I watched
+that exquisite profile, I thought that Delilah must have been just such
+another as this, that, excepting the Empress Poppaea, history has record
+of no woman, who, looking so innocent, was yet so utterly vile.
+
+“Yes, my dear,” Slattin was saying, and through his monocle ogling his
+beautiful visitor, “I shall be ready for you to-morrow night.”
+
+I felt Smith start at the words.
+
+“There will be a sufficient number of men?”
+
+Karamaneh put the question in a strangely listless way.
+
+“My dear little girl,” replied Slattin, rising and standing looking down
+at her, with his gold tooth twinkling in the lamplight, “there will be a
+whole division, if a whole division is necessary.”
+
+He sought to take her white gloved hand, which rested upon the chair
+arm; but she evaded the attempt with seeming artlessness, and stood up.
+Slattin fixed his bold gaze upon her.
+
+“So now, give me my orders,” he said.
+
+“I am not prepared to do so, yet,” replied the girl, composedly; “but
+now that I know you are ready, I can make my plans.”
+
+She glided past him to the door, avoiding his outstretched arm with an
+artless art which made me writhe; for once I had been the willing victim
+of all these wiles.
+
+“But--” began Slattin.
+
+“I will ring you up in less than half an hour,” said Karamaneh and
+without further ceremony, she opened the door.
+
+I still had my eyes glued to the aperture in the blind, when Smith began
+tugging at my arm.
+
+“Down! you fool!” he hissed harshly--“if she sees us, all is lost!”
+
+Realizing this, and none too soon, I turned, and rather clumsily
+followed my friend. I dislodged a piece of granite in my descent; but,
+fortunately, Slattin had gone out into the hall and could not well have
+heard it.
+
+We were crouching around an angle of the house, when a flood of light
+poured down the steps, and Karamaneh rapidly descended. I had a glimpse
+of a dark-faced man who evidently had opened the door for her, then all
+my thoughts were centered upon that graceful figure receding from me
+in the direction of the avenue. She wore a loose cloak, and I saw this
+fluttering for a moment against the white gate posts; then she was gone.
+
+Yet Smith did not move. Detaining me with his hand he crouched there
+against a quick-set hedge; until, from a spot lower down the hill,
+we heard the start of the cab which had been waiting. Twenty seconds
+elapsed, and from some other distant spot a second cab started.
+
+“That’s Weymouth!” snapped Smith. “With decent luck, we should know
+Fu-Manchu’s hiding-place before Slattin tells us!”
+
+“But--”
+
+“Oh! as it happens, he’s apparently playing the game.”--In the
+half-light, Smith stared at me significantly--“Which makes it all the
+more important,” he concluded, “that we should not rely upon his aid!”
+
+Those grim words were prophetic.
+
+My companion made no attempt to communicate with the detective (or
+detectives) who shared our vigil; we took up a position close under the
+lighted study window and waited--waited.
+
+Once, a taxi-cab labored hideously up the steep gradient of the avenue
+... It was gone. The lights at the upper windows above us became
+extinguished. A policeman tramped past the gateway, casually flashing
+his lamp in at the opening. One by one the illuminated windows in other
+houses visible to us became dull; then lived again as mirrors for the
+pallid moon. In the silence, words spoken within the study were clearly
+audible; and we heard someone--presumably the man who had opened the
+door--inquire if his services would be wanted again that night.
+
+Smith inclined his head and hung over me in a tense attitude, in order
+to catch Slattin’s reply.
+
+“Yes, Burke,” it came--“I want you to sit up until I return; I shall be
+going out shortly.”
+
+Evidently the man withdrew at that; for a complete silence followed
+which prevailed for fully half an hour. I sought cautiously to move my
+cramped limbs, unlike Smith, who seeming to have sinews of piano-wire,
+crouched beside me immovable, untiringly. Then loud upon the stillness,
+broke the strident note of the telephone bell.
+
+I started, nervously, clutching at Smith’s arm. It felt hard as iron to
+my grip.
+
+“Hullo!” I heard Slattin call--“who is speaking?... Yes, yes! This is
+Mr. A. S.... I am to come at once?... I know where--yes I ... you
+will meet me there?... Good!--I shall be with you in half an hour....
+Good-by!”
+
+Distinctly I heard the creak of the revolving office-chair as Slattin
+rose; then Smith had me by the arm, and we were flying swiftly away from
+the door to take up our former post around the angle of the building.
+This gained:
+
+“He’s going to his death!” rapped Smith beside me; “but Carter has a cab
+from the Yard waiting in the nearest rank. We shall follow to see where
+he goes--for it is possible that Weymouth may have been thrown off the
+scent; then, when we are sure of his destination, we can take a hand in
+the game! We...”
+
+The end of the sentence was lost to me--drowned in such a frightful wave
+of sound as I despair to describe. It began with a high, thin scream,
+which was choked off staccato fashion; upon it followed a loud and
+dreadful cry uttered with all the strength of Slattin’s lungs--
+
+“Oh, God!” he cried, and again--“Oh, God!”
+
+This in turn merged into a sort of hysterical sobbing.
+
+I was on my feet now, and automatically making for the door. I had a
+vague impression of Nayland Smith’s face beside me, the eyes glassy with
+a fearful apprehension. Then the door was flung open, and, in the bright
+light of the hall-way, I saw Slattin standing--swaying and seemingly
+fighting with the empty air.
+
+“What is it? For God’s sake, what has happened!” reached my ears
+dimly--and the man Burke showed behind his master. White-faced I saw him
+to be; for now Smith and I were racing up the steps.
+
+Ere we could reach him, Slattin, uttering another choking cry, pitched
+forward and lay half across the threshold.
+
+We burst into the hall, where Burke stood with both his hands raised
+dazedly to his head. I could hear the sound of running feet upon the
+gravel, and knew that Carter was coming to join us.
+
+Burke, a heavy man with a lowering, bull-dog type of face, collapsed
+onto his knees beside Slattin, and began softly to laugh in little
+rising peals.
+
+“Drop that!” snapped Smith, and grasping him by the shoulders, he sent
+him spinning along the hallway, where he sank upon the bottom step of
+the stairs, to sit with his outstretched fingers extended before his
+face, and peering at us grotesquely through the crevices.
+
+There were rustlings and subdued cries from the upper part of the
+house. Carter came in out of the darkness, carefully stepping over the
+recumbent figure; and the three of us stood there in the lighted hall
+looking down at Slattin.
+
+“Help us to move him back,” directed Smith, tensely; “far enough to
+close the door.”
+
+Between us we accomplished this, and Carter fastened the door. We were
+alone with the shadow of Fu-Manchu’s vengeance; for as I knelt beside
+the body on the floor, a look and a touch sufficed to tell me that this
+was but clay from which the spirit had fled!
+
+Smith met my glance as I raised my head, and his teeth came together
+with a loud snap; the jaw muscles stood out prominently beneath the
+dark skin; and his face was grimly set in that odd, half-despairful
+expression which I knew so well but which boded so ill for whomsoever
+occasioned it.
+
+“Dead, Petrie!--already?”
+
+“Lightning could have done the work no better. Can I turn him over?”
+
+Smith nodded.
+
+Together we stooped and rolled the heavy body on its back. A flood of
+whispers came sibilantly from the stairway. Smith spun around rapidly,
+and glared upon the group of half-dressed servants.
+
+“Return to your rooms!” he rapped, imperiously; “let no one come into
+the hall without my orders.”
+
+The masterful voice had its usual result; there was a hurried retreat
+to the upper landing. Burke, shaking like a man with an ague, sat on the
+lower step, pathetically drumming his palms upon his uplifted knees.
+
+“I warned him, I warned him!” he mumbled monotonously, “I warned him,
+oh, I warned him!”
+
+“Stand up!” shouted Smith--“stand up and come here!”
+
+The man, with his frightened eyes turning to right and left, and seeming
+to search for something in the shadows about him, advanced obediently.
+
+“Have you a flask?” demanded Smith of Carter.
+
+The detective silently administered to Burke a stiff restorative.
+
+“Now,” continued Smith, “you, Petrie, will want to examine him, I
+suppose?” He pointed to the body. “And in the meantime I have some
+questions to put to you, my man.”
+
+He clapped his hand upon Burke’s shoulder.
+
+“My God!” Burke broke out, “I was ten yards from him when it happened!”
+
+“No one is accusing you,” said Smith, less harshly; “but since you were
+the only witness, it is by your aid that we hope to clear the matter
+up.”
+
+Exerting a gigantic effort to regain control of himself, Burke nodded,
+watching my friend with a childlike eagerness. During the ensuing
+conversation, I examined Slattin for marks of violence; and of what I
+found, more anon.
+
+“In the first place,” said Smith, “you say that you warned him. When did
+you warn him and of what?”
+
+“I warned him, sir, that it would come to this--”
+
+“That what would come to this?”’
+
+“His dealings with the Chinaman!”
+
+“He had dealings with Chinamen?”
+
+“He accidentally met a Chinaman at an East End gaming-house, a man he
+had known in Frisco--a man called Singapore Charlie--”
+
+“What! Singapore Charlie!”
+
+“Yes, sir, the same man that had a dope-shop, two years ago, down
+Ratcliffe way--”
+
+“There was a fire--”
+
+“But Singapore Charlie escaped, sir.”
+
+“And he is one of the gang?”
+
+“He is one of what we used to call in New York, the Seven Group.”
+
+Smith began to tug at the lobe of his left ear, reflectively, as I saw
+out of the corner of my eye.
+
+“The Seven Group!” he mused. “That is significant. I always suspected
+that Dr. Fu-Manchu and the notorious Seven Group were one and the same.
+Go on, Burke.”
+
+“Well, sir,” the man continued, more calmly, “the lieutenant--”
+
+“The lieutenant!” began Smith; then: “Oh! of course; Slattin used to be
+a police lieutenant!”
+
+“Well, sir, he--Mr. Slattin--had a sort of hold on this Singapore
+Charlie, and two years ago, when he first met him, he thought that with
+his aid he was going to pull off the biggest thing of his life--”
+
+“Forestall me, in fact?”
+
+“Yes, sir; but you got in first, with the big raid and spoiled it.”
+
+Smith nodded grimly, glancing at the Scotland Yard man, who returned his
+nod with equal grimness.
+
+“A couple of months ago,” resumed Burke, “he met Charlie again down
+East, and the Chinaman introduced him to a girl--some sort of an
+Egyptian girl.”
+
+“Go on!” snapped Smith--“I know her.”
+
+“He saw her a good many times--and she came here once or twice. She made
+out that she and Singapore Charlie were prepared to give away the boss
+of the Yellow gang--”
+
+“For a price, of course?”
+
+“I suppose so,” said Burke; “but I don’t know. I only know that I warned
+him.”
+
+“H’m!” muttered Smith. “And now, what took place to-night?”
+
+“He had an appointment here with the girl,” began Burke
+
+“I know all that,” interrupted Smith. “I merely want to know, what took
+place after the telephone call?”
+
+“Well, he told me to wait up, and I was dozing in the next room to the
+study--the dining-room--when the ‘phone bell aroused me. I heard the
+lieutenant--Mr. Slattin, coming out, and I ran out too, but only in time
+to see him taking his hat from the rack--”
+
+“But he wears no hat!”
+
+“He never got it off the peg! Just as he reached up to take it, he gave
+a most frightful scream, and turned around like lightning as though some
+one had attacked him from behind!”
+
+“There was no one else in the hall?”
+
+“No one at all. I was standing down there outside the dining-room just
+by the stairs, but he didn’t turn in my direction, he turned and looked
+right behind him--where there was no one--nothing. His cries were
+frightful.” Burke’s voice broke, and he shuddered feverishly. “Then he
+made a rush for the front door. It seemed as though he had not seen me.
+He stood there screaming; but, before I could reach him, he fell....”
+
+Nayland Smith fixed a piercing gaze upon Burke.
+
+“Is that all you know?” he demanded slowly.
+
+“As God is my judge, sir, that’s all I know, and all I saw. There was no
+living thing near him when he met his death.”
+
+“We shall see,” muttered Smith. He turned to me--“What killed him?” he
+asked, shortly.
+
+“Apparently, a minute wound on the left wrist,” I replied, and,
+stooping, I raised the already cold hand in mine.
+
+A tiny, inflamed wound showed on the wrist; and a certain puffiness was
+becoming observable in the injured hand and arm. Smith bent down and
+drew a quick, sibilant breath.
+
+“You know what this is, Petrie?” he cried.
+
+“Certainly. It was too late to employ a ligature and useless to inject
+ammonia. Death was practically instantaneous. His heart...”
+
+There came a loud knocking and ringing.
+
+“Carter!” cried Smith, turning to the detective, “open that door to no
+one--no one. Explain who I am--”
+
+“But if it is the inspector?--”
+
+“I said, open the door to no one!” snapped Smith.
+
+“Burke, stand exactly where you are! Carter, you can speak to whoever
+knocks, through the letter-box. Petrie, don’t move for your life! It may
+be here, in the hallway!--”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE CLIMBER
+
+Our search of the house of Abel Slattin ceased only with the coming of
+the dawn, and yielded nothing but disappointment. Failure followed upon
+failure; for, in the gray light of the morning, our own quest concluded,
+Inspector Weymouth returned to report that the girl, Karamaneh, had
+thrown him off the scent.
+
+Again he stood before me, the big, burly friend of old and dreadful
+days, a little grayer above the temples, which I set down for a record
+of former horrors, but deliberate, stoical, thorough, as ever. His blue
+eyes melted in the old generous way as he saw me, and he gripped my hand
+in greeting.
+
+“Once again,” he said, “your dark-eyed friend has been too clever for
+me, Doctor. But the track as far as I could follow, leads to the old
+spot. In fact,”--he turned to Smith, who, grim-faced and haggard,
+looked thoroughly ill in that gray light--“I believe Fu-Manchu’s lair is
+somewhere near the former opium-den of Shen-Yan--‘Singapore Charlie.’”
+
+Smith nodded.
+
+“We will turn our attention in that direction,” he replied, “at a very
+early date.”
+
+Inspector Weymouth looked down at the body of Abel Slattin.
+
+“How was it done?” he asked softly.
+
+“Clumsily for Fu-Manchu,” I replied. “A snake was introduced into the
+house by some means--”
+
+“By Karamaneh!” rapped Smith.
+
+“Very possibly by Karamaneh,” I continued firmly. “The thing has escaped
+us.”
+
+“My own idea,” said Smith, “is that it was concealed about his clothing.
+When he fell by the open door it glided out of the house. We must have
+the garden searched thoroughly by daylight.”
+
+“He”--Weymouth glanced at that which lay upon the floor--“must be moved;
+but otherwise we can leave the place untouched, clear out the servants,
+and lock the house up.”
+
+“I have already given orders to that effect,” answered Smith. He spoke
+wearily and with a note of conscious defeat in his voice. “Nothing has
+been disturbed;”--he swept his arm around comprehensively--“papers and
+so forth you can examine at leisure.”
+
+Presently we quitted that house upon which the fateful Chinaman had
+set his seal, as the suburb was awakening to a new day. The clank of
+milk-cans was my final impression of the avenue to which a dreadful
+minister of death had come at the bidding of the death lord. We
+left Inspector Weymouth in charge and returned to my rooms, scarcely
+exchanging a word upon the way.
+
+Nayland Smith, ignoring my entreaties, composed himself for slumber in
+the white cane chair in my study. About noon he retired to the bathroom,
+and returning, made a pretense of breakfast; then resumed his seat in
+the cane armchair. Carter reported in the afternoon, but his report was
+merely formal. Returning from my round of professional visits at half
+past five, I found Nayland Smith in the same position; and so the day
+waned into evening, and dusk fell uneventfully.
+
+In the corner of the big room by the empty fireplace, Nayland Smith lay,
+with his long, lean frame extended in the white cane chair. A tumbler,
+from which two straws protruded, stood by his right elbow, and a perfect
+continent of tobacco smoke lay between us, wafted toward the door by the
+draught from an open window. He had littered the hearth with matches and
+tobacco ash, being the most untidy smoker I have ever met; and save
+for his frequent rapping-out of his pipe bowl and perpetual striking of
+matches, he had shown no sign of activity for the past hour. Collarless
+and wearing an old tweed jacket, he had spent the evening, as he had
+spent the day, in the cane chair, only quitting it for some ten minutes,
+or less, to toy with dinner.
+
+My several attempts at conversation had elicited nothing but growls;
+therefore, as dusk descended, having dismissed my few patients, I
+busied myself collating my notes upon the renewed activity of the Yellow
+Doctor, and was thus engaged when the ‘phone bell disturbed me. It was
+Smith who was wanted, however; and he went out eagerly, leaving me to my
+task.
+
+At the end of a lengthy conversation, he returned from the ‘phone and
+began, restlessly, to pace the room. I made a pretense of continuing my
+labors, but covertly I was watching him. He was twitching at the lobe of
+his left ear, and his face was a study in perplexity. Abruptly he burst
+out:
+
+“I shall throw the thing up, Petrie! Either I am growing too old to cope
+with such an adversary as Fu-Manchu, or else my intellect has become
+dull. I cannot seem to think clearly or consistently. For the Doctor,
+this crime, this removal of Slattin, is clumsy--unfinished. There are
+two explanations. Either he, too, is losing his old cunning or he has
+been interrupted!”
+
+“Interrupted!”
+
+“Take the facts, Petrie,”--Smith clapped his hands upon my table and
+bent down, peering into my eyes--“is it characteristic of Fu-Manchu to
+kill a man by the direct agency of a snake and to implicate one of his
+own damnable servants in this way?”
+
+“But we have found no snake!”
+
+“Karamaneh introduced one in some way. Do you doubt it?”
+
+“Certainly Karamaneh visited him on the evening of his death, but you
+must be perfectly well aware that even if she had been arrested, no jury
+could convict her.”
+
+Smith resumed his restless pacings up and down.
+
+“You are very useful to me, Petrie,” he replied; “as a counsel for
+the defense you constantly rectify my errors of prejudice. Yet I am
+convinced that our presence at Slattin’s house last night prevented
+Fu-Manchu from finishing off this little matter as he had designed to
+do.”
+
+“What has given you this idea?”
+
+“Weymouth is responsible. He has rung me up from the Yard. The constable
+on duty at the house where the murder was committed, reports that some
+one, less than an hour ago, attempted to break in.”
+
+“Break in!”
+
+“Ah! you are interested? I thought the circumstance illuminating, also!”
+
+“Did the officer see this person?”
+
+“No; he only heard him. It was some one who endeavored to enter by the
+bathroom window, which, I am told, may be reached fairly easily by an
+agile climber.”
+
+“The attempt did not succeed?”
+
+“No; the constable interrupted, but failed to make a capture or even to
+secure a glimpse of the man.”
+
+We were both silent for some moments; then:
+
+“What do you propose to do?” I asked.
+
+“We must not let Fu-Manchu’s servants know,” replied Smith, “but
+to-night I shall conceal myself in Slattin’s house and remain there
+for a week or a day--it matters not how long--until that attempt is
+repeated. Quite obviously, Petrie, we have overlooked something which
+implicates the murderer with the murder! In short, either by accident,
+by reason of our superior vigilance, or by the clumsiness of his plans,
+Fu-Manchu for once in an otherwise blameless career, has left a clue!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE CLIMBER RETURNS
+
+In utter darkness we groped our way through into the hallway of
+Slattin’s house, having entered, stealthily, from the rear; for Smith
+had selected the study as a suitable base of operations. We reached it
+without mishap, and presently I found myself seated in the very chair
+which Karamaneh had occupied; my companion took up a post just within
+the widely opened door.
+
+So we commenced our ghostly business in the house of the murdered man--a
+house from which, but a few hours since, his body had been removed. This
+was such a vigil as I had endured once before, when, with Nayland Smith
+and another, I had waited for the coming of one of Fu-Manchu’s death
+agents.
+
+Of all the sounds which, one by one, now began to detach themselves
+from the silence, there was a particular sound, homely enough at another
+time, which spoke to me more dreadfully than the rest. It was the
+ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece; and I thought how this sound
+must have been familiar to Abel Slattin, how it must have formed
+part and parcel of his life, as it were, and how it went on
+now--tick-tick-tick-tick--whilst he, for whom it had ticked, lay
+unheeding--would never heed it more.
+
+As I grew more accustomed to the gloom, I found myself staring at his
+office chair; once I found myself expecting Abel Slattin to enter the
+room and occupy it. There was a little China Buddha upon the bureau in
+one corner, with a gilded cap upon its head, and as some reflection of
+the moonlight sought out this little cap, my thoughts grotesquely turned
+upon the murdered man’s gold tooth.
+
+Vague creakings from within the house, sounds as though of stealthy
+footsteps upon the stair, set my nerves tingling; but Nayland Smith gave
+no sign, and I knew that my imagination was magnifying these ordinary
+night sounds out of all proportion to their actual significance.
+Leaves rustled faintly outside the window at my back: I construed their
+sibilant whispers into the dreaded name--Fu-Manchu-Fu-Manchu--Fu-Manchu!
+
+So wore on the night; and, when the ticking clock hollowly boomed the
+hour of one, I almost leaped out of my chair, so highly strung were my
+nerves, and so appallingly did the sudden clangor beat upon them. Smith,
+like a man of stone, showed no sign. He was capable of so subduing his
+constitutionally high-strung temperament, at times, that temporarily
+he became immune from human dreads. On such occasions he would be icily
+cool amid universal panic; but, his object accomplished, I have seen him
+in such a state of collapse, that utter nervous exhaustion is the only
+term by which I can describe it.
+
+Tick-tick-tick-tick went the clock, and, with my heart still thumping
+noisily in my breast, I began to count the tickings; one, two, three,
+four, five, and so on to a hundred, and from one hundred to many
+hundreds.
+
+Then, out from the confusion of minor noises, a new, arresting sound
+detached itself. I ceased my counting; no longer I noted the tick-tick
+of the clock, nor the vague creakings, rustlings and whispers. I saw
+Smith, shadowly, raise his hand in warning--in needless warning, for I
+was almost holding my breath in an effort of acute listening.
+
+From high up in the house this new sound came from above the topmost
+room, it seemed, up under the roof; a regular squeaking, oddly familiar,
+yet elusive. Upon it followed a very soft and muffled thud; then a
+metallic sound as of a rusty hinge in motion; then a new silence,
+pregnant with a thousand possibilities more eerie than any clamor.
+
+My mind was rapidly at work. Lighting the topmost landing of the house
+was a sort of glazed trap, evidently set in the floor of a loft-like
+place extending over the entire building. Somewhere in the red-tiled
+roof above, there presumably existed a corresponding skylight or
+lantern.
+
+So I argued; and, ere I had come to any proper decision, another sound,
+more intimate, came to interrupt me.
+
+This time I could be in no doubt; some one was lifting the trap above
+the stairhead--slowly, cautiously, and all but silently. Yet to my ears,
+attuned to trifling disturbances, the trap creaked and groaned noisily.
+
+Nayland Smith waved to me to take a stand on the other side of the
+opened door--behind it, in fact, where I should be concealed from the
+view of any one descending the stair.
+
+I stood up and crossed the floor to my new post.
+
+A dull thud told of the trap fully raised and resting upon some
+supporting joist. A faint rustling (of discarded garments, I told
+myself) spoke to my newly awakened, acute perceptions, of the visitor
+preparing to lower himself to the landing. Followed a groan of woodwork
+submitted to sudden strain--and the unmistakable pad of bare feet upon
+the linoleum of the top corridor.
+
+I knew now that one of Dr. Fu-Manchu’s uncanny servants had gained the
+roof of the house by some means, had broken through the skylight and had
+descended by means of the trap beneath on to the landing.
+
+In such a tensed-up state as I cannot describe, nor, at this hour
+mentally reconstruct, I waited for the creaking of the stairs which
+should tell of the creature’s descent.
+
+I was disappointed. Removed scarce a yard from me as he was, I could
+hear Nayland Smith’s soft, staccato breathing; but my eyes were all for
+the darkened hallway, for the smudgy outline of the stair-rail with the
+faint patterning in the background which, alone, indicated the wall.
+
+It was amid an utter silence, unheralded by even so slight a sound
+as those which I had acquired the power of detecting--that I saw the
+continuity of the smudgy line of stair-rail to be interrupted.
+
+A dark patch showed upon it, just within my line of sight, invisible to
+Smith on the other side of the doorway, and some ten or twelve stairs
+up.
+
+No sound reached me, but the dark patch vanished and reappeared three
+feet lower down.
+
+Still I knew that this phantom approach must be unknown to my
+companion--and I knew that it was impossible for me to advise him of it
+unseen by the dreaded visitor.
+
+A third time the dark patch--the hand of one who, ghostly, silent, was
+creeping down into the hallway--vanished and reappeared on a level with
+my eyes. Then a vague shape became visible; no more than a blur upon the
+dim design of the wall-paper... and Nayland Smith got his first sight of
+the stranger.
+
+The clock on the mantelpiece boomed out the half-hour.
+
+At that, such was my state (I blush to relate it) I uttered a faint cry!
+
+It ended all secrecy--that hysterical weakness of mine. It might have
+frustrated our hopes; that it did not do so was in no measure due to me.
+But in a sort of passionate whirl, the ensuing events moved swiftly.
+
+Smith hesitated not one instant. With a panther-like leap he hurled
+himself into the hall.
+
+“The lights, Petrie!” he cried--“the lights! The switch is near the
+street-door!”
+
+I clenched my fists in a swift effort to regain control of my
+treacherous nerves, and, bounding past Smith, and past the foot of the
+stair, I reached out my hand to the switch, the situation of which,
+fortunately, I knew.
+
+Around I came, in response to a shrill cry from behind me--an inhuman
+cry, less a cry than the shriek of some enraged animal....
+
+With his left foot upon the first stair, Nayland Smith stood, his lean
+body bent perilously backward, his arms rigidly thrust out, and his
+sinewy fingers gripping the throat of an almost naked man--a man whose
+brown body glistened unctuously, whose shaven head was apish low, whose
+bloodshot eyes were the eyes of a mad dog! His teeth, upper and lower,
+were bared; they glistened, they gnashed, and a froth was on his lips.
+With both his hands, he clutched a heavy stick, and once--twice, he
+brought it down upon Nayland Smith’s head!
+
+I leaped forward to my friend’s aid; but as though the blows had been
+those of a feather, he stood like some figure of archaic statuary, nor
+for an instant relaxed the death grip which he had upon his adversary’s
+throat.
+
+Thrusting my way up the stairs, I wrenched the stick from the hand of
+the dacoit--for in this glistening brown man, I recognized one of that
+deadly brotherhood who hailed Dr. Fu-Manchu their Lord and Master.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+I cannot dwell upon the end of that encounter; I cannot hope to make
+acceptable to my readers an account of how Nayland Smith, glassy-eyed,
+and with consciousness ebbing from him instant by instant, stood there,
+a realization of Leighton’s “Athlete,” his arms rigid as iron bars even
+after Fu-Manchu’s servant hung limply in that frightful grip.
+
+In his last moments of consciousness, with the blood from his wounded
+head trickling down into his eyes, he pointed to the stick which I had
+torn from the grip of the dacoit, and which I still held in my hand.
+
+“Not Aaron’s rod, Petrie!” he gasped hoarsely--“the rod of
+Moses!--Slattin’s stick!”
+
+Even in upon my anxiety for my friend, amazement intruded.
+
+“But,” I began--and turned to the rack in which Slattin’s favorite cane
+at that moment reposed--had reposed at the time of his death.
+
+Yes!--there stood Slattin’s cane; we had not moved it; we had disturbed
+nothing in that stricken house; there it stood, in company with an
+umbrella and a malacca.
+
+I glanced at the cane in my hand. Surely there could not be two such in
+the world?
+
+Smith collapsed on the floor at my feet.
+
+“Examine the one in the rack, Petrie,” he whispered, almost inaudibly,
+“but do not touch it. It may not be yet....”
+
+I propped him up against the foot of the stairs, and as the constable
+began knocking violently at the street door, crossed to the rack and
+lifted out the replica of the cane which I held in my hand.
+
+A faint cry from Smith--and as if it had been a leprous thing, I dropped
+the cane instantly.
+
+“Merciful God!” I groaned.
+
+Although, in every other particular, it corresponded with that which I
+held--which I had taken from the dacoit--which he had come to substitute
+for the cane now lying upon the floor--in one dreadful particular it
+differed.
+
+Up to the snake’s head it was an accurate copy; but the head lived!
+
+Either from pain, fear or starvation, the thing confined in the hollow
+tube of this awful duplicate was become torpid. Otherwise, no power
+on earth could have saved me from the fate of Abel Slattin; for the
+creature was an Australian death-adder.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE WHITE PEACOCK
+
+Nayland Smith wasted no time in pursuing the plan of campaign which he
+had mentioned to Inspector Weymouth. Less than forty-eight hours after
+quitting the house of the murdered Slattin, I found myself bound along
+Whitechapel Road upon strange enough business.
+
+A very fine rain was falling, which rendered it difficult to see clearly
+from the windows; but the weather apparently had little effect upon the
+commercial activities of the district. The cab was threading a hazardous
+way through the cosmopolitan throng crowding the street. On either side
+of me extended a row of stalls, seemingly established in opposition to
+the more legitimate shops upon the inner side of the pavement.
+
+Jewish hawkers, many of them in their shirt-sleeves, acclaimed the
+rarity of the bargains which they had to offer; and, allowing for the
+difference of costume, these tireless Israelites, heedless of climatic
+conditions, sweating at their mongery, might well have stood, not in a
+squalid London thoroughfare, but in an equally squalid market-street of
+the Orient.
+
+They offered linen and fine raiment; from footgear to hair-oil their
+wares ranged. They enlivened their auctioneering with conjuring tricks
+and witty stories, selling watches by the aid of legerdemain, and fancy
+vests by grace of a seasonable anecdote.
+
+Poles, Russians, Serbs, Roumanians, Jews of Hungary, and Italians
+of Whitechapel mingled in the throng. Near East and Far East rubbed
+shoulders. Pidgin English contested with Yiddish for the ownership of
+some tawdry article offered by an auctioneer whose nationality defied
+conjecture, save that always some branch of his ancestry had drawn
+nourishment from the soil of Eternal Judea.
+
+Some wearing mens’ caps, some with shawls thrown over their oily locks,
+and some, more true to primitive instincts, defying, bare-headed, the
+unkindly elements, bedraggled women--more often than not burdened with
+muffled infants--crowded the pavements and the roadway, thronged about
+the stalls like white ants about some choicer carrion.
+
+And the fine drizzling rain fell upon all alike, pattering upon the hood
+of the taxi-cab, trickling down the front windows; glistening upon the
+unctuous hair of those in the street who were hatless; dewing the bare
+arms of the auctioneers, and dripping, melancholy, from the tarpaulin
+coverings of the stalls. Heedless of the rain above and of the mud
+beneath, North, South, East, and West mingled their cries, their bids,
+their blandishments, their raillery, mingled their persons in that
+joyless throng.
+
+Sometimes a yellow face showed close to one of the streaming windows;
+sometimes a black-eyed, pallid face, but never a face wholly sane and
+healthy. This was an underworld where squalor and vice went hand in hand
+through the beautiless streets, a melting-pot of the world’s outcasts;
+this was the shadowland, which last night had swallowed up Nayland
+Smith.
+
+Ceaselessly I peered to right and left, searching amid that rain-soaked
+company for any face known to me. Whom I expected to find there, I know
+not, but I should have counted it no matter for surprise had I detected
+amid that ungracious ugliness the beautiful face of Karamaneh the
+Eastern slave-girl, the leering yellow face of a Burmese dacoit, the
+gaunt, bronzed features of Nayland Smith; a hundred times I almost
+believed that I had seen the ruddy countenance of Inspector Weymouth,
+and once (at which instant my heart seemed to stand still) I suffered
+from the singular delusion that the oblique green eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu
+peered out from the shadows between two stalls.
+
+It was mere phantasy, of course, the sick imaginings of a mind
+overwrought. I had not slept and had scarcely tasted food for more
+than thirty hours; for, following up a faint clue supplied by Burke,
+Slattin’s man, and, like his master, an ex-officer of New York Police,
+my friend, Nayland Smith, on the previous evening had set out in quest
+of some obscene den where the man called Shen-Yan--former keeper of an
+opium-shop--was now said to be in hiding.
+
+Shen-Yan we knew to be a creature of the Chinese doctor, and only a most
+urgent call had prevented me from joining Smith upon this promising,
+though hazardous expedition.
+
+At any rate, Fate willing it so, he had gone without me; and
+now--although Inspector Weymouth, assisted by a number of C. I. D. men,
+was sweeping the district about me--to the time of my departure nothing
+whatever had been heard of Smith. The ordeal of waiting finally had
+proved too great to be borne. With no definite idea of what I proposed
+to do, I had thrown myself into the search, filled with such dreadful
+apprehensions as I hope never again to experience.
+
+I did not know the exact situation of the place to which Smith was gone,
+for owing to the urgent case which I have mentioned, I had been absent
+at the time of his departure; nor could Scotland Yard enlighten me
+upon this point. Weymouth was in charge of the case--under Smith’s
+direction--and since the inspector had left the Yard, early that
+morning, he had disappeared as completely as Smith, no report having
+been received from him.
+
+As my driver turned into the black mouth of a narrow, ill-lighted
+street, and the glare and clamor of the greater thoroughfare died behind
+me, I sank into the corner of the cab burdened with such a sense of
+desolation as mercifully comes but rarely.
+
+We were heading now for that strange settlement off the West India Dock
+Road, which, bounded by Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields, and narrowly
+confined within four streets, composes an unique Chinatown, a miniature
+of that at Liverpool, and of the greater one in San Francisco. Inspired
+with an idea which promised hopefully, I raised the speaking tube.
+
+“Take me first to the River Police Station,” I directed; “along
+Ratcliffe Highway.”
+
+The man turned and nodded comprehendingly, as I could see through the
+wet pane.
+
+Presently we swerved to the right and into an even narrower street. This
+inclined in an easterly direction, and proved to communicate with a wide
+thoroughfare along which passed brilliantly lighted electric trams. I
+had lost all sense of direction, and when, swinging to the left and to
+the right again, I looked through the window and perceived that we were
+before the door of the Police Station, I was dully surprised.
+
+In quite mechanical fashion I entered the depot. Inspector Ryman, our
+associate in one of the darkest episodes of the campaign with the Yellow
+Doctor two years before, received me in his office.
+
+By a negative shake of the head, he answered my unspoken question.
+
+“The ten o’clock boat is lying off the Stone Stairs, Doctor,” he said,
+“and co-operating with some of the Scotland Yard men who are dragging
+that district--”
+
+I shuddered at the word “dragging”; Ryman had not used it literally, but
+nevertheless it had conjured up a dread possibility--a possibility in
+accordance with the methods of Dr. Fu-Manchu. All within space of an
+instant I saw the tide of Limehouse Reach, the Thames lapping about
+the green-coated timbers of a dock pier; and rising--falling--sometimes
+disclosing to the pallid light a rigid hand, sometimes a horribly
+bloated face--I saw the body of Nayland Smith at the mercy of those oily
+waters. Ryman continued:
+
+“There is a launch out, too, patrolling the riverside from here to
+Tilbury. Another lies at the breakwater”--he jerked his thumb over his
+shoulder. “Should you care to take a run down and see for yourself?”
+
+“No, thanks,” I replied, shaking my head. “You are doing all that can be
+done. Can you give me the address of the place to which Mr. Smith went
+last night?”
+
+“Certainly,” said Ryman; “I thought you knew it. You remember Shen-Yan’s
+place--by Limehouse Basin? Well, further east--east of the Causeway,
+between Gill Street and Three Colt Street--is a block of wooden
+buildings. You recall them?”
+
+“Yes,” I replied. “Is the man established there again, then?”
+
+“It appears so, but, although you have evidently not been informed of
+the fact, Weymouth raided the establishment in the early hours of this
+morning!”
+
+“Well?” I cried.
+
+“Unfortunately with no result,” continued the inspector. “The notorious
+Shen-Yan was missing, and although there is no real doubt that the place
+is used as a gaming-house, not a particle of evidence to that effect
+could be obtained. Also--there was no sign of Mr. Nayland Smith, and no
+sign of the American, Burke, who had led him to the place.”
+
+“Is it certain that they went there?”
+
+“Two C. I. D. men who were shadowing, actually saw the pair of them
+enter. A signal had been arranged, but it was never given; and at about
+half past four, the place was raided.”
+
+“Surely some arrests were made?”
+
+“But there was no evidence!” cried Ryman. “Every inch of the rat-burrow
+was searched. The Chinese gentleman who posed as the proprietor of what
+he claimed to be a respectable lodging-house offered every facility to
+the police. What could we do?”
+
+“I take it that the place is being watched?”
