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diff --git a/old/fuman11.txt b/old/fuman11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ea6f654 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/fuman11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9980 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu** + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney +Internet (72600.2026@compuserve.com); TEL: (212-254-5093) +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"A GENTLEMAN to see you, Doctor." + +From across the common a clock sounded the half-hour. + +"Ten-thirty!" I said. "A late visitor. Show him up, if you please." + +I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lamp-shade, as footsteps +sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet, +for a tall, lean man, with his square-cut, clean-shaven face +sun-baked to the hue of coffee, entered and extended both hands, +with a cry: + +"Good old Petrie! Didn't expect me, I'll swear!" + +It was Nayland Smith--whom I had thought to be in Burma! + +"Smith," I said, and gripped his hands hard, "this is a delightful surprise! +Whatever--however--" + +"Excuse me, Petrie!" he broke in. "Don't put it down to the sun!" +And he put out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. + +I was too surprised to speak. + +"No doubt you will think me mad," he continued, and, dimly, +I could see him at the window, peering out into the road, +"but before you are many hours older you will know that I +have good reason to be cautious. Ah, nothing suspicious! +Perhaps I am first this time." And, stepping back to the +writing-table he relighted the lamp. + +"Mysterious enough for you?" he laughed, and glanced at my unfinished MS. +"A story, eh? From which I gather that the district is beastly healthy-- +what, Petrie? Well, I can put some material in your way that, if sheer +uncanny mystery is a marketable commodity, ought to make you independent +of influenza and broken legs and shattered nerves and all the rest." + +I surveyed him doubtfully, but there was nothing in his appearance +to justify me in supposing him to suffer from delusions. His eyes +were too bright, certainly, and a hardness now had crept over his face. +I got out the whisky and siphon, saying: + +"You have taken your leave early?" + +"I am not on leave," he replied, and slowly filled his pipe. +"I am on duty." + +"On duty!" I exclaimed. "What, are you moved to London or something?" + +"I have got a roving commission, Petrie, and it doesn't rest +with me where I am to-day nor where I shall be to-morrow." + +There was something ominous in the words, and, putting down my glass, +its contents untasted, I faced round and looked him squarely in the eyes. +"Out with it!" I said. "What is it all about?" + +Smith suddenly stood up and stripped off his coat. +Rolling back his left shirt-sleeve he revealed a wicked-looking +wound in the fleshy part of the forearm. It was quite healed, +but curiously striated for an inch or so around. + +"Ever seen one like it?" he asked. + +"Not exactly," I confessed. "It appears to have been deeply cauterized." + +"Right! Very deeply!" he rapped. "A barb steeped in the venom +of a hamadryad went in there!" + +A shudder I could not repress ran coldly through me at mention +of that most deadly of all the reptiles of the East. + +"There's only one treatment," he continued, rolling his sleeve down again, +"and that's with a sharp knife, a match, and a broken cartridge. +I lay on my back, raving, for three days afterwards, in a forest that stank +with malaria, but I should have been lying there now if I had hesitated. +Here's the point. It was not an accident!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that it was a deliberate attempt on my life, and I am hard upon +the tracks of the man who extracted that venom--patiently, drop by drop-- +from the poison-glands of the snake, who prepared that arrow, and who caused +it to be shot at me." + +"What fiend is this?" + +"A fiend who, unless my calculations are at fault is now in London, +and who regularly wars with pleasant weapons of that kind. Petrie, I have +traveled from Burma not in the interests of the British Government merely, +but in the interests of the entire white race, and I honestly believe-- +though I pray I may be wrong--that its survival depends largely upon +the success of my mission." + +To say that I was perplexed conveys no idea of the mental chaos +created by these extraordinary statements, for into my humdrum +suburban life Nayland Smith had brought fantasy of the wildest. +I did not know what to think, what to believe. + +"I am wasting precious time!" he rapped decisively, and, draining his glass, +he stood up. "I came straight to you, because you are the only man I dare +to trust. Except the big chief at headquarters, you are the only person +in England, I hope, who knows that Nayland Smith has quitted Burma. +I must have someone with me, Petrie, all the time--it's imperative! +Can you put me up here, and spare a few days to the strangest business, +I promise you, that ever was recorded in fact or fiction?" + +I agreed readily enough, for, unfortunately, my professional +duties were not onerous. + +"Good man!" he cried, wringing my hand in his impetuous way. +"We start now." + +"What, to-night? + +"To-night! I had thought of turning in, I must admit. I have not dared +to sleep for forty-eight hours, except in fifteen-minute stretches. +But there is one move that must be made to-night and immediately. +I must warn Sir Crichton Davey." + +"Sir Crichton Davey--of the India--" + +"Petrie, he is a doomed man! Unless he follows my instructions +without question, without hesitation--before Heaven, nothing can +save him! I do not know when the blow will fall, how it will fall, +nor from whence, but I know that my first duty is to warn him. +Let us walk down to the corner of the common and get a taxi." + +How strangely does the adventurous intrude upon the humdrum; +for, when it intrudes at all, more often than not its intrusion +is sudden and unlooked for. To-day, we may seek for romance +and fail to find it: unsought, it lies in wait for us at most +prosaic corners of life's highway. + +The drive that night, though it divided the drably commonplace +from the wildly bizarre--though it was the bridge between the +ordinary and the outre--has left no impression upon my mind. +Into the heart of a weird mystery the cab bore me; and in reviewing +my memories of those days I wonder that the busy thoroughfares +through which we passed did not display before my eyes signs +and portents--warnings. + +It was not so. I recall nothing of the route and little of import +that passed between us (we both were strangely silent, I think) +until we were come to our journey's end. Then: + +"What's this?" muttered my friend hoarsely. + +Constables were moving on a little crowd of curious idlers who pressed +about the steps of Sir Crichton Davey's house and sought to peer in at +the open door. Without waiting for the cab to draw up to the curb, +Nayland Smith recklessly leaped out and I followed close at his heels. + +"What has happened?" he demanded breathlessly of a constable. + +The latter glanced at him doubtfully, but something in his voice +and bearing commanded respect. + +"Sir Crichton Davey has been killed, sir." + +Smith lurched back as though he had received a physical blow, and clutched +my shoulder convulsively. Beneath the heavy tan his face had blanched, +and his eyes were set in a stare of horror. + +"My God!" he whispered. "I am too late!" + +With clenched fists he turned and, pressing through the group +of loungers, bounded up the steps. In the hall a man who unmistakably +was a Scotland Yard official stood talking to a footman. +Other members of the household were moving about, more or +less aimlessly, and the chilly hand of King Fear had touched +one and all, for, as they came and went, they glanced ever over +their shoulders, as if each shadow cloaked a menace, and listened, +as it seemed, for some sound which they dreaded to hear. +Smith strode up to the detective and showed him a card, +upon glancing at which the Scotland Yard man said something +in a low voice, and, nodding, touched his hat to Smith +in a respectful manner. + +A few brief questions and answers, and, in gloomy silence, +we followed the detective up the heavily carpeted stair, +along a corridor lined with pictures and busts, and into a +large library. A group of people were in this room, and one, +in whom I recognized Chalmers Cleeve, of Harley Street, +was bending over a motionless form stretched upon a couch. +Another door communicated with a small study, and through +the opening I could see a man on all fours examining the carpet. +The uncomfortable sense of hush, the group about the physician, +the bizarre figure crawling, beetle-like, across the inner room, +and the grim hub, around which all this ominous activity turned, +made up a scene that etched itself indelibly on my mind. + +As we entered Dr. Cleeve straightened himself, frowning thoughtfully. + +"Frankly, I do not care to venture any opinion at present regarding +the immediate cause of death," he said. "Sir Crichton was addicted +to cocaine, but there are indications which are not in accordance +with cocaine-poisoning. I fear that only a post-mortem can +establish the facts--if," he added, "we ever arrive at them. +A most mysterious case!" + +Smith stepping forward and engaging the famous pathologist in conversation, +I seized the opportunity to examine Sir Crichton's body. + +The dead man was in evening dress, but wore an old +smoking-jacket. He had been of spare but hardy build, +with thin, aquiline features, which now were oddly puffy, +as were his clenched hands. I pushed back his sleeve, +and saw the marks of the hypodermic syringe upon his left arm. +Quite mechanically I turned my attention to the right arm. +It was unscarred, but on the back of the hand was a faint +red mark, not unlike the imprint of painted lips. +I examined it closely, and even tried to rub it off, but it +evidently was caused by some morbid process of local inflammation, +if it were not a birthmark. + +Turning to a pale young man whom I had understood to be Sir +Crichton's private secretary, I drew his attention to this mark, +and inquired if it were constitutional. "It is not, sir," +answered Dr. Cleeve, overhearing my question. "I have already +made that inquiry. Does it suggest anything to your mind? +I must confess that it affords me no assistance." + +"Nothing," I replied. "It is most curious." + +"Excuse me, Mr. Burboyne," said Smith, now turning to the secretary, +"but Inspector Weymouth will tell you that I act with authority. +I understand that Sir Crichton was--seized with illness in his study?" + +"Yes--at half-past ten. I was working here in the library, and he inside, +as was our custom." + +"The communicating door was kept closed?" + +"Yes, always. It was open for a minute or less about +ten-twenty-five, when a message came for Sir Crichton. +I took it in to him, and he then seemed in his usual health." + +"What was the message?" + +"I could not say. it was brought by a district messenger, and he placed +it beside him on the table. It is there now, no doubt." + +"And at half-past ten?" + +"Sir Crichton suddenly burst open the door and threw himself, +with a scream, into the library. I ran to him but he waved +me back. His eyes were glaring horribly. I had just +reached his side when he fell, writhing, upon the floor. +He seemed past speech, but as I raised him and laid him upon +the couch, he gasped something that sounded like `The red hand!' +Before I could get to bell or telephone he was dead!" + +Mr. Burboyne's voice shook as he spoke the words, and Smith seemed +to find this evidence confusing. + +"You do not think he referred to the mark on his own hand?" + +"I think not. From the direction of his last glance, I feel +sure he referred to something in the study." + +"What did you do? Having summoned the servants, I ran into the study. +But there was absolutely nothing unusual to be seen. The windows were closed +and fastened. He worked with closed windows in the hottest weather. +There is no other door, for the study occupies the end of a narrow wing, +so that no one could possibly have gained access to it, whilst I was +in the library, unseen by me. Had someone concealed himself in the study +earlier in the evening--and I am convinced that it offers no hiding-place-- +he could only have come out again by passing through here." + +Nayland Smith tugged at the lobe of his left ear, as was his +habit when meditating. + +"You had been at work here in this way for some time?" + +"Yes. Sir Crichton was preparing an important book." + +"Had anything unusual occurred prior to this evening?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Burboyne, with evident perplexity; "though I attached +no importance to it at the time. Three nights ago Sir Crichton +came out to me, and appeared very nervous; but at times his nerves-- +you know? Well, on this occasion he asked me to search the study. +He had an idea that something was concealed there." + +"Some THING or someone?" + +"`Something' was the word he used. I searched, but fruitlessly, +and he seemed quite satisfied, and returned to his work." + +"Thank you, Mr. Burboyne. My friend and I would like a few minutes' +private investigation in the study." + + + +CHAPTER II + + +SIR CRICHTON DAVEY'S study was a small one, and a glance sufficed to +show that, as the secretary had said, it offered no hiding-place. It was +heavily carpeted, and over-full of Burmese and Chinese ornaments and curios, +and upon the mantelpiece stood several framed photographs which showed +this to be the sanctum of a wealthy bachelor who was no misogynist. +A map of the Indian Empire occupied the larger part of one wall. +The grate was empty, for the weather was extremely warm, and a +green-shaded lamp on the littered writing-table afforded the only light. +The air was stale, for both windows were closed and fastened. + +Smith immediately pounced upon a large, square envelope that lay beside +the blotting-pad. Sir Crichton had not even troubled to open it, +but my friend did so. It contained a blank sheet of paper! + +"Smell!" he directed, handing the letter to me. I raised it to my nostrils. +It was scented with some pungent perfume. + +"What is it?" I asked. + +"It is a rather rare essential oil," was the reply, +"which I have met with before, though never in Europe. +I begin to understand, Petrie." + +He tilted the lamp-shade and made a close examination of the scraps +of paper, matches, and other debris that lay in the grate and on the hearth. +I took up a copper vase from the mantelpiece, and was examining it curiously, +when he turned, a strange expression upon his face. + +"Put that back, old man," he said quietly. + +Much surprised, I did as he directed. + +"Don't touch anything in the room. It may he dangerous." + +Something in the tone of his voice chilled me, and I hastily +replaced the vase, and stood by the door of the study, +watching him search, methodically, every inch of the room-- +behind the books, in all the ornaments, in table drawers, +in cupboards, on shelves. + +"That will do," he said at last. "There is nothing here and I +have no time to search farther." + +We returned to the library. + +"Inspector Weymouth," said my friend, "I have a particular +reason for asking that Sir Crichton's body be removed from +this room at once and the library locked. Let no one be +admitted on any pretense whatever until you hear from me." +It spoke volumes for the mysterious credentials borne by my +friend that the man from Scotland Yard accepted his orders +without demur, and, after a brief chat with Mr. Burboyne, +Smith passed briskly downstairs. In the hall a man who looked +like a groom out of livery was waiting. + +"Are you Wills?" asked Smith. + +"Yes, sir." + +"It was you who heard a cry of some kind at the rear of the house +about the time of Sir Crichton's death?" + +"Yes, sir. I was locking the garage door, and, happening to look up +at the window of Sir Crichton's study, I saw him jump out of his chair. +Where he used to sit at his writing, sir, you could see his shadow +on the blind. Next minute I heard a call out in the lane." + +"What kind of call?" + +The man, whom the uncanny happening clearly had frightened, +seemed puzzled for a suitable description. + +"A sort of wail, sir," he said at last. "I never heard anything +like it before, and don't want to again." + +"Like this?" inquired Smith, and he uttered a low, wailing cry, +impossible to describe. Wills perceptibly shuddered; and, indeed, +it was an eerie sound. + +"The same, sir, I think," he said, "but much louder." + +"That will do," said Smith, and I thought I detected a note of triumph +in his voice. "But stay! Take us through to the back of the house." + +The man bowed and led the way, so that shortly we found ourselves +in a small, paved courtyard. It was a perfect summer's night, +and the deep blue vault above was jeweled with myriads of starry points. +How impossible it seemed to reconcile that vast, eternal calm +with the hideous passions and fiendish agencies which that night +had loosed a soul upon the infinite. + +"Up yonder are the study windows, sir. Over that wall on your left +is the back lane from which the cry came, and beyond is Regent's Park." + +"Are the study windows visible from there?" + +"Oh, yes, sir." + +"Who occupies the adjoining house?" + +"Major-General Platt-Houston, sir; but the family is out of town." + +"Those iron stairs are a means of communication between the domestic +offices and the servants' quarters, I take it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Then send someone to make my business known the Major-General's +housekeeper; I want to examine those stairs." + +Singular though my friend's proceedings appeared to me, I had ceased +to wonder at anything. Since Nayland Smith's arrival at my rooms I +seemed to have been moving through the fitful phases of a nightmare. +My friend's account of how he came by the wound in his arm; +the scene on our arrival at the house of Sir Crichton Davey; +the secretary's story of the dying man's cry, "The red hand!"; +the hidden perils of the study; the wail in the lane-- +all were fitter incidents of delirium than of sane reality. +So, when a white-faced butler made us known to a nervous old lady +who proved to be the housekeeper of the next-door residence, +I was not surprised at Smith's saying: + +"Lounge up and down outside, Petrie. Everyone has cleared off now. +It is getting late. Keep your eyes open and be on your guard. +I thought I had the start, but he is here before me, and, what is worse, +he probably knows by now that I am here, too." + +With which he entered the house and left me out in the square, +with leisure to think, to try to understand. + +The crowd which usually haunts the scene of a sensational crime +had been cleared away, and it had been circulated that Sir Crichton +had died from natural causes. The intense heat having driven most +of the residents out of town, practically I had the square to myself, +and I gave myself up to a brief consideration of the mystery in which I +so suddenly had found myself involved. + +By what agency had Sir Crichton met his death? +Did Nayland Smith know? I rather suspected that he did. +What was the hidden significance of the perfumed envelope? +Who was that mysterious personage whom Smith so evidently dreaded, +who had attempted his life, who, presumably, had murdered +Sir Crichton? Sir Crichton Davey, during the time that he had held +office in India, and during his long term of service at home, +had earned the good will of all, British and native alike. +Who was his secret enemy? + +Something touched me lightly on the shoulder. + +I turned, with my heart fluttering like a child's. This night's +work had imposed a severe strain even upon my callous nerves. + +A girl wrapped in a hooded opera-cloak stood at my elbow, +and, as she glanced up at me, I thought that I never had seen +a face so seductively lovely nor of so unusual a type. +With the skin of a perfect blonde, she had eyes and lashes +as black as a Creole's, which, together with her full red lips, +told me that this beautiful stranger, whose touch had so startled me, +was not a child of our northern shores. + +"Forgive me," she said, speaking with an odd, pretty accent, +and laying a slim hand, with jeweled fingers, confidingly upon +my arm, "if I startled you. But--is it true that Sir Crichton +Davey has been--murdered?" + +I looked into her big, questioning eyes, a harsh suspicion laboring +in my mind, but could read nothing in their mysterious depths-- +only I wondered anew at my questioner's beauty. The grotesque +idea momentarily possessed me that, were the bloom of her red +lips due to art and not to nature, their kiss would leave-- +though not indelibly--just such a mark as I had seen upon the dead +man's hand. But I dismissed the fantastic notion as bred +of the night's horrors, and worthy only of a mediaeval legend. +No doubt she was some friend or acquaintance of Sir Crichton +who lived close by. + +"I cannot say that he has been murdered," I replied, acting upon the latter +supposition, and seeking to tell her what she asked as gently as possible. + +"But he is--Dead?" + +I nodded. + +She closed her eyes and uttered a low, moaning sound, swaying dizzily. +Thinking she was about to swoon, I threw my arm round her shoulder +to support her, but she smiled sadly, and pushed me gently away. + +"I am quite well, thank you," she said. + +"You are certain? Let me walk with you until you feel quite +sure of yourself." + +She shook her head, flashed a rapid glance at me with her beautiful eyes, +and looked away in a sort of sorrowful embarrassment, for which I was entirely +at a loss to account. Suddenly she resumed: + +"I cannot let my name be mentioned in this dreadful matter, but--I think +I have some information--for the police. Will you give this to-- +whomever you think proper?" + +She handed me a sealed envelope, again met my eyes +with one of her dazzling glances, and hurried away. +She had gone no more than ten or twelve yards, and I still was +standing bewildered, watching her graceful, retreating figure, +when she turned abruptly and came back. + +Without looking directly at me, but alternately glancing towards a distant +corner of the square and towards the house of Major-General Platt-Houston, +she made the following extraordinary request: + +"If you would do me a very great service, for which I always would +be grateful,"--she glanced at me with passionate intentness--"when you +have given my message to the proper person, leave him and do not go +near him any more to-night!" + +Before I could find words to reply she gathered up her cloak and ran. +Before I could determine whether or not to follow her (for her words +had aroused anew all my worst suspicions) she had disappeared! +I heard the whir of a restarted motor at no great distance, and, +in the instant that Nayland Smith came running down the steps, +I knew that I had nodded at my post. + +"Smith!" I cried as he joined me, "tell me what we must do!" +And rapidly I acquainted him with the incident. + +My friend looked very grave; then a grim smile crept round his lips. + +"She was a big card to play," he said; "but he did not know that I +held one to beat it." + +"What! You know this girl! Who is she?" + +"She is one of the finest weapons in the enemy's armory, Petrie. +But a woman is a two-edged sword, and treacherous. +To our great good fortune, she has formed a sudden predilection, +characteristically Oriental, for yourself. Oh, you may scoff, but it +is evident. She was employed to get this letter placed in my hands. +Give it to me." + +I did so. + +"She has succeeded. Smell." + +He held the envelope under my nose, and, with a sudden sense of nausea, +I recognized the strange perfume. + +"You know what this presaged in Sir Crichton's case? +Can you doubt any longer? She did not want you to share +my fate, Petrie." + +"Smith," I said unsteadily, "I have followed your lead blindly +in this horrible business and have not pressed for an explanation, +but I must insist before I go one step farther upon knowing +what it all means." + +"Just a few steps farther," he rejoined; "as far as a cab. +We are hardly safe here. Oh, you need not fear shots or knives. +The man whose servants are watching us now scorns to employ +such clumsy, tell-tale weapons." + +Only three cabs were on the rank, and, as we entered the first, +something hissed past my ear. missed both Smith and me +by a miracle, and, passing over the roof of the taxi, +presumably fell in the enclosed garden occupying the center +of the square. + +"What was that?" I cried. + +"Get in--quickly!" Smith rapped back. "It was attempt number one! +More than that I cannot say. Don't let the man hear. +He has noticed nothing. Pull up the window on your side, +Petrie, and look out behind. Good! We've started." + +The cab moved off with a metallic jerk, and I turned and looked +back through the little window in the rear. + +"Someone has got into another cab. It is following ours, I think." + +Nayland Smith lay back and laughed unmirthfully. + +"Petrie," he said, "if I escape alive from this business I shall +know that I bear a charmed life." + +I made no reply, as he pulled out the dilapidated pouch and filled his pipe. + +"You have asked me to explain matters," he continued, "and I +will do so to the best of my ability. You no doubt wonder why +a servant of the British Government, lately stationed in Burma, +suddenly appears in London, in the character of a detective. +I am here, Petrie--and I bear credentials from the very +highest sources--because, quite by accident, I came upon a clew. +Following it up, in the ordinary course of routine, I obtained +evidence of the existence and malignant activity of a certain man. +At the present stage of the case I should not be justified +in terming him the emissary of an Eastern Power, but I may say +that representations are shortly to be made to that Power's +ambassador in London." + +He paused and glanced back towards the pursuing cab. + +"There is little to fear until we arrive home," he said calmly. +"Afterwards there is much. To continue: This man, whether a fanatic +or a duly appointed agent, is, unquestionably, the most malign +and formidable personality existing in the known world today. +He is a linguist who speaks with almost equal facility in any +of the civilized languages, and in most of the barbaric. +He is an adept in all the arts and sciences which a great +university could teach him. He also is an adept in certain obscure +arts and sciences which no university of to-day can teach. +He has the brains of any three men of genius. Petrie, he is +a mental giant." + +"You amaze me!" I said. + +"As to his mission among men. Why did M. Jules Furneaux fall +dead in a Paris opera house? Because of heart failure? +No! Because his last speech had shown that he held the key +to the secret of Tongking. What became of the Grand +Duke Stanislaus? Elopement? Suicide? Nothing of the kind. +He alone was fully alive to Russia's growing peril. +He alone knew the truth about Mongolia. Why was Sir Crichton +Davey murdered? Because, had the work he was engaged upon ever +seen the light it would have shown him to be the only living +Englishman who understood the importance of the Tibetan frontiers. +I say to you solemnly, Petrie, that these are but a few. +Is there a man who would arouse the West to a sense of +the awakening of the East, who would teach the deaf to hear, +the blind to see, that the millions only await their leader? +He will die. And this is only one phase of the devilish campaign. +The others I can merely surmise." + +"But, Smith, this is almost incredible! What perverted genius +controls this awful secret movement?" + +"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, +with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government-- +which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. +Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, +the yellow peril incarnate in one man." + + + +CHAPTER III + + +I SANK into an arm-chair in my rooms and gulped down a strong +peg of brandy. + +"We have been followed here," I said. "Why did you make no attempt +to throw the pursuers off the track, to have them intercepted?" + +Smith laughed. + +"Useless, in the first place. Wherever we went, HE +would find us. And of what use to arrest his creatures? +We could prove nothing against them. Further, it is evident +that an attempt is to be made upon my life to-night-- +and by the same means that proved so successful in the case +of poor Sir Crichton." + +His square jaw grew truculently prominent, and he leapt stormily to his feet, +shaking his clenched fists towards the window. + +"The villain!" he cried. "The fiendishly clever villain! +I suspected that Sir Crichton was next, and I was right. +But I came too late, Petrie! That hits me hard, old man. +To think that I knew and yet failed to save him!" + +He resumed his seat, smoking hard. + +"Fu-Manchu has made the blunder common to all men of unusual genius," +he said. "He has underrated his adversary. He has not given +me credit for perceiving the meaning of the scented messages. +He has thrown away one powerful weapon--to get such a message +into my hands--and he thinks that once safe within doors, +I shall sleep, unsuspecting, and die as Sir Crichton died. +But without the indiscretion of your charming friend, I should +have known what to expect when I receive her `information'-- +which by the way, consists of a blank sheet of paper." + +"Smith," I broke in, "who is she?" + +"She is either Fu-Manchu's daughter, his wife, or his slave. +I am inclined to believe the last, for she has no will but +his will, except"--with a quizzical glance--"in a certain instance." + +"How can you jest with some awful thing--Heaven knows what-- +hanging over your head? What is the meaning of these perfumed envelopes? +How did Sir Crichton die?" + +"He died of the Zayat Kiss. Ask me what that is and I reply +'I do not know.' The zayats are the Burmese caravanserais, +or rest-houses. Along a certain route--upon which I set eyes, +for the first and only time, upon Dr. Fu-Manchu--travelers who use +them sometimes die as Sir Crichton died, with nothing to show +the cause of death but a little mark upon the neck, face, or limb, +which has earned, in those parts, the title of the `Zayat Kiss.' +The rest-houses along that route are shunned now. +I have my theory and I hope to prove it to-night, if I live. +It will be one more broken weapon in his fiendish armory, +and it is thus, and thus only, that I can hope to crush him. +This was my principal reason for not enlightening Dr. Cleeve. +Even walls have ears where Fu-Manchu is concerned, so I feigned +ignorance of the meaning of the mark, knowing that he would be +almost certain to employ the same methods upon some other victim. +I wanted an opportunity to study the Zayat Kiss in operation, +and I shall have one." + +"But the scented envelopes?" + +"In the swampy forests of the district I have referred to a rare +species of orchid, almost green, and with a peculiar scent, +is sometimes met with. I recognized the heavy perfume at once. +I take it that the thing which kills the traveler is attracted +by this orchid. You will notice that the perfume clings to whatever +it touches. I doubt if it can be washed off in the ordinary way. +After at least one unsuccessful attempt to kill Sir Crichton-- +you recall that he thought there was something concealed in his study +on a previous occasion?--Fu-Manchu hit upon the perfumed envelopes. +He may have a supply of these green orchids in his possession-- +possibly to feed the creature." + +"What creature? How could any kind of creature have got into Sir +Crichton's room tonight?" + +"You no doubt observed that I examined the grate of the study. +I found a fair quantity of fallen soot. I at once assumed, since it +appeared to be the only means of entrance, that something has been +dropped down; and I took it for granted that the thing, whatever it was, +must still be concealed either in the study or in the library. +But when I had obtained the evidence of the groom, Wills, I perceived +that the cry from the lane or from the park was a signal. +I noted that the movements of anyone seated at the study table +were visible, in shadow, on the blind, and that the study occupied +the corner of a two-storied wing and, therefore, had a short chimney. +What did the signal mean? That Sir Crichton had leaped up from +his chair, and either had received the Zayat Kiss or had seen the thing +which someone on the roof had lowered down the straight chimney. +It was the signal to withdraw that deadly thing. By means of +the iron stairway at the rear of Major-General Platt-Houston's, I +quite easily, gained access to the roof above Sir Crichton's study-- +and I found this." + +Out from his pocket Nayland Smith drew a tangled piece of silk, +mixed up with which were a brass ring and a number of unusually +large-sized split-shot, nipped on in the manner usual on a fishing-line. + +"My theory proven," he resumed. "Not anticipating a search on the roof, +they had been careless. This was to weight the line and to prevent +the creature clinging to the walls of the chimney. Directly it had dropped +in the grate, however, by means of this ring I assume that the weighted +line was withdrawn, and the thing was only held by one slender thread, +which sufficed, though, to draw it back again when it had done its work. +lt might have got tangled, of course, but they reckoned on its making +straight up the carved leg of the writing-table for the prepared envelope. +From there to the hand of Sir Crichton--which, from having touched +the envelope, would also be scented with the perfume--was a certain move." + +"My God! How horrible!" I exclaimed, and glanced apprehensively into +the dusky shadows of the room. "What is your theory respecting this creature-- +what shape, what color--?" + +"It is something that moves rapidly and silently. I will +venture no more at present, but I think it works in the dark. +The study was dark, remember, save for the bright patch beneath +the reading-lamp. I have observed that the rear of this +house is ivy-covered right up to and above your bedroom. +Let us make ostentatious preparations to retire, and I think +we may rely upon Fu-Manchu's servants to attempt my removal, +at any rate--if not yours." + +"But, my dear fellow, it is a climb of thirty-five feet at the very least." + +"You remember the cry in the back lane? It suggested something to me, +and I tested my idea--successfully. It was the cry of a dacoit. +Oh, dacoity, though quiescent, is by no means extinct. Fu-Manchu has +dacoits in his train, and probably it is one who operates the Zayat Kiss, +since it was a dacoit who watched the window of the study this evening. +To such a man an ivy-covered wall is a grand staircase." + +The horrible events that followed are punctuated, in my mind, +by the striking of a distant clock. It is singular how +trivialities thus assert themselves in moments of high tension. +I will proceed, then, by these punctuations, to the coming +of the horror that it was written we should encounter. + +The clock across the common struck two. + +Having removed all traces of the scent of the orchid from our hands with +a solution of ammonia Smith and I had followed the programme laid down. +It was an easy matter to reach the rear of the house, by simply climbing +a fence, and we did not doubt that seeing the light go out in the front, +our unseen watcher would proceed to the back. + +The room was a large one, and we had made up my camp-bed at one end, +stuffing odds and ends under the clothes to lend the appearance of a sleeper, +which device we also had adopted in the case of the larger bed. +The perfumed envelope lay upon a little coffee table in the center +of the floor, and Smith, with an electric pocket lamp, a revolver, +and a brassey beside him, sat on cushions in the shadow of the wardrobe. +I occupied a post between the windows. + +No unusual sound, so far, had disturbed the stillness of the night. +Save for the muffled throb of the rare all-night cars passing +the front of the house, our vigil had been a silent one. +The full moon bad painted about the floor weird shadows of +the clustering ivy, spreading the design gradually from the door, +across the room, past the little table where the envelope lay, +and finally to the foot of the bed. + +The distant clock struck a quarter-past two. + +A slight breeze stirred the ivy, and a new shadow added itself +to the extreme edge of the moon's design. + +Something rose, inch by inch, above the sill of the westerly window. +I could see only its shadow, but a sharp, sibilant breath from Smith +told me that he, from his post, could see the cause of the shadow. + +Every nerve in my body seemed to be strung tensely. +I was icy cold, expectant, and prepared for whatever horror +was upon us. + +The shadow became stationary. The dacoit was studying the interior +of the room. + +Then it suddenly lengthened, and, craning my head to the left, +I saw a lithe, black-clad form, surmounted by a Yellow face, +sketchy in the moonlight, pressed against the window-panes! + +One thin, brown hand appeared over the edge of the lowered sash, +which it grasped--and then another. The man made absolutely +no sound whatever. The second hand disappeared--and reappeared. +It held a small, square box. There was a very faint CLICK. + +The dacoit swung himself below the window with the agility +of an ape, as, with a dull, muffled thud, SOMETHING dropped +upon the carpet! + +"Stand still, for your life!" came Smith's voice, high-pitched. + +A beam of white leaped out across the room and played full upon +the coffee-table in the center. + +Prepared as I was for something horrible, I know that I paled at sight +of the thing that was running round the edge of the envelope. + +It was an insect, full six inches long, and of a vivid, venomous, red color! +It had something of the appearance of a great ant, with its long, quivering +antennae and its febrile, horrible vitality; but it was proportionately +longer of body and smaller of head, and had numberless rapidly moving legs. +In short, it was a giant centipede, apparently of the scolopendra group, +but of a form quite new to me. + +These things I realized in one breathless instant; in the next-- +Smith had dashed the thing's poisonous life out with one straight, +true blow of the golf club! + +I leaped to the window and threw it widely open, feeling a silk +thread brush my hand as I did so. A black shape was dropping, +with incredible agility from branch to branch of the ivy, +and, without once offering a mark for a revolver-shot, it +merged into the shadows beneath the trees of the garden. +As I turned and switched on the light Nayland Smith dropped +limply into a chair, leaning his head upon his hands. +Even that grim courage had been tried sorely. + +"Never mind the dacoit, Petrie," he said. "Nemesis will know where +to find him. We know now what causes the mark of the Zayat Kiss. +Therefore science is richer for our first brush with the enemy, +and the enemy is poorer--unless he has any more unclassified centipedes. +I understand now something that has been puzzling me since I heard of it-- +Sir Crichton's stifled cry. When we remember that he was almost past speech, +it is reasonable to suppose that his cry was not `The red hand!' +but `The red ANT! Petrie, to think that I failed, by less than an hour, +to save him from such an end!" + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +"THE body of a lascar, dressed in the manner usual on the P. & O. boats, +was recovered from the Thames off Tilbury by the river police at six +A.M. this morning. It is supposed that the man met with an accident +in leaving his ship." + +Nayland Smith passed me the evening paper and pointed to the above paragraph. + +"For `lascar' read `dacoit,'" he said. "Our visitor, who came by way +of the ivy, fortunately for us, failed to follow his instructions. +Also, he lost the centipede and left a clew behind him. +Dr. Fu-Manchu does not overlook such lapses." + +It was a sidelight upon the character of the awful being with whom we +had to deal. My very soul recoiled from bare consideration of the fate +that would be ours if ever we fell into his hands. + +The telephone bell rang. I went out and found that Inspector +Weymouth of New Scotland Yard had called us up. + +"Will Mr. Nayland Smith please come to the Wapping River Police +Station at once," was the message. + +Peaceful interludes were few enough throughout that wild pursuit. + +"It is certainly something important," said my friend; "and, if +Fu-Manchu is at the bottom of it--as we must presume him to be-- +probably something ghastly." + +A brief survey of the time-tables showed us that there were no trains +to serve our haste. We accordingly chartered a cab and proceeded east. + +Smith, throughout the journey, talked entertainingly about his work in Burma. +Of intent, I think, he avoided any reference to the circumstances which first +had brought him in contact with the sinister genius of the Yellow Movement. +His talk was rather of the sunshine of the East than of its shadows. + +But the drive concluded--and all too soon. In a silence which neither +of us seemed disposed to break, we entered the police depot, and followed +an officer who received us into the room where Weymouth waited. + +The inspector greeted us briefly, nodding toward the table. + +"Poor Cadby, the most promising lad at the Yard," he said; +and his usually gruff voice had softened strangely. + +Smith struck his right fist into the palm of his left hand and swore +under his breath, striding up and down the neat little room. +No one spoke for a moment, and in the silence I could hear the whispering +of the Thames outside--of the Thames which had so many strange secrets +to tell, and now was burdened with another. + +The body lay prone upon the deal table--this latest of the river's dead-- +dressed in rough sailor garb, and, to all outward seeming, a seaman of +nondescript nationality--such as is no stranger in Wapping and Shadwell. +His dark, curly hair clung clammily about the brown forehead; +his skin was stained, they told me. He wore a gold ring in one ear, +and three fingers of the left hand were missing. + +"It was almost the same with Mason." The river police inspector +was speaking. "A week ago, on a Wednesday, he went off in his own +time on some funny business down St. George's way--and Thursday +night the ten-o'clock boat got the grapnel on him off Hanover Hole. +His first two fingers on the right hand were clean gone, and his left +hand was mutilated frightfully." + +He paused and glanced at Smith. + +"That lascar, too," he continued, "that you came down to see, sir; +you remember his hands?" + +Smith nodded. + +"He was not a lascar," he said shortly. "He was a dacoit." + +Silence fell again. + +I turned to the array of objects lying on the table--those which +had been found in Cadby's clothing. None of them were noteworthy, +except that which had been found thrust into the loose neck of his shirt. +This last it was which had led the police to send for Nayland Smith, +for it constituted the first clew which had come to light pointing +to the authors of these mysterious tragedies. + +It was a Chinese pigtail. That alone was sufficiently remarkable; +but it was rendered more so by the fact that the plaited queue +was a false one being attached to a most ingenious bald wig. + +"You're sure it wasn't part of a Chinese make-up?" questioned Weymouth, +his eye on the strange relic. "Cadby was clever at disguise." + +Smith snatched the wig from my hands with a certain irritation, +and tried to fit it on the dead detective. + +"Too small by inches!" he jerked. "And look how it's padded in the crown. +This thing was made for a most abnormal head." + +He threw it down, and fell to pacing the room again. + +"Where did you find him--exactly?" he asked. + +"Limehouse Reach--under Commercial Dock Pier--exactly an hour ago." + +"And you last saw him at eight o'clock last night?"--to Weymouth. + +"Eight to a quarter past." + +"You think he has been dead nearly twenty-four hours, Petrie?" + +"Roughly, twenty-four hours," I replied. + +"Then, we know that he was on the track of the Fu-Manchu group, +that he followed up some clew which led him to the neighborhood +of old Ratcliff Highway, and that he died the same night. +You are sure that is where he was going?" + +"Yes," said Weymouth; "He was jealous of giving anything away, +poor chap; it meant a big lift for him if he pulled the case off. +But he gave me to understand that he expected to spend last night +in that district. He left the Yard about eight, as I've said, +to go to his rooms, and dress for the job." + +"Did he keep any record of his cases?" + +"Of course! He was most particular. Cadby was a man +with ambitions, sir! You'll want to see his book. +Wait while I get his address; it's somewhere in Brixton." + +He went to the telephone, and Inspector Ryman covered up the dead man's face. + +Nayland Smith was palpably excited. + +"He almost succeeded where we have failed, Petrie," he said. +"There is no doubt in my mind that he was hot on the track +of Fu-Manchu! Poor Mason had probably blundered on the scent, +too, and he met with a similar fate. Without other evidence, +the fact that they both died in the same way as the dacoit would +be conclusive, for we know that Fu-Manchu killed the dacoit!" + +"What is the meaning of the mutilated hands, Smith?" + +"God knows! Cadby's death was from drowning, you say?" + +"There are no other marks of violence." + +"But he was a very strong swimmer, Doctor," interrupted Inspector Ryman. +"Why, he pulled off the quarter-mile championship at the Crystal Palace +last year! Cadby wasn't a man easy to drown. And as for Mason, +he was an R.N.R., and like a fish in the water!" + +Smith shrugged his shoulders helplessly. + +"Let us hope that one day we shall know how they died," +he said simply. + +Weymouth returned from the telephone. + +"The address is No.--Cold Harbor Lane," he reported. +"I shall not be able to come along, but you can't +miss it; it's close by the Brixton Police Station. +There's no family, fortunately; he was quite alone in the world. +His case-book isn't in the American desk, which you'll find in +his sitting-room; it's in the cupboard in the corner--top shelf. +Here are his keys, all intact. I think this is the cupboard key." + +Smith nodded. + +"Come on, Petrie," he said. "We haven't a second to waste." + +Our cab was waiting, and in a few seconds we were speeding along Wapping +High Street. We had gone no more than a few hundred yards, I think, +when Smith suddenly slapped his open hand down on his knee. + +"That pigtail!" he cried. "I have left it behind! +We must have it, Petrie! Stop! Stop!" + +The cab was pulled up, and Smith alighted. + +"Don't wait for me," he directed hurriedly. "Here, take Weymouth's card. +Remember where he said the book was? It's all we want. Come straight +on to Scotland Yard and meet me there." + +"But Smith," I protested, "a few minutes can make no difference!" + +"Can't it!" he snapped. "Do you suppose Fu-Manchu is going to leave +evidence like that lying about? It's a thousand to one he has it already, +but there is just a bare chance." + +It was a new aspect of the situation and one that afforded +no room for comment; and so lost in thought did I become +that the cab was outside the house for which I was bound ere +I realized that we had quitted the purlieus of Wapping. +Yet I had had leisure to review the whole troop of events which had +crowded my life since the return of Nayland Smith from Burma. +Mentally, I had looked again upon the dead Sir Crichton Davey, +and with Smith had waited in the dark for the dreadful thing +that had killed him. Now, with those remorseless memories +jostling in my mind, I was entering the house of Fu-Manchu's +last victim, and the shadow of that giant evil seemed to be +upon it like a palpable cloud. + +Cadby's old landlady greeted me with a queer mixture of fear +and embarrassment in her manner. + +"I am Dr. Petrie," I said, "and I regret that I bring bad news +respecting Mr. Cadby." + +"Oh, sir!" she cried. "Don't tell me that anything has happened to him!" +And divining something of the mission on which I was come, +for such sad duty often falls to the lot of the medical man: +"Oh, the poor, brave lad!" + +Indeed, I respected the dead man's memory more than ever from that hour, +since the sorrow of the worthy old soul was quite pathetic, and spoke +eloquently for the unhappy cause of it. + +"There was a terrible wailing at the back of the house last night, +Doctor, and I heard it again to-night, a second before you knocked. +Poor lad! It was the same when his mother died." + +At the moment I paid little attention to her words, for such +beliefs are common, unfortunately; but when she was sufficiently +composed I went on to explain what I thought necessary. +And now the old lady's embarrassment took precedence of her sorrow, +and presently the truth came out: + +"There's a--young lady--in his rooms, sir." + +I started. This might mean little or might mean much. + +"She came and waited for him last night, Doctor--from ten until half-past-- +and this morning again. She came the third time about an hour ago, +and has been upstairs since." + +"Do you know her, Mrs. Dolan?" + +Mrs. Dolan grew embarrassed again. + +"Well, Doctor," she said, wiping her eyes the while, "I DO. +And God knows he was a good lad, and I like a mother to him; +but she is not the girl I should have liked a son of mine +to take up with." + +At any other time, this would have been amusing; now, it might be serious. +Mrs. Dolan's account of the wailing became suddenly significant, for perhaps +it meant that one of Fu-Manchu's dacoit followers was watching the house, +to give warning of any stranger's approach! Warning to whom? It was unlikely +that I should forget the dark eyes of another of Fu-Manchu's servants. +Was that lure of men even now in the house, completing her evil work? + +"I should never have allowed her in his rooms--" began Mrs. Dolan again. +Then there was an interruption. + +A soft rustling retched my ears--intimately feminine. +The girl was stealing down! + +I leaped out into the hall, and she turned and fled blindly before me-- +back up the stairs! Taking three steps at a time, I followed her, +bounded into the room above almost at her heels, and stood with my back +to the door. + +She cowered against the desk by the window, a slim figure in a +clinging silk gown, which alone explained Mrs. Dolan's distrust. +The gaslight was turned very low, and her hat shadowed her face, +but could not hide its startling, beauty, could not mar the brilliancy +of the skin, nor dim the wonderful eyes of this modern Delilah. +For it was she! + +"So I came in time" I said grimly, and turned the key in the lock. + +"Oh!" she panted at that, and stood facing me, leaning back +with her jewel-laden hands clutching the desk edge. + +"Give me whatever you have removed from here," I said sternly, +"and then prepare to accompany me." + +She took a step forward, her eyes wide with fear, her lips parted. + +"I have taken nothing," she said. her breast was heaving tumultuously. +"Oh, let me go! Please, let me go!" And impulsively she threw +herself forward, pressing clasped hands against my shoulder and looking +up into my face with passionate, pleading eyes. + +It is with some shame that I confess how her charm enveloped me like a +magic cloud. Unfamiliar with the complex Oriental temperament, I had +laughed at Nayland Smith when he had spoken of this girl's infatuation. +"Love in the East," he had said, "is like the conjurer's mango-tree; +it is born, grows and flowers at the touch of a hand." +Now, in those pleading eyes I read confirmation of his words. +Her clothes or her hair exhaled a faint perfume. Like all +Fu-Manchu's servants, she was perfectly chosen for her peculiar duties. +Her beauty was wholly intoxicating. + +But I thrust her away. + +"You have no claim to mercy," I said. "Do not count upon any. +What have you taken from here?" + +She grasped the lapels of my coat. + +"I will tell you all I can--all I dare," she panted eagerly, fearfully. +"I should know how to deal with your friend, but with you I am lost! +If you could only understand you would not be so cruel." Her slight accent +added charm to the musical voice. "I am not free, as your English women are. +What I do I must do, for it is the will of my master, and I am only +a slave. Ah, you are not a man if you can give me to the police. +You have no heart if you can forget that I tried to save you once." + +I had feared that plea, for, in her own Oriental fashion, she certainly +had tried to save me from a deadly peril once--at the expense of my friend. +But I had feared the plea, for I did not know how to meet it. +How could I give her up, perhaps to stand her trial for murder? +And now I fell silent, and she saw why I was silent. + +"I may deserve no mercy; I may be even as bad as you think; +but what have YOU to do with the police? +It is not your work to hound a woman to death. Could you +ever look another woman in the eyes--one that you loved, +and know that she trusted you--if you had done such a thing? +Ah, I have no friend in all the world, or I should not be here. +Do not be my enemy, my judge, and make me worse than I am; +be my friend, and save me--from HIM." The tremulous +lips were close to mine, her breath fanned my cheek. +"Have mercy on me." + +At that moment I honestly would have given half of my worldly +possessions to have been spared the decision which I knew I must +come to. After all, what proof had I that she was a willing +accomplice of Dr. Fu-Manchu? Furthermore, she was an Oriental, +and her code must necessarily be different from mine. +Irreconcilable as the thing may be with Western ideas, Nayland Smith +had really told me that he believed the girl to be a slave. +Then there remained that other reason why I loathed the idea +of becoming her captor. It was almost tantamount to betrayal! +Must I soil my hands with such work? + +Thus--I suppose--her seductive beauty argued against my sense of right. +The jeweled fingers grasped my shoulders nervously, and her slim body +quivered against mine as she watched me, with all her soul in her eyes, +in an abandonment of pleading despair. Then I remembered the fate +of the man in whose room we stood. + +"You lured Cadby to his death," I said, and shook her off. + +"No, no!" she cried wildly, clutching at me. "No, I swear by the holy name +I did not! I did not! I watched him, spied upon him--yes! But, listen: +it was because he would not be warned that he met his death. +I could not save him! Ah, I am not so bad as that. I will tell you. +I have taken his notebook and torn out the last pages and burnt them. +Look! in the grate. The book was too big to steal away. +I came twice and could not find it. There, will you let me go?" + +"If you will tell me where and how to seize Dr. Fu-Manchu--yes." + +Her hands dropped and she took a backward step. +A new terror was to be read in her face. + +"I dare not! I dare not!" + +"Then you would--if you dared?" + +She was watching me intently. + +"Not if YOU would go to find him," she said. + +And, with all that I thought her to be, the stern servant +of justice that I would have had myself, I felt the hot +blood leap to my cheek at all which the words implied. +She grasped my arm. + +Could you hide me from him if I came to you, and told you all I know? + +"The authorities--" + +"Ah!" Her expression changed. "They can put me on the rack if they choose, +but never one word would I speak--never one little word." + +She threw up her head scornfully. Then the proud glance softened again. + +"But I will speak for you." + +Closer she came, and closer, until she could whisper in my ear. + +"Hide me from your police, from HIM, from everybody, +and I will no longer be his slave." + +My heart was beating with painful rapidity. I had not counted on this +warring with a woman; moreover, it was harder than I could have dreamt of. +For some time I had been aware that by the charm of her personality +and the art of her pleading she bad brought me down from my judgment seat-- +had made it all but impossible for me to give her up to justice. +Now, I was disarmed--but in a quandary. What should I do? +What COULD I do? I turned away from her and walked to the hearth, +in which some paper ash lay and yet emitted a faint smell. + +Not more than ten seconds elapsed, I am confident, from the time +that I stepped across the room until I glanced back. +But she had gone! + +As I leapt to the door the key turned gently from the outside. + +"Ma 'alesh!" came her soft whisper; "but I am afraid to +trust you--yet. Be comforted, for there is one near who would +have killed you had I wished it. Remember, I will come to you +whenever you will take me and hide me." + +Light footsteps pattered down the stairs. I heard a stifled +cry from Mrs. Dolan as the mysterious visitor ran past her. +The front door opened and closed. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +"Shen-Yan's is a dope-shop in one of the burrows off the old Ratcliff Highway," +said Inspector Weymouth. + +"`Singapore Charlie's,' they call it. It's a center for some of +the Chinese societies, I believe, but all sorts of opium-smokers +use it. There have never been any complaints that I know of. +I don't understand this." + +We stood in his room at New Scotland Yard, bending over a sheet +of foolscap upon which were arranged some burned fragments +from poor Cadby's grate, for so hurriedly had the girl done +her work that combustion had not been complete. + +"What do we make of this?" said Smith. "`. . .Hunchback. . .lascar +went up. . .unlike others. . .not return. . .till Shen-Yan' +(there is no doubt about the name, I think) `turned me out. . . +booming sound. . .lascar in. . .mortuary I could ident. . . +not for days, or suspici. . .Tuesday night in a different make +. . .snatch. . .pigtail. . .'" + +"The pigtail again!" rapped Weymouth. + +"She evidently burned the torn-out pages all together," +continued Smith. "They lay flat, and this was in the middle. +I see the band of retributive justice in that, Inspector. Now we +have a reference to a hunchback, and what follows amounts to this: +A lascar (amongst several other persons) went up somewhere-- +presumably upstairs--at Shen-Yan's, and did not come down again. +Cadby, who was there disguised, noted a booming sound. +Later, he identified the lascar in some mortuary. +We have no means of fixing the date of this visit to Shen-Yan's, +but I feel inclined to put down the `lascar' as the dacoit +who was murdered by Fu-Manchu! It is sheer supposition, however. +But that Cadby meant to pay another visit to the place in a +different `make-up' or disguise, is evident, and that the Tuesday +night proposed was last night is a reasonable deduction. +The reference to a pigtail is principally interesting because +of what was found on Cadby's body." + +Inspector Weymouth nodded affirmatively, and Smith glanced at his watch. + +"Exactly ten-twenty-three," he said. "I will trouble you, Inspector, +for the freedom of your fancy wardrobe. There is time to spend an hour +in the company of Shen-Yan's opium friends." + +Weymouth raised his eyebrows. + +"It might be risky. What about an official visit?" + +Nayland Smith laughed. + +"Worse than useless! By your own showing, the place is open to inspection. +No; guile against guile! We are dealing with a Chinaman, with the incarnate +essence of Eastern subtlety, with the most stupendous genius that the modern +Orient has produced." + +"I don't believe in disguises," said Weymouth, with a certain truculence. +"It's mostly played out, that game, and generally leads to failure. +Still, if you're determined, sir, there's an end of it. Foster will make +your face up. What disguise do you propose to adopt?" + +"A sort of Dago seaman, I think; something like poor Cadby. +I can rely on my knowledge of the brutes, if I am sure +of my disguise." + +"You are forgetting me, Smith," I said. + +He turned to me quickly. + +"Petrie," he replied, "it is MY business, unfortunately, but it +is no sort of hobby." + +"You mean that you can no longer rely upon me?" +I said angrily. + +Smith grasped my hand, and met my rather frigid stare with a look +of real concern on his gaunt, bronzed face. + +"My dear old chap," he answered, "that was really unkind. +You know that I meant something totally different." + +"It's all right, Smith;" I said, immediately ashamed of my choler, and wrung +his hand heartily. "I can pretend to smoke opium as well as another. +I shall be going, too, Inspector." + +As a result of this little passage of words, some twenty minutes +later two dangerous-looking seafaring ruffians entered a waiting cab, +accompanied by Inspector Weymouth, and were driven off into +the wilderness of London's night. In this theatrical business +there was, to my mind, something ridiculous--almost childish-- +and I could have laughed heartily had it not been that grim +tragedy lurked so near to farce. + +The mere recollection that somewhere at our journey's end Fu-Manchu +awaited us was sufficient to sober my reflections--Fu-Manchu, who, +with all the powers represented by Nayland Smith pitted against him, +pursued his dark schemes triumphantly, and lurked in hiding within +this very area which was so sedulously patrolled--Fu-Manchu, whom +I had never seen, but whose name stood for horrors indefinable! +Perhaps I was destined to meet the terrible Chinese doctor to-night. + +I ceased to pursue a train of thought which promised to lead to morbid depths, +and directed my attention to what Smith was saying. + +"We will drop down from Wapping and reconnoiter, as you say the place +is close to the riverside. Then you can put us ashore somewhere below. +Ryman can keep the launch close to the back of the premises, and your fellows +will be hanging about near the front, near enough to hear the whistle." + +"Yes," assented Weymouth; "I've arranged for that. +If you are suspected, you shall give the alarm?" + +"I don't know," said Smith thoughtfully. "Even in that event +I might wait awhile." + +"Don't wait too long," advised the Inspector. "We shouldn't be +much wiser if your next appearance was on the end of a grapnel, +somewhere down Greenwich Reach, with half your fingers missing." + +The cab pulled up outside the river police depot, and Smith and I +entered without delay, four shabby-looking fellows who had been +seated in the office springing up to salute the Inspector, +who followed us in. + +"Guthrie and Lisle," he said briskly, "get along and find a dark corner +which commands the door of Singapore Charlie's off the old Highway. +You look the dirtiest of the troupe, Guthrie; you might drop asleep +on the pavement, and Lisle can argue with you about getting home. +Don't move till you hear the whistle inside or have my orders, +and note everybody that goes in and comes out. You other two belong +to this division?" + +The C.I.D. men having departed, the remaining pair saluted again. + +"Well, you're on special duty to-night. You've been prompt, +but don't stick your chests out so much. Do you know of a back +way to Shen-Yan's?" + +The men looked at one another, and both shook their heads. + +"There's an empty shop nearly opposite, sir," replied one of them. +"I know a broken window at the back where we could climb in. +Then we could get through to the front and watch from there." + +"Good!" cried the Inspector. "See you are not spotted, though; and if you +hear the whistle, don't mind doing a bit of damage, but be inside Shen-Yan's +like lightning. Otherwise, wait for orders." + +Inspector Ryman came in, glancing at the clock. + +"Launch is waiting," he said. + +"Right," replied Smith thoughtfully. "I am half afraid, though, that the +recent alarms may have scared our quarry--your man, Mason, and then Cadby. +Against which we have that, so far as he is likely to know, there has +been no clew pointing to this opium den. Remember, he thinks Cadby's +notes are destroyed." + +"The whole business is an utter mystery to me," confessed Ryman. +"I'm told that there's some dangerous Chinese devil hiding +somewhere in London, and that you expect to find him at +Shen-Yan's. Supposing he uses that place, which is possible, +how do you know he's there to-night?" + +"I don't," said Smith; "but it is the first clew we have had +pointing to one of his haunts, and time means precious lives +where Dr. Fu-Manchu is concerned." + +"Who is he, sir, exactly, this Dr. Fu-Manchu?" + +"I have only the vaguest idea, Inspector; but he is no ordinary criminal. +He is the greatest genius which the powers of evil have put on earth +for centuries. He has the backing of a political group whose wealth is +enormous, and his mission in Europe is to PAVE THE WAY! Do you follow me? +He is the advance-agent of a movement so epoch-making that not one Britisher, +and not one American, in fifty thousand has ever dreamed of it." + +Ryman stared, but made no reply, and we went out, +passing down to the breakwater and boarding the waiting launch. +With her crew of three, the party numbered seven that swung +out into the Pool, and, clearing the pier, drew in again +and hugged the murky shore. + +The night had been clear enough hitherto, but now came scudding rainbanks +to curtain the crescent moon, and anon to unveil her again and show +the muddy swirls about us. The view was not extensive from the launch. +Sometimes a deepening of the near shadows would tell of a moored barge, +or lights high above our heads mark the deck of a large vessel. +In the floods of moonlight gaunt shapes towered above; in the ensuing +darkness only the oily glitter of the tide occupied the foreground +of the night-piece. + +The Surrey shore was a broken wall of blackness, patched with +lights about which moved hazy suggestions of human activity. +The bank we were following offered a prospect even more gloomy-- +a dense, dark mass, amid which, sometimes, mysterious half-tones +told of a dock gate, or sudden high lights leapt flaring +to the eye. + +Then, out of the mystery ahead, a green light grew and crept down upon us. +A giant shape loomed up, and frowned crushingly upon the little craft. +A blaze of light, the jangle of a bell, and it was past. We were dancing +in the wash of one of the Scotch steamers, and the murk had fallen again. + +Discords of remote activity rose above the more intimate +throbbing of our screw, and we seemed a pigmy company +floating past the workshops of Brobdingnagian toilers. +The chill of the near water communicated itself to me, and I +felt the protection of my shabby garments inadequate against it. + +Far over on the Surrey shore a blue light--vaporous, mysterious-- +flicked translucent tongues against the night's curtain. +It was a weird, elusive flame, leaping, wavering, magically changing +from blue to a yellowed violet, rising, falling. + +"Only a gasworks," came Smith's voice, and I knew that he, too, had been +watching those elfin fires. "But it always reminds me of a Mexican +teocalli, and the altar of sacrifice." + +The simile was apt, but gruesome. I thought of Dr. Fu-Manchu +and the severed fingers, and could not repress a shudder. + +"On your left, past the wooden pier! Not where the lamp is-- +beyond that; next to the dark, square building--Shen-Yan's." + +It was Inspector Ryman speaking. + +"Drop us somewhere handy, then," replied Smith, "and lie close in, +with your ears wide open. We may have to run for it, so don't +go far away." + +From the tone of his voice I knew that the night mystery of the Thames +had claimed at least one other victim. + +"Dead slow," came Ryman's order. "We'll put in to the Stone Stairs." + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +A SEEMINGLY drunken voice was droning from a neighboring alleyway as Smith +lurched in hulking fashion to the door of a little shop above which, +crudely painted, were the words: + + +"SHEN-YAN, Barber." + + +I shuffled along behind him, and had time to note the box of studs, +German shaving tackle and rolls of twist which lay untidily in the window +ere Smith kicked the door open, clattered down three wooden steps, +and pulled himself up with a jerk, seizing my arm for support. + +We stood in a bare and very dirty room, which could only +claim kinship with a civilized shaving-saloon by virtue of +the grimy towel thrown across the back of the solitary chair. +A Yiddish theatrical bill of some kind, illustrated, adorned one +of the walls, and another bill, in what may have been Chinese, +completed the decorations. From behind a curtain heavily brocaded +with filth a little Chinaman appeared, dressed in a loose smock, +black trousers and thick-soled slippers, and, advancing, +shook his head vigorously. + +"No shavee--no shavee," he chattered, simian fashion, +squinting from one to the other of us with his twinkling eyes. +"Too late! Shuttee shop!" + +"Don't you come none of it wi' me!" roared Smith, in a voice of amazing +gruffness, and shook an artificially dirtied fist under the Chinaman's nose. +"Get inside and gimme an' my mate a couple o' pipes. Smokee pipe, +you yellow scum--savvy?" + +My friend bent forward and glared into the other's eyes with a vindictiveness +that amazed me, unfamiliar as I was with this form of gentle persuasion. + +"Kop 'old o' that," he said, and thrust a coin into the Chinaman's +yellow paw. "Keep me waitin' an' I'll pull the dam' shop down, Charlie. +You can lay to it." + +"No hab got pipee--" began the other. + +Smith raised his fist, and Yan capitulated. + +"Allee lightee," he said. "Full up--no loom. You come see." + +He dived behind the dirty curtain, Smith and I following, and ran up +a dark stair. The next moment I found myself in an atmosphere which +was literally poisonous. It was all but unbreathable, being loaded +with opium fumes. Never before had I experienced anything like it. +Every breath was an effort. A tin oil-lamp on a box in the middle +of the floor dimly illuminated the horrible place, about the walls +of which ten or twelve bunks were ranged and all of them occupied. +Most of the occupants were lying motionless, but one or two were +squatting in their bunks noisily sucking at the little metal pipes. +These had not yet attained to the opium-smoker's Nirvana. + +"No loom--samee tella you," said Shen-Yan, complacently testing +Smith's shilling with his yellow, decayed teeth. + +Smith walked to a corner and dropped cross-legged, on the floor, +pulling me down with him. + +"Two pipe quick," he said. "Plenty room. Two piecee pipe-- +or plenty heap trouble." + +A dreary voice from one of the bunks came: + +"Give 'im a pipe, Charlie, curse yer! an' stop 'is palaver." + +Yan performed a curious little shrug, rather of the back than of +the shoulders, and shuffled to the box which bore the smoky lamp. +Holding a needle in the flame, he dipped it, when red-hot, into an old +cocoa tin, and withdrew it with a bead of opium adhering to the end. +Slowly roasting this over the lamp, he dropped it into the bowl +of the metal pipe which he held ready, where it burned with a +spirituous blue flame. + +"Pass it over," said Smith huskily, and rose on his knees with the assumed +eagerness of a slave to the drug. + +Yan handed him the pipe, which he promptly put to his lips, +and prepared another for me. + +"Whatever you do, don't inhale any," came Smith's whispered injunction. + +It was with a sense of nausea greater even than that occasioned by the +disgusting atmosphere of the den that I took the pipe and pretended to smoke. +Taking my cue from my friend, I allowed my head gradually to sink lower +and lower, until, within a few minutes, I sprawled sideways on the floor, +Smith lying close beside me. + +"The ship's sinkin'," droned a voice from one of the bunks. +"Look at the rats." + +Yan had noiselessly withdrawn, and I experienced a curious sense +of isolation from my fellows--from the whole of the Western world. +My throat was parched with the fumes, my head ached. +The vicious atmosphere seemed contaminating. I was as one dropped-- + +Somewhere East of Suez, where the best is like the worst, +And there ain't no Ten Commandments and a man can raise a thirst. + +Smith began to whisper softly. + +"We have carried it through successfully so far," he said. +"I don't know if you have observed it, but there is a stair +just behind you, half concealed by a ragged curtain. +We are near that, and well in the dark. I have seen nothing +suspicious so far--or nothing much. But if there was anything +going forward it would no doubt be delayed until we new arrivals +were well doped. S-SH!" + +He pressed my arm to emphasize the warning. Through my half-closed eyes +I perceived a shadowy form near the curtain to which he had referred. +I lay like a log, but my muscles were tensed nervously. + +The shadow materialized as the figure moved forward into the room +with a curiously lithe movement. + +The smoky lamp in the middle of the place afforded +scant illumination, serving only to indicate sprawling shapes-- +here an extended hand, brown or yellow, there a sketchy, +corpse-like face; whilst from all about rose obscene sighings +and murmurings in far-away voices--an uncanny, animal chorus. +It was like a glimpse of the Inferno seen by some Chinese Dante. +But so close to us stood the newcomer that I was able to make out a +ghastly parchment face, with small, oblique eyes, and a misshapen head +crowned with a coiled pigtail, surmounting a slight, hunched body. +There was something unnatural, inhuman, about that masklike face, +and something repulsive in the bent shape and the long, +yellow hands clasped one upon the other. + +Fu-Manchu, from Smith's account, in no way resembled this crouching +apparition with the death's-head countenance and lithe movements; +but an instinct of some kind told me that we were on the right scent-- +that this was one of the doctor's servants. How I came to that conclusion, +I cannot explain; but with no doubt in my mind that this was a member +of the formidable murder group, I saw the yellow man creep nearer, +nearer, silently, bent and peering. + +He was watching us. + +Of another circumstance I became aware, and a disquieting circumstance. +There were fewer murmurings and sighings from the surrounding bunks. +The presence of the crouching figure had created a sudden semi-silence +in the den, which could only mean that some of the supposed opium-smokers +had merely feigned coma and the approach of coma. + +Nayland Smith lay like a dead man, and trusting to the darkness, +I, too, lay prone and still, but watched the evil face bending +lower and lower, until it came within a few inches of my own. +I completely closed my eyes. + +Delicate fingers touched my right eyelid. Divining what was coming, +I rolled my eyes up, as the lid was adroitly lifted and lowered again. +The man moved away. + +I had saved the situation! And noting anew the hush about me-- +a hush in which I fancied many pairs of ears listened--I was glad. +For just a moment I realized fully how, with the place watched back +and front, we yet were cut off, were in the hands of Far Easterns, +to some extent in the power of members of that most inscrutably +mysterious race, the Chinese. + +"Good," whispered Smith at my side. "I don't think I could have done it. +He took me on trust after that. My God! what an awful face. +Petrie, it's the hunchback of Cadby's notes. Ah, I thought so. +Do you see that?" + +I turned my eyes round as far as was possible. A man had scrambled down +from one of the bunks and was following the bent figure across the room. + +They passed around us quietly, the little yellow man leading, with his +curious, lithe gait, and the other, an impassive Chinaman, following. +The curtain was raised, and I heard footsteps receding on the stairs. + +"Don't stir," whispered Smith. + +An intense excitement was clearly upon him, and he communicated it to me. +Who was the occupant of the room above? + +Footsteps on the stair, and the Chinaman reappeared, recrossed the floor, +and went out. The little, bent man went over to another bunk, this time +leading up the stair one who looked like a lascar. + +"Did you see his right hand?" whispered Smith. "A dacoit! +They come here to report and to take orders. Petrie, Dr. Fu-Manchu +is up there." + +"What shall we do?"--softly. + +"Wait. Then we must try to rush the stairs. It would be futile +to bring in the police first. He is sure to have some other exit. +I will give the word while the little yellow devil is down here. +You are nearer and will have to go first, but if the hunchback follows, +I can then deal with him." + +Our whispered colloquy was interrupted by the return of the dacoit, +who recrossed the room as the Chinaman had done, and immediately +took his departure. A third man, whom Smith identified as a Malay, +ascended the mysterious stairs, descended, and went out; and a fourth, +whose nationality it was impossible to determine, followed. +Then, as the softly moving usher crossed to a bunk on the right +of the outer door-- + +"Up you go, Petrie," cried Smith, for further delay was dangerous +and further dissimulation useless. + +I leaped to my feet. Snatching my revolver from the pocket +of the rough jacket I wore, I bounded to the stair and went +blundering up in complete darkness. A chorus of brutish cries +clamored from behind, with a muffled scream rising above them all. +But Nayland Smith was close behind as I raced along a covered gangway, +in a purer air, and at my heels when I crashed open a door at +the end and almost fell into the room beyond. + +What I saw were merely a dirty table, with some odds and ends upon +it of which I was too excited to take note, an oil-lamp swung +by a brass chain above, and a man sitting behind the table. +But from the moment that my gaze rested upon the one who sat there, +I think if the place had been an Aladdin's palace I should have +had no eyes for any of its wonders. + +He wore a plain yellow robe, of a hue almost identical with that +of his smooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large, +long and bony, and he held them knuckles upward, and rested his +pointed chin upon their thinness. He had a great, high brow, +crowned with sparse, neutral-colored hair. + +Of his face, as it looked out at me over the dirty table, +I despair of writing convincingly. It was that of an archangel +of evil, and it was wholly dominated by the most uncanny +eyes that ever reflected a human soul, for they were narrow +and long, very slightly oblique, and of a brilliant green. +But their unique horror lay in a certain filminess +(it made me think of the membrana nictitans in a bird) +which, obscuring them as I threw wide the door, seemed to lift +as I actually passed the threshold, revealing the eyes in all +their brilliant iridescence. + +I know that I stopped dead, one foot within the room, for the +malignant force of the man was something surpassing my experience. +He was surprised by this sudden intrusion--yes, but no trace of fear +showed upon that wonderful face, only a sort of pitying contempt. +And, as I paused, he rose slowly to his feet, never removing his +gaze from mine. + +"IT'S FU-MANCHU!" cried Smith over my shoulder, in a voice +that was almost a scream. "IT'S FU-MANCHU! Cover him! +Shoot him dead if--" + +The conclusion of that sentence I never heard. + +Dr. Fu-Manchu reached down beside the table, and the floor slipped +from under me. + +One last glimpse I had of the fixed green eyes, and with a scream I was +unable to repress I dropped, dropped, dropped, and plunged into icy water, +which closed over my head. + +Vaguely I had seen a spurt of flame, had heard another cry following +my own, a booming sound (the trap), the flat note of a police whistle. +But when I rose to the surface impenetrable darkness enveloped me; +I was spitting filthy, oily liquid from my mouth, and fighting down +the black terror that had me by the throat--terror of the darkness +about me, of the unknown depths beneath me, of the pit into which I +was cast amid stifling stenches and the lapping of tidal water. + +"Smith!" I cried. . . ."Help! Help!" + +My voice seemed to beat back upon me, yet I was about +to cry out again, when, mustering all my presence of mind +and all my failing courage, I recognized that I had better +employment of my energies, and began to swim straight ahead, +desperately determined to face all the horrors of this place-- +to die hard if die I must. + +A drop of liquid fire fell through the darkness and hissed +into the water beside me! + +I felt that, despite my resolution, I was going mad. + +Another fiery drop--and another! + +I touched a rotting wooden post and slimy timbers. +I had reached one bound of my watery prison. More fire fell +from above, and the scream of hysteria quivered, unuttered, +in my throat. + +Keeping myself afloat with increasing difficulty in my heavy garments, +I threw my head back and raised my eyes. + +No more drops fell, and no more drops would fall; but it +was merely a question of time for the floor to collapse. +For it was beginning to emit a dull, red glow. + +The room above me was in flames! + +It was drops of burning oil from the lamp, finding passage through +the cracks in the crazy flooring, which had fallen about me-- +for the death trap had reclosed, I suppose, mechanically. + +My saturated garments were dragging me down, and now I could hear +the flames hungrily eating into the ancient rottenness overhead. +Shortly that cauldron would be loosed upon my head. The glow of the +flames grew brighter. . .and showed me the half-rotten piles upholding +the building, showed me the tidal mark upon the slime-coated walls-- +showed me that there was no escape! + +By some subterranean duct the foul place was fed from the Thames. +By that duct, with the outgoing tide, my body would pass, +in the wake of Mason, Cadby, and many another victim! + +Rusty iron rungs were affixed to one of the walls communicating with a trap-- +but the bottom three were missing! + +Brighter and brighter grew the awesome light the light of what +should be my funeral pyre--reddening the oily water and adding +a new dread to the whispering, clammy horror of the pit. +But something it showed me. . .a projecting beam a few feet +above the water. . .and directly below the iron ladder! + +"Merciful Heaven!" I breathed. "Have I the strength?" + +A desire for laughter claimed me with sudden, all but irresistible force. +I knew what it portended and fought it down--grimly, sternly. + +My garments weighed upon me like a suit of mail; with my chest +aching dully, my veins throbbing to bursting, I forced tired +muscles to work, and, every stroke an agony, approached the beam. +Nearer I swam. . .nearer. Its shadow fell black upon +the water, which now had all the seeming of a pool of blood. +Confused sounds--a remote uproar--came to my ears. +I was nearly spent. . .I was in the shadow of the beam! +If I could throw up one arm. . . + +A shrill scream sounded far above me! + +"Petrie! Petrie!" (That voice must be Smith's!) "Don't touch the beam! +For God's sake DON'T TOUCH THE BEAM! Keep afloat another few seconds +and I can get to you!" + +Another few seconds! Was that possible? + +I managed to turn, to raise my throbbing head; and I saw the strangest +sight which that night yet had offered. + +Nayland Smith stood upon the lowest iron rung. . .supported by the hideous, +crook-backed Chinaman, who stood upon the rung above! + +"I can't reach him!" + +It was as Smith hissed the words despairingly that I looked up-- +and saw the Chinaman snatch at his coiled pigtail and pull it off! +With it came the wig to which it was attached; and the ghastly yellow mask, +deprived of its fastenings, fell from position! "Here! Here! Be quick! +Oh! be quick! You can lower this to him! Be quick! Be quick!" + +A cloud of hair came falling about the slim shoulders +as the speaker bent to pass this strange lifeline to Smith; +and I think it was my wonder at knowing her for the girl whom +that day I had surprised in Cadby's rooms which saved my life. + +For I not only kept afloat, but kept my gaze upturned to that beautiful, +flushed face, and my eyes fixed upon hers--which were wild with fear +. . .for me! + +Smith, by some contortion, got the false queue into my grasp, +and I, with the strength of desperation, by that means seized +hold upon the lowest rung. With my friend's arm round me I +realized that exhaustion was even nearer than I had supposed. +My last distinct memory is of the bursting of the floor above +and the big burning joist hissing into the pool beneath us. +Its fiery passage, striated with light, disclosed two +sword blades, riveted, edges up along the top of the beam +which I had striven to reach. + +"The severed fingers--" I said; and swooned. + +How Smith got me through the trap I do not know--nor how we made our way +through the smoke and flames of the narrow passage it opened upon. +My next recollection is of sitting up, with my friend's arm supporting +me and Inspector Ryman holding a glass to my lips. + +A bright glare dazzled my eyes. A crowd surged about us, +and a clangor and shouting drew momentarily nearer. + +"It's the engines coming," explained Smith, seeing my bewilderment. +"Shen-Yan's is in flames. It was your shot, as you fell through the trap, +broke the oil-lamp." + +"Is everybody out?" + +"So far as we know." + +"Fu-Manchu?" + +Smith shrugged his shoulders. + +"No one has seen him. There was some door at the back--" + +"Do you think he may--" + +"No," he said tensely. "Not until I see him lying dead before me +shall I believe it." + +Then memory resumed its sway. I struggled to my feet. + +"Smith, where is she?" I cried. "Where is she?" + +"I don't know," be answered. + +"She's given us the slip, Doctor," said Inspector Weymouth, +as a fire-engine came swinging round the corner of the narrow lane. +"So has Mr. Singapore Charlie--and, I'm afraid, somebody else. +We've got six or eight all-sorts, some awake and some asleep, +but I suppose we shall have to let 'em go again. +Mr. Smith tells me that the girl was disguised as a Chinaman. +I expect that's why she managed to slip away." + +I recalled how I had been dragged from the pit by the false queue, +how the strange discovery which had brought death to poor Cadby +had brought life to me, and I seemed to remember, too, that Smith +had dropped it as he threw his arm about me on the ladder. +Her mask the girl might have retained, but her wig, I felt certain, +had been dropped into the water. + +It was later that night, when the brigade still were playing, +upon the blackened shell of what had been Shen-Yan's opium-shop, +and Smith and I were speeding away in a cab from the scene of God +knows how many crimes, that I had an idea. + +"Smith," I said, "did you bring the pigtail with you that was +found on Cadby?" + +"Yes. I had hoped to meet the owner." + +"Have you got it now?" + +"No. I met the owner." + +I thrust my hands deep into the pockets of the big pea-jacket +lent to me by Inspector Ryman, leaning back in my corner. + +"We shall never really excel at this business," continued Nayland Smith. +"We are far too sentimental. I knew what it meant to us, Petrie, what it +meant to the world, but I hadn't the heart. I owed her your life-- +I had to square the account." + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +NIGHT fell on Redmoat. I glanced from the window at +the nocturne in silver and green which lay beneath me. +To the west of the shrubbery, with its broken canopy of elms +and beyond the copper beech which marked the center of its mazes, +a gap offered a glimpse of the Waverney where it swept into a broad. +Faint bird-calls floated over the water. These, with the whisper +of leaves, alone claimed the ear. + +Ideal rural peace, and the music of an English summer evening; +but to my eyes, every shadow holding fantastic terrors; +to my ears, every sound a signal of dread. For the deathful +hand of Fu-Manchu was stretched over Redmoat, at any hour +to loose strange, Oriental horrors upon its inmates. + +"Well," said Nayland Smith, joining me at the window, "we had dared +to hope him dead, but we know now that he lives!" + +The Rev. J. D. Eltham coughed nervously, and I turned, leaning my elbow +upon the table, and studied the play of expression upon the refined, +sensitive face of the clergyman. + +"You think I acted rightly in sending for you, Mr. Smith?" + +Nayland Smith smoked furiously. + +"Mr. Eltham," he replied, "you see in me a man groping in the dark. +I am to-day no nearer to the conclusion of my mission than +upon the day when I left Mandalay. You offer me a clew; +I am here. Your affair, I believe, stands thus: +A series of attempted burglaries, or something of the kind, +has alarmed your household. Yesterday, returning from London +with your daughter, you were both drugged in some way and, +occupying a compartment to yourselves, you both slept. +Your daughter awoke, and saw someone else in the carriage-- +a yellow-faced man who held a case of instruments in his hands." + +"Yes; I was, of course, unable to enter into particulars over the telephone. +The man was standing by one of the windows. Directly he observed that my +daughter was awake, he stepped towards her." + +"What did he do with the case in his hands?" + +"She did not notice--or did not mention having noticed. +In fact, as was natural, she was so frightened that she recalls +nothing more, beyond the fact that she strove to arouse me, +without succeeding, felt hands grasp her shoulders--and swooned." + +"But someone used the emergency cord, and stopped the train." + +"Greba has no recollection of having done so." + +"Hm! Of course, no yellow-faced man was on the train. +When did you awake?" + +"I was aroused by the guard, but only when he had repeatedly shaken me." + +"Upon reaching Great Yarmouth you immediately called up Scotland Yard? +You acted very wisely, sir. How long were you in China?" + +Mr. Eltham's start of surprise was almost comical. + +"It is perhaps not strange that you should be aware of my residence in China, +Mr. Smith," he said; "but my not having mentioned it may seem so. +The fact is"--his sensitive face flushed in palpable embarrassment-- +"I left China under what I may term an episcopal cloud. +I have lived in retirement ever since. Unwittingly--I solemnly +declare to you, Mr. Smith, unwittingly--I stirred up certain +deep-seated prejudices in my endeavors to do my duty--my duty. +I think you asked me how long I was in China? I was there from 1896 +until 1900--four years." + +"I recall the circumstances, Mr. Eltham," said Smith, with an odd +note in his voice. "I have been endeavoring to think where I +had come across the name, and a moment ago I remembered. +I am happy to have met you, sir." + +The clergyman blushed again like a girl, and slightly inclined his head, +with its scanty fair hair. + +"Has Redmoat, as its name implies, a moat round it? I was unable to see +in the dusk." "It remains. Redmoat--a corruption of Round Moat-- +was formerly a priory, disestablished by the eighth Henry in 1536." +His pedantic manner was quaint at times. "But the moat is no +longer flooded. In fact, we grow cabbages in part of it. +If you refer to the strategic strength of the place"--he smiled, +but his manner was embarrassed again--"it is considerable. +I have barbed wire fencing, and--other arrangements. +You see, it is a lonely spot," he added apologetically. +"And now, if you will excuse me, we will resume these gruesome +inquiries after the more pleasant affairs of dinner." + +He left us. + +"Who is our host?" I asked, as the door closed. + +Smith smiled. + +"You are wondering what caused the `episcopal cloud?'" he suggested. +"Well, the deep-seated prejudices which our reverend friend stirred up +culminated in the Boxer Risings." + +"Good heavens, Smith!" I said; for I could not reconcile the diffident +personality of the clergyman with the memories which those words awakened. + +"He evidently should be on our danger list," my friend continued quickly; +"but he has so completely effaced himself of recent years that I think it +probable that someone else has only just recalled his existence to mind. +The Rev. J. D. Eltham, my dear Petrie, though he may be a poor hand +at saving souls, at any rate, has saved a score of Christian women +from death--and worse." + +"J. D. Eltham--" I began. + +"Is `Parson Dan'!" rapped Smith, "the `Fighting Missionary,' +the man who with a garrison of a dozen cripples and a German +doctor held the hospital at Nan-Yang against two hundred Boxers. +That's who the Rev. J. D. Eltham is! But what is he up to, +now, I have yet to find out. He is keeping something back-- +something which has made him an object of interest to Young China!" + +During dinner the matters responsible for our presence there did not +hold priority in the conversation. In fact, this, for the most part, +consisted in light talk of books and theaters. + +Greba Eltham, the clergyman's daughter, was a charming young hostess, +and she, with Vernon Denby, Mr. Eltham's nephew, completed the party. +No doubt the girl's presence, in part, at any rate, led us to refrain +from the subject uppermost in our minds. + +These little pools of calm dotted along the torrential course of +the circumstances which were bearing my friend and I onward to unknown +issues form pleasant, sunny spots in my dark recollections. + +So I shall always remember, with pleasure, that dinner-party +at Redmoat, in the old-world dining-room; it was so very peaceful, +so almost grotesquely calm. For I, within my very bones, felt it +to be the calm before the storm. When, later, we men passed +to the library, we seemed to leave that atmosphere behind us. + +"Redmoat," said the Rev. J. D. Eltham, "has latterly become the theater +of strange doings." + +He stood on the hearth-rug. A shaded lamp upon the big table +and candles in ancient sconces upon the mantelpiece afforded +dim illumination. Mr. Eltham's nephew, Vernon Denby, +lolled smoking on the window-seat, and I sat near to him. +Nayland Smith paced restlessly up and down the room. + +"Some mouths ago, almost a year," continued the clergyman, +"a burglarious attempt was made upon the house. There was an arrest, +and the man confessed that he had been tempted by my collection." +He waved his hand vaguely towards the several cabinets about +the shadowed room. + +"It was shortly afterwards that I allowed my hobby for-- +playing at forts to run away with me." He smiled an apology. +"I virtually fortified Redmoat--against trespassers of any kind, I mean. +You have seen that the house stands upon a kind of large mound. +This is artificial, being the buried ruins of a Roman outwork; +a portion of the ancient castrum." Again he waved indicatively, +this time toward the window. + +"When it was a priory it was completely isolated and defended +by its environing moat. Today it is completely surrounded by +barbed-wire fencing. Below this fence, on the east, is a narrow stream, +a tributary of the Waverney; on the north and west, the high road, +but nearly twenty feet below, the banks being perpendicular. +On the south is the remaining part of the moat--now my kitchen garden; +but from there up to the level of the house is nearly twenty feet again, +and the barbed wire must also be counted with. + +"The entrance, as you know, is by the way of a kind of cutting. +There is a gate at the foot of the steps (they are some of the original +steps of the priory, Dr. Petrie), and another gate at the head." + +He paused, and smiled around upon us boyishly. + +"My secret defenses remain to be mentioned," he resumed; +and, opening a cupboard, he pointed to a row of batteries, +with a number of electric bells upon the wall behind. +"The more vulnerable spots are connected at night with these bells," +he said triumphantly. "Any attempt to scale the barbed wire +or to force either gate would set two or more of these ringing. +A stray cow raised one false alarm," he added, "and a careless +rook threw us into a perfect panic on another occasion." + +He was so boyish--so nervously brisk and acutely sensitive-- +that it was difficult to see in him the hero of the Nan-Yang hospital. +I could only suppose that he had treated the Boxers' raid in the same spirit +wherein he met would-be trespassers within the precincts of Redmoat. +It had been an escapade, of which he was afterwards ashamed, as, faintly, +he was ashamed of his "fortifications." "But," rapped Smith, "it was not +the visit of the burglar which prompted these elaborate precautions." + +Mr. Eltham coughed nervously. + +"I am aware," he said, "that having invoked official aid, I must be +perfectly frank with you, Mr. Smith. It was the burglar who was responsible +for my continuing the wire fence all round the grounds, but the electrical +contrivance followed, later, as a result of several disturbed nights. +My servants grew uneasy about someone who came, they said, after dusk. +No one could describe this nocturnal visitor, but certainly we found traces. +I must admit that. + +"Then--I received what I may term a warning. My position is a peculiar one-- +a peculiar one. My daughter, too, saw this prowling, person, +over by the Roman castrum, and described him as a yellow man. +It was the incident in the train following closely upon this other, which led +me to speak to the police, little as I desired to--er--court publicity." + +Nayland Smith walked to a window, and looked out across +the sloping lawn to where the shadows of the shrubbery lay. +A dog was howling dismally somewhere. + +"Your defenses are not impregnable, after all, then?" he jerked. +"On our way up this evening Mr. Denby was telling us about the death +of his collie a few nights ago." + +The clergyman's face clouded. + +"That, certainly, was alarming," he confessed. + +"I had been in London for a few days, and during my absence Vernon +came down, bringing the dog with him. On the night of his arrival +it ran, barking, into the shrubbery yonder, and did not come out. +He went to look for it with a lantern, and found it lying among +the bushes, quite dead. The poor creature had been dreadfully +beaten about the head." + +"The gates were locked," Denby interrupted, "and no one could +have got out of the grounds without a ladder and someone +to assist him. But there was so sign of a living thing about. +Edwards and I searched every corner." + +"How long has that other dog taken to howling?" inquired Smith. + +"Only since Rex's death," said Denby quickly. + +"It is my mastiff," explained the clergyman, "and he is confined in the yard. +He is never allowed on this side of the house." + +Nayland Smith wandered aimlessly about the library. + +"I am sorry to have to press you, Mr. Eltham," he said, +"but what was the nature of the warning to which you referred, +and from whom did it come?" + +Mr. Eltham hesitated for a long time. + +"I have been so unfortunate," he said at last, "in my previous efforts, +that I feel assured of your hostile criticism when I tell you that I am +contemplating an immediate return to Ho-Nan!" + +Smith jumped round upon him as though moved by a spring. + +"Then you are going back to Nan-Yang?" he cried. +"Now I understand! Why have you not told me before? +That is the key for which I have vainly been seeking. +Your troubles date from the time of your decision to return?" + +"Yes, I must admit it," confessed the clergyman diffidently. + +"And your warning came from China?" + +"It did." + +"From a Chinaman?" + +"From the Mandarin, Yen-Sun-Yat." + +"Yen-Sun-Yat! My good sir! He warned you to abandon your visit? +And you reject his advice? Listen to me." Smith was intensely +excited now, his eyes bright, his lean figure curiously strung up, alert. +"The Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat is one of the seven!" + +"I do not follow you, Mr. Smith." + +"No, sir. China to-day is not the China of '98. It is a huge secret machine, +and Ho-Nan one of its most important wheels! But if, as I understand, +this official is a friend of yours, believe me, he has saved your life! +You would be a dead man now if it were not for your friend in China! +My dear sir, you must accept his counsel." + +Then, for the first time since I had made his acquaintance, "Parson Dan" +showed through the surface of the Rev. J. D. Eltham. + +"No, sir!" replied the clergyman--and the change in his voice was startling. +"I am called to Nan-Yang. Only One may deter my going." + +The admixture of deep spiritual reverence with intense truculence +in his voice was dissimilar from anything I ever had heard. + +"Then only One can protect you," cried Smith, "for, by Heaven, +no MAN will be able to do so! Your presence in Ho-Nan +can do no possible good at present. It must do harm. +Your experience in 1900 should be fresh in your memory." + +"Hard words, Mr. Smith." + +"The class of missionary work which you favor, sir, is injurious +to international peace. At the present moment, Ho-Nan is +a barrel of gunpowder; you would be the lighted match. +I do not willingly stand between any man and what he chooses +to consider his duty, but I insist that you abandon your visit +to the interior of China!" + +"You insist, Mr. Smith?" + +"As your guest, I regret the necessity +for reminding you that I hold authority to enforce it." + +Denby fidgeted uneasily. The tone of the conversation was growing harsh +and the atmosphere of the library portentous with brewing, storms. + +There was a short, silent interval. + +"This is what I had feared and expected," said the clergyman. +"This was my reason for not seeking official protection." + +"The phantom Yellow Peril," said Nayland Smith, "to-day materializes +under the very eyes of the Western world." + +"The `Yellow Peril'!" + +"You scoff, sir, and so do others. We take the proffered right +hand of friendship nor inquire if the hidden left holds a knife! +The peace of the world is at stake, Mr. Eltham. Unknowingly, you tamper +with tremendous issues." + +Mr. Eltham drew a deep breath, thrusting both hands in his pockets. + +"You are painfully frank, Mr. Smith," he said; "but I like you for it. +I will reconsider my position and talk this matter over again +with you to-morrow." + +Thus, then, the storm blew over. Yet I had never +experienced such an overwhelming sense of imminent peril-- +of a sinister presence--as oppressed me at that moment. +The very atmosphere of Redmoat was impregnated with +Eastern devilry; it loaded the air like some evil perfume. +And then, through the silence, cut a throbbing scream-- +the scream of a woman in direst fear. + +"My God, it's Greba!" whispered Mr. Eltham. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +IN what order we dashed down to the drawing-room I cannot recall. +But none was before me when I leaped over the threshold and saw Miss +Eltham prone by the French windows. + +These were closed and bolted, and she lay with hands +outstretched in the alcove which they formed. I bent over her. +Nayland Smith was at my elbow. + +"Get my bag" I said. "She has swooned. It is nothing serious." + +Her father, pale and wide-eyed, hovered about me, muttering incoherently; +but I managed to reassure him; and his gratitude when, I having administered +a simple restorative, the girl sighed shudderingly and opened her eyes, +was quite pathetic. + +I would permit no questioning at that time, and on her father's +arm she retired to her own rooms. + +It was some fifteen minutes later that her message was brought to me. +I followed the maid to a quaint little octagonal apartment, and Greba +Eltham stood before me, the candlelight caressing the soft curves +of her face and gleaming in the meshes of her rich brown hair. + +When she had answered my first question she hesitated in pretty confusion. + +"We are anxious to know what alarmed you, Miss Eltham." + +She bit her lip and glanced with apprehension towards the window. + +"I am almost afraid to tell father," she began rapidly. +"He will think me imaginative, but you have been so kind. +It was two green eyes! Oh! Dr. Petrie, they looked up at me +from the steps leading to the lawn. And they shone like the eyes +of a cat." + +The words thrilled me strangely. + +"Are you sure it was not a cat, Miss Eltham?" + +"The eyes were too large, Dr. Petrie. There was +something dreadful, most dreadful, in their appearance. +I feel foolish and silly for having fainted, twice in two days! +But the suspense is telling upon me, I suppose. +Father thinks"--she was becoming charmingly confidential, +as a woman often will with a tactful physician--"that +shut up here we are safe from--whatever threatens us." +I noted, with concern, a repetition of the nervous shudder. +"But since our return someone else has been in Redmoat!" + +"Whatever do you mean, Miss Eltham?" + +"Oh! I don't quite know what I do mean, Dr. Petrie. +What does it ALL mean? Vernon has been explaining to me +that some awful Chinaman is seeking the life of Mr. Nayland Smith. +But if the same man wants to kill my father, why has +he not done so?" + +"I am afraid you puzzle me." + +"Of course, I must do so. But--the man in the train. +He could have killed us both quite easily! And--last night +someone was in father's room." + +"In his room!" + +"I could not sleep, and I heard something moving. +My room is the next one. I knocked on the wall and woke father. +There was nothing; so I said it was the howling of the dog +that had frightened me." + +"How, could anyone get into his room?" + +"I cannot imagine. But I am not sure it was a man." + +"Miss Eltham, you alarm me. What do you suspect?" + +"You must think me hysterical and silly, but whilst father and I have been +away from Redmoat perhaps the usual precautions have been neglected. +Is there any creature, any large creature, which could climb up the wall +to the window? Do you know of anything with a long, thin body?" + +For a moment I offered no reply, studying the girl's pretty face, +her eager, blue-gray eyes widely opened and fixed upon mine. +She was not of the neurotic type, with her clear complexion +and sun-kissed neck; her arms, healthily toned by exposure +to the country airs, were rounded and firm, and she had the agile +shape of a young Diana with none of the anaemic languor which breeds +morbid dreams. She was frightened; yes, who would not have been? +But the mere idea of this thing which she believed to be in Redmoat, +without the apparition of the green eyes, must have prostrated +a victim of "nerves." + +"Have you seen such a creature, Miss Eltham?" + +She hesitated again, glancing down and pressing her finger-tips together. + +"As father awoke and called out to know why I knocked, +I glanced from my window. The moonlight threw half the lawn +into shadow, and just disappearing in this shadow was something-- +something of a brown color, marked with sections!" + +"What size and shape?" + +"It moved so quickly I could form no idea of its shape; +but I saw quite six feet of it flash across the grass!" + +"Did you hear anything?" + +"A swishing sound in the shrubbery, then nothing more." + +She met my eyes expectantly. Her confidence in my powers of understanding +and sympathy was gratifying, though I knew that I but occupied the position +of a father-confessor. + +"Have you any idea," I said, "how it came about that you awoke +in the train yesterday whilst your father did not?" + +"We had coffee at a refreshment-room; it must have been drugged in some way. +I scarcely tasted mine, the flavor was so awful; but father is an old traveler +and drank the whole of his cupful!" + +Mr. Eltham's voice called from below. + +"Dr. Petrie," said the girl quickly, "what do you think they +want to do to him?" + +"Ah!" I replied, "I wish I knew that." + +"Will you think over what I have told you? For I do assure you there +is something here in Redmoat--something that comes and goes in spite +of father's `fortifications'? Caesar knows there is. Listen to him. +He drags at his chain so that I wonder he does not break it." + +As we passed downstairs the howling of the mastiff sounded eerily +through the house, as did the clank-clank of the tightening chain +as he threw the weight of his big body upon it. + +I sat in Smith's room that night for some time, he pacing the floor +smoking and talking. + +"Eltham has influential Chinese friends," he said; +"but they dare not have him in Nan-Yang at present. +He knows the country as he knows Norfolk; he would see things! + +"His precautions here have baffled the enemy, I think. +The attempt in the train points to an anxiety to waste no opportunity. +But whilst Eltham was absent (he was getting his outfit in London, +by the way) they have been fixing some second string to their fiddle here. +In case no opportunity offered before he returned, they provided +for getting at him here!" + +"But how, Smith?" + +"That's the mystery. But the dead dog in the shrubbery is significant." + +"Do you think some emissary of Fu-Manchu is actually inside the moat?" + +"It's impossible, Petrie. You are thinking of secret passages, +and so forth. There are none. Eltham has measured up every +foot of the place. There isn't a rathole left unaccounted for; +and as for a tunnel under the moat, the house stands on a solid +mass of Roman masonry, a former camp of Hadrian's time. +I have seen a very old plan of the Round Moat Priory as it +was called. There is no entrance and no exit save by the steps. +So how was the dog killed?" + +I knocked out my pipe on a bar of the grate. + +"We are in the thick of it here," I said. + +"We are always in the thick of it," replied Smith. "Our danger is +no greater in Norfolk than in London. But what do they want to do? +That man in the train with the case of instruments--WHAT instruments? +Then the apparition of the green eyes to-night. Can they have been +the eyes of Fu-Manchu? Is some peculiarly unique outrage contemplated-- +something calling for the presence of the master?" + +"He may have to prevent Eltham's leaving England without killing him." + +"Quite so. He probably has instructions to be merciful. +But God help the victim of Chinese mercy!" + +I went to my own room then. But I did not even undress, +refilling my pipe and seating myself at the open window. +Having looked upon the awful Chinese doctor, the memory of +his face, with its filmed green eyes, could never leave me. +The idea that he might be near at that moment was a poor narcotic. + +The howling and baying of the mastiff was almost continuous. + +When all else in Redmoat was still the dog's mournful note yet rose on +the night with something menacing in it. I sat looking out across the sloping +turf to where the shrubbery showed as a black island in a green sea. +The moon swam in a cloudless sky, and the air was warm and fragrant +with country scents. + +It was in the shrubbery that Denby's collie had met his mysterious death-- +that the thing seen by Miss Eltham had disappeared. What uncanny secret +did it hold? + +Caesar became silent. + +As the stopping of a clock will sometimes awaken a sleeper, the abrupt +cessation of that distant howling, to which I had grown accustomed, +now recalled me from a world of gloomy imaginings. + +I glanced at my watch in the moonlight. It was twelve minutes past midnight. + +As I replaced it the dog suddenly burst out afresh, but now in a tone +of sheer anger. He was alternately howling and snarling in a way +that sounded new to me. The crashes, as he leapt to the end +of his chain, shook the building in which he was confined. +It was as I stood up to lean from the window and commanded a view +of the corner of the house that he broke loose. + +With a hoarse bay he took that decisive leap, and I +heard his heavy body fall against the wooden wall. +There followed a strange, guttural cry. . .and the growling +of the dog died away at the rear of the house. He was out! +But that guttural note had not come from the throat of a dog. +Of what was he in pursuit? + +At which point his mysterious quarry entered the shrubbery I do not know. +I only know that I saw absolutely nothing, until Caesar's lithe shape +was streaked across the lawn, and the great creature went crashing +into the undergrowth. + +Then a faint sound above and to my right told me that I was not the only +spectator of the scene. I leaned farther from the window. + +"Is that you, Miss Eltham?" I asked. + +"Oh, Dr. Petrie!" she said. "I am so glad you are awake. +Can we do nothing to help? Caesar will be killed." + +"Did you see what he went after?" + +"No," she called back, and drew her breath sharply. + +For a strange figure went racing across the grass. +It was that of a man in a blue dressing-gown, who held +a lantern high before him, and a revolver in his right hand. +Coincident with my recognition of Mr. Eltham he leaped, +plunging into the shrubbery in the wake of the dog. + +But the night held yet another surprise; for Nayland Smith's voice came: + +"Come back! Come back, Eltham!" + +I ran out into the passage and downstairs. The front door was open. +A terrible conflict waged in the shrubbery, between the mastiff and +something else. Passing round to the lawn, I met Smith fully dressed. +He just had dropped from a first-floor window. + +"The man is mad!" he snapped. "Heaven knows what lurks there! +He should not have gone alone!" + +Together we ran towards the dancing light of Eltham's lantern. +The sounds of conflict ceased suddenly. Stumbling over +stumps and lashed by low-sweeping branches, we struggled +forward to where the clergyman knelt amongst the bushes. +He glanced up with tears in his eyes, as was revealed by +the dim light. + +"Look!" he cried. + +The body of the dog lay at his feet. + +It was pitiable to think that the fearless brute should have met +his death in such a fashion, and when I bent and examined him I +was glad to find traces of life. + +"Drag him out. He is not dead," I said. + +"And hurry," rapped Smith, peering about him right and left. + +So we three hurried from that haunted place, dragging the dog with us. +We were not molested. No sound disturbed the now perfect stillness. + +By the lawn edge we came upon Denby, half dressed; +and almost immediately Edwards the gardener also appeared. +The white faces of the house servants showed at one window, +and Miss Eltham called to me from her room: + +"Is he dead?" + +"No," I replied; "only stunned." + +We carried the dog round to the yard, and I examined his head. +It had been struck by some heavy blunt instrument, but the skull +was not broken. It is hard to kill a mastiff. + +"Will you attend to him, Doctor?" asked Eltham. +"We must see that the villain does not escape." + +His face was grim and set. This was a different man from the diffident +clergyman we knew: this was "Parson Dan" again. + +I accepted the care of the canine patient, and Eltham with +the others went off for more lights to search the shrubbery. +As I was washing a bad wound between the mastiff's ears, +Miss Eltham joined me. It was the sound of her voice, +I think, rather than my more scientific ministration, +which recalled Caesar to life. For, as she entered, his tail +wagged feebly, and a moment later he struggled to his feet-- +one of which was injured. + +Having provided for his immediate needs, I left him in +charge of his young mistress and joined the search party. +They had entered the shrubbery from four points and drawn blank. + +"There is absolutely nothing there, and no one can possibly have left +the grounds," said Eltham amazedly. + +We stood on the lawn looking at one another, Nayland Smith, +angry but thoughtful, tugging at the lobe of his left ear, +as was his habit in moments of perplexity. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +WITH the first coming of light, Eltham, Smith and I tested the electrical +contrivances from every point. They were in perfect order. +It became more and more incomprehensible how anyone could have entered +and quitted Redmoat during the night. The barbed-wire fencing was intact, +and bore no signs of having been tampered with. + +Smith and I undertook an exhaustive examination of the shrubbery. + +At the spot where we had found the dog, some five paces to the west +of the copper beech, the grass and weeds were trampled and the +surrounding laurels and rhododendrons bore evidence of a struggle, +but no human footprint could be found. + +"The ground is dry," said Smith. "We cannot expect much." + +"In my opinion," I said, "someone tried to get at Caesar; +his presence is dangerous. And in his rage he broke loose." + +"I think so, too," agreed Smith. "But why did this person make +for here? And how, having mastered the dog, get out of Redmoat? +I am open to admit the possibility of someone's getting in during +the day whilst the gates are open, and hiding until dusk. +But how in the name of all that's wonderful does he GET OUT? +He must possess the attributes of a bird." + +I thought of Greba Eltham's statements, reminding my friend +of her description of the thing which she had seen passing +into this strangely haunted shrubbery. + +"That line of speculation soon takes us out of our depth, Petrie," he said. +"Let us stick to what we can understand, and that may help us +to a clearer idea of what, at present, is incomprehensible. +My view of the case to date stands thus: + +"(1) Eltham, having rashly decided to return to the interior of China, +is warned by an official whose friendship he has won in some way +to stay in England. + +"(2) I know this official for one of the Yellow group represented +in England by Dr. Fu-Manchu. + +"(3) Several attempts, of which we know but little, to get at +Eltham are frustrated, presumably by his curious `defenses.' +An attempt in a train fails owing to Miss Eltham's distaste +for refreshment-room coffee. An attempt here fails owing +to her insomnia. + +"(4) During Eltham's absence from Redmoat certain preparations +are made for his return. These lead to: + +"(a) The death of Denby's collie; + +"(b) The things heard and seen by Miss Eltham; + +"(c) The things heard and seen by us all last night. + +"So that the clearing up of my fourth point--id est, the discovery +of the nature of these preparations--becomes our immediate concern. +The prime object of these preparations, Petrie, was to enable someone +to gain access to Eltham's room. The other events are incidental. +The dogs HAD to be got rid of, for instance; and there is no doubt +that Miss Eltham's wakefulness saved her father a second time." + +"But from what? For Heaven's sake, from what?" + +Smith glanced about into the light-patched shadows. + +"From a visit by someone--perhaps by Fu-Manchu himself," he said in a +hushed voice. "The object of that visit I hope we may never learn; +for that would mean that it had been achieved." + +"Smith," I said, "I do not altogether understand you; but do you +think he has some incredible creature hidden here somewhere? +It would be like him." + +"I begin to suspect the most formidable creature in the known world +to be hidden here. I believe Fu-Manchu is somewhere inside Redmoat!" + +Our conversation was interrupted at this point by Denby, +who came to report that he had examined the moat, the roadside, +and the bank of the stream, but found no footprints or clew +of any kind. + +"No one left the grounds of Redmoat last night, I think," he said. +And his voice had awe in it. + +That day dragged slowly on. A party of us scoured the neighborhood +for traces of strangers, examining every foot of the Roman ruin +hard by; but vainly. + +"May not your presence here induce Fu-Manchu to abandon his plans?" +I asked Smith. + +"I think not," he replied. "You see, unless we can prevail upon him, +Eltham sails in a fortnight. So the Doctor has no time to waste. +Furthermore, I have an idea that his arrangements are of such a character +that they MUST go forward. He might turn aside, of course, +to assassinate me, if opportunity arose! But we know, from experience, +that he permits nothing to interfere with his schemes." + +There are few states, I suppose, which exact so severe a toll from one's +nervous system as the ANTICIPATION of calamity. + +All anticipation is keener, be it of joy or pain, than the reality +whereof it is a mental forecast; but that inactive waiting at Redmoat, +for the blow which we knew full well to be pending exceeded in its +nerve taxation, anything, I hitherto had experienced. + +I felt as one bound upon an Aztec altar, with the priest's obsidian +knife raised above my breast! + +Secret and malign forces throbbed about us; forces against which +we had no armor. Dreadful as it was, I count it a mercy that +the climax was reached so quickly. And it came suddenly enough; +for there in that quiet Norfolk home we found ourselves at hand +grips with one of the mysterious horrors which characterized +the operations of Dr. Fu-Manchu. It was upon us before we realized it. +There is no incidental music to the dramas of real life. + +As we sat on the little terrace in the creeping twilight, +I remember thinking how the peace of the scene gave the lie +to my fears that we bordered upon tragic things. Then Caesar, +who had been a docile patient all day, began howling again; +and I saw Greba Eltham shudder. + +I caught Smith's eye, and was about to propose our retirement indoors, +when the party was broken up in more turbulent fashion. I suppose it +was the presence of the girl which prompted Denby to the rash act, +a desire personally to distinguish himself. But, as I recalled afterwards, +his gaze had rarely left the shrubbery since dusk, save to seek her face, +and now he leaped wildly to his feet, overturning his chair, and dashed +across the grass to the trees. + +"Did you see it?" he yelled. "Did you see it?" + +He evidently carried a revolver. For from the edge of the shrubbery +a shot sounded, and in the flash we saw Denby with the weapon raised. + +"Greba, go in and fasten the windows," cried Eltham. +"Mr. Smith, will you enter the bushes from the west. +Dr. Petrie, east. Edwards, Edwards--" And he was off across +the lawn with the nervous activity of a cat. + +As I made off in an opposite direction I heard the gardener's +voice from the lower gate, and I saw Eltham's plan. +It was to surround the shrubbery. + +Two more shots and two flashes from the dense heart of greenwood. +Then a loud cry--I thought, from Denby--and a second, muffled one. + +Following--silence, only broken by the howling of the mastiff. + +I sprinted through the rose garden, leaped heedlessly over a bed of geranium +and heliotrope, and plunged in among the bushes and under the elms. +Away on the left I heard Edwards shouting, and Eltham's answering voice. + +"Denby!" I cried, and yet louder: "Denby!" + +But the silence fell again. + +Dusk was upon Redmoat now, but from sitting in the twilight my eyes had +grown accustomed to gloom, and I could see fairly well what lay before me. +Not daring to think what might lurk above, below, around me, I pressed +on into the midst of the thicket. + +"Vernon!" came Eltham's voice from one side. + +"Bear more to the right, Edwards," I heard Nayland Smith cry +directly ahead of me. + +With an eerie and indescribable sensation of impending disaster upon me, +I thrust my way through to a gray patch which marked a break in the +elmen roof. At the foot of the copper beech I almost fell over Eltham. +Then Smith plunged into view. Lastly, Edwards the gardener rounded a big +rhododendron and completed the party. + +We stood quite still for a moment. + +A faint breeze whispered through the beech leaves. + +"Where is he?" + +I cannot remember who put it into words; I was too dazed with amazement +to notice. Then Eltham began shouting: + +"Vernon! Vernon! VERNON!" + +His voice pitched higher upon each repetition. There was something +horrible about that vain calling, under the whispering beech, +with shrubs banked about us cloaking God alone could know what. + +From the back of the house came Caesar's faint reply. + +"Quick! Lights!" rapped Smith. "Every lamp you have!" + +Off we went, dodging laurels and privets, and poured out on to the lawn, +a disordered company. Eltham's face was deathly pale, and his jaw set hard. +He met my eye. + +"God forgive me!" he said. "I could do murder to-night!" + +He was a man composed of strange perplexities. + +It seemed an age before the lights were found. But at last we returned +to the bushes, really after a very brief delay; and ten minutes +sufficed us to explore the entire shrubbery, for it was not extensive. +We found his revolver, but there was no one there--nothing. + +When we all stood again on the lawn, I thought that I had never seen +Smith so haggard. + +"What in Heaven's name can we do?" he muttered. +"What does it mean?" + +He expected no answer; for there was none to offer one. + +"Search! Everywhere," said Eltham hoarsely. + +He ran off into the rose garden, and began beating about among +the flowers like a madman, muttering: "Vernon! Vernon!" For close +upon an hour we all searched. We searched every square yard, I think, +within the wire fencing, and found no trace. Miss Eltham slipped out +in the confusion, and joined with the rest of us in that frantic hunt. +Some of the servants assisted too. + +It was a group terrified and awestricken which came together +again on the terrace. One and then another would give up, +until only Eltham and Smith were missing. Then they came back +together from examining the steps to the lower gate. + +Eltham dropped on to a rustic seat, and sank his head in his hands. + +Nayland Smith paced up and down like a newly caged animal, +snapping his teeth together and tugging at his ear. + +Possessed by some sudden idea, or pressed to action by his +tumultuous thoughts, he snatched up a lantern and strode silently off +across the grass and to the shrubbery once more. I followed him. +I think his idea was that he might surprise anyone who lurked there. +He surprised himself, and all of us. + +For right at the margin he tripped and fell flat. +I ran to him. + +He had fallen over the body of Denby, which lay there! + +Denby had not been there a few moments before, and how he came +to be there now we dared not conjecture. Mr. Eltham joined us, +uttered one short, dry sob, and dropped upon his knees. +Then we were carrying Denby back to the house, with the mastiff +howling a marche funebre. + +We laid him on the grass where it sloped down from the terrace. +Nayland Smith's haggard face was terrible. But the stark horror of +the thing inspired him to that, which conceived earlier, had saved Denby. +Twisting suddenly to Eltham, he roared in a voice audible beyond the river: + +"Heavens! we are fools! LOOSE THE DOG!" + +"But the dog--" I began. + +Smith clapped his hand over my mouth. + +"I know he's crippled," he whispered. "But if anything human lurks there, +the dog will lead us to it. If a MAN is there, he will fly! Why did +we not think of it before. Fools, fools!" He raised his voice again. +"Keep him on leash, Edwards. He will lead us." + +The scheme succeeded. + +Edwards barely had started on his errand when bells began ridging +inside the house. + +"Wait!" snapped Eltham, and rushed indoors. + +A moment later he was out again, his eyes gleaming madly. +"Above the moat," he panted. And we were off en masse +round the edge of the trees. + +It was dark above the moat; but not so dark as to prevent our +seeing a narrow ladder of thin bamboo joints and silken cord +hanging by two hooks from the top of the twelve-foot wire fence. +There was no sound. + +"He's out!" screamed Eltham. "Down the steps!" + +We all ran our best and swiftest. But Eltham outran us. Like a fury +he tore at bolts and bars, and like a fury sprang out into the road. +Straight and white it showed to the acclivity by the Roman ruin. +But no living thing moved upon it. The distant baying of the dog +was borne to our ears. + +"Curse it! he's crippled," hissed Smith. "Without him, +as well pursue a shadow!" + + +A few hours later the shrubbery yielded up its secret, a simple one enough: +A big cask sunk in a pit, with a laurel shrub cunningly affixed +to its movable lid, which was further disguised with tufts of grass. +A slender bamboo-jointed rod lay near the fence. It had a hook on the top, +and was evidently used for attaching the ladder. + +"It was the end of this ladder which Miss Eltham saw," said Smith, +"as he trailed it behind him into the shrubbery when she interrupted +him in her fathers room. He and whomever he had with him doubtless +slipped in during the daytime--whilst Eltham was absent in London-- +bringing the prepared cask and all necessary implements with them. +They concealed themselves somewhere--probably in the shrubbery-- +and during the night made the cache. The excavated earth would be +disposed of on the flower-beds; the dummy bush they probably had ready. +You see, the problem of getting IN was never a big one. +But owing to the `defenses' it was impossible (whilst Eltham +was in residence at any rate) to get OUT after dark. +For Fu-Manchu's purposes, then, a working-base INSIDE +Redmoat was essential. His servant--for he needed assistance-- +must have been in hiding somewhere outside; Heaven knows where! +During the day they could come or go by the gates, as we +have already noted." + +"You think it was the Doctor himself?" + +"It seems possible. Whom else has eyes like the eyes Miss Eltham +saw from the window last night?" + +Then remains to tell the nature of the outrage whereby Fu-Manchu had planned +to prevent Eltham's leaving England for China. This we learned from Denby. +For Denby was not dead. + +It was easy to divine that he had stumbled upon the fiendish +visitor at the very entrance to his burrow; had been stunned +(judging from the evidence, with a sand-bag), and dragged down into +the cache--to which he must have lain in such dangerous proximity +as to render detection of the dummy bush possible in removing him. +The quickest expedient, then, had been to draw him beneath. +When the search of the shrubbery was concluded, his body had been +borne to the edge of the bushes and laid where we found it. + +Why his life had been spared, I cannot conjecture, but provision +had been made against his recovering consciousness and revealing +the secret of the shrubbery. The ruse of releasing the mastiff alone +had terminated the visit of the unbidden guest within Redmoat. + +Denby made a very slow recovery; and, even when convalescent, +consciously added not one fact to those we already had collated; +his memory had completely deserted him! + +This, in my opinion, as in those of the several specialists consulted, +was due, not to the blow on the head, but to the presence, +slightly below and to the right of the first cervical curve of the spine, +of a minute puncture--undoubtedly caused by a hypodermic syringe. +Then, unconsciously, poor Denby furnished the last link in the chain; +for undoubtedly, by means of this operation, Fu-Manchu had designed +to efface from Eltham's mind his plans of return to Ho-Nan. + +The nature of the fluid which could produce such mental symptoms +was a mystery--a mystery which defied Western science: +one of the many strange secrets of Dr. Fu-Manchu. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +SINCE Nayland Smith's return from Burma I had rarely taken up a paper +without coming upon evidences of that seething which had cast up +Dr. Fu-Manchu. Whether, hitherto, such items had escaped my attention +or had seemed to demand no particular notice, or whether they now became +increasingly numerous, I was unable to determine. + +One evening, some little time after our sojourn in Norfolk, +in glancing through a number of papers which I had brought in with me, +I chanced upon no fewer than four items of news bearing more or less +directly upon the grim business which engaged my friend and I. + +No white man, I honestly believe, appreciates the unemotional cruelty +of the Chinese. Throughout the time that Dr. Fu-Manchu remained in England, +the press preserved a uniform silence upon the subject of his existence. +This was due to Nayland Smith. But, as a result, I feel assured +that my account of the Chinaman's deeds will, in many quarters, +meet with an incredulous reception. + +I had been at work, earlier in the evening, upon the opening +chapters of this chronicle, and I had realized how difficult +it would be for my reader, amid secure and cozy surroundings, +to credit any human being, with a callous villainy great enough +to conceive and to put into execution such a death pest +as that directed against Sir Crichton Davey. + +One would expect God's worst man to shrink from employing-- +against however vile an enemy--such an instrument as the Zayat Kiss. +So thinking, my eye was caught by the following:-- + + +EXPRESS CORRESPONDENT + +NEW YORK. + +"Secret service men of the United States Government are searching +the South Sea Islands for a certain Hawaiian from the island +of Maui, who, it is believed, has been selling poisonous scorpions +to Chinese in Honolulu anxious to get rid of their children. + +"Infanticide, by scorpion and otherwise, among the Chinese, +has increased so terribly that the authorities have started +a searching inquiry, which has led to the hunt for the scorpion +dealer of Maui. + +"Practically all the babies that die mysteriously are unwanted girls, +and in nearly every case the parents promptly ascribe the death to the bite +of a scorpion, and are ready to produce some more or less poisonous insect +in support of the statement. + +"The authorities have no doubt that infanticide by scorpion +bite is a growing practice, and orders have been given to hunt +down the scorpion dealer at any cost." + + +Is it any matter for wonder that such a people had produced a +Fu-Manchu? I pasted the cutting into a scrap-book, determined that, +if I lived to publish my account of those days, I would quote it +therein as casting a sidelight upon Chinese character. + +A Reuter message to The Globe and a paragraph in The +Star also furnished work for my scissors. Here were evidences +of the deep-seated unrest, the secret turmoil, which manifested +itself so far from its center as peaceful England in the person +of the sinister Doctor. + + +"HONG KONG, Friday. + +"Li Hon Hung, the Chinaman who fired at the Governor yesterday, +was charged before the magistrate with shooting at him with +intent to kill, which is equivalent to attempted murder. +The prisoner, who was not defended, pleaded guilty. +The Assistant Crown Solicitor, who prosecuted, asked for a remand +until Monday, which was granted. + +"Snapshots taken by the spectators of the outrage yesterday disclosed +the presence of an accomplice, also armed with a revolver. +It is reported that this man, who was arrested last night, +was in possession of incriminating documentary evidence." + + +Later. + +"Examination of the documents found on Li Hon Hung's accomplice +has disclosed the fact that both men were well financed by +the Canton Triad Society, the directors of which had enjoined +the assassination of Sir F. M. or Mr. C. S., the Colonial Secretary. +In a report prepared by the accomplice for dispatch to Canton, +also found on his person, he expressed regret that the attempt +had failed."--Reuter. + +"It is officially reported in St. Petersburg that a force of Chinese soldiers +and villagers surrounded the house of a Russian subject named Said Effendi, +near Khotan, in Chinese Turkestan. + +"They fired at the house and set it in flames. There were in the house +about 100 Russians, many of whom were killed. + +"The Russian Government has instructed its Minister at Peking to make +the most vigorous representations on the subject."--Reuter. + + +Finally, in a Personal Column, I found the following:-- + +"HO-NAN. Have abandoned visit.--ELTHAM." + + +I had just pasted it into my book when Nayland Smith came in and +threw himself into an arm-chair, facing me across the table. +I showed him the cutting. + +"I am glad, for Eltham's sake--and for the girl's," was his comment. +"But it marks another victory for Fu-Manchu! Just Heaven! Why is +retribution delayed!" + +Smith's darkly tanned face had grown leaner than ever +since he bad begun his fight with the most uncanny opponent, +I suppose, against whom a man ever had pitted himself. +He stood up and began restlessly to pace the room, +furiously stuffing tobacco into his briar. + +"I have seen Sir Lionel Barton," he said abruptly; "and, to put the whole +thing in a nutshell, he has laughed at me! During the months that I +have been wondering where he had gone to he has been somewhere in Egypt. +He certainly bears a charmed life, for on the evidence of his letter +to The Times he has seen things in Tibet which Fu-Manchu would +have the West blind to; in fact, I think he has found a new keyhole +to the gate of the Indian Empire!" + +Long ago we had placed the name of Sir Lionel Barton upon the list of +those whose lives stood between Fu-Manchu and the attainment of his end. +Orientalist and explorer, the fearless traveler who first had penetrated +to Lhassa, who thrice, as a pilgrim, had entered forbidden Mecca, +he now had turned his attention again to Tibet--thereby signing +his own death-warrant. + +"That he has reached England alive is a hopeful sign?" I suggested. + +Smith shook his head, and lighted the blackened briar. + +"England at present is the web," he replied. "The spider will be waiting. +Petrie, I sometimes despair. Sir Lionel is an impossible man to shepherd. +You ought to see his house at Finchley. A low, squat place completely +hemmed in by trees. Damp as a swamp; smells like a jungle. +Everything topsy-turvy. He only arrived to-day, and he is working and eating +(and sleeping I expect), in a study that looks like an earthquake at Sotheby's +auction-rooms. The rest of the house is half a menagerie and half a circus. +He has a Bedouin groom, a Chinese body-servant, and Heaven only knows +what other strange people!" + +"Chinese!" + +"Yes, I saw him; a squinting Cantonese he calls Kwee. I don't like him. +Also, there is a secretary known as Strozza, who has an unpleasant face. +He is a fine linguist, I understand, and is engaged upon the Spanish +notes for Barton's forthcoming book on the Mayapan temples. +By the way, all Sir Lionel's baggage disappeared from the landing-stage-- +including his Tibetan notes." + +"Significant!" + +"Of course. But he argues that he has crossed Tibet from the Kuen-Lun +to the Himalayas without being assassinated, and therefore +that it is unlikely he will meet with that fate in London. +I left him dictating the book from memory, at the rate of about +two hundred words a minute." + +"He is wasting no time." + +"Wasting time! In addition to the Yucatan book and the work on Tibet, +he has to read a paper at the Institute next week about some tomb he has +unearthed in Egypt. As I came away, a van drove up from the docks +and a couple of fellows delivered a sarcophagus as big as a boat. +It is unique, according to Sir Lionel, and will go to the British Museum +after he has examined it. The man crams six months' work into six weeks; +then he is off again." + +"What do you propose to do?" + +"What CAN I do? I know that Fu-Manchu will make an attempt upon him. +I cannot doubt it. Ugh! that house gave me the shudders. +No sunlight, I'll swear, Petrie, can ever penetrate to the rooms, +and when I arrived this afternoon clouds of gnats floated like motes +wherever a stray beam filtered through the trees of the avenue. +There's a steamy smell about the place that is almost malarious, +and the whole of the west front is covered with a sort of +monkey-creeper, which he has imported at some time or other. +It has a close, exotic perfume that is quite in the picture. +I tell you, the place was made for murder." + +"Have you taken any precautions?" + +"I called at Scotland Yard and sent a man down to watch the house, but--" + +He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. + +"What is Sir Lionel like?" + +"A madman, Petrie. A tall, massive man, wearing a dirty +dressing-gown of neutral color; a man with untidy gray hair +and a bristling mustache, keen blue eyes, and a brown skin; +who wears a short beard or rarely shaves--I don't know which. +I left him striding about among the thousand and one curiosities +of that incredible room, picking his way through his antique +furniture, works of reference, manuscripts, mummies, spears, +pottery and what not--sometimes kicking a book from his course, +or stumbling over a stuffed crocodile or a Mexican mask-- +alternately dictating and conversing. Phew!" + +For some time we were silent. + +"Smith" I said, "we are making no headway in this business. +With all the forces arrayed against him, Fu-Manchu still eludes us, +still pursues his devilish, inscrutable way." + +Nayland Smith nodded. + +"And we don't know all," he said. "We mark such and such a man +as one alive to the Yellow Peril, and we warn him--if we have time. +Perhaps he escapes; perhaps he does not. But what do we know, Petrie, +of those others who may die every week by his murderous agency? +We cannot know EVERYONE who has read the riddle of China. +I never see a report of someone found drowned, of an apparent suicide, +of a sudden, though seemingly natural death, without wondering. +I tell you, Fu-Manchu is omnipresent; his tentacles embrace everything. +I said that Sir Lionel must bear a charmed life. The fact that +WE are alive is a miracle." + +He glanced at his watch. + +"Nearly eleven," he said. "But sleep seems a waste of time-- +apart from its dangers." + +We heard a bell ring. A few moments later followed a knock +at the room door. + +"Come in!" I cried. + +A girl entered with a telegram addressed to Smith. +His jaw looked very square in the lamplight, and his eyes shone +like steel as he took it from her and opened the envelope. +He glanced at the form, stood up and passed it to me, +reaching for his hat, which lay upon my writing-table. + +"God help us, Petrie!" he said. + +This was the message: + + +"Sir Lionel Barton murdered. Meet me at his house +at once.--WEYMOUTH, INSPECTOR." + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +ALTHOUGH we avoided all unnecessary delay, it was close upon +midnight when our cab swung round into a darkly shadowed avenue, +at the farther end of which, as seen through a tunnel, +the moonlight glittered upon the windows of Rowan House, +Sir Lionel Barton's home. + +Stepping out before the porch of the long, squat building, I saw +that it was banked in, as Smith had said, by trees and shrubs. +The facade showed mantled in the strange exotic creeper +which he had mentioned, and the air was pungent with an odor +of decaying vegetation, with which mingled the heavy perfume +of the little nocturnal red flowers which bloomed luxuriantly +upon the creeper. + +The place looked a veritable wilderness, and when we were admitted +to the hall by Inspector Weymouth I saw that the interior was in keeping +with the exterior, for the hall was constructed from the model of some +apartment in an Assyrian temple, and the squat columns, the low seats, +the hangings, all were eloquent of neglect, being thickly dust-coated. +The musty smell, too, was almost as pronounced here as outside, +beneath the trees. + +To a library, whose contents overflowed in many literary torrents +upon the floor, the detective conducted us. + +"Good heavens!" I cried, "what's that?" + +Something leaped from the top of the bookcase, ambled silently +across the littered carpet, and passed from the library like a +golden streak. I stood looking after it with startled eyes. +Inspector Weymouth laughed dryly. + +"It's a young puma, or a civet-cat, or something, Doctor," he said. +"This house is full of surprises--and mysteries." + +His voice was not quite steady, I thought, and he carefully closed +the door ere proceeding further. + +"Where is he?" asked Nayland Smith harshly. "How was it done?" + +Weymouth sat down and lighted a cigar which I offered him. + +"I thought you would like to hear what led up to it--so far as we know-- +before seeing him?" + +Smith nodded. + +"Well," continued the Inspector, "the man you arranged to send +down from the Yard got here all right and took up a post in the +road outside, where he could command a good view of the gates. +He saw and heard nothing, until going on for half-past ten, +when a young lady turned up and went in." + +"A young lady?" + +"Miss Edmonds, Sir Lionel's shorthand typist. She had found, +after getting home, that her bag, with her purse in, +was missing, and she came back to see if she had left it here. +She gave the alarm. My man heard the row from the road and came in. +Then he ran out and rang us up. I immediately wired for you." + +"He heard the row, you say. What row?" + +"Miss Edmonds went into violent hysterics!" + +Smith was pacing the room now in tense excitement. + +"Describe what he saw when he came in." + +"He saw a negro footman--there isn't an Englishman in the house-- +trying to pacify the girl out in the hall yonder, and a Malay +and another colored man beating their foreheads and howling. +There was no sense to be got out of any of them, so he started +to investigate for himself. He had taken the bearings of the place +earlier in the evening, and from the light in a window on the ground +floor had located the study; so he set out to look for the door. +When he found it, it was locked from the inside." + +"Well?" + +"He went out and round to the window. There's no blind, and from +the shrubbery you can see into the lumber-room known as the study. +He looked in, as apparently Miss Edmonds had done before him. +What he saw accounted for her hysterics." + +Both Smith and I were hanging upon his words. + +"All amongst the rubbish on the floor a big Egyptian mummy case was +lying on its side, and face downwards, with his arms thrown across it, +lay Sir Lionel Barton." + +"My God! Yes. Go on." + +"There was only a shaded reading-lamp alight, and it stood on a chair, +shining right down on him; it made a patch of light on the floor, +you understand." The Inspector indicated its extent with his bands. +"Well, as the man smashed the glass and got the window open, +and was just climbing in, he saw something else, so he says." + +He paused. + +"What did he see?" demanded Smith shortly. + +"A sort of GREEN MIST, sir. He says it seemed to be alive. +It moved over the floor, about a foot from the ground, going away +from him and towards a curtain at the other end of the study." + +Nayland Smith fixed his eyes upon the speaker. + +"Where did he first see this green mist?" + +"He says, Mr. Smith, that he thinks it came from the mummy case." + +"Yes; go on." + +"It is to his credit that he climbed into the room after +seeing a thing like that. He did. He turned the body over, +and Sir Lionel looked horrible. He was quite dead. +Then Croxted--that's the man's name--went over to this curtain. +There was a glass door--shut. He opened it, and it gave on +a conservatory--a place stacked from the tiled floor to the glass +roof with more rubbish. It was dark inside, but enough light +came from the study--it's really a drawing-room, by the way-- +as he'd turned all the lamps on, to give him another glimpse +of this green, crawling mist. There are three steps to go down. +On the steps lay a dead Chinaman." + +"A dead Chinaman!" + +"A dead CHINAMAN." + +"Doctor seen them?" rapped Smith. + +"Yes; a local man. He was out of his depth, I could see. +Contradicted himself three times. But there's no need for +another opinion--until we get the coroner's." + +"And Croxted?" + +"Croxted was taken ill, Mr. Smith, and had to be sent home in a cab." + +"What ails him?" + +Detective-Inspector Weymouth raised his eyebrows and carefully +knocked the ash from his cigar. + +"He held out until I came, gave me the story, and then fainted right away. +He said that something in the conservatory seemed to get him by the throat." + +"Did he mean that literally?" + +"I couldn't say. We had to send the girl home, too, of course." + +Nayland Smith was pulling thoughtfully at the lobe of his left ear. + +"Got any theory?" he jerked. + +Weymouth shrugged his shoulders. + +"Not one that includes the green mist," he said. +"Shall we go in now?" + +We crossed the Assyrian hall, where the members of that strange +household were gathered in a panic-stricken group. They numbered four. +Two of them were negroes, and two Easterns of some kind. I missed +the Chinaman, Kwee, of whom Smith had spoken, and the Italian secretary; +and from the way in which my friend peered about the shadows +of the hall I divined that he, too, wondered at their absence. +We entered Sir Lionel's study--an apartment which I despair of describing. + +Nayland Smith's words, "an earthquake at Sotheby's auction-rooms," +leaped to my mind at once; for the place was simply stacked +with curious litter--loot of Africa, Mexico and Persia. +In a clearing by the hearth a gas stove stood upon a packing-case, +and about it lay a number of utensils for camp cookery. +The odor of rotting vegetation, mingled with the insistent +perfume of the strange night-blooming flowers, was borne +in through the open window. + +In the center of the floor, beside an overturned sarcophagus, +lay a figure in a neutral-colored dressing-gown, face downwards, +and arms thrust forward and over the side of the ancient +Egyptian mummy case. + +My friend advanced and knelt beside the dead man. + +"Good God!" + +Smith sprang upright and turned with an extraordinary expression +to Inspector Weymouth. + +"You do not know Sir Lionel Barton by sight?" he rapped. + +"No," began Weymouth, "but--" + +"This is not Sir Lionel. This is Strozza, the secretary." + +"What!" shouted Weymouth. + +"Where is the other--the Chinaman--quick!" cried Smith. + +"I have had him left where he was found--on the conservatory steps," +said the Inspector. + +Smith ran across the room to where, beyond the open door, +a glimpse might be obtained of stacked-up curiosities. +Holding back the curtain to allow more light to penetrate, +he bent forward over a crumpled-up figure which lay upon +the steps below. + +"It is!" he cried aloud. "It is Sir Lionel's servant, Kwee." + +Weymouth and I looked at one another across the body of the Italian; +then our eyes turned together to where my friend, grim-faced, stood +over the dead Chinaman. A breeze whispered through the leaves; +a great wave of exotic perfume swept from the open window towards +the curtained doorway. + +It was a breath of the East--that stretched out a yellow hand to the West. +It was symbolic of the subtle, intangible power manifested in Dr. Fu-Manchu, +as Nayland Smith--lean, agile, bronzed with the suns of Burma, was symbolic +of the clean British efficiency which sought to combat the insidious enemy. + +"One thing is evident," said Smith: "no one in the house, Strozza excepted, +knew that Sir Lionel was absent." + +"How do you arrive at that?" asked Weymouth. + +"The servants, in the hall, are bewailing him as dead. +If they had seen him go out they would know that it must +be someone else who lies here." + +"What about the Chinaman?" + +"Since there is no other means of entrance to the conservatory save +through the study, Kwee must have hidden himself there at some time +when his master was absent from the room." + +"Croxted found the communicating door closed. What killed the Chinaman?" + +"Both Miss Edmonds and Croxted found the study door locked from the inside. +What killed Strozza?" retorted Smith. + +"You will have noted," continued the Inspector, "that the secretary is +wearing Sir Lionel's dressing-gown. It was seeing him in that, as she looked +in at the window, which led Miss Edmonds to mistake him for her employer-- +and consequently to put us on the wrong scent." + +"He wore it in order that anybody looking in at the window would +be sure to make that mistake," rapped Smith. + +"Why?" I asked. + +"Because he came here for a felonious purpose. See." Smith stooped +and took up several tools from the litter on the floor. +"There lies the lid. He came to open the sarcophagus. +It contained the mummy of some notable person who flourished +under Meneptah II; and Sir Lionel told me that a number of valuable +ornaments and jewels probably were secreted amongst the wrappings. +He proposed to open the thing and to submit the entire contents +to examination to-night. He evidently changed his mind-- +fortunately for himself." + +I ran my fingers through my hair in perplexity. + +"Then what has become of the mummy?" + +Nayland Smith laughed dryly. + +"It has vanished in the form of a green vapor apparently," he said. +"Look at Strozza's face." + +He turned the body over, and, used as I was to such spectacles, +the contorted features of the Italian filled me with horror, so-- +suggestive were they of a death more than ordinarily violent. I pulled aside +the dressing-gown and searched the body for marks, but failed to find any. +Nayland Smith crossed the room, and, assisted by the detective, +carried Kwee, the Chinaman, into the study and laid him fully in the light. +His puckered yellow face presented a sight even more awful than the other, +and his blue lips were drawn back, exposing both upper and lower teeth. +There were no marks of violence, but his limbs, like Strozza's, had been +tortured during his mortal struggles into unnatural postures. + +The breeze was growing higher, and pungent odor-waves from +the damp shrubbery, bearing, too, the oppressive sweetness of +the creeping, plant, swept constantly through the open window. +Inspector Weymouth carefully relighted his cigar. + +"I'm with you this far, Mr. Smith," he said. "Strozza, knowing Sir +Lionel to be absent, locked himself in here to rifle the mummy case, +for Croxted, entering by way of the window, found the key on the inside. +Strozza didn't know that the Chinaman was hidden in the conservatory--" + +"And Kwee did not dare to show himself, because he too was there +for some mysterious reason of his own," interrupted Smith. + +"Having got the lid off, something,--somebody--" + +"Suppose we say the mummy?" + +Weymouth laughed uneasily. + +"Well, sir, something that vanished from a locked room without +opening the door or the window killed Strozza." + +"And something which, having killed Strozza, next killed the Chinaman, +apparently without troubling to open the door behind which he lay concealed," +Smith continued. "For once in a way, Inspector, Dr. Fu-Manchu has employed +an ally which even his giant will was incapable entirely to subjugate. +What blind force--what terrific agent of death--had he confined +in that sarcophagus!" + +"You think this is the work of Fu-Manchu?" I said. +"If you are correct, his power indeed is more than human." + +Something in my voice, I suppose, brought Smith right about. +He surveyed me curiously. + +"Can you doubt it? The presence of a concealed Chinaman surely +is sufficient. Kwee, I feel assured, was one of the murder group, +though probably he had only recently entered that mysterious service. +He is unarmed, or I should feel disposed to think that his part +was to assassinate Sir Lionel whilst, unsuspecting the presence of a +hidden enemy, he was at work here. Strozza's opening the sarcophagus +clearly spoiled the scheme." + +"And led to the death--" + +"Of a servant of Fu-Manchu. Yes. I am at a loss to account for that." + +"Do you think that the sarcophagus entered into the scheme, Smith?" + +My friend looked at me in evident perplexity. + +"You mean that its arrival at the time when a creature of the Doctor-- +Kwee--was concealed here, may have been a coincidence?" + +I nodded; and Smith bent over the sarcophagus, curiously examining +the garish paintings with which it was decorated inside and out. +It lay sideways upon the floor, and seizing it by its edge, +he turned it over. + +"Heavy," he muttered; "but Strozza must have capsized it as he fell. +He would not have laid it on its side to remove the lid. Hallo!" + +He bent farther forward, catching at a piece of twine, +and out of the mummy case pulled a rubber stopper or "cork." + +"This was stuck in a hole level with the floor of the thing," he said. +"Ugh! it has a disgusting smell." + +I took it from his hands, and was about to examine it, when a loud +voice sounded outside in the hall. The door was thrown open, +and a big man, who, despite the warmth of the weather, +wore a fur-lined overcoat, rushed impetuously into the room. + +"Sir Lionel!" cried Smith eagerly. "I warned you! +And see, you have had a very narrow escape." + +Sir Lionel Barton glanced at what lay upon the floor, +then from Smith to myself, and from me to Inspector Weymouth. +He dropped into one of the few chairs unstacked with books. + +"Mr. Smith," he said, with emotion, "what does this mean? +Tell me--quickly." + +In brief terms Smith detailed the happenings of the night-- +or so much as he knew of them. Sir Lionel Barton listened, +sitting quite still the while--an unusual repose in a man +of such evidently tremendous nervous activity. + +"He came for the jewels," he said slowly, when Smith was finished; +and his eyes turned to the body of the dead Italian. +"I was wrong to submit him to the temptation. God knows what +Kwee was doing in hiding. Perhaps he had come to murder me, +as you surmise, Mr. Smith, though I find it hard to believe. +But--I don't think this is the handiwork of your Chinese doctor." +He fixed his gaze upon the sarcophagus. + +Smith stared at him in surprise. "What do you mean, Sir Lionel?" + +The famous traveler continued to look towards the sarcophagus +with something in his blue eyes that might have been dread. + +"I received a wire from Professor Rembold to-night," he continued. +"You were correct in supposing that no one but Strozza knew +of my absence. I dressed hurriedly and met the professor at +the Traveler's. He knew that I was to read a paper next week upon"-- +again he looked toward the mummy case--"the tomb of Mekara; +and he knew that the sarcophagus had been brought, untouched, to England. +He begged me not to open it." + +Nayland Smith was studying the speaker's face. + +"What reason did he give for so extraordinary a request?" he asked. + +Sir Lionel Barton hesitated. + +"One," he replied at last, "which amused me--at the time. I must inform +you that Mekara--whose tomb my agent had discovered during my absence +in Tibet, and to enter which I broke my return journey to Alexandria-- +was a high priest and first prophet of Amen--under the Pharaoh of the Exodus; +in short, one of the magicians who contested in magic arts with Moses. +I thought the discovery unique, until Professor Rembold furnished me +with some curious particulars respecting the death of M. Page le Roi, +the French Egyptologist--particulars new to me." + +We listened in growing surprise, scarcely knowing to what this tended. + +"M. le Roi," continued Barton, "discovered, but kept secret, +the tomb of Amenti--another of this particular brotherhood. +It appears that he opened the mummy case on the spot-- +these priests were of royal line, and are buried in the valley +of Biban-le-Moluk. His Fellah and Arab servants deserted him +for some reason--on seeing the mummy case--and he was found dead, +apparently strangled, beside it. The matter was hushed up +by the Egyptian Government. Rembold could not explain why. +But he begged of me not to open the sarcophagus of Mekara." + +A silence fell. + +The strange facts regarding the sudden death of Page le Roi, +which I now heard for the first time, had impressed me unpleasantly, +coming from a man of Sir Lionel Barton's experience and reputation. + +"How long had it lain in the docks?" jerked Smith. + +"For two days, I believe. I am not a superstitious man, Mr. Smith, +but neither is Professor Rembold, and now that I know the facts +respecting Page le Roi, I can find it in my heart to thank God +that I did not see. . .whatever came out of that sarcophagus." + +Nayland Smith stared him hard in the face. "I am glad you +did not, Sir Lionel," he said; "for whatever the priest Mekara +has to do with the matter, by means of his sarcophagus, +Dr. Fu-Manchu has made his first attempt upon your life. +He has failed, but I hope you will accompany me from here to a hotel. +He will not fail twice." + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +IT was the night following that of the double tragedy at Rowan House. +Nayland Smith, with Inspector Weymouth, was engaged in some mysterious inquiry +at the docks, and I had remained at home to resume my strange chronicle. +And--why should I not confess it?