The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu E-Book

Sax Rohmer

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 399

Beschreibung

London, 1913—the era of Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, and the Invisible Man. A time of shadows, secret societies, and dens filled with opium addicts. Into this world comes the most fantastic emissary of evil society has ever known... Dr. Fu Manchu. Denis Nayland Smith pursues his quarry across continents and through the back alleys of London. As victim after victim disappears at the hands of the Devil Doctor, Smith must unravel his murderous plot before it is too late. Includes a special feature by Leslie S. Klinger.

Leseprobe

“The true king of the pulp mystery is Sax Rohmer—and the shining ruby in his crown is without a doubt his Fu-Manchu stories.”

—James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Colony

“Sax Rohmer is one of the great thriller writers of all time! Rohmer created in Fu-Manchu the model for the super-villains of James Bond, and his hero Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie are worthy stand-ins for Holmes and Watson... though Fu-Manchu makes Professor Moriarty seem an under-achiever.”

—Max Allan Collins, New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Perdition

“I love Fu-Manchu, the way you can only love the really GREAT villains. Though I read these books years ago he is still with me, living somewhere deep down in my guts, between Professor Moriarty and Dracula, plotting some wonderfully hideous revenge against an unsuspecting mankind.”

—Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy

“Fu-Manchu is one of the great villains in pop culture history, insidious and brilliant. Discover him if you dare!”

—Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling co-author of Baltimore: The Plague Ships

“A sterling example of the classic adventure story, full of old-fashioned excitement and intrigue. Fu-Manchu is up there with Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and Zorro—or more precisely with Professor Moriarty, Captain Nemo, Darth Vader, and Lex Luthor—in the imaginations of generations of readers and moviegoers.”

—Charles Ardai, award-winning novelist and founder of Hard Case Crime

THE COMPLETE FU-MANCHU SERIES BY SAX ROHMER

Available now from Titan Books:

THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU

Coming soon from Titan Books:

THE HAND OF FU-MANCHU

DAUGHTER OF FU-MANCHU

THE MASK OF FU-MANCHU

THE BRIDE OF FU-MANCHU

THE TRAIL OF FU-MANCHU

PRESIDENT FU-MANCHU

THE DRUMS OF FU-MANCHU

THE ISLAND OF FU-MANCHU

THE SHADOW OF FU-MANCHU

RE-ENTER FU-MANCHU

EMPEROR FU-MANCHU

THE WRATH OF FU-MANCHU AND OTHER STORIES

THE MYSTERY OFDR. FU-MANCHU

SAX ROHMER

TITAN BOOKS

THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU

Print edition ISBN: 9780857686039

E-book edition ISBN: 9780857686695

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London

SE1 0UP

First edition: February 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

The Authors Guild and the Society of Authors assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © The Authors Guild and the Society of Authors

Visit our website: www.titanbooks.com

Did you enjoy this book? We love to hear from our readers.

Please email us at [email protected] or write to us at Reader Feedback at the above address.

To receive advance information, news, competitions, and exclusive offers online, please sign up for the Titan newsletter on our website: www.titanbooks.com

Frontispiece illustration by J. C. Coll, detail from an illustration for “Kâramanèh,” first appearing in Collier’s, April 26, 1913. Special thanks to Dr. Lawrence Knapp for the illustrations from “The Page of Fu-Manchu”--http://www.njedge.net/~knapp/FuFrames.htm

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States.

“Don’t stir!” said Smith savagely. “I warn you!”

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

About The Author

Appreciating Dr. Fu-Manchu

CHAPTER ONE

MR. NAYLAND SMITH OF BURMA

“A gentleman to see you, Doctor.”

From across the common a clock sounded the half-hour.

“Ten-thirty!” I said. “A late visitor. Show him up, if you please.”

I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lampshade, as footsteps sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet, for a tall, lean man, with his square-cut, clean-shaven face sun-baked to the hue of coffee, entered and extended both hands with a cry:

“Good old Petrie! Didn’t expect me, I’ll swear!”

It was Nayland Smith—whom I had thought to be in Burma!

“Smith,” I said, and gripped his hands hard, “this is a delightful surprise! Whatever—however—”

“Excuse me, Petrie!” he broke in. “Don’t put it down to the sun!” And he put out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

I was too surprised to speak.

