The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
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Sax Rohmer >> The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
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"But brought what, Smith?" I cried, in perplexity.
"What has he brought? An evil spirit? A mental disease?
What is it? What CAN it be?"
"A new agent of death, Petrie! Something born in a plague-spot of Burma--
the home of much that is unclean and much that is inexplicable.
Heaven grant that we be in time, and are able to save Guthrie."
CHAPTER XV
THE train was late, and as our cab turned out of Waterloo Station
and began to ascend to the bridge, from a hundred steeples rang
out the gongs of midnight, the bell of St. Paul's raised above
them all to vie with the deep voice of Big Ben.
I looked out from the cab window across the river to where, towering above
the Embankment, that place of a thousand tragedies, the light of some
of London's greatest caravanserais formed a sort of minor constellation.
From the subdued blaze that showed the public supper-rooms I looked
up to the hundreds of starry points marking the private apartments
of those giant inns.
I thought how each twinkling window denoted the presence of some
bird of passage, some wanderer temporarily abiding in our midst.
There, floor piled upon floor above the chattering throngs,
were these less gregarious units, each something of a mystery
to his fellow-guests, each in his separate cell; and each as remote
from real human companionship as if that cell were fashioned,
not in the bricks of London, but in the rocks of Hindustan!
In one of those rooms Graham Guthrie might at that moment be sleeping,
all unaware that he would awake to the Call of Siva, to the summons of death.
As we neared the Strand, Smith stopped the cab, discharging the man
outside Sotheby's auction-rooms.
"One of the doctor's watch-dogs may be in the foyer," he said thoughtfully,
"and it might spoil everything if we were seen to go to Guthrie's rooms.
There must be a back entrance to the kitchens, and so on?"
"There is," I replied quickly. "I have seen the vans delivering there.
But have we time?"
"Yes. Lead on."
We walked up the Strand and hurried westward. Into that narrow court,
with its iron posts and descending steps, upon which opens a well-known
wine-cellar, we turned. Then, going parallel with the Strand,
but on the Embankment level, we ran round the back of the great hotel,
and came to double doors which were open. An arc lamp illuminated
the interior and a number of men were at work among the casks,
crates and packages stacked about the place. We entered.
"Hallo!" cried a man in a white overall, "where d'you think you're going?"
Smith grasped him by the arm.
"I want to get to the public part of the hotel without being seen
from the entrance hall," he said. "Will you please lead the way?
"Here--" began the other, staring.
"Don't waste time!" snapped my friend, in that tone of authority
which he knew so well how to assume. "It's a matter of life and death.
Lead the way, I say!"
"Police, sir?" asked the man civilly.
"Yes," said Smith; "hurry!"
Off went our guide without further demur. Skirting sculleries, kitchens,
laundries and engine-rooms, he led us through those mysterious labyrinths
which have no existence for the guest above, but which contain the machinery
that renders these modern khans the Aladdin's palaces they are.
On a second-floor landing we met a man in a tweed suit, to whom our
cicerone presented us.
"Glad I met you, sir. Two gentlemen from the police."
The man regarded us haughtily with a suspicious smile.
"Who are you?" he asked. "You're not from Scotland Yard,
at any rate!"
Smith pulled out a card and thrust it into the speaker's hand.
"If you are the hotel detective," he said, "take us without delay
to Mr. Graham Guthrie."
A marked change took place in the other's demeanor on glancing
at the card in his hand.
"Excuse me, sir," he said deferentially, "but, of course,
I didn't know who I was speaking to. We all have instructions
to give you every assistance."
"Is Mr. Guthrie in his room?"
"He's been in his room for some time, sir. You will want to get there
without being seen? This way. We can join the lift on the third floor."
Off we went again, with our new guide. In the lift:
"Have you noticed anything suspicious about the place to-night?" asked Smith.
"I have!" was the startling reply. "That accounts for your
finding me where you did. My usual post is in the lobby.
But about eleven o'clock, when the theater people began to come
in I had a hazy sort of impression that someone or something
slipped past in the crowd--something that had no business
in the hotel."
We got out of the lift.
"I don't quite follow you," said Smith. "If you thought you saw
something entering, you must have formed a more or less definite
impression regarding it."
"That's the funny part of the business," answered the man doggedly.
"I didn't! But as I stood at the top of the stairs I could
have sworn that there was something crawling up behind a party--
two ladies and two gentlemen."
"A dog, for instance?"