+
+“Certainly,” said Ryman. “Both from the river and from the shore. Oh!
+they are not there! God knows where they are, but they are not there!”
+
+I stood for a moment in silence, endeavoring to determine my course;
+then, telling Ryman that I hoped to see him later, I walked out slowly
+into the rain and mist, and nodding to the taxi-driver to proceed to our
+original destination, I re-entered the cab.
+
+As we moved off, the lights of the River Police depot were swallowed up
+in the humid murk, and again I found myself being carried through the
+darkness of those narrow streets, which, like a maze, hold secret within
+their labyrinth mysteries as great, and at least as foul, as that of
+Pasiphae.
+
+The marketing centers I had left far behind me; to my right stretched
+the broken range of riverside buildings, and beyond them flowed the
+Thames, a stream more heavily burdened with secrets than ever was Tiber
+or Tigris. On my left, occasional flickering lights broke through the
+mist, for the most part the lights of taverns; and saving these rents
+in the veil, the darkness was punctuated with nothing but the faint and
+yellow luminance of the street lamps.
+
+Ahead was a black mouth, which promised to swallow me up as it had
+swallowed up my friend.
+
+In short, what with my lowered condition and consequent frame of mind,
+and what with the traditions, for me inseparable from that gloomy
+quarter of London, I was in the grip of a shadowy menace which at any
+moment might become tangible--I perceived, in the most commonplace
+objects, the yellow hand of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
+
+When the cab stopped in a place of utter darkness, I aroused myself with
+an effort, opened the door, and stepped out into the mud of a narrow
+lane. A high brick wall frowned upon me from one side, and, dimly
+perceptible, there towered a smoke stack, beyond. On my right uprose
+the side of a wharf building, shadowly, and some distance ahead, almost
+obscured by the drizzling rain, a solitary lamp flickered. I turned up
+the collar of my raincoat, shivering, as much at the prospect as from
+physical chill.
+
+“You will wait here,” I said to the man; and, feeling in my
+breast-pocket, I added: “If you hear the note of a whistle, drive on and
+rejoin me.”
+
+He listened attentively and with a certain eagerness. I had selected
+him that night for the reason that he had driven Smith and myself
+on previous occasions and had proved himself a man of intelligence.
+Transferring a Browning pistol from my hip-pocket to that of my
+raincoat, I trudged on into the mist.
+
+The headlights of the taxi were swallowed up behind me, and just abreast
+of the street lamp I stood listening.
+
+Save for the dismal sound of rain, and the trickling of water along the
+gutters, all about me was silent. Sometimes this silence would be broken
+by the distant, muffled note of a steam siren; and always, forming
+a sort of background to the near stillness, was the remote din of
+riverside activity.
+
+I walked on to the corner just beyond the lamp. This was the street in
+which the wooden buildings were situated. I had expected to detect some
+evidences of surveillances, but if any were indeed being observed, the
+fact was effectively masked. Not a living creature was visible, peer as
+I could.
+
+Plans, I had none, and perceiving that the street was empty, and that
+no lights showed in any of the windows, I passed on, only to find that I
+had entered a cul-de-sac.
+
+A rickety gate gave access to a descending flight of stone steps, the
+bottom invisible in the denser shadows of an archway, beyond which, I
+doubted not, lay the river.
+
+Still uninspired by any definite design, I tried the gate and found that
+it was unlocked. Like some wandering soul, as it has since seemed to
+me, I descended. There was a lamp over the archway, but the glass was
+broken, and the rain apparently had extinguished the light; as I passed
+under it, I could hear the gas whistling from the burner.
+
+Continuing my way, I found myself upon a narrow wharf with the Thames
+flowing gloomily beneath me. A sort of fog hung over the river, shutting
+me in. Then came an incident.
+
+Suddenly, quite near, there arose a weird and mournful cry--a cry
+indescribable, and inexpressibly uncanny!
+
+I started back so violently that how I escaped falling into the river
+I do not know to this day. That cry, so eerie and so wholly unexpected,
+had unnerved me; and realizing the nature of my surroundings, and the
+folly of my presence alone in such a place, I began to edge back toward
+the foot of the steps, away from the thing that cried; when--a great
+white shape uprose like a phantom before me!...
+
+There are few men, I suppose, whose lives have been crowded with so many
+eerie happenings as mine, but this phantom thing which grew out of the
+darkness, which seemed about to envelope me, takes rank in my memory
+amongst the most fearsome apparitions which I have witnessed.
+
+I knew that I was frozen with a sort of supernatural terror. I stood
+there with hands clenched, staring--staring at that white shape, which
+seemed to float.
+
+As I stared, every nerve in my body thrilling, I distinguished the
+outline of the phantom. With a subdued cry, I stepped forward. A new
+sensation claimed me. In that one stride I passed from the horrible to
+the bizarre.
+
+I found myself confronted with something tangible, certainly, but
+something whose presence in that place was utterly extravagant--could
+only be reconcilable in the dreams of an opium slave.
+
+Was I awake, was I sane? Awake and sane beyond doubt, but surely
+moving, not in the purlieus of Limehouse, but in the fantastic realms of
+fairyland.
+
+Swooping, with open arms, I rounded up in an angle against the building
+and gathered in this screaming thing which had inspired in me so keen a
+terror.
+
+The great, ghostly fan was closed as I did so, and I stumbled back
+toward the stair with my struggling captive tucked under my arm; I
+mounted into one of London’s darkest slums, carrying a beautiful white
+peacock!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. DARK EYES LOOKED INTO MINE
+
+My adventure had done nothing to relieve the feeling of unreality which
+held me enthralled. Grasping the struggling bird firmly by the body, and
+having the long white tail fluttering a yard or so behind me, I returned
+to where the taxi waited.
+
+“Open the door!” I said to the man--who greeted me with such a stare of
+amazement that I laughed outright, though my mirth was but hollow.
+
+He jumped into the road and did as I directed. Making sure that both
+windows were closed, I thrust the peacock into the cab and shut the door
+upon it.
+
+“For God’s sake, sir!” began the driver--
+
+“It has probably escaped from some collector’s place on the riverside,”
+ I explained, “but one never knows. See that it does not escape again,
+and if at the end of an hour, as arranged, you do not hear from me, take
+it back with you to the River Police Station.”
+
+“Right you are, sir,” said the man, remounting his seat. “It’s the first
+time I ever saw a peacock in Limehouse!”
+
+It was the first time I had seen one, and the incident struck me as
+being more than odd; it gave me an idea, and a new, faint hope. I
+returned to the head of the steps, at the foot of which I had met with
+this singular experience, and gazed up at the dark building beneath
+which they led. Three windows were visible, but they were broken and
+neglected. One, immediately above the arch, had been pasted up with
+brown paper, and this was now peeling off in the rain, a little stream
+of which trickled down from the detached corner to drop, drearily, upon
+the stone stairs beneath.
+
+Where were the detectives? I could only assume that they had directed
+their attention elsewhere, for had the place not been utterly deserted,
+surely I had been challenged.
+
+In pursuit of my new idea, I again descended the steps. The persuasion
+(shortly to be verified) that I was close upon the secret hold of the
+Chinaman, grew stronger, unaccountably. I had descended some eight
+steps, and was at the darkest part of the archway or tunnel, when
+confirmation of my theories came to me.
+
+A noose settled accurately upon my shoulders, was snatched tightly about
+my throat, and with a feeling of insupportable agony at the base of
+my skull, and a sudden supreme knowledge that I was being
+strangled--hanged--I lost consciousness!
+
+How long I remained unconscious, I was unable to determine at the time,
+but I learned later, that it was for no more than half an hour; at any
+rate, recovery was slow.
+
+The first sensation to return to me was a sort of repetition of
+the asphyxia. The blood seemed to be forcing itself into my eyes--I
+choked--I felt that my end was come. And, raising my hands to my throat,
+I found it to be swollen and inflamed. Then the floor upon which I lay
+seemed to be rocking like the deck of a ship, and I glided back again
+into a place of darkness and forgetfulness.
+
+My second awakening was heralded by a returning sense of smell; for I
+became conscious of a faint, exquisite perfume.
+
+It brought me to my senses as nothing else could have done, and I sat
+upright with a hoarse cry. I could have distinguished that perfume amid
+a thousand others, could have marked it apart from the rest in a scent
+bazaar. For me it had one meaning, and one meaning only--Karamaneh.
+
+She was near to me, or had been near to me!
+
+And in the first moments of my awakening, I groped about in the darkness
+blindly seeking her.
+
+Then my swollen throat and throbbing head, together with my utter
+inability to move my neck even slightly, reminded me of the facts as
+they were. I knew in that bitter moment that Karamaneh was no longer my
+friend; but, for all her beauty and charm, was the most heartless, the
+most fiendish creature in the service of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I groaned aloud
+in my despair and misery.
+
+Something stirred, near to me in the room, and set my nerves creeping
+with a new apprehension. I became fully alive to the possibilities of
+the darkness.
+
+To my certain knowledge, Dr. Fu-Manchu at this time had been in England
+for fully three months, which meant that by now he must be equipped with
+all the instruments of destruction, animate and inanimate, which dread
+experience had taught me to associate with him.
+
+Now, as I crouched there in that dark apartment listening for a
+repetition of the sound, I scarcely dared to conjecture what might have
+occasioned it, but my imagination peopled the place with reptiles which
+writhed upon the floor, with tarantulas and other deadly insects which
+crept upon the walls, which might drop upon me from the ceiling at any
+moment.
+
+Then, since nothing stirred about me, I ventured to move, turning my
+shoulders, for I was unable to move my aching head; and I looked in the
+direction from which a faint, very faint, light proceeded.
+
+A regular tapping sound now began to attract my attention, and, having
+turned about, I perceived that behind me was a broken window, in places
+patched with brown paper; the corner of one sheet of paper was detached,
+and the rain trickled down upon it with a rhythmical sound.
+
+In a flash I realized that I lay in the room immediately above the
+archway; and listening intently, I perceived above the other faint
+sounds of the night, or thought that I perceived, the hissing of the gas
+from the extinguished lamp-burner.
+
+Unsteadily I rose to my feet, but found myself swaying like a drunken
+man. I reached out for support, stumbling in the direction of the wall.
+My foot came in contact with something that lay there, and I pitched
+forward and fell....
+
+I anticipated a crash which would put an end to my hopes of escape, but
+my fall was comparatively noiseless--for I fell upon the body of a man
+who lay bound up with rope close against the wall!
+
+A moment I stayed as I fell, the chest of my fellow captive rising and
+falling beneath me as he breathed. Knowing that my life depended
+upon retaining a firm hold upon myself, I succeeded in overcoming the
+dizziness and nausea which threatened to drown my senses, and, moving
+back so that I knelt upon the floor, I fumbled in my pocket for the
+electric lamp which I had placed there. My raincoat had been removed
+whilst I was unconscious, and with it my pistol, but the lamp was
+untouched.
+
+I took it out, pressed the button, and directed the ray upon the face of
+the man beside me.
+
+It was Nayland Smith!
+
+Trussed up and fastened to a ring in the wall he lay, having a cork gag
+strapped so tightly between his teeth that I wondered how he had escaped
+suffocation.
+
+But, although a grayish pallor showed through the tan of his skin, his
+eyes were feverishly bright, and there, as I knelt beside him, I thanked
+heaven, silently but fervently.
+
+Then, in furious haste, I set to work to remove the gag. It was most
+ingeniously secured by means of leather straps buckled at the back of
+his head, but I unfastened these without much difficulty, and he spat
+out the gag, uttering an exclamation of disgust.
+
+“Thank God, old man!” he said, huskily. “Thank God that you are alive! I
+saw them drag you in, and I thought...”
+
+“I have been thinking the same about you for more than twenty-four
+hours,” I said, reproachfully. “Why did you start without--”
+
+“I did not want you to come, Petrie,” he replied. “I had a sort of
+premonition. You see it was realized; and instead of being as helpless
+as I, Fate has made you the instrument of my release. Quick! You have a
+knife? Good!” The old, feverish energy was by no means extinguished
+in him. “Cut the ropes about my wrists and ankles, but don’t otherwise
+disturb them--”
+
+I set to work eagerly.
+
+“Now,” Smith continued, “put that filthy gag in place again--but you
+need not strap it so tightly! Directly they find that you are alive,
+they will treat you the same--you understand? She has been here three
+times--”
+
+“Karamaneh?”...
+
+“Ssh!”
+
+I heard a sound like the opening of a distant door.
+
+“Quick! the straps of the gag!” whispered Smith, “and pretend to recover
+consciousness just as they enter--”
+
+Clumsily I followed his directions, for my fingers were none too steady,
+replaced the lamp in my pocket, and threw myself upon the floor.
+
+Through half-shut eyes, I saw the door open and obtained a glimpse of
+a desolate, empty passage beyond. On the threshold stood Karamaneh. She
+held in her hand a common tin oil lamp which smoked and flickered with
+every movement, filling the already none too cleanly air with an odor of
+burning paraffin. She personified the outre; nothing so incongruous as
+her presence in that place could well be imagined. She was dressed as I
+remembered once to have seen her two years before, in the gauzy silks of
+the harem. There were pearls glittering like great tears amid the cloud
+of her wonderful hair. She wore broad gold bangles upon her bare arms,
+and her fingers were laden with jewelry. A heavy girdle swung from her
+hips, defining the lines of her slim shape, and about one white ankle
+was a gold band.
+
+As she appeared in the doorway I almost entirely closed my eyes, but my
+gaze rested fascinatedly upon the little red slippers which she wore.
+
+Again I detected the exquisite, elusive perfume, which, like a breath
+of musk, spoke of the Orient; and, as always, it played havoc with my
+reason, seeming to intoxicate me as though it were the very essence of
+her loveliness.
+
+But I had a part to play, and throwing out one clenched hand so that my
+fist struck upon the floor, I uttered a loud groan, and made as if to
+rise upon my knees.
+
+One quick glimpse I had of her wonderful eyes, widely opened and turned
+upon me with such an enigmatical expression as set my heart leaping
+wildly--then, stepping back, Karamaneh placed the lamp upon the boards
+of the passage and clapped her hands.
+
+As I sank upon the floor in assumed exhaustion, a Chinaman with
+a perfectly impassive face, and a Burman, whose pock-marked, evil
+countenance was set in an apparently habitual leer, came running into
+the room past the girl.
+
+With a hand which trembled violently, she held the lamp whilst the two
+yellow ruffians tied me. I groaned and struggled feebly, fixing my gaze
+upon the lamp-bearer in a silent reproach which was by no means without
+its effect.
+
+She lowered her eyes, and I could see her biting her lip, whilst the
+color gradually faded from her cheeks. Then, glancing up again quickly,
+and still meeting that reproachful stare, she turned her head aside
+altogether, and rested one hand upon the wall, swaying slightly as she
+did so.
+
+It was a singular ordeal for more than one of that incongruous group;
+but in order that I may not be charged with hypocrisy or with seeking
+to hide my own folly, I confess, here, that when again I found myself
+in darkness, my heart was leaping not because of the success of my
+strategy, but because of the success of that reproachful glance which
+I had directed toward the lovely, dark-eyed Karamaneh, toward the
+faithless, evil Karamaneh! So much for myself.
+
+The door had not been closed ten seconds, ere Smith again was spitting
+out the gag, swearing under his breath, and stretching his cramped limbs
+free from their binding. Within a minute from the time of my trussing,
+I was a free man again; save that look where I would--to right, to left,
+or inward, to my own conscience--two dark eyes met mine, enigmatically.
+
+“What now?” I whispered.
+
+“Let me think,” replied Smith. “A false move would destroy us.”
+
+“How long have you been here?”
+
+“Since last night.”
+
+“Is Fu-Manchu--”
+
+“Fu-Manchu is here!” replied Smith, grimly--“and not only Fu-Manchu,
+but--another.”
+
+“Another!”
+
+“A higher than Fu-Manchu, apparently. I have an idea of the identity of
+this person, but no more than an idea. Something unusual is going on,
+Petrie; otherwise I should have been a dead man twenty-four hours
+ago. Something even more important than my death engages Fu-Manchu’s
+attention--and this can only be the presence of the mysterious visitor.
+Your seductive friend, Karamaneh, is arrayed in her very becoming
+national costume in his honor, I presume.” He stopped abruptly; then
+added: “I would give five hundred pounds for a glimpse of that visitor’s
+face!”
+
+“Is Burke--”
+
+“God knows what has become of Burke, Petrie! We were both caught napping
+in the establishment of the amiable Shen-Yan, where, amid a very mixed
+company of poker players, we were losing our money like gentlemen.”
+
+“But Weymouth--”
+
+“Burke and I had both been neatly sand-bagged, my dear Petrie, and
+removed elsewhere, some hours before Weymouth raided the gaming-house.
+Oh! I don’t know how they smuggled us away with the police watching the
+place; but my presence here is sufficient evidence of the fact. Are you
+armed?”
+
+“No; my pistol was in my raincoat, which is missing.”
+
+In the dim light from the broken window, I could see Smith tugging
+reflectively at the lobe of his left ear.
+
+“I am without arms, too,” he mused. “We might escape from the window--”
+
+“It’s a long drop!”
+
+“Ah! I imagined so. If only I had a pistol, or a revolver--”
+
+“What should you do?”
+
+“I should present myself before the important meeting, which, I am
+assured, is being held somewhere in this building; and to-night would
+see the end of my struggle with the Fu-Manchu group--the end of the
+whole Yellow menace! For not only is Fu-Manchu here, Petrie, with all
+his gang of assassins, but he whom I believe to be the real head of the
+group--a certain mandarin--is here also!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE SACRED ORDER
+
+Smith stepped quietly across the room and tried the door. It proved to
+be unlocked, and an instant later, we were both outside in the passage.
+Coincident with our arrival there, arose a sudden outcry from some place
+at the westward end. A high-pitched, grating voice, in which guttural
+notes alternated with a serpent-like hissing, was raised in anger.
+
+“Dr. Fu-Manchu!” whispered Smith, grasping my arm.
+
+Indeed, it was the unmistakable voice of the Chinaman, raised
+hysterically in one of those outbursts which in the past I had diagnosed
+as symptomatic of dangerous mania.
+
+The voice rose to a scream, the scream of some angry animal rather than
+anything human. Then, chokingly, it ceased. Another short sharp cry
+followed--but not in the voice of Fu-Manchu--a dull groan, and the sound
+of a fall.
+
+With Smith still grasping my wrist, I shrank back into the doorway, as
+something that looked in the darkness like a great ball of fluff came
+rapidly along the passage toward me. Just at my feet the thing stopped
+and I made it out for a small animal. The tiny, gleaming eyes looked up
+at me, and, chattering wickedly, the creature bounded past and was lost
+from view.
+
+It was Dr. Fu-Manchu’s marmoset.
+
+Smith dragged me back into the room which we had just left. As he partly
+reclosed the door, I heard the clapping of hands. In a condition of
+most dreadful suspense, we waited; until a new, ominous sound proclaimed
+itself. Some heavy body was being dragged into the passage. I heard the
+opening of a trap. Exclamations in guttural voices told of a heavy task
+in progress; there was a great straining and creaking--whereupon the
+trap was softly reclosed.
+
+Smith bent to my ear.
+
+“Fu-Manchu has chastised one of his servants,” he whispered. “There will
+be food for the grappling-irons to-night!”
+
+I shuddered violently, for, without Smith’s words, I knew that a bloody
+deed had been done in that house within a few yards of where we stood.
+
+In the new silence, I could hear the drip, drip, drip of the rain
+outside the window; then a steam siren hooted dismally upon the river,
+and I thought how the screw of that very vessel, even as we listened,
+might be tearing the body of Fu-Manchu’s servant!
+
+“Have you some one waiting?” whispered Smith, eagerly.
+
+“How long was I insensible?”
+
+“About half an hour.”
+
+“Then the cabman will be waiting.”
+
+“Have you a whistle with you?”
+
+I felt in my coat pocket.
+
+“Yes,” I reported.
+
+“Good! Then we will take a chance.”
+
+Again we slipped out into the passage and began a stealthy progress
+to the west. Ten paces amid absolute darkness, and we found ourselves
+abreast of a branch corridor. At the further end, through a kind of
+little window, a dim light shone.
+
+“See if you can find the trap,” whispered Smith; “light your lamp.”
+
+I directed the ray of the pocket-lamp upon the floor, and there at my
+feet was a square wooden trap. As I stooped to examine it, I glanced
+back, painfully, over my shoulder--and saw Nayland Smith tiptoeing away
+from me along the passage toward the light!
+
+Inwardly I cursed his folly, but the temptation to peep in at that
+little window proved too strong for me, as it had proved too strong for
+him.
+
+Fearful that some board would creak beneath my tread, I followed; and
+side by side we two crouched, looking into a small rectangular room. It
+was a bare and cheerless apartment with unpapered walls and carpetless
+floor. A table and a chair constituted the sole furniture.
+
+Seated in the chair, with his back toward us, was a portly Chinaman who
+wore a yellow, silken robe. His face, it was impossible to see; but he
+was beating his fist upon the table, and pouring out a torrent of words
+in a thin, piping voice. So much I perceived at a glance; then, into
+view at the distant end of the room, paced a tall, high-shouldered
+figure--a figure unforgettable, at once imposing and dreadful, stately
+and sinister.
+
+With the long, bony hands behind him, fingers twining and intertwining
+serpentinely about the handle of a little fan, and with the pointed chin
+resting on the breast of the yellow robe, so that the light from the
+lamp swinging in the center of the ceiling gleamed upon the great,
+dome-like brow, this tall man paced somberly from left to right.
+
+He cast a sidelong, venomous glance at the voluble speaker out of
+half-shut eyes; in the act they seemed to light up as with an internal
+luminance; momentarily they sparkled like emeralds; then their
+brilliance was filmed over as in the eyes of a bird when the membrane is
+lowered.
+
+My blood seemed to chill, and my heart to double its pulsations;
+beside me Smith was breathing more rapidly than usual. I knew now
+the explanation of the feeling which had claimed me when first I had
+descended the stone stairs. I knew what it was that hung like a miasma
+over that house. It was the aura, the glamour, which radiated from this
+wonderful and evil man as light radiates from radium. It was the vril,
+the force, of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
+
+I began to move away from the window. But Smith held my wrist as in a
+vise. He was listening raptly to the torrential speech of the Chinaman
+who sat in the chair; and I perceived in his eyes the light of a sudden
+comprehension.
+
+As the tall figure of the Chinese doctor came pacing into view again,
+Smith, his head below the level of the window, pushed me gently along
+the passage.
+
+Regaining the site of the trap, he whispered to me: “We owe our lives,
+Petrie, to the national childishness of the Chinese! A race of ancestor
+worshipers is capable of anything, and Dr. Fu-Manchu, the dreadful being
+who has rained terror upon Europe stands in imminent peril of disgrace
+for having lost a decoration.”
+
+“What do you mean, Smith?”
+
+“I mean that this is no time for delay, Petrie! Here, unless I am
+greatly mistaken, lies the rope by means of which you made your
+entrance. It shall be the means of your exit. Open the trap!”
+
+Handling the lamp to Smith, I stooped and carefully raised the
+trap-door. At which moment, a singular and dramatic thing happened.
+
+A softly musical voice--the voice of my dreams!--spoke.
+
+“Not that way! O God, not that way!”
+
+In my surprise and confusion I all but let the trap fall, but I retained
+sufficient presence of mind to replace it gently. Standing upright, I
+turned... and there, with her little jeweled hand resting upon Smith’s
+arm, stood Karamaneh!
+
+In all my experience of him, I had never seen Nayland Smith so utterly
+perplexed. Between anger, distrust and dismay, he wavered; and each
+passing emotion was written legibly upon the lean bronzed features.
+Rigid with surprise, he stared at the beautiful face of the girl. She,
+although her hand still rested upon Smith’s arm, had her dark eyes
+turned upon me with that same enigmatical expression. Her lips were
+slightly parted, and her breast heaved tumultuously.
+
+This ten seconds of silence in which we three stood looking at one
+another encompassed the whole gamut of human emotion. The silence was
+broken by Karamaneh.
+
+“They will be coming back that way!” she whispered, bending eagerly
+toward me. (How, in the most desperate moments, I loved to listen to
+that odd, musical accent!) “Please, if you would save your life, and
+spare mine, trust me!”--She suddenly clasped her hands together and
+looked up into my face, passionately--“Trust me--just for once--and I
+will show you the way!”
+
+Nayland Smith never removed his gaze from her for a moment, nor did he
+stir.
+
+“Oh!” she whispered, tremulously, and stamped one little red slipper
+upon the floor. “Won’t you heed me? Come, or it will be too late!”
+
+I glanced anxiously at my friend; the voice of Dr. Fu-Manchu, now raised
+in anger, was audible above the piping tones of the other Chinaman.
+And as I caught Smith’s eye, in silent query--the trap at my feet began
+slowly to lift!
+
+Karamaneh stifled a little sobbing cry; but the warning came too late.
+A hideous yellow face with oblique squinting eyes, appeared in the
+aperture.
+
+I found myself inert, useless; I could neither think nor act. Nayland
+Smith, however, as if instinctively, delivered a pitiless kick at the
+head protruding above the trap.
+
+A sickening crushing sound, with a sort of muffled snap, spoke of a
+broken jaw-bone; and with no word or cry, the Chinaman fell. As the trap
+descended with a bang, I heard the thud of his body on the stone stairs
+beneath.
+
+But we were lost. Karamaneh fled along one of the passages lightly as a
+bird, and disappeared as Dr. Fu-Manchu, his top lip drawn up above his
+teeth in the manner of an angry jackal, appeared from the other.
+
+“This way!” cried Smith, in a voice that rose almost to a shriek--“this
+way!”--and he led toward the room overhanging the steps.
+
+Off we dashed with panic swiftness, only to find that this retreat also
+was cut off. Dimly visible in the darkness was a group of yellow men,
+and despite the gloom, the curved blades of the knives which they
+carried glittered menacingly. The passage was full of dacoits!
+
+Smith and I turned, together. The trap was raised again, and the Burman,
+who had helped to tie me, was just scrambling up beside Dr. Fu-Manchu,
+who stood there watching us, a shadowy, sinister figure.
+
+“The game’s up, Petrie!” muttered Smith. “It has been a long fight, but
+Fu-Manchu wins!”
+
+“Not entirely!” I cried. I whipped the police whistle from my pocket,
+and raised it to my lips; but brief as the interval had been, the
+dacoits were upon me.
+
+A sinewy brown arm shot over my shoulder and the whistle was dashed from
+my grasp. Then came a whirl of maelstrom fighting with Smith and myself
+ever sinking lower amid a whirlpool, as it seemed, of blood-lustful
+eyes, yellow fangs, and gleaming blades.
+
+I had some vague idea that the rasping voice of Fu-Manchu broke once
+through the turmoil, and when, with my wrists tied behind me, I emerged
+from the strife to find myself lying beside Smith in the passage, I
+could only assume that the Chinaman had ordered his bloody servants to
+take us alive; for saving numerous bruises and a few superficial cuts, I
+was unwounded.
+
+The place was utterly deserted again, and we two panting captives found
+ourselves alone with Dr. Fu-Manchu. The scene was unforgettable; that
+dimly lighted passage, its extremities masked in shadow, and the tall,
+yellow-robed figure of the Satanic Chinaman towering over us where we
+lay.
+
+He had recovered his habitual calm, and as I peered at him through the
+gloom I was impressed anew with the tremendous intellectual force of the
+man. He had the brow of a genius, the features of a born ruler; and even
+in that moment I could find time to search my memory, and to discover
+that the face, saving the indescribable evil of its expression, was
+identical with that of Seti, the mighty Pharaoh who lies in the Cairo
+Museum.
+
+Down the passage came leaping and gamboling the doctor’s marmoset.
+Uttering its shrill, whistling cry, it leaped onto his shoulder,
+clutched with its tiny fingers at the scanty, neutral-colored hair
+upon his crown, and bent forward, peering grotesquely into that still,
+dreadful face.
+
+Dr. Fu-Manchu stroked the little creature; and crooned to it, as a
+mother to her infant. Only this crooning, and the labored breathing of
+Smith and myself, broke that impressive stillness.
+
+Suddenly the guttural voice began:
+
+“You come at an opportune time, Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith, and
+Dr. Petrie; at a time when the greatest man in China flatters me with
+a visit. In my absence from home, a tremendous honor has been conferred
+upon me, and, in the hour of this supreme honor, dishonor and calamity
+have befallen! For my services to China--the New China, the China of the
+future--I have been admitted by the Sublime Prince to the Sacred Order
+of the White Peacock.”
+
+Warming to his discourse, he threw wide his arms, hurling the chattering
+marmoset fully five yards along the corridor.
+
+“O god of Cathay!” he cried, sibilantly, “in what have I sinned that
+this catastrophe has been visited upon my head! Learn, my two dear
+friends, that the sacred white peacock brought to these misty shores for
+my undying glory, has been lost to me! Death is the penalty of such a
+sacrilege; death shall be my lot, since death I deserve.”
+
+Covertly Smith nudged me with his elbow. I knew what the nudge was
+designed to convey; he would remind me of his words--anent the childish
+trifles which sway the life of intellectual China.
+
+Personally, I was amazed. That Fu-Manchu’s anger, grief, sorrow and
+resignation were real, no one watching him, and hearing his voice, could
+doubt.
+
+He continued:
+
+“By one deed, and one deed alone, may I win a lighter punishment. By
+one deed, and the resignation of all my titles, all my lands, and all my
+honors, may I merit to be spared to my work--which has only begun.”
+
+I knew now that we were lost, indeed; these were confidences which our
+graves should hold inviolate! He suddenly opened fully those blazing
+green eyes and directed their baneful glare upon Nayland Smith.
+
+“The Director of the Universe,” he continued, softly, “has relented
+toward me. To-night, you die! To-night, the arch-enemy of our caste
+shall be no more. This is my offering--the price of redemption...”
+
+My mind was working again, and actively. I managed to grasp the
+stupendous truth--and the stupendous possibility.
+
+Dr. Fu-Manchu was in the act of clapping his hands, when I spoke.
+
+“Stop!” I cried.
+
+He paused, and the weird film, which sometimes became visible in his
+eyes, now obscured their greenness, and lent him the appearance of a
+blind man.
+
+“Dr. Petrie,” he said, softly, “I shall always listen to you with
+respect.”
+
+“I have an offer to make,” I continued, seeking to steady my voice.
+“Give us our freedom, and I will restore your shattered honor--I will
+restore the sacred peacock!”
+
+Dr. Fu-Manchu bent forward until his face was so close to mine that I
+could see the innumerable lines which, an intricate network, covered his
+yellow skin.
+
+“Speak!” he hissed. “You lift up my heart from a dark pit!”
+
+“I can restore your white peacock,” I said; “I and I alone, know where
+it is!”--and I strove not to shrink from the face so close to mine.
+
+Upright shot the tall figure; high above his head Fu-Manchu threw
+his arms--and a light of exaltation gleamed in the now widely opened,
+catlike eyes.
+
+“O god!” he screamed, frenziedly--“O god of the Golden Age! like a
+phoenix I arise from the ashes of myself!” He turned to me. “Quick!
+Quick! make your bargain! End my suspense!”
+
+Smith stared at me like a man dazed; but, ignoring him, I went on:
+
+“You will release me, now, immediately. In another ten minutes it will
+be too late; my friend will remain. One of your--servants--can accompany
+me, and give the signal when I return with the peacock. Mr. Nayland
+Smith and yourself, or another, will join me at the corner of the street
+where the raid took place last night. We shall then give you ten minutes
+grace, after which we shall take whatever steps we choose.”
+
+“Agreed!” cried Fu-Manchu. “I ask but one thing from an Englishman; your
+word of honor?”
+
+“I give it.”
+
+“I, also,” said Smith, hoarsely.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ten minutes later, Nayland Smith and I, standing beside the cab, whose
+lights gleamed yellowly through the mist, exchanged a struggling,
+frightened bird for our lives--capitulated with the enemy of the white
+race.
+
+With characteristic audacity--and characteristic trust in the British
+sense of honor--Dr. Fu-Manchu came in person with Nayland Smith, in
+response to the wailing signal of the dacoit who had accompanied me. No
+word was spoken, save that the cabman suppressed a curse of amazement;
+and the Chinaman, his sinister servant at his elbow, bowed low--and left
+us, surely to the mocking laughter of the gods!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE COUGHING HORROR
+
+I leaped up in bed with a great start.
+
+My sleep was troubled often enough in these days, which immediately
+followed our almost miraculous escape, from the den of Fu-Manchu; and
+now as I crouched there, nerves aquiver--listening--listening--I could
+not be sure if this dank panic which possessed me had its origin in
+nightmare or in something else.
+
+Surely a scream, a choking cry for help, had reached my ears; but now,
+almost holding my breath in that sort of nervous tensity peculiar to one
+aroused thus, I listened, and the silence seemed complete. Perhaps I had
+been dreaming...
+
+“Help! Petrie! Help!...”
+
+It was Nayland Smith in the room above me!
+
+My doubts were dissolved; this was no trick of an imagination
+disordered. Some dreadful menace threatened my friend. Not delaying
+even to snatch my dressing-gown, I rushed out on to the landing, up the
+stairs, bare-footed as I was, threw open the door of Smith’s room and
+literally hurled myself in.
+
+Those cries had been the cries of one assailed, had been uttered, I
+judged, in the brief interval of a life and death struggle; had been
+choked off...
+
+A certain amount of moonlight found access to the room, without
+spreading so far as the bed in which my friend lay. But at the moment
+of my headlong entrance, and before I had switched on the light, my gaze
+automatically was directed to the pale moonbeam streaming through the
+window and down on to one corner of the sheep-skin rug beside the bed.
+
+There came a sound of faint and muffled coughing.
+
+What with my recent awakening and the panic at my heart, I could not
+claim that my vision was true; but across this moonbeam passed a sort of
+gray streak, for all the world as though some long thin shape had been
+withdrawn, snakelike, from the room, through the open window... From
+somewhere outside the house, and below, I heard the cough again,
+followed by a sharp cracking sound like the lashing of a whip.
+
+I depressed the switch, flooding the room with light, and as I leaped
+forward to the bed a word picture of what I had seen formed in my mind;
+and I found that I was thinking of a gray feather boa.
+
+“Smith!” I cried (my voice seemed to pitch itself, unwilled, in a very
+high key), “Smith, old man!”
+
+He made no reply, and a sudden, sorrowful fear clutched at my
+heart-strings. He was lying half out of bed flat upon his back, his head
+at a dreadful angle with his body. As I bent over him and seized him by
+the shoulders, I could see the whites of his eyes. His arms hung limply,
+and his fingers touched the carpet.
+
+“My God!” I whispered--“what has happened?”
+
+I heaved him back onto the pillow, and looked anxiously into his face.
+Habitually gaunt, the flesh so refined away by the consuming nervous
+energy of the man as to reveal the cheekbones in sharp prominence, he
+now looked truly ghastly. His skin was so sunbaked as to have changed
+constitutionally; nothing could ever eradicate that tan. But to-night a
+fearful grayness was mingled with the brown, his lips were purple... and
+there were marks of strangulation upon the lean throat--ever darkening
+weals made by clutching fingers.
+
+He began to breathe stentoriously and convulsively, inhalation being
+accompanied by a significant gurgling in the throat. But now my calm was
+restored in face of a situation which called for professional attention.
+
+I aided my friend’s labored respirations by the usual means, setting to
+work vigorously; so that presently he began to clutch at his inflamed
+throat which that murderous pressure had threatened to close.
+
+I could hear sounds of movement about the house, showing that not I
+alone had been awakened by those hoarse screams.
+
+“It’s all right, old man,” I said, bending over him; “brace up!”
+
+He opened his eyes--they looked bleared and bloodshot--and gave me a
+quick glance of recognition.
+
+“It’s all right, Smith!” I said--“no! don’t sit up; lie there for a
+moment.”
+
+I ran across to the dressing-table, whereon I perceived his flask to
+lie, and mixed him a weak stimulant with which I returned to the bed.
+
+As I bent over him again, my housekeeper appeared in the doorway, pale
+and wide-eyed.
+
+“There is no occasion for alarm,” I said over my shoulder; “Mr. Smith’s
+nerves are overwrought and he was awakened by some disturbing dream. You
+can return to bed, Mrs. Newsome.”
+
+Nayland Smith seemed to experience much difficulty in swallowing the
+contents of the tumbler which I held to his lips; and, from the way in
+which he fingered the swollen glands, I could see that his throat,
+which I had vigorously massaged, was occasioning him great pain. But the
+danger was past, and already that glassy look was disappearing from his
+eyes, nor did they protrude so unnaturally.
+
+“God, Petrie!” he whispered, “that was a near shave! I haven’t the
+strength of a kitten!”
