The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
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Sax Rohmer >> The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
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I seemed scarcely to have closed my eyes, when Nayland Smith was
shaking me into wakefulness.
"You are probably tired out," he said; "but your crazy expedition of
last night entitles you to no sympathy. Read this; there is a train in
an hour. We will reserve a compartment and you can resume your
interrupted slumbers in a corner seat."
As I struggled upright in bed, rubbing my eyes sleepily, Smith handed
me the Daily Telegraph, pointing to the following paragraph upon the
literary page:
Messrs. M---- announce that they will publish shortly the long delayed
work of Kegan Van Roon, the celebrated American traveler, Orientalist
and psychic investigator, dealing with his recent inquiries in China.
It will be remembered that Mr. Van Roon undertook to motor from Canton
to Siberia last winter, but met with unforeseen difficulties in the
province of Ho-Nan. He fell into the hands of a body of fanatics and
was fortunate to escape with his life. His book will deal in
particular with his experiences in Ho-Nan, and some sensational
revelations regarding the awakening of that most mysterious race, the
Chinese, are promised. For reasons of his own he has decided to remain
in England until the completion of his book (which will be published
simultaneously in New York and London) and has leased Cragmire Tower,
Somersetshire, in which romantic and historical residence he will
collate his notes and prepare for the world a work ear-marked as a
classic even before it is published.
I glanced up from the paper, to find Smith's eyes fixed upon me,
inquiringly.
"From what I have been able to learn," he said, evenly, "we should
reach Saul, with decent luck, just before dusk."
As he turned, and quitted the room without another word, I realized,
in a flash, the purport of our mission; I understood my friend's
ominous calm, betokening suppressed excitement.
The Fates were with us (or so it seemed); and whereas we had not hoped
to gain Saul before sunset, as a matter of fact, the autumn afternoon
was in its most glorious phase as we left the little village with its
oldtime hostelry behind us and set out in an easterly direction, with
the Bristol Channel far away on our left and a gently sloping upland
on our right.
The crooked high-street practically constituted the entire hamlet of
Saul, and the inn, "The Wagoners," was the last house in the street.
Now, as we followed the ribbon of moor-path to the top of the rise, we
could stand and look back upon the way we had come; and although we
had covered fully a mile of ground, it was possible to detect the
sunlight gleaming now and then upon the gilt lettering of the inn sign
as it swayed in the breeze. The day had been unpleasantly warm, but
was relieved by this same sea breeze, which, although but slight, had
in it the tang of the broad Atlantic. Behind us, then, the foot-path
sloped down to Saul, unpeopled by any living thing; east and northeast
swelled the monotony of the moor right out to the hazy distance where
the sky began and the sea remotely lay hidden; west fell the gentle
gradient from the top of the slope which we had mounted, and here, as
far as the eye could reach, the country had an appearance suggestive
of a huge and dried-up lake. This idea was borne out by an odd
blotchiness, for sometimes there would be half a mile or more of
seeming moorland, then a sharply defined change (or it seemed sharply
defined from that bird's-eye point of view). A vivid greenness marked
these changes, which merged into a dun-colored smudge and again into
the brilliant green; then the moor would begin once more.
"That will be the Tor of Glastonbury, I suppose," said Smith, suddenly
peering through his field-glasses in an easterly direction; "and
yonder, unless I am greatly mistaken, is Cragmire Tower."
Shading my eyes with my hand, I also looked ahead, and saw the place
for which we were bound; one of those round towers, more common in
Ireland, which some authorities have declared to be of Phoenician
origin. Ramshackle buildings clustered untidily about its base, and to
it a sort of tongue of that oddly venomous green which patched the
lowlands, shot out and seemed almost to reach the towerbase. The land
for miles around was as flat as the palm of my hand, saving certain
hummocks, lesser tors, and irregular piles of boulders which dotted
its expanse. Hills and uplands there were in the hazy distance,
forming a sort of mighty inland bay which I doubted not in some past
age had been covered by the sea. Even in the brilliant sunlight the
place had something of a mournful aspect, looking like a great dried-
up pool into which the children of giants had carelessly cast stones.
We met no living soul upon the moor. With Cragmire Tower but a quarter
of a mile off, Smith paused again, and raising his powerful glasses
swept the visible landscape.
"Not a sign. Petrie," he said, softly; "yet . . ."
Dropping the glasses back into their case, my companion began to tug
at his left ear.