"It didn't strike me as being a dog, sir. Anyway, when the party passed me,
there was nothing there. Mind you, whatever it was, it hadn't come
in by the front. I have made inquiries everywhere, but without result."
He stopped abruptly. "No. 189--Mr. Guthrie's door, sir."
Smith knocked.
"Hallo!" came a muffled voice; "what do you want?"
"Open the door! Don't delay; it is important."
He turned to the hotel detective.
"Stay right there where you can watch the stairs and the lift,"
he instructed; "and note everyone and everything that passes this door.
But whatever you see or hear, do nothing without my orders."
The man moved off, and the door was opened. Smith whispered
in my ear:
"Some creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu is in the hotel!"
Mr. Graham Guthrie, British resident in North Bhutan, was a big,
thick-set man--gray-haired and florid, with widely opened eyes of the true
fighting blue, a bristling mustache and prominent shaggy brows.
Nayland Smith introduced himself tersely, proffering his card
and an open letter.
"Those are my credentials, Mr. Guthrie," he said; "so no doubt
you will realize that the business which brings me and my friend,
Dr. Petrie, here at such an hour is of the first importance."
He switched off the light.
"There is no time for ceremony," he explained. "It is now twenty-five minutes
past twelve. At half-past an attempt will be made upon your life!"
"Mr. Smith," said the other, who, arrayed in his pajamas,
was seated on the edge of the bed, "you alarm me very greatly.
I may mention that I was advised of your presence in
England this morning."
"Do you know anything respecting the person called Fu-Manchu--Dr. Fu-Manchu?"
"Only what I was told to-day--that he is the agent of an
advanced political group."
"It is opposed to his interests that you should return to Bhutan.
A more gullible agent would be preferable. Therefore, unless you
implicitly obey my instructions, you will never leave England!"
Graham Guthrie breathed quickly. I was growing more used to the gloom,
and I could dimly discern him, his face turned towards Nayland Smith,
whilst with his hand he clutched the bed-rail. Such a visit as ours,
I think, must have shaken the nerve of any man.
"But, Mr. Smith," he said, "surely I am safe enough here!
The place is full of American visitors at present,
and I have had to be content with a room right at the top;
so that the only danger I apprehend is that of fire."
"There is another danger," replied Smith. "The fact that
you are at the top of the building enhances that danger.
Do you recall anything of the mysterious epidemic which broke
out in Rangoon in 1908--the deaths due to the Call of Siva?"
"I read of it in the Indian papers," said Guthrie uneasily.
"Suicides, were they not?" "No!" snapped Smith. "Murders!"
There was a brief silence.
"From what I recall of the cases," said Guthrie, "that seems impossible.
In several instances the victims threw themselves from the windows
of locked rooms--and the windows were quite inaccessible."
"Exactly," replied Smith; and in the dim light his revolver
gleamed dully, as he placed it on the small table beside the bed.
"Except that your door is unlocked, the conditions to-night
are identical. Silence, please, I hear a clock striking."
It was Big Ben. It struck the half-hour, leaving the stillness complete.
In that room, high above the activity which yet prevailed below,
high above the supping crowds in the hotel, high above the starving
crowds on the Embankment, a curious chill of isolation swept about me.
Again I realized how, in the very heart of the great metropolis, a man
may be as far from aid as in the heart of a desert. I was glad that I
was not alone in that room--marked with the death-mark of Fu-Manchu;
and I am certain that Graham Guthrie welcomed his unexpected company.
I may have mentioned the fact before, but on this occasion it became
so peculiarly evident to me that I am constrained to record it here--
I refer to the sense of impending danger which invariably preceded a--
visit from Fu-Manchu. Even had I not known that an attempt was to be
made that night, I should have realized it, as, strung to high tension,
I waited in the darkness. Some invisible herald went ahead of the
dreadful Chinaman, proclaiming his coming to every nerve in one's body.
It was like a breath of astral incense, announcing the presence
of the priests of death.
A wail, low but singularly penetrating, falling in minor cadences
to a new silence, came from somewhere close at hand.
"My God!" hissed Guthrie, "what was that?"
"The Call of Siva," whispered Smith.
"Don't stir, for your life!"
Guthrie was breathing hard.
I knew that we were three; that the hotel detective was within hail;
that there was a telephone in the room; that the traffic of
the Embankment moved almost beneath us; but I knew, and am not
ashamed to confess, that King Fear had icy fingers about my heart.
It was awful--that tense waiting--for--what?
Three taps sounded--very distinctly upon the window.
Graham Guthrie started so as to shake the bed.