+
+“The weakness will pass off,” I replied; “there will be no collapse,
+now. A little more fresh air...”
+
+I stood up, glancing at the windows, then back at Smith, who forced a
+wry smile in answer to my look.
+
+“Couldn’t be done, Petrie,” he said, huskily.
+
+His words referred to the state of the windows. Although the night was
+oppressively hot, these were only opened some four inches at top and
+bottom. Further opening was impossible because of iron brackets screwed
+firmly into the casements which prevented the windows being raised or
+lowered further.
+
+It was a precaution adopted after long experience of the servants of Dr.
+Fu-Manchu.
+
+Now, as I stood looking from the half-strangled man upon the bed to
+those screwed-up windows, the fact came home to my mind that this
+precaution had proved futile. I thought of the thing which I had likened
+to a feather boa; and I looked at the swollen weals made by clutching
+fingers upon the throat of Nayland Smith.
+
+The bed stood fully four feet from the nearest window.
+
+I suppose the question was written in my face; for, as I turned again
+to Smith, who, having struggled upright, was still fingering his injured
+throat ruefully:
+
+“God only knows, Petrie!” he said; “no human arm could have reached
+me...”
+
+For us, the night was ended so far as sleep was concerned. Arrayed in
+his dressing-gown, Smith sat in the white cane chair in my study with
+a glass of brandy-and-water beside him, and (despite my official
+prohibition) with the cracked briar which had sent up its incense in
+many strange and dark places of the East and which yet survived to
+perfume these prosy rooms in suburban London, steaming between his
+teeth. I stood with my elbow resting upon the mantelpiece looking down
+at him where he sat.
+
+“By God! Petrie,” he said, yet again, with his fingers straying gently
+over the surface of his throat, “that was a narrow shave--a damned
+narrow shave!”
+
+“Narrower than perhaps you appreciate, old man,” I replied. “You were a
+most unusual shade of blue when I found you...”
+
+“I managed,” said Smith evenly, “to tear those clutching fingers away
+for a moment and to give a cry for help. It was only for a moment,
+though. Petrie! they were fingers of steel--of steel!”
+
+“The bed,” I began...
+
+“I know that,” rapped Smith. “I shouldn’t have been sleeping in it, had
+it been within reach of the window; but, knowing that the doctor avoids
+noisy methods, I had thought myself fairly safe so long as I made it
+impossible for any one actually to enter the room...”
+
+“I have always insisted, Smith,” I cried, “that there was danger! What
+of poisoned darts? What of the damnable reptiles and insects which form
+part of the armory of Fu-Manchu?”
+
+“Familiarity breeds contempt, I suppose,” he replied. “But as it
+happened none of those agents was employed. The very menace that I
+sought to avoid reached me somehow. It would almost seem that Dr.
+Fu-Manchu deliberately accepted the challenge of those screwed-up
+windows! Hang it all, Petrie! one cannot sleep in a room hermetically
+sealed, in weather like this! It’s positively Burmese; and although I
+can stand tropical heat, curiously enough the heat of London gets me
+down almost immediately.”
+
+“The humidity; that’s easily understood. But you’ll have to put up with
+it in the future. After nightfall our windows must be closed entirely,
+Smith.”
+
+Nayland Smith knocked out his pipe upon the side of the fireplace. The
+bowl sizzled furiously, but without delay he stuffed broad-cut mixture
+into the hot pipe, dropping a liberal quantity upon the carpet during
+the process. He raised his eyes to me, and his face was very grim.
+
+“Petrie,” he said, striking a match on the heel of his slipper, “the
+resources of Dr. Fu-Manchu are by no means exhausted. Before we quit
+this room it is up to us to come to a decision upon a certain point.” He
+got his pipe well alight. “What kind of thing, what unnatural, distorted
+creature, laid hands upon my throat to-night? I owe my life, primarily,
+to you, old man, but, secondarily, to the fact that I was awakened, just
+before the attack--by the creature’s coughing--by its vile, high-pitched
+coughing...”
+
+I glanced around at the books upon my shelves. Often enough, following
+some outrage by the brilliant Chinese doctor whose genius was directed
+to the discovery of new and unique death agents, we had obtained a clue
+in those works of a scientific nature which bulk largely in the
+library of a medical man. There are creatures, there are drugs, which,
+ordinarily innocuous, may be so employed as to become inimical to human
+life; and in the distorting of nature, in the disturbing of balances and
+the diverting of beneficent forces into strange and dangerous channels,
+Dr. Fu-Manchu excelled. I had known him to enlarge, by artificial
+culture, a minute species of fungus so as to render it a powerful agent
+capable of attacking man; his knowledge of venomous insects has probably
+never been paralleled in the history of the world; whilst, in the sphere
+of pure toxicology, he had, and has, no rival; the Borgias were children
+by comparison. But, look where I would, think how I might, no adequate
+explanation of this latest outrage seemed possible along normal lines.
+
+“There’s the clue,” said Nayland Smith, pointing to a little ash-tray
+upon the table near by. “Follow it if you can.”
+
+But I could not.
+
+“As I have explained,” continued my friend, “I was awakened by a sound
+of coughing; then came a death grip on my throat, and instinctively my
+hands shot out in search of my attacker. I could not reach him; my
+hands came in contact with nothing palpable. Therefore I clutched at the
+fingers which were dug into my windpipe, and found them to be small--as
+the marks show--and hairy. I managed to give that first cry for
+help, then with all my strength I tried to unfasten the grip that was
+throttling the life out of me. At last I contrived to move one of the
+hands, and I called out again, though not so loudly. Then both the hands
+were back again; I was weakening; but I clawed like a madman at the
+thin, hairy arms of the strangling thing, and with a blood-red mist
+dancing before my eyes, I seemed to be whirling madly round and round
+until all became a blank. Evidently I used my nails pretty freely--and
+there’s the trophy.”
+
+For the twentieth time, I should think, I carried the ash-tray in my
+hand and laid it immediately under the table-lamp in order to examine
+its contents. In the little brass bowl lay a blood-stained fragment of
+grayish hair attached to a tatter of skin. This fragment of epidermis
+had an odd bluish tinge, and the attached hair was much darker at the
+roots than elsewhere. Saving its singular color, it might have been
+torn from the forearm of a very hirsute human; but although my thoughts
+wandered unfettered, north, south, east and west; although, knowing the
+resources of Fu-Manchu, I considered all the recognized Mongolian
+types, and, in quest of hirsute mankind, even roamed far north among
+the blubbering Esquimo; although I glanced at Australasia, at Central
+Africa, and passed in mental review the dark places of the Congo,
+nowhere in the known world, nowhere in the history of the human species,
+could I come upon a type of man answering to the description suggested
+by our strange clue.
+
+Nayland Smith was watching me curiously as I bent over the little brass
+ash-tray.
+
+“You are puzzled,” he rapped in his short way.
+
+“So am I--utterly puzzled. Fu-Manchu’s gallery of monstrosities clearly
+has become reinforced; for even if we identified the type, we should not
+be in sight of our explanation.”
+
+“You mean,” I began...
+
+“Fully four feet from the window, Petrie, and that window but a few
+inches open! Look”--he bent forward, resting his chest against the
+table, and stretched out his hand toward me. “You have a rule there;
+just measure.”
+
+Setting down the ash-tray, I opened out the rule and measured the
+distance from the further edge of the table to the tips of Smith’s
+fingers.
+
+“Twenty-eight inches--and I have a long reach!” snapped Smith,
+withdrawing his arm and striking a match to relight his pipe. “There’s
+one thing, Petrie, often proposed before, which now we must do without
+delay. The ivy must be stripped from the walls at the back. It’s a
+pity, but we can not afford to sacrifice our lives to our sense of the
+aesthetic. What do you make of the sound like the cracking of a whip?”
+
+“I make nothing of it, Smith,” I replied, wearily. “It might have been a
+thick branch of ivy breaking beneath the weight of a climber.”
+
+“Did it sound like it?”
+
+“I must confess that the explanation does not convince me, but I have no
+better one.”
+
+Smith, permitting his pipe to go out, sat staring straight before him,
+and tugging at the lobe of his left ear.
+
+“The old bewilderment is seizing me,” I continued. “At first, when I
+realized that Dr. Fu-Manchu was back in England, when I realized that
+an elaborate murder-machine was set up somewhere in London, it seemed
+unreal, fantastical. Then I met--Karamaneh! She, whom we thought to be
+his victim, showed herself again to be his slave. Now, with Weymouth and
+Scotland Yard at work, the old secret evil is established again in our
+midst, unaccountably--our lives are menaced--sleep is a danger--every
+shadow threatens death... oh! it is awful.”
+
+Smith remained silent; he did not seem to have heard my words. I knew
+these moods and had learnt that it was useless to seek to interrupt
+them. With his brows drawn down, and his deep-set eyes staring into
+space, he sat there gripping his cold pipe so tightly that my own jaw
+muscles ached sympathetically. No man was better equipped than this
+gaunt British Commissioner to stand between society and the menace of
+the Yellow Doctor; I respected his meditations, for, unlike my own, they
+were informed by an intimate knowledge of the dark and secret things of
+the East, of that mysterious East out of which Fu-Manchu came, of that
+jungle of noxious things whose miasma had been wafted Westward with the
+implacable Chinaman.
+
+I walked quietly from the room, occupied with my own bitter reflections.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. BEWITCHMENT
+
+“You say you have two items of news for me?” said Nayland Smith, looking
+across the breakfast table to where Inspector Weymouth sat sipping
+coffee.
+
+“There are two points--yes,” replied the Scotland Yard man, whilst Smith
+paused, egg-spoon in hand, and fixed his keen eyes upon the speaker.
+“The first is this: the headquarters of the Yellow group is no longer in
+the East End.”
+
+“How can you be sure of that?”
+
+“For two reasons. In the first place, that district must now be too hot
+to hold Dr. Fu-Manchu; in the second place, we have just completed a
+house-to-house inquiry which has scarcely overlooked a rathole or a rat.
+That place where you say Fu-Manchu was visited by some Chinese mandarin;
+where you, Mr. Smith,” and--glancing in my direction--“you, Doctor, were
+confined for a time--”
+
+“Yes?” snapped Smith, attacking his egg.
+
+“Well,” continued the inspector, “it is all deserted, now. There is not
+the slightest doubt that the Chinaman has fled to some other abode. I am
+certain of it. My second piece of news will interest you very much, I am
+sure. You were taken to the establishment of the Chinaman, Shen-Yan, by
+a certain ex-officer of New York Police--Burke...”
+
+“Good God!” cried Smith, looking up with a start; “I thought they had
+him!”
+
+“So did I,” replied Weymouth grimly; “but they haven’t! He got away in
+the confusion following the raid, and has been hiding ever since with a
+cousin, a nurseryman out Upminster way...”
+
+“Hiding?” snapped Smith.
+
+“Exactly--hiding. He has been afraid to stir ever since, and has
+scarcely shown his nose outside the door. He says he is watched night
+and day.”
+
+“Then how...”
+
+“He realized that something must be done,” continued the inspector,
+“and made a break this morning. He is so convinced of this constant
+surveillance that he came away secretly, hidden under the boxes of a
+market-wagon. He landed at Covent Garden in the early hours of this
+morning and came straight away to the Yard.”
+
+“What is he afraid of exactly?”
+
+Inspector Weymouth put down his coffee cup and bent forward slightly.
+
+“He knows something,” he said in a low voice, “and they are aware that
+he knows it!”
+
+“And what is this he knows?”
+
+Nayland Smith stared eagerly at the detective.
+
+“Every man has his price,” replied Weymouth with a smile, “and Burke
+seems to think that you are a more likely market than the police
+authorities.”
+
+“I see,” snapped Smith. “He wants to see me?”
+
+“He wants you to go and see him,” was the reply. “I think he anticipates
+that you may make a capture of the person or persons spying upon him.”
+
+“Did he give you any particulars?”
+
+“Several. He spoke of a sort of gipsy girl with whom he had a short
+conversation one day, over the fence which divides his cousin’s flower
+plantations from the lane adjoining.”
+
+“Gipsy girl!” I whispered, glancing rapidly at Smith.
+
+“I think you are right, Doctor,” said Weymouth with his slow smile; “it
+was Karamaneh. She asked him the way to somewhere or other and got him
+to write it upon a loose page of his notebook, so that she should not
+forget it.”
+
+“You hear that, Petrie?” rapped Smith.
+
+“I hear it,” I replied, “but I don’t see any special significance in the
+fact.”
+
+“I do!” rapped Smith; “I didn’t sit up the greater part of last night
+thrashing my weary brains for nothing! But I am going to the British
+Museum to-day, to confirm a certain suspicion.” He turned to Weymouth.
+“Did Burke go back?” he demanded abruptly.
+
+“He returned hidden under the empty boxes,” was the reply. “Oh! you
+never saw a man in such a funk in all your life!”
+
+“He may have good reasons,” I said.
+
+“He has good reasons!” replied Nayland Smith grimly; “if that man really
+possesses information inimical to the safety of Fu-Manchu, he can only
+escape doom by means of a miracle similar to that which has hitherto
+protected you and me.”
+
+“Burke insists,” said Weymouth at this point, “that something comes
+almost every night after dusk, slinking about the house--it’s an old
+farmhouse, I understand; and on two or three occasions he has been
+awakened (fortunately for him he is a light sleeper) by sounds of
+coughing immediately outside his window. He is a man who sleeps with a
+pistol under his pillow, and more than once, on running to the window,
+he has had a vague glimpse of some creature leaping down from the tiles
+of the roof, which slopes up to his room, into the flower beds below...”
+
+“Creature!” said Smith, his gray eyes ablaze now--“you said creature!”
+
+“I used the word deliberately,” replied Weymouth, “because Burke seems
+to have the idea that it goes on all fours.”
+
+There was a short and rather strained silence. Then:
+
+“In descending a sloping roof,” I suggested, “a human being would
+probably employ his hands as well as his feet.”
+
+“Quite so,” agreed the inspector. “I am merely reporting the impression
+of Burke.”
+
+“Has he heard no other sound?” rapped Smith; “one like the cracking of
+dry branches, for instance?”
+
+“He made no mention of it,” replied Weymouth, staring.
+
+“And what is the plan?”
+
+“One of his cousin’s vans,” said Weymouth, with his slight smile, “has
+remained behind at Covent Garden and will return late this afternoon.
+I propose that you and I, Mr. Smith, imitate Burke and ride down to
+Upminster under the empty boxes!”
+
+Nayland Smith stood up, leaving his breakfast half finished, and began
+to wander up and down the room, reflectively tugging at his ear. Then he
+began to fumble in the pockets of his dressing-gown and finally produced
+the inevitable pipe, dilapidated pouch, and box of safety matches. He
+began to load the much-charred agent of reflection.
+
+“Do I understand that Burke is actually too afraid to go out openly even
+in daylight?” he asked suddenly.
+
+“He has not hitherto left his cousin’s plantations at all,” replied
+Weymouth. “He seems to think that openly to communicate with the
+authorities, or with you, would be to seal his death warrant.”
+
+“He’s right,” snapped Smith.
+
+“Therefore he came and returned secretly,” continued the inspector; “and
+if we are to do any good, obviously we must adopt similar precautions.
+The market wagon, loaded in such a way as to leave ample space in the
+interior for us, will be drawn up outside the office of Messrs. Pike
+and Pike, in Covent Garden, until about five o’clock this afternoon. At,
+say, half past four, I propose that we meet there and embark upon the
+journey.”
+
+The speaker glanced in my direction interrogatively.
+
+“Include me in the program,” I said. “Will there be room in the wagon?”
+
+“Certainly,” was the reply; “it is most commodious, but I cannot
+guarantee its comfort.”
+
+Nayland Smith promenaded the room, unceasingly, and presently he walked
+out altogether, only to return ere the inspector and I had had time to
+exchange more than a glance of surprise, carrying a brass ash-tray. He
+placed this on a corner of the breakfast table before Weymouth.
+
+“Ever seen anything like that?” he inquired.
+
+The inspector examined the gruesome relic with obvious curiosity,
+turning it over with the tip of his little finger and manifesting
+considerable repugnance--in touching it at all. Smith and I watched
+him in silence, and, finally, placing the tray again upon the table, he
+looked up in a puzzled way.
+
+“It’s something like the skin of a water rat,” he said.
+
+Nayland Smith stared at him fixedly.
+
+“A water rat? Now that you come to mention it, I perceive a certain
+resemblance--yes. But”--he had been wearing a silk scarf about his
+throat and now he unwrapped it--“did you ever see a water rat that could
+make marks like these?”
+
+Weymouth started to his feet with some muttered exclamation.
+
+“What is this?” he cried. “When did it happen, and how?”
+
+In his own terse fashion, Nayland Smith related the happenings of the
+night. At the conclusion of the story:
+
+“By heaven!” whispered Weymouth, “the thing on the roof--the coughing
+thing that goes on all fours, seen by Burke...”
+
+“My own idea exactly!” cried Smith...
+
+“Fu-Manchu,” I said excitedly, “has brought some new, some dreadful
+creature, from Burma...”
+
+“No, Petrie,” snapped Smith, turning upon me suddenly. “Not from
+Burma--from Abyssinia.”
+
+That day was destined to be an eventful one; a day never to be forgotten
+by any of us concerned in those happenings which I have to record. Early
+in the morning Nayland Smith set off for the British Museum to
+pursue his mysterious investigations, and having performed my brief
+professional round (for, as Nayland Smith had remarked on one occasion,
+this was a beastly healthy district), I found, having made the necessary
+arrangements, that, with over three hours to spare, I had nothing to
+occupy my time until the appointment in Covent Garden Market. My lonely
+lunch completed, a restless fit seized me, and I felt unable to remain
+longer in the house. Inspired by this restlessness, I attired myself
+for the adventure of the evening, not neglecting to place a pistol in
+my pocket, and, walking to the neighboring Tube station, I booked to
+Charing Cross, and presently found myself rambling aimlessly along the
+crowded streets. Led on by what link of memory I know not, I presently
+drifted into New Oxford Street, and looked up with a start--to learn
+that I stood before the shop of a second-hand book-seller where once two
+years before I had met Karamaneh.
+
+The thoughts conjured up at that moment were almost too bitter to be
+borne, and without so much as glancing at the books displayed for sale,
+I crossed the roadway, entered Museum Street, and, rather in order to
+distract my mind than because I contemplated any purchase, began to
+examine the Oriental Pottery, Egyptian statuettes, Indian armor, and
+other curios, displayed in the window of an antique dealer.
+
+But, strive as I would to concentrate my mind upon the objects in the
+window, my memories persistently haunted me, and haunted me to the
+exclusion even of the actualities. The crowds thronging the Pavement,
+the traffic in New Oxford Street, swept past unheeded; my eyes saw
+nothing of pot nor statuette, but only met, in a misty imaginative
+world, the glance of two other eyes--the dark and beautiful eyes of
+Karamaneh. In the exquisite tinting of a Chinese vase dimly perceptible
+in the background of the shop, I perceived only the blushing cheeks
+of Karamaneh; her face rose up, a taunting phantom, from out of the
+darkness between a hideous, gilded idol and an Indian sandalwood screen.
+
+I strove to dispel this obsessing thought, resolutely fixing my
+attention upon a tall Etruscan vase in the corner of the window, near to
+the shop door. Was I losing my senses indeed? A doubt of my own sanity
+momentarily possessed me. For, struggle as I would to dispel the
+illusion--there, looking out at me over that ancient piece of pottery,
+was the bewitching face of the slave-girl!
+
+Probably I was glaring madly, and possibly I attracted the notice of the
+passers-by; but of this I cannot be certain, for all my attention was
+centered upon that phantasmal face, with the cloudy hair, slightly
+parted red lips, and the brilliant dark eyes which looked into mine out
+of the shadows of the shop.
+
+It was bewildering--it was uncanny; for, delusion or verity, the glamour
+prevailed. I exerted a great mental effort, stepped to the door, turned
+the handle, and entered the shop with as great a show of composure as I
+could muster.
+
+A curtain draped in a little door at the back of one counter swayed
+slightly, with no greater violence than may have been occasioned by
+the draught. But I fixed my eyes upon this swaying curtain almost
+fiercely... as an impassive half-caste of some kind who appeared to be a
+strange cross between a Graeco-Hebrew and a Japanese, entered and quite
+unemotionally faced me, with a slight bow.
+
+So wholly unexpected was this apparition that I started back.
+
+“Can I show you anything, sir?” inquired the new arrival, with a second
+slight inclination of the head.
+
+I looked at him for a moment in silence. Then:
+
+“I thought I saw a lady of my acquaintance here a moment ago,” I said.
+“Was I mistaken?”
+
+“Quite mistaken, sir,” replied the shopman, raising his black eyebrows
+ever so slightly; “a mistake possibly due to a reflection in the window.
+Will you take a look around now that you are here?”
+
+“Thank you,” I replied, staring him hard in the face; “at some other
+time.”
+
+I turned and quitted the shop abruptly. Either I was mad, or Karamaneh
+was concealed somewhere therein.
+
+However, realizing my helplessness in the matter, I contented myself
+with making a mental note of the name which appeared above the
+establishment--J. Salaman--and walked on, my mind in a chaotic condition
+and my heart beating with unusual rapidity.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE QUESTING HANDS
+
+Within my view, from the corner of the room where I sat in deepest
+shadow, through the partly opened window (it was screwed, like our own)
+were rows of glass-houses gleaming in the moonlight, and, beyond them,
+orderly ranks of flower-beds extending into a blue haze of distance. By
+reason of the moon’s position, no light entered the room, but my eyes,
+from long watching, were grown familiar with the darkness, and I could
+see Burke quite clearly as he lay in the bed between my post and the
+window. I seemed to be back again in those days of the troubled past
+when first Nayland Smith and I had come to grips with the servants of
+Dr. Fu-Manchu. A more peaceful scene than this flower-planted corner
+of Essex it would be difficult to imagine; but, either because of my
+knowledge that its peace was chimerical, or because of that outflung
+consciousness of danger which, actually, or in my imagination, preceded
+the coming of the Chinaman’s agents, to my seeming the silence throbbed
+electrically and the night was laden with stilly omens.
+
+Already cramped by my journey in the market-cart, I found it difficult
+to remain very long in any one position. What information had Burke
+to sell? He had refused, for some reason, to discuss the matter that
+evening, and now, enacting the part allotted him by Nayland Smith, he
+feigned sleep consistently, although at intervals he would whisper to me
+his doubts and fears.
+
+All the chances were in our favor to-night; for whilst I could not doubt
+that Dr. Fu-Manchu was set upon the removal of the ex-officer of New
+York police, neither could I doubt that our presence in the farm was
+unknown to the agents of the Chinaman. According to Burke, constant
+attempts had been made to achieve Fu-Manchu’s purpose, and had only been
+frustrated by his (Burke’s) wakefulness.
+
+There was every probability that another attempt would be made to-night.
+
+Any one who has been forced by circumstance to undertake such a vigil as
+this will be familiar with the marked changes (corresponding with
+phases of the earth’s movement) which take place in the atmosphere, at
+midnight, at two o’clock, and again at four o’clock. During those fours
+hours falls a period wherein all life is at its lowest ebb, and every
+Physician is aware that there is a greater likelihood of a patient’s
+passing between midnight and four A. M., than at any other period during
+the cycle of the hours.
+
+To-night I became specially aware of this lowering of vitality, and
+now, with the night at that darkest phase which precedes the dawn, an
+indescribable dread, such as I had known before in my dealings with
+the Chinaman, assailed me, when I was least prepared to combat it. The
+stillness was intense. Then:
+
+“Here it is!” whispered Burke from the bed.
+
+The chill at the very center of my being, which but corresponded with
+the chill of all surrounding nature at that hour, became intensified,
+keener, at the whispered words.
+
+I rose stealthily out of my chair, and from my nest of shadows
+watched--watched intently, the bright oblong of the window...
+
+Without the slightest heralding sound--a black silhouette crept up
+against the pane... the silhouette of a small, malformed head, a
+dog-like head, deep-set in square shoulders. Malignant eyes peered
+intently in. Higher it arose--that wicked head--against the window,
+then crouched down on the sill and became less sharply defined as
+the creature stooped to the opening below. There was a faint sound of
+sniffing.
+
+Judging from the stark horror which I experienced, myself, I doubted,
+now, if Burke could sustain the role allotted him. In beneath the
+slightly raised window came a hand, perceptible to me despite the
+darkness of the room. It seemed to project from the black silhouette
+outside the pane, to be thrust forward--and forward--and forward... that
+small hand with the outstretched fingers.
+
+The unknown possesses unique terrors; and since I was unable to conceive
+what manner of thing this could be, which, extending its incredibly long
+arms, now sought the throat of the man upon the bed, I tasted of that
+sort of terror which ordinarily one knows only in dreams.
+
+“Quick, sir--quick!” screamed Burke, starting up from the pillow.
+
+The questing hands had reached his throat!
+
+Choking down an urgent dread that I had of touching the thing which
+reached through the window to kill the sleeper, I sprang across the room
+and grasped the rigid, hairy forearms.
+
+Heavens! Never have I felt such muscles, such tendons, as those beneath
+the hirsute skin! They seemed to be of steel wire, and with a sudden
+frightful sense of impotence, I realized that I was as powerless as a
+child to relax that strangle-hold. Burke was making the most frightful
+sounds and quite obviously was being asphyxiated before my eyes!
+
+“Smith!” I cried, “Smith! Help! help! for God’s sake!”
+
+Despite the confusion of my mind I became aware of sounds outside and
+below me. Twice the thing at the window coughed; there was an incessant,
+lash-like cracking, then some shouted words which I was unable to make
+out; and finally the staccato report of a pistol.
+
+Snarling like that of a wild beast came from the creature with the hairy
+arms, together with renewed coughing. But the steel grip relaxed not one
+iota.
+
+I realized two things: the first, that in my terror at the suddenness of
+the attack I had omitted to act as pre-arranged: the second, that I had
+discredited the strength of the visitant, whilst Smith had foreseen it.
+
+Desisting in my vain endeavor to pit my strength against that of the
+nameless thing, I sprang back across the room and took up the weapon
+which had been left in my charge earlier in the night, but which I had
+been unable to believe it would be necessary to employ. This was a sharp
+and heavy axe, which Nayland Smith, when I had met him in Covent Garden,
+had brought with him, to the great amazement of Weymouth and myself.
+
+As I leaped back to the window and uplifted this primitive weapon, a
+second shot sounded from below, and more fierce snarling, coughing, and
+guttural mutterings assailed my ears from beyond the pane.
+
+Lifting the heavy blade, I brought it down with all my strength upon the
+nearer of those hairy arms where it crossed the window-ledge, severing
+muscle, tendon and bone as easily as a knife might cut cheese....
+
+A shriek--a shriek neither human nor animal, but gruesomely compounded
+of both--followed... and merged into a choking cough. Like a flash the
+other shaggy arm was withdrawn, and some vaguely-seen body went rolling
+down the sloping red tiles and crashed on to the ground beneath.
+
+With a second piercing shriek, louder than that recently uttered
+by Burke, wailing through the night from somewhere below, I turned
+desperately to the man on the bed, who now was become significantly
+silent. A candle, with matches, stood upon a table hard by, and,
+my fingers far from steady, I set about obtaining a light. This
+accomplished, I stood the candle upon the little chest-of-drawers and
+returned to Burke’s side.
+
+“Merciful God!” I cried.
+
+Of all the pictures which remain in my memory, some of them dark enough,
+I can find none more horrible than that which now confronted me in the
+dim candle-light. Burke lay crosswise on the bed, his head thrown back
+and sagging; one rigid hand he held in the air, and with the other
+grasped the hairy forearm which I had severed with the ax; for, in a
+death-grip, the dead fingers were still fastened, vise-like, at his
+throat.
+
+His face was nearly black, and his eyes projected from their sockets
+horribly. Mastering my repugnance, I seized the hideous piece of
+bleeding anatomy and strove to release it. It defied all my efforts; in
+death it was as implacable as in life. I took a knife from my pocket,
+and, tendon by tendon, cut away that uncanny grip from Burke’s throat...
+
+But my labor was in vain. Burke was dead!
+
+I think I failed to realize this for some time. My clothes were
+sticking clammily to my body; I was bathed in perspiration, and, shaking
+furiously, I clutched at the edge of the window, avoiding the bloody
+patch upon the ledge, and looked out over the roofs to where, in the
+more distant plantations, I could hear excited voices. What had been
+the meaning of that scream which I had heard but to which in my frantic
+state of mind I had paid comparatively little attention?
+
+There was a great stirring all about me.
+
+“Smith!” I cried from the window; “Smith, for mercy’s sake where are
+you?”
+
+Footsteps came racing up the stairs. Behind me the door burst open and
+Nayland Smith stumbled into the room.
+
+“God!” he said, and started back in the doorway.
+
+“Have you got it, Smith?” I demanded hoarsely. “In sanity’s name what is
+it--what is it?”
+
+“Come downstairs,” replied Smith quietly, “and see for yourself.” He
+turned his head aside from the bed.
+
+Very unsteadily I followed him down the stairs and through the rambling
+old house out into the stone-paved courtyard. There were figures
+moving at the end of a long alleyway between the glass houses, and one,
+carrying a lantern, stooped over something which lay upon the ground.
+
+“That’s Burke’s cousin with the lantern,” whispered Smith in my ear;
+“don’t tell him yet.”
+
+I nodded, and we hurried up to join the group. I found myself looking
+down at one of those thick-set Burmans whom I always associated with
+Fu-Manchu’s activities. He lay quite flat, face downward; but the back
+of his head was a shapeless blood-dotted mass, and a heavy stock-whip,
+the butt end ghastly because of the blood and hair which clung to it,
+lay beside him. I started back appalled as Smith caught my arm.
+
+“It turned on its keeper!” he hissed in my ear. “I wounded it twice from
+below, and you severed one arm; in its insensate fury, its unreasoning
+malignity, it returned--and there lies its second victim...”
+
+“Then...”
+
+“It’s gone, Petrie! It has the strength of four men even now. Look!”
+
+He stooped, and from the clenched left hand of the dead Burman,
+extracted a piece of paper and opened it.
+
+“Hold the lantern a moment,” he said.
+
+In the yellow light he glanced at the scrap of paper.
+
+“As I expected--a leaf of Burke’s notebook; it worked by scent.” He
+turned to me with an odd expression in his gray eyes. “I wonder what
+piece of my personal property Fu-Manchu has pilfered,” he said, “in
+order to enable it to sleuth me?”
+
+He met the gaze of the man holding the lantern.
+
+“Perhaps you had better return to the house,” he said, looking him
+squarely in the eyes.
+
+The other’s face blanched.
+
+“You don’t mean, sir--you don’t mean...”
+
+“Brace up!” said Smith, laying his hand upon his shoulder. “Remember--he
+chose to play with fire!”
+
+One wild look the man cast from Smith to me, then went off, staggering,
+toward the farm.
+
+“Smith,” I began...
+
+He turned to me with an impatient gesture.
+
+“Weymouth has driven into Upminster,” he snapped; “and the whole
+district will be scoured before morning. They probably motored here, but
+the sounds of the shots will have enabled whoever was with the car to
+make good his escape. And exhausted from loss of blood, its capture is
+only a matter of time, Petrie.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. ONE DAY IN RANGOON
+
+Nayland Smith returned from the telephone. Nearly twenty-four hours had
+elapsed since the awful death of Burke.
+
+“No news, Petrie,” he said, shortly. “It must have crept into some
+inaccessible hole to die.”
+
+I glanced up from my notes. Smith settled into the white cane armchair,
+and began to surround himself with clouds of aromatic smoke. I took up
+a half-sheet of foolscap covered with penciled writing in my friend’s
+cramped characters, and transcribed the following, in order to complete
+my account of the latest Fu-Manchu outrage:
+
+“The Amharun, a Semitic tribe allied to the Falashas, who have
+been settled for many generations in the southern province of Shoa
+(Abyssinia) have been regarded as unclean and outcast, apparently since
+the days of Menelek--son of Suleyman and the Queen of Sheba--from whom
+they claim descent. Apart from their custom of eating meat cut from
+living beasts, they are accursed because of their alleged association
+with the Cynocephalus hamadryas (Sacred Baboon). I, myself, was taken
+to a hut on the banks of the Hawash and shown a creature... whose
+predominant trait was an unreasoning malignity toward... and a ferocious
+tenderness for the society of its furry brethren. Its powers of scent
+were fully equal to those of a bloodhound, whilst its abnormally long
+forearms possessed incredible strength... a Cynocephalyte such as this,
+contracts phthisis even in the more northern provinces of Abyssinia...”
+
+“You have not explained to me, Smith,” I said, having completed this
+note, “how you got in touch with Fu-Manchu; how you learnt that he was
+not dead, as we had supposed, but living--active.”
+
+Nayland Smith stood up and fixed his steely eyes upon me with an
+indefinable expression in them. Then:
+
+“No,” he replied; “I haven’t. Do you wish to know?”
+
+“Certainly,” I said with surprise; “is there any reason why I should
+not?”
+
+“There is no real reason,” said Smith; “or”--staring at me very hard--“I
+hope there is no real reason.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Well”--he grabbed up his pipe from the table and began furiously to
+load it--“I blundered upon the truth one day in Rangoon. I was walking
+out of a house which I occupied there for a time, and as I swung around
+the corner into the main street, I ran into--literally ran into...”
+
+Again he hesitated oddly; then closed up his pouch and tossed it into
+the cane chair. He struck a match.
+
+“I ran into Karamaneh,” he continued abruptly, and began to puff away at
+his pipe, filling the air with clouds of tobacco smoke.
+
+I caught my breath. This was the reason why he had kept me so long in
+ignorance of the story. He knew of my hopeless, uncrushable sentiments
+toward the gloriously beautiful but utterly hypocritical and evil
+Eastern girl who was perhaps the most dangerous of all Dr. Fu-Manchu’s
+servants; for the power of her loveliness was magical, as I knew to my
+cost.
+
+“What did you do?” I asked quietly, my fingers drumming upon the table.
+
+“Naturally enough,” continued Smith, “with a cry of recognition I
+held out both my hands to her, gladly. I welcomed her as a dear friend
+regained; I thought of the joy with which you would learn that I had
+found the missing one; I thought how you would be in Rangoon just as
+quickly as the fastest steamer could get you there...”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Karamaneh started back and treated me to a glance of absolute
+animosity. No recognition was there, and no friendliness--only a sort of
+scornful anger.”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and began to walk up and down the room.
+
+“I do not know what you would have done in the circumstances, Petrie,
+but I--”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I dealt with the situation rather promptly, I think. I simply picked
+her up without another word, right there in the public street, and raced
+back into the house, with her kicking and fighting like a little demon!
+She did not shriek or do anything of that kind, but fought silently like
+a vicious wild animal. Oh! I had some scars, I assure you; but I carried
+her up into my office, which fortunately was empty at the time, plumped
+her down in a chair, and stood looking at her.”
+
+“Go on,” I said rather hollowly; “what next?”
+
+“She glared at me with those wonderful eyes, an expression of implacable
+hatred in them! Remembering all that we had done for her; remembering
+our former friendship; above all, remembering you--this look of hers
+almost made me shiver. She was dressed very smartly in European fashion,
+and the whole thing had been so sudden that as I stood looking at her I
+half expected to wake up presently and find it all a day-dream. But it
+was real--as real as her enmity. I felt the need for reflection, and
+having vainly endeavored to draw her into conversation, and elicited no
+other answer than this glare of hatred--I left her there, going out and
+locking the door behind me.”
+
+“Very high-handed?”
+
+“A commissioner has certain privileges, Petrie, and any action I might
+choose to take was not likely to be questioned. There was only one
+window to the office, and it was fully twenty feet above the level; it
+overlooked a narrow street off the main thoroughfare (I think I have
+explained that the house stood on a corner) so I did not fear her
+escaping. I had an important engagement which I had been on my way to
+fulfil when the encounter took place, and now, with a word to my native
+servant--who chanced to be downstairs--I hurried off.”
+
+Smith’s pipe had gone out as usual, and he proceeded to relight it,
+whilst, with my eyes lowered, I continued to drum upon the table.
+
+“This boy took her some tea later in the afternoon,” he continued,
+“and apparently found her in a more placid frame of mind. I returned
+immediately after dusk, and he reported that when last he had looked in,
+about half an hour earlier, she had been seated in an armchair reading
+a newspaper (I may mention that everything of value in the office was
+securely locked up!) I was determined upon a certain course by this
+time, and I went slowly upstairs, unlocked the door, and walked into the
+darkened office. I turned up the light... the place was empty!”
+
+“Empty!”
