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Sax Rohmer
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu
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Inhaltsverzeichnis
Titel
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
Impressum neobooks
CHAPTER I
The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu
Author: Sax Rohmer
Release Date: May 24, 2008 [EBook #173]
[Last updated: October 13, 2012]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INSIDIOUS DR. FU-MANCHU ***
This etext was updated by Stewart A. Levin of Englewood, CO.
"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 be 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 to 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. It 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 had
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 reached 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 had 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 hand 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," he 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 me 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 months 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 no 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.
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