THE DEVIL DOCTOR E-Book

Sax Rohmer

• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 365

Beschreibung

Rohmer also wrote several novels of supernatural horror, including Brood of the Witch-Queen, described by Adrian as "Rohmer's masterpiece".Rohmer was very poor at managing his wealth, however, and made several disastrous business decisions that hampered him throughout his career.

Leseprobe

Sax Rohmer

THE DEVIL DOCTOR

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Titel

A MIDNIGHT SUMMONS

ELTHAM VANISHES

THE WIRE JACKET

THE CRY OF A NIGHTHAWK

THE NET

UNDER THE ELMS

ENTER MR. ABEL SLATTIN

DR. FU-MANCHU STRIKES

THE CLIMBER

THE CLIMBER RETURNS

THE WHITE PEACOCK

DARK EYES LOOK INTO MINE

THE SACRED ORDER

THE COUGHING HORROR

BEWITCHMENT

THE QUESTING HANDS

ONE DAY IN RANGOON

THE SILVER BUDDHA

DR. FU-MANCHU'S LABORATORY

THE CROSSBAR

CRAGMIRE TOWER

THE MULATTO

A CRY ON THE MOOR

STORY OF THE GABLES

THE BELLS

THE FIERY HAND

THE NIGHT OF THE RAID

THE SAMURAI'S SWORD

THE SIX GATES

THE CALL OF THE EAST

"MY SHADOW LIES UPON YOU"

THE TRAGEDY

THE MUMMY

Impressum neobooks

A MIDNIGHT SUMMONS

THE DEVIL DOCTOR

"When did you last hear from Nayland Smith?" asked my visitor.

I paused, my hand on the siphon, reflecting for a moment.

"Two months ago," I said: "he's a poor correspondent and rather

soured, I fancy."

"What--a woman or something?"

"Some affair of that sort. He's such a reticent beggar, I really know

very little about it."

I placed a whisky and soda before the Rev. J. D. Eltham, also sliding

the tobacco jar nearer to his hand. The refined and sensitive face of

the clergyman offered no indication to the truculent character of the

man. His scanty fair hair, already grey over the temples, was silken

and soft-looking: in appearance he was indeed a typical English

churchman; but in China he had been known as "the fighting

missionary," and had fully deserved the title. In fact, this

peaceful-looking gentleman had directly brought about the Boxer

Risings!

"You know," he said in his clerical voice, but meanwhile stuffing

tobacco into an old pipe with fierce energy, "I have often wondered,

Petrie--I have never left off wondering--"

"What?"

"That accursed Chinaman! Since the cellar place beneath the site of

the burnt-out cottage in Dulwich Village--I have wondered more than

ever."

He lighted his pipe and walked to the hearth to throw the match in the

grate.

"You see," he continued, peering across at me in his oddly nervous

way--"one never knows, does one? If I thought that Dr. Fu-Manchu lived;

if I seriously suspected that that stupendous intellect, that wonderful

genius, Petrie, er"--he hesitated characteristically--"survived, I

should feel it my duty--"

"Well?" I said, leaning my elbows on the table and smiling slightly.

"If that Satanic genius were not indeed destroyed, then the peace of

the world might be threatened anew at any moment!"

He was becoming excited, shooting out his jaw in the truculent manner

I knew, and snapping his fingers to emphasize his words; a man

composed of the oddest complexities that ever dwelt beneath a clerical

frock.

"He may have got back to China, doctor!" he cried, and his eyes had

the fighting glint in them. "Could you rest in peace if you thought

that he lived? Should you not fear for your life every time that a

night-call took you out alone? Why, man alive, it is only two years

since he was here amongst us, since we were searching every shadow for

those awful green eyes! What became of his band of assassins--his

stranglers, his dacoits, his damnable poisons and insects and

what-not--the army of creatures--"

He paused, taking a drink.

"You"--he hesitated diffidently--"searched in Egypt with Nayland

Smith, did you not?"

I nodded.

"Contradict me if I am wrong," he continued; "but my impression is

that you were searching for the girl--the girl--Kâramanèh, I think

she was called?"

"Yes," I replied shortly; "but we could find no trace--no trace."

"You--er--were interested?"

"More than I knew," I replied, "until I realized that I had--lost

her."

"I never met Kâramanèh, but from your account, and from others, she

was quite unusually--"

"She was very beautiful," I said, and stood up, for I was anxious to

terminate that phase of the conversation.

Eltham regarded me sympathetically; he knew something of my search

with Nayland Smith for the dark-eyed Eastern girl who had brought

romance into my drab life; he knew that I treasured my memories of her

as I loathed and abhorred those of the fiendish, brilliant Chinese

doctor who had been her master.