--my memories had frightened me. + +I was arranging my notes respecting the case of Sir Lionel Barton. +They were hopelessly incomplete. For instance, I had jotted down +the following queries:--(1) Did any true parallel exist between the death +of M. Page le Roi and the death of Kwee, the Chinaman, and of Strozza? +(2) What had become of the mummy of Mekara? (3) How had the murderer +escaped from a locked room? (4) What was the purpose of the rubber stopper? +(5) Why was Kwee hiding in the conservatory? (6) Was the green mist +a mere subjective hallucination--a figment of Croxted's imagination-- +or had he actually seen it? + +Until these questions were satisfactorily answered, further progress +was impossible. Nayland Smith frankly admitted that he was out of his depth. +"It looks, on the face of it, more like a case for the Psychical +Research people than for a plain Civil Servant, lately of Mandalay," +he had said only that morning. + +"Sir Lionel Barton really believes that supernatural agencies were +brought into operation by the opening of the high priest's coffin. +For my part, even if I believed the same, I should still maintain +that Dr. Fu-Manchu controlled those manifestations. But reason +it out for yourself and see if we arrive at any common center. +Don't work so much upon the datum of the green mist, but keep +to the FACTS which are established." + +I commenced to knock out my pipe in the ash-tray; then paused, +pipe in hand. The house was quite still, for my landlady +and all the small household were out. + +Above the noise of the passing tramcar I thought I had heard the hall +door open. In the ensuing silence I sat and listened. + +Not a sound. Stay! I slipped my hand into the table drawer, +took out my revolver, and stood up. + +There WAS a sound. Someone or something was creeping upstairs +in the dark! + +Familiar with the ghastly media employed by the Chinaman, I was seized +with an impulse to leap to the door, shut and lock it. But the rustling +sound proceeded, now, from immediately outside my partially opened door. +I had not the time to close it; knowing somewhat of the horrors +at the command of Fu-Manchu, I had not the courage to open it. +My heart leaping wildly, and my eyes upon that bar of darkness with its +gruesome potentialities, I waited--waited for whatever was to come. +Perhaps twelve seconds passed in silence. + +"Who's there?" I cried. "Answer, or I fire!" + +"Ah! no," came a soft voice, thrillingly musical. "Put it down-- +that pistol. Quick! I must speak to you." + +The door was pushed open, and there entered a slim figure wrapped +in a hooded cloak. My hand fell, and I stood, stricken to silence, +looking into the beautiful dark eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu's messenger-- +if her own statement could be credited, slave. On two occasions +this girl, whose association with the Doctor was one of the most +profound mysteries of the case, had risked--I cannot say what; +unnameable punishment, perhaps--to save me from death; in both cases +from a terrible death. For what was she come now? + +Her lips slightly parted, she stood, holding her cloak about her, +and watching me with great passionate eyes. + +"How--" I began. + +But she shook her head impatiently. + +"HE has a duplicate key of the house door," was her amazing statement. +"I have never betrayed a secret of my master before, but you must arrange +to replace the lock." + +She came forward and rested her slim hands confidingly upon my shoulders. +"I have come again to ask you to take me away from him," she said simply. + +And she lifted her face to me. + +Her words struck a chord in my heart which sang with strange music, +with music so barbaric that, frankly, I blushed to find it harmony. +Have I said that she was beautiful? It can convey no faint +conception of her. With her pure, fair skin, eyes like the velvet +darkness of the East, and red lips so tremulously near to mine, +she was the most seductively lovely creature I ever had looked upon. +In that electric moment my heart went out in sympathy to every man +who had bartered honor, country, all for a woman's kiss. + +"I will see that you are placed under proper protection," +I said firmly, but my voice was not quite my own. +"It is quite absurd to talk of slavery here in England. +You are a free agent, or you could not be here now. +Dr. Fu-Manchu cannot control your actions." + +"Ah!" she cried, casting back her head scornfully, and releasing a cloud +of hair, through whose softness gleamed a jeweled head-dress. "No? +He cannot? Do you know what it means to have been a slave? +Here, in your free England, do you know what it means--the razzia, +the desert journey, the whips of the drivers, the house of the dealer, +the shame. Bah!" + +How beautiful she was in her indignation! + +"Slavery is put down, you imagine, perhaps? You do not believe that +to-day--TO-DAY--twenty-five English sovereigns will buy a Galla girl, +who is brown, and"--whisper--"two hundred and fifty a Circassian, +who is white. No, there is no slavery! So! Then what am I?" + +She threw open her cloak, and it is a literal fact that I rubbed my eyes, +half believing that I dreamed. For beneath, she was arrayed in gossamer +silk which more than indicated the perfect lines of her slim shape; +wore a jeweled girdle and barbaric ornaments; was a figure fit for the walled +gardens of Stamboul--a figure amazing, incomprehensible, in the prosaic +setting of my rooms. + +"To-night I had no time to make myself an English miss," +she said, wrapping her cloak quickly about her. +"You see me as I am." Her garments exhaled a faint perfume, +and it reminded me of another meeting I had had with her. +I looked into the challenging eyes. + +"Your request is but a pretense," I said. "Why do you keep the secrets +of that man, when they mean death to so many?" + +"Death! I have seen my own sister die of fever in the desert-- +seen her thrown like carrion into a hole in the sand. +I have seen men flogged until they prayed for death as a boon. +I have known the lash myself. Death! What does it matter?" + +She shocked me inexpressibly. Enveloped in her cloak again, +and with only her slight accent to betray her, it was dreadful +to hear such words from a girl who, save for her singular type +of beauty, might have been a cultured European. + +"Prove, then, that you really wish to leave this man's service. +Tell me what killed Strozza and the Chinaman," I said. + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"I do not know that. But if you will carry me off"--she clutched me +nervously--"so that I am helpless, lock me up so that I cannot escape, +beat me, if you like, I will tell you all I do know. While he is +my master I will never betray him. Tear me from him--by force, +do you understand, BY FORCE, and my lips will be sealed no longer. +Ah! but you do not understand, with your `proper authorities'-- +your police. Police! Ah, I have said enough." + +A clock across the common began to strike. The girl +started and laid her hands upon my shoulders again. +There were tears glittering among the curved black lashes. + +"You do not understand," she whispered. "Oh, will you +never understand and release me from him! I must go. +Already I have remained too long. Listen. Go out without delay. +Remain out--at a hotel, where you will, but do not stay here." + +"And Nayland Smith?" + +"What is he to me, this Nayland Smith? Ah, why will you not unseal my lips? +You are in danger--you hear me, in danger! Go away from here to-night." + +She dropped her hands and ran from the room. In the open doorway she turned, +stamping her foot passionately. + +"You have hands and arms," she cried, "and yet you let me go. +Be warned, then; fly from here--" She broke off with something +that sounded like a sob. + +I made no move to stay her--this beautiful accomplice of the arch-murderer, +Fu-Manchu. I heard her light footsteps paltering down the stairs, I heard +her open and close the door--the door of which Dr. Fu-Manchu held the key. +Still I stood where she had parted from me, and was so standing when a key +grated in the lock and Nayland Smith came running up. + +"Did you see her?" I began. + +But his face showed that he had not done so, and rapidly I told +him of my strange visitor, of her words, of her warning. + +"How can she have passed through London in that costume?" +I cried in bewilderment. "Where can she have come from?" + +Smith shrugged his shoulders and began to stuff broad-cut mixture +into the familiar cracked briar. + +"She might have traveled in a car or in a cab," he said; +"and undoubtedly she came direct from the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu. +You should have detained her, Petrie. It is the third time we +have had that woman in our power, the third time we have let +her go free." + +"Smith," I replied, "I couldn't. She came of her own free will to give +me a warning. She disarms me." + +"Because you can see she is in love with you?" he suggested, and burst +into one of his rare laughs when the angry flush rose to my cheek. +"She is, Petrie why pretend to be blind to it? You don't know +the Oriental mind as I do; but I quite understand the girl's position. +She fears the English authorities, but would submit to capture by you! +If you would only seize her by the hair, drag her to some cellar, +hurl her down and stand over her with a whip, she would tell you +everything she knows, and salve her strange Eastern conscience with +the reflection that speech was forced from her. I am not joking; +it is so, I assure you. And she would adore you for your savagery, +deeming you forceful and strong!" + +"Smith," I said, "be serious. You know what her warning meant before." + +"I can guess what it means now," he rapped. "Hallo!" + +Someone was furiously ringing the bell. + +"No one at home?" said my friend. "I will go. I think I know +what it is." + +A few minutes later he returned, carrying a large square package. + +"From Weymouth," he explained, "by district messenger. +I left him behind at the docks, and he arranged to forward any +evidence which subsequently he found. This will be fragments +of the mummy." + +"What! You think the mummy was abstracted?" + +"Yes, at the docks. I am sure of it; and somebody else +was in the sarcophagus when it reached Rowan House. +A sarcophagus, I find, is practically airtight, so that the use +of the rubber stopper becomes evident--ventilation. How this +person killed Strozza I have yet to learn." + +"Also, how he escaped from a locked room. And what about the green mist?" + +Nayland Smith spread his hands in a characteristic gesture. + +"The green mist, Petrie, can be explained in several ways. +Remember, we have only one man's word that it existed. +It is at best a confusing datum to which we must not attach +a fictitious importance." + +He threw the wrappings on the floor and tugged at a twine loop +in the lid of the square box, which now stood upon the table. +Suddenly the lid came away, bringing with it a lead lining, +such as is usual in tea-chests. This lining was partially attached +to one side of the box, so that the action of removing the lid +at once raised and tilted it. + +Then happened a singular thing. + +Out over the table billowed a sort of yellowish-green cloud-- +an oily vapor--and an inspiration, it was nothing less, +born of a memory and of some words of my beautiful visitor, +came to me. + +"RUN, SMITH!" I screamed. "The door! the door, for your life! +Fu-Manchu sent that box!" I threw my arms round him. +As he bent forward the moving vapor rose almost to his nostrils. +I dragged him back and all but pitched him out on to the landing. +We entered my bedroom, and there, as I turned on the light, +I saw that Smith's tanned face was unusually drawn, +and touched with pallor. + +"It is a poisonous gas!" I said hoarsely; "in many respects +identical with chlorine, but having unique properties which prove +it to be something else--God and Fu-Manchu, alone know what! +It is the fumes of chlorine that kill the men in the bleaching +powder works. We have been blind--I particularly. Don't you see? +There was no one in the sarcophagus, Smith, but there was enough +of that fearful stuff to have suffocated a regiment!" + +Smith clenched his fists convulsively. + +"My God!" he said, "how can I hope to deal with the author of such a scheme? +I see the whole plan. He did not reckon on the mummy case being overturned, +and Kwee's part was to remove the plug with the aid of the string--after Sir +Lionel had been suffocated. The gas, I take it, is heavier than air." + +"Chlorine gas has a specific gravity of 2.470," I said; +"two and a half times heavier than air. You can pour it from +jar to jar like a liquid--if you are wearing a chemist's mask. +In these respects this stuff appears to be similar; the points +of difference would not interest you. The sarcophagus would +have emptied through the vent, and the gas have dispersed, +with no clew remaining--except the smell." + +"I did smell it, Petrie, on the stopper, but, of course, +was unfamiliar with it. You may remember that you were +prevented from doing so by the arrival of Sir Lionel? +The scent of those infernal flowers must partially have +drowned it, too. Poor, misguided Strozza inhaled the stuff, +capsized the case in his fall, and all the gas--" + +"Went pouring under the conservatory door, and down the steps, where Kwee +was crouching. Croxted's breaking the window created sufficient draught +to disperse what little remained. It will have settled on the floor now. +I will go and open both windows." + +Nayland raised his haggard face. + +"He evidently made more than was necessary to dispatch Sir Lionel Barton," +he said; "and contemptuously--you note the attitude, Petrie?-- +contemptuously devoted the surplus to me. His contempt is justified. +I am a child striving to cope with a mental giant. It is by no wit +of mine that Dr. Fu-Manchu scores a double failure." + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +I WILL tell you, now of a strange dream which I dreamed, and of the stranger +things to which I awakened. Since, out of a blank--a void--this vision +burst in upon my mind, I cannot do better than relate it, without preamble. +It was thus: + +I dreamed that I lay writhing on the floor in agony indescribable. +My veins were filled with liquid fire, and but that stygian darkness +was about me, I told myself that I must have seen the smoke arising +from my burning body. + +This, I thought, was death. + +Then, a cooling shower descended upon me, soaked through skin +and tissue to the tortured arteries and quenched the fire within. +Panting, but free from pain, I lay--exhausted. + +Strength gradually returning to me, I tried to rise; but the carpet +felt so singularly soft that it offered me no foothold. +I waded and plunged like a swimmer treading water; and all about me +rose impenetrable walls of darkness, darkness all but palpable. +I wondered why I could not see the windows. The horrible idea +flashed to my mind that I was become blind! + +Somehow I got upon my feet, and stood swaying dizzily. +I became aware of a heavy perfume, and knew it for some +kind of incense. + +Then--a dim light was born, at an immeasurable distance away. +It grew steadily in brilliance. It spread like a bluish-red stain-- +like a liquid. It lapped up the darkness and spread throughout the room. + +But this was not my room! Nor was it any room known to me. + +It was an apartment of such size that its dimensions filled me with a +kind of awe such as I never had known: the awe of walled vastness. +Its immense extent produced a sensation of sound. Its hugeness had +a distinct NOTE. + +Tapestries covered the four walls. There was no door visible. +These tapestries were magnificently figured with golden dragons; +and as the serpentine bodies gleamed and shimmered in the +increasing radiance, each dragon, I thought, intertwined its +glittering coils more closely with those of another. +The carpet was of such richness that I stood knee-deep in its pile. +And this, too, was fashioned all over with golden dragons; and they +seemed to glide about amid the shadows of the design--stealthily. + +At the farther end of the hall--for hall it was--a huge table +with dragons' legs stood solitary amid the luxuriance of the carpet. +It bore scintillating globes, and tubes that held living organisms, +and books of a size and in such bindings as I never had imagined, +with instruments of a type unknown to Western science--a heterogeneous +litter quite indescribable, which overflowed on to the floor, +forming an amazing oasis in a dragon-haunted desert of carpet. +A lamp hung above this table, suspended by golden chains from +the ceiling-which was so lofty that, following the chains upward, +my gaze lost itself in the purple shadows above. + +In a chair piled high with dragon-covered cushions a man sat +behind this table. The light from the swinging lamp fell fully +upon one side of his face, as he leaned forward amid the jumble +of weird objects, and left the other side in purplish shadow. +From a plain brass bowl upon the corner of the huge table smoke +writhed aloft and at times partially obscured that dreadful face. + +From the instant that my eyes were drawn to the table and to the man +who sat there, neither the incredible extent of the room, nor the nightmare +fashion of its mural decorations, could reclaim my attention. +I had eyes only for him. + +For it was Dr. Fu-Manchu! + +Something of the delirium which had seemed to fill my veins +with fire, to people the walls with dragons, and to plunge me +knee-deep in the carpet, left me. Those dreadful, filmed green +eyes acted somewhat like a cold douche. I knew, without removing +my gaze from the still face, that the walls no longer lived, +but were merely draped in exquisite Chinese dragon tapestry. +The rich carpet beneath my feet ceased to be as a jungle and became +a normal carpet--extraordinarily rich, but merely a carpet. +But the sense of vastness nevertheless remained, with the uncomfortable +knowledge that the things upon the table and overflowing about it +were all, or nearly all, of a fashion strange to me. + +Then, and almost instantaneously, the comparative sanity which I had +temporarily experienced began to slip from me again; for the smoke +faintly penciled through the air--from the burning perfume on the table-- +grew in volume, thickened, and wafted towards me in a cloud of gray horror. +It enveloped me, clammily. Dimly, through its oily wreaths, I saw +the immobile yellow face of Fu-Manchu. And my stupefied brain acclaimed him +a sorcerer, against whom unwittingly we had pitted our poor human wits. +The green eyes showed filmy through the fog. An intense pain shot +through my lower limbs, and, catching my breath, I looked down. +As I did so, the points of the red slippers which I dreamed that I wore +increased in length, curled sinuously upward, twined about my throat +and choked the breath from my body! + +Came an interval, and then a dawning like consciousness; +but it was a false consciousness, since it brought with it the idea +that my head lay softly pillowed and that a woman's hand caressed +my throbbing forehead. Confusedly, as though in the remote past, +I recalled a kiss--and the recollection thrilled me strangely. +Dreamily content I lay, and a voice stole to my ears: + +"They are killing him! they are killing him! Oh! do you not understand?" +In my dazed condition, I thought that it was I who had died, and that this +musical girl-voice was communicating to me the fact of my own dissolution. + +But I was conscious of no interest in the matter. + +For hours and hours, I thought, that soothing hand caressed me. +I never once raised my heavy lids, until there came a resounding +crash that seemed to set my very bones vibrating--a metallic, +jangling crash, as the fall of heavy chains. I thought that, then, +I half opened my eyes, and that in the dimness I had a fleeting +glimpse of a figure clad in gossamer silk, with arms covered +with barbaric bangles and slim ankles surrounded by gold bands. +The girl was gone, even as I told myself that she was an houri, +and that I, though a Christian, had been consigned by some error +to the paradise of Mohammed. + +Then--a complete blank. + + +My head throbbed madly; my brain seemed to be clogged--inert; and though +my first, feeble movement was followed by the rattle of a chain, some moments +more elapsed ere I realized that the chain was fastened to a steel collar-- +that the steel collar was clasped about my neck. + +I moaned weakly. + +"Smith!" I muttered, "Where are you? Smith!" + +On to my knees I struggled, and the pain on the top of my skull grew +all but insupportable. It was coming back to me now; how Nayland Smith +and I had started for the hotel to warn Graham Guthrie; how, as we +passed up the steps from the Embankment and into Essex Street, +we saw the big motor standing before the door of one of the offices. +I could recall coming up level with the car--a modern limousine; +but my mind retained no impression of our having passed it-- +only a vague memory of a rush of footsteps--a blow. Then, my vision +of the hall of dragons, and now this real awakening to a worse reality. + +Groping in the darkness, my hands touched a body that lay close beside me. +My fingers sought and found the throat, sought and found the steel +collar about it. + +"Smith," I groaned; and I shook the still form. "Smith, old man-- +speak to me! Smith!" + +Could he be dead? Was this the end of his gallant fight with Dr. Fu-Manchu +and the murder group? If so, what did the future hold for me-- +what had I to face? + +He stirred beneath my trembling hands. + +"Thank God!" I muttered, and I cannot deny that my joy was tainted +with selfishness. For, waking in that impenetrable darkness, and yet obsessed +with the dream I had dreamed, I had known what fear meant, at the realization +that alone, chained, I must face the dreadful Chinese doctor in the flesh. +Smith began incoherent mutterings. + +"Sand-bagged!. . .Look out, Petrie!. . .He has us at last!. . .Oh, Heavens!" +. . .He struggled on to his knees, clutching at my hand. + +"All right, old man," I said. "We are both alive! +So let's be thankful." + +A moment's silence, a groan, then: + +"Petrie, I have dragged you into this. God forgive me--" + +"Dry up, Smith," I said slowly. "I'm not a child. +There is no question of being dragged into the matter. +I'm here; and if I can be of any use, I'm glad I am here!" + +He grasped my hand. + +"There were two Chinese, in European clothes--lord, how my head throbs!-- +in that office door. They sand-bagged us, Petrie--think of it!-- +in broad daylight, within hail of the Strand! We were rushed +into the car--and it was all over, before--" His voice grew faint. +"God! they gave me an awful knock!" + +"Why have we been spared, Smith? Do you think he is saving us for--" + +"Don't, Petrie! If you had been in China, if you had seen +what I have seen--" + +Footsteps sounded on the flagged passage. A blade of light crept +across the floor towards us. My brain was growing clearer. +The place had a damp, earthen smell. It was slimy--some noisome cellar. +A door was thrown open and a man entered, carrying a lantern. +Its light showed my surmise to be accurate, showed the +slime-coated walls of a dungeon some fifteen feet square-- +shone upon the long yellow robe of the man who stood watching us, +upon the malignant, intellectual countenance. + +It was Dr. Fu-Manchu. + +At last they were face to face--the head of the great Yellow Movement, +and the man who fought on behalf of the entire white race. +How can I paint the individual who now stood before us-- +perhaps the greatest genius of modern times? + +Of him it Had been fitly said that he had a brow like Shakespeare and a face +like Satan. Something serpentine, hypnotic, was in his very presence. +Smith drew one sharp breath, and was silent. Together, chained to the wall, +two mediaeval captives, living mockeries of our boasted modern security, +we crouched before Dr. Fu-Manchu. + +He came forward with an indescribable gait, cat-like yet awkward, +carrying his high shoulders almost hunched. He placed the lantern +in a niche in the wall, never turning away the reptilian gaze +of those eyes which must haunt my dreams forever. They possessed +a viridescence which hitherto I had supposed possible only in the eye +of the cat--and the film intermittently clouded their brightness-- +but I can speak of them no more. + +I had never supposed, prior to meeting Dr. Fu-Manchu, that so intense +a force of malignancy could radiate--from any human being. He spoke. +His English was perfect, though at times his words were oddly chosen; +his delivery alternately was guttural and sibilant. + +"Mr. Smith and Dr. Petrie, your interference with my plans has gone too far. +I have seriously turned my attention to you." + +He displayed his teeth, small and evenly separated, +but discolored in a way that was familiar to me. +I studied his eyes with a new professional interest, +which even the extremity of our danger could not wholly banish. +Their greenness seemed to be of the iris; the pupil was +oddly contracted--a pin-point. + +Smith leaned his back against the wall with assumed indifference. + +"You have presumed," continued Fu-Manchu, "to meddle with a +world-change. Poor spiders--caught in the wheels of the inevitable! +You have linked my name with the futility of the Young China Movement-- +the name of Fu-Manchu! Mr. Smith, you are an incompetent meddler-- +I despise you! Dr. Petrie, you are a fool--I am sorry for you!" + +He rested one bony hand on his hip, narrowing the long +eyes as he looked down on us. The purposeful cruelty +of the man was inherent; it was entirely untheatrical. +Still Smith remained silent. + +"So I am determined to remove you from the scene of your blunders!" +added Fu-Manchu. + +"Opium will very shortly do the same for you!" I rapped at him savagely. + +Without emotion he turned the narrowed eyes upon me. + +"That is a matter of opinion, Doctor," he said. "You may have lacked +the opportunities which have been mine for studying that subject-- +and in any event I shall not be privileged to enjoy your advice +in the future." + +"You will not long outlive me," I replied. "And our deaths will not +profit you, incidentally; because--" Smith's foot touched mine. + +"Because?" inquired Fu-Manchu softly. + +"Ah! Mr. Smith is so prudent! He is thinking that I have FILES!" +He pronounced the word in a way that made me shudder. "Mr. Smith +has seen a WIRE JACKET! Have you ever seen a wire jacket? +As a surgeon its functions would interest you!" + +I stifled a cry that rose to my lips; for, with a shrill whistling sound, +a small shape came bounding into the dimly lit vault, then shot upward. +A marmoset landed on the shoulder of Dr. Fu-Manchu and peered grotesquely +into the dreadful yellow face. The Doctor raised his bony hand and fondled +the little creature, crooning to it. + +"One of my pets, Mr. Smith," he said, suddenly opening +his eyes fully so that they blazed like green lamps. +"I have others, equally useful. My scorpions--have you +met my scorpions? No? My pythons and hamadryads? +Then there are my fungi and my tiny allies, the bacilli. +I have a collection in my laboratory quite unique. Have you ever +visited Molokai, the leper island, Doctor? No? But Mr. Nayland +Smith will be familiar with the asylum at Rangoon! +And we must not forget my black spiders, with their diamond eyes-- +my spiders, that sit in the dark and watch--then leap!" + +He raised his lean hands, so that the sleeve of the robe fell back +to the elbow, and the ape dropped, chattering, to the floor and ran +from the cellar. + +"O God of Cathay!" he cried, "by what death shall these die-- +these miserable ones who would bind thine Empire, which is boundless!" + +Like some priest of Tezcat he stood, his eyes upraised to the roof, +his lean body quivering--a sight to shock the most unimpressionable mind. + +"He is mad!" I whispered to Smith. "God help us, the man +is a dangerous homicidal maniac!" + +Nayland Smith's tanned face was very drawn, but he shook his head grimly. + +"Dangerous, yes, I agree," he muttered; "his existence is a danger +to the entire white race which, now, we are powerless to avert." + +Dr. Fu-Manchu recovered himself, took up the lantern and, +turning abruptly, walked to the door, with his awkward, yet feline gait. +At the threshold be looked back. + +"You would have warned Mr. Graham Guthrie?" he said, in a soft voice. +"To-night, at half-past twelve, Mr. Graham Guthrie dies!" + +Smith sat silent and motionless, his eyes fixed upon the speaker. + +"You were in Rangoon in 1908?" continued Dr. Fu-Manchu-- +"you remember the Call?" + +From somewhere above us--I could not determine the exact direction-- +came a low, wailing cry, an uncanny thing of falling cadences, which, in that +dismal vault, with the sinister yellow-robed figure at the door, seemed to +pour ice into my veins. Its effect upon Smith was truly extraordinary. +His face showed grayly in the faint light, and I heard him draw a hissing +breath through clenched teeth. + +"It calls for you!" said Fu-Manchu. "At half-past twelve it calls +for Graham Guthrie!" + +The door closed and darkness mantled us again. + +"Smith," I said, "what was that?" The horrors about us were playing +havoc with my nerves. + +"It was the Call of Siva!" replied Smith hoarsely. + +"What is it? Who uttered it? What does it mean?" + +"I don't know what it is, Petrie, nor who utters it. +But it means death!" + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +THERE may be some who could have lain, chained to that noisome cell, +and felt no fear--no dread of what the blackness might hold. +I confess that I am not one of these. I knew that Nayland +Smith and I stood in the path of the most stupendous genius +who in the world's history had devoted his intellect to crime. +I knew that the enormous wealth of the political group backing +Dr. Fu-Manchu rendered him a menace to Europe and to America +greater than that of the plague. He was a scientist trained +at a great university--an explorer of nature's secrets, who had +gone farther into the unknown, I suppose, than any living man. +His mission was to remove all obstacles--human obstacles-- +from the path of that secret movement which was progressing +in the Far East. Smith and I were two such obstacles; +and of all the horrible devices at his command, I wondered, +and my tortured brain refused to leave the subject, by which +of them were we doomed to be dispatched? + +Even at that very moment some venomous centipede might +be wriggling towards me over the slime of the stones, +some poisonous spider be preparing to drop from the roof! +Fu-Manchu might have released a serpent in the cellar, +or the air be alive with microbes of a loathsome disease! + +"Smith," I said, scarcely recognizing my own voice, "I can't bear +this suspense. He intends to kill us, that is certain, but--" + +"Don't worry," came the reply; "he intends to learn our plans first." + +"You mean--?" + +"You heard him speak of his files and of his wire jacket?" + +"Oh, my God!" I groaned; "can this be England?" + +Smith laughed dryly, and I heard him fumbling with the steel +collar about his neck. + +"I have one great hope," he said, "since you share +my captivity, but we must neglect no minor chance. +Try with your pocket-knife if you can force the lock. +I am trying to break this one." + +Truth to tell, the idea had not entered my half-dazed mind, but I +immediately acted upon my friend's suggestion, setting to work with +the small blade of my knife. I was so engaged, and, having snapped +one blade, was about to open another, when a sound arrested me. +It came from beneath my feet. + +"Smith," I whispered, "listen!" + +The scraping and clicking which told of Smith's efforts ceased. +Motionless, we sat in that humid darkness and listened. + +Something was moving beneath the stones of the cellar. +I held my breath; every nerve in my body was strung up. + +A line of light showed a few feet from where we lay. +It widened--became an oblong. A trap was lifted, +and within a yard of me, there rose a dimly seen head. +Horror I had expected--and death, or worse. Instead, I saw +a lovely face, crowned with a disordered mass of curling hair; +I saw a white arm upholding the stone slab, a shapely arm +clasped about the elbow by a broad gold bangle. + +The girl climbed into the cellar and placed the lantern on the stone floor. +In the dim light she was unreal--a figure from an opium vision, with her +clinging silk draperies and garish jewelry, with her feet encased in little +red slippers. In short, this was the houri of my vision, materialized. +It was difficult to believe that we were in modern, up-to-date England; +easy to dream that we were the captives of a caliph, in a dungeon +in old Bagdad. + +"My prayers are answered," said Smith softly. "She has come +to save YOU." + +"S-sh!" warned the girl, and her wonderful eyes opened widely, fearfully. +"A sound and he will kill us all." + +She bent over me; a key jarred in the lock which had broken my penknife-- +and the collar was off. As I rose to my feet the girl turned and +released Smith. She raised the lantern above the trap, and signed +to us to descend the wooden steps which its light revealed. + +"Your knife," she whispered to me. "Leave it on the floor. +He will think you forced the locks. Down! Quickly!" + +Nayland Smith, stepping gingerly, disappeared into the darkness. +I rapidly followed. Last of all came our mysterious friend, a gold band about +one of her ankles gleaming in the rays of the lantern which she carried. +We stood in a low-arched passage. + +"Tie your handkerchiefs over your eyes and do exactly as I +tell you," she ordered. + +Neither of us hesitated to obey her. Blind-folded, I allowed +her to lead me, and Smith rested his hand upon my shoulder. +In that order we proceeded, and came to stone steps, +which we ascended. + +"Keep to the wall on the left," came a whisper. +"There is danger on the right." + +With my free hand I felt for and found the wall, and we pressed forward. +The atmosphere of the place through which we were passing was steamy, +and loaded with an odor like that of exotic plant life. But a faint animal +scent crept to my nostrils, too, and there was a subdued stir about me, +infinitely suggestive--mysterious. + +Now my feet sank in a soft carpet, and a curtain brushed my shoulder. +A gong sounded. We stopped. + +The din of distant drumming came to my ears. + +"Where in Heaven's name are we?" hissed Smith in my ear; +"that is a tom-tom!" + +"S-sh! S-sh!" + +The little hand grasping mine quivered nervously. We were near a door +or a window, for a breath of perfume was wafted through the air; +and it reminded me of my other meetings with the beautiful woman +who was now leading us from the house of Fu-Manchu; who, with her +own lips, had told me that she was his slave. Through the horrible +phantasmagoria she flitted--a seductive vision, her piquant loveliness +standing out richly in its black setting of murder and devilry. +Not once, but a thousand times, I had tried to reason out the nature +of the tie which bound her to the sinister Doctor. + +Silence fell. + +"Quick! This way!" + +Down a thickly carpeted stair we went. Our guide opened a door, and led us +along a passage. Another door was opened; and we were in the open air. +But the girl never tarried, pulling me along a graveled path, with a fresh +breeze blowing in my face, and along until, unmistakably, I stood upon +the river bank. Now, planking creaked to our tread; and looking downward +beneath the handkerchief, I saw the gleam of water beneath my feet. + +"Be careful!" I was warned, and found myself stepping into +a narrow boat--a punt. + +Nayland Smith followed, and the girl pushed the punt off and poled +out into the stream. + +"Don't speak!" she directed. + +My brain was fevered; I scarce knew if I dreamed and was waking, +or if the reality ended with my imprisonment in the clammy cellar +and this silent escape, blindfolded, upon the river with a girl for our +guide who might have stepped out of the pages of "The Arabian Nights" +were fantasy--the mockery of sleep. + +Indeed, I began seriously to doubt if this stream whereon we floated, +whose waters plashed and tinkled about us, were the Thames, the Tigris, +or the Styx. + +The punt touched a bank. + +"You will hear a clock strike in a few minutes," +said the girl, with her soft, charming accent, "but I rely +upon your honor not to remove the handkerchiefs until then. +You owe me this." + +"We do!" said Smith fervently. + +I heard him scrambling to the bank, and a moment later a soft hand +was placed in mine, and I, too, was guided on to terra firma. +Arrived on the bank, I still held the girl's hand, drawing her towards me. + +"You must not go back," I whispered. "We will take care of you. +You must not return to that place." + +"Let me go!" she said. "When, once, I asked you to take me from him, +you spoke of police protection; that was your answer, police protection! +You would let them lock me up--imprison me--and make me betray him! +For what? For what?" She wrenched herself free. "How little +you understand me. Never mind. Perhaps one day you will know! +Until the clock strikes!" + +She was gone. I heard the creak of the punt, the drip of the water +from the pole. Fainter it grew, and fainter. + +"What is her secret?" muttered Smith, beside me. +"Why does she cling to that monster?" + +The distant sound died away entirely. A clock began to strike; +it struck the half-hour. In an instant my handkerchief was off, +and so was Smith's. We stood upon a towing-path. Away to the left +the moon shone upon the towers and battlements of an ancient fortress. + +It was Windsor Castle. + +"Half-past ten," cried Smith. "Two hours to save Graham Guthrie!" + +We had exactly fourteen minutes in which to catch the last +train to Waterloo; and we caught it. But I sank into a corner +of the compartment in a state bordering upon collapse. +Neither of us, I think, could have managed another twenty yards. +With a lesser stake than a human life at issue, I doubt if we +should have attempted that dash to Windsor station. + +"Due at Waterloo at eleven-fifty-one," panted Smith. +"That gives us thirty-nine minutes to get to the other side +of the river and reach his hotel." + +"Where in Heaven's name is that house situated? +Did we come up or down stream?" + +"I couldn't determine. But at any rate, it stands close to the riverside. +It should be merely a question of time to identify it. I shall set +Scotland Yard to work immediately; but I am hoping for nothing. +Our escape will warn him." + +I said no more for a time, sitting wiping the perspiration +from my forehead and watching my friend load his cracked briar +with the broadcut Latakia mixture. + +"Smith," I said at last, "what was that horrible wailing we heard, +and what did Fu-Manchu mean when he referred to Rangoon? +I noticed how it affected you." + +My friend nodded and lighted his pipe. + +"There was a ghastly business there in 1908 or early in 1909," +he replied: "an utterly mysterious epidemic. And this beastly +wailing was associated with it." + +"In what way? And what do you mean by an epidemic?" + +"It began, I believe, at the Palace Mansions Hotel, in the cantonments. +A young American, whose name I cannot recall, was staying there on business +connected with some new iron buildings. One night he went to his room, +locked the door, and jumped out of the window into the courtyard. +Broke his neck, of course." + +"Suicide?" + +"Apparently. But there were singular features in the case. +For instance, his revolver lay beside him, fully loaded!" + +"In the courtyard?" + +"In the courtyard!" + +"Was it murder by any chance?" + +Smith shrugged his shoulders. + +"His door was found locked from the inside; had to be broken in." + +"But the wailing business?" + +"That began later, or was only noticed later. A French doctor, +named Lafitte, died in exactly the same way." + +"At the same place?" + +"At the same hotel; but he occupied a different room. +Here is the extraordinary part of the affair: a friend shared +the room with him, and actually saw him go!" + +"Saw him leap from the window?" + +"Yes. The friend--an Englishman--was aroused by the uncanny wailing. +I was in Rangoon at the time, so that I know more of the case of Lafitte +than of that of the American. I spoke to the man about it personally. +He was an electrical engineer, Edward Martin, and he told me that the cry +seemed to come from above him." + +"It seemed to come from above when we heard it at Fu-Manchu's house." + +"Martin sat up in bed, it was a clear moonlight night-- +the sort of moonlight you get in Burma. Lafitte, for some reason, +had just gone to the window. His friend saw him look out. +The next moment with a dreadful scream, he threw himself forward-- +and crashed down into the courtyard!" + +"What then?" + +"Martin ran to the window and looked down. +Lafitte's scream had aroused the place, of course. +But there was absolutely nothing to account for the occurrence. +There was no balcony, no ledge, by means of which anyone could +reach the window." + +"But how did you come to recognize the cry?" + +"I stopped at the Palace Mansions for some time; +and one night this uncanny howling aroused me. +I heard it quite distinctly, and am never likely to forget it. +It was followed by a hoarse yell. The man in the next room, +an orchid hunter, had gone the same way as the others!" + +"Did you change your quarters?" + +"No. Fortunately for the reputation of the hotel--a first-class establishment-- +several similar cases occurred elsewhere, both in Rangoon, in Prome +and in Moulmein. A story got about the native quarter, and was fostered +by some mad fakir, that the god Siva was reborn and that the cry was his call +for victims; a ghastly story, which led to an outbreak of dacoity and gave +the District Superintendent no end of trouble." + +"Was there anything unusual about the bodies?" + +"They all developed marks after death, as though they had been strangled! +The marks were said all to possess a peculiar form, though it was not +appreciable to my eye; and this, again, was declared to be the five +heads of Siva." + +"Were the deaths confined to Europeans?" + +"Oh, no. Several Burmans and others died in the same way. +At first there was a theory that the victims had contracted leprosy and +committed suicide as a result; but the medical evidence disproved that. +The Call of Siva became a perfect nightmare throughout Burma." + +"Did you ever hear it again, before this evening?" + +"Yes. I beard it on the Upper Irrawaddy one clear, +moonlight night, and a Colassie--a deck-hand--leaped from +the top deck of the steamer aboard which I was traveling! +My God! to think that the fiend Fu-Manchu has brought +That to England!" + +"But brought what, Smith?" I cried, in perplexity. +"What has he brought? An evil spirit? A mental disease? +What is it? What CAN it be?" + +"A new agent of death, Petrie! Something born in a plague-spot of Burma-- +the home of much that is unclean and much that is inexplicable. +Heaven grant that we be in time, and are able to save Guthrie." + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +THE train was late, and as our cab turned out of Waterloo Station +and began to ascend to the bridge, from a hundred steeples rang +out the gongs of midnight, the bell of St. Paul's raised above +them all to vie with the deep voice of Big Ben. + +I looked out from the cab window across the river to where, towering above +the Embankment, that place of a thousand tragedies, the light of some +of London's greatest caravanserais formed a sort of minor constellation. +From the subdued blaze that showed the public supper-rooms I looked +up to the hundreds of starry points marking the private apartments +of those giant inns. + +I thought how each twinkling window denoted the presence of some +bird of passage, some wanderer temporarily abiding in our midst. +There, floor piled upon floor above the chattering throngs, +were these less gregarious units, each something of a mystery +to his fellow-guests, each in his separate cell; and each as remote +from real human companionship as if that cell were fashioned, +not in the bricks of London, but in the rocks of Hindustan! + +In one of those rooms Graham Guthrie might at that moment be sleeping, +all unaware that he would awake to the Call of Siva, to the summons of death. +As we neared the Strand, Smith stopped the cab, discharging the man +outside Sotheby's auction-rooms. + +"One of the doctor's watch-dogs may be in the foyer," he said thoughtfully, +"and it might spoil everything if we were seen to go to Guthrie's rooms. +There must be a back entrance to the kitchens, and so on?" + +"There is," I replied quickly. "I have seen the vans delivering there. +But have we time?" + +"Yes. Lead on." + +We walked up the Strand and hurried westward. Into that narrow court, +with its iron posts and descending steps, upon which opens a well-known +wine-cellar, we turned. Then, going parallel with the Strand, +but on the Embankment level, we ran round the back of the great hotel, +and came to double doors which were open. An arc lamp illuminated +the interior and a number of men were at work among the casks, +crates and packages stacked about the place. We entered. + +"Hallo!" cried a man in a white overall, "where d'you think you're going?" + +Smith grasped him by the arm. + +"I want to get to the public part of the hotel without being seen +from the entrance hall," he said. "Will you please lead the way? + +"Here--" began the other, staring. + +"Don't waste time!" snapped my friend, in that tone of authority +which he knew so well how to assume. "It's a matter of life and death. +Lead the way, I say!" + +"Police, sir?" asked the man civilly. + +"Yes," said Smith; "hurry!" + +Off went our guide without further demur. Skirting sculleries, kitchens, +laundries and engine-rooms, he led us through those mysterious labyrinths +which have no existence for the guest above, but which contain the machinery +that renders these modern khans the Aladdin's palaces they are. +On a second-floor landing we met a man in a tweed suit, to whom our +cicerone presented us. + +"Glad I met you, sir. Two gentlemen from the police." + +The man regarded us haughtily with a suspicious smile. + +"Who are you?" he asked. "You're not from Scotland Yard, +at any rate!" + +Smith pulled out a card and thrust it into the speaker's hand. + +"If you are the hotel detective," he said, "take us without delay +to Mr. Graham Guthrie." + +A marked change took place in the other's demeanor on glancing +at the card in his hand. + +"Excuse me, sir," he said deferentially, "but, of course, +I didn't know who I was speaking to. We all have instructions +to give you every assistance." + +"Is Mr. Guthrie in his room?" + +"He's been in his room for some time, sir. You will want to get there +without being seen? This way. We can join the lift on the third floor." + +Off we went again, with our new guide. In the lift: + +"Have you noticed anything suspicious about the place to-night?" asked Smith. + +"I have!" was the startling reply. "That accounts for your +finding me where you did. My usual post is in the lobby. +But about eleven o'clock, when the theater people began to come +in I had a hazy sort of impression that someone or something +slipped past in the crowd--something that had no business +in the hotel." + +We got out of the lift. + +"I don't quite follow you," said Smith. "If you thought you saw +something entering, you must have formed a more or less definite +impression regarding it." + +"That's the funny part of the business," answered the man doggedly. +"I didn't! But as I stood at the top of the stairs I could +have sworn that there was something crawling up behind a party-- +two ladies and two gentlemen." + +"A dog, for instance?" + +"It didn't strike me as being a dog, sir. Anyway, when the party passed me, +there was nothing there. Mind you, whatever it was, it hadn't come +in by the front. I have made inquiries everywhere, but without result." +He stopped abruptly. "No. 189--Mr. Guthrie's door, sir." + +Smith knocked. + +"Hallo!" came a muffled voice; "what do you want?" + +"Open the door! Don't delay; it is important." + +He turned to the hotel detective. + +"Stay right there where you can watch the stairs and the lift," +he instructed; "and note everyone and everything that passes this door. +But whatever you see or hear, do nothing without my orders." + +The man moved off, and the door was opened. Smith whispered +in my ear: + +"Some creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu is in the hotel!" + +Mr. Graham Guthrie, British resident in North Bhutan, was a big, +thick-set man--gray-haired and florid, with widely opened eyes of the true +fighting blue, a bristling mustache and prominent shaggy brows. +Nayland Smith introduced himself tersely, proffering his card +and an open letter. + +"Those are my credentials, Mr. Guthrie," he said; "so no doubt +you will realize that the business which brings me and my friend, +Dr. Petrie, here at such an hour is of the first importance." + +He switched off the light. + +"There is no time for ceremony," he explained. "It is now twenty-five minutes +past twelve. At half-past an attempt will be made upon your life!" + +"Mr. Smith," said the