The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu

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The other pulled nervously at his mustache.

"My wife has been staying with her," he explained, "since--it happened;
and for the last three nights poor John's widow has cried out at
the same time--half-past two--that someone was knocking on the door."

"What door?"

"That door yonder--the street door."

All our eyes turned in the direction indicated.

"John often came home at half-past two from the Yard," continued Weymouth;
"so we naturally thought poor Mary was wandering in her mind.
But last night--and it's not to be wondered at--my wife couldn't sleep,
and she was wide awake at half-past two."

"Well?"

Nayland Smith was standing before him, alert, bright-eyed.

"She heard it, too!"

The sun was streaming into the cozy little sitting-room;
but I will confess that Weymouth's words chilled me uncannily.
Karamaneh laid her hand upon mine, in a quaint, childish fashion
peculiarly her own. Her hand was cold, but its touch thrilled me.
For Karamaneh was not a child, but a rarely beautiful girl--
a pearl of the East such as many a monarch has fought for.

"What then?" asked Smith.

"She was afraid to move--afraid to look from the window!"

My friend turned and stared hard at me.

"A subjective hallucination, Petrie?"

"In all probability," I replied. "You should arrange that
your wife be relieved in her trying duties, Mr. Weymouth.
It is too great a strain for an inexperienced nurse."

CHAPTER XXVIII

OF all that we had hoped for in our pursuit of Fu-Manchu how
little had we accomplished. Excepting Karamaneh and her brother
(who were victims and not creatures of the Chinese doctor's)
not one of the formidable group had fallen alive into our hands.
Dreadful crimes had marked Fu-Manchu's passage through the land.
Not one-half of the truth (and nothing of the later developments)
had been made public. Nayland Smith's authority was sufficient
to control the press.

In the absence of such a veto a veritable panic must have seized upon
the entire country; for a monster--a thing more than humanly evil--
existed in our midst.

Always Fu-Manchu's secret activities had centered about the great waterway.
There was much of poetic justice in his end; for the Thames had claimed him,
who so long had used the stream as a highway for the passage to and fro for
his secret forces. Gone now were the yellow men who had been the instruments
of his evil will; gone was the giant intellect which had controlled
the complex murder machine. Karamaneh, whose beauty he had used as a lure,
at last was free, and no more with her smile would tempt men to death--
that her brother might live.

Many there are, I doubt not, who will regard the Eastern girl with horror.
I ask their forgiveness in that I regarded her quite differently.
No man having seen her could have condemned her unheard. Many, having looked
into her lovely eyes, had they found there what I found, must have forgiven
her almost any crime.

That she valued human life but little was no matter for wonder.
Her nationality--her history--furnished adequate excuse for an attitude
not condonable in a European equally cultured.

But indeed let me confess that hers was a nature incomprehensible to me
in some respects. The soul of Karamaneh was a closed book to my short-sighted
Western eyes. But the body of Karamaneh was exquisite; her beauty of a kind
that was a key to the most extravagant rhapsodies of Eastern poets.
Her eyes held a challenge wholly Oriental in its appeal; her lips,
even in repose, were a taunt. And, herein, East is West and West is East.

Finally, despite her lurid history, despite the scornful self-possession
of which I knew her capable, she was an unprotected girl--
in years, I believe, a mere child--whom Fate had cast in my way.
At her request, we had booked passages for her brother and herself
to Egypt. The boat sailed in three days. But Karamaneh's beautiful
eyes were sad; often I detected tears on the black lashes.
Shall I endeavor to describe my own tumultuous, conflicting emotions?
It would be useless, since I know it to be impossible.
For in those dark eyes burned a fire I might not see; those silken
lashes veiled a message I dared not read.

Nayland Smith was not blind to the facts of the complicated situation.
I can truthfully assert that he was the only man of my acquaintance who,
having come in contact with Karamaneh, had kept his head.

We endeavored to divert her mind from the recent tragedies by a round
of amusements, though with poor Weymouth's body still at the mercy
of unknown waters Smith and I made but a poor show of gayety;
and I took a gloomy pride in the admiration which our lovely
companion everywhere excited. I learned, in those days, how rare
a thing in nature is a really beautiful woman.

One afternoon we found ourselves at an exhibition of water
colors in Bond Street. Karamaneh was intensely interested
in the subjects of the drawings--which were entirely Egyptian.
As usual, she furnished matter for comment amongst the other visitors,
as did the boy, Aziz, her brother, anew upon the world from his
living grave in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

Suddenly Aziz clutched at his sister's arm, whispering rapidly in Arabic.
I saw her peachlike color fade; saw her become pale and wild-eyed--
the haunted Karamaneh of the old days.