Eltham began to pace up and down the rug, his pipe bubbling furiously;

and something in the way he carried his head reminded me momentarily

of Nayland Smith. Certainly, between this pink-faced clergyman, with

his deceptively mild appearance, and the gaunt, bronzed and

steely-eyed Burmese commissioner, there was externally little in

common; but it was some little nervous trick in his carriage that

conjured up through the smoke-haze one distant summer evening when

Smith had paced that very room as Eltham paced it now, when before my

startled eyes he had rung up the curtain upon the savage drama in

which, though I little suspected it then, Fate had cast me for a

leading rôle.

I wondered if Eltham's thoughts ran parallel with mine. My own were

centred upon the unforgettable figure of the murderous Chinaman. These

words, exactly as Smith had used them, seemed once again to sound in

my ears: "Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered,

with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven

skull and long magnetic eyes of the true cat green. Invest him with

all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race accumulated in one

giant intellect, with all the resources of science, past and present,

and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the 'Yellow Peril'

incarnate in one man."

This visit of Eltham's no doubt was responsible for my mood; for this

singular clergyman had played his part in the drama of two years ago.

"I should like to see Smith again," he said suddenly; "it seems a pity

that a man like that should be buried in Burma. Burma makes a mess of

the best of men, doctor. You said he was not married?"

"No," I replied shortly, "and is never likely to be, now."

"Ah, you hinted at something of the kind."

"I know very little of it. Nayland Smith is not the kind of man to

talk much."

"Quite so--quite so! And, you know, doctor, neither am I; but"--he was

growing painfully embarrassed--"it may be your due--I--er--I have a

correspondent, in the interior of China--"

"Well?" I said, watching him in sudden eagerness.

"Well, I would not desire to raise--vain hopes--nor to occasion, shall

I say, empty fears; but--er ... no, doctor!" He flushed like a girl.

"It was wrong of me to open this conversation. Perhaps, when I know

more--will you forget my words, for the time?"

The 'phone bell rang.

"Hullo!" cried Eltham--"hard luck, doctor!"--but I could see that he

welcomed the interruption. "Why!" he added, "it is one o'clock!"

I went to the telephone.

"Is that Dr. Petrie?" inquired a woman's voice.

"Yes; who is speaking?"

"Mrs. Hewett has been taken more seriously ill. Could you come at

once?"

"Certainly," I replied, for Mrs. Hewett was not only a profitable

patient but an estimable lady. "I shall be with you in a quarter of an

hour."

I hung up the receiver.

"Something urgent?" asked Eltham, emptying his pipe.

"Sounds like it. You had better turn in."

"I should much prefer to walk over with you, if it would not be

intruding. Our conversation has ill prepared me for sleep."

"Right!" I said, for I welcomed his company; and three minutes later

we were striding across the deserted common.

A sort of mist floated amongst the trees, seeming in the moonlight

like a veil draped from trunk to trunk, as in silence we passed the

Mound Pond, and struck out for the north side of the common.

I suppose the presence of Eltham and the irritating recollection of

his half-confidence were the responsible factors, but my mind

persistently dwelt upon the subject of Fu-Manchu and the atrocities

which he had committed during his sojourn in England. So actively was

my imagination at work that I felt again the menace which so long had

hung over me; I felt as though that murderous yellow cloud still cast

its shadow upon England. And I found myself longing for the company of

Nayland Smith. I cannot state what was the nature of Eltham's

reflections, but I can guess; for he was as silent as I.

It was with a conscious effort that I shook myself out of this

morbidly reflective mood, on finding that we had crossed the common

and were come to the abode of my patient.

"I shall take a little walk," announced Eltham; "for I gather that you

don't expect to be detained long? I shall never be out of sight of the

door, of course."

"Very well," I replied, and ran up the steps.

There were no lights to be seen in any of the windows, which

circumstance rather surprised me, as my patient occupied, or had

occupied when last I had visited her, a first-floor bedroom in the

front of the house. My knocking and ringing produced no response for

three or four minutes; then, as I persisted, a scantily clothed and

half-awake maid-servant unbarred the door and stared at me stupidly in

the moonlight.

"Mrs. Hewett requires me?" I asked abruptly.

The girl stared more stupidly than ever.

"No, sir," she said: "she don't, sir; she's fast asleep!"

"But some one 'phoned me!" I insisted, rather irritably, I fear.

"Not from here, sir," declared the now wide-eyed girl. "We haven't got

a telephone, sir."

For a few moments I stood there, staring as foolishly as she; then

abruptly I turned and descended the steps. At the gate I stood looking

up and down the road. The houses were all in darkness. What could be

the meaning of the mysterious summons? I had made no mistake

respecting the name of my patient; it had been twice repeated over the

telephone; yet that the call had not emanated from Mrs. Hewett's house

was now palpably evident. Days had been when I should have regarded

the episode as preluding some outrage, but to-night I felt more

disposed to ascribe it to a silly practical joke.