"It's supernatural!" he muttered--all that was Celtic in his blood
recoiling from the omen. "Nothing human can reach that window!"
"S-sh!" from Smith. "Don't stir."
The tapping was repeated.
Smith softly crossed the room. My heart was beating painfully.
He threw open the window. Further inaction was impossible.
I joined him; and we looked out into the empty air.
"Don't come too near, Petrie!" he warned over his shoulder.
One on either side of the open window, we stood and looked down
at the moving Embankment lights, at the glitter of the Thames,
at the silhouetted buildings on the farther bank, with the Shot
Tower starting above them all.
Three taps sounded on the panes above us.
In all my dealings with Dr. Fu-Manchu I had had to face nothing so uncanny
as this. What Burmese ghoul had he loosed? Was it outside, in the air?
Was it actually in the room?
"Don't let me go, Petrie!" whispered Smith suddenly.
"Get a tight hold on me!"
That was the last straw; for I thought that some dreadful
fascination was impelling my friend to hurl himself out!
Wildly I threw my arms about him, and Guthrie leaped
forward to help.
Smith leaned from the window and looked up.
One choking cry he gave--smothered, inarticulate--and I found him slipping
from my grip--being drawn out of the window--drawn to his death!
"Hold him, Guthrie!" I gasped hoarsely. "My God, he's going!
Hold him!"
My friend writhed in our grasp, and I saw him stretch his arm upward.
The crack of his revolver came, and he collapsed on to the floor,
carrying me with him.
But as I fell I heard a scream above. Smith's revolver went
hurtling through the air, and, hard upon it, went a black shape--
flashing past the open window into the gulf of the night.
"The light! The light!" I cried.
Guthrie ran and turned on the light. Nayland Smith, his eyes
starting from his head, his face swollen, lay plucking at a silken
cord which showed tight about his throat.
"It was a Thug!" screamed Guthrie. "Get the rope off! He's choking!"
My hands a-twitch, I seized the strangling-cord.
"A knife! Quick!" I cried. "I have lost mine!"
Guthrie ran to the dressing-table and passed me an open penknife.
I somehow forced the blade between the rope and Smith's swollen neck,
and severed the deadly silken thing.
Smith made a choking noise, and fell back, swooning in my arms.
When, later, we stood looking down upon the mutilated thing which had
been brought in from where it fell, Smith showed me a mark on the brow--
close beside the wound where his bullet had entered.
"The mark of Kali," he said. "The man was a phansigar--
a religious strangler. Since Fu-Manchu has dacoits in his
service I might have expected that he would have Thugs.
A group of these fiends would seem to have fled into Burma;
so that the mysterious epidemic in Rangoon was really an outbreak
of thuggee--on slightly improved lines! I had suspected something
of the kind but, naturally, I had not looked for Thugs near Rangoon.
My unexpected resistance led the strangler to bungle the rope.
You have seen how it was fastened about my throat?
That was unscientific. The true method, as practiced
by the group operating in Burma, was to throw the line
about the victim's neck and jerk him from the window.
A man leaning from an open window is very nicely poised:
it requires only a slight jerk to pitch him forward.
No loop was used, but a running line, which, as the victim fell,
remained in the hand of the murderer. No clew! Therefore we
see at once what commended the system to Fu-Manchu."
Graham Guthrie, very pale, stood looking down at the dead strangler.
"I owe you my life, Mr. Smith," he said. "If you had come
five minutes later--"
He grasped Smith's hand.
"You see," Guthrie continued, "no one thought of looking for a Thug in Burma!
And no one thought of the ROOF! These fellows are as active as monkeys,
and where an ordinary man would infallibly break his neck, they are entirely
at home. I might have chosen my room especially for the business!"
"He slipped in late this evening," said Smith. "The hotel detective saw him,
but these stranglers are as elusive as shadows, otherwise, despite their
having changed the scene of their operations, not one could have survived."
"Didn't you mention a case of this kind on the Irrawaddy?" I asked.
"Yes," was the reply; "and I know of what you are thinking.
The steamers of the Irrawaddy flotilla have a corrugated-iron
roof over the top deck. The Thug must have been lying up there
as the Colassie passed on the deck below."
"But, Smith, what is the motive of the Call?" I continued.
"Partly religious," he explained, "and partly to wake the victims!
You are perhaps going to ask me how Dr. Fu-Manchu has obtained power over
such people as phansigars? I can only reply that Dr. Fu-Manchu has secret
knowledge of which, so far, we know absolutely nothing; but, despite all,
at last I begin to score."