“No doubt you will think me mad,” he continued, and, dimly, I could see him at the window, peering out into the road, “but before you are many hours older you will know that I have good reason to be cautious. Ah, nothing suspicious! Perhaps I am first this time.” And, stepping back to the writing-table, he relighted the lamp.

“Mysterious enough for you?” he laughed, and glanced at my unfinished MS. “A story, eh? From which I gather that the district is beastly healthy—what, Petrie? Well, I can put some material in your way that, if sheer uncanny mystery is a marketable commodity, ought to make you independent of influenza and broken legs and shattered nerves and all the rest.”

I surveyed him doubtfully, but there was nothing in his appearance to justify me in supposing him to suffer from delusions. His eyes were too bright, certainly, and a hardness now had crept over his face. I got out the whisky and siphon, saying:

“You have taken your leave early?”

“I am not on leave,” he replied, and slowly filled his pipe. “I am on duty.”

“On duty!” I exclaimed. “What, are you moved to London or something?”

“I have got a roving commission, Petrie, and it doesn’t rest with me where I am today nor where I shall be tomorrow.”

There was something ominous in the words, and, putting down my glass, its contents untasted, I faced around and looked him squarely in the eyes.

“Out with it!” I said. “What is it all about?”

Smith suddenly stood up and stripped off his coat. Rolling back his left shirt-sleeve, he revealed a wicked-looking wound in the fleshy part of the forearm. It was quite healed, but curiously striated for an inch or so around.

“Ever seen one like it?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” I confessed. “It appears to have been deeply cauterized.”

“Right! Very deeply!” he rapped. “A barb steeped in the venom of a hamadryad went in there!”

A shudder I could not repress ran coldly through me at mention of that most deadly of all the reptiles of the East.

“There’s only one treatment,” he continued, rolling his sleeve down again, “and that’s with a sharp knife, a match, and a broken cartridge. I lay on my back, raving, for three days afterwards in a forest that stank with malaria, but I should have been lying there now if I had hesitated. Here’s the point. It was not an accident!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that it was a deliberate attempt on my life, and I am hard upon the tracks of the man who extracted that venom—patiently, drop by drop—from the poison-glands of the snake, who prepared that arrow, and who caused it to be shot at me.”

“What fiend is this?”

“A fiend who, unless my calculations are at fault, is now in London, and who regularly wars with pleasant weapons of that kind. Petrie, I have travelled from Burma not in the interests of the British Government merely, but in the interests of the entire white race, and I honestly believe—though I pray I may be wrong—that its survival depends largely upon the success of my mission.”

To say that I was perplexed conveys no idea of the mental chaos created by these extraordinary statements, for into my humdrum suburban life Nayland Smith had brought fantasy of the wildest. I did not know what to think, what to believe.

“I am wasting precious time!” he rapped decisively, and, draining his glass, he stood up. “I came straight to you, because you are the only man I dare to trust. Except the big chief at headquarters, you are the only person in England, I hope, who knows that Nayland Smith has quitted Burma. I must have someone with me, Petrie, all the time—it’s imperative! Can you put me up here, and spare a few days to the strangest business, I promise you, that ever was recorded in fact or fiction?”

I agreed readily enough, for, unfortunately, my professional duties were not onerous.

“Good man!” he cried, wringing my hand in his impetuous way. “We start now.”

“What, tonight?”

“Tonight! I have thought of turning in, I must admit. I have not dared to sleep for forty-eight hours, except in fifteen-minute stretches. But there is one move that must be made tonight and immediately. I must warn Sir Crichton Davey.”

“Sir Crichton Davey—of the India—”

“Petrie, he is a doomed man! Unless he follows my instructions without question, without hesitation—before heaven, nothing can save him! I do not know when the blow will fall, how it will fall, nor from whence, but I know that my first duty is to warn him. Let us walk down to the corner of the common and get a taxi.”

How strangely does the adventurous intrude upon the humdrum; for, when it intrudes at all, more often than not its intrusion is sudden and unlooked for. Today we may seek for romance and fail to find it: unsought, it lies in wait for us at most prosaic corners of life’s highway.

