The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
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Sax Rohmer >> The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
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"Did you see his right hand?" whispered Smith. "A dacoit!
They come here to report and to take orders. Petrie, Dr. Fu-Manchu
is up there."
"What shall we do?"--softly.
"Wait. Then we must try to rush the stairs. It would be futile
to bring in the police first. He is sure to have some other exit.
I will give the word while the little yellow devil is down here.
You are nearer and will have to go first, but if the hunchback follows,
I can then deal with him."
Our whispered colloquy was interrupted by the return of the dacoit,
who recrossed the room as the Chinaman had done, and immediately
took his departure. A third man, whom Smith identified as a Malay,
ascended the mysterious stairs, descended, and went out; and a fourth,
whose nationality it was impossible to determine, followed.
Then, as the softly moving usher crossed to a bunk on the right
of the outer door--
"Up you go, Petrie," cried Smith, for further delay was dangerous
and further dissimulation useless.
I leaped to my feet. Snatching my revolver from the pocket
of the rough jacket I wore, I bounded to the stair and went
blundering up in complete darkness. A chorus of brutish cries
clamored from behind, with a muffled scream rising above them all.
But Nayland Smith was close behind as I raced along a covered gangway,
in a purer air, and at my heels when I crashed open a door at
the end and almost fell into the room beyond.
What I saw were merely a dirty table, with some odds and ends upon
it of which I was too excited to take note, an oil-lamp swung
by a brass chain above, and a man sitting behind the table.
But from the moment that my gaze rested upon the one who sat there,
I think if the place had been an Aladdin's palace I should have
had no eyes for any of its wonders.
He wore a plain yellow robe, of a hue almost identical with that
of his smooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large,
long and bony, and he held them knuckles upward, and rested his
pointed chin upon their thinness. He had a great, high brow,
crowned with sparse, neutral-colored hair.
Of his face, as it looked out at me over the dirty table,
I despair of writing convincingly. It was that of an archangel
of evil, and it was wholly dominated by the most uncanny
eyes that ever reflected a human soul, for they were narrow
and long, very slightly oblique, and of a brilliant green.
But their unique horror lay in a certain filminess
(it made me think of the membrana nictitans in a bird)
which, obscuring them as I threw wide the door, seemed to lift
as I actually passed the threshold, revealing the eyes in all
their brilliant iridescence.
I know that I stopped dead, one foot within the room, for the
malignant force of the man was something surpassing my experience.
He was surprised by this sudden intrusion--yes, but no trace of fear
showed upon that wonderful face, only a sort of pitying contempt.
And, as I paused, he rose slowly to his feet, never removing his
gaze from mine.
"IT'S FU-MANCHU!" cried Smith over my shoulder, in a voice
that was almost a scream. "IT'S FU-MANCHU! Cover him!
Shoot him dead if--"
The conclusion of that sentence I never heard.
Dr. Fu-Manchu reached down beside the table, and the floor slipped
from under me.
One last glimpse I had of the fixed green eyes, and with a scream I was
unable to repress I dropped, dropped, dropped, and plunged into icy water,
which closed over my head.
Vaguely I had seen a spurt of flame, had heard another cry following
my own, a booming sound (the trap), the flat note of a police whistle.
But when I rose to the surface impenetrable darkness enveloped me;
I was spitting filthy, oily liquid from my mouth, and fighting down
the black terror that had me by the throat--terror of the darkness
about me, of the unknown depths beneath me, of the pit into which I
was cast amid stifling stenches and the lapping of tidal water.
"Smith!" I cried. . . ."Help! Help!"
My voice seemed to beat back upon me, yet I was about
to cry out again, when, mustering all my presence of mind
and all my failing courage, I recognized that I had better
employment of my energies, and began to swim straight ahead,
desperately determined to face all the horrors of this place--
to die hard if die I must.
A drop of liquid fire fell through the darkness and hissed
into the water beside me!
I felt that, despite my resolution, I was going mad.
Another fiery drop--and another!
I touched a rotting wooden post and slimy timbers.
I had reached one bound of my watery prison. More fire fell
from above, and the scream of hysteria quivered, unuttered,
in my throat.
Keeping myself afloat with increasing difficulty in my heavy garments,
I threw my head back and raised my eyes.
No more drops fell, and no more drops would fall; but it
was merely a question of time for the floor to collapse.
For it was beginning to emit a dull, red glow.
The room above me was in flames!
It was drops of burning oil from the lamp, finding passage through
the cracks in the crazy flooring, which had fallen about me--
for the death trap had reclosed, I suppose, mechanically.