Eltham walked up briskly.

"You're in demand to-night, doctor," he said. "A young person called

for you almost directly you had left your house, and, learning where

you were gone, followed you."

"Indeed!" I said, a trifle incredulously. "There are plenty of other

doctors if the case is an urgent one."

"She may have thought it would save time as you were actually up and

dressed," explained Eltham; "and the house is quite near to here, I

understand."

I looked at him a little blankly. Was this another effort of the

unknown jester?

"I have been fooled once," I said. "That 'phone call was a hoax--"

"But I feel certain," declared Eltham earnestly, "that this is

genuine! The poor girl was dreadfully agitated; her master has broken

his leg and is lying helpless: number 280 Rectory Grove."

"Where is the girl?" I asked sharply.

"She ran back directly she had given me her message."

"Was she a servant?"

"I should imagine so: French, I think. But she was so wrapped up I had

little more than a glimpse of her. I am sorry to hear that some one

has played a silly joke on you, but believe me"--he was very

earnest--"this is no jest. The poor girl could scarcely speak for

sobs. She mistook me for you, of course."

"Oh!" said I grimly; "well, I suppose I must go. Broken leg, you

said?--and my surgical bag, splints and so forth, are at home!"

"My dear Petrie!" cried Eltham, in his enthusiastic way, "you no doubt

can do something to alleviate the poor man's suffering immediately. I

will run back to your rooms for the bag and rejoin you at 280 Rectory

Grove."

"It's awfully good of you, Eltham--"

He held up his hand.

"The call of suffering humanity, Petrie, is one which I may no more

refuse to hear than you."

I made no further protest after that, for his point of view was

evident and his determination adamantine, but told him where he would

find the bag and once more set out across the moon-bright common, he

pursuing a westerly direction and I going east.

Some three hundred yards I had gone, I suppose, and my brain had been

very active the while, when something occurred to me which placed a

new complexion upon this second summons. I thought of the falsity of

the first, of the improbability of even the most hardened practical

joker practising his wiles at one o'clock in the morning. I thought of

our recent conversation; above all I thought of the girl who had

delivered the message to Eltham, the girl whom he had described as a

French maid--whose personal charm had so completely enlisted his

sympathies. Now, to this train of thought came a new one, and, adding

it, my suspicion became almost a certainty.

I remembered (as, knowing the district, I should have remembered

before) that there was no number 280 Rectory Grove.

Pulling up sharply, I stood looking about me. Not a living soul was in

sight; not even a policeman. Where the lamps marked the main paths

across the common nothing moved; in the shadows about me nothing

stirred. But something stirred within me--a warning voice which for

long had lain dormant.

What was afoot?

A breeze caressed the leaves overhead, breaking the silence with

mysterious whisperings. Some portentous truth was seeking for

admittance to my brain. I strove to reassure myself, but the sense of

impending evil and of mystery became heavier. At last I could combat

my strange fears no longer. I turned and began to run towards the

south side of the common--towards my rooms--and after Eltham.

I had hoped to head him off, but came upon no sign of him. An

all-night tramcar passed at the moment that I reached the high-road,

and as I ran around behind it I saw that my windows were lighted and

that there was a light in the hall.

My key was yet in the lock when my housekeeper opened the door.

"There's a gentleman just come, doctor," she began.

I thrust past her and raced up the stairs to my study.

Standing by the writing-table was a tall thin man, his gaunt face

brown as a coffee-berry and his steely grey eyes fixed upon me. My

heart gave a great leap--and seemed to stand still.

It was Nayland Smith!

"Smith!" I cried. "Smith, old man, by God, I'm glad to see you!"

He wrung my hand hard, looking at me with his searching eyes; but

there was little enough of gladness in his face. He was altogether

greyer than when last I had seen him--greyer and sterner.

"Where is Eltham?" I asked.

Smith started back as though I had struck him.

"Eltham!" he whispered--"_Eltham_! is Eltham here?"

"I left him ten minutes ago on the common."

Smith dashed his right fist into the palm of his left hand, and his

eyes gleamed almost wildly.

"My God, Petrie!" he said, "am I fated _always_ to come too late?"

My dreadful fears in that instant were confirmed. I seemed to feel my

legs totter beneath me.

"Smith, you don't mean--"

"I do, Petrie!" His voice sounded very far away. "Fu-Manchu is here;

and Eltham, God help him ... is his first victim!"