other, who, arrayed in his pajamas, +was seated on the edge of the bed, "you alarm me very greatly. +I may mention that I was advised of your presence in +England this morning." + +"Do you know anything respecting the person called Fu-Manchu--Dr. Fu-Manchu?" + +"Only what I was told to-day--that he is the agent of an +advanced political group." + +"It is opposed to his interests that you should return to Bhutan. +A more gullible agent would be preferable. Therefore, unless you +implicitly obey my instructions, you will never leave England!" + +Graham Guthrie breathed quickly. I was growing more used to the gloom, +and I could dimly discern him, his face turned towards Nayland Smith, +whilst with his hand he clutched the bed-rail. Such a visit as ours, +I think, must have shaken the nerve of any man. + +"But, Mr. Smith," he said, "surely I am safe enough here! +The place is full of American visitors at present, +and I have had to be content with a room right at the top; +so that the only danger I apprehend is that of fire." + +"There is another danger," replied Smith. "The fact that +you are at the top of the building enhances that danger. +Do you recall anything of the mysterious epidemic which broke +out in Rangoon in 1908--the deaths due to the Call of Siva?" + +"I read of it in the Indian papers," said Guthrie uneasily. +"Suicides, were they not?" "No!" snapped Smith. "Murders!" + +There was a brief silence. + +"From what I recall of the cases," said Guthrie, "that seems impossible. +In several instances the victims threw themselves from the windows +of locked rooms--and the windows were quite inaccessible." + +"Exactly," replied Smith; and in the dim light his revolver +gleamed dully, as he placed it on the small table beside the bed. +"Except that your door is unlocked, the conditions to-night +are identical. Silence, please, I hear a clock striking." + +It was Big Ben. It struck the half-hour, leaving the stillness complete. +In that room, high above the activity which yet prevailed below, +high above the supping crowds in the hotel, high above the starving +crowds on the Embankment, a curious chill of isolation swept about me. +Again I realized how, in the very heart of the great metropolis, a man +may be as far from aid as in the heart of a desert. I was glad that I +was not alone in that room--marked with the death-mark of Fu-Manchu; +and I am certain that Graham Guthrie welcomed his unexpected company. + +I may have mentioned the fact before, but on this occasion it became +so peculiarly evident to me that I am constrained to record it here-- +I refer to the sense of impending danger which invariably preceded a-- +visit from Fu-Manchu. Even had I not known that an attempt was to be +made that night, I should have realized it, as, strung to high tension, +I waited in the darkness. Some invisible herald went ahead of the +dreadful Chinaman, proclaiming his coming to every nerve in one's body. +It was like a breath of astral incense, announcing the presence +of the priests of death. + +A wail, low but singularly penetrating, falling in minor cadences +to a new silence, came from somewhere close at hand. + +"My God!" hissed Guthrie, "what was that?" + +"The Call of Siva," whispered Smith. + +"Don't stir, for your life!" + +Guthrie was breathing hard. + +I knew that we were three; that the hotel detective was within hail; +that there was a telephone in the room; that the traffic of +the Embankment moved almost beneath us; but I knew, and am not +ashamed to confess, that King Fear had icy fingers about my heart. +It was awful--that tense waiting--for--what? + +Three taps sounded--very distinctly upon the window. + +Graham Guthrie started so as to shake the bed. + +"It's supernatural!" he muttered--all that was Celtic in his blood +recoiling from the omen. "Nothing human can reach that window!" +"S-sh!" from Smith. "Don't stir." + +The tapping was repeated. + +Smith softly crossed the room. My heart was beating painfully. +He threw open the window. Further inaction was impossible. +I joined him; and we looked out into the empty air. + +"Don't come too near, Petrie!" he warned over his shoulder. + +One on either side of the open window, we stood and looked down +at the moving Embankment lights, at the glitter of the Thames, +at the silhouetted buildings on the farther bank, with the Shot +Tower starting above them all. + +Three taps sounded on the panes above us. + +In all my dealings with Dr. Fu-Manchu I had had to face nothing so uncanny +as this. What Burmese ghoul had he loosed? Was it outside, in the air? +Was it actually in the room? + +"Don't let me go, Petrie!" whispered Smith suddenly. +"Get a tight hold on me!" + +That was the last straw; for I thought that some dreadful +fascination was impelling my friend to hurl himself out! +Wildly I threw my arms about him, and Guthrie leaped +forward to help. + +Smith leaned from the window and looked up. + +One choking cry he gave--smothered, inarticulate--and I found him slipping +from my grip--being drawn out of the window--drawn to his death! + +"Hold him, Guthrie!" I gasped hoarsely. "My God, he's going! +Hold him!" + +My friend writhed in our grasp, and I saw him stretch his arm upward. +The crack of his revolver came, and he collapsed on to the floor, +carrying me with him. + +But as I fell I heard a scream above. Smith's revolver went +hurtling through the air, and, hard upon it, went a black shape-- +flashing past the open window into the gulf of the night. + +"The light! The light!" I cried. + +Guthrie ran and turned on the light. Nayland Smith, his eyes +starting from his head, his face swollen, lay plucking at a silken +cord which showed tight about his throat. + +"It was a Thug!" screamed Guthrie. "Get the rope off! He's choking!" + +My hands a-twitch, I seized the strangling-cord. + +"A knife! Quick!" I cried. "I have lost mine!" + +Guthrie ran to the dressing-table and passed me an open penknife. +I somehow forced the blade between the rope and Smith's swollen neck, +and severed the deadly silken thing. + +Smith made a choking noise, and fell back, swooning in my arms. + + +When, later, we stood looking down upon the mutilated thing which had +been brought in from where it fell, Smith showed me a mark on the brow-- +close beside the wound where his bullet had entered. + +"The mark of Kali," he said. "The man was a phansigar-- +a religious strangler. Since Fu-Manchu has dacoits in his +service I might have expected that he would have Thugs. +A group of these fiends would seem to have fled into Burma; +so that the mysterious epidemic in Rangoon was really an outbreak +of thuggee--on slightly improved lines! I had suspected something +of the kind but, naturally, I had not looked for Thugs near Rangoon. +My unexpected resistance led the strangler to bungle the rope. +You have seen how it was fastened about my throat? +That was unscientific. The true method, as practiced +by the group operating in Burma, was to throw the line +about the victim's neck and jerk him from the window. +A man leaning from an open window is very nicely poised: +it requires only a slight jerk to pitch him forward. +No loop was used, but a running line, which, as the victim fell, +remained in the hand of the murderer. No clew! Therefore we +see at once what commended the system to Fu-Manchu." + +Graham Guthrie, very pale, stood looking down at the dead strangler. + +"I owe you my life, Mr. Smith," he said. "If you had come +five minutes later--" + +He grasped Smith's hand. + +"You see," Guthrie continued, "no one thought of looking for a Thug in Burma! +And no one thought of the ROOF! These fellows are as active as monkeys, +and where an ordinary man would infallibly break his neck, they are entirely +at home. I might have chosen my room especially for the business!" + +"He slipped in late this evening," said Smith. "The hotel detective saw him, +but these stranglers are as elusive as shadows, otherwise, despite their +having changed the scene of their operations, not one could have survived." + +"Didn't you mention a case of this kind on the Irrawaddy?" I asked. + +"Yes," was the reply; "and I know of what you are thinking. +The steamers of the Irrawaddy flotilla have a corrugated-iron +roof over the top deck. The Thug must have been lying up there +as the Colassie passed on the deck below." + +"But, Smith, what is the motive of the Call?" I continued. + +"Partly religious," he explained, "and partly to wake the victims! +You are perhaps going to ask me how Dr. Fu-Manchu has obtained power over +such people as phansigars? I can only reply that Dr. Fu-Manchu has secret +knowledge of which, so far, we know absolutely nothing; but, despite all, +at last I begin to score." + +"You do," I agreed; "but your victory took you near to death." + +"I owe my life to you, Petrie," he said. "Once to your strength of arm, +and once to--" + +"Don't speak of her, Smith," I interrupted. +"Dr. Fu-Manchu may have discovered the part she played! +In which event--" + +"God help her!" + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +UPON the following day we were afoot again, and shortly at handgrips with +the enemy. In retrospect, that restless time offers a chaotic prospect, +with no peaceful spot amid its turmoils. + +All that was reposeful in nature seemed to have become +an irony and a mockery to us--who knew how an evil demigod +had his sacrificial altars amid our sweetest groves. +This idea ruled strongly in my mind upon that soft autumnal day. + +"The net is closing in," said Nayland Smith. + +"Let us hope upon a big catch," I replied, with a laugh. + +Beyond where the Thames tided slumberously seaward showed the roofs +of Royal Windsor, the castle towers showing through the autumn haze. +The peace of beautiful Thames-side was about us. + +This was one of the few tangible clews upon which thus +far we had chanced; but at last it seemed indeed that we +were narrowing the resources of that enemy of the white race +who was writing his name over England in characters of blood. +To capture Dr. Fu-Manchu we did not hope; but at least there +was every promise of destroying one of the enemy's strongholds. + +We had circled upon the map a tract of country cut by the Thames, +with Windsor for its center. Within that circle was the house from +which miraculously we had escaped--a house used by the most highly +organized group in the history of criminology. So much we knew. +Even if we found the house, and this was likely enough, to find it +vacated by Fu-Manchu and his mysterious servants we were prepared. +But it would be a base destroyed. + +We were working upon a methodical plan, and although our cooperators +were invisible, these numbered no fewer than twelve--all of them +experienced men. Thus far we had drawn blank, but the place for which +Smith and I were making now came clearly into view: an old mansion +situated in extensive walled grounds. Leaving the river behind us, +we turned sharply to the right along a lane flanked by a high wall. +On an open patch of ground, as we passed, I noted a gypsy caravan. +An old woman was seated on the steps, her wrinkled face bent, +her chin resting in the palm of her hand. + +I scarcely glanced at her, but pressed on, nor did I notice that my friend +no longer was beside me. I was all anxiety to come to some point from +whence I might obtain a view of the house; all anxiety to know if this +was the abode of our mysterious enemy--the place where he worked amid +his weird company, where he bred his deadly scorpions and his bacilli, +reared his poisonous fungi, from whence he dispatched his murder ministers. +Above all, perhaps, I wondered if this would prove to be the hiding-place of +the beautiful slave girl who was such a potent factor in the Doctor's plans, +but a two-edged sword which yet we hoped to turn upon Fu-Manchu. Even +in the hands of a master, a woman's beauty is a dangerous weapon. + +A cry rang out behind me. I turned quickly. And a singular +sight met my gaze. + +Nayland Smith was engaged in a furious struggle with the old gypsy woman! +His long arms clasped about her, he was roughly dragging her out into +the roadway, she fighting like a wild thing--silently, fiercely. + +Smith often surprised me, but at that sight, frankly, I thought that +he was become bereft of reason. I ran back; and I had almost reached +the scene of this incredible contest, and Smith now was evidently hard put +to it to hold his own when a man, swarthy, with big rings in his ears, +leaped from the caravan. + +One quick glance he threw in our direction, and made off towards the river. + +Smith twisted round upon me, never releasing his hold of the woman. + +"After him, Petrie!" he cried. "After him. Don't let him escape. +It's a dacoit!" + +My brain in a confused whirl; my mind yet disposed to a belief that my friend +had lost his senses, the word "dacoit" was sufficient. + +I started down the road after the fleetly running man. +Never once did he glance behind him, so that he evidently had occasion +to fear pursuit. The dusty road rang beneath my flying footsteps. +That sense of fantasy, which claimed me often enough in those days +of our struggle with the titantic genius whose victory meant the victory +of the yellow races over the white, now had me fast in its grip again. +I was an actor in one of those dream-scenes of the grim Fu-Manchu drama. + +Out over the grass and down to the river's brink ran the gypsy +who was no gypsy, but one of that far more sinister brotherhood, +the dacoits. I was close upon his heels. But I was not +prepared for him to leap in among the rushes at the margin +of the stream; and seeing him do this I pulled up quickly. +Straight into the water he plunged; and I saw that he held some +object in his hand. He waded out; he dived; and as I gained +the bank and looked to right and left he had vanished completely. +Only ever--widening rings showed where he had been. +I had him. + +For directly he rose to the surface he would be visible from +either bank, and with the police whistle which I carried I could, +if necessary, summon one of the men in hiding across the stream. +I waited. A wild-fowl floated serenely past, untroubled by this +strange invasion of his precincts. A full minute I waited. +From the lane behind me came Smith's voice: + +"Don't let him escape, Petrie!" + +Never lifting my eyes from the water, I waved my hand reassuringly. +But still the dacoit did not rise. I searched the surface in all +directions as far as my eyes could reach; but no swimmer showed +above it. Then it was that I concluded he had dived too deeply, +become entangled in the weeds and was drowned. With a final glance +to right and left and some feeling of awe at this sudden tragedy-- +this grim going out of a life at glorious noonday--I turned away. +Smith had the woman securely; but I had not taken five steps towards +him when a faint splash behind warned me. Instinctively I ducked. +From whence that saving instinct arose I cannot surmise, +but to it I owed my life. For as I rapidly lowered my head, +something hummed past me, something that flew out over the grass bank, +and fell with a jangle upon the dusty roadside. A knife! + +I turned and bounded back to the river's brink. I heard a faint +cry behind me, which could only have come from the gypsy woman. +Nothing disturbed the calm surface of the water. The reach was lonely +of rowers. Out by the farther bank a girl was poling a punt along, +and her white-clad figure was the only living thing that moved upon +the river within the range of the most expert knife-thrower. + +To say that I was nonplused is to say less than the truth; I was amazed. +That it was the dacoit who had shown me this murderous attention +I could not doubt. But where in Heaven's name WAS he? +He could not humanly have remained below water for so long; +yet he certainly was not above, was not upon the surface, +concealed amongst the reeds, nor hidden upon the bank. + +There, in the bright sunshine, a consciousness of the eerie possessed me. +It was with an uncomfortable feeling that my phantom foe might be aiming +a second knife at my back that I turned away and hastened towards Smith. +My fearful expectations were not realized, and I picked up the little weapon +which had so narrowly missed me, and with it in my hand rejoined my friend. + +He was standing with one arm closely clasped about the apparently +exhausted woman, and her dark eyes were fixed upon him with +an extraordinary expression. + +"What does it mean, Smith?" I began. + +But he interrupted me. + +"Where is the dacoit?" he demanded rapidly. + +"Since he seemingly possesses the attributes of a fish," +I replied, "I cannot pretend to say." + +The gypsy woman lifted her eyes to mine and laughed. +Her laughter was musical, not that of such an old hag as Smith +held captive; it was familiar, too. + +I started and looked closely into the wizened face. + +"He's tricked you," said Smith, an angry note in his voice. +"What is that you have in your hand?" + +I showed him the knife, and told him how it had come into my possession. + +"I know," he rapped. "I saw it. He was in the water not +three yards from where you stood. You must have seen him. +Was there nothing visible?" + +"Nothing." + +The woman laughed again, and again I wondered. + +"A wild-fowl," I added; "nothing else." + +"A wild-fowl," snapped Smith. "If you will consult your +recollections of the habits of wild-fowl you will see +that this particular specimen was a RARA AVIS. It's an +old trick, Petrie, but a good one, for it is used in decoying. +A dacoit's head was concealed in that wild-fowl! It's useless. +He has certainly made good his escape by now." + +"Smith," I said, somewhat crestfallen, "why are you detaining +this gypsy woman?" + +"Gypsy woman!" he laughed, hugging her tightly as she made +an impatient movement. "Use your eyes, old man." + +He jerked the frowsy wig from her head, and beneath was a cloud +of disordered hair that shimmered in the sunlight. + +"A wet sponge will do the rest," he said. + +Into my eyes, widely opened in wonder, looked the dark eyes +of the captive; and beneath the disguise I picked out the charming +features of the slave girl. There were tears on the whitened lashes, +and she was submissive now. + +"This time," said my friend hardly, "we have fairly captured her-- +and we will hold her." + +From somewhere up-stream came a faint call. + +"The dacoit!" + +Nayland Smith's lean body straightened; he stood alert, strung up. + +Another call answered, and a third responded. +Then followed the flatly shrill note of a police whistle, +and I noted a column of black vapor rising beyond the wall, +mounting straight to heaven as the smoke of a welcome offering. + +The surrounded mansion was in flames! + +"Curse it!" rapped Smith. "So this time we were right. But, of course, +he has had ample opportunity to remove his effects. I knew that. +The man's daring is incredible. He has given himself till the very +last moment--and we blundered upon two of the outposts." + +"I lost one." + +"No matter. We have the other. I expect no further arrests, +and the house will have been so well fired by the Doctor's +servants that nothing can save it. I fear its ashes will afford +us no clew, Petrie; but we have secured a lever which should +serve to disturb Fu-Manchu's world." + +He glanced at the queer figure which hung submissively in his arms. +She looked up proudly. + +"You need not hold me so tight," she said, in her soft voice. +"I will come with you." + +That I moved amid singular happenings, you, who have borne with me +thus far, have learned, and that I witnessed many curious scenes; +but of the many such scenes in that race--drama wherein Nayland +Smith and Dr. Fu-Manchu played the leading parts, I remember none +more bizarre than the one at my rooms that afternoon. + +Without delay, and without taking the Scotland Yard men into +our confidence, we had hurried our prisoner back to London, +for my friend's authority was supreme. A strange trio we were, +and one which excited no little comment; but the journey came +to an end at last. Now we were in my unpretentious sitting-room-- +the room wherein Smith first had unfolded to me the story +of Dr. Fu-Manchu and of the great secret society which sought +to upset the balance of the world--to place Europe and America +beneath the scepter of Cathay. + +I sat with my elbows upon the writing-table, my chin in my hands; +Smith restlessly paced the floor, relighting his blackened +briar a dozen times in as many minutes. In the big arm-chair +the pseudogypsy was curled up. A brief toilet had converted +the wizened old woman's face into that of a fascinatingly pretty girl. +Wildly picturesque she looked in her ragged Romany garb. +She held a cigarette in her fingers and watched us +through lowered lashes. + +Seemingly, with true Oriental fatalism, she was quite reconciled to her fate, +and ever and anon she would bestow upon me a glance from her beautiful +eyes which few men, I say with confidence, could have sustained unmoved. +Though I could not be blind to the emotions of that passionate Eastern soul, +yet I strove not to think of them. Accomplice of an arch-murderer she +might be; but she was dangerously lovely. + +"That man who was with you," said Smith, suddenly turning +upon her, "was in Burma up till quite recently. He murdered +a fisherman thirty miles above Prome only a mouth before I left. +The D.S.P. had placed a thousand rupees on his head. +Am I right?" + +The girl shrugged her shoulders. + +"Suppose--What then?" she asked. + +"Suppose I handed you over to the police?" suggested Smith. +But he spoke without conviction, for in the recent past we +both had owed our lives to this girl. + +"As you please," she replied. "The police would learn nothing." + +"You do not belong to the Far East," my friend said abruptly. +"You may have Eastern blood in your veins, but you are no +kin of Fu-Manchu." + +"That is true," she admitted, and knocked the ash from her cigarette. + +"Will you tell me where to find Fu-Manchu?" + +She shrugged her shoulders again, glancing eloquently in my direction. + +Smith walked to the door. + +"I must make out my report, Petrie," he said. "Look after the prisoner." + +And as the door closed softly behind him I knew what was +expected of me; but, honestly, I shirked my responsibility. +What attitude should I adopt? How should I go about my delicate task? +In a quandary, I stood watching the girl whom singular circumstances +saw captive in my rooms. + +"You do not think we would harm you?" I began awkwardly. +"No harm shall come to you. Why will you not trust us?" + +She raised her brilliant eyes. + +"Of what avail has your protection been to some of those others," +she said; "those others whom HE has sought for?" + +Alas! it had been of none, and I knew it well. I thought I grasped +the drift of her words. + +"You mean that if you speak, Fu-Manchu will find a way of killing you?" + +"Of killing ME!" she flashed scornfully. "Do I seem one +to fear for myself?" + +"Then what do you fear?" I asked, in surprise. + +She looked at me oddly. + +"When I was seized and sold for a slave," she answered slowly, +"my sister was taken, too, and my brother--a child." +She spoke the word with a tender intonation, and her slight accent +rendered it the more soft. "My sister died in the desert. +My brother lived. Better, far better, that he had died, too." + +Her words impressed me intensely. + +"Of what are you speaking?" I questioned. "You speak of +slave-raids, of the desert. Where did these things take place? +Of what country are you?" + +"Does it matter?" she questioned in turn. "Of what country am I? +A slave has no country, no name." + +"No name!" I cried. + +"You may call me Karamaneh," she said. "As Karamaneh I was +sold to Dr. Fu-Manchu, and my brother also he purchased. +We were cheap at the price he paid." She laughed shortly, wildly. + +"But he has spent a lot of money to educate me. My brother is all +that is left to me in the world to love, and he is in the power +of Dr. Fu-Manchu. You understand? It is upon him the blow will fall. +You ask me to fight against Fu-Manchu. You talk of protection. +Did your protection save Sir Crichton Davey?" + +I shook my head sadly. + +"You understand now why I cannot disobey my master's orders--why, if I would, +I dare not betray him." + +I walked to the window and looked out. How could I answer her arguments? +What could I say? I heard the rustle of her ragged skirts, and she who called +herself Karamaneh stood beside me. She laid her hand upon my arm. + +"Let me go," she pleaded. "He will kill him! He will kill him!" + +Her voice shook with emotion. + +"He cannot revenge himself upon your brother when you are in no way to blame," +I said angrily. "We arrested you; you are not here of your own free will." + +She drew her breath sharply, clutching at my arm, and in her eyes I +could read that she was forcing her mind to some arduous decision. + +"Listen." She was speaking rapidly, nervously. "If I help you +to take Dr. Fu-Manchu--tell you where he is to be found ALONE-- +will you promise me, solemnly promise me, that you will immediately +go to the place where I shall guide you and release my brother; +that you will let us both go free?" + +"I will," I said, without hesitation. "You may rest assured of it." + +"But there is a condition," she added. + +"What is it?" + +"When I have told you where to capture him you must release me." + +I hesitated. Smith often had accused me of weakness +where this girl was concerned. What now was my plain duty? +That she would utterly decline to speak under any circumstances +unless it suited her to do so I felt assured. If she spoke +the truth, in her proposed bargain there was no personal element; +her conduct I now viewed in a new light. Humanity, I thought, +dictated that I accept her proposal; policy also. + +"I agree," I said, and looked into her eyes, which were aflame +now with emotion, an excitement perhaps of anticipation, +perhaps of fear. + +She laid her hands upon my shoulders. + +"You will be careful?" she said pleadingly. + +"For your sake," I replied, "I shall." + +"Not for my sake." + +"Then for your brother's." + +"No." Her voice had sunk to a whisper. "For your own." + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +A COOL breeze met us, blowing from the lower reaches of the Thames. +Far behind us twinkled the dim lights of Low's Cottages, +the last regular habitations abutting upon the marshes. +Between us and the cottages stretched half-a-mile of lush land +through which at this season there were, however, numerous dry paths. +Before us the flats again, a dull, monotonous expanse beneath the moon, +with the promise of the cool breeze that the river flowed round +the bend ahead. It was very quiet. Only the sound of our footsteps, +as Nayland Smith and I tramped steadily towards our goal, +broke the stillness of that lonely place. + +Not once but many times, within the last twenty minutes, +I had thought that we were ill-advised to adventure +alone upon the capture of the formidable Chinese doctor; +but we were following out our compact with Karamaneh; +and one of her stipulations had been that the police must +not be acquainted with her share in the matter. + +A light came into view far ahead of us. + +"That's the light, Petrie," said Smith. "If we keep that straight before us, +according to our information we shall strike the hulk." + +I grasped the revolver in my pocket, and the presence +of the little weapon was curiously reassuring. +I have endeavored, perhaps in extenuation of my own fears, +to explain how about Dr. Fu-Manchu there rested an atmosphere +of horror, peculiar, unique. He was not as other men. +The dread that he inspired in all with whom he came in contact, +the terrors which he controlled and hurled at whomsoever +cumbered his path, rendered him an object supremely sinister. +I despair of conveying to those who may read this account +any but the coldest conception of the man's evil power. + +Smith stopped suddenly and grasped my arm. +We stood listening. "What?" I asked. + +"You heard nothing?" + +I shook my head. + +Smith was peering back over the marshes in his oddly alert way. +He turned to me, and his tanned face wore a peculiar expression. + +"You don't think it's a trap?" he jerked. "We are trusting her blindly." + +Strange it may seem, but something within me rose in arms +against the innuendo. + +"I don't," I said shortly. + +He nodded. We pressed on. + +Ten minutes' steady tramping brought us within sight of the Thames. +Smith and I both had noticed how Fu-Manchu's activities centered +always about the London river. Undoubtedly it was his highway, +his line of communication, along which he moved his mysterious forces. +The opium den off Shadwell Highway, the mansion upstream, +at that hour a smoldering shell; now the hulk lying off the marshes. +Always he made his headquarters upon the river. It was significant; +and even if to-night's expedition should fail, this was a clew +for our future guidance. + +"Bear to the right," directed Smith. "We must reconnoiter +before making our attack." + +We took a path that led directly to the river bank. +Before us lay the gray expanse of water, and out upon it +moved the busy shipping of the great mercantile city. +But this life of the river seemed widely removed from us. +The lonely spot where we stood had no kinship with human activity. +Its dreariness illuminated by the brilliant moon, it looked +indeed a fit setting for an act in such a drama as that wherein +we played our parts. When I had lain in the East End opium den, +when upon such another night as this I had looked out upon +a peaceful Norfolk countryside, the same knowledge of aloofness, +of utter detachment from the world of living men, had come to me. + +Silently Smith stared out at the distant moving lights. + +"Karamaneh merely means a slave," he said irrelevantly. + +I made no comment. + +"There's the hulk," he added. + +The bank upon which we stood dipped in mud slopes to the level +of the running tide. Seaward it rose higher, and by a narrow inlet-- +for we perceived that we were upon a kind of promontory-- +a rough pier showed. Beneath it was a shadowy shape in the patch +of gloom which the moon threw far out upon the softly eddying water. +Only one dim light was visible amid this darkness. + +"That will be the cabin," said Smith. + +Acting upon our prearranged plan, we turned and walked up on +to the staging above the hulk. A wooden ladder led out and down +to the deck below, and was loosely lashed to a ring on the pier. +With every motion of the tidal waters the ladder rose and fell, +its rings creaking harshly, against the crazy railing. + +"How are we going to get down without being detected?" whispered Smith. + +"We've got to risk it," I said grimly. + +Without further words my friend climbed around on to the ladder +and commenced to descend. I waited until his head disappeared +below the level, and, clumsily enough, prepared to follow him. + +The hulk at that moment giving an unusually heavy heave, +I stumbled, and for one breathless moment looked down upon +the glittering surface streaking the darkness beneath me. +My foot had slipped, and but that I had a firm grip upon the top rung, +that instant, most probably, had marked the end of my share +in the fight with Fu-Manchu. As it was I had a narrow escape. +I felt something slip from my hip pocket, but the weird +creaking of the ladder, the groans of the laboring hulk, +and the lapping of the waves about the staging drowned the sound +of the splash as my revolver dropped into the river. + +Rather, white-faced, I think, I joined Smith on the deck. +He had witnessed my accident, but-- + +"We must risk it," he whispered in my ear. "We dare not turn back now." + +He plunged into the semi-darkness, making for the cabin, +I perforce following. + +At the bottom of the ladder we came fully into the light streaming out +from the singular apartments at the entrance to which we found ourselves. +It was fitted up as a laboratory. A glimpse I had of shelves loaded +with jars and bottles, of a table strewn with scientific paraphernalia, +with retorts, with tubes of extraordinary shapes, holding living organisms, +and with instruments--some of them of a form unknown to my experience. +I saw too that books, papers and rolls of parchment littered the bare +wooden floor. Then Smith's voice rose above the confused sounds +about me, incisive, commanding: + +"I have you covered, Dr. Fu-Manchu!" + +For Fu-Manchu sat at the table. + +The picture that he presented at that moment is one which persistently +clings in my memory. In his long, yellow robe, his masklike, +intellectual face bent forward amongst the riot of singular objects upon +the table, his great, high brow gleaming in the light of the shaded +lamp above him, and with the abnormal eyes, filmed and green, +raised to us, he seemed a figure from the realms of delirium. +But, most amazing circumstance of all, he and his surroundings tallied, +almost identically, with the dream-picture which had come to me as I +lay chained in the cell! + +Some of the large jars about the place held anatomy specimens. +A faint smell of opium hung in the air, and playing with the tassel +of one of the cushions upon which, as upon a divan, Fu-Manchu was seated, +leaped and chattered a little marmoset. + +That was an electric moment. I was prepared for anything-- +for anything except for what really happened. + +The doctor's wonderful, evil face betrayed no hint of emotion. +The lids flickered over the filmed eyes, and their greenness grew +momentarily brighter, and filmed over again. + +"Put up your hands!" rapped Smith, "and attempt no tricks." +His voice quivered with excitement. "The game's up, +Fu-Manchu. Find something to tie him up with, Petrie." + +I moved forward to Smith's side, and was about to pass him +in the narrow doorway. The hulk moved beneath our feet +like a living thing groaning, creaking--and the water lapped +about the rotten woodwork with a sound infinitely dreary. + +"Put up your hands!" ordered Smith imperatively. + +Fu-Manchu slowly raised his hands, and a smile dawned upon +the impassive features--a smile that had no mirth in it, +only menace, revealing as it did his even, discolored teeth, +but leaving the filmed eyes inanimate, dull, inhuman. + +He spoke softly, sibilantly. + +"I would advise Dr. Petrie to glance behind him before he moves." + +Smith's keen gray eyes never for a moment quitted the speaker. +The gleaming barrel moved not a hair's-breadth. But I glanced +quickly over my shoulder--and stifled a cry of pure horror. + +A wicked, pock-marked face, with wolfish fangs bared, and jaundiced +eyes squinting obliquely into mine, was within two inches of me. +A lean, brown hand and arm, the great thews standing up like cords, +held a crescent-shaped knife a fraction of an inch above my jugular vein. +A slight movement must have dispatched me; a sweep of the fearful weapon, +I doubt not, would have severed my head from my body. + +"Smith!" I whispered hoarsely, "don't look around. +For God's sake keep him covered. But a dacoit has his knife +at my throat!" + +Then, for the first time, Smith's hand trembled. But his glance never wavered +from the malignant, emotionless countenance of Dr. Fu-Manchu. He clenched +his teeth hard, so that the muscles stood out prominently upon his jaw. + +I suppose that silence which followed my awful discovery prevailed +but a few seconds. To me those seconds were each a lingering death. + +There, below, in that groaning hulk, I knew more of icy terror +than any of our meetings with the murder-group had brought +to me before; and through my brain throbbed a thought: +the girl had betrayed us! + +"You supposed that I was alone?" suggested Fu-Manchu. "So I was." + +Yet no trace of fear had broken through the impassive yellow +mask when we had entered. + +"But my faithful servant followed you," he added. "I thank him. +The honors, Mr. Smith, are mine, I think?" + +Smith made no reply. I divined that he was thinking furiously. +Fu-Manchu moved his hand to caress the marmoset, which had leaped +playfully upon his shoulder, and crouched there gibing at us +in a whistling voice. + +"Don't stir!" said Smith savagely. "I warn you!" + +Fu-Manchu kept his hand raised. + +"May I ask you how you discovered my retreat?" he asked. + +"This hulk has been watched since dawn," lied Smith brazenly. + +"So?" The Doctor's filmed eyes cleared for a moment. +"And to-day you compelled me to burn a house, and you +have captured one of my people, too. I congratulate you. +She would not betray me though lashed with scorpions." + +The great gleaming knife was so near to my neck that a sheet of notepaper +could scarcely have been slipped between blade and vein, I think; +but my heart throbbed even more wildly when I heard those words. + +"An impasse," said Fu-Manchu. "I have a proposal to make. +I assume that you would not accept my word for anything?" + +"I would not," replied Smith promptly. + +"Therefore," pursued the Chinaman, and the occasional guttural +alone marred his perfect English, "I must accept yours. +Of your resources outside this cabin I know nothing. +You, I take it, know as little of mine. My Burmese friend and +Doctor Petrie will lead the way, then; you and I will follow. +We will strike out across the marsh for, say, three hundred yards. +You will then place your pistol on the ground, pledging me your +word to leave it there. I shall further require your assurance +that you will make no attempt upon me until I have retraced +my steps. I and my good servant will withdraw, leaving you, +at the expiration of the specified period, to act as you see fit. +Is it agreed?" + +Smith hesitated. Then: + +"The dacoit must leave his knife also," he stipulated. +Fu-Manchu smiled his evil smile again. + +"Agreed. Shall I lead the way?" + +"No!" rapped Smith. "Petrie and the dacoit first; then you; I last." + +A guttural word of command from Fu-Manchu, and we left the cabin, +with its evil odors, its mortuary specimens, and its strange instruments, +and in the order arranged mounted to the deck. + +"It will be awkward on the ladder," said Fu-Manchu. "Dr. Petrie, +I will accept your word to adhere to the terms." + +"I promise," I said, the words almost choking me. + +We mounted the rising and dipping ladder, all reached the pier, +and strode out across the flats, the Chinaman always under close +cover of Smith's revolver. Round about our feet, now leaping ahead, +now gamboling back, came and went the marmoset. The dacoit, +dressed solely in a dark loin-cloth, walked beside me, carrying his +huge knife, and sometimes glancing at me with his blood-lustful eyes. +Never before, I venture to say, had an autumn moon lighted such +a scene in that place. + +"Here we part," said Fu-Manchu, and spoke another word to his follower. + +The man threw his knife upon the ground. + +"Search him, Petrie," directed Smith. "He may have a second concealed." + +The Doctor consented; and I passed my hands over the man's scanty garments. + +"Now search Fu-Manchu." + +This also I did. And never have I experienced a similar sense +of revulsion from any human being. I shuddered, as though I +had touched a venomous reptile. + +Smith drew down his revolver. + +"I curse myself for an honorable fool," he said. "No one could +dispute my right to shoot you dead where you stand." + +Knowing him as I did, I could tell from the suppressed passion +in Smith's voice that only by his unhesitating acceptance +of my friend's word, and implicit faith in his keeping it, +had Dr. Fu-Manchu escaped just retribution at that moment. +Fiend though he was, I admired his courage; for all this he, +too, must have known. + +The Doctor turned, and with the dacoit walked back. +Nayland Smith's next move filled me with surprise. +For just as, silently, I was thanking God for my escape, +my friend began shedding his coat, collar and waistcoat. + +"Pocket your valuables, and do the same," he muttered hoarsely. +"We have a poor chances but we are both fairly fit. +To-night, Petrie, we literally have to run for our lives." + +We live in a peaceful age, wherein it falls to the lot of few +men to owe their survival to their fleetness of foot. +At Smith's words I realized in a flash that such was to be +our fate to-night. + +I have said that the hulk lay off a sort of promontory. +East and west, then, we had nothing to hope for. To the south +was Fu-Manchu; and even as, stripped of our heavier garments, +we started to run northward, the weird signal of a dacoit rose +on the night and was answered--was answered again. + +"Three, at least," hissed Smith; "three armed dacoits. Hopeless." + +"Take the revolver," I cried. "Smith, it's--" + +"No," he rapped, through clenched teeth. "A servant of the Crown +in the East makes his motto: `Keep your word, though it break +your neck!' I don't think we need fear it being used against us. +Fu-Manchu avoids noisy methods." + +So back we ran, over the course by which, earlier, we had come. +It was, roughly, a mile to the first building--a deserted cottage-- +and another quarter of a mile to any that was occupied. + +Our chance of meeting a living soul, other than Fu-Manchu's dacoits, +was practically nil. + +At first we ran easily, for it was the second half-mile that would +decide our fate. The professional murderers who pursued us ran +like panthers, I knew; and I dare not allow my mind to dwell +upon those yellow figures with the curved, gleaming, knives. +For a long time neither of us looked back. + +On we ran, and on--silently, doggedly. + +Then a hissing breath from Smith warned me what to expect. + +Should I, too, look back? Yes. It was impossible to resist +the horrid fascination. + +I threw a quick glance over my shoulder. + +And never while I live shall I forget what I saw. +Two of the pursuing dacoits had outdistanced their fellow +(or fellows), and were actually within three hundred yards of us. + +More like dreadful animals they looked than human beings, +running bent forward, with their faces curiously uptilted. +The brilliant moonlight gleamed upon bared teeth, as I could see, +even at that distance, even in that quick, agonized glance, +and it gleamed upon the crescent-shaped knives. + +"As hard as you can go now," panted Smith. "We must make an attempt +to break into the empty cottage. Only chance." + +I had never in my younger days been a notable runner; for Smith I +cannot speak. But I am confident that the next half-mile was done +in time that would not have disgraced a crack man. Not once again did +either of us look back. Yard upon yard we raced forward together. +My heart seemed to be bursting. My leg muscles throbbed with pain. +At last, with the empty cottage in sight, it came to that pass with me +when another three yards looks as unattainable as three miles. +Once I stumbled. + +"My God!" came from Smith weakly. + +But I recovered myself. Bare feet pattered close upon our heels, +and panting breaths told how even Fu-Manchu's bloodhounds were hard +put to it by the killing pace we had made. + +"Smith," I whispered, "look in front. Someone!" + +As through a red mist I had seen a dark shape detach itself +from the shadows of the cottage, and merge into them again. +It could only be another dacoit; but Smith, not heeding, +or not hearing, my faintly whispered words, crashed open +the gate and hurled himself blindly at the door. + +It burst open before him with a resounding boom, and he pitched forward +into the interior darkness. Flat upon the floor he lay, for as, +with a last effort, I gained the threshold and dragged myself within, +I almost fell over his recumbent body. + +Madly I snatched at the door. His foot held it open. +I kicked the foot away, and banged the door to. As I turned, +the leading dacoit, his eyes starting from their sockets, +his face the face of a demon leaped wildly through the gateway. + +That Smith had burst the latch I felt assured, but by some divine +accident my weak hands found the bolt. With the last ounce +of strength spared to me I thrust it home in the rusty socket-- +as a full six inches of shining steel split the middle panel +and protruded above my head. + +I dropped, sprawling, beside my friend. + +A terrific blow shattered every pane of glass in the solitary window, +and one of the grinning animal faces looked in. + +"Sorry, old man," whispered Smith, and his voice was barely audible. +Weakly he grasped my hand. "My fault. I shouldn't have let, you come." + +From the corner of the room where the black shadows lay flicked +a long tongue of flame. Muffled, staccato, came the report. +And the yellow face at the window was blotted out. + +One wild cry, ending in a rattling gasp, told of a dacoit gone +to his account. + +A gray figure glided past me and was silhouetted against the broken window. + +Again the pistol sent its message into the night, and again came +the reply to tell how well and truly that message had been delivered. +In the stillness, intense by sharp contrast, the sound +of bare soles pattering upon the path outside stole to me. +Two runners, I thought there were, so that four dacoits must +have been upon our trail. The room was full of pungent smoke. +I staggered to my feet as the gray figure with the revolver +turned towards me. Something familiar there was in that long, +gray garment, and now I perceived why I had thought so. + +It was my gray rain-coat. + +"Karamaneh," I whispered. + +And Smith, with difficulty, supporting himself upright, and holding +fast to the ledge beside the door, muttered something hoarsely, +which sounded like "God bless her!" + +The girl, trembling now, placed her hands upon my shoulders with that quaint, +pathetic gesture peculiarly her own. + +"I followed you," she said. "Did you not know I should follow you? +But I had to hide because of another who was following also. +I had but just reached this place when I saw you running towards me." + +She broke off and turned to Smith. + +"This is your pistol," she said naively. "I found it in your bag. +Will you please take it!" + +He took it without a word. Perhaps he could not trust himself to speak. + +"Now go. Hurry!" she said. "You are not safe yet." + +"But you?" I asked. + +"You have failed," she replied. "I must go back to him. +There is no other way." + +Strangely sick at heart for a man who has just had a miraculous +escape from death, I opened the door. Coatless, disheveled figures, +my friend and I stepped out into the moonlight. + +Hideous under the pale rays lay the two dead men, +their glazed eyes upcast to the peace of the blue heavens. +Karamaneh had shot to kill, for both had bullets in their brains. +If God ever planned a more complex nature than hers--a nature more +tumultuous with conflicting passions, I cannot conceive of it. +Yet her beauty was of the sweetest; and in some respects she +had the heart of a child--this girl who could shoot so straight. + +"We must send the police to-night," said Smith. +"Or the papers--" + +"Hurry," came the girl's voice commandingly from the darkness +of the cottage. + +It was a singular situation. My very soul rebelled against it. +But what could we do? + +"Tell us where we can communicate," began Smith. + +"Hurry. I shall be suspected. Do you want him to kill me!" + +We moved away. All was very still now, and the lights glimmered +faintly ahead. Not a wisp of cloud brushed the moon's disk. + +"Good-night, Karamaneh," I whispered softly. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +TO pursue further the adventure on the marshes would be a task +at once useless and thankless. In its actual and in its dramatic +significance it concluded with our parting from Karamaneh. +And in that parting I learned what Shakespeare meant +by "Sweet Sorrow." + +There was a world, I learned, upon the confines of which I stood, +a world whose very existence hitherto had been unsuspected. +Not the least of the mysteries which peeped from the darkness was +the mystery of the heart of Karamaneh. I sought to forget her. +I sought to remember her. Indeed, in the latter task I found +one more congenial, yet, in the direction and extent of the ideas +which it engendered, one that led me to a precipice. + +East and West may not intermingle. As a student of +world-policies, as a physician, I admitted, could not deny, +that truth. Again, if Karamaneh were to be credited, +she had come to Fu-Manchu a slave; had fallen into the hands +of the raiders; had crossed the desert with the slave-drivers; +had known the house of the slave-dealer. Could it be? +With the fading of the crescent of Islam I had thought such +things to have passed. + +But if it were so? + +At the mere thought of a girl so deliciously beautiful in the brutal +power of slavers, I found myself grinding my teeth--closing my eyes +in a futile attempt to blot out the pictures called up. + +Then, at such times, I would find myself discrediting her story. +Again, I would find myself wondering, vaguely, why such problems +persistently haunted my mind. But, always, my heart had an answer. +And I was a medical man, who sought to build up a family practice!