She turned to me.

"Dr. Petrie--he says that Fu-Manchu is here!"

"Where?"

Nayland Smith rapped out the question violently, turning in a flash
from the picture which he was examining.

"In this room!" she whispered glancing furtively, affrightedly about her.
"Something tells Aziz when HE is near--and I, too, feel strangely afraid.
Oh, can it be that he is not dead!"

She held my arm tightly. Her brother was searching the room with big,
velvet black eyes. I studied the faces of the several visitors;
and Smith was staring about him with the old alert look, and tugging
nervously at the lobe of his ear. The name of the giant foe of the white
race instantaneously had strung him up to a pitch of supreme intensity.

Our united scrutinies discovered no figure which could have been
that of the Chinese doctor. Who could mistake that long, gaunt shape,
with the high, mummy-like shoulders, and the indescribable gait,
which I can only liken to that of an awkward cat?

Then, over the heads of a group of people who stood by the doorway, I saw
Smith peering at someone--at someone who passed across the outer room.
Stepping aside, I, too, obtained a glimpse of this person.

As I saw him, he was a tall, old man, wearing a black Inverness
coat and a rather shabby silk hat. He had long white hair
and a patriarchal beard, wore smoked glasses and walked slowly,
leaning upon a stick.

Smith's gaunt face paled. With a rapid glance at Karamaneh,
he made off across the room.

Could it be Dr. Fu-Manchu?

Many days had passed since, already half-choked by Inspector Weymouth's iron
grip, Fu-Manchu, before our own eyes, had been swallowed up by the Thames.
Even now men were seeking his body, and that of his last victim.
Nor had we left any stone unturned. Acting upon information furnished
by Karamaneh, the police had searched every known haunt of the murder group.
But everything pointed to the fact that the group was disbanded and dispersed;
that the lord of strange deaths who had ruled it was no more.

Yet Smith was not satisfied. Neither, let me confess,
was I. Every port was watched; and in suspected districts
a kind of house-to-house patrol had been instituted.
Unknown to the great public, in those days a secret war waged--
a war in which all the available forces of the authorities
took the field against one man! But that one man was the evil
of the East incarnate.

When we rejoined him, Nayland Smith was talking to the commissionaire
at the door. He turned to me.

"That is Professor Jenner Monde," he said. "The sergeant, here,
knows him well."

The name of the celebrated Orientalist of course was familiar to me,
although I had never before set eyes upon him.

"The Professor was out East the last time I was there, sir,"
stated the commissionaire. "I often used to see him. But he's
an eccentric old gentleman. Seems to live in a world of his own.
He's recently back from China, I think."

Nayland Smith stood clicking his teeth together in irritable hesitation.
I heard Karamaneh sigh, and, looking at her, I saw that her cheeks were
regaining their natural color.

She smiled in pathetic apology.

"If he was here he is gone," she said. "I am not afraid now."

Smith thanked the commissionaire for his information and we
quitted the gallery.

"Professor Jenner Monde," muttered my friend, "has lived so long
in China as almost to be a Chinaman. I have never met him--
never seen him, before; but I wonder--"

"You wonder what, Smith?"

"I wonder if he could possibly be an ally, of the Doctor's!"

I stared at him in amazement.

"If we are to attach any importance to the incident at all,"
I said, "we must remember that the boy's impression--and Karamaneh's--
was that Fu-Manchu was present in person."

"I DO attach importance to the incident, Petrie; they are naturally
sensitive to such impressions. But I doubt if even the abnormal
organization of Aziz could distinguish between the hidden presence
of a creature of the Doctor's and that of the Doctor himself.
I shall make a point of calling upon Professor Jenner Monde."

But Fate had ordained that much should happen ere Smith made
his proposed call upon the Professor.

Karamaneh and her brother safely lodged in their hotel
(which was watched night and day by four men under Smith's
orders), we returned to my quiet suburban rooms.

"First," said Smith, "let us see what we can find out
respecting Professor Monde."

He went to the telephone and called up New Scotland Yard.
There followed some little delay before the requisite information
was obtained. Finally, however, we learned that the Professor
was something of a recluse, having few acquaintances,
and fewer friends.