"You do," I agreed; "but your victory took you near to death."
"I owe my life to you, Petrie," he said. "Once to your strength of arm,
and once to--"
"Don't speak of her, Smith," I interrupted.
"Dr. Fu-Manchu may have discovered the part she played!
In which event--"
"God help her!"
CHAPTER XVI
UPON the following day we were afoot again, and shortly at handgrips with
the enemy. In retrospect, that restless time offers a chaotic prospect,
with no peaceful spot amid its turmoils.
All that was reposeful in nature seemed to have become
an irony and a mockery to us--who knew how an evil demigod
had his sacrificial altars amid our sweetest groves.
This idea ruled strongly in my mind upon that soft autumnal day.
"The net is closing in," said Nayland Smith.
"Let us hope upon a big catch," I replied, with a laugh.
Beyond where the Thames tided slumberously seaward showed the roofs
of Royal Windsor, the castle towers showing through the autumn haze.
The peace of beautiful Thames-side was about us.
This was one of the few tangible clews upon which thus
far we had chanced; but at last it seemed indeed that we
were narrowing the resources of that enemy of the white race
who was writing his name over England in characters of blood.
To capture Dr. Fu-Manchu we did not hope; but at least there
was every promise of destroying one of the enemy's strongholds.
We had circled upon the map a tract of country cut by the Thames,
with Windsor for its center. Within that circle was the house from
which miraculously we had escaped--a house used by the most highly
organized group in the history of criminology. So much we knew.
Even if we found the house, and this was likely enough, to find it
vacated by Fu-Manchu and his mysterious servants we were prepared.
But it would be a base destroyed.
We were working upon a methodical plan, and although our cooperators
were invisible, these numbered no fewer than twelve--all of them
experienced men. Thus far we had drawn blank, but the place for which
Smith and I were making now came clearly into view: an old mansion
situated in extensive walled grounds. Leaving the river behind us,
we turned sharply to the right along a lane flanked by a high wall.
On an open patch of ground, as we passed, I noted a gypsy caravan.
An old woman was seated on the steps, her wrinkled face bent,
her chin resting in the palm of her hand.
I scarcely glanced at her, but pressed on, nor did I notice that my friend
no longer was beside me. I was all anxiety to come to some point from
whence I might obtain a view of the house; all anxiety to know if this
was the abode of our mysterious enemy--the place where he worked amid
his weird company, where he bred his deadly scorpions and his bacilli,
reared his poisonous fungi, from whence he dispatched his murder ministers.
Above all, perhaps, I wondered if this would prove to be the hiding-place of
the beautiful slave girl who was such a potent factor in the Doctor's plans,
but a two-edged sword which yet we hoped to turn upon Fu-Manchu. Even
in the hands of a master, a woman's beauty is a dangerous weapon.
A cry rang out behind me. I turned quickly. And a singular
sight met my gaze.
Nayland Smith was engaged in a furious struggle with the old gypsy woman!
His long arms clasped about her, he was roughly dragging her out into
the roadway, she fighting like a wild thing--silently, fiercely.
Smith often surprised me, but at that sight, frankly, I thought that
he was become bereft of reason. I ran back; and I had almost reached
the scene of this incredible contest, and Smith now was evidently hard put
to it to hold his own when a man, swarthy, with big rings in his ears,
leaped from the caravan.
One quick glance he threw in our direction, and made off towards the river.
Smith twisted round upon me, never releasing his hold of the woman.
"After him, Petrie!" he cried. "After him. Don't let him escape.
It's a dacoit!"
My brain in a confused whirl; my mind yet disposed to a belief that my friend
had lost his senses, the word "dacoit" was sufficient.
I started down the road after the fleetly running man.
Never once did he glance behind him, so that he evidently had occasion
to fear pursuit. The dusty road rang beneath my flying footsteps.
That sense of fantasy, which claimed me often enough in those days
of our struggle with the titantic genius whose victory meant the victory
of the yellow races over the white, now had me fast in its grip again.
I was an actor in one of those dream-scenes of the grim Fu-Manchu drama.
Out over the grass and down to the river's brink ran the gypsy
who was no gypsy, but one of that far more sinister brotherhood,
the dacoits. I was close upon his heels. But I was not
prepared for him to leap in among the rushes at the margin
of the stream; and seeing him do this I pulled up quickly.
Straight into the water he plunged; and I saw that he held some
object in his hand. He waded out; he dived; and as I gained
the bank and looked to right and left he had vanished completely.
Only ever--widening rings showed where he had been.
I had him.
For directly he rose to the surface he would be visible from
either bank, and with the police whistle which I carried I could,
if necessary, summon one of the men in hiding across the stream.
I waited. A wild-fowl floated serenely past, untroubled by this
strange invasion of his precincts. A full minute I waited.
From the lane behind me came Smith's voice:
"Don't let him escape, Petrie!"
Never lifting my eyes from the water, I waved my hand reassuringly.
But still the dacoit did not rise. I searched the surface in all
directions as far as my eyes could reach; but no swimmer showed
above it. Then it was that I concluded he had dived too deeply,
become entangled in the weeds and was drowned. With a final glance
to right and left and some feeling of awe at this sudden tragedy--
this grim going out of a life at glorious noonday--I turned away.
Smith had the woman securely; but I had not taken five steps towards
him when a faint splash behind warned me. Instinctively I ducked.
From whence that saving instinct arose I cannot surmise,
but to it I owed my life. For as I rapidly lowered my head,
something hummed past me, something that flew out over the grass bank,
and fell with a jangle upon the dusty roadside. A knife!
I turned and bounded back to the river's brink. I heard a faint
cry behind me, which could only have come from the gypsy woman.
Nothing disturbed the calm surface of the water. The reach was lonely
of rowers. Out by the farther bank a girl was poling a punt along,
and her white-clad figure was the only living thing that moved upon
the river within the range of the most expert knife-thrower.
To say that I was nonplused is to say less than the truth; I was amazed.
That it was the dacoit who had shown me this murderous attention
I could not doubt. But where in Heaven's name WAS he?
He could not humanly have remained below water for so long;
yet he certainly was not above, was not upon the surface,
concealed amongst the reeds, nor hidden upon the bank.
There, in the bright sunshine, a consciousness of the eerie possessed me.
It was with an uncomfortable feeling that my phantom foe might be aiming
a second knife at my back that I turned away and hastened towards Smith.
My fearful expectations were not realized, and I picked up the little weapon
which had so narrowly missed me, and with it in my hand rejoined my friend.
He was standing with one arm closely clasped about the apparently
exhausted woman, and her dark eyes were fixed upon him with
an extraordinary expression.
"What does it mean, Smith?" I began.
But he interrupted me.
"Where is the dacoit?" he demanded rapidly.
"Since he seemingly possesses the attributes of a fish,"
I replied, "I cannot pretend to say."
The gypsy woman lifted her eyes to mine and laughed.
Her laughter was musical, not that of such an old hag as Smith
held captive; it was familiar, too.
I started and looked closely into the wizened face.
"He's tricked you," said Smith, an angry note in his voice.
"What is that you have in your hand?"
I showed him the knife, and told him how it had come into my possession.
"I know," he rapped. "I saw it. He was in the water not
three yards from where you stood. You must have seen him.
Was there nothing visible?"
"Nothing."
The woman laughed again, and again I wondered.
"A wild-fowl," I added; "nothing else."
"A wild-fowl," snapped Smith. "If you will consult your
recollections of the habits of wild-fowl you will see
that this particular specimen was a RARA AVIS. It's an
old trick, Petrie, but a good one, for it is used in decoying.
A dacoit's head was concealed in that wild-fowl! It's useless.
He has certainly made good his escape by now."
"Smith," I said, somewhat crestfallen, "why are you detaining
this gypsy woman?"
"Gypsy woman!" he laughed, hugging her tightly as she made
an impatient movement. "Use your eyes, old man."
He jerked the frowsy wig from her head, and beneath was a cloud
of disordered hair that shimmered in the sunlight.
"A wet sponge will do the rest," he said.
Into my eyes, widely opened in wonder, looked the dark eyes
of the captive; and beneath the disguise I picked out the charming
features of the slave girl. There were tears on the whitened lashes,
and she was submissive now.
"This time," said my friend hardly, "we have fairly captured her--
and we will hold her."
From somewhere up-stream came a faint call.
"The dacoit!"
Nayland Smith's lean body straightened; he stood alert, strung up.
Another call answered, and a third responded.
Then followed the flatly shrill note of a police whistle,
and I noted a column of black vapor rising beyond the wall,
mounting straight to heaven as the smoke of a welcome offering.
The surrounded mansion was in flames!
"Curse it!" rapped Smith. "So this time we were right. But, of course,
he has had ample opportunity to remove his effects. I knew that.
The man's daring is incredible. He has given himself till the very
last moment--and we blundered upon two of the outposts."
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