The drive that night, though it divided the drably commonplace from the wildly bizarre—though it was the bridge between the ordinary and the outré—has left no impression upon my mind. Into the heart of a weird mystery the cab bore me; and in reviewing my memories of those days I wonder that the busy thoroughfares through which we passed did not display before my eyes signs and portents—warnings.

It was not so. I recall nothing of the route and little of import that passed between us (we both were strangely silent, I think) until we were come to our journey’s end. Then:

“What’s this?” muttered my friend hoarsely.

Constables were moving on a little crowd of curious idlers who pressed about the steps of Sir Crichton Davey’s house and sought to peer in at the open door. Without waiting for the cab to draw up to the kerb, Nayland Smith recklessly leapt out, and I followed close at his heels.

“What has happened?” he demanded breathlessly of a constable.

The latter glanced at him doubtfully, but something in his voice and bearing commanded respect.

“Sir Crichton Davey has been killed, sir.”

Smith lurched back as though he had received a physical blow, and clutched my shoulder convulsively. Beneath the heavy tan his face had blanched, and his eyes were set in a stare of horror.

“My God!” he whispered, “I am too late!”

With clenched fists he turned and, pressing through the group of loungers, bounded up the steps. In the hall a man who unmistakably was a Scotland Yard official stood talking to a footman. Other members of the household were moving about, more or less aimlessly, and the chilly hand of King Fear had touched one and all, for, as they came and went, they glanced ever over their shoulders, as if each shadow cloaked a menace, and listened, as it seemed, for some sound which they dreaded to hear.

Smith strode up to the detective and showed him a card, upon glancing at which the Scotland Yard man said something in a low voice, and, nodding, touched his hat to Smith in a respectful manner.

A few brief questions and answers, and, in gloomy silence, we followed the detective up the heavily carpeted stair, along a corridor lined with pictures and busts, and into a large library. A group of people were in this room, and one, in whom I recognized Chalmers Cleeve, of Harley Street, was bending over a motionless form stretched upon a couch. Another door communicated with a small study, and through the opening I could see a man on all fours examining the carpet. The uncomfortable sense of hush, the group about the physician, the bizarre figure crawling, beetle-like, across the inner room, and the grim hub around which all this ominous activity turned, made up a scene that etched itself indelibly on my mind.

As we entered, Dr. Cleeve straightened himself, frowning thoughtfully.

“Frankly, I do not care to venture any opinion at present regarding the immediate cause of death,” he said. “Sir Crichton was addicted to cocaine, but there are indications which are not in accordance with cocaine-poisoning. I fear that only a post-mortem can establish the facts—if,” he added, “we ever arrive at them. A most mysterious case!”

Smith stepped forward and engaged the famous pathologist in conversation. I seized the opportunity to examine Sir Crichton’s body.

The dead man was in evening dress, but wore an old smoking-jacket. He had been of spare but hardy build, with thin, aquiline features, which now were oddly puffy, as were his clenched hands. I pushed back his sleeve, and saw the marks of the hypodermic syringe upon his left arm. Quite mechanically I turned my attention to the right arm. It was unscarred, but on the back of the hand was a faint red mark, not unlike the imprint of painted lips. I examined it closely, and even tried to rub it off, but it evidently was caused by some morbid process of local inflammation, if it were not a birthmark.

Turning to a pale young man whom I had understood to be Sir Crichton’s private secretary, I drew his attention to this mark, and inquired if it were constitutional.

“It is not, sir,” answered Dr. Cleeve, overhearing my question. “I have already made that inquiry. Does it suggest anything to your mind? I must confess that it affords me no assistance.”

“Nothing,” I replied. “It is most curious.”

“Excuse me, Mr.. Burboyne,” said Smith, now turning to the secretary, “but Inspector Weymouth will tell you that I act with authority. I understand that Sir Crichton was—seized with illness in his study?”

“Yes—at half-past ten. I was working here in the library, and he inside, as was our custom.”

“The communicating door was kept closed?”

“Yes, always. It was open for minute or less at about ten twenty-five, when a message came for Sir Crichton. I took it in to him, and he then seemed in his usual health.”

“What was the message?”

“I could not say. It was brought by a district messenger, and he placed it beside him on the table. It is there now, no doubt.”