ELTHAM VANISHES

Smith went racing down the stairs like a man possessed. Heavy with

such a foreboding of calamity as I had not known for two years, I

followed him--along the hall and out into the road. The very peace and

beauty of the night in some way increased my mental agitation. The sky

was lighted almost tropically with such a blaze of stars as I could

not recall to have seen since, my futile search concluded, I had left

Egypt. The glory of the moonlight yellowed the lamps speckled across

the expanse of the common. The night was as still as night can ever be

in London. The dimming pulse of a cab or car alone disturbed the

quietude.

With a quick glance to right and left, Smith ran across on to the

common, and, leaving the door wide open behind me, I followed. The

path which Eltham had pursued terminated almost opposite to my house.

One's gaze might follow it, white and empty, for several hundred yards

past the pond, and farther, until it became overshadowed and was lost

amid a clump of trees.

I came up with Smith, and side by side we ran on, whilst pantingly I

told my tale.

"It was a trick to get you away from him!" cried Smith. "They meant no

doubt to make some attempt at your house, but, as he came out with

you, an alternative plan--"

Abreast of the pond, my companion slowed down, and finally stopped.

"Where did you last see Eltham?" he asked, rapidly.

I took his arm, turning him slightly to the right, and pointed across

the moon-bathed common.

"You see that clump of bushes on the other side of the road?" I said.

"There's a path to the left of it. I took that path and he took this.

We parted at the point where they meet--"

Smith walked right down to the edge of the water and peered about over

the surface.

What he hoped to find there I could not imagine. Whatever it had been

he was disappointed, and he turned to me again, frowning perplexedly,

and tugging at the lobe of his left ear, an old trick which reminded

me of gruesome things we had lived through in the past.

"Come on," he jerked. "It may be amongst the trees."

From the tone of his voice I knew that he was tensed up nervously, and

his mood but added to the apprehension of my own.

"_What_ may be amongst the trees, Smith?" I asked.

He walked on.

"God knows, Petrie; but I fear--"

Behind us, along the high-road, a tramcar went rocking by, doubtless

bearing a few belated workers homeward. The stark incongruity of the

thing was appalling. How little those weary toilers, hemmed about with

the commonplace, suspected that almost within sight from the car

windows, amid prosy benches, iron railings, and unromantic, flickering

lamps, two fellow-men moved upon the border of a horror-land!

Beneath the trees a shadow carpet lay, its edges tropically sharp; and

fully ten yards from the first of the group, we two, hatless both, and

sharing a common dread, paused for a moment and listened.

The car had stopped at the farther extremity of the common, and now

with a moan that grew to a shriek was rolling on its way again. We

stood and listened until silence reclaimed the night. Not a footstep

could be heard. Then slowly we walked on. At the edge of the little

coppice we stopped again abruptly.

Smith turned and thrust his pistol into my hand. A white ray of light

pierced the shadows; my companion carried an electric torch. But no

trace of Eltham was discoverable.

There had been a heavy shower of rain during the evening, just before

sunset, and although the open paths were dry again, under the trees

the ground was still moist. Ten yards within the coppice we came upon

tracks--the tracks of one running, as the deep imprints of the toes

indicated.

Abruptly the tracks terminated; others, softer, joined them, two sets

converging from left and right. There was a confused patch, trailing

off to the west; then this became indistinct, and was finally lost,

upon the hard ground outside the group.

For perhaps a minute, or more, we ran about from tree to tree, and

from bush to bush, searching like hounds for a scent, and fearful of

what we might find. We found nothing; and fully in the moonlight we

stood facing one another. The night was profoundly still.

Nayland Smith stepped back into the shadows, and began slowly to turn

his head from left to right, taking in the entire visible expanse of

the common. Towards a point where the road bisected it he stared

intently. Then, with a bound, he set off!

"Come on, Petrie!" he cried. "There they are!"

Vaulting a railing he went away over a field like a madman. Recovering

from the shock of surprise, I followed him, but he was well ahead of

me, and making for some vaguely seen objects moving against the lights

of the roadway.

Another railing was vaulted, and the corner of a second, triangular

grass patch crossed at a hot sprint. We were twenty yards from the

road when the sound of a starting motor broke the silence. We gained

the gravelled footpath only to see the tail-light of the car dwindling

to the north!

Smith leant dizzily against a tree.

"Eltham is in that car!" he gasped. "Just God! are we to stand here

and see him taken away to--?"

He beat his fist upon the tree, in a sort of tragic despair. The

nearest cab-rank was no great distance away, but, excluding the

possibility of no cab being there, it might, for all practicable

purposes, as well have been a mile off.

The beat of the retreating motor was scarcely audible; the lights

might but just be distinguished. Then, coming in an opposite

direction, appeared the headlamp of another car, of a car that raced

nearer and nearer to us, so that, within a few seconds of its first

appearance, we found ourselves bathed in the beam of its headlights.

Smith bounded out into the road, and stood, a weird silhouette, with

upraised arms, fully in its course!