+
+“The window was open, and the bird flown! Oh! it was not so simple a
+flight--as you would realize if you knew the place. The street, which
+the window overlooked, was bounded by a blank wall, on the opposite
+side, for thirty or forty yards along; and as we had been having heavy
+rains, it was full of glutinous mud. Furthermore, the boy whom I had
+left in charge had been sitting in the doorway immediately below the
+office window watching for my return ever since his last visit to the
+room above...”
+
+“She must have bribed him,” I said bitterly--“or corrupted him with her
+infernal blandishments.”
+
+“I’ll swear she did not,” rapped Smith decisively. “I know my man, and
+I’ll swear she did not. There were no marks in the mud of the road to
+show that a ladder had been placed there; moreover, nothing of the kind
+could have been attempted whilst the boy was sitting in the doorway;
+that was evident. In short, she did not descend into the roadway and did
+not come out by the door...”
+
+“Was there a gallery outside the window?”
+
+“No; it was impossible to climb to right or left of the window or up on
+to the roof. I convinced myself of that.”
+
+“But, my dear man!” I cried, “you are eliminating every natural mode of
+egress! Nothing remains but flight.”
+
+“I am aware, Petrie, that nothing remains but flight; in other words I
+have never to this day understood how she quitted the room. I only know
+that she did.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“I saw in this incredible escape the cunning hand of Dr. Fu-Manchu--saw
+it at once. Peace was ended; and I set to work along certain channels
+without delay. In this manner I got on the track at last, and learned,
+beyond the possibility of doubt, that the Chinese doctor lived--nay! was
+actually on his way to Europe again!”
+
+There followed a short silence. Then:
+
+“I suppose it’s a mystery that will be cleared up some day,” concluded
+Smith; “but to date the riddle remains intact.” He glanced at the clock.
+“I have an appointment with Weymouth; therefore, leaving you to the task
+of solving this problem which thus far has defied my own efforts, I will
+get along.”
+
+He read a query in my glance.
+
+“Oh! I shall not be late,” he added; “I think I may venture out alone on
+this occasion without personal danger.”
+
+Nayland Smith went upstairs to dress, leaving me seated at my writing
+table, deep in thought. My notes upon the renewed activity of Dr.
+Fu-Manchu were stacked at my left hand, and, opening a new writing
+block, I commenced to add to them particulars of this surprising event
+in Rangoon which properly marked the opening of the Chinaman’s second
+campaign. Smith looked in at the door on his way out, but seeing me thus
+engaged, did not disturb me.
+
+I think I have made it sufficiently evident in these records that my
+practice was not an extensive one, and my hour for receiving patients
+arrived and passed with only two professional interruptions.
+
+My task concluded, I glanced at the clock, and determined to devote the
+remainder of the evening to a little private investigation of my own.
+From Nayland Smith I had preserved the matter a secret, largely because
+I feared his ridicule; but I had by no means forgotten that I had seen,
+or had strongly imagined that I had seen, Karamaneh--that beautiful
+anomaly, who (in modern London) asserted herself to be a slave--in the
+shop of an antique dealer not a hundred yards from the British Museum!
+
+A theory was forming in my brain, which I was burningly anxious to put
+to the test. I remembered how, two years before, I had met Karamaneh
+near to this same spot; and I had heard Inspector Weymouth assert
+positively that Fu-Manchu’s headquarters were no longer in the East
+End, as of yore. There seemed to me to be a distinct probability that a
+suitable center had been established for his reception in this place, so
+much less likely to be suspected by the authorities. Perhaps I attached
+too great a value to what may have been a delusion; perhaps my theory
+rested upon no more solid foundation than the belief that I had seen
+Karamaneh in the shop of the curio dealer. If her appearance there
+should prove to have been phantasmal, the structure of my theory would
+be shattered at its base. To-night I should test my premises, and upon
+the result of my investigations determine my future action.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. THE SILVER BUDDHA
+
+Museum Street certainly did not seem a likely spot for Dr. Fu-Manchu to
+establish 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 of
+the Orient, had looked out at me.
+
+As I paced slowly along the pavement toward that lighted window, my
+heart was beating far from normally, and I cursed the folly which,
+in spite of all, refused to die, but lingered on, poisoning my
+life. Comparative quiet reigned in Museum Street, at no time a busy
+thoroughfare, and, excepting another shop at the Museum end, commercial
+activities had ceased there. The door of a block of residential chambers
+almost immediately opposite to the shop which was my objective, threw
+out a beam of light across the pavement, but not more than two or three
+people 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 whose
+nationality defied conjecture, came out from the curtained doorway at
+the back to greet me.
+
+“Good evening, sir,” he said monotonously, with a slight inclination of
+the head; “is there anything which you desire to inspect?”
+
+“I merely wish to take a look around,” I replied. “I have no particular
+item in view.”
+
+The shop man inclined his head again, swept a yellow hand
+comprehensively about, as if to include the entire stock, and seated
+himself on a chair behind the counter.
+
+I lighted a cigarette with such an air of nonchalance as I could summon
+to the operation, and began casually to inspect the varied objects of
+interest loading the shelves and tables about me. I am bound to confess
+that 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 rare
+lace, early printed books, Assyrian tablets, daggers, Roman rings, and
+a hundred other curiosities, leisurely, and I trust with apparent
+interest, yet without forming the slightest impression respecting any
+one of them.
+
+Probably I employed myself in this way for half an hour or more, and
+whilst my hands busied themselves among the stock of J. Salaman, my mind
+was occupied entirely elsewhere. Furtively I was studying the shopman
+himself, a human presentment of a Chinese idol; I was listening and
+watching; especially I was watching the curtained doorway at the back of
+the shop.
+
+“We close at about this time, sir,” the man interrupted me, speaking in
+the emotionless, monotonous voice which I had noted before.
+
+I replaced upon the glass counter a little Sekhet boat, carved in wood
+and highly colored, and glanced up with a start. Truly my methods were
+amateurish; I had learnt nothing; I was unlikely to learn anything. I
+wondered how Nayland Smith would have conducted such an inquiry, and I
+racked my brains for some means of penetrating into the recesses of the
+establishment. Indeed, I had been seeking such a plan for the past half
+an hour, but my mind had proved incapable of suggesting one.
+
+Why I did not admit failure I cannot imagine, but, instead, I began to
+tax my brains anew for some means of gaining further time; and, as
+I looked about the place, the shopman very patiently awaiting my
+departure, I observed an open case at the back of the counter. The three
+lower shelves were empty, but upon the fourth shelf squatted a silver
+Buddha.
+
+“I should like to examine the silver image yonder,” I said; “what price
+are you asking for it?”
+
+“It is not for sale, sir,” replied the man, with a greater show of
+animation 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 sufficient
+to call for a sharp retort at any other time, but now it excited the
+strangest 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 unusual
+powers 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 the
+shopman, 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 building
+ruled absolutely, and a theory respecting this silver image had taken
+possession of my mind. Exactly what I expected to happen at that moment
+I cannot say, but what actually happened was far more startling than
+anything I could have imagined.
+
+At the instant that I grasped the figure I realized that it was attached
+to the woodwork; in the next I knew that it was a handle ... as I tried
+to pull it toward me I became aware that this handle was the handle of a
+door. For that door swung open before me, and I found myself at the foot
+of a flight of heavily carpeted stairs.
+
+Anxious as I had been to proceed a moment before, I was now trebly
+anxious to retire, and for this reason: on the bottom step of the stair,
+facing me, stood Dr. Fu-Manchu!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. DR. FU-MANCHU’S LABORATORY
+
+I cannot conceive that any ordinary mortal ever attained to anything
+like an intimacy with Dr. Fu-Manchu; I cannot believe that any man could
+ever grow used to his presence, could ever cease to fear him. I suppose
+I had set eyes upon Fu-Manchu some five or six times prior to this
+occasion, and now he was dressed in the manner which I always associated
+with him, probably because it was thus I first saw him. He wore a plain
+yellow robe, and, with his pointed chin resting upon his bosom, he
+looked down at me, revealing a great expanse of the marvelous brow with
+its sparse, neutral-colored hair.
+
+Never in my experience have I known such force to dwell in the glance
+of any human eye as dwelt in that of this uncanny being. His singular
+affliction (if affliction it were), the film or slight membrane which
+sometimes obscured the oblique eyes, was particularly evident at the
+moment that I crossed the threshold, but now, as I looked up at Dr.
+Fu-Manchu, it lifted--revealing the eyes in all their emerald greenness.
+
+The idea of physical attack upon this incredible being seemed
+childish--inadequate. But, following that first instant of stupefaction,
+I forced myself to advance upon him.
+
+A dull, crushing blow descended on the top of my skull, and I became
+oblivious of all things.
+
+My return to consciousness was accompanied by tremendous pains in my
+head, whereby, from previous experience, I knew that a sandbag had been
+used against me by some one in the shop, presumably by the immobile
+shopman. This awakening was accompanied by none of those hazy doubts
+respecting previous events and present surroundings which are the usual
+symptoms of revival from sudden unconsciousness; even before I opened
+my eyes, before I had more than a partial command of my senses, I knew
+that, with my wrists handcuffed behind me, I lay in a room which
+was also occupied by Dr. Fu-Manchu. This absolute certainty of the
+Chinaman’s presence was evidenced, not by my senses, but only by an
+inner consciousness, and the same that always awoke into life at the
+approach not only of Fu-Manchu in person but of certain of his uncanny
+servants.
+
+A faint perfume hung in the air about me; I do not mean that of any
+essence or of any incense, but rather the smell which is suffused
+by Oriental furniture, by Oriental draperies; the indefinable but
+unmistakable perfume of the East.
+
+Thus, London has a distinct smell of its own, and so has Paris, whilst
+the difference between Marseilles and Suez, for instance, is even more
+marked.
+
+Now, the atmosphere surrounding me was Eastern, but not of the East that
+I knew; rather it was Far Eastern. Perhaps I do not make myself very
+clear, but to me there was a mysterious significance in that perfumed
+atmosphere. I opened my eyes.
+
+I lay upon a long low settee, in a fairly large room which was furnished
+as I had anticipated in an absolutely Oriental fashion. The two windows
+were so screened as to have lost, from the interior point of view, all
+resemblance to European windows, and the whole structure of the room had
+been altered in conformity, bearing out my idea that the place had been
+prepared for Fu-Manchu’s reception some time before his actual return. I
+doubt if, East or West, a duplicate of that singular apartment could be
+found.
+
+The end in which I lay, was, as I have said, typical of an Eastern
+house, and a large, ornate lantern hung from the ceiling almost directly
+above me. The further end of the room was occupied by tall cases,
+some of them containing books, but the majority filled with scientific
+paraphernalia; rows of flasks and jars, frames of test-tubes, retorts,
+scales, and other objects of the laboratory. At a large and very finely
+carved table sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, a yellow and faded volume open before
+him, and some dark red fluid, almost like blood, bubbling in a test-tube
+which he held over the flame of a Bunsen-burner.
+
+The enormously long nail of his right index finger rested upon the
+opened page of the book to which he seemed constantly to refer, dividing
+his attention between the volume, the contents of the test-tube, and the
+progress of a second experiment, or possibly a part of the same, which
+was taking place upon another corner of the littered table.
+
+A huge glass retort (the bulb was fully two feet in diameter), fitted
+with a Liebig’s Condenser, rested in a metal frame, and within the bulb,
+floating in an oily substance, was a fungus some six inches high, shaped
+like a toadstool, but of a brilliant and venomous orange color. Three
+flat tubes of light were so arranged as to cast violet rays upward into
+the retort, and the receiver, wherein condensed the product of this
+strange experiment, contained some drops of a red fluid which may have
+been identical with that boiling in the test-tube.
+
+These things I perceived at a glance: then the filmy eyes of Dr.
+Fu-Manchu were raised from the book, turned in my direction, and all
+else was forgotten.
+
+“I regret,” came the sibilant voice, “that unpleasant measures were
+necessary, but hesitation would have been fatal. I trust, Dr. Petrie,
+that you suffer no inconvenience?”
+
+To this speech no reply was possible, and I attempted none.
+
+“You have long been aware of my esteem for your acquirements,” continued
+the Chinaman, his voice occasionally touching deep guttural notes, “and
+you will appreciate the pleasure which this visit affords me. I kneel
+at the feet of my silver Buddha. I look to you, when you shall have
+overcome your prejudices--due to ignorance of my true motives--to assist
+me in establishing that intellectual control which is destined to be the
+new World Force. I bear you no malice for your ancient enmity, and even
+now”--he waved one yellow hand toward the retort--“I am conducting an
+experiment designed to convert you from your misunderstanding, and to
+adjust your perspective.”
+
+Quite unemotionally he spoke, then turned again to his book, his
+test-tube and retort, in the most matter-of-fact way imaginable. I do
+not think the most frenzied outburst on his part, the most fiendish
+threats, could have produced such effect upon me as those cold and
+carefully calculated words, spoken in that unique voice which rang about
+the room sibilantly. In its tones, in the glance of the green eyes,
+in the very pose of the gaunt, high-shouldered body, there was
+power--force.
+
+I counted myself lost, and in view of the doctor’s words, studied the
+progress of the experiment with frightful interest. But a few moments
+sufficed in which to realize that, for all my training, I knew as little
+of chemistry--of chemistry as understood by this man’s genius--as a
+junior student in surgery knows of trephining. The process in
+operation was a complete mystery to me; the means and the end alike
+incomprehensible.
+
+Thus, in the heavy silence of that room, a silence only broken by the
+regular bubbling from the test tube, I found my attention straying from
+the table to the other objects surrounding it; and at one of them my
+gaze stopped and remained chained with horror.
+
+It was a glass jar, some five feet in height and filled with viscous
+fluid of a light amber color. Out from this peered a hideous, dog-like
+face, low browed, with pointed ears and a nose almost hoggishly flat.
+By the death-grin of the face the gleaming fangs were revealed; and the
+body, the long yellow-gray body, rested, or seemed to rest, upon
+short, malformed legs, whilst one long limp arm, the right, hung down
+straightly in the preservative. The left arm had been severed above the
+elbow.
+
+Fu-Manchu, finding his experiment to be proceeding favorably, lifted his
+eyes to me again.
+
+“You are interested in my poor Cynocephalyte?” he said; and his eyes
+were filmed like the eyes of one afflicted with cataract. “He was a
+devoted servant, Dr. Petrie, but the lower influences in his genealogy,
+sometimes conquered. Then he got out of hand; and at last he was so
+ungrateful toward those who had educated him, that, in one of those
+paroxysms of his, he attacked and killed a most faithful Burman, one of
+my oldest followers.”
+
+Fu-Manchu returned to his experiment.
+
+Not the slightest emotion had he exhibited thus far, but had chatted
+with me as any other scientist might chat with a friend who casually
+visits his laboratory. The horror of the thing was playing havoc with
+my own composure, however. There I lay, fettered, in the same room with
+this man whose existence was a menace to the entire white race, whilst
+placidly he pursued an experiment designed, if his own words were
+believable, to cut me off from my kind--to wreak some change,
+psychological or physiological I knew not; to place me, it might
+be, upon a level with such brute-things as that which now hung, half
+floating, in the glass jar!
+
+Something I knew of the history of that ghastly specimen, that thing
+neither man nor ape; for within my own knowledge had it not attempted
+the life of Nayland Smith, and was it not I who, with an ax, had maimed
+it in the instant of one of its last slayings?
+
+Of these things Dr. Fu-Manchu was well aware, so that his placid speech
+was doubly, trebly horrible to my ears. I sought, furtively, to move
+my arms, only to realize that, as I had anticipated, the handcuffs
+were chained to a ring in the wall behind me. The establishments of Dr.
+Fu-Manchu were always well provided with such contrivances as these.
+
+I uttered a short, harsh laugh. Fu-Manchu stood up slowly from the
+table, and, placing the test-tube in a rack, stood the latter carefully
+upon a shelf at his side.
+
+“I am happy to find you in such good humor,” he said softly. “Other
+affairs call me; and, in my absence, that profound knowledge of
+chemistry, of which I have had evidence in the past, will enable you to
+follow with intelligent interest the action of these violet rays upon
+this exceptionally fine specimen of Siberian amanita muscaria. At some
+future time, possibly when you are my guest in China--which country I am
+now making arrangements for you to visit--I shall discuss with you some
+lesser-known properties of this species; and I may say that one of your
+first tasks when you commence your duties as assistant in my laboratory
+in Kiang-su, will be to conduct a series of twelve experiments, which I
+have outlined, into other potentialities of this unique fungus.”
+
+He walked quietly to a curtained doorway, with his cat-like yet awkward
+gait, lifted the drapery, and, with a slight nod in my direction, went
+out of the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE CROSS BAR
+
+How long I lay there alone I had no means of computing. My mind was
+busy with many matters, but principally concerned with my fate in the
+immediate future. That Dr. Fu-Manchu entertained for me a singular
+kind of regard, I had had evidence before. He had formed the erroneous
+opinion that I was an advanced scientist who could be of use to him
+in his experiments and I was aware that he cherished a project of
+transporting me to some place in China where his principal laboratory
+was situated. Respecting the means which he proposed to employ, I was
+unlikely to forget that this man, who had penetrated further along
+certain byways of science than seemed humanly possible, undoubtedly was
+master of a process for producing artificial catalepsy. It was my lot,
+then, to be packed in a chest (to all intents and purposes a dead man
+for the time being) and despatched to the interior of China!
+
+What a fool I had been. To think that I had learned nothing from my long
+and dreadful experience of the methods of Dr. Fu-Manchu; to think that I
+had come alone in quest of him; that, leaving no trace behind me, I had
+deliberately penetrated to his secret abode!
+
+I have said that my wrists were manacled behind me, the manacles being
+attached to a chain fastened in the wall. I now contrived, with extreme
+difficulty, to reverse the position of my hands; that is to say, I
+climbed backward through the loop formed by my fettered arms, so that
+instead of their being locked behind me, they now were locked in front.
+
+Then I began to examine the fetters, learning, as I had anticipated,
+that they fastened with a lock. I sat gazing at the steel bracelets in
+the light of the lamp which swung over my head, and it became apparent
+to me that I had gained little by my contortion.
+
+A slight noise disturbed these unpleasant reveries. It was nothing less
+than the rattling of keys!
+
+For a moment I wondered if I had heard aright, or if the sound portended
+the coming of some servant of the doctor, who was locking up the
+establishment for the night. The jangling sound was repeated, and in
+such a way that I could not suppose it to be accidental. Some one was
+deliberately rattling a small bunch of keys in an adjoining room.
+
+And now my heart leaped wildly--then seemed to stand still.
+
+With a low whistling cry a little gray shape shot through the doorway by
+which Fu-Manchu had retired, and rolled, like a ball of fluff blown by
+the wind, completely under the table which bore the weird scientific
+appliances of the Chinaman; the advent of the gray object was
+accompanied by a further rattling of keys.
+
+My fear left me, and a mighty anxiety took its place. This creature
+which now crouched chattering at me from beneath the big table was
+Fu-Manchu’s marmoset, and in the intervals of its chattering and
+grimacing, it nibbled, speculatively, at the keys upon the ring which
+it clutched in its tiny hands. Key after key it sampled in this manner,
+evincing a growing dissatisfaction with the uncrackable nature of its
+find.
+
+One of those keys might be that of the handcuffs!
+
+I could not believe that the tortures of Tantulus were greater than
+were mine at this moment. In all my hopes of rescue or release, I
+had included nothing so strange, so improbable as this. A sort of awe
+possessed me; for if by this means the key which should release me
+should come into my possession, how, ever again, could I doubt a
+beneficent Providence?
+
+But they were not yet in my possession; moreover, the key of the
+handcuffs might not be amongst the bunch.
+
+Were there no means whereby I could induce the marmoset to approach me?
+
+Whilst I racked my brains for some scheme, the little animal took the
+matter out of my hands. Tossing the ring with its jangling contents
+a yard or so across the carpet in my direction, it leaped in pursuit,
+picked up the ring, whirled it over its head, and then threw a complete
+somersault around it. Now it snatched up the keys again, and holding
+them close to its ear, rattled them furiously. Finally, with an
+incredible spring, it leaped onto the chain supporting the lamp above
+my head, and with the garish shade swinging and spinning wildly, clung
+there looking down at me like an acrobat on a trapeze. The tiny, bluish
+face, completely framed in grotesque whiskers, enhanced the illusion of
+an acrobatic comedian. Never for a moment did it release its hold upon
+the key-ring.
+
+My suspense now was intolerable. I feared to move, lest, alarming the
+marmoset, it should run off again, taking the keys with it. So as I lay
+there, looking up at the little creature swinging above me, the second
+wonder of the night came to pass.
+
+A voice that I could never forget, strive how I would, a voice that
+haunted my dreams by night, and for which by day I was ever listening,
+cried out from some adjoining room.
+
+“Ta’ala hina!” it called. “Ta’ala hina, Peko!”
+
+It was Karamaneh!
+
+The effect upon the marmoset was instantaneous. Down came the bunch of
+keys upon one side of the shade, almost falling on my head, and down
+leaped the ape upon the other. In two leaps it had traversed the room
+and had vanished through the curtained doorway.
+
+If ever I had need of coolness it was now; the slightest mistake would
+be fatal. The keys had slipped from the mattress of the divan, and now
+lay just beyond reach of my fingers. Rapidly I changed my position, and
+sought, without undue noise, to move the keys with my foot.
+
+I had actually succeeded in sliding them back on to the mattress, when,
+unheralded by any audible footstep, Karamaneh came through the doorway,
+holding the marmoset in her arms. She wore a dress of fragile muslin
+material, and out from its folds protruded one silk-stockinged foot,
+resting in a high-heeled red shoe....
+
+For a moment she stood watching me, with a sort of enforced composure;
+then her glance strayed to the keys lying upon the floor. Slowly, and
+with her eyes fixed again upon my face, she crossed the room, stooped,
+and took up the key-ring.
+
+It was one of the poignant moments of my life; for by that simple act
+all my hopes had been shattered!
+
+Any poor lingering doubt that I may have had, left me now. Had the
+slightest spark of friendship animated the bosom of Karamaneh most
+certainly she would have overlooked the presence of the keys--of the
+keys which represented my one hope of escape from the clutches of the
+fiendish Chinaman.
+
+There is a silence more eloquent than words. For half a minute or more,
+Karamaneh stood watching me--forcing herself to watch me--and I looked
+up at her with a concentrated gaze in which rage and reproach must have
+been strangely mingled. What eyes she had!--of that blackly lustrous
+sort nearly always associated with unusually dark complexions; but
+Karamaneh’s complexion was peachlike, or rather of an exquisite and
+delicate fairness which reminded me of the petal of a rose. By some I
+had been accused of raving about this girl’s beauty, but only by those
+who had not met her; for indeed she was astonishingly lovely.
+
+At last her eyes fell, the long lashes drooped upon her cheeks. She
+turned and walked slowly to the chair in which Fu-Manchu had sat.
+Placing the keys upon the table amid the scientific litter, she rested
+one dimpled elbow upon the yellow page of the book, and with her chin in
+her palm, again directed upon me that enigmatical gaze.
+
+I dared not think of the past, of the past in which this beautiful,
+treacherous girl had played a part; yet, watching her, I could not
+believe, even now, that she was false! My state was truly a pitiable
+one; I could have cried out in sheer anguish. With her long lashes
+partly lowered, she watched me awhile, then spoke; and her voice was
+music which seemed to mock me; every inflection of that elusive accent
+reopened, lancet-like, the ancient wound.
+
+“Why do you look at me so?” she said, almost in a whisper. “By what
+right do you reproach me?--Have you ever offered me friendship, that I
+should repay you with friendship? When first you came to the house where
+I was, by the river--came to save some one from” (there was the familiar
+hesitation which always preceded the name of Fu-Manchu) “from--him, you
+treated me as your enemy, although--I would have been your friend...”
+
+There was appeal in the soft voice, but I laughed mockingly, and threw
+myself back upon the divan.
+
+Karamaneh stretched out her hands toward me, and I shall never forget
+the expression which flashed into those glorious eyes; but, seeing me
+intolerant of her appeal, she drew back and quickly turned her head
+aside. Even in this hour of extremity, of impotent wrath, I could find
+no contempt in my heart for her feeble hypocrisy; with all the
+old wonder I watched that exquisite profile, and Karamaneh’s very
+deceitfulness was a salve--for had she not cared she would not have
+attempted it!
+
+Suddenly she stood up, taking the keys in her hands, and approached me.
+
+“Not by word, nor by look,” she said, quietly, “have you asked for my
+friendship, but because I cannot bear you to think of me as you do, I
+will prove that I am not the hypocrite and the liar you think me. You
+will not trust me, but I will trust you.”
+
+I looked up into her eyes, and knew a pagan joy when they faltered
+before my searching gaze. She threw herself upon her knees beside me,
+and the faint exquisite perfume inseparable from my memories of her,
+became perceptible, and seemed as of old to intoxicate me. The lock
+clicked... and I was free.
+
+Karamaneh rose swiftly to her feet as I stood upright and outstretched
+my cramped arms. For one delirious moment her bewitching face was close
+to mine, and the dictates of madness almost ruled; but I clenched my
+teeth and turned sharply aside. I could not trust myself to speak.
+
+With Fu-Manchu’s marmoset again gamboling before us, she walked through
+the curtained doorway into the room beyond. It was in darkness, but
+I could see the slave-girl in front of me, a slim silhouette, as she
+walked to a screened window, and, opening the screen in the manner of a
+folding door, also threw up the window.
+
+“Look!” she whispered.
+
+I crept forward and stood beside her. I found myself looking down into
+Museum Street from a first-floor window! Belated traffic still passed
+along New Oxford Street on the left, but not a solitary figure was
+visible to the right, as far as I could see, and that was nearly to the
+railings of the Museum. Immediately opposite, in one of the flats which
+I had noticed earlier in the evening, another window was opened. I
+turned, and in the reflected light saw that Karamaneh held a cord in her
+hand. Our eyes met in the semi-darkness.
+
+She began to haul the cord into the window, and, looking upward, I
+perceived that it was looped in some way over the telegraph cables which
+crossed the street at that point. It was a slender cord, and it appeared
+to be passed across a joint in the cables almost immediately above the
+center of the roadway. As it was hauled in, a second and stronger line
+attached to it was pulled, in turn, over the cables, and thence in by
+the window. Karamaneh twisted a length of it around a metal bracket
+fastened in the wall, and placed a light wooden crossbar in my hand.
+
+“Make sure that there is no one in the street,” she said, craning out
+and looking to right and left, “then swing across. The length of the
+rope is just sufficient to enable you to swing through the open window
+opposite, and there is a mattress inside to drop upon. But release the
+bar immediately, or you may be dragged back. The door of the room in
+which you will find yourself is unlocked, and you have only to walk down
+the stairs and out into the street.”
+
+I peered at the crossbar in my hand, then looked hard at the girl beside
+me. I missed something of the old fire of her nature; she was very
+subdued, tonight.
+
+“Thank you, Karamaneh,” I said, softly.
+
+She suppressed a little cry as I spoke her name, and drew back into the
+shadows.
+
+“I believe you are my friend,” I said, “but I cannot understand. Won’t
+you help me to understand?”
+
+I took her unresisting hand, and drew her toward me. My very soul seemed
+to thrill at the contact of her lithe body...
+
+She was trembling wildly and seemed to be trying to speak, but although
+her lips framed the words no sound followed. Suddenly comprehension came
+to me. I looked down into the street, hitherto deserted... and into the
+upturned face of Fu-Manchu.
+
+Wearing a heavy fur-collared coat, and with his yellow, malignant
+countenance grotesquely horrible beneath the shade of a large tweed
+motor cap, he stood motionless, looking up at me. That he had seen me, I
+could not doubt; but had he seen my companion?
+
+In a choking whisper Karamaneh answered my unspoken question.
+
+“He has not seen me! I have done much for you; do in return a small
+thing for me. Save my life!”
+
+She dragged me back from the window and fled across the room to the
+weird laboratory where I had lain captive. Throwing herself upon the
+divan, she held out her white wrists and glanced significantly at the
+manacles.
+
+“Lock them upon me!” she said, rapidly. “Quick! quick!”
+
+Great as was my mental disturbance, I managed to grasp the purpose of
+this device. The very extremity of my danger found me cool. I fastened
+the manacles, which so recently had confined my own wrists, upon the
+slim wrists of Karamaneh. A faint and muffled disturbance, doubly
+ominous because there was nothing to proclaim its nature, reached me
+from some place below, on the ground floor.
+
+“Tie something around my mouth!” directed Karamaneh with nervous
+rapidity. As I began to look about me:--“Tear a strip from my dress,”
+ she said; “do not hesitate--be quick! be quick!”
+
+I seized the flimsy muslin and tore off half a yard or so from the hem
+of the skirt. The voice of Dr Fu-Manchu became audible. He was speaking
+rapidly, sibilantly, and evidently was approaching--would be upon me
+in a matter of moments. I fastened the strip of fabric over the girl’s
+mouth and tied it behind, experiencing a pang half pleasurable and half
+fearful as I found my hands in contact with the foamy luxuriance of her
+hair.
+
+Dr. Fu-Manchu was entering the room immediately beyond.
+
+Snatching up the bunch of keys, I turned and ran, for in another instant
+my retreat would be cut off. As I burst once more into the darkened
+room I became aware that a door on the further side of it was open;
+and framed in the opening was the tall, high-shouldered figure of the
+Chinaman, still enveloped in his fur coat and wearing the grotesque
+cap. As I saw him, so he perceived me; and as I sprang to the window, he
+advanced.
+
+I turned desperately and hurled the bunch of keys with all my force into
+the dimly-seen face...
+
+Either because they possessed a chatoyant quality of their own (as I had
+often suspected), or by reason of the light reflected through the open
+window, the green eyes gleamed upon me vividly like those of a giant
+cat. One short guttural exclamation paid tribute to the accuracy of
+my aim; then I had the crossbar in my hand. I threw one leg across
+the sill, and dire as was my extremity, hesitated for an instant ere
+trusting myself to the flight...
+
+A vise-like grip fastened upon my left ankle.
+
+Hazily I became aware that the dark room was flooded with figures. The
+whole yellow gang were upon me--the entire murder-group composed of
+units recruited from the darkest place of the East!
+
+I have never counted myself a man of resource, and have always envied
+Nayland Smith his possession of that quality, in him extraordinarily
+developed; but on this occasion the gods were kind to me, and I
+resorted to the only device, perhaps, which could have saved me. Without
+releasing my hold upon the crossbar, I clutched at the ledge with the
+fingers of both hands and swung back into the room my right leg, which
+was already across the sill. With all my strength I kicked out. My heel
+came in contact, in sickening contact, with a human head; beyond doubt
+that I had split the skull of the man who held me.
+
+The grip upon my ankle was released automatically; and now consigning
+all my weight to the rope I slipped forward, as a diver, across the
+broad ledge and found myself sweeping through the night like a winged
+thing...
+
+The line, as Karamaneh had assured me, was of well-judged length. Down I
+swept to within six or seven feet of the street level, then up, at ever
+decreasing speed, toward the vague oblong of the open window beyond.
+
+I hope I have been successful, in some measure, in portraying the varied
+emotions which it was my lot to experience that night, and it may well
+seem that nothing more exquisite could remain for me. Yet it was written
+otherwise; for as I swept up to my goal, describing the inevitable arc
+which I had no power to check, I saw that one awaited me.
+
+Crouching forward half out of the open window was a Burmese dacoit, a
+cross-eyed, leering being whom I well remembered to have encountered
+two years before in my dealings with Dr. Fu-Manchu. One bare, sinewy
+arm held rigidly at right angles before his breast, he clutched a long
+curved knife and waited--waited--for the critical moment when my throat
+should be at his mercy!
+
+I have said that a strange coolness had come to my aid; even now it did
+not fail me, and so incalculably rapid are the workings of the human
+mind that I remember complimenting myself upon an achievement which
+Smith himself could not have bettered, and this in the immeasurable
+interval which intervened between the commencement of my upward swing
+and my arrival on a level with the window.
+
+I threw my body back and thrust my feet forward. As my legs went through
+the opening, an acute pain in one calf told me that I was not to escape
+scatheless from the night’s melee. But the dacoit went rolling over in
+the darkness of the room, as helpless in face of that ramrod stroke as
+the veriest infant...
+
+Back I swept upon my trapeze, a sight to have induced any passing
+citizen to question his sanity. With might and main I sought to check
+the swing of the pendulum, for if I should come within reach of the
+window behind I doubted not that other knives awaited me. It was no
+difficult feat, and I succeeded in checking my flight. Swinging there
+above Museum Street I could even appreciate, so lucid was my mind, the
+ludicrous element of the situation.
+
+I dropped. My wounded leg almost failed me; and greatly shaken, but
+with no other serious damage, I picked myself up from the dust of the
+roadway. It was a mockery of Fate that the problem which Nayland Smith
+had set me to solve, should have been solved thus; for I could not doubt
+that by means of the branch of a tall tree or some other suitable object
+situated opposite to Smith’s house in Rangoon, Karamaneh had made her
+escape as tonight I had made mine.
+
+Apart from the acute pain in my calf I knew that the dacoit’s knife had
+bitten deeply, by reason of the fact that a warm liquid was trickling
+down into my boot. Like any drunkard I stood there in the middle of the
+road looking up at the vacant window where the dacoit had been, and up
+at the window above the shop of J. Salaman where I knew Fu-Manchu to be.
+But for some reason the latter window had been closed or almost closed,
+and as I stood there this reason became apparent to me.
+
+The sound of running footsteps came from the direction of New Oxford
+Street. I turned--to see two policemen bearing down upon me!
+
+This was a time for quick decisions and prompt action. I weighed all
+the circumstances in the balance, and made the last vital choice of the
+night; I turned and ran toward the British Museum as though the worst of
+Fu-Manchu’s creatures, and not my allies the police, were at my heels!
+
+No one else was in sight, but, as I whirled into the Square, the red
+lamp of a slowly retreating taxi became visible some hundred yards to
+the left. My leg was paining me greatly, but the nature of the wound
+did not interfere with my progress; therefore I continued my headlong
+career, and ere the police had reached the end of Museum Street I had my
+hand upon the door handle of the cab--for, the Fates being persistently
+kind to me, the vehicle was for hire.
+
+“Dr. Cleeve’s, Harley Street!” I shouted at the man. “Drive like hell!
+It’s an urgent case.”
+
+I leaped into the cab.
+
+Within five seconds from the time that I slammed the door and dropped
+back panting upon the cushions, we were speeding westward toward the
+house of the famous pathologist, thereby throwing the police hopelessly
+off the track.
+
+Faintly to my ears came the purr of a police whistle. The taxi-man
+evidently did not hear the significant sound. Merciful Providence had
+rung down the curtain; for to-night my role in the yellow drama was
+finished.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. CRAGMIRE TOWER
+
+Less than two hours later, Inspector Weymouth and a party of men from
+Scotland Yard raided the house in Museum Street. They found the stock
+of J. Salaman practically intact, and, in the strangely appointed rooms
+above, every evidence of a hasty outgoing. But of the instruments, drugs
+and other laboratory paraphernalia not one item remained. I would gladly
+have given my income for a year, to have gained possession of the books,
+alone; for, beyond all shadow of doubt, I knew them to contain formula
+calculated to revolutionize the science of medicine.
+
+Exhausted, physically and mentally, and with my mind a
+whispering-gallery of conjectures (it were needless for me to mention
+whom respecting) I turned in, gratefully, having patched up the slight
+wound in my calf.
+
+I seemed scarcely to have closed my eyes, when Nayland Smith was shaking
+me into wakefulness.
+
+“You are probably tired out,” he said; “but your crazy expedition of
+last night entitles you to no sympathy. Read this; there is a train
+in an hour. We will reserve a compartment and you can resume your
+interrupted slumbers in a corner seat.”
+
+As I struggled upright in bed, rubbing my eyes sleepily, Smith handed
+me the Daily Telegraph, pointing to the following paragraph upon the
+literary page:
+
+Messrs. M---- announce that they will publish shortly the long delayed
+work of Kegan Van Roon, the celebrated American traveler, Orientalist
+and psychic investigator, dealing with his recent inquiries in China. It
+will be remembered that Mr. Van Roon undertook to motor from Canton
+to Siberia last winter, but met with unforeseen difficulties in the
+province of Ho-Nan. He fell into the hands of a body of fanatics and was
+fortunate to escape with his life. His book will deal in particular with
+his experiences in Ho-Nan, and some sensational revelations regarding
+the awakening of that most mysterious race, the Chinese, are promised.
+For reasons of his own he has decided to remain in England until the
+completion of his book (which will be published simultaneously in New
+York and London) and has leased Cragmire Tower, Somersetshire, in which
+romantic and historical residence he will collate his notes and
+prepare for the world a work ear-marked as a classic even before it is
+published.
+
+I glanced up from the paper, to find Smith’s eyes fixed upon me,
+inquiringly.