My saturated garments were dragging me down, and now I could hear
the flames hungrily eating into the ancient rottenness overhead.
Shortly that cauldron would be loosed upon my head. The glow of the
flames grew brighter. . .and showed me the half-rotten piles upholding
the building, showed me the tidal mark upon the slime-coated walls--
showed me that there was no escape!
By some subterranean duct the foul place was fed from the Thames.
By that duct, with the outgoing tide, my body would pass,
in the wake of Mason, Cadby, and many another victim!
Rusty iron rungs were affixed to one of the walls communicating with a trap--
but the bottom three were missing!
Brighter and brighter grew the awesome light the light of what
should be my funeral pyre--reddening the oily water and adding
a new dread to the whispering, clammy horror of the pit.
But something it showed me. . .a projecting beam a few feet
above the water. . .and directly below the iron ladder!
"Merciful Heaven!" I breathed. "Have I the strength?"
A desire for laughter claimed me with sudden, all but irresistible force.
I knew what it portended and fought it down--grimly, sternly.
My garments weighed upon me like a suit of mail; with my chest
aching dully, my veins throbbing to bursting, I forced tired
muscles to work, and, every stroke an agony, approached the beam.
Nearer I swam. . .nearer. Its shadow fell black upon
the water, which now had all the seeming of a pool of blood.
Confused sounds--a remote uproar--came to my ears.
I was nearly spent. . .I was in the shadow of the beam!
If I could throw up one arm. . .
A shrill scream sounded far above me!
"Petrie! Petrie!" (That voice must be Smith's!) "Don't touch the beam!
For God's sake DON'T TOUCH THE BEAM! Keep afloat another few seconds
and I can get to you!"
Another few seconds! Was that possible?
I managed to turn, to raise my throbbing head; and I saw the strangest
sight which that night yet had offered.
Nayland Smith stood upon the lowest iron rung. . .supported by the hideous,
crook-backed Chinaman, who stood upon the rung above!
"I can't reach him!"
It was as Smith hissed the words despairingly that I looked up--
and saw the Chinaman snatch at his coiled pigtail and pull it off!
With it came the wig to which it was attached; and the ghastly yellow mask,
deprived of its fastenings, fell from position! "Here! Here! Be quick!
Oh! be quick! You can lower this to him! Be quick! Be quick!"
A cloud of hair came falling about the slim shoulders
as the speaker bent to pass this strange lifeline to Smith;
and I think it was my wonder at knowing her for the girl whom
that day I had surprised in Cadby's rooms which saved my life.
For I not only kept afloat, but kept my gaze upturned to that beautiful,
flushed face, and my eyes fixed upon hers--which were wild with fear
. . .for me!
Smith, by some contortion, got the false queue into my grasp,
and I, with the strength of desperation, by that means seized
hold upon the lowest rung. With my friend's arm round me I
realized that exhaustion was even nearer than I had supposed.
My last distinct memory is of the bursting of the floor above
and the big burning joist hissing into the pool beneath us.
Its fiery passage, striated with light, disclosed two
sword blades, riveted, edges up along the top of the beam
which I had striven to reach.
"The severed fingers--" I said; and swooned.
How Smith got me through the trap I do not know--nor how we made our way
through the smoke and flames of the narrow passage it opened upon.
My next recollection is of sitting up, with my friend's arm supporting
me and Inspector Ryman holding a glass to my lips.
A bright glare dazzled my eyes. A crowd surged about us,
and a clangor and shouting drew momentarily nearer.
"It's the engines coming," explained Smith, seeing my bewilderment.
"Shen-Yan's is in flames. It was your shot, as you fell through the trap,
broke the oil-lamp."
"Is everybody out?"
"So far as we know."
"Fu-Manchu?"
Smith shrugged his shoulders.
"No one has seen him. There was some door at the back--"
"Do you think he may--"
"No," he said tensely. "Not until I see him lying dead before me
shall I believe it."
Then memory resumed its sway. I struggled to my feet.
"Smith, where is she?" I cried. "Where is she?"
"I don't know," be answered.
"She's given us the slip, Doctor," said Inspector Weymouth,
as a fire-engine came swinging round the corner of the narrow lane.
"So has Mr. Singapore Charlie--and, I'm afraid, somebody else.
We've got six or eight all-sorts, some awake and some asleep,
but I suppose we shall have to let 'em go again.
Mr. Smith tells me that the girl was disguised as a Chinaman.
I expect that's why she managed to slip away."