-- +who, in short, a very little time ago, had thought himself past +the hot follies of youth and entered upon that staid phase of life +wherein the daily problems of the medical profession hold absolute +sway and such seductive follies as dark eyes and red lips find-- +no place--are excluded! + +But it is foreign from the purpose of this plain record to +enlist sympathy for the recorder. The topic upon which, here, +I have ventured to touch was one fascinating enough to me; +I cannot hope that it holds equal charm for any other. +Let us return to that which it is my duty to narrate and let +us forget my brief digression. + +It is a fact, singular, but true, that few Londoners know London. +Under the guidance of my friend, Nayland Smith, I had learned, +since his return from Burma, how there are haunts in the very heart +of the metropolis whose existence is unsuspected by all but the few; +places unknown even to the ubiquitous copy-hunting pressman. + +Into a quiet thoroughfare not two minutes' walk from +the pulsing life of Leicester Square, Smith led the way. +Before a door sandwiched in between two dingy shop-fronts +he paused and turned to me. + +"Whatever you see or hear," he cautioned, "express no surprise." + +A cab had dropped us at the corner. We both wore dark suits and fez +caps with black silk tassels. My complexion had been artificially +reduced to a shade resembling the deep tan of my friend's. He rang +the bell beside the door. + +Almost immediately it was opened by a negro woman--gross, hideously ugly. + +Smith uttered something in voluble Arabic. As a linguist his +attainments were a constant source of surprise. The jargons +of the East, Far and Near, he spoke as his mother tongue. +The woman immediately displayed the utmost servility, ushering us +into an ill-lighted passage, with every evidence of profound respect. +Following this passage, and passing an inner door, +from beyond whence proceeded bursts of discordant music, +we entered a little room bare of furniture, with coarse matting +for mural decorations, and a patternless red carpet on the floor. +In a niche burned a common metal lamp. + +The negress left us, and close upon her departure entered a very aged man +with a long patriarchal beard, who greeted my friend with dignified courtesy. +Following a brief conversation, the aged Arab--for such he appeared to be-- +drew aside a strip of matting, revealing a dark recess. Placing his finger +upon his lips, he silently invited us to enter. + +We did so, and the mat was dropped behind us. The sounds of crude +music were now much plainer, and as Smith slipped a little shutter +aside I gave a start of surprise. + +Beyond lay a fairly large apartment, having divans or low seats around +three of its walls. These divans were occupied by a motley company +of Turks, Egyptians, Greeks, and others; and I noted two Chinese. +Most of them smoked cigarettes, and some were drinking. +A girl was performing a sinuous dance upon the square carpet occupying +the center of the floor, accompanied by a young negro woman upon +a guitar and by several members of the assembly who clapped their +hands to the music or hummed a low, monotonous melody. + +Shortly after our entrance into the passage the dance terminated, +and the dancer fled through a curtained door at the farther end of the room. +A buzz of conversation arose. + +"It is a sort of combined Wekaleh and place of entertainment for a certain +class of Oriental residents in, or visiting, London," Smith whispered. +"The old gentleman who has just left us is the proprietor or host. +I have been here before on several occasions, but have always drawn blank." + +He was peering out eagerly into the strange clubroom. + +"Whom do you expect to find here?" I asked. + +"It is a recognized meeting-place," said Smith in my ear. +"It is almost a certainty that some of the Fu-Manchu group +use it at times." + +Curiously I surveyed all these faces which were visible from the spy-hole. +My eyes rested particularly upon the two Chinamen. + +"Do you recognize anyone?" I whispered. + +"S-sh!" + +Smith was craning his neck so as to command a sight of the doorway. +He obstructed my view, and only by his tense attitude and some +subtle wave of excitement which he communicated to me did I know +that a new arrival was entering. The hum of conversation died away, +and in the ensuing silence I heard the rustle of draperies. +The newcomer was a woman, then. Fearful of making any noise I yet +managed to get my eyes to the level of the shutter. + +A woman in an elegant, flame-colored opera cloak was crossing the floor +and coming in the direction of the spot where we were concealed. +She wore a soft silk scarf about her head, a fold partly draped across +her face. A momentary view I had of her--and wildly incongruous +she looked in that place--and she had disappeared from sight, +having approached someone invisible who sat upon the divan immediately +beneath our point of vantage. + +From the way in which the company gazed towards her, I divined that she +was no habitue of the place, but that her presence there was as greatly +surprising to those in the room as it was to me. + +Whom could she be, this elegant lady who visited such a haunt-- +who, it would seem, was so anxious to disguise her identity, +but who was dressed for a society function rather than for a +midnight expedition of so unusual a character? + +I began a whispered question, but Smith tugged at my arm to silence me. +His excitement was intense. Had his keener powers enabled him +to recognize the unknown? + +A faint but most peculiar perfume stole to my nostrils, a perfume +which seemed to contain the very soul of Eastern mystery. +Only one woman known to me used that perfume--Karamaneh. + +Then it was she! + +At last my friend's vigilance had been rewarded. Eagerly I bent forward. +Smith literally quivered in anticipation of a discovery. Again the strange +perfume was wafted to our hiding-place; and, glancing neither to right +nor left, I saw Karamaneh--for that it was she I no longer doubted-- +recross the room and disappear. + +"The man she spoke to," hissed Smith. "We must see him! +We must have him!" + +He pulled the mat aside and stepped out into the anteroom. +It was empty. Down the passage he led, and we were almost come +to the door of the big room when it was thrown open and a man came +rapidly out, opened the street door before Smith could reach him, +and was gone, slamming it fast. + +I can swear that we were not four seconds behind him, but when we gained +the street it was empty. Our quarry had disappeared as if by magic. +A big car was just turning the corner towards Leicester Square. + +"That is the girl," rapped Smith; "but where in Heaven's +name is the man to whom she brought the message? +I would give a hundred pounds to know what business is afoot. +To think that we have had such an opportunity and have +thrown it away!" + +Angry and nonplused he stood at the corner, looking in the direction +of the crowded thoroughfare into which the car had been driven, tugging at +the lobe of his ear, as was his habit in such moments of perplexity, +and sharply clicking his teeth together. I, too, was very thoughtful. +Clews were few enough in those days of our war with that giant antagonist. +The mere thought that our trifling error of judgment tonight in tarrying +a moment too long might mean the victory of Fu-Manchu, might mean the turning +of the balance which a wise providence had adjusted between the white +and yellow races, was appalling. + +To Smith and me, who knew something of the secret influences +at work to overthrow the Indian Empire, to place, it might be, +the whole of Europe and America beneath an Eastern rule, +it seemed that a great yellow hand was stretched out over London. +Doctor Fu-Manchu was a menace to the civilized world. +Yet his very existence remained unsuspected by the millions +whose fate he sought to command. + +"Into what dark scheme have we had a glimpse?" said Smith. +"What State secret is to be filched? What faithful servant +of the British Raj to be spirited away? Upon whom now has +Fu-Manchu set his death seal?" + +"Karamaneh on this occasion may not have been acting as an emissary +of the Doctor's." + +"I feel assured that she was, Petrie. Of the many whom this yellow +cloud may at any moment envelop, to which one did her message refer? +The man's instructions were urgent. Witness his hasty departure. +Curse it!" He dashed his right clenched fist into the palm of his +left hand. "I never had a glimpse of his face, first to last. +To think of the hours I have spent in that place, in anticipation +of just such a meeting--only to bungle the opportunity when it arose!" +Scarce heeding what course we followed, we had come now to Piccadilly +Circus, and had walked out into the heart of the night's traffic. +I just dragged Smith aside in time to save him from the off-front +wheel of a big Mercedes. Then the traffic was blocked, and we found +ourselves dangerously penned in amidst the press of vehicles. + +Somehow we extricated ourselves, jeered at by taxi-drivers, +who naturally took us for two simple Oriental visitors, +and just before that impassable barrier the arm of a London +policeman was lowered and the stream moved on a faint breath +of perfume became perceptible to me. + +The cabs and cars about us were actually beginning to move again, +and there was nothing for it but a hasty retreat to the curb. +I could not pause to glance behind, but instinctively I knew +that someone--someone who used that rare, fragrant essence-- +was leaning from the window of the car. + +"ANDAMAN--SECOND!" floated a soft whisper. + +We gained the pavement as the pent-up traffic roared upon its way. + +Smith had not noticed the perfume worn by the unseen +occupant of the car, had not detected the whispered words. +But I had no reason to doubt my senses, and I knew beyond +question that Fu-Manchu's lovely slave, Karamaneh, had been +within a yard of us, had recognized us, and had uttered +those words for our guidance. + +On regaining my rooms, we devoted a whole hour to considering +what "ANDAMAN--SECOND" could possibly mean. + +"Hang it all!" cried Smith, "it might mean anything-- +the result of a race, for instance." + +He burst into one of his rare laughs, and began to stuff broadcut mixture +into his briar. I could see that he had no intention of turning in. + +"I can think of no one--no one of note--in London at present +upon whom it is likely that Fu-Manchu would make an attempt," +he said, "except ourselves." + +We began methodically to go through the long list of names +which we had compiled and to review our elaborate notes. +When, at last, I turned in, the night had given place to a new day. +But sleep evaded me, and "ANDAMAN--SECOND" danced like a +mocking phantom through my brain. + +Then I heard the telephone bell. I heard Smith speaking. + +A minute afterwards he was in my room, his face very grim. + +"I knew as well as if I'd seen it with my own eyes that some +black business was afoot last night," he said. "And it was. +Within pistol-shot of us! Someone has got at Frank Norris West. +Inspector Weymouth has just been on the 'phone." + +"Norris West!" I cried, "the American aviator--and inventor--" +"Of the West aero-torpedo--yes. He's been offering it to the English +War Office, and they have delayed too long." + +I got out of bed. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that the potentialities have attracted the attention +of Dr. Fu-Manchu!" + +Those words operated electrically. I do not know how long I was in dressing, +how long a time elapsed ere the cab for which Smith had 'phoned arrived, +how many precious minutes were lost upon the journey; but, in a nervous whirl, +these things slipped into the past, like the telegraph poles seen from +the window of an express, and, still in that tense state, we came upon +the scene of this newest outrage. + +Mr. Norris West, whose lean, stoic face had latterly figured so often +in the daily press, lay upon the floor in the little entrance hall +of his chambers, flat upon his back, with the telephone receiver +in his hand. + +The outer door had been forced by the police. They had +had to remove a piece of the paneling to get at the bolt. +A medical man was leaning over the recumbent figure in the striped +pajama suit, and Detective-Inspector Weymouth stood watching +him as Smith and I entered. + +"He has been heavily drugged," said the Doctor, sniffing at +West's lips, "but I cannot say what drug has been used. +It isn't chloroform or anything of that nature. +He can safely be left to sleep it off, I think." + +I agreed, after a brief examination. + +"It's most extraordinary," said Weymouth. "He rang up the Yard +about an hour ago and said his chambers had been invaded by Chinamen. +Then the man at the 'phone plainly heard him fall. When we got here his +front door was bolted, as you've seen, and the windows are three floors up. +Nothing is disturbed." + +"The plans of the aero-torpedo?" rapped Smith. + +"I take it they are in the safe in his bedroom," +replied the detective, "and that is locked all right. I think +he must have taken an overdose of something and had illusions. +But in case there was anything in what he mumbled (you could +hardly understand him) I thought it as well to send for you." + +"Quite right," said Smith rapidly. His eyes shone like steel. +"Lay him on the bed, Inspector." + +It was done, and my friend walked into the bedroom. + +Save that the bed was disordered, showing that West had been +sleeping in it, there were no evidences of the extraordinary +invasion mentioned by the drugged man. It was a small room-- +the chambers were of that kind which are let furnished--and very neat. +A safe with a combination lock stood in a corner. The window was open +about a foot at the top. Smith tried the safe and found it fast. +He stood for a moment clicking his teeth together, by which I knew +him to be perplexed. He walked over to the window and threw it up. +We both looked out. + +"You see," came Weymouth's voice, "it is altogether too far from +the court below for our cunning Chinese friends to have fixed a ladder +with one of their bamboo rod arrangements. And, even if they could +get up there, it's too far down from the roof--two more stories-- +for them to have fixed it from there." + +Smith nodded thoughtfully, at the same time trying the strength of an iron +bar which ran from side to side of the window-sill. Suddenly he stooped, +with a sharp exclamation. Bending over his shoulder I saw what it was +that had attracted his attention. + +Clearly imprinted upon the dust-coated gray stone of the sill was a confused +series of marks--tracks call them what you will. + +Smith straightened himself and turned a wondering look upon me. + +"What is it, Petrie?" he said amazedly. "Some kind of bird has been here, +and recently." Inspector Weymouth in turn examined the marks. + +"I never saw bird tracks like these, Mr. Smith," he muttered. + +Smith was tugging at the lobe of his ear. + +"No," he returned reflectively; "come to think of it, neither did I." + +He twisted around, looking at the man on the bed. + +"Do you think it was all an illusion?" asked the detective. + +"What about those marks on the window-sill?" jerked Smith. + +He began restlessly pacing about the room, sometimes stopping +before the locked safe and frequently glancing at Norris West. + +Suddenly he walked out and briefly examined the other apartments, +only to return again to the bedroom. + +"Petrie," he said, "we are losing valuable time. +West must be aroused." + +Inspector Weymouth stared. + +Smith turned to me impatiently. The doctor summoned by the police had gone. +"Is there no means of arousing him, Petrie?" he said. + +"Doubtless," I replied, "he could be revived if one but knew +what drug he had taken." + +My friend began his restless pacing again, and suddenly pounced upon +a little phial of tabloids which had been hidden behind some books +on a shelf near the bed. He uttered a triumphant exclamation. + +"See what we have here, Petrie!" he directed, handing the phial to me. +"It bears no label." + +I crushed one of the tabloids in my palm and applied my tongue +to the powder. + +"Some preparation of chloral hydrate," I pronounced. + +"A sleeping draught?" suggested Smith eagerly. + +"We might try," I said, and scribbled a formula upon a leaf of my notebook. +I asked Weymouth to send the man who accompanied him to call up the nearest +chemist and procure the antidote. + +During the man's absence Smith stood contemplating the unconscious inventor, +a peculiar expression upon his bronzed face. + +"ANDAMAN--SECOND," he muttered. "Shall we find the key +to the riddle here, I wonder?" + +Inspector Weymouth, who had concluded, I think, that the mysterious +telephone call was due to mental aberration on the part of Norris West, +was gnawing at his mustache impatiently when his assistant returned. +I administered the powerful restorative, and although, +as later transpired, chloral was not responsible for West's condition, +the antidote operated successfully. + +Norris West struggled into a sitting position, and looked about him +with haggard eyes. + +"The Chinamen! The Chinamen!" he muttered. + +He sprang to his feet, glaring wildly at Smith and me, reeled, +and almost fell. + +"It is all right," I said, supporting him. "I'm a doctor. +You have been unwell." + +"Have the police come?" he burst out. "The safe--try the safe!" + +"It's all right," said Inspector Weymouth. "The safe is locked-- +unless someone else knows the combination, there's nothing +to worry about." + +"No one else knows it," said West, and staggered unsteadily to the safe. +Clearly his mind was in a dazed condition, but, setting his jaw with +a curious expression of grim determination, he collected his thoughts +and opened the safe. + +He bent down, looking in. + +In some way the knowledge came to me that the curtain was about to rise +on a new and surprising act in the Fu-Manchu drama. + +"God!" he whispered--we could scarcely hear him--"the plans are gone!" + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +I HAVE never seen a man quite so surprised as Inspector Weymouth. + +"This is absolutely incredible!" he said. "There's only one door +to your chambers. We found it bolted from the inside." + +"Yes," groaned West, pressing his hand to his forehead. +"I bolted it myself at eleven o'clock, when I came in." + +"No human being could climb up or down to your windows. +The plans of the aero-torpedo were inside a safe." + +"I put them there myself," said West, "on returning from the War Office, +and I had occasion to consult them after I had come in and bolted the door. +I returned them to the safe and locked it. That it was still locked you +saw for yourselves, and no one else in the world knows the combination." + +"But the plans have gone," said Weymouth. "It's magic! How was it done? +What happened last night, sir? What did you mean when you rang us up?" + +Smith during this colloquy was pacing rapidly up and down the room. +He turned abruptly to the aviator. + +"Every fact you can remember, Mr. West, please," he said tersely; +"and be as brief as you possibly can." + +"I came in, as I said," explained West "about eleven o'clock and having +made some notes relating to an interview arranged for this morning, +I locked the plans in the safe and turned in." + +"There was no one hidden anywhere in your chambers?" snapped Smith. + +"There was not," replied West. "I looked. I invariably do. +Almost immediately, I went to sleep." + +"How many chloral tabloids did you take?" I interrupted. + +Norris West turned to me with a slow smile. + +"You're cute, Doctor," he said. "I took two. It's a bad habit, +but I can't sleep without. They are specially made up for me +by a firm in Philadelphia." + +"How long sleep lasted, when it became filled with uncanny dreams, +and when those dreams merged into reality, I do not know-- +shall never know, I suppose. But out of the dreamless void +a face came to me--closer--closer--and peered into mine. + +"I was in that curious condition wherein one knows +that one is dreaming and seeks to awaken--to escape. +But a nightmare-like oppression held me. So I must lie +and gaze into the seared yellow face that hung over me, +for it would drop so close that I could trace the cicatrized +scar running from the left ear to the corner of the mouth, +and drawing up the lip like the lip of a snarling cur. +I could look into the malignant, jaundiced eyes; +I could hear the dim whispering of the distorted mouth-- +whispering that seemed to counsel something--something evil. +That whispering intimacy was indescribably repulsive. +Then the wicked yellow face would be withdrawn, and would recede +until it became as a pin's head in the darkness far above me-- +almost like a glutinous, liquid thing. + +"Somehow I got upon my feet, or dreamed I did--God knows where dreaming ended +and reality began. Gentlemen maybe you'll conclude I went mad last night, +but as I stood holding on to the bedrail I heard the blood throbbing through +my arteries with a noise like a screw-propeller. I started laughing. +The laughter issued from my lips with a shrill whistling sound that pierced +me with physical pain and seemed to wake the echoes of the whole block. +I thought myself I was going mad, and I tried to command my will-- +to break the power of the chloral--for I concluded that I had accidentally +taken an overdose. + +"Then the walls of my bedroom started to recede, till at last I +stood holding on to a bed which had shrunk to the size of a +doll's cot, in the middle of a room like Trafalgar Square! +That window yonder was such a long way off I could scarcely see it, +but I could just defect a Chinaman--the owner of the evil +yellow face--creeping through it. He was followed by another, +who was enormously tall--so tall that, as they came towards me +(and it seemed to take them something like half-an-hour to cross +this incredible apartment in my dream), the second Chinaman +seemed to tower over me like a cypress-tree. + +"I looked up to his face--his wicked, hairless face. +Mr. Smith, whatever age I live to, I'll never forget +that face I saw last night--or did I see it? God knows! +The pointed chin, the great dome of a forehead, and the eyes-- +heavens above, the huge green eyes!" + +He shook like a sick man, and I glanced at Smith significantly. +Inspector Weymouth was stroking his mustache, and his mingled +expression of incredulity and curiosity was singular to behold. + +"The pumping of my blood," continued West, "seemed to be +bursting my body; the room kept expanding and contracting. +One time the ceiling would be pressing down on my head, +and the Chinamen--sometimes I thought there were two of them, +sometimes twenty--became dwarfs; the next instant it shot up +like the roof of a cathedral. + +"`Can I be awake,' I whispered, `or am I dreaming?' + +"My whisper went sweeping in windy echoes about the walls, +and was lost in the shadowy distances up under the invisible roof. + +"`You are dreaming--yes.' It was the Chinaman with the green +eyes who was addressing me, and the words that he uttered +appeared to occupy an immeasurable time in the utterance. +'But at will I can render the subjective objective.' +I don't think I can have dreamed those singular words, gentlemen. +"And then he fixed the green eyes upon me--the blazing green eyes. +I made no attempt to move. They seemed to be draining me +of something vital--bleeding me of every drop of mental power. +The whole nightmare room grew green, and I felt that I was being +absorbed into its greenness. + +"I can see what you think. And even in my delirium-- +if it was delirium--I thought the same. Now comes the climax +of my experience--my vision--I don't know what to call it. +I SAW some WORDS issuing from my own mouth!" + +Inspector Weymouth coughed discreetly. Smith whisked round upon him. + +"This will be outside your experience, Inspector, I know," he said, +"but Mr. Norris West's statement does not surprise me in the least. +I know to what the experience was due." + +Weymouth stared incredulously, but a dawning perception of the truth +was come to me, too. + +"How I SAW a SOUND I just won't attempt to explain; +I simply tell you I saw it. Somehow I knew I had betrayed myself-- +given something away." + +"You gave away the secret of the lock combination!" rapped Smith. + +"Eh!" grunted Weymouth. + +But West went on hoarsely: + +"Just before the blank came a name flashed before my eyes. +It was `Bayard Taylor.'" + +At that I interrupted West. + +"I understand!" I cried. "I understand! Another name has just occurred +to me, Mr. West--that of the Frenchman, Moreau." + +"You have solved the mystery," said Smith. "It was natural +Mr. West should have thought of the American traveler, +Bayard Taylor, though. Moreau's book is purely scientific. +He has probably never read it." + +"I fought with the stupor that was overcoming me," continued West, +"striving to associate that vaguely familiar name with the fantastic things +through which I moved. It seemed to me that the room was empty again. +I made for the hall, for the telephone. I could scarcely drag my feet along. +It seemed to take me half-an-hour to get there. I remember calling up +Scotland Yard, and I remember no more." + +There was a short, tense interval. + +In some respects I was nonplused; but, frankly, I think Inspector Weymouth +considered West insane. Smith, his hands locked behind his back, +stared out of the window. + +"ANDAMAN--SECOND" he said suddenly. "Weymouth, when is the first +train to Tilbury?" + +"Five twenty-two from Fenchurch Street," replied the Scotland +Yard man promptly. + +"Too late!" rapped my friend. "Jump in a taxi and pick up +two good men to leave for China at once! Then go and charter +a special to Tilbury to leave in twenty-five minutes. +Order another cab to wait outside for me." + +Weymouth was palpably amazed, but Smith's tone was imperative. +The Inspector departed hastily. + +I stared at Smith, not comprehending what prompted this singular course. + +"Now that you can think clearly, Mr. West," he said, "of what +does your experience remind you? The errors of perception +regarding time; the idea of SEEING A SOUND; the illusion +that the room alternately increased and diminished in size; +your fit of laughter, and the recollection of the name Bayard Taylor. +Since evidently you are familiar with that author's work-- +'The Land of the Saracen,' is it not?--these symptoms of the attack +should be familiar, I think." + +Norris West pressed his hands to his evidently aching head. + +"Bayard Taylor's book," he said dully. "Yes!. . .I know of what my brain +sought to remind me--Taylor's account of his experience under hashish. +Mr. Smith, someone doped me with hashish!" + +Smith nodded grimly. + +"Cannabis indica," I said--"Indian hemp. That is what you were +drugged with. I have no doubt that now you experience a feeling of nausea +and intense thirst, with aching in the muscles, particularly the deltoid. +I think you must have taken at least fifteen grains." + +Smith stopped his perambulations immediately in front of West, +looking into his dulled eyes. + +"Someone visited your chambers last night," he said slowly, +"and for your chloral tabloids substituted some containing hashish, +or perhaps not pure hashish. Fu-Manchu is a profound chemist." + +Norris West started. + +"Someone substituted--" he began. + +"Exactly," said Smith, looking at him keenly; "someone who was +here yesterday. Have you any idea whom it could have been?" + +West hesitated. "I had a visitor in the afternoon," he said, +seemingly speaking the words unwillingly, "but--" + +"A lady?" jerked Smith. "I suggest that it was a lady." + +West nodded. + +"You're quite right," he admitted. "I don't know how you arrived +at the conclusion, but a lady whose acquaintance I made recently-- +a foreign lady." + +"Karamaneh!" snapped Smith. + +"I don't know what you mean in the least, but she came here-- +knowing this to be my present address--to ask me to protect her from +a mysterious man who had followed her right from Charing Cross. +She said he was down in the lobby, and naturally, I asked her to wait +here whilst I went and sent him about his business." + +He laughed shortly. + +"I am over-old," he said, "to be guyed by a woman. +You spoke just now of someone called Fu-Manchu. Is +that the crook I'm indebted to for the loss of my plans? +I've had attempts made by agents of two European governments, +but a Chinaman is a novelty." + +"This Chinaman," Smith assured him, "is the greatest novelty of his age. +You recognize your symptoms now from Bayard Taylors account?" + +"Mr. West's statement," I said, "ran closely parallel +with portions of Moreau's book on `Hashish Hallucinations.' +Only Fu-Manchu, I think, would have thought of employing Indian hemp. +I doubt, though, if it was pure Cannabis indica. At any rate, +it acted as an opiate--" + +"And drugged Mr. West," interrupted Smith, "sufficiently to enable +Fu-Manchu to enter unobserved." + +"Whilst it produced symptoms which rendered him an easy subject +for the Doctor's influence. It is difficult in this case to separate +hallucination from reality, but I think, Mr. West, that Fu-Manchu +must have exercised an hypnotic influence upon your drugged brain. +We have evidence that he dragged from you the secret of the combination." + +"God knows we have!" said West. "But who is this Fu-Manchu, and how-- +how in the name of wonder did he get into my chambers?" + +Smith pulled out his watch. "That," he said rapidly, "I cannot +delay to explain if I'm to intercept the man who has the plans. +Come along, Petrie; we must be at Tilbury within the hour. +There is just a bare chance." + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +IT was with my mind in a condition of unique perplexity that I hurried +with Nayland Smith into the cab which waited and dashed off through +the streets in which the busy life of London just stirred into being. +I suppose I need not say that I could penetrate no farther into this, +Fu-Manchu's latest plot, than the drugging of Norris West with hashish? +Of his having been so drugged with Indian hemp--that is, +converted temporarily into a maniac--would have been evident to any +medical man who had heard his statement and noted the distressing +after-effects which conclusively pointed to Indian hemp poisoning. +Knowing something of the Chinese doctor's powers, I could understand that +he might have extracted from West the secret of the combination by sheer +force of will whilst the American was under the influence of the drug. +But I could not understand how Fu-Manchu had gained access to locked +chambers on the third story of a building. + +"Smith," I said, "those bird tracks on the window-sill-- +they furnish the key to a mystery which is puzzling me." + +"They do," said Smith, glancing impatiently at his watch. +"Consult your memories of Dr. Fu-Manchu's habits--especially your +memories of his pets." + +I reviewed in my mind the creatures gruesome and terrible which +surrounded the Chinaman--the scorpions, the bacteria, the noxious +things which were the weapons wherewith he visited death upon +whomsoever opposed the establishment of a potential Yellow Empire. +But no one of them could account for the imprints upon the dust +of West's window-sill. + +"You puzzle me, Smith," I confessed. "There is much in this extraordinary +case that puzzles me. I can think of nothing to account for the marks." + +"Have you thought of Fu-Manchu's marmoset?" asked Smith. + +"The monkey!" I cried. + +"They were the footprints of a small ape," my friend continued. +"For a moment I was deceived as you were, and believed them +to be the tracks of a large bird; but I have seen the footprints +of apes before now, and a marmoset, though an American variety, +I believe, is not unlike some of the apes of Burma." + +"I am still in the dark," I said. + +"It is pure hypothesis," continued Smith, "but here is the theory-- +in lieu of a better one it covers the facts. The marmoset-- +and it is contrary from the character of Fu-Manchu to keep any +creature for mere amusement--is trained to perform certain duties. + +"You observed the waterspout running up beside the window; you observed +the iron bar intended to prevent a window-cleaner from falling out? +For an ape the climb from the court below to the sill above was +a simple one. He carried a cord, probably attached to his body. +He climbed on to the sill, over the bar, and climbed down again. +By means of this cord a rope was pulled up over the bar, +by means of the rope one of those ladders of silk and bamboo. +One of the Doctor's servants ascended--probably to +ascertain if the hashish had acted successfully. +That was the yellow dream-face which West saw bending over him. +Then followed the Doctor, and to his giant will the drugged brain +of West was a pliant instrument which he bent to his own ends. +The court would be deserted at that hour of the night, and, +in any event, directly after the ascent the ladder probably +was pulled up, only to be lowered again when West had revealed +the secret of his own safe and Fu-Manchu had secured the plans. +The reclosing of the safe and the removing of the hashish tabloids, +leaving no clew beyond the delirious ravings of a drug slave-- +for so anyone unacquainted with the East must have construed +West's story--is particularly characteristic. His own tabloids +were returned, of course. The sparing of his life alone is +a refinement of art which points to a past master." + +"Karamaneh was the decoy again?" I said shortly. + +"Certainly. Hers was the task to ascertain West's habits and to +substitute the tabloids. She it was who waited in the luxurious car-- +infinitely less likely to attract attention at that hour in +that place than a modest taxi--and received the stolen plans. +She did her work well. + +"Poor Karamaneh; she had no alternative! I said I would have given a hundred +pounds for a sight of the messenger's face--the man to whom she handed them. +I would give a thousand now!" + +"ANDAMAN--SECOND," I said. "What did she mean?" + +"Then it has not dawned upon you?" cried Smith excitedly, as the cab +turned into the station. "The ANDAMAN, of the Oriental Navigation +Company's line, leaves Tilbury with the next tide for China ports. +Our man is a second-class passenger. I am wiring to delay her departure, +and the special should get us to the docks inside of forty minutes." + + +Very vividly I can reconstruct in my mind that dash to the docks +through the early autumn morning. My friend being invested +with extraordinary powers from the highest authorities, +by Inspector Weymouth's instructions the line had been cleared +all the way. + +Something of the tremendous importance of Nayland Smith's mission came home +to me as we hurried on to the platform, escorted by the station-master, +and the five of us--for Weymouth had two other C.I.D. men with him-- +took our seats in the special. + +Off we went on top speed, roaring through stations, +where a glimpse might be had of wondering officials upon +the platforms, for a special train was a novelty on the line. +All ordinary traffic arrangements were held up until we had +passed through, and we reached Tilbury in time which I doubt +not constituted a record. + +There at the docks was the great liner, delayed in her passage +to the Far East by the will of my royally empowered companion. +It was novel, and infinitely exciting. + +"Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith?" said the captain interrogatively, +when we were shown into his room, and looked from one to another and back +to the telegraph form which he held in his hand. + +"The same, Captain," said my friend briskly. "I shall not detain +you a moment. I am instructing the authorities at all ports +east of Suez to apprehend one of your second-class passengers, +should he leave the ship. He is in possession of plans +which practically belong to the British Government?" +"Why not arrest him now?" asked the seaman bluntly. + +"Because I don't know him. All second-class passengers' +baggage will be searched as they land. I am hoping something from that, +if all else fails. But I want you privately to instruct your stewards +to watch any passenger of Oriental nationality, and to cooperate +with the two Scotland Yard men who are joining you for the voyage. +I look to you to recover these plans, Captain." + +"I will do my best," the captain assured him. + +Then, from amid the heterogeneous group on the dockside, we were watching +the liner depart, and Nayland Smith's expression was a very singular one. +Inspector Weymouth stood with us, a badly puzzled man. Then occurred +the extraordinary incident which to this day remains inexplicable, for, +clearly heard by all three of us, a guttural voice said: + +"Another victory for China, Mr. Nayland Smith!" + +I turned as though I had been stung. Smith turned also. +My eyes passed from face to face of the group about us. +None was familiar. No one apparently had moved away. + +But the voice was the voice of DOCTOR FU-MANCHU. + +As I write of it, now, I can appreciate the difference +between that happening, as it appealed to us, and as it must +appeal to you who merely read of it. It is beyond my powers +to convey the sense of the uncanny which the episode created. +Yet, even as I think of it, I feel again, though in lesser degree, +the chill which seemed to creep through my veins that day. + +From my brief history of the wonderful and evil man who once walked, +by the way unsuspected, in the midst of the people of England-- +near whom you, personally, may at some time unwittingly, have been-- +I am aware that much must be omitted. I have no space for lengthy +examinations of the many points but ill illuminated with which it is dotted. +This incident at the docks is but one such point. + +Another is the singular vision which appeared to me whilst I lay in +the cellar of the house near Windsor. It has since struck me that it +possessed peculiarities akin to those of a hashish hallucination. +Can it be that we were drugged on that occasion with Indian hemp? Cannabis +indica is a treacherous narcotic, as every medical man knows full well; +but Fu-Manchu's knowledge of the drug was far in advance of our slow science. +West's experience proved so much. + +I may have neglected opportunities--later, you shall judge if I did so-- +opportunities to glean for the West some of the strange knowledge of +the secret East. Perhaps, at a future time, I may rectify my errors. +Perhaps that wisdom--the wisdom stored up by Fu-Manchu--is lost forever. +There is, however, at least a bare possibility of its survival, in part; +and I do not wholly despair of one day publishing a scientific sequel +to this record of our dealings with the Chinese doctor. + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +TIME wore on and seemingly brought us no nearer, or very little nearer, +to our goal. So carefully had my friend Nayland Smith excluded +the matter from the press that, whilst public interest was much engaged +with some of the events in the skein of mystery which he had come from +Burma to unravel, outside the Secret Service and the special department +of Scotland Yard few people recognized that the several murders, +robberies and disappearances formed each a link in a chain; fewer still +were aware that a baneful presence was in our midst, that a past +master of the evil arts lay concealed somewhere in the metropolis; +searched for by the keenest wits which the authorities could direct +to the task, but eluding all-triumphant, contemptuous. + +One link in that chain Smith himself for long failed to recognize. +Yet it was a big and important link. + +"Petrie," he said to me one morning, "listen to this: + +"`. . .In sight of Shanghai--a clear, dark night. On board the deck of a junk +passing close to seaward of the Andaman a blue flare started up. +A minute later there was a cry of "Man overboard!" + +"`Mr. Lewin, the chief officer, who was in charge, stopped the engines. +A boat was put out. But no one was recovered. There are sharks +in these waters. A fairly heavy sea was running. + +"`Inquiry showed the missing man to be a James Edwards, +second class, booked to Shanghai. I think the name was assumed. +The man was some sort of Oriental, and we had had him +under close observation. . . .'" + +"That's the end of their report," exclaimed Smith. + +He referred to the two C.I.D. men who had joined the Andaman +at the moment of her departure from Tilbury. + +He carefully lighted his pipe. + +"IS it a victory for China, Petrie?" he said softly. + +"Until the great war reveals her secret resources--and I pray that the day +be not in my time--we shall never know," I replied. + +Smith began striding up and down the room, + +"Whose name," he jerked abruptly, "stands now at the head +of our danger list?" + +He referred to a list which we had compiled of the notable men intervening +between the evil genius who secretly had invaded London and the triumph +of his cause--the triumph of the yellow races. + +I glanced at our notes. "Lord Southery," I replied. + +Smith tossed the morning paper across to me. + +"Look," he said shortly. "He's dead." + +I read the account of the peer's death, and glanced at +the long obituary notice; but no more than glanced at it. +He had but recently returned from the East, and now, after a +short illness, had died from some affection of the heart. +There had been no intimation that his illness was of a +serious nature, and even Smith, who watched over his flock-- +the flock threatened by the wolf, Fu-Manchu--with jealous zeal, +had not suspected that the end was so near. + +"Do you think he died a natural death, Smith?" I asked. + +My friend reached across the table and rested the tip of a long +ringer upon one of the sub-headings to the account: + + +"SIR FRANK NARCOMBE SUMMONED TOO LATE." + + +"You see," said Smith, "Southery died during the night, +but Sir Frank Narcombe, arriving a few minutes later, +unhesitatingly pronounced death to be due to syncope, +and seems to have noticed nothing suspicious." + +I looked at him thoughtfully. + +"Sir Frank is a great physician," I said slowly; "but we must +remember he would be looking for nothing suspicious." + +"We must remember," rapped Smith, "that, if Dr. Fu-Manchu +is responsible for Southery's death, except to the eye +of an expert there would be nothing suspicious to see. +Fu-Manchu leaves no clews." + +"Are you going around?" I asked. + +Smith shrugged his shoulders. + +"I think not," he replied. "Either a greater One than Fu-Manchu +has taken Lord Southery, or the yellow doctor has done his work +so well that no trace remains of his presence in the matter." + +Leaving his breakfast untasted, he wandered aimlessly about the room, +littering the hearth with matches as he constantly relighted his pipe, +which went out every few minutes. + +"It's no good, Petrie," he burst out suddenly; "it cannot be a coincidence. +We must go around and see him." + +An hour later we stood in the silent room, with its drawn blinds and +its deathful atmosphere, looking down at the pale, intellectual face +of Henry Stradwick, Lord Southery, the greatest engineer of his day. +The mind that lay behind that splendid brow had planned the construction +of the railway for which Russia had paid so great a price, had conceived +the scheme for the canal which, in the near future, was to bring +two great continents, a full week's journey nearer one to the other. +But now it would plan no more. + +"He had latterly developed symptoms of angina pectoris," +explained the family physician; "but I had not anticipated a fatal +termination so soon. I was called about two o'clock this morning, +and found Lord Southery in a dangerously exhausted condition. +I did all that was possible, and Sir Frank Narcombe was sent for. +But shortly before his arrival the patient expired." + +"I understand, Doctor, that you had been treating Lord Southery +for angina pectoris?" I said. + +"Yes," was the reply, "for some months." + +"You regard the circumstances of his end as entirely consistent +with a death from that cause?" + +"Certainly. Do you observe anything unusual yourself? +Sir Frank Narcombe quite agrees with me. There is surely +no room for doubt?" + +"No," said Smith, tugging reflectively at the lobe of his left ear. +"We do not question the accuracy of your diagnosis in any way, sir." + +The physician seemed puzzled. + +"But am I not right in supposing that you are connected with the police?" +asked the physician. + +"Neither Dr. Petrie nor myself are in any way connected with the police," +answered Smith. "But, nevertheless, I look to you to regard our recent +questions as confidential." + +As we were leaving the house, hushed awesomely in deference to the unseen +visitor who had touched Lord Southery with gray, cold fingers, Smith paused, +detaining a black-coated man who passed us on the stairs. + +"You were Lord Southery's valet?" + +The man bowed. + +"Were you in the room at the moment of his fatal seizure?" + +"I was, sir." + +"Did you see or hear anything unusual--anything unaccountable?" + +"Nothing, sir." + +"No strange sounds outside the house, for instance?" + +The man shook his head, and Smith, taking my arm, passed out into the street. + +"Perhaps this business is making me imaginative," he said; +"but there seems to be something tainting the air in yonder-- +something peculiar to houses whose doors bear the invisible +death-mark of Fu-Manchu." + +"You are right, Smith!" I cried. "I hesitated to mention the matter, but I, +too, have developed some other sense which warns me of the Doctor's presence. +Although there is not a scrap of confirmatory evidence, I am as sure that he +has brought about Lord Southery's death as if I had seen him strike the blow." + +It was in that torturing frame of mind--chained, helpless, +in our ignorance, or by reason of the Chinaman's +supernormal genius--that we lived throughout the ensuing days. +My friend began to look like a man consumed by a burning fever. +Yet, we could not act. + +In the growing dark of an evening shortly following I +stood idly turning over some of the works exposed for sale +outside a second-hand bookseller's in New Oxford Street. +One dealing with the secret societies of China struck me +as being likely to prove instructive, and I was about to call +the shopman when I was startled to feel a hand clutch my arm. + +I turned around rapidly--and was looking into the darkly beautiful +eyes of Karamaneh! She--whom I had seen in so many guises-- +was dressed in a perfectly fitting walking habit, and had much +of her wonderful hair concealed beneath a fashionable hat. + +She glanced about her apprehensively. + +"Quick! Come round the corner. I must speak to you," she said, +her musical voice thrilling with excitement. + +I never was quite master of myself in her presence. +He must have been a man of ice who could have been, +I think for her beauty had all the bouquet of rarity; +she was a mystery--and mystery adds charm to a woman. +Probably she should have been under arrest, but I know I would +have risked much to save her from it. + +As we turned into a quiet thoroughfare she stopped and said: + +"I am in distress. You have often asked me to enable you to capture +Dr. Fu-Manchu. I am prepared to do so." + +I could scarcely believe that I heard right. + +"Your brother--" I began. + +She seized my arm entreatingly, looking into my eyes. + +"You are a doctor," she said. "I want you to come and see him now." + +"What! Is he in London?" + +"He is at the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu." + +"And you would have me ---" + +"Accompany me there, yes." + +Nayland Smith, I doubted not, would have counseled me against +trusting my life in the hands of this girl with the pleading eyes. +Yet I did so, and with little hesitation; shortly we were traveling +eastward in a closed cab. Karamaneh was very silent, but always when I +turned to her I found her big eyes fixed upon me with an expression +in which there was pleading, in which there was sorrow, in which there +was something else--something indefinable, yet strangely disturbing. +The cabman she had directed to drive to the lower end of the Commercial Road, +the neighborhood of the new docks, and the scene of one of our early +adventures with Dr. Fu-Manchu. The mantle of dusk had closed about +the squalid activity of the East End streets as we neared our destination. +Aliens of every shade of color were about us now, emerging from +burrow-like alleys into the glare of the lamps upon the main road. +In the short space of the drive we had passed from the bright world +of the West into the dubious underworld of the East. + +I do not know that Karamaneh moved; but in sympathy, as we neared +the abode of the sinister Chinaman, she crept nearer to me, +and when the cab was discharged, and together we walked down +a narrow turning leading riverward, she clung to me fearfully, +hesitated, and even seemed upon the point of turning back. +But, overcoming her fear or repugnance, she led on, through a maze +of alleyways and courts, wherein I hopelessly lost my bearings, +so that it came home to me how wholly I was in the hands of this +girl whose history was so full of shadows, whose real character +was so inscrutable, whose beauty, whose charm truly might mask +the cunning of a serpent. + +I spoke to her. + +"S-SH!" She laid her hand upon my arm, enjoining me to silence. + +The high, drab brick wall of what looked like some part of a dock +building loomed above us in the darkness, and the indescribable +stenches of the lower Thames were borne to my nostrils through +a gloomy, tunnel-like opening, beyond which whispered the river. +The muffled clangor of waterside activity was about us. +I heard a key grate in a lock, and Karamaneh drew me into the shadow +of an open door, entered, and closed it behind her. + +For the first time I perceived, in contrast to the odors +of the court without, the fragrance of the peculiar perfume +which now I had come to associate with her. Absolute darkness +was about us, and by this perfume alone I knew that she, +was near to me, until her hand touched mine, and I was led +along an uncarpeted passage and up an uncarpeted stair. +A second door was unlocked, and I found myself in an exquisitely +furnished room, illuminated by the soft light of a shaded lamp +which stood upon a low, inlaid table amidst a perfect ocean +of silken cushions, strewn upon a Persian carpet, whose yellow +richness was lost in the shadows beyond the circle of light. + +Karamaneh raised a curtain draped before a doorway, and stood +listening intently for a moment. + +The silence was unbroken. + +Then something stirred amid the wilderness of cushions, and two +tiny bright eyes looked up at me. Peering closely, I succeeded +in distinguishing, crouched in that soft luxuriance, a little ape. +It was Dr. Fu-Manchu's marmoset. "This way," whispered Karamaneh. + +Never, I thought, was a staid medical man committed to a more +unwise enterprise, but so far I had gone, and no consideration +of prudence could now be of avail. + +The corridor beyond was thickly carpeted. Following the direction +of a faint light which gleamed ahead, it proved to extend +as a balcony across one end of a spacious apartment. +Together we stood high up there in the shadows, and looked +down upon such a scene as I never could have imagined to exist +within many a mile of that district. + +The place below was even more richly appointed than the room into +which first we had come. Here, as there, piles of cushions formed +splashes of gaudy color about the floor. Three lamps hung by chains +from the ceiling, their light softened by rich silk shades. +One wall was almost entirely occupied by glass cases containing +chemical apparatus, tubes, retorts and other less orthodox indications +of Dr. Fu-Manchu's pursuits, whilst close against another lay +the most extraordinary object of a sufficiently extraordinary room-- +a low couch, upon which was extended the motionless form of a boy. +In the light of a lamp which hung directly above him, his olive +face showed an almost startling resemblance to that of Karamaneh-- +save that the girl's coloring was more delicate. He had black, +curly hair, which stood out prominently against the white covering +upon which he lay, his hands crossed upon his breast. + +Transfixed with astonishment, I stood looking down upon him. +The wonders of the "Arabian Nights" were wonders no longer, +for here, in East-End London, was a true magician's palace, +lacking not its beautiful slave lacking not its enchanted prince! + +"It is Aziz, my brother," said Karamaneh. + +We passed down a stairway on to the floor of the apartment. +Karamaneh knelt and bent over the boy, stroking his hair +and whispering to him lovingly. I, too, bent over him; +and I shall never forget the anxiety in the girl's eyes as she +watched me eagerly whilst I made a brief examination. + +Brief, indeed, for even ere I had touched him I knew that the comely +shell held no spark of life. But Karamaneh fondled the cold hands, +and spoke softly in that Arabic tongue which long before I had divined +must be her native language. + +Then, as I remained silent, she turned and looked at me, +read the truth in my eyes, and rose from her knees, +stood rigidly upright, and clutched me tremblingly. + +"He is not dead--he is NOT dead!" she whispered, and shook me +as a child might, seeking to arouse me to a proper understanding. +"Oh, tell me he is not ---" + +"I cannot," I replied gently, "for indeed he is." + +"No!" she said, wild-eyed, and raising her hands to her face as though +half distraught. "You do not understand--yet you are a doctor. +You do not understand ---" + +She stopped, moaning to herself and looking from the handsome +face of the boy to me. It was pitiful; it was uncanny. +But sorrow for the girl predominated in my mind. + +Then from somewhere I heard a sound which I had heard before in houses +occupied by Dr. Fu-Manchu--that of a muffled gong. + +"Quick!" Karamaneh had me by the arm. "Up! He has returned!" + +She fled up the stairs to the balcony, I close at her heels. +The shadows veiled us, the thick carpet deadened the sound +of our tread, or certainly we must have been detected by the man +who entered the room we had just quitted. + +It was Dr. Fu-Manchu! + +Yellow-robed, immobile, the inhuman green eyes glittering catlike even, +it seemed, before the light struck them, he threaded his way through +the archipelago of cushions and bent over the couch of Aziz. + +Karamaneh dragged me down on to my knees. + +"Watch!" she whispered. "Watch!" + +Dr. Fu-Manchu felt for the pulse of the boy whom a moment since I +had pronounced dead, and, stepping to the tall glass case, +took out a long-necked flask of chased gold, and from it, +into a graduated glass, he poured some drops of an amber liquid +wholly unfamiliar to me. I watched him with all my eyes, +and noted how high the liquid rose in the measure. +He charged a needle-syringe, and, bending again over Aziz, +made an injection. + +Then all the wonders I had heard of this man became possible, +and with an awe which any other physician who had examined +Aziz must have felt, I admitted him a miracle-worker. For +as I watched, all but breathless, the dead came to life! +The glow of health crept upon the olive cheek--the boy moved-- +he raised his hands above his head--he sat up, supported by +the Chinese doctor! + +Fu-Manchu touched some hidden bell. A hideous yellow man with a scarred +face entered, carrying a tray upon which were a bowl containing +some steaming fluid, apparently soup, what looked like oaten cakes, +and a flask of red wine. + +As the boy, exhibiting no more unusual symptoms than if he had just +awakened from a normal sleep, commenced his repast, Karamaneh drew me +gently along the passage into the room which we had first entered. +My heart leaped wildly as the marmoset bounded past us to drop hand +over hand to the lower apartment in search of its master. + +"You see," said Karamaneh, her voice quivering, "he is not dead! +But without Fu-Manchu he is dead to me. How can I leave him +when he holds the life of Aziz in his hand?" + +"You must get me that flask, or some of its contents," I directed. +"But tell me, how does he produce the appearance of death?" + +"I cannot tell you," she replied. "I do not know. It is something +in the wine. In another hour Aziz will be again as you saw him. +But see." And, opening a little ebony box, she produced a phial +half filled with the amber liquid. + +"Good!" I said, and slipped it into my pocket. "When will be the best +time to seize Fu-Manchu and to restore your brother?" + +"I will let you know," she whispered, and, opening the door, pushed me +hurriedly from the room. "He is going away to-night to the north; +but you must not come to-night. Quick! Quick! Along the passage. +He may call me at any moment." + +So, with the phial in my pocket containing a potent preparation unknown +to Western science, and with a last long look into the eyes of Karamaneh, +I passed out into the narrow alley, out from the fragrant perfumes +of that mystery house into the place of Thames-side stenches. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +"WE must arrange for the house to be raided without delay," said Smith. +"This time we are sure of our ally--" + +"But we must keep our promise to her," I interrupted. + +"You can look after that, Petrie," my friend said. +"I will devote the whole of my attention to Dr. Fu-Manchu!" +he added grimly. + +Up and down the room he paced, gripping the blackened briar between +his teeth, so that the muscles stood out squarely upon his lean jaws. +The bronze which spoke of the Burmese sun enhanced the brightness +of his gray eyes. + +"What have I all along maintained?" he jerked, looking back at me across +his shoulder--"that, although Karamaneh was one of the strongest weapons in +the Doctor's armory, she was one which some day would be turned against him. +That day has dawned." + +"We must await word from her." + +"Quite so." + +He knocked out his pipe on the grate. Then: + +"Have you any idea of the nature of the fluid in the phial?" + +"Not the slightest. And I have none to spare for analytical purposes." + +Nayland Smith began stuffing mixture into the hot pipe-bowl, +and dropping an almost equal quantity on the floor. + +"I cannot rest, Petrie," he said. "I am itching to get to work. +Yet, a false move, and--" He lighted his pipe, and stood staring +from the window. + +"I shall, of course, take a needle-syringe with me," I explained. + +Smith made no reply. + +"If I but knew the composition of the drug which produced the semblance +of death," I continued, "my fame would long survive my ashes." + +My friend did not turn. But: + +"She said it was something he put in the wine?" he jerked. + +"In the wine, yes." + +Silence fell. My thoughts reverted to Karamaneh, whom Dr. Fu-Manchu held +in bonds stronger than any slave-chains. For, with Aziz, her brother, +suspended between life and death, what could she do save obey +the mandates of the cunning Chinaman? What perverted genius was his! +If that treasury of obscure wisdom which he, perhaps alone of living men, +had rifled, could but be thrown open to the sick and suffering, the name +of Dr. Fu-Manchu would rank with the golden ones in the history of healing. + +Nayland Smith suddenly turned, and the expression upon his face amazed me. + +"Look up the next train to L--!" he rapped. "To L--? What--?" + +"There's the Bradshaw. We haven't a minute to waste." + +In his voice was the imperative note I knew so well; in his +eyes was the light which told of an urgent need for action-- +a portentous truth suddenly grasped. + +"One in half-an-hour--the last." + +"We must catch it." + +No further word of explanation he vouchsafed, but darted off to dress; +for he had spent the afternoon pacing the room in his dressing-gown +and smoking without intermission. + +Out and to the corner we hurried, and leaped into the first taxi +upon the rank. Smith enjoined the man to hasten, and we were off-- +all in that whirl of feverish activity which characterized my friend's +movements in times of important action. + +He sat glancing impatiently from the window and twitching at the lobe +of his ear. + +"I know you will forgive me, old man," he said, "but there +is a little problem which I am trying to work out in my mind. +Did you bring the things I mentioned?" + +"Yes." + +Conversation lapsed, until, just as the cab turned into the station, +Smith said: "Should you consider Lord Southery to have been the first +constructive engineer of his time, Petrie?" + +"Undoubtedly," I replied. + +"Greater than Von Homber, of Berlin?" + +"Possibly not. But Von Homber has been dead for three years." + +"Three years, is it?" + +"Roughly." + +"Ah!" + + +We reached the station in time to secure a non-corridor +compartment to ourselves, and to allow Smith leisure carefully +to inspect the occupants of all the others, from the engine +to the guard's van. He was muffled up to the eyes, and he warned +me to keep out of sight in the corner of the compartment. +In fact, his behavior had me bursting with curiosity. +The train having started: + +"Don't imagine, Petrie," said Smith "that I am trying to lead you +blindfolded in order later to dazzle you with my perspicacity. +I am simply afraid that this may be a wild-goose chase. +The idea upon which I am acting does not seem to have struck you. +I wish it had. The fact would argue in favor of its being, sound." + +"At present I am hopelessly mystified." + +"Well, then, I will not bias you towards my view. +But just study the situation, and see if you can arrive at +the reason for this sudden journey. I shall be distinctly +encouraged if you succeed." + +But I did not succeed, and since Smith obviously was +unwilling to enlighten me, I pressed him no more. +The train stopped at Rugby, where he was engaged with +the stationmaster in making some mysterious arrangements. +At L--, however, their object became plain, for a high-power car +was awaiting us, and into this we hurried and ere the greater +number of passengers had reached the platform were being driven +off at headlong speed along the moon-bathed roads. + +Twenty minutes' rapid traveling, and a white mansion leaped into the line +of sight, standing out vividly against its woody backing. + +"Stradwick Hall," said Smith. "The home of Lord Southery. +We are first--but Dr. Fu-Manchu was on the train." + +Then the truth dawned upon the gloom of my perplexity. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +"YOUR extraordinary proposal fills me with horror, Mr. Smith!" + +The sleek little man in the dress suit, who looked like a head waiter +(but was the trusted legal adviser of the house of Southery) +puffed at his cigar indignantly. Nayland Smith, whose restless +pacing had led him to the far end of the library, turned, a remote +but virile figure, and looked back to where I stood by the open +hearth with the solicitor. + +"I am in your hands, Mr. Henderson," he said, and advanced +upon the latter, his gray eyes ablaze. "Save for the heir, +who is abroad on foreign service, you say there is no kin +of Lord Southery to consider. The word rests with you. +If I am wrong, and you agree to my proposal, there is none +whose susceptibilities will suffer--" + +"My own, sir!" + +"If I am right, and you prevent me from acting, you become +a murderer, Mr. Henderson." + +The lawyer started, staring nervously up at Smith, who now towered +over him menacingly. + +"Lord Southery was a lonely man," continued my friend. +"If I could have placed my proposition before one of his blood, +I do not doubt what my answer had been. Why do you hesitate? +Why do you experience this feeling of horror?" + +Mr. Henderson stared down into the fire. His constitutionally +ruddy face was pale. + +"It is entirely irregular, Mr. Smith. We have not the necessary powers--" + +Smith snapped his teeth together impatiently, snatching his watch +from his pocket and glancing at it. + +"I am vested with the necessary powers. I will give you +a written order, sir." + +"The proceeding savors of paganism. Such a course might be admissible +in China, in Burma--" + +"Do you weigh a life against such quibbles? Do you suppose that, +granting MY irresponsibility, Dr. Petrie would countenance +such a thing if be doubted the necessity?" + +Mr. Henderson looked at me with pathetic hesitance. + +"There are guests in the house--mourners who attended +the ceremony to-day. They--" + +"Will never know, if we are in error," interrupted Smith. +"Good God! why do you delay?" + +"You wish it to be kept secret?" + +"You and I, Mr. Henderson, and Dr. Petrie will go now. +We require no other witnesses. We are answerable only +to our consciences." + +The lawyer passed his hand across his damp brow. + +"I have never in my life been called upon to come to so +momentous a decision in so short a time," he confessed. +But, aided by Smith's indomitable will, he made his decision. +As its result, we three, looking and feeling like conspirators, +hurried across the park beneath a moon whose placidity was a rebuke +to the turbulent passions which reared their strangle-growth in +the garden of England. Not a breath of wind stirred amid the leaves. +The calm of perfect night soothed everything to slumber. +Yet, if Smith were right (and I did not doubt him), +the green eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu had looked upon the scene; +and I found myself marveling that its beauty had not wilted up. +Even now the dread Chinaman must be near to us. + +As Mr. Henderson unlocked the ancient iron gates he turned to Nayland Smith. +His face twitched oddly. + +"Witness that I do this unwillingly," he said--"most unwillingly." + +"Mine be the responsibility," was the reply. + +Smith's voice quivered, responsive to the nervous vitality pent +up within that lean frame. He stood motionless, listening--and I +knew for whom he listened. He peered about him to right and left-- +and I knew whom he expected but dreaded to see. + +Above us now the trees looked down with a solemnity different from +the aspect of the monarchs of the park, and the nearer we came to our +journey's end the more somber and lowering bent the verdant arch-- +or so it seemed. + +By that path, patched now with pools of moonlight, Lord Southery +had passed upon his bier, with the sun to light his going; +by that path several generations of Stradwicks had gone +to their last resting-place. + +To the doors of the vault the moon rays found free access. +No branch, no leaf, intervened. Mr. Henderson's face looked ghastly. +The keys which he carried rattled in his hand. + +"Light the lantern," he said unsteadily. + +Nayland Smith, who again had been peering suspiciously about into +the shadows, struck a match and lighted the lantern which he carried. +He turned to the solicitor. + +"Be calm, Mr. Henderson," he said sternly. "It is your plain +duty to your client." + +"God be my witness that I doubt it," replied Henderson, +and opened the door. + +We descended the steps. The air beneath was damp and chill. +It touched us as with clammy fingers; and the sensation was +not wholly physical. + +Before the narrow mansion which now sufficed Lord Southery, the great engineer +whom kings had honored, Henderson reeled and clutched at me for support. +Smith and I had looked to him for no aid in our uncanny task, and rightly. + +With averted eyes he stood over by the steps of the tomb, whilst my friend +and myself set to work. In the pursuit of my profession I had undertaken +labors as unpleasant, but never amid an environment such as this. +It seemed that generations of Stradwicks listened to each turn of every screw. + +At last it was done, and the pallid face of Lord Southery questioned +the intruding light. Nayland Smith's hand was as steady as a rigid bar +when he raised the lantern. Later, I knew, there would be a sudden +releasing of the tension of will--a reaction physical and mental-- +but not until his work was finished. + +That my own hand was steady I ascribed to one thing solely-- +professional zeal. For, under conditions which, in the event +of failure and exposure, must have led to an unpleasant +inquiry by the British Medical Association, I was about +to attempt an experiment never before essayed by a physician +of the white races. + +Though I failed, though I succeeded, that it ever came before the B.M.A., or +any other council, was improbable; in the former event, all but impossible. +But the knowledge that I was about to practice charlatanry, or what any one +of my fellow-practitioners must have designated as such, was with me. Yet so +profound had my belief become in the extraordinary being whose existence was +a danger to the world that I reveled in my immunity from official censure. +I was glad that it had fallen to my lot to take at least one step-- +though blindly--into the FUTURE of medical science. + +So far as my skill bore me, Lord Southery was dead. Unhesitatingly, I +would have given a death certificate, save for two considerations. +The first, although his latest scheme ran contrary from the interests +of Dr. Fu-Manchu, his genius, diverted into other channels, +would serve the yellow group better than his death. The second, +I had seen the boy Aziz raised from a state as like death as this. + +From the phial of amber-hued liquid which I had with me, +I charged the needle syringe. I made the injection, and waited. + +"If he is really dead!" whispered Smith. "It seems incredible +that he can have survived for three days without food. +Yet I have known a fakir to go for a week." + +Mr. Henderson groaned. + +Watch in hand, I stood observing the gray face. + +A second passed; another; a third. In the fourth the miracle began. +Over the seemingly cold clay crept the hue of pulsing life. +It came in waves--in waves which corresponded with the throbbing +of the awakened heart; which swept fuller and stronger; +which filled and quickened the chilled body. + +As we rapidly freed the living man from the trappings of +the dead one, Southery, uttering a stifled scream, sat up, +looked about him with half-glazed eyes, and fell back. +"My God!" cried Smith. + +"It is all right," I said, and had time to note how my voice +had assumed a professional tone. "A little brandy from my flask +is all that is necessary now." + +"You have two patients, Doctor," rapped my friend. + +Mr. Henderson had fallen in a swoon to the floor of the vault. + +"Quiet," whispered Smith; "HE is here." + +He extinguished the light. + +I supported Lord Southery. "What has happened?" he kept moaning. +"Where am I? Oh, God! what has happened?" + +I strove to reassure him in a whisper, and placed my traveling +coat about him. The door at the top of the mausoleum steps we +had reclosed but not relocked. Now, as I upheld the man whom +literally we had rescued from the grave, I heard the door reopen. +To aid Henderson I could make no move. Smith was breathing hard beside me. +I dared not think what was about to happen, nor what its effects +might be upon Lord Southery in his exhausted condition. + +Through the Memphian dark of the tomb cut a spear of light, +touching the last stone of the stairway. + +A guttural voice spoke some words rapidly, and I knew that Dr. Fu-Manchu +stood at the head of the stairs. Although I could not see my friend, +I became aware that Nayland Smith had his revolver in his hand, +and I reached into my pocket for mine. + +At last the cunning Chinaman was about to fall into a trap. +It would require all his genius, I thought, to save him to-night. +Unless his suspicions were aroused by the unlocked door, +his capture was imminent. + +Someone was descending the steps. + +In my right hand I held my revolver, and with my left arm about Lord Southery, +I waited through ten such seconds of suspense as I have rarely known. + +The spear of light plunged into the well of darkness again. + +Lord Southery, Smith and myself were hidden by the angle of the wall; +but full upon the purplish face of Mr. Henderson the beam shone. +In some way it penetrated to the murk in his mind; and he awakened +from his swoon with a hoarse cry, struggled to his feet, and stood +looking up the stair in a sort of frozen horror. + +Smith was past him at a bound. Something flashed towards him as the light +was extinguished. I saw him duck, and heard the knife ring upon the floor. + +I managed to move sufficiently to see at the top, as I fired up +the stairs, the yellow face of Dr. Fu-Manchu, to see the gleaming, +chatoyant eyes, greenly terrible, as they sought to pierce the gloom. +A flying figure was racing up, three steps at a time (that of a brown man +scantily clad). He stumbled and fell, by which I knew that he was hit; +but went on again, Smith hard on his heels. + +"Mr. Henderson!" I cried, "relight the lantern and take +charge of Lord Southery. Here is my flask on the floor. +I rely upon you." + +Smith's revolver spoke again as I went bounding up the stair. +Black against the square of moonlight I saw him stagger, I saw him fall. +As he fell, for the third time, I heard the crack of his revolver. + +Instantly I was at his side. Somewhere along the black aisle +beneath the trees receding footsteps pattered. + +"Are you hurt, Smith?" I cried anxiously. + +He got upon his feet. + +"He has a dacoit with him," he replied, and showed me the long curved +knife which he held in his hand, a full inch of the blade bloodstained. +"A near thing for me, Petrie." + +I heard the whir of a restarted motor. + +"We have lost him," said Smith. + +"But we have saved Lord Southery," I said. "Fu-Manchu will credit +us with a skill as great as his own." + +"We must get to the car," Smith muttered, "and try to overtake them. +Ugh! my left arm is useless." + +"It would be mere waste of time to attempt to overtake them," I argued, +"for we have no idea in which direction they will proceed." + +"I have a very good idea," snapped Smith. "Stradwick Hall is less +than ten miles from the coast. There is only one practicable means +of conveying an unconscious man secretly from here to London." + +"You think he meant to take him from here to London?" + +"Prior to shipping him to China; I think so. His clearing-house +is probably on the Thames." + +"A boat?" + +"A yacht, presumably, is lying off the coast in readiness. +Fu-Manchu may even have designed to ship him direct to China." + +Lord Southery, a bizarre figure, my traveling coat wrapped about him, +and supported by his solicitor, who was almost as pale as himself, +emerged from the vault into the moonlight. + +"This is a triumph for you, Smith," I said. + +The throb of Fu-Manchu's car died into faintness and was lost +in the night's silence. + +"Only half a triumph," he replied. "But we still have another chance-- +the raid on his house. When will the word come from Karamaneh?" + +Southery spoke in a weak voice. + +"Gentlemen," he said, "it seems I am raised from the dead." + +It was the weirdest moment of the night wherein we heard that newly +buried man speak from the mold of his tomb. + +"Yes," replied Smith slowly, "and spared from the fate of Heaven +alone knows how many men of genius. The yellow society lacks +a Southery, but that Dr. Fu-Manchu was in Germany three years +ago I have reason to believe; so that, even without visiting +the grave of your great Teutonic rival, who suddenly died at about +that time, I venture to predict that they have a Von Homber. +And the futurist group in China knows how to MAKE men work!" + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +FROM the rescue of Lord Southery my story bears me mercilessly +on to other things. I may not tarry, as more leisurely penmen, +to round my incidents; they were not of my choosing. +I may not pause to make you better acquainted with the figure +of my drama; its scheme is none of mine. Often enough, +in those days, I found a fitness in the lines of Omar: + + + We are no other than a moving show + Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go + Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held + In Midnight by the Master of the Show. + + +But "the Master of the Show," in this case, was Dr. Fu-Manchu! + +I have been asked many times since the days with which these records deal: +Who WAS Dr. Fu-Manchu? Let me confess here that my final answer must +be postponed. I can only indicate, at this place, the trend of my reasoning, +and leave my reader to form whatever conclusion he pleases. + +What group can we isolate and label as responsible for the overthrow +of the Manchus? The casual student of modern Chinese history will reply: +"Young China." This is unsatisfactory. What do we mean by Young China? +In my own hearing Fu-Manchu had disclaimed, with scorn, association with the +whole of that movement; and assuming that the name were not an assumed one, +he clearly can have been no anti-Manchu, no Republican. + +The Chinese Republican is of the mandarin class, but of a new +generation which veneers its Confucianism with Western polish. +These youthful and unbalanced reformers, in conjunction +with older but no less ill-balanced provincial politicians, +may be said to represent Young China. Amid such turmoils as this +we invariably look for, and invariably find, a Third Party. +In my opinion, Dr. Fu-Manchu was one of the leaders of such a party. + +Another question often put to me was: Where did the Doctor +hide during the time that he pursued his operations in London? +This is more susceptible of explanation. For a time Nayland +Smith supposed, as I did myself, that the opium den adjacent +to the old Ratcliff Highway was the Chinaman's base of operations; +later we came to believe that the mansion near Windsor was his +hiding-place, and later still, the hulk lying off the downstream flats. +But I think I can state with confidence that the spot which he had +chosen for his home was neither of these, but the East End riverside +building which I was the first to enter. Of this I am all but sure; +for the reason that it not only was the home of Fu-Manchu, of Karamaneh, +and of her brother, Aziz, but the home of something else-- +of something which I shall speak of later. + +The dreadful tragedy (or series of tragedies) which attended the raid upon the +place will always mark in my memory the supreme horror of a horrible case. +Let me endeavor to explain what occurred. + +By the aid of Karamaneh, you have seen how we had located +the whilom warehouse, which, from the exterior, was so drab +and dreary, but which within was a place of wondrous luxury. +At the moment selected by our beautiful accomplice, +Inspector Weymouth and a body of detectives entirely surrounded it; +a river police launch lay off the wharf which opened from it +on the river-side; and this upon a singularly black night, +than which a better could not have been chosen. + +"You will fulfill your promise to me?" said Karamaneh, +and looked up into my face. + +She was enveloped in a big, loose cloak, and from the shadow +of the hood her wonderful eyes gleamed out like stars. + +"What do you wish us to do?" asked Nayland Smith. + +"You--and Dr. Petrie," she replied swiftly, "must enter first, +and bring out Aziz. Until he is safe--until he is out of that place-- +you are to make no attempt upon--" + +"Upon Dr. Fu-Manchu?" interrupted Weymouth; for Karamaneh +hesitated to pronounce the dreaded name, as she always did. +"But how can we be sure that there is no trap laid for us?" + +The Scotland Yard man did not entirely share my confidence in the integrity +of this Eastern girl whom he knew to have been a creature of the Chinaman's. + +"Aziz lies in the private room," she explained eagerly, her old accent more +noticeable than usual. "There is only one of the Burmese men in the house, +and he--he dare not enter without orders!" + +"But Fu-Manchu?" + +"We have nothing to fear from him. He will be your prisoner +within ten minutes from now! I have no time for words-- +you must believe!" She stamped her foot impatiently. +"And the dacoit?" snapped Smith. + +"He also." + +"I think perhaps I'd better come in, too," said Weymouth slowly. + +Karamaneh shrugged her shoulders with quick impatience, +and unlocked the door in the high brick wall which divided +the gloomy, evil-smelling court from the luxurious apartments +of Dr. Fu-Manchu. + +"Make no noise," she warned. And Smith and myself followed her along +the uncarpeted passage beyond. + +Inspector Weymouth, with a final word of instruction to his +second in command, brought up the rear. The door was reclosed; +a few paces farther on a second was unlocked. Passing through +a small room, unfurnished, a farther passage led us to a balcony. +The transition was startling. + +Darkness was about us now, and silence: a perfumed, slumberous darkness-- +a silence full of mystery. For, beyond the walls of the apartment whereon +we looked down waged the unceasing battle of sounds that is the hymn +of the great industrial river. About the scented confines which bounded +us now floated the smoke-laden vapors of the Lower Thames. + +From the metallic but infinitely human clangor of dock-side life, +from the unpleasant but homely odors which prevail where ships swallow +in and belch out the concrete evidences of commercial prosperity, +we had come into this incensed stillness, where one shaded lamp +painted dim enlargements of its Chinese silk upon the nearer walls, +and left the greater part of the room the darker for its contrast. + +Nothing of the Thames-side activity--of the riveting and scraping-- +the bumping of bales--the bawling of orders--the hiss of steam-- +penetrated to this perfumed place. In the pool of tinted light +lay the deathlike figure of a dark-haired boy, Karamaneh's muffled +form bending over him. + +"At last I stand in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu!" whispered Smith. + +Despite the girl's assurance, we knew that proximity +to the sinister Chinaman must be fraught with danger. +We stood, not in the lion's den, but in the serpent's lair. + +From the time when Nayland Smith had come from Burma in pursuit +of this advance-guard of a cogent Yellow Peril, the face of +Dr. Fu-Manchu rarely had been absent from my dreams day or night. +The millions might sleep in peace--the millions in whose +cause we labored!--but we who knew the reality of the danger +knew that a veritable octopus had fastened upon England-- +a yellow octopus whose head was that of Dr. Fu-Manchu, +whose tentacles were dacoity, thuggee, modes of death, +secret and swift, which in the darkness plucked men from life +and left no clew behind. + +"Karamaneh!" I called softly. + +The muffled form beneath the lamp turned so that the soft +light fell upon the lovely face of the slave girl. +She who had been a pliant instrument in the hands of Fu-Manchu +now was to be the means whereby society should be rid of him. + +She raised her finger warningly; then beckoned me to approach. + +My feet sinking in the rich pile of the carpet, I came through +the gloom of the great apartment in to the patch of light, +and, Karamaneh beside me, stood looking down upon the boy. +It was Aziz, her brother; dead so far as Western lore had power +to judge, but kept alive in that deathlike trance by the uncanny +power of the Chinese doctor. + +"Be quick," she said; "be quick! Awaken him! I am afraid." + +From the case which I carried I took out a needle-syringe +and a phial containing a small quantity of amber-hued liquid. +It was a drug not to be found in the British Pharmacopoeia. +Of its constitution I knew nothing. Although I had had +the phial in my possession for some days I had not dared +to devote any of its precious contents to analytical purposes. +The amber drops spelled life for the boy Aziz, spelled success +for the mission of Nayland Smith, spelled ruin for +the fiendish Chinaman. + +I raised the white coverlet. The boy, fully dressed, +lay with his arms crossed upon his breast. I discerned the mark +of previous injections as, charging the syringe from the phial, +I made what I hoped would be the last of such experiments upon him. +I would have given half of my small worldly possessions to have +known the real nature of the drug which was now coursing through +the veins of Aziz--which was tinting the grayed face with the olive +tone of life; which, so far as my medical training bore me, +was restoring the dead to life. + +But such was not the purpose of my visit. I was come to remove from +the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu the living chain which bound Karamaneh to him. +The boy alive and free, the Doctor's hold upon the slave girl would be broken. + +My lovely companion, her hands convulsively clasped, knelt and devoured +with her eyes the face of the boy who was passing through the most +amazing physiological change in the history of therapeutics. +The peculiar perfume which she wore--which seemed to be a part of her-- +which always I associated with her--was faintly perceptible. +Karamaneh was breathing rapidly. + +"You have nothing to fear," I whispered; "see, he is reviving. +In a few moments all will be well with him." + +The hanging lamp with its garishly colored shade swung gently above us, +wafted, it seemed, by some draught which passed through the apartment. +The boy's heavy lids began to quiver, and Karamaneh nervously clutched +my arm, and held me so whilst we watched for the long-lashed eyes to open. +The stillness of the place was positively unnatural; it seemed inconceivable +that all about us was the discordant activity of the commercial East End. +Indeed, this eerie silence was becoming oppressive; it began positively +to appall me. + +Inspector Weymouth's wondering face peeped over my shoulder. + +"Where is Dr. Fu-Manchu?" I whispered, as Nayland Smith in turn appeared +beside me. "I cannot understand the silence of the house--" + +"Look about," replied Karamaneh, never taking her eyes from the face of Aziz. + +I peered around the shadowy walls. Tall glass cases there were, +shelves and niches: where once, from the gallery above, I had seen the tubes +and retorts, the jars of unfamiliar organisms, the books of unfamiliar lore, +the impedimenta of the occult student and man of science--the visible +evidences of Fu-Manchu's presence. Shelves--cases--niches--were bare. +Of the complicated appliances unknown to civilized laboratories, +wherewith he pursued his strange experiments, of the tubes wherein +he isolated the bacilli of unclassified diseases, of the yellow-bound +volumes for a glimpse at which (had they known of their contents) +the great men of Harley Street would have given a fortune--no trace remained. +The silken cushions; the inlaid tables; all were gone. + +The room was stripped, dismantled. Had Fu-Manchu fled? +The silence assumed a new significance. His dacoits and kindred +ministers of death all must have fled, too. + +"You have let him escape us!" I said rapidly. +"You promised to aid us to capture him--to send us a message-- +and you have delayed until--" + +"No," she said; "no!" and clutched at my arm again. +"Oh! is he not reviving slowly? Are you sure you have +made no mistake?" + +Her thoughts were all for the boy; and her solicitude touched me. +I again examined Aziz, the most remarkable patient of my +busy professional career. + +As I counted the strengthening pulse, he opened his dark eyes-- +which were so like the eyes of Karamaneh--and, with the girl's +eager arms tightly about him, sat up, looking wonderingly around. + +Karamaneh pressed her cheek to his, whispering loving words in that softly +spoken Arabic which had first betrayed her nationality to Nayland Smith. +I handed her my flask, which I had filled with wine. + +"My promise is fulfilled!" I said. "You are free! +Now for Fu-Manchu! But first let us admit the police to this house; +there is something uncanny in its stillness." + +"No," she replied. "First let my brother be taken out and placed in safety. +Will you carry him?" + +She raised her face to that of Inspector Weymouth, upon which was written +awe and wonder. + +The burly detective lifted the boy as tenderly as a woman, passed through +the shadows to the stairway, ascended, and was swallowed up in the gloom. +Nayland Smith's eyes gleamed feverishly. He turned to Karamaneh. + +"You are not playing with us?" he said harshly. "We have done our part; +it remains for you to do yours." + +"Do not speak so loudly," the girl begged. "HE is near us-- +and, oh, God, I fear him so!" + +"Where is he?" persisted my friend. + +Karamaneh's eyes were glassy with fear now. + +"You must not touch him until the police are here," she said-- +but from the direction of her quick, agitated glances I knew that, +her brother safe now, she feared for me, and for me alone. +Those glances sent my blood dancing; for Karamaneh was +an Eastern jewel which any man of flesh and blood must +have coveted had he known it to lie within his reach. +Her eyes were twin lakes of mystery which, more than once, +I had known the desire to explore. + +"Look--beyond that curtain"--her voice was barely audible--"but do not enter. +Even as he is, I fear him." + +Her voice, her palpable agitation, prepared us for something extraordinary. +Tragedy and Fu-Manchu were never far apart. Though we were two, and help +was so near, we were in the abode of the most cunning murderer who ever came +out of the East. + +It was with strangely mingled emotions that I crossed the thick carpet, +Nayland Smith beside me, and drew aside the draperies concealing a door, +to which Karamaneh had pointed. Then, upon looking into the dim place beyond, +all else save what it held was forgotten. + +We looked upon a small, square room, the walls draped with fantastic +Chinese tapestry, the floor strewn with cushions; and reclining +in a corner, where the faint, blue light from a lamp, placed upon +a low table, painted grotesque shadows about the cavernous face-- +was Dr. Fu-Manchu! + +At sight of him my heart leaped--and seemed to suspend its functions, +so intense was the horror which this man's presence inspired in me. +My hand clutching the curtain, I stood watching him. The lids +veiled the malignant green eyes, but the thin lips seemed to smile. +Then Smith silently pointed to the hand which held a little pipe. +A sickly perfume assailed my nostrils, and the explanation +of the hushed silence, and the ease with which we had thus far +executed our plan, came to me. The cunning mind was torpid-- +lost in a brutish world of dreams. + +Fu-Manchu was in an opium sleep! + +The dim light traced out a network of tiny lines, which covered +the yellow face from the pointed chin to the top of the great domed brow, +and formed deep shadow pools in the hollows beneath his eyes. +At last we had triumphed. + +I could not determine the depth of his obscene trance; and mastering +some of my repugnance, and forgetful of Karamaneh's warning, I was about +to step forward into the room, loaded with its nauseating opium fumes, +when a soft breath fanned my cheek. + +"Do not go in!" came Karamaneh's warning voice--hushed--trembling. + +Her little hand grasped my arm. She drew Smith and myself back +from the door. + +"There is danger there!" she whispered. + +"Do not enter that room! The police must reach him in some way-- +and drag him out! Do not enter that room!" + +The girl's voice quivered hysterically; her eyes blazed into savage flame. +The fierce resentment born of dreadful wrongs was consuming her now; +but fear of Fu-Manchu held her yet. Inspector Weymouth came down the stairs +and joined us. + +"I have sent the boy to Ryman's room at the station," he said. +"The divisional surgeon will look after him until you arrive, +Dr. Petrie. All is ready now. The launch is just off +the wharf and every side of the place under observation. +Where's our man?" + +He drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and raised +his eyebrows interrogatively. The absence of sound-- +of any demonstration from the uncanny Chinaman whom he was there +to arrest--puzzled him. + +Nayland Smith jerked his thumb toward the curtain. + +At that, and before we could utter a word, Weymouth stepped +to the draped door. He was a man who drove straight at +his goal and saved reflections for subsequent leisure. +I think, moreover, that the atmosphere of the place +(stripped as it was it retained its heavy, voluptuous perfume) +had begun to get a hold upon him. He was anxious to shake it off; +to be up and doing. + +He pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the room. +Smith and I perforce followed him. Just within the door +the three of us stood looking across at the limp thing which +had spread terror throughout the Eastern and Western world. +Helpless as Fu-Manchu was, he inspired terror now, though the giant +intellect was inert--stupefied. + +In the dimly lit apartment we had quitted I heard Karamaneh utter +a stifled scream. But it came too late. + +As though cast up by a volcano, the silken cushions, +the inlaid table with its blue-shaded lamp, the garish walls, +the sprawling figure with the ghastly light playing upon +its features--quivered, and shot upward! + +So it seemed to me; though, in the ensuing instant I remembered, +too late, a previous experience of the floors of Fu-Manchu's +private apartments; I knew what had indeed befallen us. +A trap had been released beneath our feet. + +I recall falling--but have no recollection of the end of my fall-- +of the shock marking the drop. I only remember fighting for my +life against a stifling something which had me by the throat. +I knew that I was being suffocated, but my hands met only +the deathly emptiness. + +Into a poisonous well of darkness I sank. I could not cry out. +I was helpless. Of the fate of my companions I knew nothing-- +could surmise nothing. Then. . .all consciousness ended. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +I WAS being carried along a dimly lighted, tunnel-like place, slung, sackwise, +across the shoulder of a Burman. He was not a big man, but he supported +my considerable weight with apparent ease. A deadly nausea held me, +but the rough handling had served to restore me to consciousness. +My hands and feet were closely lashed. I hung limply as a wet towel: +I felt that this spark of tortured life which had flickered up in me must +ere long finally become extinguished. + +A fancy possessed me, in these the first moments of my restoration +to the world of realities, that I had been smuggled into China; +and as I swung head downward I told myself that the huge, +puffy things which strewed the path were a species of giant toadstool, +unfamiliar to me and possibly peculiar to whatever district of China +I now was in. + +The air was hot, steamy, and loaded with a smell as of rotting vegetation. +I wondered why my bearer so scrupulously avoided touching any of the +unwholesome-looking growths in passing through what seemed a succession +of cellars, but steered a tortuous course among the bloated, unnatural shapes, +lifting his bare brown feet with a catlike delicacy. + +He passed under a low arch, dropped me roughly to the ground and ran back. +Half stunned, I lay watching the agile brown body melt into +the distances of the cellars. Their walls and roof seemed to emit +a faint, phosphorescent light. + +"Petrie!" came a weak voice from somewhere ahead. . . ."Is that you, Petrie?" + +It was Nayland Smith! + +"Smith!" I said, and strove to sit up. But the intense nausea overcame me, +so that I all but swooned. + +I heard his voice again, but could attach no meaning to the words +which he uttered. A sound of terrific blows reached my ears, too. +The Burman reappeared, bending under the heavy load which he bore. +For, as he picked his way through the bloated things which grew +upon the floors of the cellars, I realized that he was carrying +the inert body of Inspector Weymouth. And I found time to compare +the strength of the little brown man with that of a Nile beetle, +which can raise many times its own weight. Then, behind him, +appeared a second figure, which immediately claimed the whole +of my errant attention. + +"Fu-Manchu!" hissed my friend, from the darkness which concealed him. + +It was indeed none other than Fu-Manchu--the Fu-Manchu whom we +had thought to be helpless. The deeps of the Chinaman's cunning-- +the fine quality of his courage, were forced upon me as amazing facts. + +He had assumed the appearance of a drugged opium-smoker so well +as to dupe me--a medical man; so well as to dupe Karamaneh-- +whose experience of the noxious habit probably was greater than +my own. And, with the gallows dangling before him, he had waited-- +played the part of a lure--whilst a body of police actually +surrounded the place! + +I have since thought that the room probably was one which he actually used +for opium debauches, and the device of the trap was intended to protect him +during the comatose period. + +Now, holding a lantern above his head, the deviser of the trap +whereinto we, mouselike, had blindly entered, came through +the cellars, following the brown man who carried Weymouth. +The faint rays of the lantern (it apparently contained a candle) +revealed a veritable forest of the gigantic fungi--poisonously colored-- +hideously swollen--climbing from the floor up the slimy walls-- +climbing like horrid parasites to such part of the arched roof +as was visible to me. + +Fu-Manchu picked his way through the fungi ranks as daintily +as though the distorted, tumid things had been viper-headed. + +The resounding blows which I had noted before, and which had never ceased, +culminated in a splintering crash. Dr. Fu-Manchu and his servant, +who carried the apparently insensible detective, passed in under +the arch, Fu-Manchu glancing back once along the passages. +The lantern he extinguished, or concealed; and whilst I waited, +my mind dully surveying, memories of all the threats which this +uncanny being had uttered, a distant clamor came to my ears. + +Then, abruptly, it ceased. Dr. Fu-Manchu had closed a heavy door; +and to my surprise I perceived that the greater part of it was of glass. +The will-o'-the-wisp glow which played around the fungi rendered the vista +of the cellars faintly luminous, and visible to me from where I lay. +Fu-Manchu spoke softly. His voice, its guttural note alternating +with a sibilance on certain words, betrayed no traces of agitation. +The man's unbroken calm had in it something inhuman. For he had just +perpetrated an act of daring unparalleled in my experience, and, +in the clamor now shut out by the glass door I tardily recognized +the entrance of the police into some barricaded part of the house-- +the coming of those who would save us--who would hold the Chinese +doctor for the hangman! + +"I have decided," he said deliberately, "that you are more worthy +of my attention than I had formerly supposed. A man who can solve +the secret of the Golden Elixir (I had not solved it; I had merely +stolen some) should be a valuable acquisition to my Council. +The extent of the plans of Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith and +of the English Scotland Yard it is incumbent upon me to learn. +Therefore, gentlemen, you live--for the present!" + +"And you'll swing," came Weymouth's hoarse voice, "in the near future! +You and all your yellow gang!" + +"I trust not," was the placid reply. "Most of my people are safe: +some are shipped as lascars upon the liners; others have departed +by different means. Ah!" + +That last word was the only one indicative of excitement +which had yet escaped him. A disk of light danced among +the brilliant poison hues of the passages--but no sound reached us; +by which I knew that the glass door must fit almost hermetically. +It was much cooler here than in the place through which we had passed, +and the nausea began to leave me, my brain to grow more clear. +Had I known what was to follow I should have cursed the lucidity +of mind which now came to me; I should have prayed for oblivion-- +to be spared the sight of that which ensued. + +"It's Logan!" cried Inspector Weymouth; and I could tell +that he was struggling to free himself of his bonds. +From his voice it was evident that he, too, was recovering +from the effects of the narcotic which had been administered +to us all. + +"Logan!" he cried. "Logan! This way--HELP!" + +But the cry beat back upon us in that enclosed space and seemed +to carry no farther than the invisible walls of our prison. + +"The door fits well," came Fu-Manchu's mocking voice. +"It is fortunate for us all that it is so. This is my +observation window, Dr. Petrie, and you are about to enjoy +an unique opportunity of studying fungology. I have already +drawn your attention to the anaesthetic properties of the +lycoperdon, or common puff-ball. You may have recognized the fumes? +The chamber into which you rashly precipitated yourselves +was charged with them. By a process of my own I have greatly +enhanced the value of the puff-ball in this respect. +Your friend, Mr. Weymouth, proved the most obstinate subject; +but he succumbed in fifteen seconds." + +"Logan! Help! HELP! This way, man!" + +Something very like fear sounded in Weymouth's voice now. +Indeed, the situation was so uncanny that it almost seemed unreal. +A group of men had entered the farthermost cellars, led by one who bore +an electric pocket-lamp. The hard, white ray danced from bloated gray +fungi to others of nightmare shape, of dazzling, venomous brilliance. +The mocking, lecture-room voice continued: + +"Note the snowy growth upon the roof, Doctor. Do not be deceived by +its size. It is a giant variety of my own culture and is of the order +empusa. You, in England, are familiar with the death of the common house-fly-- +which is found attached to the window-pane by a coating of white mold. +I have developed the spores of this mold and have produced a giant species. +Observe the interesting effect of the strong light upon my orange and blue +amanita fungus!" + +Hard beside me I heard Nayland Smith groan, Weymouth had become +suddenly silent. For my own part, I could have shrieked in pure horror. +FOR I KNEW WHAT WAS COMING. I realized in one agonized instant +the significance of the dim lantern, of the careful progress +through the subterranean fungi grove, of the care with which +Fu-Manchu and his servant had avoided touching any of the growths. +I knew, now, that Dr. Fu-Manchu was the greatest fungologist +the world had ever known; was a poisoner to whom the Borgias were +as children--and I knew that the detectives blindly were walking +into a valley of death. + +Then it began--the unnatural scene--the saturnalia of murder. + +Like so many bombs the brilliantly colored caps of the huge toadstool-like +things alluded to by the Chinaman exploded, as the white ray sought +them out in the darkness which alone preserved their existence. +A brownish cloud--I could not determine whether liquid or powdery-- +arose in the cellar. + +I tried to close my eyes--or to turn them away from the reeling forms +of the men who were trapped in that poison-hole. It was useless: + +I must look. + +The bearer of the lamp had dropped it, but the dim, +eerily illuminated gloom endured scarce a second. +A bright light sprang up--doubtless at the touch of the fiendish +being who now resumed speech: + +"Observe the symptoms of delirium, Doctor!" Out there, +beyond the glass door, the unhappy victims were laughing-- +tearing their garments from their bodies--leaping--waving their arms-- +were become MANIACS! + +"We will now release the ripe spores of giant entpusa," +continued the wicked voice. "The air of the second cellar +being super-charged with oxygen, they immediately germinate. +Ah! it is a triumph! That process is the scientific triumph +of my life!" + +Like powdered snow the white spores fell from the roof, +frosting the writhing shapes of the already poisoned men. +Before my horrified gaze, THE FUNGUS GREW; it spread +from the head to the, feet of those it touched; it enveloped +them as in glittering shrouds. . . . + +"They die like flies!" screamed Fu-Manchu, with a sudden febrile excitement; +and I felt assured of something I had long suspected: that that magnificent, +perverted brain was the brain of a homicidal maniac--though Smith would +never accept the theory. + +"It is my fly-trap!" shrieked the Chinaman. "And I am +the god of destruction!" + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +THE clammy touch of the mist revived me. The culmination of the scene +in the poison cellars, together with the effects of the fumes +which I had inhaled again, had deprived me of consciousness. +Now I knew that I was afloat on the river. I still was bound: +furthermore, a cloth was wrapped tightly about my mouth, +and I was secured to a ring in the deck. + +By moving my aching head to the left I could look down into the oily water; +by moving it to the right I could catch a glimpse of the empurpled +face of Inspector Weymouth, who, similarly bound and gagged, +lay beside me, but only of the feet and legs of Nayland Smith. +For I could not turn my head sufficiently far to see more. + +We were aboard an electric launch. I heard the hated guttural +voice of Fu-Manchu, subdued now to its habitual calm, +and my heart leaped to hear the voice that answered him. +It was that of Karamaneh. His triumph was complete. +Clearly his plans for departure were complete; his slaughter +of the police in the underground passages had been a final +reckless demonstration of which the Chinaman's subtle cunning +would have been incapable had he not known his escape from +the country to be assured. + +What fate was in store for us? How would he avenge himself upon the girl +who had betrayed him to his enemies? What portion awaited those enemies? +He seemed to have formed the singular determination to smuggle me into China-- +but what did he purpose in the case of Weymouth, and in the case +of Nayland Smith? + +All but silently we were feeling our way through the mist. +Astern died the clangor of dock and wharf into a remote discord. +Ahead hung the foggy curtain veiling the traffic of the great waterway; +but through it broke the calling of sirens, the tinkling of bells. + +The gentle movement of the screw ceased altogether. +The launch lay heaving slightly upon the swells. + +A distant throbbing grew louder--and something advanced upon +us through the haze. + +A bell rang and muffled by the fog a voice proclaimed itself-- +a voice which I knew. I felt Weymouth writhing impotently +beside me; heard him mumbling incoherently; and I knew +that he, too, had recognized the voice. + +It was that of Inspector Ryman of the river police and their launch +was within biscuit-throw of that upon which we lay! + +"'Hoy! 