“And at half-past ten?”

“Sir Crichton suddenly burst open the door and threw himself, with a scream, into the library. I ran to him, but he waved me back. His eyes were glaring horribly. I had just reached his side when he fell, writhing, upon the floor. He seemed past speech, but as I raised him and laid him upon the couch, he gasped something that sounded like ‘The red hand!’ Before I could get to bell or telephone he was dead!”

Mr.. Burboyne’s voice shook as he spoke the words, and Smith seemed to find this evidence confusing.

“You do not think he referred to the mark on his own hand?”

“I think not. From the direction of his last glance, I feel sure he referred to something in the study.”

“What did you do?”

“Having summoned the servants, I ran into the study. But there was absolutely nothing unusual to be seen. The windows were closed and fastened. He worked with closed windows in the hottest weather. There is no other door, for the study occupies the end of a narrow wing, so that no one could possibly have gained access to it, whilst I was in the library, unseen by me. Had someone concealed himself in the study earlier in the evening—and I am convinced that it offers no hiding-place—he could only have come out again by passing through here.”

Nayland Smith tugged at the lobe of his left ear, as was his habit when meditating.

“You had been at work here in this way for some time?”

“Yes. Sir Crichton was preparing an important book.”

“Had anything unusual occurred prior to this evening?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Burboyne, with evident perplexity, “though I attached no importance to it at the time. Three nights ago Sir Crichton came out to me, and appeared very nervous; but at times his nerves—you know? Well, on this occasion he asked me to search the study. He had an idea that something was concealed there.”

“Something, or someone?”

“ ‘Something’ was the word he used. I searched, but fruitlessly, and he seemed quite satisfied, and returned to his work.”

“Thank you, Mr. Burboyne. My friend and I would like a few minutes’ private investigation in the study.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE PERFUMED ENVELOPES

Sir Crichton Davey’s study was a small one, and a glance sufficed to show that, as the secretary had said, it offered no hiding-place. It was heavily carpeted, and over-full of Burmese and Chinese ornaments and curios, and upon the mantelpiece stood several framed photographs which showed this to be the sanctum of a wealthy bachelor who was no misogynist. A map of the Indian Empire occupied the larger part of one wall. The grate was empty, for the weather was extremely warm, and a green-shaded lamp on the littered writing-table afforded the only light. The air was stale, for both windows were closed and fastened.

Smith immediately pounced upon a large, square envelope that lay beside the blotting-pad. Sir Crichton had not even troubled to open it, but my friend did so. It contained a blank sheet of paper!

“Smell!” he directed, handing the letter to me.

I raised it to my nostrils. It was scented with some pungent perfume.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It is a rather rare essential oil,” was the reply, “which I have met with before, though never in Europe. I begin to understand, Petrie.”

He tilted the lampshade, and made a close examination of the scraps of paper, matches and other debris that lay in the grate and on the hearth. I took up a copper vase from the mantelpiece, and was examining it curiously, when he turned, a strange expression upon his face.

“Put that back, old man,” he said quietly.

Much surprised, I did as he directed.

“Don’t touch anything in the room. It may be dangerous.”

Something in the tone of his voice chilled me, and I hastily replaced the vase, and stood by the door of the study, watching him search, methodically, every inch of the room—behind the books, in all the ornaments, in table drawers, in cupboards, on shelves.

“That will do,” he said at last. “There is nothing here, and I have no time to search further.”

We returned to the library.

“Inspector Weymouth,” said my friend, “I have a particular reason for asking that Sir Crichton’s body be removed from this room at once and the library locked. Let no one be admitted on any pretence whatever until you hear from me.”

It spoke volumes for the mysterious credentials borne by my friend that the man from Scotland Yard accepted his orders without demur, and, after a brief chat with Mr. Burboyne, Smith passed briskly downstairs. In the hall a man who looked like a groom out of livery was waiting.

“Are you Wills?” asked Smith.

“Yes, sir.”

“It was you who heard a cry of some kind at the rear of the house about the time of Sir Crichton’s death?”

“Yes, sir. I was locking the garage door, and happening to look up at the window of Sir Crichton’s study, I saw him jump out of his chair. Where he used to sit at his writing, sir, you could see his shadow on the blind. Next minute I heard a call out in the lane.”