+
+“From what I have been able to learn,” he said, evenly, “we should reach
+Saul, with decent luck, just before dusk.”
+
+As he turned, and quitted the room without another word, I realized, in
+a flash, the purport of our mission; I understood my friend’s ominous
+calm, betokening suppressed excitement.
+
+The Fates were with us (or so it seemed); and whereas we had not hoped
+to gain Saul before sunset, as a matter of fact, the autumn afternoon
+was in its most glorious phase as we left the little village with its
+oldtime hostelry behind us and set out in an easterly direction, with
+the Bristol Channel far away on our left and a gently sloping upland on
+our right.
+
+The crooked high-street practically constituted the entire hamlet of
+Saul, and the inn, “The Wagoners,” was the last house in the street.
+Now, as we followed the ribbon of moor-path to the top of the rise, we
+could stand and look back upon the way we had come; and although we had
+covered fully a mile of ground, it was possible to detect the sunlight
+gleaming now and then upon the gilt lettering of the inn sign as it
+swayed in the breeze. The day had been unpleasantly warm, but was
+relieved by this same sea breeze, which, although but slight, had in it
+the tang of the broad Atlantic. Behind us, then, the foot-path sloped
+down to Saul, unpeopled by any living thing; east and northeast swelled
+the monotony of the moor right out to the hazy distance where the sky
+began and the sea remotely lay hidden; west fell the gentle gradient
+from the top of the slope which we had mounted, and here, as far as the
+eye could reach, the country had an appearance suggestive of a huge
+and dried-up lake. This idea was borne out by an odd blotchiness, for
+sometimes there would be half a mile or more of seeming moorland, then
+a sharply defined change (or it seemed sharply defined from that
+bird’s-eye point of view). A vivid greenness marked these changes, which
+merged into a dun-colored smudge and again into the brilliant green;
+then the moor would begin once more.
+
+“That will be the Tor of Glastonbury, I suppose,” said Smith, suddenly
+peering through his field-glasses in an easterly direction; “and yonder,
+unless I am greatly mistaken, is Cragmire Tower.”
+
+Shading my eyes with my hand, I also looked ahead, and saw the place for
+which we were bound; one of those round towers, more common in Ireland,
+which some authorities have declared to be of Phoenician origin.
+Ramshackle buildings clustered untidily about its base, and to it a sort
+of tongue of that oddly venomous green which patched the lowlands, shot
+out and seemed almost to reach the towerbase. The land for miles around
+was as flat as the palm of my hand, saving certain hummocks, lesser
+tors, and irregular piles of boulders which dotted its expanse. Hills
+and uplands there were in the hazy distance, forming a sort of mighty
+inland bay which I doubted not in some past age had been covered by
+the sea. Even in the brilliant sunlight the place had something of
+a mournful aspect, looking like a great dried-up pool into which the
+children of giants had carelessly cast stones.
+
+We met no living soul upon the moor. With Cragmire Tower but a quarter
+of a mile off, Smith paused again, and raising his powerful glasses
+swept the visible landscape.
+
+“Not a sign. Petrie,” he said, softly; “yet...”
+
+Dropping the glasses back into their case, my companion began to tug at
+his left ear.
+
+“Have we been over-confident?” he said, narrowing his eyes in
+speculative fashion. “No less than three times I have had the idea that
+something, or some one, has just dropped out of sight, behind me, as I
+focused...”
+
+“What do you mean, Smith?”
+
+“Are we”--he glanced about him as though the vastness were peopled with
+listening Chinamen--“followed?”
+
+Silently we looked into one another’s eyes, each seeking for the dread
+which neither had named. Then:
+
+“Come on Petrie!” said Smith, grasping my arm; and at quick march we
+were off again.
+
+Cragmire Tower stood upon a very slight eminence, and what had looked
+like a green tongue, from the moorland slopes above, was in fact a
+creek, flanked by lush land, which here found its way to the sea.
+The house which we were come to visit consisted in a low, two-story
+building, joining the ancient tower on the east with two smaller
+outbuildings. There was a miniature kitchen-garden, and a few stunted
+fruit trees in the northwest corner; the whole being surrounded by a
+gray stone wall.
+
+The shadow of the tower fell sharply across the path, which ran up
+almost alongside of it. We were both extremely warm by reason of our
+long and rapid walk on that hot day, and this shade should have been
+grateful to us. In short, I find it difficult to account for the
+unwelcome chill which I experienced at the moment that I found myself
+at the foot of the time-worn monument. I know that we both pulled up
+sharply and looked at one another as though acted upon by some mutual
+disturbance.
+
+But not a sound broke the stillness save a remote murmuring, until a
+solitary sea gull rose in the air and circled directly over the tower,
+uttering its mournful and unmusical cry. Automatically to my mind sprang
+the lines of the poem:
+
+    Far from all brother-men, in the weird of the fen,
+    With God’s creatures I bide, ‘mid the birds that I ken;
+    Where the winds ever dree, where the hymn of the sea
+    Brings a message of peace from the ocean to me.
+
+Not a soul was visible about the premises; there was no sound of human
+activity and no dog barked. Nayland Smith drew a long breath, glanced
+back along the way we had come, then went on, following the wall, I
+beside him, until we came to the gate. It was unfastened, and we walked
+up the stone path through a wilderness of weeds. Four windows of the
+house were visible, two on the ground floor and two above. Those on
+the ground floor were heavily boarded up, those above, though glazed,
+boasted neither blinds nor curtains. Cragmire Tower showed not the
+slightest evidence of tenancy.
+
+We mounted three steps and stood before a tremendously massive oaken
+door. An iron bell-pull, ancient and rusty, hung on the right of the
+door, and Smith, giving me an odd glance, seized the ring and tugged it.
+
+From somewhere within the building answered a mournful clangor, a
+cracked and toneless jangle, which, seeming to echo through empty
+apartments, sought and found an exit apparently by way of one of the
+openings in the round tower; for it was from above our heads that the
+noise came to us.
+
+It died away, that eerie ringing--that clanging so dismal that it could
+chill my heart even then with the bright sunlight streaming down out of
+the blue; it awoke no other response than the mournful cry of the sea
+gull circling over our heads. Silence fell. We looked at one another,
+and we were both about to express a mutual doubt when, unheralded by
+any unfastening of bolts or bars, the oaken door was opened, and a huge
+mulatto, dressed in white, stood there regarding us.
+
+I started nervously, for the apparition was so unexpected, but Nayland
+Smith, without evidence of surprise, thrust a card into the man’s hand.
+
+“Take my card to Mr. Van Roon, and say that I wish to see him on
+important business,” he directed, authoritatively.
+
+The mulatto bowed and retired. His white figure seemed to be swallowed
+up by the darkness within, for beyond the patch of uncarpeted floor
+revealed by the peeping sunlight, was a barn-like place of densest
+shadow. I was about to speak, but Smith laid his hand upon my arm
+warningly, as, out from the shadows the mulatto returned. He stood on
+the right of the door and bowed again.
+
+“Be pleased to enter,” he said, in his harsh, negro voice. “Mr. Van Roon
+will see you.”
+
+The gladness of the sun could no longer stir me; a chill and sense of
+foreboding bore me company, as beside Nayland Smith I entered Cragmire
+Tower.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE MULATTO
+
+The room in which Van Roon received us was roughly of the shape of an
+old-fashioned keyhole; one end of it occupied the base of the tower,
+upon which the remainder had evidently been built. In many respects
+it was a singular room, but the feature which caused me the greatest
+amazement was this:--it had no windows!
+
+In the deep alcove formed by the tower sat Van Roon at a littered table,
+upon which stood an oil reading-lamp, green shaded, of the “Victoria”
+ pattern, to furnish the entire illumination of the apartment. That
+bookshelves lined the rectangular portion of this strange study I
+divined, although that end of the place was dark as a catacomb. The
+walls were wood-paneled, and the ceiling was oaken beamed. A small
+bookshelf and tumble-down cabinet stood upon either side of the table,
+and the celebrated American author and traveler lay propped up in a long
+split-cane chair. He wore smoked glasses, and had a clean-shaven, olive
+face, with a profusion of jet black hair. He was garbed in a dirty red
+dressing-gown, and a perfect fog of cigar smoke hung in the room. He did
+not rise to greet us, but merely extended his right hand, between two
+fingers whereof he held Smith’s card.
+
+“You will excuse the seeming discourtesy of an invalid, gentlemen?” he
+said; “but I am suffering from undue temerity in the interior of China!”
+
+He waved his hand vaguely, and I saw that two rough deal chairs stood
+near the table. Smith and I seated ourselves, and my friend, leaning his
+elbow upon the table, looked fixedly at the face of the man whom we
+had come from London to visit. Although comparatively unfamiliar to the
+British public, the name of Van Roon was well-known in American literary
+circles; for he enjoyed in the United States a reputation somewhat
+similar to that which had rendered the name of our mutual friend,
+Sir Lionel Barton, a household word in England. It was Van Roon who,
+following in the footsteps of Madame Blavatsky, had sought out the
+haunts of the fabled mahatmas in the Himalayas, and Van Roon who had
+essayed to explore the fever swamps of Yucatan in quest of the secret
+of lost Atlantis; lastly, it was Van Roon, who, with an overland car
+specially built for him by a celebrated American firm, had undertaken
+the journey across China.
+
+I studied the olive face with curiosity. Its natural impassivity was
+so greatly increased by the presence of the colored spectacles that my
+study was as profitless as if I had scrutinized the face of a carven
+Buddha. The mulatto had withdrawn, and in an atmosphere of gloom and
+tobacco smoke, Smith and I sat staring, perhaps rather rudely, at the
+object of our visit to the West Country.
+
+“Mr. Van Roon,” began my friend abruptly, “you will no doubt have seen
+this paragraph. It appeared in this morning’s Daily Telegraph.”
+
+He stood up, and taking out the cutting from his notebook, placed it on
+the table.
+
+“I have seen this--yes,” said Van Roon, revealing a row of even, white
+teeth in a rapid smile. “Is it to this paragraph that I owe the pleasure
+of seeing you here?”
+
+“The paragraph appeared in this morning’s issue,” replied Smith. “An
+hour from the time of seeing it, my friend, Dr. Petrie, and I were
+entrained for Bridgewater.”
+
+“Your visit delights me, gentlemen, and I should be ungrateful to
+question its cause; but frankly I am at a loss to understand why you
+should have honored me thus. I am a poor host, God knows; for what
+with my tortured limb, a legacy from the Chinese devils whose secrets I
+surprised, and my semi-blindness, due to the same cause, I am but sorry
+company.”
+
+Nayland Smith held up his right hand deprecatingly. Van Roon tendered a
+box of cigars and clapped his hands, whereupon the mulatto entered.
+
+“I see that you have a story to tell me, Mr. Smith,” he said; “therefore
+I suggest whisky-and-soda--or you might prefer tea, as it is nearly tea
+time?”
+
+Smith and I chose the former refreshment, and the soft-footed half-breed
+having departed upon his errand, my companion, leaning forward earnestly
+across the littered table, outlined for Van Roon the story of Dr.
+Fu-Manchu, the great and malign being whose mission in England at that
+moment was none other than the stoppage of just such information as our
+host was preparing to give to the world.
+
+“There is a giant conspiracy, Mr. Van Roon,” he said, “which had its
+birth in this very province of Ho-Nan, from which you were so fortunate
+to escape alive; whatever its scope or limitations, a great secret
+society is established among the yellow races. It means that China,
+which has slumbered for so many generations, now stirs in that age-long
+sleep. I need not tell you how much more it means, this seething in the
+pot...”
+
+“In a word,” interrupted Van Roon, pushing Smith’s glass across the
+table “you would say?--”
+
+“That your life is not worth that!” replied Smith, snapping his fingers
+before the other’s face.
+
+A very impressive silence fell. I watched Van Roon curiously as he sat
+propped up among his cushions, his smooth face ghastly in the green
+light from the lamp-shade. He held the stump of a cigar between his
+teeth, but, apparently unnoticed by him, it had long since gone out.
+Smith, out of the shadows, was watching him, too. Then:
+
+“Your information is very disturbing,” said the American. “I am the more
+disposed to credit your statement because I am all too painfully aware
+of the existence of such a group as you mention, in China, but that they
+had an agent here in England is something I had never conjectured. In
+seeking out this solitary residence I have unwittingly done much to
+assist their designs... But--my dear Mr. Smith, I am very remiss! Of
+course you will remain tonight, and I trust for some days to come?”
+
+Smith glanced rapidly across at me, then turned again to our host.
+
+“It seems like forcing our company upon you,” he said, “but in your
+own interests I think it will be best to do as you are good enough to
+suggest. I hope and believe that our arrival here has not been noticed
+by the enemy; therefore it will be well if we remain concealed as much
+as possible for the present, until we have settled upon some plan.”
+
+“Hagar shall go to the station for your baggage,” said the American
+rapidly, and clapped his hands, his usual signal to the mulatto.
+
+Whilst the latter was receiving his orders I noticed Nayland Smith
+watching him closely; and when he had departed:
+
+“How long has that man been in your service?” snapped my friend.
+
+Van Roon peered blindly through his smoked glasses.
+
+“For some years,” he replied; “he was with me in India--and in China.”
+
+“Where did you engage him?”
+
+“Actually, in St. Kitts.”
+
+“H’m,” muttered Smith, and automatically he took out and began to fill
+his pipe.
+
+“I can offer you no company but my own, gentlemen,” continued Van Roon,
+“but unless it interferes with your plans, you may find the surrounding
+district of interest and worthy of inspection, between now and dinner
+time. By the way, I think I can promise you quite a satisfactory meal,
+for Hagar is a model chef.”
+
+“A walk would be enjoyable,” said Smith, “but dangerous.”
+
+“Ah! perhaps you are right. Evidently you apprehend some attempt upon
+me?”
+
+“At any moment!”
+
+“To one in my crippled condition, an alarming outlook! However, I place
+myself unreservedly in your hands. But really, you must not leave this
+interesting district before you have made the acquaintance of some of
+its historical spots. To me, steeped as I am in what I may term the lore
+of the odd, it is a veritable wonderland, almost as interesting, in
+its way, as the caves and jungles of Hindustan depicted by Madame
+Blavatsky.”
+
+His high-pitched voice, with a certain labored intonation, not quite
+so characteristically American as was his accent, rose even higher; he
+spoke with the fire of the enthusiast.
+
+“When I learned that Cragmire Tower was vacant,” he continued, “I leaped
+at the chance (excuse the metaphor, from a lame man!). This is a
+ghost hunter’s paradise. The tower itself is of unknown origin, though
+probably Phoenician, and the house traditionally sheltered Dr. Macleod,
+the necromancer, after his flight from the persecution of James of
+Scotland. Then, to add to its interest, it borders on Sedgemoor,
+the scene of the bloody battle during the Monmouth rising, whereat a
+thousand were slain on the field. It is a local legend that the unhappy
+Duke and his staff may be seen, on stormy nights, crossing the path
+which skirts the mire, after which this building is named, with flaming
+torches held aloft.”
+
+“Merely marsh-lights, I take it?” interjected Smith, gripping his pipe
+hard between his teeth.
+
+“Your practical mind naturally seeks a practical explanation,” smiled
+Van Roon, “but I myself have other theories. Then in addition to the
+charms of Sedgemoor--haunted Sedgemoor--on a fine day it is quite
+possible to see the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey from here; and
+Glastonbury Abbey, as you may know, is closely bound up with the history
+of alchemy. It was in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey that the adept
+Kelly, companion of Dr. Dee, discovered, in the reign of Elizabeth, the
+famous caskets of St. Dunstan, containing the two tinctures...”
+
+So he ran on, enumerating the odd charms of his residence, charms which
+for my part I did not find appealing. Finally:
+
+“We cannot presume further upon your kindness,” said Nayland Smith,
+standing up. “No doubt we can amuse ourselves in the neighborhood of the
+house until the return of your servant.”
+
+“Look upon Cragmire Tower as your own, gentlemen!” cried Van Roon. “Most
+of the rooms are unfurnished, and the garden is a wilderness, but
+the structure of the brickwork in the tower may interest you
+archaeologically, and the view across the moor is at least as fine as
+any in the neighborhood.”
+
+So, with his brilliant smile and a gesture of one thin yellow hand, the
+crippled traveler made us free of his odd dwelling. As I passed out from
+the room close at Smith’s heels, I glanced back, I cannot say why.
+Van Roon already was bending over his papers, in his green shadowed
+sanctuary, and the light shining down upon his smoked glasses created
+the odd illusion that he was looking over the tops of the lenses and not
+down at the table as his attitude suggested. However, it was probably
+ascribable to the weird chiaroscuro of the scene, although it gave the
+seated figure an oddly malignant appearance, and I passed out through
+the utter darkness of the outer room to the front door. Smith opening
+it, I was conscious of surprise to find dusk come--to meet darkness
+where I had looked for sunlight.
+
+The silver wisps which had raced along the horizon, as we came to
+Cragmire Tower, had been harbingers of other and heavier banks. A stormy
+sunset smeared crimson streaks across the skyline, where a great range
+of clouds, like the oily smoke of a city burning, was banked, mountain
+topping mountain, and lighted from below by this angry red. As we came
+down the steps and out by the gate, I turned and looked across the moor
+behind us. A sort of reflection from this distant blaze encrimsoned the
+whole landscape. The inland bay glowed sullenly, as if internal fires
+and not reflected light were at work; a scene both wild and majestic.
+
+Nayland Smith was staring up at the cone-like top of the ancient tower
+in a curious, speculative fashion. Under the influence of our host’s
+conversation I had forgotten the reasonless dread which had touched me
+at the moment of our arrival, but now, with the red light blazing over
+Sedgemoor, as if in memory of the blood which had been shed there,
+and with the tower of unknown origin looming above me, I became very
+uncomfortable again, nor did I envy Van Roon his eerie residence. The
+proximity of a tower of any kind, at night, makes in some inexplicable
+way for awe, and to-night there were other agents, too.
+
+“What’s that?” snapped Smith suddenly, grasping my arm.
+
+He was peering southward, toward the distant hamlet, and, starting
+violently at his words and the sudden grasp of his hand, I, too, stared
+in that direction.
+
+“We were followed, Petrie,” he almost whispered. “I never got a sight of
+our follower, but I’ll swear we were followed. Look! there’s something
+moving over yonder!”
+
+Together we stood staring into the dusk; then Smith burst abruptly into
+one of his rare laughs, and clapped me upon the shoulder.
+
+“It’s Hagar, the mulatto!” he cried--“and our grips. That extraordinary
+American with his tales of witch-lights and haunted abbeys has been
+playing the devil with our nerves.”
+
+Together we waited by the gate until the half-caste appeared on the bend
+of the path with a grip in either hand. He was a great, muscular fellow
+with a stoic face, and, for the purpose of visiting Saul, presumably,
+he had doffed his white raiment and now wore a sort of livery, with a
+peaked cap.
+
+Smith watched him enter the house. Then:
+
+“I wonder where Van Roon obtains his provisions and so forth,” he
+muttered. “It’s odd they knew nothing about the new tenant of Cragmire
+Tower at ‘The Wagoners.’”
+
+There came a sort of sudden expectancy into his manner for which I found
+myself at a loss to account. He turned his gaze inland and stood there
+tugging at his left ear and clicking his teeth together. He stared at
+me, and his eyes looked very bright in the dusk, for a sort of red glow
+from the sunset touched them; but he spoke no word, merely taking my
+arm and leading me off on a rambling walk around and about the house.
+Neither of us spoke a word until we stood at the gate of Cragmire Tower
+again; then:
+
+“I’ll swear, now, that we were followed here today!” muttered Smith.
+
+The lofty place immediately within the doorway proved, in the light of a
+lamp now fixed in an iron bracket, to be a square entrance hall meagerly
+furnished. The closed study door faced the entrance, and on the left of
+it ascended an open staircase up which the mulatto led the way. We found
+ourselves on the floor above, in a corridor traversing the house from
+back to front. An apartment on the immediate left was indicated by the
+mulatto as that allotted to Smith. It was a room of fair size, furnished
+quite simply but boasting a wardrobe cupboard, and Smith’s grip stood
+beside the white enameled bed. I glanced around, and then prepared to
+follow the man, who had awaited me in the doorway.
+
+He still wore his dark livery, and as I followed the lithe,
+broad-shouldered figure along the corridor, I found myself considering
+critically his breadth of shoulder and the extraordinary thickness of
+his neck.
+
+I have repeatedly spoken of a sort of foreboding, an elusive stirring in
+the depths of my being of which I became conscious at certain times
+in my dealings with Dr. Fu-Manchu and his murderous servants. This
+sensation, or something akin to it, claimed me now, unaccountably, as
+I stood looking into the neat bedroom, on the same side of the corridor
+but at the extreme end, wherein I was to sleep.
+
+A voiceless warning urged me to return; a kind of childish panic came
+fluttering about my heart, a dread of entering the room, of allowing the
+mulatto to come behind me.
+
+Doubtless this was no more than a sub-conscious product of my
+observations respecting his abnormal breadth of shoulder. But whatever
+the origin of the impulse, I found myself unable to disobey it.
+Therefore, I merely nodded, turned on my heel and went back to Smith’s
+room.
+
+I closed the door, then turned to face Smith, who stood regarding me.
+
+“Smith,” I said, “that man sends cold water trickling down my spine!”
+
+Still regarding me fixedly, my friend nodded his head.
+
+“You are curiously sensitive to this sort of thing,” he replied slowly;
+“I have noticed it before as a useful capacity. I don’t like the look of
+the man myself. The fact that he has been in Van Roon’s employ for some
+years goes for nothing. We are neither of us likely to forget Kwee,
+the Chinese servant of Sir Lionel Barton, and it is quite possible that
+Fu-Manchu has corrupted this man as he corrupted the other. It is quite
+possible...”
+
+His voice trailed off into silence, and he stood looking across the room
+with unseeing eyes, meditating deeply. It was quite dark now outside, as
+I could see through the uncurtained window, which opened upon the dreary
+expanse stretching out to haunted Sedgemoor. Two candles were burning
+upon the dressing table; they were but recently lighted, and so intense
+was the stillness that I could distinctly hear the spluttering of one of
+the wicks, which was damp. Without giving the slightest warning of his
+intention, Smith suddenly made two strides forward, stretched out his
+long arms, and snuffed the pair of candles in a twinkling.
+
+The room became plunged in impenetrable darkness.
+
+“Not a word, Petrie!” whispered my companion.
+
+I moved cautiously to join him, but as I did so, perceived that he was
+moving too. Vaguely, against the window I perceived him silhouetted. He
+was looking out across the moor, and:
+
+“See! see!” he hissed.
+
+With my heart thumping furiously in my breast, I bent over him; and for
+the second time since our coming to Cragmire Tower, my thoughts flew to
+“The Fenman.”
+
+    There are shades in the fen; ghosts of women and men
+    Who have sinned and have died, but are living again.
+    O’er the waters they tread, with their lanterns of dread,
+    And they peer in the pools--in the pools of the dead...
+
+A light was dancing out upon the moor, a witchlight that came and went
+unaccountably, up and down, in and out, now clearly visible, now masked
+in the darkness!
+
+“Lock the door!” snapped my companion--“if there’s a key.”
+
+I crept across the room and fumbled for a moment; then:
+
+“There is no key,” I reported.
+
+“Then wedge the chair under the knob and let no one enter until I
+return!” he said, amazingly.
+
+With that he opened the window to its fullest extent, threw his leg over
+the sill, and went creeping along a wide concrete ledge, in which ran a
+leaded gutter, in the direction of the tower on the right!
+
+Not pausing to follow his instructions respecting the chair, I craned
+out of the window, watching his progress, and wondering with what sudden
+madness he was bitten. Indeed, I could not credit my senses, could not
+believe that I heard and saw aright. Yet there out in the darkness on
+the moor moved the will-o’-the-wisp, and ten yards along the gutter
+crept my friend, like a great gaunt cat. Unknown to me he must have
+prospected the route by daylight, for now I saw his design. The ledge
+terminated only where it met the ancient wall of the tower, and it
+was possible for an agile climber to step from it to the edge of the
+unglazed window some four feet below, and to scramble from that point
+to the stone fence and thence on to the path by which we had come from
+Saul.
+
+This difficult operation Nayland Smith successfully performed, and, to
+my unbounded amazement, went racing into the darkness toward the dancing
+light, headlong, like a madman! The night swallowed him up, and between
+my wonder and my fear my hands trembled so violently that I could scarce
+support myself where I rested, with my full weight upon the sill.
+
+I seemed now to be moving through the fevered phases of a nightmare.
+Around and below me Cragmire Tower was profoundly silent, but a faint
+odor of cookery was now perceptible. Outside, from the night, came
+a faint whispering as of the distant sea, but no moon and no stars
+relieved the impenetrable blackness. Only out over the moor the
+mysterious light still danced and moved.
+
+One--two--three--four--five minutes passed. The light vanished and
+did not appear again. Five more age-long minutes elapsed in absolute
+silence, whilst I peered into the darkness of the night and listened,
+every nerve in my body tense, for the return of Nayland Smith. Yet two
+more minutes, which embraced an agony of suspense, passed in the same
+fashion; then a shadowy form grew, phantomesque, out of the gloom; a
+moment more, and I distinctly heard the heavy breathing of a man nearly
+spent, and saw my friend scrambling up toward the black embrasure in the
+tower. His voice came huskily, pantingly:
+
+“Creep along and lend me a hand, Petrie! I am nearly winded.”
+
+I crept through the window, steadied my quivering nerves by an effort
+of the will, and reached the end of the ledge in time to take Smith’s
+extended hand and to draw him up beside me against the wall of the
+tower. He was shaking with his exertions, and must have fallen, I think,
+without my assistance. Inside the room again:
+
+“Quick! light the candles!” he breathed hoarsely.
+
+“Did any one come?”
+
+“No one--nothing.”
+
+Having expended several matches in vain, for my fingers twitched
+nervously, I ultimately succeeded in relighting the candles.
+
+“Get along to your room!” directed Smith. “Your apprehensions are
+unfounded at the moment, but you may as well leave both doors wide
+open!”
+
+I looked into his face--it was very drawn and grim, and his brow was wet
+with perspiration, but his eyes had the fighting glint, and I knew that
+we were upon the eve of strange happenings.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. A CRY ON THE MOOR
+
+Of the events intervening between this moment and that when death called
+to us out of the night, I have the haziest recollections. An excellent
+dinner was served in the bleak and gloomy dining-room by the mulatto,
+and the crippled author was carried to the head of the table by this
+same Herculean attendant, as lightly as though he had but the weight of
+a child.
+
+Van Roon talked continuously, revealing a deep knowledge of all sorts of
+obscure matters; and in the brief intervals, Nayland Smith talked also,
+with almost feverish rapidity. Plans for the future were discussed. I
+can recall no one of them.
+
+I could not stifle my queer sentiments in regard to the mulatto, and
+every time I found him behind my chair I was hard put to repress
+a shudder. In this fashion the strange evening passed; and to the
+accompaniment of distant, muttering thunder, we two guests retired
+to our chambers in Cragmire Tower. Smith had contrived to give me my
+instructions in a whisper, and five minutes after entering my own room,
+I had snuffed the candles, slipped a wedge, which he had given me, under
+the door, crept out through the window onto the guttered ledge, and
+joined Smith in his room. He, too, had extinguished his candles, and the
+place was in darkness. As I climbed in, he grasped my wrist to silence
+me, and turned me forcibly toward the window.
+
+“Listen!” he said.
+
+I turned and looked out upon a prospect which had been a fit setting for
+the witch scene in Macbeth. Thunder clouds hung low over the moor, but
+through them ran a sort of chasm, or rift, allowing a bar of lurid light
+to stretch across the drear, from east to west--a sort of lane walled by
+darkness. There came a remote murmuring, as of a troubled sea--a hushed
+and distant chorus; and sometimes in upon it broke the drums of heaven.
+In the west lightning flickered, though but faintly, intermittently.
+
+Then came the call.
+
+Out of the blackness of the moor it came, wild and distant--“Help!
+help!”
+
+“Smith!” I whispered--“what is it? What...”
+
+“Mr. Smith!” came the agonized cry... “Nayland Smith, help! for God’s
+sake....”
+
+“Quick, Smith!” I cried, “quick, man! It’s Van Roon--he’s been dragged
+out... they are murdering him...”
+
+Nayland Smith held me in a vise-like grip, silent, unmoved!
+
+Louder and more agonized came the cry for aid, and I became more than
+ever certain that it was poor Van Roon who uttered it.
+
+“Mr. Smith! Dr. Petrie! for God’s sake come... or... it will be ...
+too... late...”
+
+“Smith!” I said, turning furiously upon my friend, “if you are going to
+remain here whilst murder is done, I am not!”
+
+My blood boiled now with hot resentment. It was incredible, inhuman,
+that we should remain there inert whilst a fellow man, and our host to
+boot, was being done to death out there in the darkness. I exerted all
+my strength to break away; but although my efforts told upon him, as his
+loud breathing revealed, Nayland Smith clung to me tenaciously. Had my
+hands been free, in my fury, I could have struck him, for the pitiable
+cries, growing fainter, now, told their own tale. Then Smith spoke
+shortly and angrily--breathing hard between the words.
+
+“Be quiet, you fool!” he snapped; “it’s little less than an insult,
+Petrie, to think me capable of refusing help where help is needed!”
+
+Like a cold douche his words acted; in that instant I knew myself a
+fool.
+
+“You remember the Call of Siva?” he said, thrusting me away irritably,
+“--two years ago, and what it meant to those who obeyed it?”
+
+“You might have told me...”
+
+“Told you! You would have been through the window before I had uttered
+two words!”
+
+I realized the truth of his assertion, and the justness of his anger.
+
+“Forgive me, old man,” I said, very crestfallen, “but my impulse was a
+natural one, you’ll admit. You must remember that I have been trained
+never to refuse aid when aid is asked.”
+
+“Shut up, Petrie!” he growled; “forget it.”
+
+The cries had ceased now, entirely, and a peal of thunder, louder than
+any yet, echoed over distant Sedgemoor. The chasm of light splitting the
+heavens closed in, leaving the night wholly black.
+
+“Don’t talk!” rapped Smith; “act! You wedged your door?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Good. Get into that cupboard, have your Browning ready, and keep the
+door very slightly ajar.”
+
+He was in that mood of repressed fever which I knew and which always
+communicated itself to me. I spoke no further word, but stepped into
+the wardrobe indicated and drew the door nearly shut. The recess just
+accommodated me, and through the aperture I could see the bed, vaguely,
+the open window, and part of the opposite wall. I saw Smith cross the
+floor, as a mighty clap of thunder boomed over the house.
+
+A gleam of lightning flickered through the gloom.
+
+I saw the bed for a moment, distinctly, and it appeared to me that Smith
+lay therein, with the sheets pulled up over his head. The light was
+gone, and I could hear big drops of rain pattering upon the leaden
+gutter below the open window.
+
+My mood was strange, detached, and characterized by vagueness. That Van
+Roon lay dead upon the moor I was convinced; and--although I recognized
+that it must be a sufficient one--I could not even dimly divine the
+reason why we had refrained from lending him aid. To have failed to save
+him, knowing his peril, would have been bad enough; to have refused, I
+thought was shameful. Better to have shared his fate--yet...
+
+The downpour was increasing, and beating now a regular tattoo upon the
+gutterway. Then, splitting the oblong of greater blackness which marked
+the casement, quivered dazzlingly another flash of lightning in which
+I saw the bed again, with that impression of Smith curled up in it. The
+blinding light died out; came the crash of thunder, harsh and fearsome,
+more imminently above the tower than ever. The building seemed to shake.
+
+Coming as they did, horror and the wrath of heaven together, suddenly,
+crashingly, black and angry after the fairness of the day, these
+happenings and their setting must have terrorized the stoutest heart;
+but somehow I seemed detached, as I have said, and set apart from the
+whirl of events; a spectator. Even when a vague yellow light crept
+across the room from the direction of the door, and flickered unsteadily
+on the bed, I remained unmoved to a certain degree, although passively
+alive to the significance of the incident. I realized that the ultimate
+issue was at hand, but either because I was emotionally exhausted, or
+from some other cause, the pending climax failed to disturb me.
+
+Going on tiptoe, in stockinged feet, across my field of vision, passed
+Kegan Van Roon! He was in his shirt-sleeves and held a lighted candle in
+one hand whilst with the other he shaded it against the draught from
+the window. He was a cripple no longer, and the smoked glasses were
+discarded; most of the light, at the moment when first I saw him, shone
+upon his thin, olive face, and at sight of his eyes much of the mystery
+of Cragmire Tower was resolved. For they were oblique, very slightly,
+but nevertheless unmistakably oblique. Though highly educated, and
+possibly an American citizen, Van Roon was a Chinaman!
+
+Upon the picture of his face as I saw it then, I do not care to
+dwell. It lacked the unique horror of Dr. Fu-Manchu’s unforgettable
+countenance, but possessed a sort of animal malignancy which the
+latter lacked... He approached within three or four feet of the bed,
+peering--peering. Then, with a timidity which spoke well for Nayland
+Smith’s reputation, paused and beckoned to some one who evidently stood
+in the doorway behind him. As he did so I noted that the legs of his
+trousers were caked with greenish brown mud nearly up to the knees.
+
+The huge mulatto, silent-footed, crossed to the bed in three strides.
+He was stripped to the waist, and, excepting some few professional
+athletes, I had never seen a torso to compare with that which, brown and
+glistening, now bent over Nayland Smith. The muscular development was
+simply enormous; the man had a neck like a column, and the thews around
+his back and shoulders were like ivy tentacles wreathing some gnarled
+oak.
+
+Whilst Van Roon, his evil gaze upon the bed, held the candle aloft,
+the mulatto, with a curious preparatory writhing movement of the mighty
+shoulders, lowered his outstretched fingers to the disordered bed
+linen...
+
+I pushed open the cupboard door and thrust out the Browning. As I did
+so a dramatic thing happened. A tall, gaunt figure shot suddenly upright
+from beyond the bed. It was Nayland Smith!
+
+Upraised in his hand he held a heavy walking cane. I knew the handle to
+be leaded, and I could judge of the force with which he wielded it by
+the fact that it cut the air with a keen swishing sound. It descended
+upon the back of the mulatto’s skull with a sickening thud, and the
+great brown body dropped inert upon the padded bed--in which not Smith,
+but his grip, reposed. There was no word, no cry. Then:
+
+“Shoot, Petrie! Shoot the fiend! Shoot...”
+
+Van Roon, dropping the candle, in the falling gleam of which I saw the
+whites of the oblique eyes turned and leaped from the room with the
+agility of a wild cat. The ensuing darkness was split by a streak of
+lightning... and there was Nayland Smith scrambling around the foot of
+the bed and making for the door in hot pursuit.
+
+We gained it almost together. Smith had dropped the cane, and now
+held his pistol in his hand. Together we fired into the chasm of the
+corridor, and in the flash, saw Van Roon hurling himself down the
+stairs. He went silently in his stockinged feet, and our own clatter
+was drowned by the awful booming of the thunder which now burst over us
+again.
+
+Crack!--crack!--crack! Three times our pistols spat venomously after
+the flying figure... then we had crossed the hall below and were in
+the wilderness of the night with the rain descending upon us in sheets.
+Vaguely I saw the white shirt-sleeves of the fugitive near the corner
+of the stone fence. A moment he hesitated, then darted away inland, not
+toward Saul, but toward the moor and the cup of the inland bay.
+
+“Steady, Petrie! steady!” cried Nayland Smith. He ran, panting, beside
+me. “It is the path to the mire.” He breathed sibilantly between every
+few words. “It was out there... that he hoped to lure us... with the cry
+for help.”
+
+A great blaze of lightning illuminated the landscape as far as the eye
+could see. Ahead of us a flying shape, hair lank and glistening in the
+downpour, followed a faint path skirting that green tongue of morass
+which we had noted from the upland. It was Kegan Van Roon. He glanced
+over his shoulder, showing a yellow, terror-stricken face. We were
+gaining upon him. Darkness fell, and the thunder cracked and boomed as
+though the very moor were splitting about us.
+
+“Another fifty yards, Petrie,” breathed Nayland Smith, “and after that
+it’s unchartered ground.”
+
+On we went through the rain and the darkness; then:
+
+“Slow up! slow up!” cried Smith. “It feels soft!”
+
+Indeed, already I had made one false step--and the hungry mire had
+fastened upon my foot, almost tripping me.
+
+“Lost the path!”
+
+We stopped dead. The falling rain walled us in. I dared not move, for I
+knew that the mire, the devouring mire, stretched, eager, close about
+my feet. We were both waiting for the next flash of lightning, I think,
+but, before it came, out of the darkness ahead of us rose a cry that
+sometimes rings in my ears to this hour. Yet it was no more than a
+repetition of that which had called to us, deathfully, awhile before.