The brakes were applied hurriedly. It was a big limousine, and its

driver swerved perilously in avoiding Smith and nearly ran into me.

But, the breathless moment past, the car was pulled up, head on to the

railings; and a man in evening clothes was demanding excitedly what

had happened. Smith, a hatless, dishevelled figure, stepped up to the

door.

"My name is Nayland Smith," he said rapidly--"Burmese Commissioner."

He snatched a letter from his pocket and thrust it into the hands of

the bewildered man. "Read that. It is signed by another

Commissioner--the Commissioner of Police."

With amazement written all over him, the other obeyed.

"You see," continued my friend tersely, "it is _carte blanche_. I wish

to commandeer your car, sir, on a matter of life and death!"

The other returned the letter.

"Allow me to offer it!" he said, descending. "My man will take your

orders. I can finish my journey by cab. I am--"

But Smith did not wait to learn whom he might be.

"Quick!" he cried to the stupefied chauffeur. "You passed a car a

minute ago--yonder. Can you overtake it?"

"I can try, sir, if I don't lose her track."

Smith leapt in, pulling me after him.

"Do it!" he snapped. "There are no speed limits for me. Thanks! Good

night, sir!"

We were off! The car swung around and the chase commenced.

One last glimpse I had of the man we had dispossessed, standing alone

by the roadside, and at ever-increasing speed, we leapt away in the

track of Eltham's captors.

Smith was too highly excited for ordinary conversation, but he threw

out short, staccato remarks.

"I have followed Fu-Manchu from Hong-Kong," he jerked. "Lost him at

Suez. He got here a boat ahead of me. Eltham has been corresponding

with some mandarin up-country. Knew that. Came straight to you. Only

got in this evening. He--Fu-Manchu--has been sent here to get Eltham.

My God! and he has him! He will question him! The interior of China--a

seething pot, Petrie! They had to stop the leakage of information.

_He_ is here for that."

The car pulled up with a jerk that pitched me out of my seat, and the

chauffeur leapt to the road and ran ahead. Smith was out in a trice,

as the man, who had run up to a constable, came racing back.

"Jump in, sir--jump in!" he cried, his eyes bright with the lust of

the chase; "they are making for Battersea!"

And we were off again.

Through the empty streets we roared on. A place of gasometers and

desolate waste lots slipped behind and we were in a narrow way where

gates of yards and a few lowly houses faced upon a prospect of high

blank wall.

"Thames on our right," said Smith, peering ahead. "His rathole is by

the river as usual. _Hi_!"--he grabbed up the speaking-tube--"Stop!

Stop!"

The limousine swung into the narrow sidewalk, and pulled up close by a

yard gate. I, too, had seen our quarry--a long, low-bodied car,

showing no inside lights. It had turned the next corner, where a

street lamp shone greenly not a hundred yards ahead.

Smith leapt out, and I followed him.

"That must be a cul-de-sac," he said, and turned to the eager-eyed

chauffeur. "Run back to that last turning," he ordered, "and wait

there, out of sight. Bring the car up when you hear a police-whistle."

The man looked disappointed, but did not question the order. As he

began to back away, Smith grasped me by the arm and drew me forward.

"We must get to that corner," he said, "and see where the car stands,

without showing ourselves."

THE WIRE JACKET

I suppose we were not more than a dozen paces from the lamp when we

heard the thudding of the motor. The car was backing out!

It was a desperate moment, for it seemed that we could not fail to be

discovered. Nayland Smith began to look about him, feverishly, for a

hiding place, a quest which I seconded with equal anxiety. And Fate

was kind to us--doubly kind as after events revealed. A wooden gate

broke the expanse of wall hard by upon the right, and, as the result

of some recent accident, a ragged gap had been torn in the panels

close to the top.

The chain of the padlock hung loosely; and in a second Smith was up,

with his foot in this as in a stirrup. He threw his arm over the top

and drew himself upright. A second later he was astride the broken

gate.

"Up you come, Petrie!" he said, and reached down his hand to aid me.

I got my foot into the loop of chain, grasped at a projection in the

gate-post, and found myself up.

"There is a crossbar, on this side to stand on," said Smith.

He climbed over and vanished in the darkness. I was still astride the

broken gate when the car turned the corner, slowly, for there was

scanty room; but I was standing upon the bar on the inside and had my

head below the gap ere the driver could possibly have seen me.

"Stay where you are until he passes," hissed my companion, below.

"There is a row of kegs under you."

The sound of the motor passing outside grew loud--louder--then began

to die away. I felt about with my left foot, discerned the top of a

keg, and dropped, panting, beside Smith.

"Phew!" I said--"that was a close thing! Smith--how do we know--?"

"That we have followed the right car?" he interrupted. "Ask yourself

the question: what would any ordinary man be doing motoring in a place

like this at two o'clock in the morning?"