“What kind of call?”

The man, whom the uncanny happening clearly had frightened, seemed puzzled for a suitable description.

“A sort of wail, sir!” he said at last. “I never heard anything like it before, and don’t want to again.”

“Like this?” inquired Smith, and he uttered a low, wailing cry, impossible to describe.

Wills perceptibly shuddered; and, indeed, it was an eerie sound.

“The same, sir, I think,” he said, “but much louder.”

“That will do,” said Smith, and I thought I detected a note of triumph in his voice. “But stay! Take us through to the back of the house.”

The man bowed and led the way, so that shortly we found ourselves in a small, paved courtyard. It was a perfect summer’s night, and the deep blue vault above was jewelled with myriads of starry points. How impossible it seemed to reconcile that vast, eternal calm with the hideous passions and fiendish agencies which that night had loosed a soul upon the infinite.

“Up yonder are the study windows, sir. Over that wall on your left is the back lane from which the cry came, and beyond is Regent’s Park.”

“Are the study windows visible from there?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Who occupies the adjoining house?”

“Major-General Platt-Houston, sir; but the family is out of town.”

“Those iron stairs are a means of communication between the domestic offices and the servants’ quarters, I take it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then send someone to make my business known to the Major-General’s housekeeper; I want to examine those stairs.”

Singular though my friend’s proceedings appeared to me, I had ceased to wonder at anything. Since Nayland Smith’s arrival at my rooms I seemed to have been moving through the fitful phases of a nightmare. My friend’s account of how he came by the wound in his arm; the scene on our arrival at the house of Sir Crichton Davey; the secretary’s story of the dying man’s cry, “The red hand!”; the hidden perils of the study; the wail in the lane—all were fitter incidents of delirium than of sane reality. So, when a white-faced butler made us known to a nervous old lady who proved to be the housekeeper of the next-door residence, I was not surprised at Smith’s saying:

“Lounge up and down outside, Petrie. Everyone has cleared off now. It is getting late. Keep your eyes open and be on your guard. I thought I had the start, but he is here before me, and, what is worse, he probably knows by now that I am here, too.”

With which he entered the house and left me out in the square, with leisure to think, to try to understand.

The crowd which usually haunts the scene of a sensational crime had been cleared away, and a report had been circulated that Sir Crichton had died from natural causes. The intense heat having driven most of the residents out of town, practically I was alone in the square, and I gave myself up to a brief consideration of the mystery in which I so suddenly had become involved.

By what agency had Sir Crichton met his death? Did Nayland Smith know? I rather suspected that he did. What was the hidden significance of the perfumed envelope? Who was that mysterious personage whom Smith so evidently dreaded, who had attempted his life, who, presumably, had murdered Sir Crichton? Sir Crichton Davey, during the time that he had held office in India, and during his long term of service at home, had earned the goodwill of all, British and native alike. Who was his secret enemy?

Something touched me lightly on the shoulder.

I turned, with my heart fluttering like a child’s. This night’s work had imposed a severe strain even upon my callous nerves.

A girl wrapped in a hooded opera-cloak stood at my elbow, and, as she glanced up at me, I thought that I never had seen a face so seductively lovely nor of so unusual a type. With the skin of a perfect blonde, she had eyes and lashes as black as a Creole’s, which, together with her full red lips, told me that this beautiful stranger whose touch had so startled me was not a child of our Northern shores.

“Forgive me,” she said, speaking with an odd, pretty accent, and laying a slim hand, with jewelled fingers, confidingly upon my arm, “if I startled you. But—is it true that Sir Crichton Davey has been—murdered?”

I looked into her big, questioning eyes, a harsh suspicion labouring in my mind, but could read nothing in their mysterious depths—only I wondered anew at my questioner’s beauty. The grotesque idea momentarily possessed me that, were the bloom of her red lips due to art and not to nature, their kiss would leave—though not indelibly—just such a mark as I had seen upon the dead man’s hand. But I dismissed the fantastic notion as bred out of the night’s horrors, and worthy only of a medieval legend. No doubt she was some friend or acquaintance of Sir Crichton who lived close by.