"Have we been over-confident?" he said, narrowing his eyes in
speculative fashion. "No less than three times I have had the idea
that something, or some one, has just dropped out of sight, behind me,
as I focused . . ."
"What do you mean, Smith?"
"Are we"--he glanced about him as though the vastness were peopled
with listening Chinamen--"followed?"
Silently we looked into one another's eyes, each seeking for the dread
which neither had named. Then:
"Come on Petrie!" said Smith, grasping my arm; and at quick march we
were off again.
Cragmire Tower stood upon a very slight eminence, and what had looked
like a green tongue, from the moorland slopes above, was in fact a
creek, flanked by lush land, which here found its way to the sea. The
house which we were come to visit consisted in a low, two-story
building, joining the ancient tower on the east with two smaller
outbuildings. There was a miniature kitchen-garden, and a few stunted
fruit trees in the northwest corner; the whole being surrounded by a
gray stone wall.
The shadow of the tower fell sharply across the path, which ran up
almost alongside of it. We were both extremely warm by reason of our
long and rapid walk on that hot day, and this shade should have been
grateful to us. In short, I find it difficult to account for the
unwelcome chill which I experienced at the moment that I found myself
at the foot of the time-worn monument. I know that we both pulled up
sharply and looked at one another as though acted upon by some mutual
disturbance.
But not a sound broke the stillness save a remote murmuring, until a
solitary sea gull rose in the air and circled directly over the tower,
uttering its mournful and unmusical cry. Automatically to my mind
sprang the lines of the poem:
Far from all brother-men, in the weird of the fen,
With God's creatures I bide, 'mid the birds that I ken;
Where the winds ever dree, where the hymn of the sea
Brings a message of peace from the ocean to me.
Not a soul was visible about the premises; there was no sound of human
activity and no dog barked. Nayland Smith drew a long breath, glanced
back along the way we had come, then went on, following the wall, I
beside him, until we came to the gate. It was unfastened, and we
walked up the stone path through a wilderness of weeds. Four windows
of the house were visible, two on the ground floor and two above.
Those on the ground floor were heavily boarded up, those above, though
glazed, boasted neither blinds nor curtains. Cragmire Tower showed not
the slightest evidence of tenancy.
We mounted three steps and stood before a tremendously massive oaken
door. An iron bell-pull, ancient and rusty, hung on the right of the
door, and Smith, giving me an odd glance, seized the ring and tugged
it.
From somewhere within the building answered a mournful clangor, a
cracked and toneless jangle, which, seeming to echo through empty
apartments, sought and found an exit apparently by way of one of the
openings in the round tower; for it was from above our heads that the
noise came to us.
It died away, that eerie ringing--that clanging so dismal that it
could chill my heart even then with the bright sunlight streaming down
out of the blue; it awoke no other response than the mournful cry of
the sea gull circling over our heads. Silence fell. We looked at one
another, and we were both about to express a mutual doubt when,
unheralded by any unfastening of bolts or bars, the oaken door was
opened, and a huge mulatto, dressed in white, stood there regarding
us.
I started nervously, for the apparition was so unexpected, but Nayland
Smith, without evidence of surprise, thrust a card into the man's
hand.
"Take my card to Mr. Van Roon, and say that I wish to see him on
important business," he directed, authoritatively.
The mulatto bowed and retired. His white figure seemed to be swallowed
up by the darkness within, for beyond the patch of uncarpeted floor
revealed by the peeping sunlight, was a barn-like place of densest
shadow. I was about to speak, but Smith laid his hand upon my arm
warningly, as, out from the shadows the mulatto returned. He stood on
the right of the door and bowed again.
"Be pleased to enter," he said, in his harsh, negro voice. "Mr. Van
Roon will see you."
The gladness of the sun could no longer stir me; a chill and sense of
foreboding bore me company, as beside Nayland Smith I entered Cragmire
Tower.
CHAPTER XXII
THE MULATTO
The room in which Van Roon received us was roughly of the shape of an
old-fashioned keyhole; one end of it occupied the base of the tower,
upon which the remainder had evidently been built. In many respects it
was a singular room, but the feature which caused me the greatest
amazement was this:--it had no windows!
In the deep alcove formed by the tower sat Van Roon at a littered
table, upon which stood an oil reading-lamp, green shaded, of the
"Victoria" pattern, to furnish the entire illumination of the
apartment. That bookshelves lined the rectangular portion of this
strange study I divined, although that end of the place was dark as a
catacomb. The walls were wood-paneled, and the ceiling was oaken
beamed. A small bookshelf and tumble-down cabinet stood upon either
side of the table, and the celebrated American author and traveler lay
propped up in a long split-cane chair. He wore smoked glasses, and had
a clean-shaven, olive face, with a profusion of jet black hair. He was
garbed in a dirty red dressing-gown, and a perfect fog of cigar smoke
hung in the room. He did not rise to greet us, but merely extended his
right hand, between two fingers whereof he held Smith's card.
"You will excuse the seeming discourtesy of an invalid, gentlemen?" he
said; "but I am suffering from undue temerity in the interior of
China!"
He waved his hand vaguely, and I saw that two rough deal chairs stood
near the table. Smith and I seated ourselves, and my friend, leaning
his elbow upon the table, looked fixedly at the face of the man whom
we had come from London to visit. Although comparatively unfamiliar to
the British public, the name of Van Roon was well-known in American
literary circles; for he enjoyed in the United States a reputation
somewhat similar to that which had rendered the name of our mutual
friend, Sir Lionel Barton, a household word in England. It was Van
Roon who, following in the footsteps of Madame Blavatsky, had sought
out the haunts of the fabled mahatmas in the Himalayas, and Van Roon
who had essayed to explore the fever swamps of Yucatan in quest of the
secret of lost Atlantis; lastly, it was Van Roon, who, with an
overland car specially built for him by a celebrated American firm,
had undertaken the journey across China.
I studied the olive face with curiosity. Its natural impassivity was
so greatly increased by the presence of the colored spectacles that my
study was as profitless as if I had scrutinized the face of a carven
Buddha. The mulatto had withdrawn, and in an atmosphere of gloom and
tobacco smoke, Smith and I sat staring, perhaps rather rudely, at the
object of our visit to the West Country.
"Mr. Van Roon," began my friend abruptly, "you will no doubt have seen
this paragraph. It appeared in this morning's Daily Telegraph."
He stood up, and taking out the cutting from his notebook, placed it
on the table.
"I have seen this--yes," said Van Roon, revealing a row of even, white
teeth in a rapid smile. "Is it to this paragraph that I owe the
pleasure of seeing you here?"
"The paragraph appeared in this morning's issue," replied Smith. "An
hour from the time of seeing it, my friend, Dr. Petrie, and I were
entrained for Bridgewater."
"Your visit delights me, gentlemen, and I should be ungrateful to
question its cause; but frankly I am at a loss to understand why you
should have honored me thus. I am a poor host, God knows; for what
with my tortured limb, a legacy from the Chinese devils whose secrets
I surprised, and my semi-blindness, due to the same cause, I am but
sorry company."
Nayland Smith held up his right hand deprecatingly. Van Roon tendered
a box of cigars and clapped his hands, whereupon the mulatto entered.
"I see that you have a story to tell me, Mr. Smith," he said;
"therefore I suggest whisky-and-soda--or you might prefer tea, as it
is nearly tea time?"
Smith and I chose the former refreshment, and the soft-footed
half-breed having departed upon his errand, my companion, leaning
forward earnestly across the littered table, outlined for Van Roon the
story of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the great and malign being whose mission in
England at that moment was none other than the stoppage of just such
information as our host was preparing to give to the world.
"There is a giant conspiracy, Mr. Van Roon," he said, "which had its
birth in this very province of Ho-Nan, from which you were so
fortunate to escape alive; whatever its scope or limitations, a great
secret society is established among the yellow races. It means that
China, which has slumbered for so many generations, now stirs in that
age-long sleep. I need not tell you how much more it means, this
seething in the pot . . ."
"In a word," interrupted Van Roon, pushing Smith's glass across the
table "you would say?--"
"That your life is not worth that!" replied Smith, snapping his
fingers before the other's face.
A very impressive silence fell. I watched Van Roon curiously as he sat
propped up among his cushions, his smooth face ghastly in the green
light from the lamp-shade. He held the stump of a cigar between his
teeth, but, apparently unnoticed by him, it had long since gone out.
Smith, out of the shadows, was watching him, too. Then:
"Your information is very disturbing," said the American. "I am the
more disposed to credit your statement because I am all too painfully
aware of the existence of such a group as you mention, in China, but
that they had an agent here in England is something I had never
conjectured. In seeking out this solitary residence I have unwittingly
done much to assist their designs . . . But--my dear Mr. Smith, I am
very remiss! Of course you will remain tonight, and I trust for some
days to come?"
Smith glanced rapidly across at me, then turned again to our host.
"It seems like forcing our company upon you," he said, "but in your
own interests I think it will be best to do as you are good enough to
suggest. I hope and believe that our arrival here has not been noticed
by the enemy; therefore it will be well if we remain concealed as much
as possible for the present, until we have settled upon some plan."
"Hagar shall go to the station for your baggage," said the American
rapidly, and clapped his hands, his usual signal to the mulatto.
Whilst the latter was receiving his orders I noticed Nayland Smith
watching him closely; and when he had departed:
"How long has that man been in your service?" snapped my friend.
Van Roon peered blindly through his smoked glasses.
"For some years," he replied; "he was with me in India--and in China."
"Where did you engage him?"
"Actually, in St. Kitts."
"H'm," muttered Smith, and automatically he took out and began to fill
his pipe.
"I can offer you no company but my own, gentlemen," continued Van
Roon, "but unless it interferes with your plans, you may find the
surrounding district of interest and worthy of inspection, between now
and dinner time. By the way, I think I can promise you quite a
satisfactory meal, for Hagar is a model chef."
"A walk would be enjoyable," said Smith, "but dangerous."
"Ah! perhaps you are right. Evidently you apprehend some attempt upon
me?"
"At any moment!"
"To one in my crippled condition, an alarming outlook! However, I
place myself unreservedly in your hands. But really, you must not
leave this interesting district before you have made the acquaintance
of some of its historical spots. To me, steeped as I am in what I may
term the lore of the odd, it is a veritable wonderland, almost as
interesting, in its way, as the caves and jungles of Hindustan
depicted by Madame Blavatsky."
His high-pitched voice, with a certain labored intonation, not quite
so characteristically American as was his accent, rose even higher; he
spoke with the fire of the enthusiast.
"When I learned that Cragmire Tower was vacant," he continued, "I
leaped at the chance (excuse the metaphor, from a lame man!). This is
a ghost hunter's paradise. The tower itself is of unknown origin,
though probably Phoenician, and the house traditionally sheltered Dr.
Macleod, the necromancer, after his flight from the persecution of
James of Scotland. Then, to add to its interest, it borders on
Sedgemoor, the scene of the bloody battle during the Monmouth rising,
whereat a thousand were slain on the field. It is a local legend that
the unhappy Duke and his staff may be seen, on stormy nights, crossing
the path which skirts the mire, after which this building is named,
with flaming torches held aloft."
"Merely marsh-lights, I take it?" interjected Smith, gripping his pipe
hard between his teeth.
"Your practical mind naturally seeks a practical explanation," smiled
Van Roon, "but I myself have other theories. Then in addition to the
charms of Sedgemoor--haunted Sedgemoor--on a fine day it is quite
possible to see the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey from here; and
Glastonbury Abbey, as you may know, is closely bound up with the
history of alchemy. It was in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey that the
adept Kelly, companion of Dr. Dee, discovered, in the reign of
Elizabeth, the famous caskets of St. Dunstan, containing the two
tinctures . . ."
So he ran on, enumerating the odd charms of his residence, charms
which for my part I did not find appealing. Finally:
"We cannot presume further upon your kindness," said Nayland Smith,
standing up. "No doubt we can amuse ourselves in the neighborhood of
the house until the return of your servant."
"Look upon Cragmire Tower as your own, gentlemen!" cried Van Roon.
"Most of the rooms are unfurnished, and the garden is a wilderness,
but the structure of the brickwork in the tower may interest you
archaeologically, and the view across the moor is at least as fine as
any in the neighborhood."
So, with his brilliant smile and a gesture of one thin yellow hand,
the crippled traveler made us free of his odd dwelling. As I passed
out from the room close at Smith's heels, I glanced back, I cannot say
why. Van Roon already was bending over his papers, in his green
shadowed sanctuary, and the light shining down upon his smoked glasses
created the odd illusion that he was looking over the tops of the
lenses and not down at the table as his attitude suggested. However,
it was probably ascribable to the weird chiaroscuro of the scene,
although it gave the seated figure an oddly malignant appearance, and
I passed out through the utter darkness of the outer room to the front
door. Smith opening it, I was conscious of surprise to find dusk
come--to meet darkness where I had looked for sunlight.
The silver wisps which had raced along the horizon, as we came to
Cragmire Tower, had been harbingers of other and heavier banks. A
stormy sunset smeared crimson streaks across the skyline, where a
great range of clouds, like the oily smoke of a city burning, was
banked, mountain topping mountain, and lighted from below by this
angry red. As we came down the steps and out by the gate, I turned and
looked across the moor behind us. A sort of reflection from this
distant blaze encrimsoned the whole landscape. The inland bay glowed
sullenly, as if internal fires and not reflected light were at work; a
scene both wild and majestic.
Nayland Smith was staring up at the cone-like top of the ancient tower
in a curious, speculative fashion. Under the influence of our host's
conversation I had forgotten the reasonless dread which had touched me
at the moment of our arrival, but now, with the red light blazing over
Sedgemoor, as if in memory of the blood which had been shed there, and
with the tower of unknown origin looming above me, I became very
uncomfortable again, nor did I envy Van Roon his eerie residence. The
proximity of a tower of any kind, at night, makes in some inexplicable
way for awe, and to-night there were other agents, too.
"What's that?" snapped Smith suddenly, grasping my arm.
He was peering southward, toward the distant hamlet, and, starting
violently at his words and the sudden grasp of his hand, I, too,
stared in that direction.
"We were followed, Petrie," he almost whispered. "I never got a sight
of our follower, but I'll swear we were followed. Look! there's
something moving over yonder!"
Together we stood staring into the dusk; then Smith burst abruptly
into one of his rare laughs, and clapped me upon the shoulder.
"It's Hagar, the mulatto!" he cried--"and our grips. That
extraordinary American with his tales of witch-lights and haunted
abbeys has been playing the devil with our nerves."
Together we waited by the gate until the half-caste appeared on the
bend of the path with a grip in either hand. He was a great, muscular
fellow with a stoic face, and, for the purpose of visiting Saul,
presumably, he had doffed his white raiment and now wore a sort of
livery, with a peaked cap.
Smith watched him enter the house. Then:
"I wonder where Van Roon obtains his provisions and so forth," he
muttered. "It's odd they knew nothing about the new tenant of Cragmire
Tower at 'The Wagoners.'"
There came a sort of sudden expectancy into his manner for which I
found myself at a loss to account. He turned his gaze inland and stood
there tugging at his left ear and clicking his teeth together. He
stared at me, and his eyes looked very bright in the dusk, for a sort
of red glow from the sunset touched them; but he spoke no word, merely
taking my arm and leading me off on a rambling walk around and about
the house. Neither of us spoke a word until we stood at the gate of
Cragmire Tower again; then:
"I'll swear, now, that we were followed here today!" muttered Smith.
The lofty place immediately within the doorway proved, in the light of
a lamp now fixed in an iron bracket, to be a square entrance hall
meagerly furnished. The closed study door faced the entrance, and on
the left of it ascended an open staircase up which the mulatto led the
way. We found ourselves on the floor above, in a corridor traversing
the house from back to front. An apartment on the immediate left was
indicated by the mulatto as that allotted to Smith. It was a room of
fair size, furnished quite simply but boasting a wardrobe cupboard,
and Smith's grip stood beside the white enameled bed. I glanced
around, and then prepared to follow the man, who had awaited me in the
doorway.
He still wore his dark livery, and as I followed the lithe,
broad-shouldered figure along the corridor, I found myself considering
critically his breadth of shoulder and the extraordinary thickness of
his neck.
I have repeatedly spoken of a sort of foreboding, an elusive stirring
in the depths of my being of which I became conscious at certain times
in my dealings with Dr. Fu-Manchu and his murderous servants. This
sensation, or something akin to it, claimed me now, unaccountably, as
I stood looking into the neat bedroom, on the same side of the
corridor but at the extreme end, wherein I was to sleep.
A voiceless warning urged me to return; a kind of childish panic came
fluttering about my heart, a dread of entering the room, of allowing
the mulatto to come behind me.
Doubtless this was no more than a sub-conscious product of my
observations respecting his abnormal breadth of shoulder. But whatever
the origin of the impulse, I found myself unable to disobey it.
Therefore, I merely nodded, turned on my heel and went back to Smith's
room.
I closed the door, then turned to face Smith, who stood regarding me.
"Smith," I said, "that man sends cold water trickling down my spine!"
Still regarding me fixedly, my friend nodded his head.
"You are curiously sensitive to this sort of thing," he replied
slowly; "I have noticed it before as a useful capacity. I don't like
the look of the man myself. The fact that he has been in Van Roon's
employ for some years goes for nothing. We are neither of us likely to
forget Kwee, the Chinese servant of Sir Lionel Barton, and it is quite
possible that Fu-Manchu has corrupted this man as he corrupted the
other. It is quite possible . . ."
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