"You are right, Smith," I agreed. "Shall we get out again?"

"Not yet. I have an idea. Look yonder."

He grasped my arm, turning me in the desired direction.

Beyond a great expanse of unbroken darkness a ray of moonlight slanted

into the place wherein we stood, spilling its cold radiance upon rows

of kegs.

"That's another door," continued my friend. I now began dimly to

perceive him beside me. "If my calculations are not entirely wrong, it

opens on a wharf gate--"

A steam siren hooted dismally, apparently from quite close at hand.

"I'm right!" snapped Smith. "That turning leads down to the gate. Come

on, Petrie!"

He directed the light of the electric torch upon a narrow path through

the ranks of casks, and led the way to the farther door. A good two

feet of moonlight showed along the top. I heard Smith straining;

then--

"These kegs are all loaded with grease," he said, "and I want to

reconnoitre over that door."

"I am leaning on a crate which seems easy to move," I reported. "Yes,

it's empty. Lend a hand."

We grasped the empty crate, and, between us, set it up on a solid

pedestal of casks. Then Smith mounted to this observation platform and

I scrambled up beside him, and looked down upon the lane outside.

It terminated as Smith had foreseen at a wharf gate some six feet to

the right of our post. Piled up in the lane beneath us, against the

warehouse door, was a stack of empty casks. Beyond, over the way, was

a kind of ramshackle building that had possibly been a dwelling-house

at some time. Bills were stuck in the ground-floor windows indicating

that the three floors were to let as offices; so much was discernible

in that reflected moonlight.

I could hear the tide lapping upon the wharf, could feel the chill

from the near river and hear the vague noises which, night nor day,

never cease upon the great commercial waterway.

"Down!" whispered Smith. "Make no noise! I suspected it. They heard

the car following!"

I obeyed, clutching at him for support; for I was suddenly dizzy, and

my heart was leaping wildly--furiously.

"You saw her?" he whispered.

Saw her! Yes, I had seen her! And my poor dream-world was toppling

about me, its cities ashes and its fairness dust.

Peering from the window, her great eyes wondrous in the moonlight and

her red lips parted, hair gleaming like burnished foam and her anxious

gaze set upon the corner of the lane--was Kâramanèh ... Kâramanèh

whom once we had rescued from the house of this fiendish Chinese

doctor; Kâramanèh who had been our ally, in fruitless quest of

whom,--when, too late, I realized how empty my life was become--I had

wasted what little of the world's goods I possessed:--Kâramanèh!

"Poor old Petrie," murmured Smith. "I knew, but I hadn't the

heart--_He_ has her again--God knows by what chains he holds her. But

she's only a woman, old boy, and women are very much alike--very much

alike from Charing Cross to Pagoda Road."

He rested his hand on my shoulder for a moment; I am ashamed to

confess that I was trembling; then, clenching my teeth with that

mechanical physical effort which often accompanies a mental one, I

swallowed the bitter draught of Nayland Smith's philosophy. He was

raising himself, to peer, cautiously, over the top of the door. I did

likewise.

The window from which the girl had looked was nearly on a level with

our eyes, and as I raised my head above the woodwork, I quite

distinctly saw her go out of the room. The door, as she opened it,

admitted a dull light, against which her figure showed silhouetted for

a moment. Then the door was reclosed.

"We must risk the other windows," rapped Smith.

Before I had grasped the nature of his plan, he was over and had

dropped almost noiselessly upon the casks outside. Again I followed

his lead.

"You are not going to attempt anything, single-handed--against _him_?"

I asked.

"Petrie--Eltham is in that house. He has been brought here to be put

to the question, in the mediæval, and Chinese, sense! Is there time to

summon assistance?"

I shuddered. This had been in my mind, certainly, but so expressed it

was definitely horrible--revolting, yet stimulating.

"You have the pistol," added Smith; "follow closely, and quietly."

He walked across the tops of the casks and leapt down, pointing to

that nearest to the closed door of the house. I helped him place it

under the open window. A second we set beside it, and, not without

some noise, got a third on top.

Smith mounted.

His jaw muscles were very prominent and his eyes shone like steel; but

he was as cool as though he were about to enter a theatre and not the

den of the most stupendous genius who ever worked for evil. I would

forgive any man who, knowing Dr. Fu-Manchu, feared him; I feared him

myself--feared him as one fears a scorpion; but when Nayland Smith

hauled himself up on to the wooden ledge above the door and swung

thence into the darkened room, I followed and was in close upon his

heels. But I admired him, for he had every ampère of his

self-possession in hand; my own case was different.

He spoke close to my ear.

"Is your hand steady? We may have to shoot."