“I cannot say that he has been murdered,” I replied, acting upon the latter supposition, and seeking to tell her what she asked as gently as possible. “But he is—”

“Dead?”

I nodded.

She closed her eyes and uttered a low, moaning sound, swaying dizzily. Thinking she was about to swoon, I threw my arm around her shoulders to support her. But she smiled sadly, and pushed me gently away.

“I am quite well, thank you,” she said.

“You are certain? Let me walk with you until you feel quite sure of yourself.”

She shook her head, flashed a rapid glance at me with her beautiful eyes, and looked away in a sort of sorrowful embarrassment for which I was entirely at a loss to account. Suddenly she resumed:

“I cannot let my name be mentioned in this dreadful matter, but—I think I have some information—for the police. Will you give this to—whomever you think proper?”

She handed me a sealed envelope, again met my eyes with one of her dazzling glances, and hurried away. She had gone no more than ten or twelve yards, and I still was standing bewildered, watching her graceful, retreating figure, when she turned abruptly and came back. Without looking directly at me, but alternately glancing towards a distant corner of the square and towards the house of Major-General Platt-Houston, she made the following extraordinary request:

“If you would do me a very great service, for which I always would be grateful”—she glanced at me with passionate intentness—“when you have given my message to the proper person, leave him and do not go near him any more tonight!”

Before I could find words to reply she gathered up her cloak and ran. Before I could determine whether or not to follow her (for her words had aroused anew all my worst suspicions) she had disappeared! I heard the whir of a re-started motor at no great distance, and, in the instant that Nayland Smith came running down the steps, I knew that I had nodded at my post.

“Smith!” I cried, as he joined me, “tell me what we must do!”

And rapidly I acquainted him with the incident.

My friend looked very grave; then a grim smile crept around his lips.

“She was a big card to play,” he said, “but he did not know that I held one to beat it.”

“What! You know this girl! Who is she?”

“She is one of the finest weapons in the enemy’s armoury, Petrie. But a woman is a two-edged sword, and treacherous. To our great good fortune she has formed a sudden predilection, characteristically Oriental, for yourself. Oh, you may scoff, but it is evident. She was employed to get this letter placed in my hands. Give it to me.”

I did so.

“She has succeeded. Smell.”

He held the envelope under my nose, and with a sudden sense of nausea I recognized the strange perfume.

“You know what this presaged in Sir Crichton’s case? Can you doubt any longer? She did not want you to share my fate, Petrie.”

“Smith,” I said unsteadily, “I have followed your lead blindly in this horrible business, and have not pressed for an explanation, but I must insist before I go one step further upon knowing what it all means.”

“Just a few steps further,” he rejoined, “as far as a cab. We are hardly safe here. Oh, you need not fear shots or knives. The man whose servants are watching us now scorns to employ such clumsy, tell-tale weapons.”

Only three cabs were on the rank, and, as we entered the first, something hissed past my ear, missed both Smith and myself by a miracle, and, passing over the roof of the taxi, presumably fell in the enclosed garden occupying the centre of the square!

“What was that?” I cried.

“Get in—quickly!” Smith rapped back. “It was attempt number one! More than that I cannot say. Don’t let the man hear. He has noticed nothing. Pull up the window on your side, Petrie, and look out behind. Good! We’ve started.”

The cab moved off with a metallic jerk, and I turned and looked back through the little window in the rear.

“Some one has got into another cab. It is following ours, I think.”

Nayland Smith lay back and laughed unmirthfully.

“Petrie,” he said, “if I escape alive from this business I shall know that I bear a charmed life.”

I made no reply, as he pulled out the dilapidated pouch and filled his pipe.

“You have asked me to explain matters,” he continued, “and I will do so to the best of my ability. You no doubt wonder why a servant of the British Government, lately stationed in Burma, suddenly appears in London in the character of a detective. I am here, Petrie—and I bear credentials from the very highest sources—because, quite by accident, I came upon a clue. Following it up, in the ordinary course of routine, I obtained evidence of the existence and malignant activity of a certain man. At the present stage of the case I should not be justified in terming him the emissary of an Eastern Power, but I may say that representations are shortly to be made to that Power’s ambassador in London.”

He paused, and glanced back towards the pursuing cab.