He lived alone in chambers in New Inn Court, Carey Street.
A charwoman did such cleaning as was considered necessary
by the Professor, who employed no regular domestic.
When he was in London he might be seen fairly frequently
at the British Museum, where his shabby figure was familiar
to the officials. When he was not in London--that is,
during the greater part of each year--no one knew where he went.
He never left any address to which letters might be forwarded.

"How long has he been in London now?" asked Smith.

So far as could be ascertained from New Inn Court (replied Scotland Yard)
roughly a week.

My friend left the telephone and began restlessly to pace the room.
The charred briar was produced and stuffed with that broad cut Latakia
mixture of which Nayland Smith consumed close upon a pound a week.
He was one of those untidy smokers who leave tangled tufts
hanging from the pipe-bowl and when they light up strew the floor
with smoldering fragments.

A ringing came, and shortly afterwards a girl entered.

"Mr. James Weymouth to see you, sir."

"Hullo!" rapped Smith. "What's this?"

Weymouth entered, big and florid, and in some respects
singularly like his brother, in others as singularly unlike.
Now, in his black suit, he was a somber figure; and in the blue
eyes I read a fear suppressed.

"Mr. Smith," he began, "there's something uncanny going on at Maple Cottage."

Smith wheeled the big arm-chair forward.

"Sit down, Mr. Weymouth," he said. "I am not entirely surprised.
But you have my attention. What has occurred?"

Weymouth took a cigarette from the box which I proffered and poured
out a peg of whisky. His hand was not quite steady.

"That knocking," he explained. "It came again the night
after you were there, and Mrs. Weymouth--my wife, I mean--
felt that she couldn't spend another night there, alone" "Did she
look out of the window?" I asked.

"No, Doctor; she was afraid. But I spent last night downstairs
in the sitting-room--and _I_ looked out!"

He took a gulp from his glass. Nayland Smith, seated on
the edge of the table, his extinguished pipe in his hand,
was watching him keenly.

"I'll admit I didn't look out at once," Weymouth resumed.
"There was something so uncanny, gentlemen, in that knocking--
knocking--in the dead of the night. I thought"--his voice
shook--"of poor Jack, lying somewhere amongst the slime
of the river--and, oh, my God! it came to me that it was Jack
who was knocking--and I dare not think what he--what it--
would look like!"

He leaned forward, his chin in his hand. For a few moments we
were all silent.

"I know I funked," he continued huskily. "But when the wife came
to the head of the stairs and whispered to me: `There it is again.
What in heaven's name can it be'--I started to unbolt the door.
The knocking had stopped. Everything was very still.
I heard Mary--HIS widow--sobbing, upstairs; that was all.
I opened the door, a little bit at a time."

Pausing again, he cleared his throat, and went on:

"It was a bright night, and there was no one there--not a soul.
But somewhere down the lane, as I looked out into the porch, I heard
most awful groans! They got fainter and fainter. Then--I could
have sworn I heard SOMEONE LAUGHING! My nerves cracked up at that;
and I shut the door again."

The narration of his weird experience revived something of the natural
fear which it had occasioned. He raised his glass, with unsteady hand,
and drained it.

Smith struck a match and relighted his pipe. He began to pace
the room again. His eyes were literally on fire.

"Would it be possible to get Mrs. Weymouth out of the house
before to-night? Remove her to your place, for instance?"
he asked abruptly.

Weymouth looked up in surprise.

"She seems to be in a very low state," he replied. He glanced at me.
"Perhaps Dr. Petrie would give us an opinion?"

"I will come and see her," I said. "But what is your idea, Smith?"

"I want to hear that knocking!" he rapped. "But in what I may see fit
to do I must not be handicapped by the presence of a sick woman."

"Her condition at any rate will admit of our administering an opiate,"
I suggested. "That would meet the situation?"

"Good!" cried Smith. He was intensely excited now.
"I rely upon you to arrange something, Petrie. Mr. Weymouth"--
he turned to our visitor--"I shall be with you this evening
not later than twelve o'clock."

Weymouth appeared to be greatly relieved. I asked him
to wait whilst I prepared a drought for the patient.
When he was gone:

"What do you think this knocking means, Smith?" I asked.

He tapped out his pipe on the side of the grate and began with nervous
energy to refill it again from the dilapidated pouch.

"I dare not tell you what I hope, Petrie," he replied--
"nor what I fear."

CHAPTER XXIX

DUSK was falling when we made our way in the direction of Maple Cottage.
Nayland Smith appeared to be keenly interested in the character
of the district. A high and ancient wall bordered the road along
which we walked for a considerable distance. Later it gave place
to a rickety fence.

My friend peered through a gap in the latter.

"There is quite an extensive estate here," he said, "not yet
cut up by the builder. It is well wooded on one side,
and there appears to be a pool lower down."

The road was a quiet one, and we plainly heard the tread--
quite unmistakable--of an approaching policeman.
Smith continued to peer through the hole in the fence,
until the officer drew up level with us. Then:

"Does this piece of ground extend down to the village,
constable?" he inquired.

Quite willing for a chat, the man stopped, and stood with his thumbs
thrust in his belt.

"Yes, sir. They tell me three new roads will be made through it
between here and the hill."

"It must be a happy hunting ground for tramps?"

"I've seen some suspicious-looking coves about at times.
But after dusk an army might be inside there and nobody would
ever be the wiser."

"Burglaries frequent in the houses backing on to it?"

"Oh, no. A favorite game in these parts is snatching
loaves and bottles of milk from the doors, first thing,
as they're delivered. There's been an extra lot of it lately.
My mate who relieves me has got special instructions
to keep his eye open in the mornings!" The man grinned.
"It wouldn't be a very big case even if he caught anybody!"
"No," said Smith absently; "perhaps not. Your business must
be a dry one this warm weather. Good-night."

"Good-night, sir," replied the constable, richer by
half-a-crown--"and thank you."

Smith stared after him for a moment, tugging reflectively at the lobe
of his ear.

"I don't know that it wouldn't be a big case, after all," he murmured.
"Come on, Petrie."

Not another word did he speak, until we stood at the gate of Maple Cottage.
There a plain-clothes man was standing, evidently awaiting Smith.
He touched his hat.

"Have you found a suitable hiding-place?" asked my companion rapidly.

"Yes, sir," was the reply. "Kent--my mate--is there now.
You'll notice that he can't be seen from here."

"No," agreed Smith, peering all about him. "He can't. Where is he?"

"Behind the broken wall," explained the man, pointing.
"Through that ivy there's a clear view of the cottage door."

"Good. Keep your eyes open. If a messenger comes for me, he is to
be intercepted, you understand. No one must be allowed to disturb us.
You will recognize the messenger. He will be one of your fellows.
Should he come--hoot three times, as much like an owl as you can."

We walked up to the porch of the cottage. In response to Smith's ringing
came James Weymouth, who seemed greatly relieved by our arrival.

"First," said my friend briskly, "you had better run up and see the patient."

Accordingly, I followed Weymouth upstairs and was admitted by his
wife to a neat little bedroom where the grief-stricken woman lay,
a wanly pathetic sight.

"Did you administer the draught, as directed?" I asked.

Mrs. James Weymouth nodded. She was a kindly looking woman,
with the same dread haunting her hazel eyes as that which lurked
in her husband's blue ones.

The patient was sleeping soundly. Some whispered instructions I gave to
the faithful nurse and descended to the sitting-room. It was a warm night,
and Weymouth sat by the open window, smoking. The dim light from the lamp
on the table lent him an almost startling likeness to his brother; and for
a moment I stood at the foot of the stairs scarce able to trust my reason.
Then he turned his face fully towards me, and the illusion was lost.

"Do you think she is likely to wake, Doctor?" he asked.

"I think not," I replied.

Nayland Smith stood upon the rug before the hearth, swinging from one
foot to the other, in his nervously restless way. The room was foggy
with the fumes of tobacco, for he, too, was smoking.

At intervals of some five to ten minutes, his blackened briar
(which I never knew him to clean or scrape) would go out.
I think Smith used more matches than any other smoker I have
ever met, and he invariably carried three boxes in various
pockets of his garments.

The tobacco habit is infectious, and, seating myself in an arm-chair,
I lighted a cigarette. For this dreary vigil I had come prepared
with a bunch of rough notes, a writing-block, and a fountain pen.
I settled down to work upon my record of the Fu-Manchu case.

Silence fell upon Maple Cottage. Save for the shuddering sigh
which whispered through the over-hanging cedars and Smith's eternal
match-striking, nothing was there to disturb me in my task.
Yet I could make little progress. Between my mind and the chapter upon
which I was at work a certain sentence persistently intruded itself.
It was as though an unseen hand held the written page closely before my eyes.
This was the sentence:

"Imagine a person, tall, lean, and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow
like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long,
magnetic eyes of the true cat-green: invest him with all the cruel cunning
of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect. . ."

Dr. Fu-Manchu! Fu-Manchu as Smith had described him to me on that night
which now seemed so remotely distant--the night upon which I had learned
of the existence of the wonderful and evil being born of that secret
quickening which stirred in the womb of the yellow races.

As Smith, for the ninth or tenth time, knocked out his pipe on a bar
of the grate, the cuckoo clock in the kitchen proclaimed the hour.

"Two," said James Weymouth.

I abandoned my task, replacing notes and writing-block in the bag that I
had with me. Weymouth adjusted the lamp which had begun to smoke.

I tiptoed to the stairs and, stepping softly, ascended to the sick room.
All was quiet, and Mrs. Weymouth whispered to me that the patient still
slept soundly. I returned to find Nayland Smith pacing about the room
in that state of suppressed excitement habitual with him in the approach
of any crisis. At a quarter past two the breeze dropped entirely,
and such a stillness reigned all about us as I could not have supposed
possible so near to the ever-throbbing heart of the great metropolis.
Plainly I could hear Weymouth's heavy breathing. He sat at the window
and looked out into the black shadows under the cedars. Smith ceased
his pacing and stood again on the rug very still. He was listening!
I doubt not we were all listening.

Some faint sound broke the impressive stillness, coming from the direction
of the village street. It was a vague, indefinite disturbance,
brief, and upon it ensued a silence more marked than ever.
Some minutes before, Smith had extinguished the lamp.
In the darkness I heard his teeth snap sharply together.

The call of an owl sounded very clearly three times.

I knew that to mean that a messenger had come; but from whence or bearing
what tidings I knew not. My friend's plans were incomprehensible to me,
nor had I pressed him for any explanation of their nature, knowing him
to be in that high-strung and somewhat irritable mood which claimed him
at times of uncertainty--when he doubted the wisdom of his actions,
the accuracy of his surmises. He gave no sign.

Very faintly I heard a clock strike the half-hour. A soft breeze
stole again through the branches above. The wind I thought must
be in a new quarter since I had not heard the clock before.
In so lonely a spot it was difficult to believe that the bell
was that of St. Paul's. Yet such was the fact.

And hard upon the ringing followed another sound--a sound we all had expected,
had waited for; but at whose coming no one of us, I think, retained complete
mastery of himself.

Breaking up the silence in a manner that set my heart wildly leaping it came--
an imperative knocking on the door!

"My God!" groaned Weymouth--but he did not move from his position
at the window.

"Stand by, Petrie!" said Smith.

He strode to the door--and threw it widely open.

I know I was very pale. I think I cried out as I fell back--
retreated with clenched hands from before THAT which stood
on the threshold.

It was a wild, unkempt figure, with straggling beard, hideously staring eyes.
With its hands it clutched at its hair--at its chin; plucked at its mouth.
No moonlight touched the features of this unearthly visitant,
but scanty as was the illumination we could see the gleaming teeth--
and the wildly glaring eyes.

It began to laugh--peal after peal--hideous and shrill.

Nothing so terrifying had ever smote upon my ears.
I was palsied by the horror of the sound.

Then Nayland Smith pressed the button of an electric torch which he carried.
He directed the disk of white light fully upon the face in the doorway.

"Oh, God!" cried Weymouth. "It's John!"--and again and again:
"Oh, God! Oh, God!"

Perhaps for the first time in my life I really believed (nay, I
could not doubt) that a thing of another world stood before me.
I am ashamed to confess the extent of the horror that came upon me.
James Weymouth raised his hands, as if to thrust away from him
that awful thing in the door. He was babbling--prayers, I think,
but wholly incoherent.

"Hold him, Petrie!"

Smith's voice was low. (When we were past thought or intelligent action,
he, dominant and cool, with that forced calm for which, a crisis over,
he always paid so dearly, was thinking of the woman who slept above.)

He leaped forward; and in the instant that he grappled with
the one who had knocked I knew the visitant for a man of flesh
and blood--a man who shrieked and fought like a savage animal,
foamed at the mouth and gnashed his teeth in horrid frenzy;
knew him for a madman--knew him for the victim of Fu-Manchu--
not dead, but living--for Inspector Weymouth--a maniac!

In a flash I realized all this and sprang to Smith's assistance.
There was a sound of racing footsteps and the men who had been
watching outside came running into the porch. A third was with them;
and the five of us (for Weymouth's brother had not yet grasped
the fact that a man and not a spirit shrieked and howled in our midst)
clung to the infuriated madman, yet barely held our own with him.

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