I thought of Kâramanèh, of lovely dark-eyed Kâramanèh, whom this

wonderful, evil product of secret China had stolen from me--for so I

now adjudged it.

"Rely upon me!" I said grimly. "I--"

The words ceased--frozen on my tongue.

There are things that one seeks to forget, but it is my lot often to

remember the sound which at that moment literally struck me rigid with

horror. Yet it was only a groan; but, merciful God! I pray that it may

never be my lot to listen to such a groan again.

Smith drew a sibilant breath.

"It's Eltham!" he whispered hoarsely, "they're torturing--"

"No, no!" screamed a woman's voice--a voice that thrilled me anew,

but with another emotion. "Not that, not--"

I distinctly heard the sound of a blow. Followed a sort of vague

scuffling. A door somewhere at the back of the house opened--and shut

again. Some one was coming along the passage towards us!

"Stand back!" Smith's voice was low, but perfectly steady. "Leave it

to me!"

Nearer came the footsteps and nearer. I could hear suppressed sobs.

The door opened, admitting again the faint light--and Kâramanèh came

in. The place was quite unfurnished, offering no possibility of

hiding; but to hide was unnecessary.

Her slim figure had not crossed the threshold ere Smith had his arm

about the girl's waist and one hand clapped to her mouth. A stifled

gasp she uttered, and he lifted her into the room.

"Shut the door, Petrie," he directed.

I stepped forward and closed the door. A faint perfume stole to my

nostrils--a vague, elusive breath of the East, reminiscent of strange

days that, now, seemed to belong to a remote past. Kâramanèh! that

faint, indefinable perfume was part of her dainty personality; it may

appear absurd--impossible--but many and many a time I had dreamt of

it.

"In my breast pocket," rapped Smith; "the light."

I bent over the girl as he held her. She was quite still, but I could

have wished that I had had more certain mastery of myself. I took the

torch from Smith's pocket and, mechanically, directed it upon the

captive.

She was dressed very plainly, wearing a simple blue skirt, and white

blouse. It was easy to divine that it was she whom Eltham had mistaken

for a French maid. A brooch set with a ruby was pinned at the point

where the blouse opened--gleaming fierily and harshly against the soft

skin. Her face was pale and her eyes wide with fear.

"There is some cord in my right-hand pocket," said Smith. "I came

provided. Tie her wrists."

I obeyed him, silently. The girl offered no resistance, but I think I

never essayed a less congenial task than that of binding her white

wrists. The jewelled fingers lay quite listlessly in my own.

"Make a good job of it!" rapped Smith significantly.

A flush rose to my cheeks, for I knew well enough what he meant.

"She is fastened," I said, and I turned the ray of the torch upon her

again.

Smith removed his hand from her mouth but did not relax his grip of

her. She looked up at me with eyes in which I could have sworn there

was no recognition. But a flush momentarily swept over her face, and

left it pale again.

"We shall have to--gag her--"

"Smith, I can't do it!"

The girl's eyes filled with tears and she looked up at my companion

pitifully.

"Please don't be cruel to me," she whispered, with that soft accent

which always played havoc with my composure. "Every one--every one--is

cruel to me. I will promise--indeed I will swear, to be quiet. Oh,

believe me, if you can save him I will do nothing to hinder you." Her

beautiful head drooped. "Have some pity for me as well."

"Kâramanèh," I said, "we would have believed you once. We cannot now."

She started violently.

"You know my name!" Her voice was barely audible. "Yet I have never

seen you in my life--"

"See if the door locks," interrupted Smith harshly.

Dazed by the apparent sincerity in the voice of our lovely

captive--vacant from wonder of it all--I opened the door, felt for,

and found, a key.

We left Kâramanèh crouching against the wall; her great eyes were

turned towards me fascinatedly. Smith locked the door with much care.

We began a tip-toed progress along the dimly-lighted passage.

From beneath a door on the left, and near the end, a brighter light

shone. Beyond that again was another door. A voice was speaking in the

lighted room; yet I could have sworn that Kâramanèh had come, not from

there but from the room beyond--from the far end of the passage.

But the voice!--who, having once heard it, could ever mistake that

singular voice, alternately guttural and sibilant.

Dr. Fu-Manchu was speaking!

"I have asked you," came with ever-increasing clearness (Smith had

begun to turn the knob), "to reveal to me the name of your

correspondent in Nan-Yang. I have suggested that he may be the

Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat, but you have declined to confirm me. Yet I know"

(Smith had the door open a good three inches and was peering in) "that

some official, some high official, is a traitor. Am I to resort again

to _the question_ to learn his name?"

Ice seemed to enter my veins at the unseen inquisitor's intonation of

the words "_the question_." This was the twentieth century; yet there,

in that damnable room....

Smith threw the door open.