‘There is little to fear until we arrive home,” he said calmly. “Afterwards there is much. To continue. This man, whether a fanatic, or a duly appointed agent, is, unquestionably, the most malign and formidable personality existing in the known world today. He is a linguist who speaks with almost equal facility in any of the civilized languages, and in most of the barbaric. He is an adept in all the arts and sciences which a great university could teach him. He also is an adept in certain obscure arts and sciences which no university of today can teach. He has the brains of any three men of genius. Petrie, he is a mental giant.”

“You amaze me!” I said.

“As to his mission among men. Why did M. Jules Furneaux fall dead in a Paris opera-house? Because of heart failure? No! Because his last speech had shown that he held the key to the secret of Tongking. What became of the Grand Duke Stanislaus? Elopement? Suicide? Nothing of the kind. He alone was fully alive to Russia’s growing peril. He alone knew the truth about Mongolia. Why was Sir Crichton Davey murdered? Because, had the work he was engaged upon ever seen the light, it would have shown him to be the only living Englishman who understood the importance of the Tibetan frontiers. I say to you solemnly, Petrie, that these are but a few. Is there a man who would arouse the West to a sense of the awakening of the East, who would teach the deaf to hear, the blind to see, that the millions only await their leader? He will die. And this is only one phase of the devilish campaign. The others I can merely surmise.”

“But, Smith, this is almost incredible! What perverted genius controls this awful secret movement?”

“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, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government—which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man.”

CHAPTER THREE

THE ZAYAT KISS

I sank into an armchair in my rooms and gulped down a strong peg of brandy.

“We have been followed here,” I said. “Why did you make no attempt to throw the pursuers off the track, to have them intercepted?”

Smith laughed.

“Useless, in the first place. Wherever we went, he would find us. And of what use to arrest his creatures? We could prove nothing against them. Further, it is evident that an attempt is to be made upon my life tonight—and by the same means that proved so successful in the case of poor Sir Crichton.”

His square jaw grew truculently prominent, and he leapt stormily to his feet, shaking his clenched fists towards the window.

“The villain!” he cried. “The fiendishly clever villain! I suspected that Sir Crichton was next, and I was right. But I came too late, Petrie! That hits me hard, old man. To think that I knew and yet failed to save him!”

He resumed his seat, smoking vigorously.

“Fu-Manchu has made the blunder common to all men of unusual genius,” he said. “He has underrated his adversary. He has not given me credit for perceiving the meaning of the scented messages. He has thrown away one powerful weapon—to get such a message into my hands—and he thinks that, once safe within doors, I shall sleep, unsuspecting, and die as Sir Crichton died. But, without the indiscretion of your charming friend, I should have known what to expect when I received her ‘information’—which, by the way, consists of a blank sheet of paper.”

“Smith,” I broke in, “who is she?”

“She is either Fu-Manchu’s daughter, his wife, or his slave. I am inclined to believe the latter, for she has no will but his will, except”—with a quizzical glance—“in a certain instance.”

“How can you jest with some awful thing—heaven knows what—hanging over your head? What is the meaning of these perfumed envelopes? How did Sir Crichton die?”

“He died of the Zayat Kiss. Ask me what that is, and I reply, ‘I do not know’. The zayats are the Burmese caravanserais, or resthouses. Along a certain route—in which I set eyes, for the first and only time, upon Dr. Fu-Manchu—travellers who use them sometimes die as Sir Crichton died, with nothing to show the cause of death but a little mark upon the neck, face, or limb, which has earned, in those parts, the title of the ‘Zayat Kiss’. The rest-houses along that route are shunned now. I have my theory, and I hope to prove it tonight, if I live. It will be one more broken weapon in his fiendish armoury, and it is thus, and thus only, that I can hope to crush him. This was my principal reason for not enlightening Dr. Cleeve. Even walls have ears where Fu-Manchu is concerned, so I feigned ignorance of the meaning of the mark, knowing that he would be almost certain to employ the same methods upon some other victim. I wanted an opportunity to study the Zayat Kiss in operation, and I shall have one.”

“But the scented envelopes?”