+
+“Help! help! for God’s sake help! Quick! I am sinking...”
+
+Nayland Smith grasped my arm furiously.
+
+“We dare not move, Petrie--we dare not move!” he breathed. “It’s God’s
+justice--visible for once.”
+
+Then came the lightning; and--ignoring a splitting crash behind us--we
+both looked ahead, over the mire.
+
+Just on the edge of the venomous green path, not thirty yards away, I
+saw the head and shoulders and upstretched, appealing arms of Van Roon.
+Even as the lightning flickered and we saw him, he was gone; with one
+last, long, drawn-out cry, horribly like the mournful wail of a sea
+gull, he was gone!
+
+That eerie light died, and in the instant before the sound of the
+thunder came shatteringly, we turned about... in time to see Cragmire
+Tower, a blacker silhouette against the night, topple and fall! A
+red glow began to be perceptible above the building. The thunder came
+booming through the caverns of space. Nayland Smith lowered his wet face
+close to mine and shouted in my ear:
+
+“Kegan Van Roon never returned from China. It was a trap. Those were two
+creatures of Dr. Fu-Manchu...”
+
+The thunder died away, hollowly, echoing over the distant sea...
+
+“That light on the moor to-night?”
+
+“You have not learned the Morse Code, Petrie. It was a signal, and it
+read:--S M I T H... SOS.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I took the chance, as you know. And it was Karamaneh! She knew of the
+plot to bury us in the mire. She had followed from London, but could do
+nothing until dusk. God forgive me if I’ve misjudged her--for we owe her
+our lives to-night.”
+
+Flames were bursting up from the building beside the ruin of the ancient
+tower which had faced the storms of countless ages only to succumb at
+last. The lightning literally had cloven it in twain.
+
+“The mulatto?...”
+
+Again the lightning flashed, and we saw the path and began to retrace
+our steps. Nayland Smith turned to me; his face was very grim in that
+unearthly light, and his eyes shone like steel.
+
+“I killed him, Petrie... as I meant to do.”
+
+From out over Sedgemoor it came, cracking and rolling and booming toward
+us, swelling in volume to a stupendous climax, that awful laughter of
+Jove the destroyer of Cragmire Tower.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. STORY OF THE GABLES
+
+In looking over my notes dealing with the second phase of Dr.
+Fu-Manchu’s activities in England, I find that one of the worst hours
+of my life was associated with the singular and seemingly inconsequent
+adventure of the fiery hand. I shall deal with it in this place, begging
+you to bear with me if I seem to digress.
+
+Inspector Weymouth called one morning, shortly after the Van Roon
+episode, and entered upon a surprising account of a visit to a house at
+Hampstead which enjoyed the sinister reputation of being uninhabitable.
+
+“But in what way does the case enter into your province?” inquired
+Nayland Smith, idly tapping out his pipe on a bar of the grate.
+
+We had not long finished breakfast, but from an early hour Smith had
+been at his eternal smoking, which only the advent of the meal had
+interrupted.
+
+“Well,” replied the inspector, who occupied a big armchair near the
+window, “I was sent to look into it, I suppose, because I had nothing
+better to do at the moment.”
+
+“Ah!” jerked Smith, glancing over his shoulder.
+
+The ejaculation had a veiled significance; for our quest of Dr.
+Fu-Manchu had come to an abrupt termination by reason of the fact that
+all trace of that malignant genius, and of the group surrounding him,
+had vanished with the destruction of Cragmire Tower.
+
+“The house is called the Gables,” continued the Scotland Yard man, “and
+I knew I was on a wild goose chase from the first--”
+
+“Why?” snapped Smith.
+
+“Because I was there before, six months ago or so--just before your
+present return to England--and I knew what to expect.”
+
+Smith looked up with some faint dawning of interest perceptible in his
+manner.
+
+“I was unaware,” he said with a slight smile, “that the cleaning-up
+of haunted houses came within the jurisdiction of Scotland Yard. I am
+learning something.”
+
+“In the ordinary way,” replied the big man good-humoredly, “it doesn’t.
+But a sudden death always excites suspicion, and--”
+
+“A sudden death?” I said, glancing up; “you didn’t explain that the
+ghost had killed any one!”
+
+“I’m afraid I’m a poor hand at yarn-spinning, Doctor,” said Weymouth,
+turning his blue, twinkling eyes in my direction. “Two people have died
+at the Gables within the last six months.”
+
+“You begin to interest me,” declared Smith, and there came something of
+the old, eager look into his gaunt face, as, having lighted his pipe, he
+tossed the match-end into the hearth.
+
+“I had hoped for some little excitement, myself,” confessed the
+inspector. “This dead-end, with not a ghost of a clue to the whereabouts
+of the yellow fiend, has been getting on my nerves--”
+
+Nayland Smith grunted sympathetically.
+
+“Although Dr. Fu-Manchu has been in England for some months, now,”
+ continued Weymouth, “I have never set eyes upon him; the house we raided
+in Museum Street proved to be empty; in a word, I am wasting my time.
+So that I volunteered to run up to Hampstead and look into the matter
+of the Gables, principally as a distraction. It’s a queer business, but
+more in the Psychical Research Society’s line than mine, I’m afraid.
+Still, if there were no Dr. Fu-Manchu it might be of interest to
+you--and to you, Dr. Petrie, because it illustrates the fact, that,
+given the right sort of subject, death can be brought about without any
+elaborate mechanism--such as our Chinese friends employ.”
+
+“You interest me more and more,” declared Smith, stretching himself in
+the long, white cane rest-chair.
+
+“Two men, both fairly sound, except that the first one had an asthmatic
+heart, have died at the Gables without any one laying a little finger
+upon them. Oh! there was no jugglery! They weren’t poisoned, or bitten
+by venomous insects, or suffocated, or anything like that. They just
+died of fear--stark fear.”
+
+With my elbows resting upon the table cover, and my chin in my hands, I
+was listening attentively, now, and Nayland Smith, a big cushion behind
+his head, was watching the speaker with a keen and speculative look in
+those steely eyes of his.
+
+“You imply that Dr. Fu-Manchu has something to learn from the Gables?”
+ he jerked.
+
+Weymouth nodded stolidly.
+
+“I can’t work up anything like amazement in these days,” continued the
+latter; “every other case seems stale and hackneyed alongside the case.
+But I must confess that when the Gables came on the books of the Yard
+the second time, I began to wonder. I thought there might be some
+tangible clue, some link connecting the two victims; perhaps some
+evidence of robbery or of revenge--of some sort of motive. In short, I
+hoped to find evidence of human agency at work, but, as before, I was
+disappointed.”
+
+“It’s a legitimate case of a haunted house, then?” said Smith.
+
+“Yes; we find them occasionally, these uninhabitable places, where
+there is something, something malignant and harmful to human life, but
+something that you cannot arrest, that you cannot hope to bring into
+court.”
+
+“Ah,” replied Smith slowly; “I suppose you are right. There are historic
+instances, of course: Glamys Castle and Spedlins Tower in Scotland,
+Peel Castle, Isle of Man, with its Maudhe Dhug, the gray lady of Rainham
+Hall, the headless horses of Caistor, the Wesley ghost of Epworth
+Rectory, and others. But I have never come in personal contact with such
+a case, and if I did I should feel very humiliated to have to
+confess that there was any agency which could produce a physical
+result--death--but which was immune from physical retaliation.”
+
+Weymouth nodded his head again.
+
+“I might feel a bit sour about it, too,” he replied, “if it were not
+that I haven’t much pride left in these days, considering the show of
+physical retaliation I have made against Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
+
+“A home thrust, Weymouth!” snapped Nayland Smith, with one of those
+rare, boyish laughs of his. “We’re children to that Chinese doctor,
+Inspector, to that weird product of a weird people who are as old in
+evil as the pyramids are old in mystery. But about the Gables?”
+
+“Well, it’s an uncanny place. You mentioned Glamys Castle a moment
+ago, and it’s possible to understand an old stronghold like that being
+haunted, but the Gables was only built about 1870; it’s quite a modern
+house. It was built for a wealthy Quaker family, and they occupied it,
+uninterruptedly and apparently without anything unusual occurring, for
+over forty years. Then it was sold to a Mr. Maddison--and Mr. Maddison
+died there six months ago.”
+
+“Maddison?” said Smith sharply, staring across at Weymouth. “What was
+he? Where did he come from?”
+
+“He was a retired tea-planter from Colombo,” replied the inspector.
+
+“Colombo?”
+
+“There was a link with the East, certainly, if that’s what you are
+thinking; and it was this fact which interested me at the time, and
+which led me to waste precious days and nights on the case. But there
+was no mortal connection between this liverish individual and the
+schemes of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I’m certain of that.”
+
+“And how did he die?” I asked, interestedly.
+
+“He just died in his chair one evening, in the room which he used as a
+library. It was his custom to sit there every night, when there were no
+visitors, reading, until twelve o’clock--or later. He was a bachelor,
+and his household consisted of a cook, a housemaid, and a man who had
+been with him for thirty years, I believe. At the time of Mr. Maddison’s
+death, his household had recently been deprived of two of its members.
+The cook and housemaid both resigned one morning, giving as their reason
+the fact that the place was haunted.”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“I interviewed the precious pair at the time, and they told me absurd
+and various tales about dark figures wandering along the corridors and
+bending over them in bed at night, whispering; but their chief trouble
+was a continuous ringing of bells about the house.”
+
+“Bells?”
+
+“They said that it became unbearable. Night and day there were bells
+ringing all over the house. At any rate, they went, and for three or
+four days the Gables was occupied only by Mr. Maddison and his man,
+whose name was Stevens. I interviewed the latter also, and he was an
+altogether more reliable witness; a decent, steady sort of man whose
+story impressed me very much at the time.”
+
+“Did he confirm the ringing?”
+
+“He swore to it--a sort of jangle, sometimes up in the air, near the
+ceilings, and sometimes under the floor, like the shaking of silver
+bells.”
+
+Nayland Smith stood up abruptly and began to pace the room, leaving
+great trails of blue-gray smoke behind him.
+
+“Your story is sufficiently interesting, Inspector,” he declared,
+“even to divert my mind from the eternal contemplation of the Fu-Manchu
+problem. This would appear to be distinctly a case of an ‘astral bell’
+such as we sometimes hear of in India.”
+
+“It was Stevens,” continued Weymouth, “who found Mr. Maddison. He
+(Stevens) had been out on business connected with the household
+arrangements, and at about eleven o’clock he returned, letting himself
+in with a key. There was a light in the library, and getting no response
+to his knocking, Stevens entered. He found his master sitting bolt
+upright in a chair, clutching the arms with rigid fingers and staring
+straight before him with a look of such frightful horror on his face,
+that Stevens positively ran from the room and out of the house. Mr.
+Maddison was stone dead. When a doctor, who lives at no great distance
+away, came and examined him, he could find no trace of violence
+whatever; he had apparently died of fright, to judge from the expression
+on his face.”
+
+“Anything else?”
+
+“Only this: I learnt, indirectly, that the last member of the Quaker
+family to occupy the house had apparently witnessed the apparition,
+which had led to his vacating the place. I got the story from the wife
+of a man who had been employed as gardener there at that time.
+The apparition--which he witnessed in the hallway, if I remember
+rightly--took the form of a sort of luminous hand clutching a long,
+curved knife.”
+
+“Oh, Heavens!” cried Smith, and laughed shortly; “that’s quite in
+order!”
+
+“This gentleman told no one of the occurrence until after he had left
+the house, no doubt in order that the place should not acquire an evil
+reputation. Most of the original furniture remained, and Mr. Maddison
+took the house furnished. I don’t think there can be any doubt that what
+killed him was fear at seeing a repetition--”
+
+“Of the fiery hand?” concluded Smith.
+
+“Quite so. Well, I examined the Gables pretty closely, and, with another
+Scotland Yard man, spent a night in the empty house. We saw nothing; but
+once, very faintly, we heard the ringing of bells.”
+
+Smith spun around upon him rapidly.
+
+“You can swear to that?” he snapped.
+
+“I can swear to it,” declared Weymouth stolidly. “It seemed to be over
+our heads. We were sitting in the dining-room. Then it was gone, and we
+heard nothing more whatever of an unusual nature. Following the death of
+Mr. Maddison, the Gables remained empty until a while ago, when a French
+gentleman, name Lejay, leased it--”
+
+“Furnished?”
+
+“Yes; nothing was removed--”
+
+“Who kept the place in order?”
+
+“A married couple living in the neighborhood undertook to do so. The
+man attended to the lawn and so forth, and the woman came once a week, I
+believe, to clean up the house.”
+
+“And Lejay?”
+
+“He came in only last week, having leased the house for six months. His
+family were to have joined him in a day or two, and he, with the aid
+of the pair I have just mentioned, and assisted by a French servant he
+brought over with him, was putting the place in order. At about twelve
+o’clock on Friday night this servant ran into a neighboring house
+screaming ‘the fiery hand!’ and when at last a constable arrived and a
+frightened group went up the avenue of the Gables, they found M. Lejay,
+dead in the avenue, near the steps just outside the hall door! He had
+the same face of horror...”
+
+“What a tale for the press!” snapped Smith.
+
+“The owner has managed to keep it quiet so far, but this time I think it
+will leak into the press--yes.”
+
+There was a short silence; then:
+
+“And you have been down to the Gables again?”
+
+“I was there on Saturday, but there’s not a scrap of evidence. The man
+undoubtedly died of fright in the same way as Maddison. The place ought
+to be pulled down; it’s unholy.”
+
+“Unholy is the word,” I said. “I never heard anything like it. This M.
+Lejay had no enemies?--there could be no possible motive?”
+
+“None whatever. He was a business man from Marseilles, and his affairs
+necessitated his remaining in or near London for some considerable time;
+therefore, he decided to make his headquarters here, temporarily, and
+leased the Gables with that intention.”
+
+Nayland Smith was pacing the floor with increasing rapidity; he was
+tugging at the lobe of his left ear and his pipe had long since gone
+out.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. THE BELLS
+
+I started to my feet as a tall, bearded man swung open the door and
+hurled himself impetuously into the room. He wore a silk hat, which
+fitted him very ill, and a black frock coat which did not fit him at
+all.
+
+“It’s all right, Petrie!” cried the apparition; “I’ve leased the
+Gables!”
+
+It was Nayland Smith! I stared at him in amazement
+
+“The first time I have employed a disguise,” continued my friend
+rapidly, “since the memorable episode of the false pigtail.” He threw
+a small brown leather grip upon the floor. “In case you should care
+to visit the house, Petrie, I have brought these things. My tenancy
+commences to-night!”
+
+Two days had elapsed, and I had entirely forgotten the strange story of
+the Gables which Inspector Weymouth had related to us; evidently it was
+otherwise with my friend, and utterly at a loss for an explanation of
+his singular behavior, I stooped mechanically and opened the grip.
+It contained an odd assortment of garments, and amongst other things
+several gray wigs and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles.
+
+Kneeling there with this strange litter about me, I looked up amazedly.
+Nayland Smith, with the unsuitable silk hat set right upon the back of
+his head, was pacing the room excitedly, his fuming pipe protruding from
+the tangle of factitious beard.
+
+“You see, Petrie,” he began again, rapidly, “I did not entirely trust
+the agent. I’ve leased the house in the name of Professor Maxton...”
+
+“But, Smith,” I cried, “what possible reason can there be for disguise?”
+
+“There’s every reason,” he snapped.
+
+“Why should you interest yourself in the Gables?”
+
+“Does no explanation occur to you?”
+
+“None whatever; to me the whole thing smacks of stark lunacy.”
+
+“Then you won’t come?”
+
+“I’ve never stuck at anything, Smith,” I replied, “however undignified,
+when it has seemed that my presence could be of the slightest use.”
+
+As I rose to my feet, Smith stepped in front of me, and the steely gray
+eyes shone out strangely from the altered face. He clapped his hands
+upon my shoulders.
+
+“If I assure you that your presence is necessary to my safety,” he
+said--“that if you fail me I must seek another companion--will you
+come?”
+
+Intuitively, I knew that he was keeping something back, and I was
+conscious of some resentment, but nevertheless my reply was a foregone
+conclusion, and--with the borrowed appearance of an extremely untidy
+old man--I crept guiltily out of my house that evening and into the cab
+which Smith had waiting.
+
+The Gables was a roomy and rambling place lying back a considerable
+distance from the road. A semicircular drive gave access to the door,
+and so densely wooded was the ground, that for the most part the drive
+was practically a tunnel--a verdant tunnel. A high brick wall concealed
+the building from the point of view of any one on the roadway, but
+either horn of the crescent drive terminated at a heavy, wrought-iron
+gateway.
+
+Smith discharged the cab at the corner of the narrow and winding road
+upon which the Gables fronted. It was walled in on both sides; on
+the left the wall being broken by tradesmen’s entrances to the
+houses fronting upon another street, and on the right following,
+uninterruptedly, the grounds of the Gables. As we came to the gate:
+
+“Nothing now,” said Smith, pointing into the darkness of the road before
+us, “except a couple of studios, until one comes to the Heath.”
+
+He inserted the key in the lock of the gate and swung it creakingly
+open. I looked into the black arch of the avenue, thought of the haunted
+residence that lay hidden somewhere beyond, of those who had died in
+it--especially of the one who had died there under the trees--and found
+myself out of love with the business of the night.
+
+“Come on!” said Nayland Smith briskly, holding the gate open; “there
+should be a fire in the library and refreshments, if the charwoman has
+followed instructions.”
+
+I heard the great gate clang to behind us. Even had there been any moon
+(and there was none) I doubted if more than a patch or two of light
+could have penetrated there. The darkness was extraordinary. Nothing
+broke it, and I think Smith must have found his way by the aid of some
+sixth sense. At any rate, I saw nothing of the house until I stood some
+five paces from the steps leading up to the porch. A light was burning
+in the hallway, but dimly and inhospitably; of the facade of the
+building I could perceive little.
+
+When we entered the hall and the door was closed behind us, I began
+wondering anew what purpose my friend hoped to serve by a vigil in this
+haunted place. There was a light in the library, the door of which was
+ajar, and on the large table were decanters, a siphon, and some biscuits
+and sandwiches. A large grip stood upon the floor, also. For some reason
+which was a mystery to me, Smith had decided that we must assume false
+names whilst under the roof of the Gables; and:
+
+“Now, Pearce,” he said, “a whisky-and-soda before we look around?”
+
+The proposal was welcome enough, for I felt strangely dispirited, and,
+to tell the truth, in my strange disguise, not a little ridiculous.
+
+All my nerves, no doubt, were highly strung, and my sense of hearing
+unusually acute, for I went in momentary expectation of some uncanny
+happening. I had not long to wait. As I raised the glass to my lips and
+glanced across the table at my friend, I heard the first faint sound
+heralding the coming of the bells.
+
+It did not seem to proceed from anywhere within the library, but from
+some distant room, far away overhead. A musical sound it was, but
+breaking in upon the silence of that ill-omened house, its music was the
+music of terror. In a faint and very sweet cascade it rippled; a ringing
+as of tiny silver bells.
+
+I set down my glass upon the table, and rising slowly from the chair in
+which I had been seated, stared fixedly at my companion, who was staring
+with equal fixity at me. I could see that I had not been deluded;
+Nayland Smith had heard the ringing, too.
+
+“The ghosts waste no time!” he said softly. “This is not new to me; I
+spent an hour here last night and heard the same sound...”
+
+I glanced hastily around the room. It was furnished as a library, and
+contained a considerable collection of works, principally novels. I was
+unable to judge of the outlook, for the two lofty windows were draped
+with heavy purple curtains which were drawn close. A silk shaded lamp
+swung from the center of the ceiling, and immediately over the table by
+which I stood. There was much shadow about the room; and now I glanced
+apprehensively about me, but especially toward the open door.
+
+In that breathless suspense of listening we stood awhile; then:
+
+“There it is again!” whispered Smith, tensely.
+
+The ringing of bells was repeated, and seemingly much nearer to us; in
+fact it appeared to come from somewhere above, up near the ceiling of
+the room in which we stood. Simultaneously, we looked up, then Smith
+laughed, shortly.
+
+“Instinctive, I suppose,” he snapped; “but what do we expect to see in
+the air?”
+
+The musical sound now grew in volume; the first tiny peal seemed to be
+reinforced by others and by others again, until the air around about us
+was filled with the pealings of these invisible bell-ringers.
+
+Although, as I have said, the sound was rather musical than horrible, it
+was, on the other hand, so utterly unaccountable as to touch the
+supreme heights of the uncanny. I could not doubt that our presence had
+attracted these unseen ringers to the room in which we stood, and I knew
+quite well that I was growing pale. This was the room in which at least
+one unhappy occupant of the Gables had died of fear. I recognized the
+fact that if this mere overture were going to affect my nerves to such
+an extent, I could not hope to survive the ordeal of the night; a great
+effort was called for. I emptied my glass at a gulp, and stared across
+the table at Nayland Smith with a sort of defiance. He was standing
+very upright and motionless, but his eyes were turning right and left,
+searching every visible corner of the big room.
+
+“Good!” he said in a very low voice. “The terrorizing power of the
+Unknown is boundless, but we must not get in the grip of panic, or we
+could not hope to remain in this house ten minutes.”
+
+I nodded without speaking. Then Smith, to my amazement, suddenly began
+to speak in a loud voice, a marked contrast to that, almost a whisper,
+in which he had spoken formerly.
+
+“My dear Pearce,” he cried, “do you hear the ringing of bells?”
+
+Clearly the latter words were spoken for the benefit of the unseen
+intelligence controlling these manifestations; and although I regarded
+such finesse as somewhat wasted, I followed my friend’s lead and replied
+in a voice as loud as his own:
+
+“Distinctly, Professor!”
+
+Silence followed my words, a silence in which both stood watchful and
+listening. Then, very faintly, I seemed to detect the silvern ringing
+receding away through distant rooms. Finally it became inaudible, and
+in the stillness of the Gables I could distinctly hear my companion
+breathing. For fully ten minutes we two remained thus, each momentarily
+expecting a repetition of the ringing, or the coming of some new and
+more sinister manifestation. But we heard nothing and saw nothing.
+
+“Hand me that grip, and don’t stir until I come back!” hissed Smith in
+my ear.
+
+He turned and walked out of the library, his boots creaking very loudly
+in that awe-inspiring silence.
+
+Standing beside the table, I watched the open door for his return,
+crushing down a dread that another form than his might suddenly appear
+there.
+
+I could hear him moving from room to room, and presently, as I waited
+in hushed, tense watchfulness, he came in, depositing the grip upon the
+table. His eyes were gleaming feverishly.
+
+“The house is haunted, Pearce!” he cried. “But no ghost ever frightened
+me! Come, I will show you your room.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. THE FIERY HAND
+
+Smith walked ahead of me upstairs; he had snapped up the light in the
+hallway, and now he turned and cried back loudly:
+
+“I fear we should never get servants to stay here.”
+
+Again I detected the appeal to a hidden Audience; and there was
+something very uncanny in the idea. The house now was deathly still; the
+ringing had entirely subsided. In the upper corridor my companion, who
+seemed to be well acquainted with the position of the switches, again
+turned up all the lights, and in pursuit of the strange comedy which he
+saw fit to enact, addressed me continuously in the loud and unnatural
+voice which he had adopted as part of his disguise.
+
+We looked into a number of rooms all well and comfortably furnished, but
+although my imagination may have been responsible for the idea, they
+all seemed to possess a chilly and repellent atmosphere. I felt that to
+essay sleep in any one of them would be the merest farce, that the
+place to all intents and purposes was uninhabitable, that something
+incalculably evil presided over the house.
+
+And through it all, so obtuse was I, that no glimmer of the truth
+entered my mind. Outside again in the long, brightly lighted corridor,
+we stood for a moment as if a mutual anticipation of some new event
+pending had come to us. It was curious that sudden pulling up and silent
+questioning of one another; because, although we acted thus, no sound
+had reached us. A few seconds later our anticipation was realized. From
+the direction of the stairs it came--a low wailing in a woman’s voice;
+and the sweetness of the tones added to the terror of the sound. I
+clutched at Smith’s arm convulsively whilst that uncanny cry rose and
+fell--rose and fell--and died away.
+
+Neither of us moved immediately. My mind was working with feverish
+rapidity and seeking to run down a memory which the sound had stirred
+into faint quickness. My heart was still leaping wildly when the wailing
+began again, rising and falling in regular cadence. At that instant I
+identified it.
+
+During the time Smith and I had spent together in Egypt, two years
+before, searching for Karamaneh, I had found myself on one occasion in
+the neighborhood of a native cemetery near to Bedrasheen. Now, the
+scene which I had witnessed there rose up again vividly before me, and
+I seemed to see a little group of black-robed women clustered together
+about a native grave; for the wailing which now was dying away again
+in the Gables was the same, or almost the same, as the wailing of those
+Egyptian mourners.
+
+The house was very silent again, now. My forehead was damp with
+perspiration, and I became more and more convinced that the uncanny
+ordeal must prove too much for my nerves. Hitherto, I had accorded
+little credence to tales of the supernatural, but face to face with such
+manifestations as these, I realized that I would have faced rather a
+group of armed dacoits, nay! Dr. Fu-Manchu himself, than have remained
+another hour in that ill-omened house.
+
+My companion must have read as much in my face. But he kept up the
+strange, and to me, purposeless comedy, when presently he spoke.
+
+“I feel it to be incumbent upon me to suggest,” he said, “that we spend
+the night at a hotel after all.”
+
+He walked rapidly downstairs and into the library and began to strap up
+the grip.
+
+“After all,” he said, “there may be a natural explanation of what we’ve
+heard; for it is noteworthy that we have actually seen nothing. It might
+even be possible to get used to the ringing and the wailing after a
+time. Frankly, I am loath to go back on my bargain!”
+
+Whilst I stared at him in amazement, he stood there indeterminate as it
+seemed, Then:
+
+“Come, Pearce!” he cried loudly, “I can see that you do not share my
+views; but for my own part I shall return to-morrow and devote further
+attention to the phenomena.”
+
+Extinguishing the light, he walked out into the hallway, carrying the
+grip in his hand. I was not far behind him. We walked toward the door
+together, and:
+
+“Turn the light out, Pearce,” directed Smith; “the switch is at your
+elbow. We can see our way to the door well enough, now.”
+
+In order to carry out these instructions, it became necessary for me to
+remain a few paces in the rear of my companion, and I think I have never
+experienced such a pang of nameless terror as pierced me at the moment
+of extinguishing the light; for Smith had not yet opened the door, and
+the utter darkness of the Gables was horrible beyond expression. Surely
+darkness is the most potent weapon of the Unknown. I know that at the
+moment my hand left the switch, I made for the door as though the hosts
+of hell pursued me. I collided violently with Smith. He was evidently
+facing toward me in the darkness, for at the moment of our collision, he
+grasped my shoulder as in a vise.
+
+“My God, Petrie! look behind you!” he whispered.
+
+I was enabled to judge of the extent and reality of his fear by the
+fact that the strange subterfuge of addressing me always as Pearce was
+forgotten. I turned, in a flash....
+
+Never can I forget what I saw. Many strange and terrible memories are
+mine, memories stranger and more terrible than those of the average
+man; but this thing which now moved slowly down upon us through
+the impenetrable gloom of that haunted place, was (if the term be
+understood) almost absurdly horrible. It was a medieval legend come to
+life in modern London; it was as though some horrible chimera of the
+black and ignorant past was become create and potent in the present.
+
+A luminous hand--a hand in the veins of which fire seemed to run so
+that the texture of the skin and the shape of the bones within were
+perceptible--in short a hand of glowing, fiery flesh clutching a short
+knife or dagger which also glowed with the same hellish, internal
+luminance, was advancing upon us where we stood--was not three paces
+removed!
+
+What I did or how I came to do it, I can never recall. In all my years
+I have experienced nothing to equal the stark panic which seized upon me
+then. I know that I uttered a loud and frenzied cry; I know that I tore
+myself like a madman from Smith’s restraining grip...
+
+“Don’t touch it! Keep away, for your life!” I heard...
+
+But, dimly I recollect that, finding the thing approaching yet nearer,
+I lashed out with my fists--madly, blindly--and struck something
+palpable...
+
+What was the result, I cannot say. At that point my recollections
+merge into confusion. Something or some one (Smith, as I afterwards
+discovered) was hauling me by main force through the darkness; I fell a
+considerable distance onto gravel which lacerated my hands and gashed
+my knees. Then, with the cool night air fanning my brow, I was running,
+running--my breath coming in hysterical sobs. Beside me fled another
+figure.... And my definite recollections commence again at that point.
+For this companion of my flight from the Gables threw himself roughly
+against me to alter my course.
+
+“Not that way! not that way!” came pantingly.
+
+“Not on to the Heath... we must keep to the roads...”
+
+It was Nayland Smith. That healing realization came to me, bringing such
+a gladness as no words of mine can express nor convey. Still we ran on.
+
+“There’s a policeman’s lantern,” panted my companion. “They’ll attempt
+nothing, now!”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+I gulped down the stiff brandy-and-soda, then glanced across to where
+Nayland Smith lay extended in the long, cane chair.
+
+“Perhaps you will explain,” I said, “for what purpose you submitted
+me to that ordeal. If you proposed to correct my skepticism concerning
+supernatural manifestations, you have succeeded.”
+
+“Yes,” said my companion, musingly, “they are devilishly clever; but we
+knew that already.”
+
+I stared at him, fatuously.
+
+“Have you ever known me to waste my time when there was important work
+to do?” he continued. “Do you seriously believe that my ghost-hunting
+was undertaken for amusement? Really, Petrie, although you are very fond
+of assuring me that I need a holiday, I think the shoe is on the other
+foot!”
+
+From the pocket of his dressing-gown, he took out a piece of silk fringe
+which had apparently been torn from a scarf, and rolling it into a ball,
+tossed it across to me.
+
+“Smell!” he snapped.
+
+I did as he directed--and gave a great start. The silk exhaled a
+faint perfume, but its effect upon me was as though some one had cried
+aloud:--
+
+“Karamaneh!”
+
+Beyond doubt the silken fragment had belonged to the beautiful servant
+of Dr. Fu-Manchu, to the dark-eyed, seductive Karamaneh. Nayland Smith
+was watching me keenly.
+
+“You recognize it--yes?”
+
+I placed the piece of silk upon the table, slightly shrugging my
+shoulders.
+
+“It was sufficient evidence in itself,” continued my friend, “but I
+thought it better to seek confirmation, and the obvious way was to pose
+as a new lessee of the Gables...”
+
+“But, Smith,” I began...
+
+“Let me explain, Petrie. The history of the Gables seemed to be
+susceptible of only one explanation; in short it was fairly evident to
+me that the object of the manifestations was to insure the place being
+kept empty. This idea suggested another, and with them both in mind, I
+set out to make my inquiries, first taking the precaution to disguise my
+identity, to which end Weymouth gave me the freedom of Scotland Yard’s
+fancy wardrobe. I did not take the agent into my confidence, but posed
+as a stranger who had heard that the house was to let furnished and
+thought it might suit his purpose. My inquiries were directed to a
+particular end, but I failed to achieve it at the time. I had theories,
+as I have said, and when, having paid the deposit and secured possession
+of the keys, I was enabled to visit the place alone, I was fortunate
+enough to obtain evidence to show that my imagination had not misled me.
+
+“You were very curious the other morning, I recall, respecting my object
+in borrowing a large brace and bit. My object, Petrie, was to bore a
+series of holes in the wainscoating of various rooms at the Gables--in
+inconspicuous positions, of course...”
+
+“But, my dear Smith!” I cried, “you are merely adding to my
+mystification.”
+
+He stood up and began to pace the room in his restless fashion.
+
+“I had cross-examined Weymouth closely regarding the phenomenon of
+the bell-ringing, and an exhaustive search of the premises led to the
+discovery that the house was in such excellent condition that, from
+ground-floor to attic, there was not a solitary crevice large enough to
+admit of the passage of a mouse.”
+
+I suppose I must have been staring very foolishly indeed, for Nayland
+Smith burst into one of his sudden laughs.
+
+“A mouse, I said, Petrie!” he cried. “With the brace-and-bit I rectified
+that matter. I made the holes I have mentioned, and before each set a
+trap baited with a piece of succulent, toasted cheese. Just open that
+grip!”
+
+The light at last was dawning upon my mental darkness, and I pounced
+upon the grip, which stood upon a chair near the window, and opened it.
+A sickly smell of cooked cheese assailed my nostrils.
+
+“Mind your fingers!” cried Smith; “some of them are still set,
+possibly.”
+
+Out from the grip I began to take mouse-traps! Two or three of them were
+still set but in the case of the greater number the catches had slipped.
+Nine I took out and placed upon the table, and all were empty. In
+the tenth there crouched, panting, its soft furry body dank with
+perspiration, a little white mouse!
+
+“Only one capture!” cried my companion, “showing how well-fed the
+creatures were. Examine his tail!”
+
+But already I had perceived that to which Smith would draw my attention,
+and the mystery of the “astral bells” was a mystery no longer. Bound to
+the little creature’s tail, close to the root, with fine soft wire
+such as is used for making up bouquets, were three tiny silver bells. I
+looked across at my companion in speechless surprise.
+
+“Almost childish, is it not?” he said; “yet by means of this simple
+device the Gables has been emptied of occupant after occupant. There was
+small chance of the trick being detected, for, as I have said, there was
+absolutely no aperture from roof to basement by means of which one of
+them could have escaped into the building.”
+
+“Then...”
+
+“They were admitted into the wall cavities and the rafters, from some
+cellar underneath, Petrie, to which, after a brief scamper under the
+floors and over the ceilings, they instinctively returned for the
+food they were accustomed to receive, and for which, even had it been
+possible (which it was not) they had no occasion to forage.”
+
+I, too, stood up; for excitement was growing within me. I took up the
+piece of silk from the table.
+
+“Where did you find this?” I asked, my eyes upon Smith’s keen face.
+
+“In a sort of wine cellar, Petrie,” he replied, “under the stair. There
+is no cellar proper to the Gables--at least no such cellar appears in
+the plans.”
+
+“But...”
+
+“But there is one beyond doubt--yes! It must be part of some older
+building which occupied the site before the Gables was built. One can
+only surmise that it exists, although such a surmise is a fairly safe
+one, and the entrance to the subterranean portion of the building is
+situated beyond doubt in the wine cellar. Of this we have at least two
+evidences:--the finding of the fragment of silk there, and the fact that
+in one case at least--as I learned--the light was extinguished in the
+library unaccountably. This could only have been done in one way: by
+manipulating the main switch, which is also in the wine cellar.”
+
+“But Smith!” I cried, “do you mean that Fu-Manchu...”
+
+Nayland Smith turned in his promenade of the floor, and stared into my
+eyes.
+
+“I mean that Dr. Fu-Manchu has had a hiding-place under the Gables for
+an indefinite period!” he replied. “I always suspected that a man of his
+genius would have a second retreat prepared for him, anticipating the
+event of the first being discovered. Oh! I don’t doubt it! The place
+probably is extensive, and I am almost certain--though the point has
+to be confirmed--that there is another entrance from the studio further
+along the road. We know, now, why our recent searchings in the East End
+have proved futile; why the house in Museum Street was deserted; he has
+been lying low in this burrow at Hampstead!”
+
+“But the hand, Smith, the luminous hand...”
+
+Nayland Smith laughed shortly.
+
+“Your superstitious fears overcame you to such an extent, Petrie--and I
+don’t wonder at it; the sight was a ghastly one--that probably you don’t
+remember what occurred when you struck out at that same ghostly hand?”
+
+“I seemed to hit something.”
+
+“That was why we ran. But I think our retreat had all the appearance of
+a rout, as I intended that it should. Pardon my playing upon your very
+natural fears, old man, but you could not have simulated panic half so
+naturally! And if they had suspected that the device was discovered,
+we might never have quitted the Gables alive. It was touch-and-go for a
+moment.”
+
+“But...”
+
+“Turn out the light!” snapped my companion.
+
+Wondering greatly, I did as he desired. I turned out the light... and
+in the darkness of my own study I saw a fiery fist being shaken at me
+threateningly!... The bones were distinctly visible, and the luminosity
+of the flesh was truly ghastly.
+
+“Turn on the light, again!” cried Smith.
+
+Deeply mystified, I did so... and my friend tossed a little electric
+pocket-lamp on to the writing-table.
+
+“They used merely a small electric lamp fitted into the handle of a
+glass dagger,” he said with a sort of contempt. “It was very effective,
+but the luminous hand is a phenomenon producible by any one who
+possesses an electric torch.”
+
+“The Gables--will be watched?”
+
+“At last, Petrie, I think we have Fu-Manchu--in his own trap!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. THE NIGHT OF THE RAID
+
+“Dash it all, Petrie!” cried Smith, “this is most annoying!”