Through a sort of haze, born mostly of horror, but not entirely, I saw

Eltham, stripped to the waist and tied, with his arms upstretched, to

a rafter in the ancient ceiling. A Chinaman, who wore a slop-shop blue

suit and who held an open knife in his hand, stood beside him. Eltham

was ghastly white. The appearance of his chest puzzled me momentarily,

then I realized that a sort of _tourniquet_ of wire-netting was

screwed so tightly about him that the flesh swelled out in knobs

through the mesh. There was blood--

"God in heaven!" screamed Smith frenziedly, "_they have the

wire-jacket on him!_ Shoot down that damned Chinaman, Petrie! Shoot!

Shoot!"

Lithely as a cat the man with the knife leapt around--but I raised the

Browning, and deliberately--with a cool deliberation that came to me

suddenly--shot him through the head. I saw his oblique eyes turn up to

the whites; I saw the mark squarely between his brows; and with no word

nor cry he sank to his knees and toppled forward with one yellow hand

beneath him and one outstretched, clutching--clutching--convulsively.

His pigtail came unfastened and began to uncoil, slowly, like a snake.

I handed the pistol to Smith; I was perfectly cool, now; and I leapt

forward, took up the bloody knife from the floor and cut Eltham's

lashings. He sank into my arms.

"Praise God," he murmured weakly. "He is more merciful to me than

perhaps I deserve. Unscrew ... the jacket, Petrie ... I think ... I was

very near to ... weakening. Praise the good God, who ... gave me ...

fortitude...."

I got the screw of the accursed thing loosened, but the act of

removing the jacket was too agonizing for Eltham--man of iron though

he was. I laid him swooning on the floor.

"Where is Fu-Manchu?"

Nayland Smith, from just within the door, threw out the query in a

tone of stark amaze. I stood up--I could do nothing more for the poor

victim at the moment--and looked about me.

The room was innocent of furniture, save for heaps of rubbish on the

floor, and a tin oil-lamp hung on the wall. The dead Chinaman lay

close beside Smith. There was no second door, the one window was

barred and from this room we had heard the voice, the unmistakable,

unforgettable voice, of Fu-Manchu.

_But Dr. Fu-Manchu was not there!_

Neither of us could accept the fact for a moment; we stood there,

looking from the dead man to the tortured man who had only swooned,

in a state of helpless incredulity.

Then the explanation flashed upon us both, simultaneously, and with a

cry of baffled rage Smith leapt along the passage to the second door.

It was wide open. I stood at his elbow when he swept its emptiness

with the ray of his pocket-lamp.

There was a speaking-tube fixed between the two rooms!

Smith literally ground his teeth.

"Yet, Petrie," he said, "we have learnt something. Fu-Manchu had

evidently promised Eltham his life if he would divulge the name of his

correspondent. He meant to keep his word; it is a sidelight on his

character."

"How so?"

"Eltham has never seen Dr. Fu-Manchu, but Eltham knows certain parts

of China better than you know the Strand. Probably, if he saw

Fu-Manchu, he would recognize him for whom he really is, and this, it

seems, the Doctor is anxious to avoid."

We ran back to where we had left Kâramanèh.

The room was empty!

"Defeated, Petrie!" said Smith bitterly. "The Yellow Devil is loosed

on London again!"

He leant from the window and the skirl of a police whistle split the

stillness of the night.

THE CRY OF A NIGHTHAWK

Such were the episodes that marked the coming of Dr. Fu-Manchu to

London, that awakened fears long dormant and reopened old wounds--nay,

poured poison into them. I strove desperately, by close attention to

my professional duties, to banish the very memory of Kâramanèh from my

mind; desperately, but how vainly! Peace was for me no more, joy was

gone from the world, and only mockery remained as my portion.

Poor Eltham we had placed in a nursing establishment, where his

indescribable hurts could be properly tended; and his uncomplaining

fortitude not infrequently made me thoroughly ashamed of myself.

Needless to say, Smith had made such other arrangements as were

necessary to safeguard the injured man, and these proved so successful

that the malignant being whose plans they thwarted abandoned his

designs upon the heroic clergyman and directed his attention

elsewhere, as I must now proceed to relate.

Dusk always brought with it a cloud of apprehension, for darkness must

ever be the ally of crime; and it was one night, long after the clocks

had struck the mystic hour, "when churchyards yawn," that the hand of

Dr. Fu-Manchu again stretched out to grasp a victim. I was dismissing

a chance patient.

"Good night, Dr. Petrie," he said.

"Good night, Mr. Forsyth," I replied; and having conducted my late

visitor to the door, I closed and bolted it, switched off the light,

and went upstairs.

My patient was chief officer of one of the P. and O. boats. He had cut

his hand rather badly on the homeward run, and signs of poisoning

having developed, had called to have the wound treated, apologizing