The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
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Sax Rohmer >> The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
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He paused and glanced back towards the pursuing cab.
"There is little to fear until we arrive home," he said calmly.
"Afterwards there is much. To continue: This man, whether a fanatic
or a duly appointed agent, is, unquestionably, the most malign
and formidable personality existing in the known world today.
He is a linguist who speaks with almost equal facility in any
of the civilized languages, and in most of the barbaric.
He is an adept in all the arts and sciences which a great
university could teach him. He also is an adept in certain obscure
arts and sciences which no university of to-day can teach.
He has the brains of any three men of genius. Petrie, he is
a mental giant."
"You amaze me!" I said.
"As to his mission among men. Why did M. Jules Furneaux fall
dead in a Paris opera house? Because of heart failure?
No! Because his last speech had shown that he held the key
to the secret of Tongking. What became of the Grand
Duke Stanislaus? Elopement? Suicide? Nothing of the kind.
He alone was fully alive to Russia's growing peril.
He alone knew the truth about Mongolia. Why was Sir Crichton
Davey murdered? Because, had the work he was engaged upon ever
seen the light it would have shown him to be the only living
Englishman who understood the importance of the Tibetan frontiers.
I say to you solemnly, Petrie, that these are but a few.
Is there a man who would arouse the West to a sense of
the awakening of the East, who would teach the deaf to hear,
the blind to see, that the millions only await their leader?
He will die. And this is only one phase of the devilish campaign.
The others I can merely surmise."
"But, Smith, this is almost incredible! What perverted genius
controls this awful secret movement?"
"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a
brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull,
and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all
the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one
giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present,
with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government--
which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence.
Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu,
the yellow peril incarnate in one man."
CHAPTER III
I SANK into an arm-chair in my rooms and gulped down a strong
peg of brandy.
"We have been followed here," I said. "Why did you make no attempt
to throw the pursuers off the track, to have them intercepted?"
Smith laughed.
"Useless, in the first place. Wherever we went, HE
would find us. And of what use to arrest his creatures?
We could prove nothing against them. Further, it is evident
that an attempt is to be made upon my life to-night--
and by the same means that proved so successful in the case
of poor Sir Crichton."
His square jaw grew truculently prominent, and he leapt stormily to his feet,
shaking his clenched fists towards the window.
"The villain!" he cried. "The fiendishly clever villain!
I suspected that Sir Crichton was next, and I was right.
But I came too late, Petrie! That hits me hard, old man.
To think that I knew and yet failed to save him!"
He resumed his seat, smoking hard.
"Fu-Manchu has made the blunder common to all men of unusual genius,"
he said. "He has underrated his adversary. He has not given
me credit for perceiving the meaning of the scented messages.
He has thrown away one powerful weapon--to get such a message
into my hands--and he thinks that once safe within doors,
I shall sleep, unsuspecting, and die as Sir Crichton died.
But without the indiscretion of your charming friend, I should
have known what to expect when I receive her `information'--
which by the way, consists of a blank sheet of paper."
"Smith," I broke in, "who is she?"
"She is either Fu-Manchu's daughter, his wife, or his slave.
I am inclined to believe the last, for she has no will but
his will, except"--with a quizzical glance--"in a certain instance."
"How can you jest with some awful thing--Heaven knows what--
hanging over your head? What is the meaning of these perfumed envelopes?
How did Sir Crichton die?"
"He died of the Zayat Kiss. Ask me what that is and I reply
'I do not know.' The zayats are the Burmese caravanserais,
or rest-houses. Along a certain route--upon which I set eyes,
for the first and only time, upon Dr. Fu-Manchu--travelers who use
them sometimes die as Sir Crichton died, with nothing to show
the cause of death but a little mark upon the neck, face, or limb,
which has earned, in those parts, the title of the `Zayat Kiss.'
The rest-houses along that route are shunned now.
I have my theory and I hope to prove it to-night, if I live.
It will be one more broken weapon in his fiendish armory,
and it is thus, and thus only, that I can hope to crush him.
This was my principal reason for not enlightening Dr. Cleeve.
Even walls have ears where Fu-Manchu is concerned, so I feigned
ignorance of the meaning of the mark, knowing that he would be
almost certain to employ the same methods upon some other victim.
I wanted an opportunity to study the Zayat Kiss in operation,
and I shall have one."
"But the scented envelopes?"
"In the swampy forests of the district I have referred to a rare
species of orchid, almost green, and with a peculiar scent,
is sometimes met with. I recognized the heavy perfume at once.
I take it that the thing which kills the traveler is attracted
by this orchid. You will notice that the perfume clings to whatever
it touches. I doubt if it can be washed off in the ordinary way.
After at least one unsuccessful attempt to kill Sir Crichton--
you recall that he thought there was something concealed in his study
on a previous occasion?--Fu-Manchu hit upon the perfumed envelopes.
He may have a supply of these green orchids in his possession--
possibly to feed the creature."
"What creature? How could any kind of creature have got into Sir
Crichton's room tonight?"
"You no doubt observed that I examined the grate of the study.
I found a fair quantity of fallen soot. I at once assumed, since it
appeared to be the only means of entrance, that something has been
dropped down; and I took it for granted that the thing, whatever it was,
must still be concealed either in the study or in the library.
But when I had obtained the evidence of the groom, Wills, I perceived
that the cry from the lane or from the park was a signal.
I noted that the movements of anyone seated at the study table
were visible, in shadow, on the blind, and that the study occupied
the corner of a two-storied wing and, therefore, had a short chimney.
What did the signal mean? That Sir Crichton had leaped up from
his chair, and either had received the Zayat Kiss or had seen the thing
which someone on the roof had lowered down the straight chimney.
It was the signal to withdraw that deadly thing. By means of
the iron stairway at the rear of Major-General Platt-Houston's, I
quite easily, gained access to the roof above Sir Crichton's study--
and I found this."
Out from his pocket Nayland Smith drew a tangled piece of silk,
mixed up with which were a brass ring and a number of unusually
large-sized split-shot, nipped on in the manner usual on a fishing-line.
"My theory proven," he resumed. "Not anticipating a search on the roof,
they had been careless. This was to weight the line and to prevent
the creature clinging to the walls of the chimney. Directly it had dropped
in the grate, however, by means of this ring I assume that the weighted
line was withdrawn, and the thing was only held by one slender thread,
which sufficed, though, to draw it back again when it had done its work.
lt might have got tangled, of course, but they reckoned on its making
straight up the carved leg of the writing-table for the prepared envelope.
From there to the hand of Sir Crichton--which, from having touched
the envelope, would also be scented with the perfume--was a certain move."
"My God! How horrible!" I exclaimed, and glanced apprehensively into
the dusky shadows of the room. "What is your theory respecting this creature--
what shape, what color--?"
"It is something that moves rapidly and silently. I will
venture no more at present, but I think it works in the dark.
The study was dark, remember, save for the bright patch beneath
the reading-lamp. I have observed that the rear of this
house is ivy-covered right up to and above your bedroom.
Let us make ostentatious preparations to retire, and I think
we may rely upon Fu-Manchu's servants to attempt my removal,
at any rate--if not yours."
"But, my dear fellow, it is a climb of thirty-five feet at the very least."
"You remember the cry in the back lane? It suggested something to me,
and I tested my idea--successfully. It was the cry of a dacoit.
Oh, dacoity, though quiescent, is by no means extinct. Fu-Manchu has
dacoits in his train, and probably it is one who operates the Zayat Kiss,
since it was a dacoit who watched the window of the study this evening.
To such a man an ivy-covered wall is a grand staircase."
The horrible events that followed are punctuated, in my mind,
by the striking of a distant clock. It is singular how
trivialities thus assert themselves in moments of high tension.
I will proceed, then, by these punctuations, to the coming
of the horror that it was written we should encounter.
The clock across the common struck two.
Having removed all traces of the scent of the orchid from our hands with
a solution of ammonia Smith and I had followed the programme laid down.
It was an easy matter to reach the rear of the house, by simply climbing
a fence, and we did not doubt that seeing the light go out in the front,
our unseen watcher would proceed to the back.
The room was a large one, and we had made up my camp-bed at one end,
stuffing odds and ends under the clothes to lend the appearance of a sleeper,
which device we also had adopted in the case of the larger bed.
The perfumed envelope lay upon a little coffee table in the center
of the floor, and Smith, with an electric pocket lamp, a revolver,
and a brassey beside him, sat on cushions in the shadow of the wardrobe.
I occupied a post between the windows.
No unusual sound, so far, had disturbed the stillness of the night.
Save for the muffled throb of the rare all-night cars passing
the front of the house, our vigil had been a silent one.
The full moon bad painted about the floor weird shadows of
the clustering ivy, spreading the design gradually from the door,
across the room, past the little table where the envelope lay,
and finally to the foot of the bed.
The distant clock struck a quarter-past two.
A slight breeze stirred the ivy, and a new shadow added itself
to the extreme edge of the moon's design.
Something rose, inch by inch, above the sill of the westerly window.
I could see only its shadow, but a sharp, sibilant breath from Smith
told me that he, from his post, could see the cause of the shadow.
Every nerve in my body seemed to be strung tensely.
I was icy cold, expectant, and prepared for whatever horror
was upon us.
The shadow became stationary. The dacoit was studying the interior
of the room.
Then it suddenly lengthened, and, craning my head to the left,
I saw a lithe, black-clad form, surmounted by a Yellow face,
sketchy in the moonlight, pressed against the window-panes!
One thin, brown hand appeared over the edge of the lowered sash,
which it grasped--and then another. The man made absolutely
no sound whatever. The second hand disappeared--and reappeared.
It held a small, square box. There was a very faint CLICK.
The dacoit swung himself below the window with the agility
of an ape, as, with a dull, muffled thud, SOMETHING dropped
upon the carpet!
"Stand still, for your life!" came Smith's voice, high-pitched.
A beam of white leaped out across the room and played full upon
the coffee-table in the center.
Prepared as I was for something horrible, I know that I paled at sight
of the thing that was running round the edge of the envelope.
It was an insect, full six inches long, and of a vivid, venomous, red color!
It had something of the appearance of a great ant, with its long, quivering
antennae and its febrile, horrible vitality; but it was proportionately
longer of body and smaller of head, and had numberless rapidly moving legs.
In short, it was a giant centipede, apparently of the scolopendra group,
but of a form quite new to me.
These things I realized in one breathless instant; in the next--
Smith had dashed the thing's poisonous life out with one straight,
true blow of the golf club!
I leaped to the window and threw it widely open, feeling a silk
thread brush my hand as I did so. A black shape was dropping,
with incredible agility from branch to branch of the ivy,
and, without once offering a mark for a revolver-shot, it
merged into the shadows beneath the trees of the garden.
As I turned and switched on the light Nayland Smith dropped
limply into a chair, leaning his head upon his hands.
Even that grim courage had been tried sorely.
"Never mind the dacoit, Petrie," he said. "Nemesis will know where
to find him. We know now what causes the mark of the Zayat Kiss.
Therefore science is richer for our first brush with the enemy,
and the enemy is poorer--unless he has any more unclassified centipedes.
I understand now something that has been puzzling me since I heard of it--
Sir Crichton's stifled cry. When we remember that he was almost past speech,
it is reasonable to suppose that his cry was not `The red hand!'
but `The red ANT! Petrie, to think that I failed, by less than an hour,
to save him from such an end!"
CHAPTER IV
"THE body of a lascar, dressed in the manner usual on the P. & O. boats,
was recovered from the Thames off Tilbury by the river police at six
A.M. this morning. It is supposed that the man met with an accident
in leaving his ship."
Nayland Smith passed me the evening paper and pointed to the above paragraph.
"For `lascar' read `dacoit,'" he said. "Our visitor, who came by way
of the ivy, fortunately for us, failed to follow his instructions.
Also, he lost the centipede and left a clew behind him.
Dr. Fu-Manchu does not overlook such lapses."
It was a sidelight upon the character of the awful being with whom we
had to deal. My very soul recoiled from bare consideration of the fate
that would be ours if ever we fell into his hands.
The telephone bell rang. I went out and found that Inspector
Weymouth of New Scotland Yard had called us up.
"Will Mr. Nayland Smith please come to the Wapping River Police
Station at once," was the message.
Peaceful interludes were few enough throughout that wild pursuit.
"It is certainly something important," said my friend; "and, if
Fu-Manchu is at the bottom of it--as we must presume him to be--
probably something ghastly."
A brief survey of the time-tables showed us that there were no trains
to serve our haste. We accordingly chartered a cab and proceeded east.
Smith, throughout the journey, talked entertainingly about his work in Burma.
Of intent, I think, he avoided any reference to the circumstances which first
had brought him in contact with the sinister genius of the Yellow Movement.
His talk was rather of the sunshine of the East than of its shadows.
But the drive concluded--and all too soon. In a silence which neither
of us seemed disposed to break, we entered the police depot, and followed
an officer who received us into the room where Weymouth waited.
The inspector greeted us briefly, nodding toward the table.
"Poor Cadby, the most promising lad at the Yard," he said;
and his usually gruff voice had softened strangely.
Smith struck his right fist into the palm of his left hand and swore
under his breath, striding up and down the neat little room.
No one spoke for a moment, and in the silence I could hear the whispering
of the Thames outside--of the Thames which had so many strange secrets
to tell, and now was burdened with another.
The body lay prone upon the deal table--this latest of the river's dead--
dressed in rough sailor garb, and, to all outward seeming, a seaman of
nondescript nationality--such as is no stranger in Wapping and Shadwell.
His dark, curly hair clung clammily about the brown forehead;
his skin was stained, they told me. He wore a gold ring in one ear,
and three fingers of the left hand were missing.
"It was almost the same with Mason." The river police inspector
was speaking. "A week ago, on a Wednesday, he went off in his own
time on some funny business down St. George's way--and Thursday
night the ten-o'clock boat got the grapnel on him off Hanover Hole.
His first two fingers on the right hand were clean gone, and his left
hand was mutilated frightfully."
He paused and glanced at Smith.
"That lascar, too," he continued, "that you came down to see, sir;
you remember his hands?"
Smith nodded.
"He was not a lascar," he said shortly. "He was a dacoit."
Silence fell again.
I turned to the array of objects lying on the table--those which
had been found in Cadby's clothing. None of them were noteworthy,
except that which had been found thrust into the loose neck of his shirt.
This last it was which had led the police to send for Nayland Smith,
for it constituted the first clew which had come to light pointing
to the authors of these mysterious tragedies.
It was a Chinese pigtail. That alone was sufficiently remarkable;
but it was rendered more so by the fact that the plaited queue
was a false one being attached to a most ingenious bald wig.
"You're sure it wasn't part of a Chinese make-up?" questioned Weymouth,
his eye on the strange relic. "Cadby was clever at disguise."
Smith snatched the wig from my hands with a certain irritation,
and tried to fit it on the dead detective.
"Too small by inches!" he jerked. "And look how it's padded in the crown.
This thing was made for a most abnormal head."
He threw it down, and fell to pacing the room again.
"Where did you find him--exactly?" he asked.
"Limehouse Reach--under Commercial Dock Pier--exactly an hour ago."
"And you last saw him at eight o'clock last night?"--to Weymouth.
"Eight to a quarter past."
"You think he has been dead nearly twenty-four hours, Petrie?"
"Roughly, twenty-four hours," I replied.
"Then, we know that he was on the track of the Fu-Manchu group,
that he followed up some clew which led him to the neighborhood
of old Ratcliff Highway, and that he died the same night.
You are sure that is where he was going?"
"Yes," said Weymouth; "He was jealous of giving anything away,
poor chap; it meant a big lift for him if he pulled the case off.
But he gave me to understand that he expected to spend last night
in that district. He left the Yard about eight, as I've said,
to go to his rooms, and dress for the job."
"Did he keep any record of his cases?"
"Of course! He was most particular. Cadby was a man
with ambitions, sir! You'll want to see his book.
Wait while I get his address; it's somewhere in Brixton."
He went to the telephone, and Inspector Ryman covered up the dead man's face.
Nayland Smith was palpably excited.
"He almost succeeded where we have failed, Petrie," he said.
"There is no doubt in my mind that he was hot on the track
of Fu-Manchu! Poor Mason had probably blundered on the scent,
too, and he met with a similar fate. Without other evidence,
the fact that they both died in the same way as the dacoit would
be conclusive, for we know that Fu-Manchu killed the dacoit!"
"What is the meaning of the mutilated hands, Smith?"
"God knows! Cadby's death was from drowning, you say?"
"There are no other marks of violence."
"But he was a very strong swimmer, Doctor," interrupted Inspector Ryman.
"Why, he pulled off the quarter-mile championship at the Crystal Palace
last year! Cadby wasn't a man easy to drown. And as for Mason,
he was an R.N.R., and like a fish in the water!"
Smith shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
"Let us hope that one day we shall know how they died,"
he said simply.
Weymouth returned from the telephone.
"The address is No.--Cold Harbor Lane," he reported.
"I shall not be able to come along, but you can't
miss it; it's close by the Brixton Police Station.
There's no family, fortunately; he was quite alone in the world.
His case-book isn't in the American desk, which you'll find in
his sitting-room; it's in the cupboard in the corner--top shelf.
Here are his keys, all intact. I think this is the cupboard key."
Smith nodded.
"Come on, Petrie," he said. "We haven't a second to waste."
Our cab was waiting, and in a few seconds we were speeding along Wapping
High Street. We had gone no more than a few hundred yards, I think,
when Smith suddenly slapped his open hand down on his knee.
"That pigtail!" he cried. "I have left it behind!
We must have it, Petrie! Stop! Stop!"
The cab was pulled up, and Smith alighted.
"Don't wait for me," he directed hurriedly. "Here, take Weymouth's card.
Remember where he said the book was? It's all we want. Come straight
on to Scotland Yard and meet me there."
"But Smith," I protested, "a few minutes can make no difference!"
"Can't it!" he snapped. "Do you suppose Fu-Manchu is going to leave
evidence like that lying about? It's a thousand to one he has it already,
but there is just a bare chance."
It was a new aspect of the situation and one that afforded
no room for comment; and so lost in thought did I become
that the cab was outside the house for which I was bound ere
I realized that we had quitted the purlieus of Wapping.
Yet I had had leisure to review the whole troop of events which had
crowded my life since the return of Nayland Smith from Burma.
Mentally, I had looked again upon the dead Sir Crichton Davey,
and with Smith had waited in the dark for the dreadful thing
that had killed him. Now, with those remorseless memories
jostling in my mind, I was entering the house of Fu-Manchu's
last victim, and the shadow of that giant evil seemed to be
upon it like a palpable cloud.
Cadby's old landlady greeted me with a queer mixture of fear
and embarrassment in her manner.
"I am Dr. Petrie," I said, "and I regret that I bring bad news
respecting Mr. Cadby."
"Oh, sir!" she cried. "Don't tell me that anything has happened to him!"
And divining something of the mission on which I was come,
for such sad duty often falls to the lot of the medical man:
"Oh, the poor, brave lad!"
Indeed, I respected the dead man's memory more than ever from that hour,
since the sorrow of the worthy old soul was quite pathetic, and spoke
eloquently for the unhappy cause of it.
"There was a terrible wailing at the back of the house last night,
Doctor, and I heard it again to-night, a second before you knocked.
Poor lad! It was the same when his mother died."
At the moment I paid little attention to her words, for such
beliefs are common, unfortunately; but when she was sufficiently
composed I went on to explain what I thought necessary.
And now the old lady's embarrassment took precedence of her sorrow,
and presently the truth came out:
"There's a--young lady--in his rooms, sir."
I started. This might mean little or might mean much.
"She came and waited for him last night, Doctor--from ten until half-past--
and this morning again. She came the third time about an hour ago,
and has been upstairs since."
"Do you know her, Mrs. Dolan?"
Mrs. Dolan grew embarrassed again.
"Well, Doctor," she said, wiping her eyes the while, "I DO.
And God knows he was a good lad, and I like a mother to him;
but she is not the girl I should have liked a son of mine
to take up with."
At any other time, this would have been amusing; now, it might be serious.
Mrs. Dolan's account of the wailing became suddenly significant, for perhaps
it meant that one of Fu-Manchu's dacoit followers was watching the house,
to give warning of any stranger's approach! Warning to whom? It was unlikely
that I should forget the dark eyes of another of Fu-Manchu's servants.
Was that lure of men even now in the house, completing her evil work?
"I should never have allowed her in his rooms--" began Mrs. Dolan again.
Then there was an interruption.
A soft rustling retched my ears--intimately feminine.
The girl was stealing down!
I leaped out into the hall, and she turned and fled blindly before me--
back up the stairs! Taking three steps at a time, I followed her,
bounded into the room above almost at her heels, and stood with my back
to the door.
She cowered against the desk by the window, a slim figure in a
clinging silk gown, which alone explained Mrs. Dolan's distrust.
The gaslight was turned very low, and her hat shadowed her face,
but could not hide its startling, beauty, could not mar the brilliancy
of the skin, nor dim the wonderful eyes of this modern Delilah.
For it was she!
"So I came in time" I said grimly, and turned the key in the lock.
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