+
+The bell was ringing furiously, although midnight was long past. Whom
+could my late visitor be? Almost certainly this ringing portended an
+urgent case. In other words, I was not fated to take part in what I
+anticipated would prove to be the closing scene of the Fu-Manchu drama.
+
+“Every one is in bed,” I said, ruefully; “and how can I possibly see a
+patient--in this costume?”
+
+Smith and I were both arrayed in rough tweeds, and anticipating the
+labors before us, had dispensed with collars and wore soft mufflers.
+It was hard to be called upon to face a professional interview dressed
+thus, and having a big tweed cap pulled down over my eyes.
+
+Across the writing-table we confronted one another in dismayed silence,
+whilst, below, the bell sent up its ceaseless clangor.
+
+“It has to be done, Smith,” I said, regretfully. “Almost certainly it
+means a journey and probably an absence of some hours.”
+
+I threw my cap upon the table, turned up my coat to hide the absence
+of collar, and started for the door. My last sight of Smith showed him
+standing looking after me, tugging at the lobe of his ear and clicking
+his teeth together with suppressed irritability. I stumbled down the
+dark stairs, along the hall, and opened the front door. Vaguely visible
+in the light of a street lamp which stood at no great distance away,
+I saw a slender man of medium height confronting me. From the shadowed
+face two large and luminous eyes looked out into mine. My visitor,
+who, despite the warmth of the evening, wore a heavy greatcoat, was an
+Oriental!
+
+I drew back, apprehensively; then:
+
+“Ah! Dr. Petrie!” he said in a softly musical voice which made me start
+again, “to God be all praise that I have found you!”
+
+Some emotion, which at present I could not define, was stirring within
+me. Where had I seen this graceful Eastern youth before? Where had I
+heard that soft voice?
+
+“Do you wish to see me professionally?” I asked--yet even as I put the
+question, I seemed to know it unnecessary.
+
+“So you know me no more?” said the stranger--and his teeth gleamed in a
+slight smile.
+
+Heavens! I knew now what had struck that vibrant chord within me! The
+voice, though infinitely deeper, yet had an unmistakable resemblance
+to the dulcet tones of Karamaneh--of Karamaneh whose eyes haunted my
+dreams, whose beauty had done much to embitter my years.
+
+The Oriental youth stepped forward, with outstretched hand.
+
+“So you know me no more?” he repeated; “but I know you, and give praise
+to Allah that I have found you!”
+
+I stepped back, pressed the electric switch, and turned, with leaping
+heart, to look into the face of my visitor. It was a face of the purest
+Greek beauty, a face that might have served as a model for Praxiteles;
+the skin had a golden pallor, which, with the crisp black hair and
+magnetic yet velvety eyes, suggested to my fancy that this was the young
+Antinious risen from the Nile, whose wraith now appeared to me out of
+the night. I stifled a cry of surprise, not unmingled with gladness.
+
+It was Aziz--the brother of Karamaneh!
+
+Never could the entrance of a figure upon the stage of a drama have been
+more dramatic than the coming of Aziz upon this night of all nights.
+I seized the outstretched hand and drew him forward, then reclosed the
+door and stood before him a moment in doubt.
+
+A vaguely troubled look momentarily crossed the handsome face; with
+the Oriental’s unerring instinct, he had detected the reserve of my
+greeting. Yet, when I thought of the treachery of Karamaneh, when I
+remember how she, whom we had befriended, whom we had rescued from the
+house of Fu-Manchu, now had turned like the beautiful viper that she was
+to strike at the hand that caressed her; when I thought how to-night we
+were set upon raiding the place where the evil Chinese doctor lurked in
+hiding, were set upon the arrest of that malignant genius and of all his
+creatures, Karamaneh amongst them, is it strange that I hesitated? Yet,
+again, when I thought of my last meeting with her, and of how, twice,
+she had risked her life to save me...
+
+So, avoiding the gaze of the lad, I took his arm, and in silence we two
+ascended the stairs and entered my study... where Nayland Smith stood
+bolt upright beside the table, his steely eyes fixed upon the face of
+the new arrival.
+
+No look of recognition crossed the bronzed features, and Aziz who had
+started forward with outstretched hands, fell back a step and looked
+pathetically from me to Nayland Smith, and from the grim commissioner
+back again to me. The appeal in the velvet eyes was more than I could
+tolerate, unmoved.
+
+“Smith,” I said shortly, “you remember Aziz?”
+
+Not a muscle visibly moved in Smith’s face, as he snapped back:
+
+“I remember him perfectly.”
+
+“He has come, I think, to seek our assistance.”
+
+“Yes, yes!” cried Aziz laying his hand upon my arm with a gesture
+painfully reminiscent of Karamaneh--“I came only to-night to London. Oh,
+my gentlemen! I have searched, and searched, and searched, until I
+am weary. Often I have wished to die. And then at last I come to
+Rangoon...”
+
+“To Rangoon!” snapped Smith, still with the gray eyes fixed almost
+fiercely upon the lad’s face.
+
+“To Rangoon--yes; and there I heard news at last. I hear that you have
+seen her--have seen Karamaneh--that you are back in London.” He was not
+entirely at home with his English. “I know then that she must be here,
+too. I ask them everywhere, and they answer ‘yes.’ Oh, Smith Pasha!”--he
+stepped forward and impulsively seized both Smith’s hands--“You know
+where she is--take me to her!”
+
+Smith’s face was a study in perplexity, now. In the past we had
+befriended the young Aziz, and it was hard to look upon him in the light
+of an enemy. Yet had we not equally befriended his sister?--and she...
+
+At last Smith glanced across at me where I stood just within the
+doorway.
+
+“What do you make of it, Petrie?” he said harshly. “Personally I take
+it to mean that our plans have leaked out.” He sprang suddenly back from
+Aziz and I saw his glance traveling rapidly over the slight figure as if
+in quest of concealed arms. “I take it to be a trap!”
+
+A moment he stood so, regarding him, and despite my well-grounded
+distrust of the Oriental character, I could have sworn that the
+expression of pained surprise upon the youth’s face was not simulated
+but real. Even Smith, I think, began to share my view; for suddenly
+he threw himself into the white cane rest-chair, and, still fixedly
+regarding Aziz:
+
+“Perhaps I have wronged you,” he said. “If I have, you shall know the
+reason presently. Tell your own story!”
+
+There was a pathetic humidity in the velvet eyes of Aziz--eyes so like
+those others that were ever looking into mine in dreams--as glancing
+from Smith to me he began, hands outstretched, characteristically, palms
+upward and fingers curling, to tell in broken English the story of his
+search for Karamaneh...
+
+“It was Fu-Manchu, my kind gentlemen--it was the hakim who is really not
+a man at all, but an efreet. He found us again less than four days after
+you had left us, Smith Pasha!... He found us in Cairo, and to Karamaneh
+he made the forgetting of all things--even of me--even of me...”
+
+Nayland Smith snapped his teeth together sharply; then:
+
+“What do you mean by that?” he demanded.
+
+For my own part I understood well enough, remembering how the brilliant
+Chinese doctor once had performed such an operation as this upon poor
+Inspector Weymouth; how, by means of an injection of some serum prepared
+(as Karamaneh afterwards told us) from the venom of a swamp adder or
+similar reptile, he had induced amnesia, or complete loss of memory. I
+felt every drop of blood recede from my cheeks.
+
+“Smith!” I began...
+
+“Let him speak for himself,” interrupted my friend sharply.
+
+“They tried to take us both,” continued Aziz still speaking in that
+soft, melodious manner, but with deep seriousness. “I escaped, I, who
+am swift of foot, hoping to bring help.”--He shook his head sadly--“But,
+except the All Powerful, who is so powerful as the Hakim Fu-Manchu? I
+hid, my gentlemen, and watched and waited, one--two--three weeks. At
+last I saw her again, my sister, Karamaneh; but ah! she did not know me,
+did not know me, Aziz her brother! She was in an arabeeyeh, and passed
+me quickly along the Sharia en-Nahhasin. I ran, and ran, and ran, crying
+her name, but although she looked back, she did not know me--she did not
+know me! I felt that I was dying, and presently I fell--upon the steps
+of the Mosque of Abu.”
+
+He dropped the expressive hands wearily to his sides and sank his chin
+upon his breast.
+
+“And then?” I said, huskily--for my heart was fluttering like a captive
+bird.
+
+“Alas! from that day to this I see her no more, my gentlemen. I travel,
+not only in Egypt, but near and far, and still I see her no more until
+in Rangoon I hear that which brings me to England again”--he extended
+his palms naively--“and here I am--Smith Pasha.”
+
+Smith sprang upright again and turned to me.
+
+“Either I am growing over-credulous,” he said, “or Aziz speaks the
+truth. But”--he held up his hand--“you can tell me all that at some
+other time, Petrie! We must take no chances. Sergeant Carter is
+downstairs with the cab; you might ask him to step up. He and Aziz can
+remain here until our return.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SAMURAI’S SWORD
+
+The muffled drumming of sleepless London seemed very remote from us,
+as side by side we crept up the narrow path to the studio. This was a
+starry but moonless night, and the little dingy white building with a
+solitary tree peeping, in silhouette, above the glazed roof, bore an odd
+resemblance to one of those tombs which form a city of the dead so near
+to the city of feverish life on the slopes of the Mokattam Hills. This
+line of reflection proved unpleasant, and I dismissed it sternly from my
+mind.
+
+The shriek of a train-whistle reached me, a sound which breaks the
+stillness of the most silent London night, telling of the ceaseless,
+febrile life of the great world-capital whose activity ceases not with
+the coming of darkness. Around and about us a very great stillness
+reigned, however, and the velvet dusk which, with the star-jeweled sky,
+was strongly suggestive of an Eastern night--gave up no sign to show
+that it masked the presence of more than twenty men. Some distance away
+on our right was the Gables, that sinister and deserted mansion which
+we assumed, and with good reason, to be nothing less than the gateway
+to the subterranean abode of Dr. Fu-Manchu; before us was the studio,
+which, if Nayland Smith’s deductions were accurate, concealed a second
+entrance to the same mysterious dwelling.
+
+As my friend, glancing cautiously all about him, inserted the key in
+the lock, an owl hooted dismally almost immediately above our heads. I
+caught my breath sharply, for it might be a signal; but, looking upward,
+I saw a great black shape float slantingly from the tree beyond the
+studio into the coppice on the right which hemmed in the Gables.
+Silently the owl winged its uncanny flight into the greater darkness of
+the trees, and was gone. Smith opened the door and we stepped into
+the studio. Our plans had been well considered, and in accordance with
+these, I now moved up beside my friend, who was dimly perceptible to me
+in the starlight which found access through the glass roof, and pressed
+the catch of my electric pocket-lamp...
+
+I suppose that by virtue of my self-imposed duty as chronicler of the
+deeds of Dr. Fu-Manchu--the greatest and most evil genius whom the
+later centuries have produced, the man who dreamt of an universal Yellow
+Empire--I should have acquired a certain facility in describing bizarre
+happenings. But I confess that it fails me now as I attempt in cold
+English to portray my emotions when the white beam from the little
+lamp cut through the darkness of the studio, and shone fully upon the
+beautiful face of Karamaneh!
+
+Less than six feet away from me she stood, arrayed in the gauzy dress of
+the harem, her fingers and slim white arms laden with barbaric jewelry!
+The light wavered in my suddenly nerveless hand, gleaming momentarily
+upon bare ankles and golden anklets, upon little red leather shoes.
+
+I spoke no word, and Smith was as silent as I; both of us, I think, were
+speechless rather from amazement than in obedience to the evident wishes
+of Fu-Manchu’s slave-girl. Yet I have only to close my eyes at this
+moment to see her as she stood, one finger raised to her lips, enjoining
+us to silence. She looked ghastly pale in the light of the lamp, but so
+lovely that my rebellious heart threatened already, to make a fool of
+me.
+
+So we stood in that untidy studio, with canvases and easels heaped
+against the wall and with all sorts of litter about us, a trio strangely
+met, and one to have amused the high gods watching through the windows
+of the stars.
+
+“Go back!” came in a whisper from Karamaneh.
+
+I saw the red lips moving and read a dreadful horror in the widely
+opened eyes, in those eyes like pools of mystery to taunt the thirsty
+soul. The world of realities was slipping past me; I seemed to be losing
+my hold on things actual; I had built up an Eastern palace about myself
+and Karamaneh wherein, the world shut out, I might pass the hours in
+reading the mystery of those dark eyes. Nayland Smith brought me sharply
+to my senses.
+
+“Steady with the light, Petrie!” he hissed in my ear. “My skepticism has
+been shaken, to-night, but I am taking no chances.”
+
+He moved from my side and forward toward that lovely, unreal figure
+which stood immediately before the model’s throne and its background
+of plush curtains. Karamaneh started forward to meet him, suppressing a
+little cry, whose real anguish could not have been simulated.
+
+“Go back! go back!” she whispered urgently, and thrust out her hands
+against Smith’s breast. “For God’s sake, go back! I have risked my life
+to come here to-night. He knows, and is ready!”...
+
+The words were spoken with passionate intensity, and Nayland Smith
+hesitated. To my nostrils was wafted that faint, delightful perfume
+which, since one night, two years ago, it had come to disturb my senses,
+had taunted me many times as the mirage taunts the parched Sahara
+traveler. I took a step forward.
+
+“Don’t move!” snapped Smith.
+
+Karamaneh clutched frenziedly at the lapels of his coat.
+
+“Listen to me!” she said, beseechingly and stamped one little foot upon
+the floor--“listen to me! You are a clever man, but you know nothing of
+a woman’s heart--nothing--nothing--if seeing me, hearing me, knowing,
+as you do know, I risk, you can doubt that I speak the truth. And I tell
+you that it is death to go behind those curtains--that he...”
+
+“That’s what I wanted to know!” snapped Smith. His voice quivered with
+excitement.
+
+Suddenly grasping Karamaneh by the waist, he lifted her and set her
+aside; then in three bounds he was on to the model’s throne and had torn
+the Plush curtains bodily from their fastenings.
+
+How it occurred I cannot hope to make dear, for here my recollections
+merge into a chaos. I know that Smith seemed to topple forward amid the
+purple billows of velvet, and his muffled cry came to me:
+
+“Petrie! My God, Petrie!”...
+
+The pale face of Karamaneh looked up into mine and her hands were
+clutching me, but the glamour of her personality had lost its hold,
+for I knew--heavens, how poignantly it struck home to me!--that Nayland
+Smith was gone to his death. What I hoped to achieve, I know not, but
+hurling the trembling girl aside, I snatched the Browning pistol from my
+coat pocket, and with the ray of the lamp directed upon the purple mound
+of velvet, I leaped forward.
+
+I think I realized that the curtains had masked a collapsible trap, a
+sheer pit of blackness, an instant before I was precipitated into it,
+but certainly the knowledge came too late. With the sound of a soft,
+shuddering cry in my ears, I fell, dropping lamp and pistol, and
+clutching at the fallen hangings. But they offered me no support. My
+head seemed to be bursting; I could utter only a hoarse groan, as I
+fell--fell--fell...
+
+When my mind began to work again, in returning consciousness, I found it
+to be laden with reproach. How often in the past had we blindly hurled
+ourselves into just such a trap as this? Should we never learn that
+where Fu-Manchu was, impetuosity must prove fatal? On two distinct
+occasions in the past we had been made the victims of this device,
+yet even although we had had practically conclusive evidence that this
+studio was used by Dr. Fu-Manchu, we had relied upon its floor being as
+secure as that of any other studio, we had failed to sound every foot of
+it ere trusting our weight to its support....
+
+“There is such a divine simplicity in the English mind that one may
+lay one’s plans with mathematical precision, and rely upon the Nayland
+Smiths and Dr. Petries to play their allotted parts. Excepting two
+faithful followers, my friends are long since departed. But here, in
+these vaults which time has overlooked and which are as secret and as
+serviceable to-day as they were two hundred years ago, I wait patiently,
+with my trap set, like the spider for the fly!...”
+
+To the sound of that taunting voice, I opened my eyes. As I did so I
+strove to spring upright--only to realize that I was tied fast to a
+heavy ebony chair inlaid with ivory, and attached by means of two iron
+brackets to the floor.
+
+“Even children learn from experience,” continued the unforgettable
+voice, alternately guttural and sibilant, but always as deliberate as
+though the speaker were choosing with care words which should perfectly
+clothe his thoughts. “For ‘a burnt child fears the fire,’ says your
+English adage. But Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith, who enjoys the
+confidence of the India Office, and who is empowered to control the
+movements of the Criminal Investigation Department, learns nothing
+from experience. He is less than a child, since he has twice rashly
+precipitated himself into a chamber charged with an anesthetic prepared,
+by a process of my own, from the lycoperdon or Common Puff-ball.”
+
+I became fully master of my senses, and I became fully alive to a
+stupendous fact. At last it was ended; we were utterly in the power of
+Dr. Fu-Manchu; our race was run.
+
+I sat in a low vaulted room. The roof was of ancient brickwork, but the
+walls were draped with exquisite Chinese fabric having a green ground
+whereon was a design representing a grotesque procession of white
+peacocks. A green carpet covered the floor, and the whole of the
+furniture was of the same material as the chair to which I was strapped,
+viz:--ebony inlaid with ivory. This furniture was scanty. There was a
+heavy table in one corner of the dungeonesque place, on which were a
+number of books and papers. Before this table was a high-backed, heavily
+carven chair. A smaller table stood upon the right of the only visible
+opening, a low door partially draped with bead work curtains, above
+which hung a silver lamp. On this smaller table, a stick of incense, in
+a silver holder, sent up a pencil of vapor into the air, and the
+chamber was loaded with the sickly sweet fumes. A faint haze from the
+incense-stick hovered up under the roof.
+
+In the high-backed chair sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a green robe upon
+which was embroidered a design, the subject of which at first glance
+was not perceptible, but which presently I made out to be a huge white
+peacock. He wore a little cap perched upon the dome of his amazing
+skull, and with one clawish hand resting upon the ebony of the table, he
+sat slightly turned toward me, his emotionless face a mask of incredible
+evil. In spite of, or because of, the high intellect written upon it,
+the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu was more utterly repellent than any I have
+ever known, and the green eyes, eyes green as those of a cat in the
+darkness, which sometimes burned like witch lamps, and sometimes were
+horribly filmed like nothing human or imaginable, might have mirrored
+not a soul, but an emanation of hell, incarnate in this gaunt,
+high-shouldered body.
+
+Stretched flat upon the floor lay Nayland Smith, partially stripped, his
+arms thrown back over his head and his wrists chained to a stout iron
+staple attached to the wall; he was fully conscious and staring intently
+at the Chinese doctor. His bare ankles also were manacled, and fixed to
+a second chain, which quivered tautly across the green carpet and passed
+out through the doorway, being attached to something beyond the curtain,
+and invisible to me from where I sat.
+
+Fu-Manchu was now silent. I could hear Smith’s heavy breathing and hear
+my watch ticking in my pocket. I suddenly realized that although my
+body was lashed to the ebony chair, my hands and arms were free. Next,
+looking dazedly about me, my attention was drawn to a heavy sword which
+stood hilt upward against the wall within reach of my hand. It was a
+magnificent piece, of Japanese workmanship; a long, curved Damascened
+blade having a double-handed hilt of steel, inlaid with gold, and
+resembling fine Kuft work. A host of possibilities swept through my
+mind. Then I perceived that the sword was attached to the wall by a thin
+steel chain some five feet in length.
+
+“Even if you had the dexterity of a Mexican knife-thrower,” came the
+guttural voice of Fu-Manchu, “you would be unable to reach me, dear Dr.
+Petrie.”
+
+The Chinaman had read my thoughts.
+
+Smith turned his eyes upon me momentarily, only to look away again in
+the direction of Fu-Manchu. My friend’s face was slightly pale beneath
+the tan, and his jaw muscles stood out with unusual prominence. By this
+fact alone did he reveal his knowledge that he lay at the mercy of
+this enemy of the white race, of this inhuman being who himself knew
+no mercy, of this man whose very genius was inspired by the cool,
+calculated cruelty of his race, of that race which to this day disposes
+of hundreds, nay! thousands, of its unwanted girl-children by the simple
+measure of throwing them down a well specially dedicated to the purpose.
+
+“The weapon near your hand,” continued the Chinaman, imperturbably, “is
+a product of the civilization of our near neighbors, the Japanese, a
+race to whose courage I prostrate myself in meekness. It is the sword
+of a samurai, Dr. Petrie. It is of very great age, and was, until an
+unfortunate misunderstanding with myself led to the extinction of the
+family, a treasured possession of a noble Japanese house...”
+
+The soft voice, into which an occasional sibilance crept, but which
+never rose above a cool monotone, gradually was lashing me into fury,
+and I could see the muscles moving in Smith’s jaws as he convulsively
+clenched his teeth; whereby I knew that, impotent, he burned with a rage
+at least as great as mine. But I did not speak, and did not move.
+
+“The ancient tradition of seppuku,” continued the Chinaman, “or
+hara-kiri, still rules, as you know, in the great families of Japan.
+There is a sacred ritual, and the samurai who dedicates himself to this
+honorable end, must follow strictly the ritual. As a physician, the
+exact nature of the ceremony might possibly interest you, Dr. Petrie,
+but a technical account of the two incisions which the sacrificant
+employs in his self-dismissal, might, on the other hand, bore Mr.
+Nayland Smith. Therefore I will merely enlighten you upon one little
+point, a minor one, but interesting to the student of human nature.
+In short, even a samurai--and no braver race has ever honored the
+world--sometimes hesitates to complete the operation. The weapon near to
+your hand, my dear Dr. Petrie, is known as the Friend’s Sword. On such
+occasions as we are discussing, a trusty friend is given the post--an
+honored one of standing behind the brave man who offers himself to his
+gods, and should the latter’s courage momentarily fail him, the friend
+with the trusty blade (to which now I especially direct your attention)
+diverts the hierophant’s mind from his digression, and rectifies his
+temporary breach of etiquette by severing the cervical vertebrae of the
+spinal column with the friendly blade--which you can reach quite easily,
+Dr. Petrie, if you care to extend your hand.”
+
+Some dim perceptions of the truth was beginning to creep into my mind.
+When I say a perception of the truth, I mean rather of some part of the
+purpose of Dr. Fu-Manchu; of the whole horrible truth, of the scheme
+which had been conceived by that mighty, evil man, I had no glimmering,
+but I foresaw that a frightful ordeal was before us both.
+
+“That I hold you in high esteem,” continued Fu-Manchu, “is a fact which
+must be apparent to you by this time, but in regard to your companion, I
+entertain very different sentiments....”
+
+Always underlying the deliberate calm of the speaker, sometimes
+showing itself in an unusually deep guttural, sometimes in an unusually
+serpentine sibilance, lurked the frenzy of hatred which in the past had
+revealed itself occasionally in wild outbursts. Momentarily I expected
+such an outburst now, but it did not come.
+
+“One quality possessed by Mr. Nayland Smith,” resumed the Chinaman, “I
+admire; I refer to his courage. I would wish that so courageous a man
+should seek his own end, should voluntarily efface himself from the path
+of that world-movement which he is powerless to check. In short, I would
+have him show himself a samurai. Always his friend, you shall remain so
+to the end, Dr. Petrie. I have arranged for this.”
+
+He struck lightly a little silver gong, dependent from the corner of
+the table, whereupon, from the curtained doorway, there entered a short,
+thickly built Burman whom I recognized for a dacoit. He wore a shoddy
+blue suit, which had been made for a much larger man; but these things
+claimed little of my attention, which automatically was directed to the
+load beneath which the Burman labored.
+
+Upon his back he carried a sort of wire box rather less than six feet
+long, some two feet high, and about two feet wide. In short, it was a
+stout framework covered with fine wire-netting on the top, sides
+and ends, but being open at the bottom. It seemed to be made in five
+sections or to contain four sliding partitions which could be raised or
+lowered at will. These were of wood, and in the bottom of each was cut
+a little arch. The arches in the four partitions varied in size, so that
+whereas the first was not more than five inches high, the fourth opened
+almost to the wire roof of the box or cage; and a fifth, which was
+but little higher than the first, was cut in the actual end of the
+contrivance.
+
+So intent was I upon this device, the purpose of which I was wholly
+unable to divine, that I directed the whole of my attention upon it.
+Then, as the Burman paused in the doorway, resting a corner of the cage
+upon the brilliant carpet, I glanced toward Fu-Manchu. He was watching
+Nayland Smith, and revealing his irregular yellow teeth--the teeth of an
+opium smoker--in the awful mirthless smile which I knew.
+
+“God!” whispered Smith--“the Six Gates!”
+
+“The knowledge of my beautiful country serves you well,” replied
+Fu-Manchu gently.
+
+Instantly I looked to my friend... and every drop of blood seemed to
+recede from my heart, leaving it cold in my breast. If I did not know
+the purpose of the cage, obviously Smith knew it all too well. His
+pallor had grown more marked, and although his gray eyes stared
+defiantly at the Chinaman, I, who knew him, could read a deathly horror
+in their depths.
+
+The dacoit, in obedience to a guttural order from Dr. Fu-Manchu, placed
+the cage upon the carpet, completely covering Smith’s body, but leaving
+his neck and head exposed. The seared and pock-marked face set in a sort
+of placid leer, the dacoit adjusted the sliding partitions to Smith’s
+recumbent form, and I saw the purpose of the graduated arches. They
+were intended to divide a human body in just such fashion, and, as I
+realized, were most cunningly shaped to that end. The whole of Smith’s
+body lay now in the wire cage, each of the five compartments whereof was
+shut off from its neighbor.
+
+The Burman stepped back and stood waiting in the doorway. Dr. Fu-Manchu,
+removing his gaze from the face of my friend, directed it now upon me.
+
+“Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith shall have the honor of acting as
+hierophant, admitting himself to the Mysteries,” said Fu-Manchu softly,
+“and you, Dr. Petrie, shall be the Friend.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. THE SIX GATES
+
+He glanced toward the Burman, who retired immediately, to re-enter a
+moment later carrying a curious leather sack, in shape not unlike that
+of a sakka or Arab water-carrier. Opening a little trap in the top
+of the first compartment of the cage (that is, the compartment which
+covered Smith’s bare feet and ankles) he inserted the neck of the sack,
+then suddenly seized it by the bottom and shook it vigorously. Before
+my horrified gaze four huge rats came tumbling out from the bag into the
+cage! The dacoit snatched away the sack and snapped the shutter fast. A
+moving mist obscured my sight, a mist through which I saw the green
+eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu fixed upon me, and through which, as from a great
+distance, his voice, sunk to a snake-like hiss, came to my ears.
+
+“Cantonese rats, Dr. Petrie, the most ravenous in the world... they have
+eaten nothing for nearly a week!”
+
+Then all became blurred as though a painter with a brush steeped in red
+had smudged out the details of the picture. For an indefinite period,
+which seemed like many minutes yet probably was only a few seconds, I
+saw nothing and heard nothing; my sensory nerves were dulled entirely.
+From this state I was awakened and brought back to the realities by a
+sound which ever afterward I was doomed to associate with that ghastly
+scene.
+
+This was the squealing of the rats.
+
+The red mist seemed to disperse at that, and with frightfully intense
+interest, I began to study the awful torture to which Nayland Smith was
+being subjected. The dacoit had disappeared, and Fu-Manchu placidly was
+watching the four lean and hideous animals in the cage. As I also turned
+my eyes in that direction, the rats overcame their temporary fear, and
+began...
+
+“You have been good enough to notice,” said the Chinaman, his voice
+still sunk in that sibilant whisper, “my partiality for dumb allies. You
+have met my scorpions, my death-adders, my baboon-man. The uses of such
+a playful little animal as a marmoset have never been fully appreciated
+before, I think, but to an indiscretion of this last-named pet of mine,
+I seem to remember that you owed something in the past, Dr. Petrie...”
+
+Nayland Smith stifled a deep groan. One rapid glance I ventured at his
+face. It was a grayish hue, now, and dank with perspiration. His gaze
+met mine.
+
+The rats had almost ceased squealing.
+
+“Much depends upon yourself, Doctor,” continued Fu-Manchu, slightly
+raising his voice. “I credit Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith with courage
+high enough to sustain the raising of all the gates; but I estimate the
+strength of your friendship highly, also, and predict that you will use
+the sword of the samurai certainly not later than the time when I shall
+raise the third gate....”
+
+A low shuddering sound, which I cannot hope to describe, but alas I can
+never forget, broke from the lips of the tortured man.
+
+“In China,” resumed Fu-Manchu, “we call this quaint fancy the Six Gates
+of joyful Wisdom. The first gate, by which the rats are admitted, is
+called the Gate of joyous Hope; the second, the Gate of Mirthful Doubt.
+The third gate is poetically named, the Gate of True Rapture, and the
+fourth, the Gate of Gentle Sorrow. I once was honored in the friendship
+of an exalted mandarin who sustained the course of joyful Wisdom to the
+raising of the Fifth Gate (called the Gate of Sweet Desires) and the
+admission of the twentieth rat. I esteem him almost equally with my
+ancestors. The Sixth, or Gate Celestial--whereby a man enters into the
+joy of Complete Understanding--I have dispensed with, here, substituting
+a Japanese fancy of an antiquity nearly as great and honorable. The
+introduction of this element of speculation, I count a happy thought,
+and accordingly take pride to myself.”
+
+“The sword, Petrie!” whispered Smith. I should not have recognized his
+voice, but he spoke quite evenly and steadily. “I rely upon you, old
+man, to spare me the humiliation of asking mercy from that yellow
+fiend!”
+
+My mind throughout this time had been gaining a sort of dreadful
+clarity. I had avoided looking at the sword of hara-kiri, but my
+thoughts had been leading me mercilessly up to the point at which we
+were now arrived. No vestige of anger, of condemnation of the inhuman
+being seated in the ebony chair, remained; that was past. Of all that
+had gone before, and of what was to come in the future, I thought
+nothing, knew nothing. Our long fight against the yellow group, our
+encounters with the numberless creatures of Fu-Manchu, the dacoits--even
+Karamaneh--were forgotten, blotted out. I saw nothing of the strange
+appointments of that subterranean chamber; but face to face with the
+supreme moment of a lifetime, I was alone with my poor friend--and God.
+
+The rats began squealing again. They were fighting...
+
+“Quick, Petrie! Quick, man! I am weakening....”
+
+I turned and took up the samurai sword. My hands were very hot and dry,
+but perfectly steady, and I tested the edge of the heavy weapon upon my
+left thumb-nail as quietly as one might test a razor blade. It was
+as keen, this blade of ghastly history, as any razor ever wrought in
+Sheffield. I seized the graven hilt, bent forward in my chair, and
+raised the Friend’s Sword high above my head. With the heavy weapon
+poised there, I looked into my friend’s eyes. They were feverishly
+bright, but never in all my days, nor upon the many beds of suffering
+which it had been my lot to visit, had I seen an expression like that
+within them.
+
+“The raising of the First Gate is always a crucial moment,” came the
+guttural voice of the Chinaman. Although I did not see him, and barely
+heard his words, I was aware that he had stood up and was bending
+forward over the lower end of the cage.
+
+“Now, Petrie! now! God bless you... and good-by...”
+
+From somewhere--somewhere remote--I heard a hoarse and animal-like cry,
+followed by the sound of a heavy fall. I can scarcely bear to write of
+that moment, for I had actually begun the downward sweep of the great
+sword when that sound came--a faint Hope, speaking of aid where I had
+thought no aid possible.
+
+How I contrived to divert the blade, I do not know to this day; but I
+do know that its mighty sweep sheared a lock from Smith’s head and laid
+bare the scalp. With the hilt in my quivering hands I saw the blade bite
+deeply through the carpet and floor above Nayland Smith’s skull. There,
+buried fully two inches in the woodwork, it stuck, and still clutching
+the hilt, I looked to the right and across the room--I looked to the
+curtained doorway.
+
+Fu-Manchu, with one long, claw-like hand upon the top of the First Gate,
+was bending over the trap, but his brilliant green eyes were turned in
+the same direction as my own--upon the curtained doorway.
+
+Upright within it, her beautiful face as pale as death, but her great
+eyes blazing with a sort of splendid madness, stood Karamaneh!
+
+She looked, not at the tortured man, not at me, but fully at Dr.
+Fu-Manchu. One hand clutched the trembling draperies; now she suddenly
+raised the other, so that the jewels on her white arm glittered in the
+light of the lamp above the door. She held my Browning pistol! Fu-Manchu
+sprang upright, inhaling sibilantly, as Karamaneh pointed the pistol
+point blank at his high skull and fired....
+
+I saw a little red streak appear, up by the neutral colored hair, under
+the black cap. I became as a detached intelligence, unlinked with the
+corporeal, looking down upon a thing which for some reason I had never
+thought to witness.
+
+Fu-Manchu threw up both arms, so that the sleeves of the green robe
+fell back to the elbows. He clutched at his head, and the black cap
+fell behind him. He began to utter short, guttural cries; he swayed
+backward--to the right--to the left then lurched forward right across
+the cage. There he lay, writhing, for a moment, his baneful eyes turned
+up, revealing the whites; and the great gray rats, released, began
+leaping about the room. Two shot like gray streaks past the slim figure
+in the doorway, one darted behind the chair to which I was lashed,
+and the fourth ran all around against the wall... Fu-Manchu, prostrate
+across the overturned cage, lay still, his massive head sagging
+downward.
+
+I experienced a mental repetition of my adventure in the earlier
+evening--I was dropping, dropping, dropping into some bottomless pit ...
+warm arms were about my neck; and burning kisses upon my lips.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX. THE CALL OF THE EAST
+
+I seemed to haul myself back out of the pit of unconsciousness by the
+aid of two little hands which clasped my own. I uttered a sigh that was
+almost a sob, and opened my eyes.
+
+I was sitting in the big red-leathern armchair in my own study... and a
+lovely but truly bizarre figure, in a harem dress, was kneeling on the
+carpet at my feet; so that my first sight of the world was the sweetest
+sight that the world had to offer me, the dark eyes of Karamaneh, with
+tears trembling like jewels upon her lashes!
+
+I looked no further than that, heeded not if there were others in the
+room beside we two, but, gripping the jewel-laden fingers in what must
+have been a cruel clasp, I searched the depths of the glorious eyes
+in ever growing wonder. What change had taken place in those limpid,
+mysterious pools? Why was a wild madness growing up within me like a
+flame? Why was the old longing returned, ten-thousandfold, to snatch
+that pliant, exquisite shape to my breast?
+
+No word was spoken, but the spoken words of a thousand ages could not
+have expressed one tithe of what was held in that silent communion. A
+hand was laid hesitatingly on my shoulder. I tore my gaze away from the
+lovely face so near to mine, and glanced up.
+
+Aziz stood at the back of my chair.
+
+“God is all merciful,” he said. “My sister is restored to us” (I loved
+him for the plural); “and she remembers.”
+
+Those few words were enough; I understood now that this lovely girl, who
+half knelt, half lay, at my feet, was not the evil, perverted creature
+of Fu-Manchu whom we had gone out to arrest with the other vile servants
+of the Chinese doctor, but was the old, beloved companion of two years
+ago, the Karamaneh for whom I had sought long and wearily in Egypt, who
+had been swallowed up and lost to me in that land of mystery.
+
+The loss of memory which Fu-Manchu had artificially induced was subject
+to the same inexplicable laws which ordinarily rule in cases of amnesia.
+The shock of her brave action that night had begun to effect a cure; the
+sight of Aziz had completed it.
+
+Inspector Weymouth was standing by the writing-table. My mind cleared
+rapidly now, and standing up, but without releasing the girl’s hands, so
+that I drew her up beside me, I said:
+
+“Weymouth--where is--?”
+
+“He’s waiting to see you, Doctor,” replied the inspector.
+
+A pang, almost physical, struck at my heart.
+
+“Poor, dear old Smith!” I cried, with a break in my voice.
+
+Dr. Gray, a neighboring practitioner, appeared in the doorway at the
+moment that I spoke the words.
+
+“It’s all right, Petrie,” he said, reassuringly; “I think we took it
+in time. I have thoroughly cauterized the wounds, and granted that no
+complication sets in, he’ll be on his feet again in a week or two.”
+
+I suppose I was in a condition closely bordering upon the hysterical. At
+any rate, my behavior was extraordinary. I raised both my hands above my
+head.
+
+“Thank God!” I cried at the top of my voice, “thank God!--thank God!”
+
+“Thank Him, indeed,” responded the musical voice of Aziz. He spoke with
+all the passionate devoutness of the true Moslem.
+
+Everything, even Karamaneh was forgotten, and I started for the door as
+though my life depended upon my speed. With one foot upon the landing, I
+turned, looked back, and met the glance of Inspector Weymouth.