I recalled how I had been dragged from the pit by the false queue,
how the strange discovery which had brought death to poor Cadby
had brought life to me, and I seemed to remember, too, that Smith
had dropped it as he threw his arm about me on the ladder.
Her mask the girl might have retained, but her wig, I felt certain,
had been dropped into the water.
It was later that night, when the brigade still were playing,
upon the blackened shell of what had been Shen-Yan's opium-shop,
and Smith and I were speeding away in a cab from the scene of God
knows how many crimes, that I had an idea.
"Smith," I said, "did you bring the pigtail with you that was
found on Cadby?"
"Yes. I had hoped to meet the owner."
"Have you got it now?"
"No. I met the owner."
I thrust my hands deep into the pockets of the big pea-jacket
lent to me by Inspector Ryman, leaning back in my corner.
"We shall never really excel at this business," continued Nayland Smith.
"We are far too sentimental. I knew what it meant to us, Petrie, what it
meant to the world, but I hadn't the heart. I owed her your life--
I had to square the account."
CHAPTER VII
NIGHT fell on Redmoat. I glanced from the window at
the nocturne in silver and green which lay beneath me.
To the west of the shrubbery, with its broken canopy of elms
and beyond the copper beech which marked the center of its mazes,
a gap offered a glimpse of the Waverney where it swept into a broad.
Faint bird-calls floated over the water. These, with the whisper
of leaves, alone claimed the ear.
Ideal rural peace, and the music of an English summer evening;
but to my eyes, every shadow holding fantastic terrors;
to my ears, every sound a signal of dread. For the deathful
hand of Fu-Manchu was stretched over Redmoat, at any hour
to loose strange, Oriental horrors upon its inmates.
"Well," said Nayland Smith, joining me at the window, "we had dared
to hope him dead, but we know now that he lives!"
The Rev. J. D. Eltham coughed nervously, and I turned, leaning my elbow
upon the table, and studied the play of expression upon the refined,
sensitive face of the clergyman.
"You think I acted rightly in sending for you, Mr. Smith?"
Nayland Smith smoked furiously.
"Mr. Eltham," he replied, "you see in me a man groping in the dark.
I am to-day no nearer to the conclusion of my mission than
upon the day when I left Mandalay. You offer me a clew;
I am here. Your affair, I believe, stands thus:
A series of attempted burglaries, or something of the kind,
has alarmed your household. Yesterday, returning from London
with your daughter, you were both drugged in some way and,
occupying a compartment to yourselves, you both slept.
Your daughter awoke, and saw someone else in the carriage--
a yellow-faced man who held a case of instruments in his hands."
"Yes; I was, of course, unable to enter into particulars over the telephone.
The man was standing by one of the windows. Directly he observed that my
daughter was awake, he stepped towards her."
"What did he do with the case in his hands?"
"She did not notice--or did not mention having noticed.
In fact, as was natural, she was so frightened that she recalls
nothing more, beyond the fact that she strove to arouse me,
without succeeding, felt hands grasp her shoulders--and swooned."
"But someone used the emergency cord, and stopped the train."
"Greba has no recollection of having done so."
"Hm! Of course, no yellow-faced man was on the train.
When did you awake?"
"I was aroused by the guard, but only when he had repeatedly shaken me."
"Upon reaching Great Yarmouth you immediately called up Scotland Yard?
You acted very wisely, sir. How long were you in China?"
Mr. Eltham's start of surprise was almost comical.
"It is perhaps not strange that you should be aware of my residence in China,
Mr. Smith," he said; "but my not having mentioned it may seem so.
The fact is"--his sensitive face flushed in palpable embarrassment--
"I left China under what I may term an episcopal cloud.
I have lived in retirement ever since. Unwittingly--I solemnly
declare to you, Mr. Smith, unwittingly--I stirred up certain
deep-seated prejudices in my endeavors to do my duty--my duty.
I think you asked me how long I was in China? I was there from 1896
until 1900--four years."
"I recall the circumstances, Mr. Eltham," said Smith, with an odd
note in his voice. "I have been endeavoring to think where I
had come across the name, and a moment ago I remembered.
I am happy to have met you, sir."
The clergyman blushed again like a girl, and slightly inclined his head,
with its scanty fair hair.
"Has Redmoat, as its name implies, a moat round it? I was unable to see
in the dusk." "It remains. Redmoat--a corruption of Round Moat--
was formerly a priory, disestablished by the eighth Henry in 1536."
His pedantic manner was quaint at times. "But the moat is no
longer flooded. In fact, we grow cabbages in part of it.
If you refer to the strategic strength of the place"--he smiled,
but his manner was embarrassed again--"it is considerable.