'Hoy!" + +I trembled. A feverish excitement claimed me. They were hailing us. +We carried no lights; but now--and ignoring the pain which shot from +my spine to my skull I craned my neck to the left--the port light +of the police launch glowed angrily through the mist. + +I was unable to utter any save mumbling sounds, and my +companions were equally helpless. It was a desperate position. +Had the police seen us or had they hailed at random? +The light drew nearer. + +"Launch, 'hoy!" + +They had seen us! Fu-Manchu's guttural voice spoke shortly-- +and our screw began to revolve again; we leaped ahead into the bank +of darkness. Faint grew the light of the police launch--and was gone. +But I heard Ryman's voice shouting. + +"Full speed!" came faintly through the darkness. "Port! Port!" + +Then the murk closed down, and with our friends far astern of us +we were racing deeper into the fog banks--speeding seaward; +though of this I was unable to judge at the time. + +On we raced, and on, sweeping over growing swells. +Once, a black, towering shape dropped down upon us. +Far above, lights blazed, bells rang, vague cries pierced the fog. +The launch pitched and rolled perilously, but weathered the wash +of the liner which so nearly had concluded this episode. +It was such a journey as I had taken once before, +early in our pursuit of the genius of the Yellow Peril; +but this was infinitely more terrible; for now we were utterly +in Fu-Manchu's power. + +A voice mumbled in my ear. I turned my bound-up face; +and Inspector Weymouth raised his hands in the dimness and partly +slipped the bandage from his mouth. + +"I've been working at the cords since we left those filthy cellars," +he whispered. "My wrists are all cut, but when I've got out a knife +and freed my ankles--" + +Smith had kicked him with his bound feet. The detective slipped +the bandage back to position and placed his hands behind him again. +Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a heavy overcoat but no hat, came aft. +He was dragging Karamaneh by the wrists. He seated himself +on the cushions near to us, pulling the girl down beside him. +Now, I could see her face--and the expression in her beautiful +eyes made me writhe. + +Fu-Manchu was watching us, his discolored teeth faintly visible +in the dim light, to which my eyes were becoming accustomed. + +"Dr. Petrie," he said, "you shall be my honored guest at my home in China. +You shall assist me to revolutionize chemistry. Mr. Smith, I fear +you know more of my plans than I had deemed it possible for you +to have learned, and I am anxious to know if you have a confidant. +Where your memory fails you, and my files and wire jackets prove ineffectual, +Inspector Weymouth's recollections may prove more accurate." + +He turned to the cowering girl--who shrank away from him +in pitiful, abject terror. + +"In my hands, Doctor," he continued, "I hold a needle charged +with a rare culture. It is the link between the bacilli +and the fungi. You have seemed to display an undue interest +in the peach and pearl which render my Karamaneh so delightful, +In the supple grace of her movements and the sparkle of her eyes. +You can never devote your whole mind to those studies which I +have planned for you whilst such distractions exist. +A touch of this keen point, and the laughing Karamaneh becomes +the shrieking hag--the maniacal, mowing--" + +Then, with an ox-like rush, Weymouth was upon him! + +Karamaneh, wrought upon past endurance, with a sobbing cry, sank to the deck-- +and lay still. I managed to writhe into a half-sitting posture, and Smith +rolled aside as the detective and the Chinaman crashed down together. + +Weymouth had one big hand at the Doctor's yellow throat; +with his left he grasped the Chinaman's right. +It held the needle. + +Now, I could look along, the length of the little craft, and, so far +as it was possible to make out in the fog, only one other was aboard-- +the half-clad brown man who navigated her--and who had carried us through +the cellars. The murk had grown denser and now shut us in like a box. +The throb of the motor--the hissing breath of the two who fought-- +with so much at issue--these sounds and the wash of the water alone +broke the eerie stillness. + +By slow degrees, and with a reptilian agility horrible to watch, +Fu-Manchu was neutralizing the advantage gained by Weymouth. +His clawish fingers were fast in the big man's throat; the right hand +with its deadly needle was forcing down the left of his opponent. +He had been underneath, but now he was gaining the upper place. +His powers of physical endurance must have been truly marvelous. +His breath was whistling through his nostrils significantly, +but Weymouth was palpably tiring. + +The latter suddenly changed his tactics. By a supreme effort, +to which he was spurred, I think, by the growing proximity +of the needle, he raised Fu-Manchu--by the throat and arm-- +and pitched him sideways. + +The Chinaman's grip did not relax, and the two wrestlers dropped, +a writhing mass, upon the port cushions. The launch heeled over, +and my cry of horror was crushed back into my throat by the bandage. +For, as Fu-Manchu sought to extricate himself, he overbalanced-- +fell back--and, bearing Weymouth with him--slid into the river! + +The mist swallowed them up. + +There are moments of which no man can recall his mental impressions, +moments so acutely horrible that, mercifully, our memory retains +nothing of the emotions they occasioned. This was one of them. +A chaos ruled in my mind. I had a vague belief that the Burman, +forward, glanced back. Then the course of the launch was changed. +How long intervened between the tragic end of that Gargantuan struggle +and the time when a black wall leaped suddenly up before us I cannot +pretend to state. + +With a sickening jerk we ran aground. A loud explosion ensued, +and I clearly remember seeing the brown man leap out into the fog-- +which was the last I saw of him. + +Water began to wash aboard. + +Fully alive to our imminent peril, I fought with the cords +that bound me; but I lacked poor Weymouth's strength of wrist, +and I began to accept as a horrible and imminent possibility, +a death from drowning, within six feet of the bank. + +Beside me, Nayland Smith was straining and twisting. I think +his object was to touch Karamaneh, in the hope of arousing her. +Where he failed in his project, the inflowing water succeeded. +A silent prayer of thankfulness came from my very soul when I +saw her stir--when I saw her raise her hands to her head-- +and saw the big, horror-bright eyes gleam through the mist veil. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +WE quitted the wrecked launch but a few seconds before her +stern settled down into the river. Where the mud-bank upon +which we found ourselves was situated we had no idea. +But at least it was terra firma and we were free from Dr. Fu-Manchu. + +Smith stood looking out towards the river. + +"My God!" he groaned. "My God!" + +He was thinking, as I was, of Weymouth. + +And when, an hour later, the police boat located us (on the mud-flats +below Greenwich) and we heard that the toll of the poison cellars +was eight men, we also heard news of our brave companion. + + +"Back there in the fog, sir," reported Inspector Ryman, who was in charge, +and his voice was under poor command, "there was an uncanny howling, +and peals of laughter that I'm going to dream about for weeks--" + +Karamaneh, who nestled beside me like a frightened child, shivered; and I +knew that the needle had done its work, despite Weymouth's giant strength. + +Smith swallowed noisily. + +"Pray God the river has that yellow Satan," he said. +"I would sacrifice a year of my life to see his rat's body +on the end of a grappling-iron!" + +We were a sad party that steamed through the fog homeward that night. +It seemed almost like deserting a staunch comrade to leave the spot--so nearly +as we could locate it--where Weymouth had put up that last gallant fight. +Our helplessness was pathetic, and although, had the night been clear +as crystal, I doubt if we could have acted otherwise, it came to me that this +stinking murk was a new enemy which drove us back in coward retreat. + +But so many were the calls upon our activity, and so numerous +the stimulants to our initiative in those times, that soon we +had matter to relieve our minds from this stress of sorrow. + +There was Karamaneh to be considered--Karamaneh and her brother. +A brief counsel was held, whereat it was decided that for the present +they should be lodged at a hotel. + +"I shall arrange," Smith whispered to me, for the girl was watching us, +"to have the place patrolled night and day." + +"You cannot suppose--" + +"Petrie! I cannot and dare not suppose Fu-Manchu dead until with my own +eyes I have seen him so!" + +Accordingly we conveyed the beautiful Oriental girl and her +brother away from that luxurious abode in its sordid setting. +I will not dwell upon the final scene in the poison cellars +lest I be accused of accumulating horror for horror's sake. +Members of the fire brigade, helmed against contagion, brought out +the bodies of the victims wrapped in their living shrouds. . . . + +From Karamaneh we learned much of Fu-Manchu, little of herself. + +"What am I? Does my poor history matter--to anyone?" +was her answer to questions respecting herself. + +And she would droop her lashes over her dark eyes. + +The dacoits whom the Chinaman had brought to England originally +numbered seven, we learned. As you, having followed me thus far, +will be aware, we had thinned the ranks of the Burmans. +Probably only one now remained in England. They had +lived in a camp in the grounds of the house near Windsor +(which, as we had learned at the time of its destruction, +the Doctor had bought outright). The Thames had been his highway. + +Other members of the group had occupied quarters in various parts +of the East End, where sailormen of all nationalities congregate. +Shen-Yan's had been the East End headquarters. He had employed the hulk +from the time of his arrival, as a laboratory for a certain class +of experiments undesirable in proximity to a place of residence. + +Nayland Smith asked the girl on one occasion if the Chinaman had had +a private sea-going vessel, and she replied in the affirmative. +She had never been on board, however, had never even set eyes upon it, +and could give us no information respecting its character. +It had sailed for China. + +"You are sure," asked Smith keenly, "that it has actually left?" + +"I understood so, and that we were to follow by another route." + +"It would have been difficult for Fu-Manchu to travel by a passenger boat?" + +"I cannot say what were his plans." + +In a state of singular uncertainty, then, readily to be understood, +we passed the days following the tragedy which had deprived us +of our fellow-worker. + +Vividly I recall the scene at poor Weymouth's home, on the day that we +visited it. I then made the acquaintance of the Inspector's brother. +Nayland Smith gave him a detailed account of the last scene. + +"Out there in the mist," he concluded wearily, "it all seemed very unreal." + +"I wish to God it had been!" + +"Amen to that, Mr. Weymouth. But your brother made a gallant finish. +If ridding the world of Fu-Manchu were the only good deed to his credit, +his life had been well spent." + +James Weymouth smoked awhile in thoughtful silence. +Though but four and a half miles S.S.E. of St. Paul's the quaint +little cottage, with its rustic garden, shadowed by the tall trees +which had so lined the village street before motor 'buses were, +was a spot as peaceful and secluded as any in broad England. +But another shadow lay upon it to-day--chilling, fearful. +An incarnate evil had come out of the dim East and in its dying +malevolence had touched this home. + +"There are two things I don't understand about it, sir," continued Weymouth. +"What was the meaning of the horrible laughter which the river police heard +in the fog? And where are the bodies?" + +Karamaneh, seated beside me, shuddered at the words. +Smith, whose restless spirit granted him little repose, +paused in his aimless wanderings about the room and looked at her. + +In these latter days of his Augean labors to purge England +of the unclean thing which had fastened upon her, my friend +was more lean and nervous-looking than I had ever known him. +His long residence in Burma had rendered him spare +and had burned his naturally dark skin to a coppery hue; +but now his gray eyes had grown feverishly bright and his +face so lean as at times to appear positively emaciated. +But I knew that he was as fit as ever. + +"This lady may be able to answer your first question," he said. +"She and her brother were for some time in the household of +Dr. Fu-Manchu. In fact, Mr. Weymouth, Karamaneh, as her name implies, +was a slave." + +Weymouth glanced at the beautiful, troubled face with scarcely +veiled distrust. "You don't look as though you had come +from China, miss," he said, with a sort of unwilling admiration. + +"I do not come from China," replied Karamaneh. "My father +was a pure Bedawee. But my history does not matter." +(At times there was something imperious in her manner; and to this +her musical accent added force.) "When your brave brother, +Inspector Weymouth, and Dr. Fu-Manchu, were swallowed up +by the river, Fu-Manchu held a poisoned needle in his hand. +The laughter meant that the needle had done its work. +Your brother had become mad!" + +Weymouth turned aside to hide his emotion. "What was on the needle?" +he asked huskily. + +"It was something which he prepared from the venom of a kind of swamp adder," +she answered. "It produces madness, but not always death." + +"He would have had a poor chance," said Smith, "even had he been in complete +possession of his senses. At the time of the encounter we must have been +some considerable distance from shore, and the fog was impenetrable." + +"But how do you account for the fact that neither of the bodies +have been recovered?" + +"Ryman of the river police tells me that persons lost at that point +are not always recovered--or not until a considerable time later." + +There was a faint sound from the room above. The news of that +tragic happening out in the mist upon the Thames had prostrated +poor Mrs. Weymouth. + +"She hasn't been told half the truth," said her brother-in-law. "She doesn't +know about--the poisoned needle. What kind of fiend was this Dr. Fu-Manchu?" +He burst out into a sudden blaze of furious resentment. "John never told +me much, and you have let mighty little leak into the papers. What was he? +Who was he?" + +Half he addressed the words to Smith, half to Karamaneh. + +"Dr. Fu-Manchu," replied the former, "was the ultimate expression of +Chinese cunning; a phenomenon such as occurs but once in many generations. +He was a superman of incredible genius, who, had he willed, +could have revolutionized science. There is a superstition in some +parts of China according to which, under certain peculiar conditions +(one of which is proximity to a deserted burial-ground) an evil spirit +of incredible age may enter unto the body of a new-born infant. +All my efforts thus far have not availed me to trace the genealogy +of the man called Dr. Fu-Manchu. Even Karamaneh cannot help me in this. +But I have sometimes thought that he was a member of a certain very old +Kiangsu family--and that the peculiar conditions I have mentioned +prevailed at his birth!" + +Smith, observing our looks of amazement, laughed shortly, +and quite mirthlessly. + +"Poor old Weymouth!" he jerked. "I suppose my labors are finished; +but I am far from triumphant. Is there any improvement in +Mrs. Weymouth's condition?" + +"Very little," was the reply; "she has lain in a semi-conscious +state since the news came. No one had any idea she would +take it so. At one time we were afraid her brain was going. +She seemed to have delusions." + +Smith spun round upon Weymouth. + +"Of what nature?" he asked rapidly. + +The other pulled nervously at his mustache. + +"My wife has been staying with her," he explained, "since--it happened; +and for the last three nights poor John's widow has cried out at +the same time--half-past two--that someone was knocking on the door." + +"What door?" + +"That door yonder--the street door." + +All our eyes turned in the direction indicated. + +"John often came home at half-past two from the Yard," continued Weymouth; +"so we naturally thought poor Mary was wandering in her mind. +But last night--and it's not to be wondered at--my wife couldn't sleep, +and she was wide awake at half-past two." + +"Well?" + +Nayland Smith was standing before him, alert, bright-eyed. + +"She heard it, too!" + +The sun was streaming into the cozy little sitting-room; +but I will confess that Weymouth's words chilled me uncannily. +Karamaneh laid her hand upon mine, in a quaint, childish fashion +peculiarly her own. Her hand was cold, but its touch thrilled me. +For Karamaneh was not a child, but a rarely beautiful girl-- +a pearl of the East such as many a monarch has fought for. + +"What then?" asked Smith. + +"She was afraid to move--afraid to look from the window!" + +My friend turned and stared hard at me. + +"A subjective hallucination, Petrie?" + +"In all probability," I replied. "You should arrange that +your wife be relieved in her trying duties, Mr. Weymouth. +It is too great a strain for an inexperienced nurse." + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +OF all that we had hoped for in our pursuit of Fu-Manchu how +little had we accomplished. Excepting Karamaneh and her brother +(who were victims and not creatures of the Chinese doctor's) +not one of the formidable group had fallen alive into our hands. +Dreadful crimes had marked Fu-Manchu's passage through the land. +Not one-half of the truth (and nothing of the later developments) +had been made public. Nayland Smith's authority was sufficient +to control the press. + +In the absence of such a veto a veritable panic must have seized upon +the entire country; for a monster--a thing more than humanly evil-- +existed in our midst. + +Always Fu-Manchu's secret activities had centered about the great waterway. +There was much of poetic justice in his end; for the Thames had claimed him, +who so long had used the stream as a highway for the passage to and fro for +his secret forces. Gone now were the yellow men who had been the instruments +of his evil will; gone was the giant intellect which had controlled +the complex murder machine. Karamaneh, whose beauty he had used as a lure, +at last was free, and no more with her smile would tempt men to death-- +that her brother might live. + +Many there are, I doubt not, who will regard the Eastern girl with horror. +I ask their forgiveness in that I regarded her quite differently. +No man having seen her could have condemned her unheard. Many, having looked +into her lovely eyes, had they found there what I found, must have forgiven +her almost any crime. + +That she valued human life but little was no matter for wonder. +Her nationality--her history--furnished adequate excuse for an attitude +not condonable in a European equally cultured. + +But indeed let me confess that hers was a nature incomprehensible to me +in some respects. The soul of Karamaneh was a closed book to my short-sighted +Western eyes. But the body of Karamaneh was exquisite; her beauty of a kind +that was a key to the most extravagant rhapsodies of Eastern poets. +Her eyes held a challenge wholly Oriental in its appeal; her lips, +even in repose, were a taunt. And, herein, East is West and West is East. + +Finally, despite her lurid history, despite the scornful self-possession +of which I knew her capable, she was an unprotected girl-- +in years, I believe, a mere child--whom Fate had cast in my way. +At her request, we had booked passages for her brother and herself +to Egypt. The boat sailed in three days. But Karamaneh's beautiful +eyes were sad; often I detected tears on the black lashes. +Shall I endeavor to describe my own tumultuous, conflicting emotions? +It would be useless, since I know it to be impossible. +For in those dark eyes burned a fire I might not see; those silken +lashes veiled a message I dared not read. + +Nayland Smith was not blind to the facts of the complicated situation. +I can truthfully assert that he was the only man of my acquaintance who, +having come in contact with Karamaneh, had kept his head. + +We endeavored to divert her mind from the recent tragedies by a round +of amusements, though with poor Weymouth's body still at the mercy +of unknown waters Smith and I made but a poor show of gayety; +and I took a gloomy pride in the admiration which our lovely +companion everywhere excited. I learned, in those days, how rare +a thing in nature is a really beautiful woman. + +One afternoon we found ourselves at an exhibition of water +colors in Bond Street. Karamaneh was intensely interested +in the subjects of the drawings--which were entirely Egyptian. +As usual, she furnished matter for comment amongst the other visitors, +as did the boy, Aziz, her brother, anew upon the world from his +living grave in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu. + +Suddenly Aziz clutched at his sister's arm, whispering rapidly in Arabic. +I saw her peachlike color fade; saw her become pale and wild-eyed-- +the haunted Karamaneh of the old days. + +She turned to me. + +"Dr. Petrie--he says that Fu-Manchu is here!" + +"Where?" + +Nayland Smith rapped out the question violently, turning in a flash +from the picture which he was examining. + +"In this room!" she whispered glancing furtively, affrightedly about her. +"Something tells Aziz when HE is near--and I, too, feel strangely afraid. +Oh, can it be that he is not dead!" + +She held my arm tightly. Her brother was searching the room with big, +velvet black eyes. I studied the faces of the several visitors; +and Smith was staring about him with the old alert look, and tugging +nervously at the lobe of his ear. The name of the giant foe of the white +race instantaneously had strung him up to a pitch of supreme intensity. + +Our united scrutinies discovered no figure which could have been +that of the Chinese doctor. Who could mistake that long, gaunt shape, +with the high, mummy-like shoulders, and the indescribable gait, +which I can only liken to that of an awkward cat? + +Then, over the heads of a group of people who stood by the doorway, I saw +Smith peering at someone--at someone who passed across the outer room. +Stepping aside, I, too, obtained a glimpse of this person. + +As I saw him, he was a tall, old man, wearing a black Inverness +coat and a rather shabby silk hat. He had long white hair +and a patriarchal beard, wore smoked glasses and walked slowly, +leaning upon a stick. + +Smith's gaunt face paled. With a rapid glance at Karamaneh, +he made off across the room. + +Could it be Dr. Fu-Manchu? + +Many days had passed since, already half-choked by Inspector Weymouth's iron +grip, Fu-Manchu, before our own eyes, had been swallowed up by the Thames. +Even now men were seeking his body, and that of his last victim. +Nor had we left any stone unturned. Acting upon information furnished +by Karamaneh, the police had searched every known haunt of the murder group. +But everything pointed to the fact that the group was disbanded and dispersed; +that the lord of strange deaths who had ruled it was no more. + +Yet Smith was not satisfied. Neither, let me confess, +was I. Every port was watched; and in suspected districts +a kind of house-to-house patrol had been instituted. +Unknown to the great public, in those days a secret war waged-- +a war in which all the available forces of the authorities +took the field against one man! But that one man was the evil +of the East incarnate. + +When we rejoined him, Nayland Smith was talking to the commissionaire +at the door. He turned to me. + +"That is Professor Jenner Monde," he said. "The sergeant, here, +knows him well." + +The name of the celebrated Orientalist of course was familiar to me, +although I had never before set eyes upon him. + +"The Professor was out East the last time I was there, sir," +stated the commissionaire. "I often used to see him. But he's +an eccentric old gentleman. Seems to live in a world of his own. +He's recently back from China, I think." + +Nayland Smith stood clicking his teeth together in irritable hesitation. +I heard Karamaneh sigh, and, looking at her, I saw that her cheeks were +regaining their natural color. + +She smiled in pathetic apology. + +"If he was here he is gone," she said. "I am not afraid now." + +Smith thanked the commissionaire for his information and we +quitted the gallery. + +"Professor Jenner Monde," muttered my friend, "has lived so long +in China as almost to be a Chinaman. I have never met him-- +never seen him, before; but I wonder--" + +"You wonder what, Smith?" + +"I wonder if he could possibly be an ally, of the Doctor's!" + +I stared at him in amazement. + +"If we are to attach any importance to the incident at all," +I said, "we must remember that the boy's impression--and Karamaneh's-- +was that Fu-Manchu was present in person." + +"I DO attach importance to the incident, Petrie; they are naturally +sensitive to such impressions. But I doubt if even the abnormal +organization of Aziz could distinguish between the hidden presence +of a creature of the Doctor's and that of the Doctor himself. +I shall make a point of calling upon Professor Jenner Monde." + +But Fate had ordained that much should happen ere Smith made +his proposed call upon the Professor. + +Karamaneh and her brother safely lodged in their hotel +(which was watched night and day by four men under Smith's +orders), we returned to my quiet suburban rooms. + +"First," said Smith, "let us see what we can find out +respecting Professor Monde." + +He went to the telephone and called up New Scotland Yard. +There followed some little delay before the requisite information +was obtained. Finally, however, we learned that the Professor +was something of a recluse, having few acquaintances, +and fewer friends. + +He lived alone in chambers in New Inn Court, Carey Street. +A charwoman did such cleaning as was considered necessary +by the Professor, who employed no regular domestic. +When he was in London he might be seen fairly frequently +at the British Museum, where his shabby figure was familiar +to the officials. When he was not in London--that is, +during the greater part of each year--no one knew where he went. +He never left any address to which letters might be forwarded. + +"How long has he been in London now?" asked Smith. + +So far as could be ascertained from New Inn Court (replied Scotland Yard) +roughly a week. + +My friend left the telephone and began restlessly to pace the room. +The charred briar was produced and stuffed with that broad cut Latakia +mixture of which Nayland Smith consumed close upon a pound a week. +He was one of those untidy smokers who leave tangled tufts +hanging from the pipe-bowl and when they light up strew the floor +with smoldering fragments. + +A ringing came, and shortly afterwards a girl entered. + +"Mr. James Weymouth to see you, sir." + +"Hullo!" rapped Smith. "What's this?" + +Weymouth entered, big and florid, and in some respects +singularly like his brother, in others as singularly unlike. +Now, in his black suit, he was a somber figure; and in the blue +eyes I read a fear suppressed. + +"Mr. Smith," he began, "there's something uncanny going on at Maple Cottage." + +Smith wheeled the big arm-chair forward. + +"Sit down, Mr. Weymouth," he said. "I am not entirely surprised. +But you have my attention. What has occurred?" + +Weymouth took a cigarette from the box which I proffered and poured +out a peg of whisky. His hand was not quite steady. + +"That knocking," he explained. "It came again the night +after you were there, and Mrs. Weymouth--my wife, I mean-- +felt that she couldn't spend another night there, alone" "Did she +look out of the window?" I asked. + +"No, Doctor; she was afraid. But I spent last night downstairs +in the sitting-room--and _I_ looked out!" + +He took a gulp from his glass. Nayland Smith, seated on +the edge of the table, his extinguished pipe in his hand, +was watching him keenly. + +"I'll admit I didn't look out at once," Weymouth resumed. +"There was something so uncanny, gentlemen, in that knocking-- +knocking--in the dead of the night. I thought"--his voice +shook--"of poor Jack, lying somewhere amongst the slime +of the river--and, oh, my God! it came to me that it was Jack +who was knocking--and I dare not think what he--what it-- +would look like!" + +He leaned forward, his chin in his hand. For a few moments we +were all silent. + +"I know I funked," he continued huskily. "But when the wife came +to the head of the stairs and whispered to me: `There it is again. +What in heaven's name can it be'--I started to unbolt the door. +The knocking had stopped. Everything was very still. +I heard Mary--HIS widow--sobbing, upstairs; that was all. +I opened the door, a little bit at a time." + +Pausing again, he cleared his throat, and went on: + +"It was a bright night, and there was no one there--not a soul. +But somewhere down the lane, as I looked out into the porch, I heard +most awful groans! They got fainter and fainter. Then--I could +have sworn I heard SOMEONE LAUGHING! My nerves cracked up at that; +and I shut the door again." + +The narration of his weird experience revived something of the natural +fear which it had occasioned. He raised his glass, with unsteady hand, +and drained it. + +Smith struck a match and relighted his pipe. He began to pace +the room again. His eyes were literally on fire. + +"Would it be possible to get Mrs. Weymouth out of the house +before to-night? Remove her to your place, for instance?" +he asked abruptly. + +Weymouth looked up in surprise. + +"She seems to be in a very low state," he replied. He glanced at me. +"Perhaps Dr. Petrie would give us an opinion?" + +"I will come and see her," I said. "But what is your idea, Smith?" + +"I want to hear that knocking!" he rapped. "But in what I may see fit +to do I must not be handicapped by the presence of a sick woman." + +"Her condition at any rate will admit of our administering an opiate," +I suggested. "That would meet the situation?" + +"Good!" cried Smith. He was intensely excited now. +"I rely upon you to arrange something, Petrie. Mr. Weymouth"-- +he turned to our visitor--"I shall be with you this evening +not later than twelve o'clock." + +Weymouth appeared to be greatly relieved. I asked him +to wait whilst I prepared a drought for the patient. +When he was gone: + +"What do you think this knocking means, Smith?" I asked. + +He tapped out his pipe on the side of the grate and began with nervous +energy to refill it again from the dilapidated pouch. + +"I dare not tell you what I hope, Petrie," he replied-- +"nor what I fear." + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +DUSK was falling when we made our way in the direction of Maple Cottage. +Nayland Smith appeared to be keenly interested in the character +of the district. A high and ancient wall bordered the road along +which we walked for a considerable distance. Later it gave place +to a rickety fence. + +My friend peered through a gap in the latter. + +"There is quite an extensive estate here," he said, "not yet +cut up by the builder. It is well wooded on one side, +and there appears to be a pool lower down." + +The road was a quiet one, and we plainly heard the tread-- +quite unmistakable--of an approaching policeman. +Smith continued to peer through the hole in the fence, +until the officer drew up level with us. Then: + +"Does this piece of ground extend down to the village, +constable?" he inquired. + +Quite willing for a chat, the man stopped, and stood with his thumbs +thrust in his belt. + +"Yes, sir. They tell me three new roads will be made through it +between here and the hill." + +"It must be a happy hunting ground for tramps?" + +"I've seen some suspicious-looking coves about at times. +But after dusk an army might be inside there and nobody would +ever be the wiser." + +"Burglaries frequent in the houses backing on to it?" + +"Oh, no. A favorite game in these parts is snatching +loaves and bottles of milk from the doors, first thing, +as they're delivered. There's been an extra lot of it lately. +My mate who relieves me has got special instructions +to keep his eye open in the mornings!" The man grinned. +"It wouldn't be a very big case even if he caught anybody!" +"No," said Smith absently; "perhaps not. Your business must +be a dry one this warm weather. Good-night." + +"Good-night, sir," replied the constable, richer by +half-a-crown--"and thank you." + +Smith stared after him for a moment, tugging reflectively at the lobe +of his ear. + +"I don't know that it wouldn't be a big case, after all," he murmured. +"Come on, Petrie." + +Not another word did he speak, until we stood at the gate of Maple Cottage. +There a plain-clothes man was standing, evidently awaiting Smith. +He touched his hat. + +"Have you found a suitable hiding-place?" asked my companion rapidly. + +"Yes, sir," was the reply. "Kent--my mate--is there now. +You'll notice that he can't be seen from here." + +"No," agreed Smith, peering all about him. "He can't. Where is he?" + +"Behind the broken wall," explained the man, pointing. +"Through that ivy there's a clear view of the cottage door." + +"Good. Keep your eyes open. If a messenger comes for me, he is to +be intercepted, you understand. No one must be allowed to disturb us. +You will recognize the messenger. He will be one of your fellows. +Should he come--hoot three times, as much like an owl as you can." + +We walked up to the porch of the cottage. In response to Smith's ringing +came James Weymouth, who seemed greatly relieved by our arrival. + +"First," said my friend briskly, "you had better run up and see the patient." + +Accordingly, I followed Weymouth upstairs and was admitted by his +wife to a neat little bedroom where the grief-stricken woman lay, +a wanly pathetic sight. + +"Did you administer the draught, as directed?" I asked. + +Mrs. James Weymouth nodded. She was a kindly looking woman, +with the same dread haunting her hazel eyes as that which lurked +in her husband's blue ones. + +The patient was sleeping soundly. Some whispered instructions I gave to +the faithful nurse and descended to the sitting-room. It was a warm night, +and Weymouth sat by the open window, smoking. The dim light from the lamp +on the table lent him an almost startling likeness to his brother; and for +a moment I stood at the foot of the stairs scarce able to trust my reason. +Then he turned his face fully towards me, and the illusion was lost. + +"Do you think she is likely to wake, Doctor?" he asked. + +"I think not," I replied. + +Nayland Smith stood upon the rug before the hearth, swinging from one +foot to the other, in his nervously restless way. The room was foggy +with the fumes of tobacco, for he, too, was smoking. + +At intervals of some five to ten minutes, his blackened briar +(which I never knew him to clean or scrape) would go out. +I think Smith used more matches than any other smoker I have +ever met, and he invariably carried three boxes in various +pockets of his garments. + +The tobacco habit is infectious, and, seating myself in an arm-chair, +I lighted a cigarette. For this dreary vigil I had come prepared +with a bunch of rough notes, a writing-block, and a fountain pen. +I settled down to work upon my record of the Fu-Manchu case. + +Silence fell upon Maple Cottage. Save for the shuddering sigh +which whispered through the over-hanging cedars and Smith's eternal +match-striking, nothing was there to disturb me in my task. +Yet I could make little progress. Between my mind and the chapter upon +which I was at work a certain sentence persistently intruded itself. +It was as though an unseen hand held the written page closely before my eyes. +This was the sentence: + +"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. . ." + +Dr. Fu-Manchu! Fu-Manchu as Smith had described him to me on that night +which now seemed so remotely distant--the night upon which I had learned +of the existence of the wonderful and evil being born of that secret +quickening which stirred in the womb of the yellow races. + +As Smith, for the ninth or tenth time, knocked out his pipe on a bar +of the grate, the cuckoo clock in the kitchen proclaimed the hour. + +"Two," said James Weymouth. + +I abandoned my task, replacing notes and writing-block in the bag that I +had with me. Weymouth adjusted the lamp which had begun to smoke. + +I tiptoed to the stairs and, stepping softly, ascended to the sick room. +All was quiet, and Mrs. Weymouth whispered to me that the patient still +slept soundly. I returned to find Nayland Smith pacing about the room +in that state of suppressed excitement habitual with him in the approach +of any crisis. At a quarter past two the breeze dropped entirely, +and such a stillness reigned all about us as I could not have supposed +possible so near to the ever-throbbing heart of the great metropolis. +Plainly I could hear Weymouth's heavy breathing. He sat at the window +and looked out into the black shadows under the cedars. Smith ceased +his pacing and stood again on the rug very still. He was listening! +I doubt not we were all listening. + +Some faint sound broke the impressive stillness, coming from the direction +of the village street. It was a vague, indefinite disturbance, +brief, and upon it ensued a silence more marked than ever. +Some minutes before, Smith had extinguished the lamp. +In the darkness I heard his teeth snap sharply together. + +The call of an owl sounded very clearly three times. + +I knew that to mean that a messenger had come; but from whence or bearing +what tidings I knew not. My friend's plans were incomprehensible to me, +nor had I pressed him for any explanation of their nature, knowing him +to be in that high-strung and somewhat irritable mood which claimed him +at times of uncertainty--when he doubted the wisdom of his actions, +the accuracy of his surmises. He gave no sign. + +Very faintly I heard a clock strike the half-hour. A soft breeze +stole again through the branches above. The wind I thought must +be in a new quarter since I had not heard the clock before. +In so lonely a spot it was difficult to believe that the bell +was that of St. Paul's. Yet such was the fact. + +And hard upon the ringing followed another sound--a sound we all had expected, +had waited for; but at whose coming no one of us, I think, retained complete +mastery of himself. + +Breaking up the silence in a manner that set my heart wildly leaping it came-- +an imperative knocking on the door! + +"My God!" groaned Weymouth--but he did not move from his position +at the window. + +"Stand by, Petrie!" said Smith. + +He strode to the door--and threw it widely open. + +I know I was very pale. I think I cried out as I fell back-- +retreated with clenched hands from before THAT which stood +on the threshold. + +It was a wild, unkempt figure, with straggling beard, hideously staring eyes. +With its hands it clutched at its hair--at its chin; plucked at its mouth. +No moonlight touched the features of this unearthly visitant, +but scanty as was the illumination we could see the gleaming teeth-- +and the wildly glaring eyes. + +It began to laugh--peal after peal--hideous and shrill. + +Nothing so terrifying had ever smote upon my ears. +I was palsied by the horror of the sound. + +Then Nayland Smith pressed the button of an electric torch which he carried. +He directed the disk of white light fully upon the face in the doorway. + +"Oh, God!" cried Weymouth. "It's John!"--and again and again: +"Oh, God! Oh, God!" + +Perhaps for the first time in my life I really believed (nay, I +could not doubt) that a thing of another world stood before me. +I am ashamed to confess the extent of the horror that came upon me. +James Weymouth raised his hands, as if to thrust away from him +that awful thing in the door. He was babbling--prayers, I think, +but wholly incoherent. + +"Hold him, Petrie!" + +Smith's voice was low. (When we were past thought or intelligent action, +he, dominant and cool, with that forced calm for which, a crisis over, +he always paid so dearly, was thinking of the woman who slept above.) + +He leaped forward; and in the instant that he grappled with +the one who had knocked I knew the visitant for a man of flesh +and blood--a man who shrieked and fought like a savage animal, +foamed at the mouth and gnashed his teeth in horrid frenzy; +knew him for a madman--knew him for the victim of Fu-Manchu-- +not dead, but living--for Inspector Weymouth--a maniac! + +In a flash I realized all this and sprang to Smith's assistance. +There was a sound of racing footsteps and the men who had been +watching outside came running into the porch. A third was with them; +and the five of us (for Weymouth's brother had not yet grasped +the fact that a man and not a spirit shrieked and howled in our midst) +clung to the infuriated madman, yet barely held our own with him. + +"The syringe, Petrie!" gasped Smith. "Quick! You must manage +to make an injection!" + +I extricated myself and raced into the cottage for my bag. +A hypodermic syringe ready charged I had brought with me +at Smith's request. Even in that thrilling moment I could +find time to admire the wonderful foresight of my friend, +who had divined what would befall--isolated the strange, +pitiful truth from the chaotic circumstances which saw us +at Maple Cottage that night. + +Let me not enlarge upon the end of the awful struggle. +At one time I despaired (we all despaired) of quieting the poor, +demented creature. But at last it was done; and the gaunt, +blood-stained savage whom we had known as Detective-Inspector +Weymouth lay passive upon the couch in his own sitting-room. A +great wonder possessed my mind for the genius of the uncanny +being who with the scratch of a needle had made a brave +and kindly man into this unclean, brutish thing. + +Nayland Smith, gaunt and wild-eyed, and trembling yet with his +tremendous exertions, turned to the man whom I knew to be +the messenger from Scotland Yard. + +"Well?" he rapped. + +"He is arrested, sir," the detective reported. "They have kept +him at his chambers as you ordered." + +"Has she slept through it?" said Smith to me. +(I had just returned from a visit to the room above.) I nodded. + +"Is HE safe for an hour or two?"--indicating the figure on the couch. +"For eight or ten," I replied grimly. + +"Come, then. Our night's labors are not nearly complete." + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +LATER was forthcoming evidence to show that poor Weymouth had lived +a wild life, in hiding among the thick bushes of the tract of land +which lay between the village and the suburb on the neighboring hill. +Literally, he had returned to primitive savagery and some of his food +had been that of the lower animals, though he had not scrupled to steal, +as we learned when his lair was discovered. + +He had hidden himself cunningly; but witnesses appeared who had seen him, +in the dusk, and fled from him. They never learned that the object +of their fear was Inspector John Weymouth. How, having escaped death +in the Thames, he had crossed London unobserved, we never knew; +but his trick of knocking upon his own door at half-past two each morning +(a sort of dawning of sanity mysteriously linked with old custom) +will be a familiar class of symptom to all students of alienation. + +I revert to the night when Smith solved the mystery of the knocking. + +In a car which he had in waiting at the end of the village we sped +through the deserted streets to New Inn Court. I, who had followed +Nayland Smith through the failures and successes of his mission, +knew that to-night he had surpassed himself; had justified the confidence +placed in him by the highest authorities. + +We were admitted to an untidy room--that of a student, +a traveler and a crank--by a plain-clothes officer. +Amid picturesque and disordered fragments of a hundred ages, +in a great carven chair placed before a towering statue +of the Buddha, sat a hand-cuffed man. His white hair +and beard were patriarchal; his pose had great dignity. +But his expression was entirely masked by the smoked glasses +which he wore. + +Two other detectives were guarding the prisoner. + +"We arrested Professor Jenner Monde as he came in, sir," +reported the man who had opened the door. "He has made no statement. +I hope there isn't a mistake." + +"I hope not," rapped Smith. + +He strode across the room. He was consumed by a fever of excitement. +Almost savagely, he tore away the beard, tore off the snowy wig dashed +the smoked glasses upon the floor. + +A great, high brow was revealed, and green, malignant eyes, which fixed +themselves upon him with an expression I never can forget. + +IT WAS DR. FU-MANCHU! + +One intense moment of silence ensued--of silence which seemed +to throb. Then: + +"What have you done with Professor Monde?" demanded Smith. + +Dr. Fu-Manchu showed his even, yellow teeth in the singularly evil +smile which I knew so well. A manacled prisoner he sat as unruffled +as a judge upon the bench. In truth and in justice I am compelled +to say that Fu-Manchu was absolutely fearless. + +"He has been detained in China," he replied, in smooth, +sibilant tones--"by affairs of great urgency. His well-known +personality and ungregarious habits have served me well, here!" + +Smith, I could see, was undetermined how to act; he stood tugging at his ear +and glancing from the impassive Chinaman to the wondering detectives. + +"What are we to do, sir?" one of them asked. + +"Leave Dr. Petrie and myself alone with the prisoner, until I call you." + +The three withdrew. I divined now what was coming. + +"Can you restore Weymouth's sanity?" rapped Smith abruptly. +"I cannot save you from the hangman, nor"--his fists clenched +convulsively--"would I if I could; but--" + +Fu-Manchu fixed his brilliant eyes upon him. + +"Say no more, Mr. Smith," he interrupted; "you misunderstand me. +I do not quarrel with that, but what I have done from conviction +and what I have done of necessity are separated--are seas apart. +The brave Inspector Weymouth I wounded with a poisoned needle, +in self-defense; but I regret his condition as greatly as you do. +I respect such a man. There is an antidote to the poison +of the needle." + +"Name it," said Smith. + +Fu-Manchu smiled again. + +"Useless," he replied. "I alone can prepare it. My secrets +shall die with me. I will make a sane man of Inspector Weymouth, +but no one else shall be in the house but he and I." + +"It will be surrounded by police," interrupted Smith grimly. + +"As you please," said Fu-Manchu. "Make your arrangements. +In that ebony case upon the table are the instruments for the cure. +Arrange for me to visit him where and when you will--" + +"I distrust you utterly. It is some trick," jerked Smith. + +Dr. Fu-Manchu rose slowly and drew himself up to his great height. +His manacled hands could not rob him of the uncanny dignity which was his. +He raised them above his head with a tragic gesture and fixed his piercing +gaze upon Nayland Smith. + +"The God of Cathay bear me," he said, with a deep, guttural note +in his voice--"I swear--" + + +The most awful visitor who ever threatened the peace of England, the end +of the visit of Fu-Manchu was characteristic--terrible--inexplicable. + +Strange to relate, I did not doubt that this weird +being had conceived some kind of admiration or respect +for the man to whom he had wrought so terrible an injury. +He was capable of such sentiments, for he entertained some +similar one in regard to myself. + +A cottage farther down the village street than Weymouth's was vacant, and in +the early dawn of that morning became the scene of outre happenings. +Poor Weymouth, still in a comatose condition, we removed there (Smith having +secured the key from the astonished agent). I suppose so strange a specialist +never visited a patient before--certainly not under such conditions. + +For into the cottage, which had been entirely surrounded by a ring +of police, Dr. Fu-Manchu was admitted from the closed car in which, +his work of healing complete, he was to be borne to prison--to death! + +Law and justice were suspended by my royally empowered friend that the enemy +of the white race might heal one of those who had hunted him down! + +No curious audience was present, for sunrise was not yet come; +no concourse of excited students followed the hand of the Master; +but within that surrounded cottage was performed one of those +miracles of science which in other circumstances had made the fame +of Dr. Fu-Manchu to live forever. + +Inspector Weymouth, dazed, disheveled, clutching his head +as a man who has passed through the Valley of the Shadow-- +but sane--sane!--walked out into the porch! + +He looked towards us--his eyes wild, but not with the fearsome +wildness of insanity. + +"Mr. Smith!" he cried--and staggered down the path--"Dr. Petrie! What--" + +There came a deafening explosion. From EVERY visible window +of the deserted cottage flames burst forth! + +"QUICK!" Smith's voice rose almost to a scream--"into the house!" + +He raced up the path, past Inspector Weymouth, who stood +swaying there like a drunken man. I was close upon his heels. +Behind me came the police. + +The door was impassable! Already, it vomited a deathly heat, +borne upon stifling fumes like those of the mouth of the Pit. +We burst a window. The room within was a furnace! + +"My God!" cried someone. "This is supernatural!" + +"Listen!" cried another. "Listen!" + +The crowd which a fire can conjure up at any hour of day +or night, out of the void of nowhere, was gathering already. +But upon all descended a pall of silence. + +From the heat of the holocaust a voice proclaimed itself--a voice raised, +not in anguish but in TRIUMPH! It chanted barbarically--and was still. + +The abnormal flames rose higher--leaping forth from every window. + +"The alarm!" said Smith hoarsely. "Call up the brigade!" + + +I come to the close of my chronicle, and feel that I betray a trust-- +the trust of my reader. For having limned in the colors at my +command the fiendish Chinese doctor, I am unable to conclude my task +as I should desire, unable, with any consciousness of finality, +to write Finis to the end of my narrative. + +It seems to me sometimes that my pen is but temporarily idle--that I +have but dealt with a single phase of a movement having a hundred phases. +One sequel I hope for, and against all the promptings of logic and +Western bias. If my hope shall be realized I cannot, at this time, +pretend to state. + +The future, 'mid its many secrets, holds this precious one from me. + +I ask you then, to absolve me from the charge of ill completing my work; +for any curiosity with which this narrative may leave the reader burdened +is shared by the writer. + +With intent, I have rushed you from the chambers of Professor +Jenner Monde to that closing episode at the deserted cottage; +I have made the pace hot in order to impart to these last +pages of my account something of the breathless scurry which +characterized those happenings. + +My canvas may seem sketchy: it is my impression of the reality. +No hard details remain in my mind of the dealings of that night. +Fu-Manchu arrested--Fu-Manchu, manacled, entering the cottage on his +mission of healing; Weymouth, miraculously rendered sane, coming forth; +the place in flames. + +And then? + +To a shell the cottage burned, with an incredible rapidity +which pointed to some hidden agency; to a shell about ashes +which held NO TRACE OF HUMAN BONES! + +It has been asked of me: Was there no possibility of +Fu-Manchu's having eluded us in the ensuing confusion? +Was there no loophole of escape? + +I reply, that so far as I was able to judge, a rat could scarce +have quitted the building undetected. Yet that Fu-Manchu had, +in some incomprehensible manner and by some mysterious agency, +produced those abnormal flames, I cannot doubt. +Did he voluntarily ignite his own funeral pyre? + +As I write, there lies before me a soiled and creased sheet of vellum. +It bears some lines traced in a cramped, peculiar, and all but +illegible hand. This fragment was found by Inspector Weymouth +(to this day a man mentally sound) in a pocket of his ragged garments. + +When it was written I leave you to judge. How it came to be where Weymouth +found it calls for no explanation: + + +"To Mr. Commissioner NAYLAND SMITH and Dr. PETRIE-- + +"Greeting! I am recalled home by One who may not be denied. +In much that I came to do I have failed. Much that I +have done I would undo; some little I have undone. +Out of fire I came--the smoldering fire of a thing one day +to be a consuming flame; in fire I go. Seek not my ashes. +I am the lord of the fires! Farewell. + +"FU-MANCHU." + + +Who has been with me in my several meetings with the man +who penned that message I leave to adjudge if it be the letter +of a madman bent upon self-destruction by strange means, +or the gibe of a preternaturally clever scientist and the most +elusive being ever born of the land of mystery--China. + +For the present, I can aid you no more in the forming of your verdict. +A day may come though I pray it do not--when I shall be able to throw +new light upon much that is dark in this matter. That day, so far as I +can judge, could only dawn in the event of the Chinaman's survival; +therefore I pray that the veil be never lifted. + +But, as I have said, there is another sequel to this story +which I can contemplate with a different countenance. +How, then, shall I conclude this very unsatisfactory account? + +Shall I tell you, finally, of my parting with lovely, dark-eyed Karamaneh, +on board the liner which was to bear her to Egypt? + +No, let me, instead, conclude with the words of Nayland Smith: + +"_I_ sail for Burma in a fortnight, Petrie. I have leave to break my +journey at the Ditch. How would a run up the Nile fit your programme? +Bit early for the season, but you might find something to amuse you! + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu + + + |