The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
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Sax Rohmer >> The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu
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"What's this?" he demanded gruffly, and stood with his fists clenched,
looking from Smith to me and down at that which lay between us. Then
his hand flew to his breast; there was a silvern gleam and--
"Drop that whistle!" snapped Smith--and struck it from the man's
hand. "Where's your lantern? Don't ask questions!"
The constable started back and was evidently debating upon his chances
with the two of us, when my friend pulled a letter from his pocket and
thrust it under the man's nose.
"Read that!" he directed harshly, "and then listen to my orders."
There was something in his voice which changed the officer's opinion
of the situation. He directed the light of his lantern upon the open
letter and seemed to be stricken with wonder.
"If you have any doubts," continued Smith--"you may not be familiar
with the Commissioner's signature--you have only to ring up Scotland
Yard from Dr. Petrie's house, to which we shall now return, to
disperse them." He pointed to Forsyth. "Help us to carry him there. We
must not be seen; this must be hushed up. You understand? It must not
get into the press--"
The man saluted respectfully; and the three of us addressed ourselves
to the mournful task. By slow stages we bore the dead man to the edge
of the common, carried him across the road and into my house, without
exciting attention even on the part of those vagrants who nightly
slept out in the neighborhood.
We laid our burden upon the surgery table.
"You will want to make an examination, Petrie," said Smith in his
decisive way, "and the officer here might 'phone for the ambulance. I
have some investigations to make also. I must have the pocket lamp."
He raced upstairs to his room, and an instant later came running down
again. The front door banged.
"The telephone is in the hall," I said to the constable.
"Thank you, sir."
He went out of the surgery as I switched on the lamp over the table
and began to examine the marks upon Forsyth's skin. These, as I have
said, were in groups and nearly all in the form of elongated
punctures; a fairly deep incision with a pear-shaped and superficial
scratch beneath it. One of the tiny wounds had penetrated the right
eye.
The symptoms, or those which I had been enabled to observe as Forsyth
had first staggered into view from among the elms, were most puzzling.
Clearly enough, the muscles of articulation and the respiratory
muscles had been affected; and now the livid face, dotted over with
tiny wounds (they were also on the throat), set me mentally groping
for a clue to the manner of his death.
No clue presented itself; and my detailed examination of the body
availed me nothing. The gray herald of dawn was come when the police
arrived with the ambulance and took Forsyth away.
I was just taking my cap from the rack when Nayland Smith returned.
"Smith!" I cried--"have you found anything?"
He stood there in the gray light of the hallway, tugging at the lobe
of his left ear, an old trick of his.
The bronzed face looked very gaunt, I thought, and his eyes were
bright with that febrile glitter which once I had disliked, but which
I had learned from experience were due to tremendous nervous
excitement. At such times he could act with icy coolness and his
mental faculties seemed temporarily to acquire an abnormal keenness.
He made no direct reply; but--
"Have you any milk?" he jerked abruptly.
So wholly unexpected was the question, that for a moment I failed to
grasp it. Then--
"Milk!" I began.
"Exactly, Petrie! If you can find me some milk, I shall be obliged."
I turned to descend to the kitchen, when--
"The remains of the turbot from dinner, Petrie, would also be welcome,
and I think I should like a trowel."
I stopped at the stairhead and faced him.
"I cannot suppose that you are joking, Smith," I said, "but--"
He laughed dryly.
"Forgive me, old man," he replied. "I was so preoccupied with my own
train of thought that it never occurred to me how absurd my request
must have sounded. I will explain my singular tastes later; at the
moment, hustle is the watchword."
Evidently he was in earnest, and I ran downstairs accordingly,
returning with a garden trowel, a plate of cold fish and a glass of
milk.
"Thanks, Petrie," said Smith--"If you would put the milk in a jug--"
I was past wondering, so I simply went and fetched a jug, into which
he poured the milk. Then, with the trowel in his pocket, the plate of
cold turbot in one hand and the milk jug in the other, he made for the
door. He had it open when another idea evidently occurred to him.
"I'll trouble you for the pistol, Petrie."
I handed him the pistol without a word.
"Don't assume that I want to mystify you," he added, "but the presence
of any one else might jeopardize my plan. I don't expect to be long."
The cold light of dawn flooded the hallway momentarily; then the door
closed again and I went upstairs to my study, watching Nayland Smith
as he strode across the common in the early morning mist. He was
making for the Nine Elms, but I lost sight of him before he reached
them.
I sat there for some time, watching for the first glow of sunrise. A
policeman tramped past the house, and, a while later, a belated
reveler in evening clothes. That sense of unreality assailed me again.
Out there in the gray mists a man who was vested with powers which
rendered him a law unto himself, who had the British Government behind
him in all that he might choose to do, who had been summoned from
Rangoon to London on singular and dangerous business, was employing
himself with a plate of cold turbot, a jug of milk, and a trowel!
Away to the right, and just barely visible, a tramcar stopped by the
common; then proceeded on its way, coming in a westerly direction. Its
lights twinkled yellowly through the grayness, but I was less
concerned with the approaching car than with the solitary traveler who
had descended from it.
As the car went rocking by below me, I strained my eyes in an endeavor
more clearly to discern the figure, which, leaving the highroad, had
struck out across the common. It was that of a woman, who seemingly
carried a bulky bag or parcel.
One must be a gross materialist to doubt that there are latent powers
in man which man, in modern times, neglects, or knows not how to
develop. I became suddenly conscious of a burning curiosity respecting
this lonely traveler who traveled at an hour so strange. With no
definite plan in mind, I went downstairs, took a cap from the rack,
and walked briskly out of the house and across the common in a
direction which I thought would enable me to head off the woman.
I had slightly miscalculated the distance, as Fate would have it, and
with a patch of gorse effectually screening my approach, I came upon
her, kneeling on the damp grass and unfastening the bundle which had
attracted my attention. I stopped and watched her.
She was dressed in bedraggled fashion in rusty black, wore a common
black straw hat and a thick veil; but it seemed to me that the
dexterous hands at work untying the bundle were slim and white; and I
perceived a pair of hideous cotton gloves lying on the turf beside
her. As she threw open the wrappings and lifted out something that
looked like a small shrimping net, I stepped around the bush, crossed
silently the intervening patch of grass, and stood beside her.
A faint breath of perfume reached me--of a perfume which, like the
secret incense of Ancient Egypt, seemed to assail my soul. The glamour
of the Orient was in that subtle essence; and I only knew one woman
who used it. I bent over the kneeling figure.
"Good morning," I said; "can I assist you in any way?"
She came to her feet like a startled deer, and flung away from me with
the lithe movement of some Eastern dancing girl.
Now came the sun, and its heralding rays struck sparks from the
jewels upon the white fingers of this woman who wore the garments of
a mendicant. My heart gave a great leap. It was with difficulty that I
controlled my voice.
"There is no cause for alarm," I added.
She stood watching me; even through the coarse veil I could see how
her eyes glittered. I stooped and picked up the net.
"Oh!" The whispered word was scarcely audible, but it was enough; I
doubted no longer.
"This is a net for bird snaring," I said. "What strange bird are you
seeking--Karamaneh?"
With a passionate gesture Karamaneh snatched off the veil, and with it
the ugly black hat. The cloud of wonderful, intractable hair came
rumpling about her face, and her glorious eyes blazed out upon me. How
beautiful they were, with the dark beauty of an Egyptian night; how
often had they looked into mine in dreams!
To labor against a ceaseless yearning for a woman whom one knows, upon
evidence that none but a fool might reject, to be worthless--evil; is
there any torture to which the soul of man is subject, more pitiless?
Yet this was my lot, for what past sins assigned to me I was unable to
conjecture; and this was the woman, this lovely slave of a monster,
this creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
"I suppose you will declare that you do not know me!" I said harshly.
Her lips trembled, but she made no reply.
"It is very convenient to forget, sometimes," I ran on bitterly, then
checked myself; for I knew that my words were prompted by a feckless
desire to hear her defense, by a fool's hope that it might be an
acceptable one.
I looked again at the net contrivance in my hand; it had a strong
spring fitted to it and a line attached. Quite obviously it was
intended for snaring.
"What were you about to do?" I demanded sharply--but in my heart, poor
fool that I was, I found admiration for the exquisite arch of
Karamaneh's lips, and reproach because they were so tremulous.
She spoke then.
"Dr. Petrie--"
"Well?"
"You seem to be--angry with me, not so much because of what I do, as
because I do not remember you. Yet--"
"Kindly do not revert to the matter," I interrupted. "You have chosen,
very conveniently, to forget that once we were friends. Please
yourself. But answer my question."
She clasped her hands with a sort of wild abandon.
"Why do you treat me so!" she cried; she had the most fascinating
accent imaginable. "Throw me into prison, kill me if you like, for
what I have done!" She stamped her foot. "For what I have done! But do
not torture me, try to drive me mad with your reproaches--that I
forget you! I tell you--again I tell you--that until you came one
night, last week, to rescue some one from--" There was the old trick
of hesitating before the name of Fu-Manchu--"from him, I had never,
never seen you!"
The dark eyes looked into mine, afire with a positive hunger for
belief--or so I was sorely tempted to suppose. But the facts were
against her.
"Such a declaration is worthless," I said, as coldly as I could. "You
are a traitress; you betray those who are mad enough to trust you--"
"I am no traitress!" she blazed at me; her eyes were magnificent.
"This is mere nonsense. You think that it will pay you better to serve
Fu-Manchu than to remain true to your friends. Your 'slavery'--for I
take it you are posing as a slave again--is evidently not very harsh.
You serve Fu-Manchu, lure men to their destruction, and in return he
loads you with jewels, lavishes gifts--"
"Ah! so!"
She sprang forward, raising flaming eyes to mine; her lips were
slightly parted. With that wild abandon which betrayed the desert
blood in her veins, she wrenched open the neck of her bodice and
slipped a soft shoulder free of the garment. She twisted around, so
that the white skin was but inches removed from me.
"These are some of the gifts that he lavishes upon me!"
I clenched my teeth. Insane thoughts flooded my mind. For that creamy
skin was red with the marks of the lash!
She turned, quickly rearranging her dress, and watching me the while.
I could not trust myself to speak for a moment, then:
"If I am a stranger to you, as you claim, why do you give me your
confidence?" I asked.
"I have known you long enough to trust you!" she said simply, and
turned her head aside.
"Then why do you serve this inhuman monster?"
She snapped her fingers oddly, and looked up at me from under her
lashes. "Why do you question me if you think that everything I say is
a lie?"
It was a lesson in logic--from a woman! I changed the subject.
"Tell me what you came here to do," I demanded.
She pointed to the net in my hands.
"To catch birds; you have said so yourself,"
"What bird?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
And now a memory was born within my brain; it was that of the cry of
the nighthawk which had harbingered the death of Forsyth! The net was
a large and strong one; could it be that some horrible fowl of the
air--some creature unknown to Western naturalists--had been released
upon the common last night? I thought of the marks upon Forsyth's face
and throat; I thought of the profound knowledge of obscure and
dreadful things possessed by the Chinaman.
The wrapping, in which the net had been, lay at my feet. I stooped and
took out from it a wicker basket. Karamaneh stood watching me and
biting her lip, but she made no move to check me. I opened the basket.
It contained a large phial, the contents of which possessed a pungent
and peculiar smell.
I was utterly mystified.
"You will have to accompany me to my house," I said sternly.
Karamaneh upturned her great eyes to mine. They were wide with fear.
She was on the point of speaking when I extended my hand to grasp her.
At that, the look of fear was gone and one of rebellion held its
place. Ere I had time to realize her purpose, she flung back from me
with that wild grace which I had met with in no other woman, turned
and ran!
Fatuously, net and basket in hand, I stood looking after her. The idea
of pursuit came to me certainly; but I doubted if I could have outrun
her. For Karamaneh ran, not like a girl used to town or even country
life, but with the lightness and swiftness of a gazelle; ran like the
daughter of the desert that she was.
Some two hundred yards she went, stopped, and looked back. It would
seem that the sheer joy of physical effort had aroused the devil in
her, the devil that must lie latent in every woman with eyes like the
eyes of Karamaneh.
In the ever brightening sunlight I could see the lithe figure swaying;
no rags imaginable could mask its beauty. I could see the red lips and
gleaming teeth. Then--and it was music good to hear, despite its taunt
--she laughed defiantly, turned, and ran again!
I resigned myself to defeat; I blush to add, gladly! Some evidences of
a world awakening were perceptible about me now. Feathered choirs
hailed the new day joyously. Carrying the mysterious contrivance which
I had captured from the enemy, I set out in the direction of my house,
my mind very busy with conjectures respecting the link between this
bird snare and the cry like that of a nighthawk which we had heard at
the moment of Forsyth's death.
The path that I had chosen led me around the border of the Mound Pond
--a small pool having an islet in the center. Lying at the margin of
the pond I was amazed to see the plate and jug which Nayland Smith had
borrowed recently!
Dropping my burden, I walked down to the edge of the water. I was
filled with a sudden apprehension. Then, as I bent to pick up the now
empty jug, came a hail:
"All right, Petrie! Shall join you in a moment!"
I started up, looked to right and left; but, although the voice had
been that of Nayland Smith, no sign could I discern of his presence!
"Smith!" I cried--"Smith!"
"Coming!"
Seriously doubting my senses, I looked in the direction from which the
voice had seemed to proceed--and there was Nayland Smith.
He stood on the islet in the center of the pond, and, as I perceived
him, he walked down into the shallow water and waded across to me!
"Good heavens!" I began--
One of his rare laughs interrupted me.
"You must think me mad this morning, Petrie!" he said. "But I have
made several discoveries. Do you know what that islet in the pond
really is?"
"Merely an islet, I suppose--"
"Nothing of the kind; it is a burial mound, Petrie! It marks the site
of one of the Plague Pits where victims were buried during the Great
Plague of London. You will observe that, although you have seen it
every morning for some years, it remains for a British Commissioner
resident in Burma to acquaint you with its history! Hullo!"--the
laughter was gone from his eyes, and they were steely hard again--
"what the blazes have we here!"
He picked up the net. "What! a bird trap!"
"Exactly!" I said.
Smith turned his searching gaze upon me. "Where did you find it,
Petrie?"
"I did not exactly find it," I replied; and I related to him the
circumstances of my meeting with Karamaneh.
He directed that cold stare upon me throughout the narrative, and
when, with some embarrassment, I had told him of the girl's escape--
"Petrie," he said succinctly, "you are an imbecile!"
I flushed with anger, for not even from Nayland Smith, whom I esteemed
above all other men, could I accept such words uttered as he had
uttered them. We glared at one another.
"Karamaneh," he continued coldly, "is a beautiful toy, I grant you;
but so is a cobra. Neither is suitable for playful purposes."
"Smith!" I cried hotly--"drop that! Adopt another tone or I cannot
listen to you!"
"You must listen," he said, squaring his lean jaw truculently. "You
are playing, not only with a pretty girl who is the favorite of a
Chinese Nero, but with my life! And I object, Petrie, on purely
personal grounds!"
I felt my anger oozing from me; for this was strictly just. I had
nothing to say, and Smith continued:
"You know that she is utterly false, yet a glance or two from those
dark eyes of hers can make a fool of you! A woman made a fool of me,
once; but I learned my lesson; you have failed to learn yours. If you
are determined to go to pieces on the rock that broke up Adam, do so!
But don't involve me in the wreck, Petrie--for that might mean a
yellow emperor of the world, and you know it!"
"Your words are unnecessarily brutal, Smith," I said, feeling very
crestfallen, "but there--perhaps I fully deserve them all."
"You do!" he assured me, but he relaxed immediately. "A murderous
attempt is made upon my life, resulting in the death of a perfectly
innocent man in no way concerned. Along you come and let an
accomplice, perhaps a participant, escape, merely, because she has a
red mouth, or black lashes, or whatever it is that fascinates you so
hopelessly!"
He opened the wicker basket, sniffing at the contents.
"Ah!" he snapped, "do you recognize this odor?"
"Certainly."
"Then you have some idea respecting Karamaneh's quarry?"
"Nothing of the kind!"
Smith shrugged his shoulders.
"Come along, Petrie," he said, linking his arm in mine.
We proceeded. Many questions there were that I wanted to put to him,
but one above all.
"Smith," I said, "what, in Heaven's name, were you doing on the mound?
Digging something up?"
"No," he replied, smiling dryly; "burying something!"
CHAPTER VI
UNDER THE ELMS
Dusk found Nayland Smith and me at the top bedroom window. We knew,
now that poor Forsyth's body had been properly examined, that he had
died from poisoning. Smith, declaring that I did not deserve his
confidence, had refused to confide in me his theory of the origin of
the peculiar marks upon the body.
"On the soft ground under the trees," he said, "I found his tracks
right up to the point where something happened. There were no other
fresh tracks for several yards around. He was attacked as he stood
close to the trunk of one of the elms. Six or seven feet away I found
some other tracks, very much like this."
He marked a series of dots upon the blotting pad at his elbow.
"Claws!" I cried. "That eerie call! like the call of a nighthawk--is
it some unknown species of--flying thing?"
"We shall see, shortly; possibly to-night," was his reply. "Since,
probably owing to the absence of any moon, a mistake was made," his
jaw hardened at the thoughts of poor Forsyth--"another attempt along
the same lines will almost certainly follow--you know Fu-Manchu's
system?"
So in the darkness, expectant, we sat watching the group of nine elms.
To-night the moon was come, raising her Aladdin's lamp up to the star
world and summoning magic shadows into being. By midnight the highroad
showed deserted, the common was a place of mystery; and save for the
periodical passage of an electric car, in blazing modernity, this was
a fit enough stage for an eerie drama.
No notice of the tragedy had appeared in print; Nayland Smith was
vested with powers to silence the press. No detectives, no special
constables, were posted. My friend was of opinion that the publicity
which had been given to the deeds of Dr. Fu-Manchu in the past,
together with the sometimes clumsy co-operation of the police, had
contributed not a little to the Chinaman's success.
"There is only one thing to fear," he jerked suddenly; "he may not be
ready for another attempt to-night."
"Why?"
"Since he has only been in England for a short time, his menagerie of
venomous things may be a limited one at present."
Earlier in the evening there had been a brief but violent
thunderstorm, with a tropical downpour of rain, and now clouds were
scudding across the blue of the sky. Through a temporary rift in the
veiling the crescent of the moon looked down upon us. It had a
greenish tint, and it set me thinking of the filmed, green eyes of
Fu-Manchu.
The cloud passed and a lake of silver spread out to the edge of the
coppice, where it terminated at a shadow bank.
"There it is, Petrie!" hissed Nayland Smith.
A lambent light was born in the darkness; it rose slowly, unsteadily,
to a great height, and died.
"It's under the trees, Smith!"
But he was already making for the door. Over his shoulder:
"Bring the pistol, Petrie!" he cried; "I have another. Give me at
least twenty yards' start or no attempt may be made. But the instant
I'm under the trees, join me."
Out of the house we ran, and over onto the common, which latterly had
been a pageant ground for phantom warring. The light did not appear
again; and as Smith plunged off toward the trees, I wondered if he
knew what uncanny thing was hidden there. I more than suspected that
he had solved the mystery.
His instructions to keep well in the rear I understood. Fu-Manchu, or
the creature of Fu-Manchu, would attempt nothing in the presence of a
witness. But we knew full well that the instrument of death which was
hidden in the elm coppice could do its ghastly work and leave no clue,
could slay and vanish. For had not Forsyth come to a dreadful end
while Smith and I were within twenty yards of him?
Not a breeze stirred, as Smith, ahead of me--for I had slowed my
pace--came up level with the first tree. The moon sailed clear of the
straggling cloud wisps which alone told of the recent storm; and I
noted that an irregular patch of light lay silvern on the moist ground
under the elms where otherwise lay shadow.
He passed on, slowly. I began to run again. Black against the silvern
patch, I saw him emerge--and look up.
"Be careful, Smith!" I cried--and I was racing under the trees to join
him.
Uttering a loud cry, he leaped--away from the pool of light.
"Stand back, Petrie!" he screamed--"Back! further!"
He charged into me, shoulder lowered, and sent me reeling!
Mixed up with his excited cry I had heard a loud splintering and
sweeping of branches overhead; and now as we staggered into the
shadows it seemed that one of the elms was reaching down to touch us!
So, at least, the phenomenon presented itself to my mind in that
fleeting moment while Smith, uttering his warning cry, was hurling me
back.
Then the truth became apparent.
With an appalling crash, a huge bough fell from above. One piercing,
awful shriek there was, a crackling of broken branches, and a choking
groan . . .
The crack of Smith's pistol close beside me completed my confusion of
mind.
"Missed!" he yelled. "Shoot it, Petrie! On your left! For God's sake
don't miss it!"
I turned. A lithe black shape was streaking past me. I fired--once--
twice. Another frightful cry made yet more hideous the nocturne.
Nayland Smith was directing the ray of a pocket torch upon the fallen
bough.
"Have you killed it, Petrie?" he cried.
"Yes, yes!"
I stood beside him, looking down. From the tangle of leaves and twigs
an evil yellow face looked up at us. The features were contorted with
agony, but the malignant eyes, wherein light was dying, regarded us
with inflexible hatred. The man was pinned beneath the heavy bough;
his back was broken; and as we watched, he expired, frothing slightly
at the mouth, and quitted his tenement of clay, leaving those glassy
eyes set hideously upon us.
"The pagan gods fight upon our side," said Smith strangely. "Elms have
a dangerous habit of shedding boughs in still weather--particularly
after a storm. Pan, god of the woods, with this one has performed
Justice's work of retribution."
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