I have barbed wire fencing, and--other arrangements.
You see, it is a lonely spot," he added apologetically.
"And now, if you will excuse me, we will resume these gruesome
inquiries after the more pleasant affairs of dinner."
He left us.
"Who is our host?" I asked, as the door closed.
Smith smiled.
"You are wondering what caused the `episcopal cloud?'" he suggested.
"Well, the deep-seated prejudices which our reverend friend stirred up
culminated in the Boxer Risings."
"Good heavens, Smith!" I said; for I could not reconcile the diffident
personality of the clergyman with the memories which those words awakened.
"He evidently should be on our danger list," my friend continued quickly;
"but he has so completely effaced himself of recent years that I think it
probable that someone else has only just recalled his existence to mind.
The Rev. J. D. Eltham, my dear Petrie, though he may be a poor hand
at saving souls, at any rate, has saved a score of Christian women
from death--and worse."
"J. D. Eltham--" I began.
"Is `Parson Dan'!" rapped Smith, "the `Fighting Missionary,'
the man who with a garrison of a dozen cripples and a German
doctor held the hospital a Nan-Yang against two hundred Boxers.
That's who th Rev. J. D. Eltham is! But what is he up to,
now, I have yet to find out. He is keeping something back--
something which has made him an object of interest to Young China!"
During dinner the matters responsible for our presence there did not
hold priority in the conversation. In fact, this, for the most part,
consisted in light talk of books and theaters.
Greba Eltham, the clergyman's daughter, was a charming young hostess,
and she, with Vernon Denby, Mr. Eltham's nephew, completed the party.
No doubt the girl's presence, in part, at any rate, led us to refrain
from the subject uppermost in our minds.
These little pools of calm dotted along the torrential course of
the circumstances which were bearing my friend and I onward to unknown
issues form pleasant, sunny spots in my dark recollections.
So I shall always remember, with pleasure, that dinner-party
at Redmoat, in the old-world dining-room; it was so very peaceful,
so almost grotesquely calm. For I, within my very bones, felt it
to be the calm before the storm. When, later, we men passed
to the library, we seemed to leave that atmosphere behind us.
"Redmoat," said the Rev. J. D. Eltham, "has latterly become the theater
of strange doings."
He stood on the hearth-rug. A shaded lamp upon the big table
and candles in ancient sconces upon the mantelpiece afforded
dim illumination. Mr. Eltham's nephew, Vernon Denby,
lolled smoking on the window-seat, and I sat near to him.
Nayland Smith paced restlessly up and down the room.
"Some mouths ago, almost a year," continued the clergyman,
"a burglarious attempt was made upon the house. There was an arrest,
and the man confessed that he had been tempted by my collection."
He waved his hand vaguely towards the several cabinets about
the shadowed room.
"It was shortly afterwards that I allowed my hobby for--
playing at forts to run away with me." He smiled an apology.
"I virtually fortified Redmoat--against trespassers of any kind, I mean.
You have seen that the house stands upon a kind of large mound.
This is artificial, being the buried ruins of a Roman outwork;
a portion of the ancient castrum." Again he waved indicatively,
this time toward the window.
"When it was a priory it was completely isolated and defended
by its environing moat. Today it is completely surrounded by
barbed-wire fencing. Below this fence, on the east, is a narrow stream,
a tributary of the Waverney; on the north and west, the high road,
but nearly twenty feet below, the banks being perpendicular.
On the south is the remaining part of the moat--now my kitchen garden;
but from there up to the level of the house is nearly twenty feet again,
and the barbed wire must also be counted with.
"The entrance, as you know, is by the way of a kind of cutting.
There is a gate at the foot of the steps (they are some of the original
steps of the priory, Dr. Petrie), and another gate at the head."
He paused, and smiled around upon us boyishly.
"My secret defenses remain to be mentioned," he resumed;
and, opening a cupboard, he pointed to a row of batteries,
with a number of electric bells upon the wall behind.
"The more vulnerable spots are connected at night with these bells,"
he said triumphantly. "Any attempt to scale the barbed wire
or to force either gate would set two or more of these ringing.
A stray cow raised one false alarm," he added, "and a careless
rook threw us into a perfect panic on another occasion."
He was so boyish--so nervously brisk and acutely sensitive--
that it was difficult to see in him the hero of the Nan-Yang hospital.
I could only suppose that he had treated the Boxers' raid in the same spirit
wherein he met would-be trespassers within the precincts of Redmoat.