+
+“What have you done with--the body?” I asked.
+
+“We haven’t been able to get to it. That end of the vault collapsed two
+minutes after we hauled you out!”
+
+As I write, now, of those strange days, already they seem remote and
+unreal. But, where other and more dreadful memories already are grown
+misty, the memory of that evening in my rooms remains clear-cut and
+intimate. It marked a crisis in my life.
+
+During the days that immediately followed, whilst Smith was slowly
+recovering from his hurts, I made my plans deliberately; I prepared to
+cut myself off from old associations--prepared to exile myself, gladly;
+how gladly I cannot hope to express in mere cold words.
+
+That my friend approved of my projects, I cannot truthfully state, but
+his disapproval at least was not openly expressed. To Karamaneh I said
+nothing of my plans, but her complete reliance in my powers to protect
+her, now, from all harm, was at once pathetic and exquisite.
+
+Since, always, I have sought in these chronicles to confine myself to
+the facts directly relating to the malignant activity of Dr. Fu-Manchu,
+I shall abstain from burdening you with details of my private affairs.
+As an instrument of the Chinese doctor, it has sometimes been my duty
+to write of the beautiful Eastern girl; I cannot suppose that my readers
+have any further curiosity respecting her from the moment that Fate
+freed her from that awful servitude. Therefore, when I shall have
+dealt with the episodes which marked our voyage to Egypt--I had opened
+negotiations in regard to a practice in Cairo--I may honorably lay down
+my pen.
+
+These episodes opened, dramatically, upon the second night of the voyage
+from Marseilles.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. “MY SHADOW LIES UPON YOU”
+
+I suppose I did not awake very readily. Following the nervous vigilance
+of the past six months, my tired nerves, in the enjoyment of this
+relaxation, were rapidly recuperating. I no longer feared to awake to
+find a knife at my throat, no longer dreaded the darkness as a foe.
+
+So that the voice may have been calling (indeed, had been calling) for
+some time, and of this I had been hazily conscious before finally I
+awoke. Then, ere the new sense of security came to reassure me, the old
+sense of impending harm set my heart leaping nervously. There is always
+a certain physical panic attendant upon such awakening in the still
+of night, especially in novel surroundings. Now, I sat up abruptly,
+clutching at the rail of my berth and listening.
+
+There was a soft thudding on my cabin door, and a voice, low and urgent,
+was crying my name.
+
+Through the open porthole the moonlight streamed into my room, and save
+for a remote and soothing throb, inseparable from the progress of a
+great steamship, nothing else disturbed the stillness; I might have
+floated lonely upon the bosom of the Mediterranean. But there was the
+drumming on the door again, and the urgent appeal:
+
+“Dr. Petrie! Dr. Petrie!”
+
+I threw off the bedclothes and stepped on to the floor of the cabin,
+fumbling hastily for my slippers. A fear that something was amiss, that
+some aftermath, some wraith of the dread Chinaman, was yet to come to
+disturb our premature peace, began to haunt me. I threw open the door.
+
+Upon the gleaming deck, blackly outlined against a wondrous sky, stood
+a man who wore a blue greatcoat over his pyjamas, and whose unstockinged
+feet were thrust into red slippers. It was Platts, the Marconi operator.
+
+“I’m awfully sorry to disturb you, Dr. Petrie,” he said, “and I was even
+less anxious to arouse your neighbor; but somebody seems to be trying to
+get a message, presumably urgent, through to you.”
+
+“To me!” I cried.
+
+“I cannot make it out,” admitted Platts, running his fingers through
+disheveled hair, “but I thought it better to arouse you. Will you come
+up?”
+
+I turned without a word, slipped into my dressing-gown, and with Platts
+passed aft along the deserted deck. The sea was as calm as a great
+lake. Ahead, on the port bow, an angry flambeau burned redly beneath the
+peaceful vault of the heavens. Platts nodded absently in the direction
+of the weird flames.
+
+“Stromboli,” he said; “we shall be nearly through the Straits by
+breakfast-time.”
+
+We mounted the narrow stair to the Marconi deck. At the table sat
+Platts’ assistant with the Marconi attachment upon his head--an
+apparatus which always set me thinking of the electric chair.
+
+“Have you got it?” demanded my companion as we entered the room.
+
+“It’s still coming through,” replied the other without moving, “but in
+the same jerky fashion. Every time I get it, it seems to have gone back
+to the beginning--just Dr. Petrie--Dr. Petrie.”
+
+He began to listen again for the elusive message. I turned to Platts.
+
+“Where is it being sent from?” I asked.
+
+Platts shook his head.
+
+“That’s the mystery,” he declared. “Look!”--and he pointed to the table;
+“according to the Marconi chart, there’s a Messagerie boat due west
+between us and Marseilles, and the homeward-bound P. & O. which we
+passed this morning must be getting on that way also, by now. The Isis
+is somewhere ahead, but I’ve spoken to all these, and the message comes
+from none of them.”
+
+“Then it may come from Messina.”
+
+“It doesn’t come from Messina,” replied the man at the table, beginning
+to write rapidly.
+
+Platts stepped forward and bent over the message which the other was
+writing.
+
+“Here it is!” he cried, excitedly; “we’re getting it.”
+
+Stepping in turn to the table, I leaned over between the two and read
+these words as the operator wrote them down:
+
+Dr. Petrie--my shadow...
+
+I drew a quick breath and gripped Platts’ shoulder harshly. His
+assistant began fingering the instrument with irritation.
+
+“Lost it again!” he muttered.
+
+“This message,” I began...
+
+But again the pencil was traveling over the paper:--lies upon you
+all... end of message.
+
+The operator stood up and unclasped the receivers from his ears. There,
+high above the sleeping ship’s company, with the carpet of the blue
+Mediterranean stretched indefinitely about us, we three stood looking at
+one another. By virtue of a miracle of modern science, some one, divided
+from me by mile upon mile of boundless ocean, had spoken--and had been
+heard.
+
+“Is there no means of learning,” I said, “from whence this message
+emanated?”
+
+Platts shook his head, perplexedly.
+
+“They gave no code word,” he said. “God knows who they were. It’s a
+strange business and a strange message. Have you any sort of idea, Dr.
+Petrie, respecting the identity of the sender?”
+
+I stared him hard in the face; an idea had mechanically entered my mind,
+but one of which I did not choose to speak, since it was opposed to
+human possibility.
+
+But, had I not seen with my own eyes the bloody streak across his
+forehead as the shot fired by Karamaneh entered his high skull, had I
+not known, so certainly as it is given to man to know, that the giant
+intellect was no more, the mighty will impotent, I should have replied:
+
+“The message is from Dr. Fu-Manchu!”
+
+My reflections were rudely terminated and my sinister thoughts given new
+stimulus, by a loud though muffled cry which reached me from somewhere
+in the ship, below. Both my companions started as violently as I,
+whereby I knew that the mystery of the wireless message had not been
+without its effect upon their minds also. But whereas they paused in
+doubt, I leaped from the room and almost threw myself down the ladder.
+
+It was Karamaneh who had uttered that cry of fear and horror!
+
+Although I could perceive no connection betwixt the strange message and
+the cry in the night, intuitively I linked them, intuitively I knew that
+my fears had been well-grounded; that the shadow of Fu-Manchu still lay
+upon us.
+
+Karamaneh occupied a large stateroom aft on the main deck; so that I had
+to descend from the upper deck on which my own room was situated to the
+promenade deck, again to the main deck and thence proceed nearly the
+whole length of the alleyway.
+
+Karamaneh and her brother, Aziz, who occupied a neighboring room, met
+me, near the library. Karamaneh’s eyes were wide with fear; her peerless
+coloring had fled, and she was white to the lips. Aziz, who wore
+a dressing-gown thrown hastily over his night attire, had his arm
+protectively about the girl’s shoulders.
+
+“The mummy!” she whispered tremulously--“the mummy!”
+
+There came a sound of opening doors, and several passengers, whom
+Karamaneh cries had alarmed, appeared in various stages of undress. A
+stewardess came running from the far end of the alleyway, and I found
+time to wonder at my own speed; for, starting from the distant Marconi
+deck, yet I had been the first to arrive upon the scene.
+
+Stacey, the ship’s doctor, was quartered at no great distance from
+the spot, and he now joined the group. Anticipating the question which
+trembled upon the lips of several of those about me:
+
+“Come to Dr. Stacey’s room,” I said, taking Karamaneh arm; “we will
+give you something to enable you to sleep.” I turned to the group. “My
+patient has had severe nerve trouble,” I explained, “and has developed
+somnambulistic tendencies.”
+
+I declined the stewardess’ offer of assistance, with a slight shake of
+the head, and shortly the four of us entered the doctor’s cabin, on
+the deck above. Stacey carefully closed the door. He was an old
+fellow student of mine, and already he knew much of the history of the
+beautiful Eastern girl and her brother Aziz.
+
+“I fear there’s mischief afoot, Petrie,” he said.
+
+“Thanks to your presence of mind, the ship’s gossips need know nothing
+of it.”
+
+I glanced at Karamaneh who, since the moment of my arrival had never
+once removed her gaze from me; she remained in that state of passive
+fear in which I had found her, the lovely face pallid; and she stared at
+me fixedly in a childish, expressionless way which made me fear that the
+shock to which she had been subjected, whatever its nature, had caused
+a relapse into that strange condition of forgetfulness from which a
+previous shock had aroused her. I could see that Stacey shared my view,
+for:
+
+“Something has frightened you,” he said gently, seating himself on the
+arm of Karamaneh’s chair and patting her hand as if to reassure her.
+“Tell us all about it.”
+
+For the first time since our meeting that night, the girl turned her
+eyes from me and glanced up at Stacey, a sudden warm blush stealing over
+her face and throat and as quickly departing, to leave her even more
+pale than before. She grasped Stacey’s hand in both her own--and looked
+again at me.
+
+“Send for Mr. Nayland Smith without delay!” she said, and her sweet
+voice was slightly tremulous. “He must be put on his guard!”
+
+I started up.
+
+“Why?” I said. “For God’s sake tell us what has happened!”
+
+Aziz who evidently was as anxious as myself for information, and who now
+knelt at his sister’s feet looking at her with that strange love, which
+was almost adoration, in his eyes, glanced back at me and nodded his
+head rapidly.
+
+“Something”--Karamaneh paused, shuddering violently--“some dreadful
+thing, like a mummy escaped from its tomb, came into my room to-night
+through the porthole...”
+
+“Through the porthole?” echoed Stacey, amazedly.
+
+“Yes, yes, through the porthole! A creature tall and very, very thin. He
+wore wrappings--yellow wrappings--swathed about his head, so that only
+his eyes, his evil gleaming eyes, were visible.... From waist to knees
+he was covered, also, but his body, his feet, and his legs were bare...”
+
+“Was he--?” I began...
+
+“He was a brown man, yes,”--Karamaneh divining my question, nodded, and
+the shimmering cloud of her wonderful hair, hastily confined, burst
+free and rippled about her shoulders. “A gaunt, fleshless brown man, who
+bent, and writhed bony fingers--so!”
+
+“A thug!” I cried.
+
+“He--it--the mummy thing--would have strangled me if I had slept, for he
+crouched over the berth--seeking--seeking...”
+
+I clenched my teeth convulsively.
+
+“But I was sitting up--”
+
+“With the light on?” interrupted Stacey in surprise.
+
+“No,” added Karamaneh; “the light was out.” She turned her eyes toward
+me, as the wonderful blush overspread her face once more. “I was sitting
+thinking. It all happened within a few seconds, and quite silently. As
+the mummy crouched over the berth, I unlocked the door and leaped out
+into the passage. I think I screamed; I did not mean to. Oh, Dr.
+Stacey, there is not a moment to spare! Mr. Nayland Smith must be warned
+immediately. Some horrible servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu is on the ship!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. THE TRAGEDY
+
+Nayland Smith leaned against the edge of the dressing-table, attired in
+pyjamas. The little stateroom was hazy with smoke, and my friend gripped
+the charred briar between his teeth and watched the blue-gray clouds
+arising from the bowl, in an abstracted way. I knew that he was thinking
+hard, and from the fact that he had exhibited no surprise when I had
+related to him the particular’s of the attack upon Karamaneh I judged
+that he had half anticipated something of the kind. Suddenly he stood
+up, staring at me fixedly.
+
+“Your tact has saved the situation, Petrie,” he snapped. “It failed you
+momentarily, though, when you proposed to me just now that we should
+muster the lascars for inspection. Our game is to pretend that we know
+nothing--that we believe Karamaneh to have had a bad dream.”
+
+“But, Smith,” I began--
+
+“It would be useless, Petrie,” he interrupted me. “You cannot suppose
+that I overlooked the possibility of some creature of the doctor’s being
+among the lascars. I can assure you that not one of them answers to the
+description of the midnight assailant. From the girl’s account we have
+to look (discarding the idea of a revivified mummy) for a man of unusual
+height--and there’s no lascar of unusual height on board; and from the
+visible evidence, that he entered the stateroom through the porthole, we
+have to look for a man more than normally thin. In a word, the servant
+of Dr. Fu-Manchu who attempted the life of Karamaneh is either in hiding
+on the ship, or, if visible, is disguised.”
+
+With his usual clarity of vision, Nayland Smith had visualized the facts
+of the case; I passed in mental survey each one of the passengers, and
+those of the crew whose appearances were familiar to me, with the result
+that I had to admit the justice of my friend’s conclusions. Smith began
+to pace the narrow strip of carpet between the dressing-table and the
+door. Suddenly he began again. “From our knowledge of Fu-Manchu and of
+the group surrounding him (and, don’t forget, surviving him)--we may
+further assume that the wireless message was no gratuitous piece of
+melodrama, but that it was directed to a definite end. Let us endeavor
+to link up the chain a little. You occupy an upper deck berth; so do
+I. Experience of the Chinaman has formed a habit in both of us; that of
+sleeping with closed windows. Your port was fastened and so was my own.
+Karamaneh is quartered on the main deck, and her brother’s stateroom
+opens into the same alleyway. Since the ship is in the Straits of
+Messina, and the glass set fair, the stewards have not closed the
+portholes nightly at present. We know that that of Karamaneh’s stateroom
+was open. Therefore, in any attempt upon our quartet, Karamaneh would
+automatically be selected for the victim, since failing you or myself
+she may be regarded as being the most obnoxious to Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
+
+I nodded comprehendingly. Smith’s capacity for throwing the white light
+of reason into the darkest places often amazed me.
+
+“You may have noticed,” he continued, “that Karamaneh’s room is directly
+below your own. In the event of any outcry, you would be sooner upon the
+scene than I should, for instance, because I sleep on the opposite
+side of the ship. This circumstance I take to be the explanation of the
+wireless message, which, because of its hesitancy (a piece of ingenuity
+very characteristic of the group), led to your being awakened and
+invited up to the Marconi deck; in short, it gave the would-be assassin
+a better chance of escaping before your arrival.”
+
+I watched my friend in growing wonder. The strange events, seemingly
+having no link, took their places in the drama, and became well-ordered
+episodes in a plot that only a criminal genius could have devised. As
+I studied the keen, bronzed face, I realized to the full the stupendous
+mental power of Dr. Fu-Manchu, measuring it by the criterion of Nayland
+Smith’s. For the cunning Chinaman, in a sense, had foiled this brilliant
+man before me, whereby, if by nought else, I might know him a master of
+his evil art.
+
+“I regard the episode,” continued Smith, “as a posthumous attempt of
+the doctor’s; a legacy of hate which may prove more disastrous than any
+attempt made upon us by Fu-Manchu in life. Some fiendish member of the
+murder group is on board the ship. We must, as always, meet guile with
+guile. There must be no appeal to the captain, no public examination of
+passengers and crew. One attempt has failed; I do not doubt that
+others will be made. At present, you will enact the role of
+physician-in-attendance upon Karamaneh, and will put it about for whom
+it may interest that a slight return of her nervous trouble is causing
+her to pass uneasy nights. I can safely leave this part of the case to
+you, I think?”
+
+I nodded rapidly.
+
+“I haven’t troubled to make inquiries,” added Smith, “but I think it
+probable that the regulation respecting closed ports will come into
+operation immediately we have passed the Straits, or at any rate
+immediately there is any likelihood of bad weather.”
+
+“You mean--”
+
+“I mean that no alteration should be made in our habits. A second
+attempt along similar lines is to be apprehended--to-night. After that
+we may begin to look out for a new danger.”
+
+“I pray we may avoid it,” I said fervently.
+
+As I entered the saloon for breakfast in the morning, I was subjected to
+solicitous inquiries from Mrs. Prior, the gossip of the ship. Her room
+adjoined Karamaneh’s and she had been one of the passengers aroused by
+the girl’s cries in the night. Strictly adhering to my role, I explained
+that my patient was threatened with a second nervous breakdown, and was
+subject to vivid and disturbing dreams. One or two other inquiries I met
+in the same way, ere escaping to the corner table reserved to us.
+
+That iron-bound code of conduct which rules the Anglo-Indian, in the
+first days of the voyage had threatened to ostracize Karamaneh and Aziz,
+by reason of the Eastern blood to which their brilliant but peculiar
+type of beauty bore witness. Smith’s attitude, however--and, in a
+Burmese commissioner, it constituted something of a law--had done much
+to break down the barriers; the extraordinary beauty of the girl had
+done the rest. So that now, far from finding themselves shunned, the
+society of Karamaneh and her romantic-looking brother was universally
+courted. The last inquiry that morning, respecting my interesting
+patient, came from the bishop of Damascus, a benevolent old gentleman
+whose ancestry was not wholly innocent of Oriental strains, and who sat
+at a table immediately behind me. As I settled down to my porridge, he
+turned his chair slightly and bent to my ear.
+
+“Mrs. Prior tells me that your charming friend was disturbed last
+night,” he whispered. “She seems rather pale this morning; I sincerely
+trust that she is suffering no ill-effect.”
+
+I swung around, with a smile. Owing to my carelessness, there was a
+slight collision, and the poor bishop, who had been invalided to England
+after typhoid, in order to undergo special treatment, suppressed an
+exclamation of pain, although his fine dark eyes gleamed kindly upon me
+through the pebbles of his gold-rimmed pince-nez.
+
+Indeed, despite his Eastern blood, he might have posed for a Sadler
+picture, his small and refined features seeming out of place above the
+bulky body.
+
+“Can you forgive my clumsiness,” I began--
+
+But the bishop raised his small, slim fingered hand of old ivory hue,
+deprecatingly.
+
+His system was supercharged with typhoid bacilli, and, as sometimes
+occurs, the superfluous “bugs” had sought exit. He could only walk with
+the aid of two stout sticks, and bent very much at that. His left leg
+had been surgically scraped to the bone, and I appreciated the exquisite
+torture to which my awkwardness had subjected him. But he would
+entertain no apologies, pressing his inquiry respecting Karamaneh in the
+kindly manner which had made him so deservedly popular on board.
+
+“Many thanks for your solicitude,” I said; “I have promised her sound
+repose to-night, and since my professional reputation is at stake, I
+shall see that she secures it.”
+
+In short, we were in pleasant company, and the day passed happily enough
+and without notable event. Smith spent some considerable time with the
+chief officer, wandering about unfrequented parts of the ship. I learned
+later that he had explored the lascars’ quarters, the forecastle, the
+engine-room, and had even descended to the stokehold; but this was done
+so unostentatiously that it occasioned no comment.
+
+With the approach of evening, in place of that physical contentment
+which usually heralds the dinner-hour, at sea, I experienced a fit of
+the seemingly causeless apprehension which too often in the past had
+harbingered the coming of grim events; which I had learnt to associate
+with the nearing presence of one of Fu-Manchu’s death-agents. In view of
+the facts, as I afterwards knew them to be, I cannot account for this.
+
+Yet, in an unexpected manner, my forebodings were realized. That night I
+was destined to meet a sorrow surpassing any which my troubled life had
+known. Even now I experience great difficulty in relating the matters
+which befell, in speaking of the sense of irrevocable loss which came to
+me. Briefly, then, at about ten minutes before the dining hour, whilst
+all the passengers, myself included, were below, dressing, a faint cry
+arose from somewhere aft on the upper deck--a cry which was swiftly
+taken up by other voices, so that presently a deck steward echoed it
+immediately outside my own stateroom:
+
+“Man overboard! Man overboard!”
+
+All my premonitions rallying in that one sickening moment, I sprang
+out on the deck, half dressed as I was, and leaping past the boat which
+swung nearly opposite my door, craned over the rail, looking astern.
+
+For a long time I could detect nothing unusual. The engine-room
+telegraph was ringing--and the motion of the screws momentarily ceased;
+then, in response to further ringing, recommenced, but so as to jar
+the whole structure of the vessel; whereby I knew that the engines were
+reversed. Peering intently into the wake of the ship, I was but dimly
+aware of the ever growing turmoil around me, of the swift mustering of a
+boat’s crew, of the shouted orders of the third-officer. Suddenly I saw
+it--the sight which was to haunt me for succeeding days and nights.
+
+Half in the streak of the wake and half out of it, I perceived the
+sleeve of a white jacket, and, near to it, a soft felt hat. The sleeve
+rose up once into clear view, seemed to describe a half-circle in the
+air then sink back again into the glassy swell of the water. Only the
+hat remained floating upon the surface.
+
+By the evidence of the white sleeve alone I might have remained
+unconvinced, although upon the voyage I had become familiar enough with
+the drill shooting-jacket, but the presence of the gray felt hat was
+almost conclusive.
+
+The man overboard was Nayland Smith!
+
+I cannot hope, writing now, to convey in any words at my command, a
+sense, even remote, of the utter loneliness which in that dreadful
+moment closed coldly down upon me.
+
+To spring overboard to the rescue was a natural impulse, but to have
+obeyed it would have been worse than quixotic. In the first place, the
+drowning man was close upon half a mile astern; in the second place,
+others had seen the hat and the white coat as clearly as I; among them
+the third-officer, standing upright in the stern of the boat--which,
+with commendable promptitude had already been swung into the water. The
+steamer was being put about, describing a wide arc around the little
+boat dancing on the deep blue rollers....
+
+Of the next hour, I cannot bear to write at all. Long as I had known
+him, I was ignorant of my friend’s powers as a swimmer, but I judged
+that he must have been a poor one from the fact that he had sunk
+so rapidly in a calm sea. Except the hat, no trace of Nayland Smith
+remained when the boat got to the spot.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. THE MUMMY
+
+Dinner was out of the question that night for all of us. Karamaneh who
+had spoken no word, but, grasping my hands, had looked into my eyes--her
+own glassy with unshed tears--and then stolen away to her cabin, had not
+since reappeared. Seated upon my berth, I stared unseeingly before me,
+upon a changed ship, a changed sea and sky upon another world. The poor
+old bishop, my neighbor, had glanced in several times, as he hobbled by,
+and his spectacles were unmistakably humid; but even he had vouchsafed
+no word, realizing that my sorrow was too deep for such consolation.
+
+When at last I became capable of connected thought, I found myself faced
+by a big problem. Should I place the facts of the matter, as I knew
+them to be, before the captain? or could I hope to apprehend Fu-Manchu’s
+servant by the methods suggested by my poor friend? That Smith’s death
+was an accident, I did not believe for a moment; it was impossible not
+to link it with the attempt upon Karamaneh. In my misery and doubt, I
+determined to take counsel with Dr. Stacey. I stood up, and passed out
+on to the deck.
+
+Those passengers whom I met on my way to his room regarded me in
+respectful silence. By contrast, Stacey’s attitude surprised and even
+annoyed me.
+
+“I’d be prepared to stake all I possess--although it’s not much,” he
+said, “that this was not the work of your hidden enemy.”
+
+He blankly refused to give me his reasons for the statement and strongly
+advised me to watch and wait but to make no communication to the
+captain.
+
+At this hour I can look back and savor again something of the profound
+dejection of that time. I could not face the passengers; I even avoided
+Karamaneh and Aziz. I shut myself in my cabin and sat staring aimlessly
+into the growing darkness. The steward knocked, once, inquiring if I
+needed anything, but I dismissed him abruptly. So I passed the evening
+and the greater part of the night.
+
+Those groups of promenaders who passed my door, invariably were
+discussing my poor friend’s tragic end; but as the night wore on, the
+deck grew empty, and I sat amid a silence that in my miserable state I
+welcomed more than the presence of any friend, saving only the one whom
+I should never welcome again.
+
+Since I had not counted the bells, to this day I have only the vaguest
+idea respecting the time whereat the next incident occurred which it
+is my duty to chronicle. Perhaps I was on the verge of falling asleep,
+seated there as I was; at any rate, I could scarcely believe myself
+awake, when, unheralded by any footsteps to indicate his coming, some
+one who seemed to be crouching outside my stateroom, slightly raised
+himself and peered in through the porthole--which I had not troubled to
+close.
+
+He must have been a fairly tall man to have looked in at all, and
+although his features were indistinguishable in the darkness, his
+outline, which was clearly perceptible against the white boat beyond,
+was unfamiliar to me. He seemed to have a small, and oddly swathed head,
+and what I could make out of the gaunt neck and square shoulders in some
+way suggested an unnatural thinness; in short, the smudgy silhouette in
+the porthole was weirdly like that of a mummy!
+
+For some moments I stared at the apparition; then, rousing myself from
+the apathy into which I had sunk, I stood up very quickly and stepped
+across the room. As I did so the figure vanished, and when I threw open
+the door and looked out upon the deck... the deck was wholly untenanted!
+
+I realized at once that it would be useless, even had I chosen the
+course, to seek confirmation of what I had seen from the officer on
+the bridge: my own berth, together with the one adjoining--that of the
+bishop--was not visible from the bridge.
+
+For some time I stood in my doorway, wondering in a disinterested
+fashion which now I cannot explain, if the hidden enemy had revealed
+himself to me, or if disordered imagination had played me a trick.
+Later, I was destined to know the truth of the matter, but when at last
+I fell into a troubled sleep, that night, I was still in some doubt upon
+the point.
+
+My state of mind when I awakened on the following day was indescribable;
+I found it difficult to doubt that Nayland Smith would meet me on the
+way to the bathroom as usual, with the cracked briar fuming between his
+teeth. I felt myself almost compelled to pass around to his stateroom in
+order to convince myself that he was not really there. The catastrophe
+was still unreal to me, and the world a dream-world. Indeed I retain
+scarcely any recollections of the traffic of that day, or of the days
+that followed it until we reached Port Said.
+
+Two things only made any striking appeal to my dulled intelligence at
+that time. These were: the aloof attitude of Dr. Stacey, who seemed
+carefully to avoid me; and a curious circumstance which the second
+officer mentioned in conversation one evening as we strolled up and down
+the main deck together.
+
+“Either I was fast asleep at my post, Dr. Petrie,” he said, “or last
+night, in the middle watch, some one or something came over the side of
+the ship just aft the bridge, slipped across the deck, and disappeared.”
+
+I stared at him wonderingly.
+
+“Do you mean something that came up out of the sea?” I said.
+
+“Nothing could very well have come up out of the sea,” he replied,
+smiling slightly, “so that it must have come up from the deck below.”
+
+“Was it a man?”
+
+“It looked like a man, and a fairly tall one, but he came and was gone
+like a flash, and I saw no more of him up to the time I was relieved.
+To tell you the truth, I did not report it because I thought I must have
+been dozing; it’s a dead slow watch, and the navigation on this part of
+the run is child’s play.”
+
+I was on the point of telling him what I had seen myself, two evenings
+before, but for some reason I refrained from doing so, although I think
+had I confided in him he would have abandoned the idea that what he had
+seen was phantasmal; for the pair of us could not very well have been
+dreaming. Some malignant presence haunted the ship; I could not doubt
+this; yet I remained passive, sunk in a lethargy of sorrow.
+
+We were scheduled to reach Port Said at about eight o’clock in the
+evening, but by reason of the delay occasioned so tragically, I learned
+that in all probability we should not arrive earlier than midnight,
+whilst passengers would not go ashore until the following morning.
+Karamaneh who had been staring ahead all day, seeking a first glimpse
+of her native land, was determined to remain up until the hour of our
+arrival, but after dinner a notice was posted up that we should not be
+in before two A.M. Even those passengers who were the most enthusiastic
+thereupon determined to postpone, for a few hours, their first glimpse
+of the land of the Pharaohs and even to forego the sight--one of the
+strangest and most interesting in the world--of Port Said by night.
+
+For my own part, I confess that all the interest and hope with which
+I had looked forward to our arrival, had left me, and often I detected
+tears in the eyes of Karamaneh whereby I knew that the coldness in my
+heart had manifested itself even to her. I had sustained the greatest
+blow of my life, and not even the presence of so lovely a companion
+could entirely recompense me for the loss of my dearest friend.
+
+The lights on the Egyptian shore were faintly visible when the last
+group of stragglers on deck broke up. I had long since prevailed upon
+Karamaneh to retire, and now, utterly sick at heart, I sought my own
+stateroom, mechanically undressed, and turned in.
+
+It may, or may not be singular that I had neglected all precautions
+since the night of the tragedy; I was not even conscious of a desire to
+visit retribution upon our hidden enemy; in some strange fashion I took
+it for granted that there would be no further attempts upon Karamaneh,
+Aziz, or myself. I had not troubled to confirm Smith’s surmise
+respecting the closing of the portholes; but I know now for a fact that,
+whereas they had been closed from the time of our leaving the Straits
+of Messina, to-night, in sight of the Egyptian coast, the regulation was
+relaxed again. I cannot say if this is usual, but that it occurred on
+this ship is a fact to which I can testify--a fact to which my attention
+was to be drawn dramatically.
+
+The night was steamingly hot, and because I welcomed the circumstance
+that my own port was widely opened, I reflected that those on the lower
+decks might be open also. A faint sense of danger stirred within me;
+indeed, I sat upright and was about to spring out of my berth when that
+occurred which induced me to change my mind.
+
+All passengers had long since retired, and a midnight silence descended
+upon the ship, for we were not yet close enough to port for any unusual
+activities to have commenced.
+
+Clearly outlined in the open porthole there suddenly arose that same
+grotesque silhouette which I had seen once before.
+
+Prompted by I know not what, I lay still and simulated heavy breathing;
+for it was evident to me that I must be partly visible to the watcher,
+so bright was the night. For ten--twenty--thirty seconds he studied me
+in absolute silence, that gaunt thing so like a mummy; and, with my
+eyes partly closed, I watched him, breathing heavily all the time. Then,
+making no more noise than a cat, he moved away across the deck, and
+I could judge of his height by the fact that his small, swathed head
+remained visible almost to the time that he passed to the end of the
+white boat which swung opposite my stateroom.
+
+In a moment I slipped quietly to the floor, crossed, and peered out
+of the porthole; so that at last I had a clear view of the sinister
+mummy-man. He was crouching under the bow of the boat, and attaching
+to the white rails, below, a contrivance of a kind with which I was
+not entirely unfamiliar. This was a thin ladder of silken rope, having
+bamboo rungs, with two metal hooks for attaching it to any suitable
+object.
+
+The one thus engaged was, as Karamaneh had declared, almost superhumanly
+thin. His loins were swathed in a sort of linen garment, and his head
+so bound about, turban fashion, that only his gleaming eyes remained
+visible. The bare limbs and body were of a dusky yellow color, and, at
+sight of him, I experienced a sudden nausea.
+
+My pistol was in my cabin-trunk, and to have found it in the dark,
+without making a good deal of noise, would have been impossible.
+Doubting how I should act, I stood watching the man with the swathed
+head whilst he threw the end of the ladder over the side, crept past the
+bow of the boat, and swung his gaunt body over the rail, exhibiting the
+agility of an ape. One quick glance fore and aft he gave, then began to
+swarm down the ladder: in which instant I knew his mission.
+
+With a choking cry, which forced itself unwilled from my lips, I tore at
+the door, threw it open, and sprang across the deck. Plans, I had none,
+and since I carried no instrument wherewith to sever the ladder, the
+murderer might indeed have carried out his design for all that I could
+have done to prevent him, were it not that another took a hand in the
+game....
+
+At the moment that the mummy-man--his head now on a level with the
+deck--perceived me, he stopped dead. Coincident with his stopping, the
+crack of a pistol shot sounded--from immediately beyond the boat.
+
+Uttering a sort of sobbing sound, the creature fell--then clutched,
+with straining yellow fingers, at the rails, and, seemingly by dint of
+a great effort, swarmed along aft some twenty feet, with incredible
+swiftness and agility, and clambered onto the deck.
+
+A second shot cracked sharply; and a voice (God! was I mad!) cried:
+“Hold him, Petrie!”
+
+Rigid with fearful astonishment I stood, as out from the boat above
+me leaped a figure attired solely in shirt and trousers. The newcomer
+leaped away in the wake of the mummy-man--who had vanished around the
+corner by the smoke-room. Over his shoulder he cried back at me:
+
+“The bishop’s stateroom! See that no one enters!”
+
+I clutched at my head--which seemed to be fiery hot; I realized in my
+own person the sensation of one who knows himself mad.
+
+For the man who pursued the mummy was Nayland Smith!
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+I stood in the bishop’s state-room, Nayland Smith, his gaunt face wet
+with perspiration, beside me, handling certain odd looking objects which
+littered the place, and lay about amid the discarded garments of the
+absent cleric.
+
+“Pneumatic pads!” he snapped. “The man was a walking air-cushion!” He
+gingerly fingered two strange rubber appliances. “For distending the
+cheeks,” he muttered, dropping them disgustedly on the floor. “His hands
+and wrists betrayed him, Petrie. He wore his cuff unusually long but
+he could not entirely hide his bony wrists. To have watched him, whilst
+remaining myself unseen, was next to impossible; hence my device
+of tossing a dummy overboard, calculated to float for less than ten
+minutes! It actually floated nearly fifteen, as a matter of fact, and I
+had some horrible moments!”
+
+“Smith!” I said--“how could you submit me...”
+
+He clapped his hands on my shoulders.
+
+“My dear old chap--there was no other way, believe me. From that boat
+I could see right into his stateroom, but, once in, I dare not leave
+it--except late at night, stealthily! The second spotted me one night
+and I thought the game was up, but evidently he didn’t report it.”
+
+“But you might have confided...”
+
+“Impossible! I’ll admit I nearly fell to the temptation that first
+night; for I could see into your room as well as into his!” He slapped
+me boisterously on the back, but his gray eyes were suspiciously moist.
+“Dear old Petrie! Thank God for our friends! But you’d be the first to
+admit, old man, that you’re a dead rotten actor! Your portrayal of grief
+for the loss of a valued chum would not have convinced a soul on board!
+
+“Therefore I made use of Stacey, whose callous attitude was less
+remarkable. Gad, Petrie! I nearly bagged our man the first night!
+The elaborate plan--Marconi message to get you out of the way, and so
+forth--had miscarried, and he knew the porthole trick would be useless
+once we got into the open sea. He took a big chance. He discarded his
+clerical guise and peeped into your room--you remember?--but you were
+awake, and I made no move when he slipped back to his own cabin; I
+wanted to take him red-handed.”
+
+“Have you any idea...”
+
+“Who he is? No more than where he is! Probably some creature of Dr.
+Fu-Manchu specially chosen for the purpose; obviously a man of culture,
+and probably of thug ancestry. I hit him--in the shoulder; but even then
+he ran like a hare. We’ve searched the ship, without result. He may have
+gone overboard and chanced the swim to shore...”
+
+We stepped out onto the deck. Around us was that unforgettable
+scene--Port Said by night. The ship was barely moving through the glassy
+water, now. Smith took my arm and we walked forward. Above us was the
+mighty peace of Egypt’s sky ablaze with splendor; around and about us
+moved the unique turmoil of the clearing-house of the Near East.
+
+“I would give much to know the real identity of the bishop of Damascus,”
+ muttered Smith.
+
+He stopped abruptly, snapping his teeth together and grasping my arm as
+in a vise. Hard upon his words had followed the rattling clangor as the
+great anchor was let go; but horribly intermingled with the metallic
+roar there came to us such a fearful, inarticulate shrieking as to chill
+one’s heart.
+
+The anchor plunged into the water of the harbor; the shrieking ceased.
+Smith turned to me, and his face was tragic in the light of the arc lamp
+swung hard by.
+
+“We shall never know,” he whispered. “God forgive him--he must be
+in bloody tatters now. Petrie, the poor fool was hiding in the
+chainlocker!”
+
+A little hand stole into mine. I turned quickly. Karamaneh stood beside
+me. I placed my arm about her shoulders, drawing her close; and I blush
+to relate that all else was forgotten.
+
+For a moment, heedless of the fearful turmoil forward, Nayland Smith
+stood looking at us. Then he turned, with his rare smile, and walked
+aft.
+
+“Perhaps you’re right, Petrie!” he said.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, by Sax Rohmer
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1183 ***