It had been an escapade, of which he was afterwards ashamed, as, faintly,
he was ashamed of his "fortifications." "But," rapped Smith, "it was not
the visit of the burglar which prompted these elaborate precautions."
Mr. Eltham coughed nervously.
"I am aware," he said, "that having invoked official aid, I must be
perfectly frank with you, Mr. Smith. It was the burglar who was responsible
for my continuing the wire fence all round the grounds, but the electrical
contrivance followed, later, as a result of several disturbed nights.
My servants grew uneasy about someone who came, they said, after dusk.
No one could describe this nocturnal visitor, but certainly we found traces.
I must admit that.
"Then--I received what I may term a warning. My position is a peculiar one--
a peculiar one. My daughter, too, saw this prowling, person,
over by the Roman castrum, and described him as a yellow man.
It was the incident in the train following closely upon this other, which led
me to speak to the police, little as I desired to--er--court publicity."
Nayland Smith walked to a window, and looked out across
the sloping lawn to where the shadows of the shrubbery lay.
A dog was howling dismally somewhere.
"Your defenses are not impregnable, after all, then?" he jerked.
"On our way up this evening Mr. Denby was telling us about the death
of his collie a few nights ago."
The clergyman's face clouded.
"That, certainly, was alarming," he confessed.
"I had been in London for a few days, and during my absence Vernon
came down, bringing the dog with him. On the night of his arrival
it ran, barking, into the shrubbery yonder, and did not come out.
He went to look for it with a lantern, and found it lying among
the bushes, quite dead. The poor creature had been dreadfully
beaten about the head."
"The gates were locked," Denby interrupted, "and no one could
have got out of the grounds without a ladder and someone
to assist him. But there was so sign of a living thing about.
Edwards and I searched every corner."
"How long has that other dog taken to howling?" inquired Smith.
"Only since Rex's death," said Denby quickly.
"It is my mastiff," explained the clergyman, "and he is confined in the yard.
He is never allowed on this side of the house."
Nayland Smith wandered aimlessly about the library.
"I am sorry to have to press you, Mr. Eltham," he said,
"but what was the nature of the warning to which you referred,
and from whom did it come?"
Mr. Eltham hesitated for a long time.
"I have been so unfortunate," he said at last, "in my previous efforts,
that I feel assured of your hostile criticism when I tell you that I am
contemplating an immediate return to Ho-Nan!"
Smith jumped round upon him as though moved by a spring.
"Then you are going back to Nan-Yang?" he cried.
"Now I understand! Why have you not told me before?
That is the key for which I have vainly been seeking.
Your troubles date from the time of your decision to return?"
"Yes, I must admit it," confessed the clergyman diffidently.
"And your warning came from China?"
"It did."
"From a Chinaman?"
"From the Mandarin, Yen-Sun-Yat."
"Yen-Sun-Yat! My good sir! He warned you to abandon your visit?
And you reject his advice? Listen to me." Smith was intensely
excited now, his eyes bright, his lean figure curiously strung up, alert.
"The Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat is one of the seven!"
"I do not follow you, Mr. Smith."
"No, sir. China to-day is not the China of '98. It is a huge secret machine,
and Ho-Nan one of its most important wheels! But if, as I understand,
this official is a friend of yours, believe me, he has saved your life!
You would be a dead man now if it were not for your friend in China!
My dear sir, you must accept his counsel."
Then, for the first time since I had made his acquaintance, "Parson Dan"
showed through the surface of the Rev. J. D. Eltham.
"No, sir!" replied the clergyman--and the change in his voice was startling.
"I am called to Nan-Yang. Only One may deter my going."
The admixture of deep spiritual reverence with intense truculence
in his voice was dissimilar from anything I ever had heard.
"Then only One can protect you," cried Smith, "for, by Heaven,
no MAN will be able to do so! Your presence in Ho-Nan
can do no possible good at present. It must do harm.
Your experience in 1900 should be fresh in your memory."
"Hard words, Mr. Smith."
"The class of missionary work which you favor, sir, is injurious
to international peace. At the present moment, Ho-Nan is
a barrel of gunpowder; you would be the lighted match.
I do not willingly stand between any man and what he chooses
to consider his duty, but I insist that you abandon your visit
to the interior of China!"
"You insist, Mr. Smith?" "As your guest, I regret the necessity
for reminding you that I hold authority to enforce it."
Denby fidgeted uneasily. The tone of the conversation was growing harsh
and the atmosphere of the library portentous with brewing, storms.
There was a short, silent interval.
"This is what I had feared and expected," said the clergyman.
"This was my reason for not seeking official protection."
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