“In the swampy forest of the district I have referred to a rare species of orchid, almost green, and with a peculiar scent, is sometimes met with. I recognized the heavy perfume at once. I take it that the thing which kills the travellers is attracted by this orchid. You will notice that the perfume clings to whatever it touches. I doubt if it can be washed off in the ordinary way. After at least one unsuccessful attempt to kill Sir Crichton—you recall that he thought there was something concealed in his study on a previous occasion?—Fu-Manchu hit upon the perfumed envelopes. He may have a supply of these green orchids in his possession—possibly to feed the creature.”

“What creature? How could any creature have got into Sir Crichton’s room tonight?”

“You no doubt observed that I examined the grate of the study. I found a fair quantity of fallen soot. I at once assumed, since it appeared to be the only means of entrance, that something had been dropped down; and I took it for granted that the thing, whatever it was, must still be concealed either in the study or in the library. But when I had obtained the evidence of the groom, Wills, I perceived that the cry from the lane or from the park was a signal. I noted that the movements of anyone seated at the study table were visible, in shadow, on the blind, and that the study occupied the corner of a two-storied wing, and therefore had a short chimney. What did the signal mean? That Sir Crichton had leapt up from his chair, and either had received the Zayat Kiss or had seen the thing which someone on the roof had lowered down the straight chimney. It was the signal to withdraw that deadly thing. By means of the iron stairway at the rear of Major-General Platt-Houston’s, I quite easily gained access to the roof above Sir Crichton’s study—and I found this.”

Out from his pocket Nayland Smith drew a tangled piece of silk, mixed up with which were a brass ring and a number of unusually large-sized split-shot, nipped on in the manner usual on a fishing-line.

“My theory proven,” he resumed. “Not anticipating a search on the roof, they had been careless. This was to weigh the line and to prevent the creature clinging to the walls of the chimney. Directly it had dropped in the grate, however, by means of this ring, I assume that the weighted line was withdrawn and the thing was only held by one slender thread, which sufficed, though, to draw it back again when it had done its work. It might have got tangled, of course, but they reckoned on its making straight up the carved leg of the writing-table for the prepared envelope. From there to the hand of Sir Crichton—which, from having touched the envelope, would also be scented with the perfume—was a certain move.”

“My God! How horrible!” I exclaimed, and glanced apprehensively into the dusky shadows of the room. “What is your theory respecting this creature—what shape, what colour—?”

“It is something that moves rapidly and silently, I will venture no more at present, but I think it works in the dark, The study was dark, remember, save for the bright patch beneath the reading-lamp. I have observed that the rear of this house is ivy-covered right up to, and above, your bedroom. Let us make ostentatious preparations to retire, and I think we may rely upon Fu-Manchu’s servants to attempt my removal, at any rate—if not yours.”

“But, my dear fellow, it is a climb of thirty-five feet at the very least.”

“You remember the cry in the back lane? It suggested something to me, and I tested my idea—successfully. It was the cry of a dacoit. Oh, dacoity, though quiescent, is by no means extinct. Fu-Manchu has dacoits in his train, and probably it is one who operates the Zayat Kiss, since it was a dacoit who watched the window of the study this evening. To such a man an ivy-covered wall is a grand staircase.”

The horrible events that followed are punctuated in my mind, by the striking of a distant clock. It is singular how trivialities thus assert themselves in moments of high tension. I will proceed, then, by these punctuations, to the coming of the horror that it was written we should encounter.

The clock across the common struck two.

Having removed all traces of the scent of the orchid from our hands with a solution of ammonia, Smith and I had followed the programme laid down. It was an easy matter to reach the rear of the house, by simply climbing a fence, and we did not doubt that, seeing the light go out in the front, our unseen watcher would proceed to the back.

The room was a large one, and we had made up my camp-bed at one end, stuffing odds and ends under the clothes to lend the appearance of a sleeper, which device we also had adopted in the case of the larger bed. The perfumed envelope lay upon a little coffee-table in the centre of the floor, and Smith, with an electric pocket-lamp, a revolver and a brassy beside him, sat on cushions in the shadow of the wardrobe. I occupied a post between the windows.

No unusual sound, so far, had disturbed the stillness of the night. Save for the muffled throb of the rare all-night cars passing the front of the house, our vigil had been a silent one. The full moon had painted about the floor weird shadows of the clustering ivy, spreading the design gradually from the door, across the room, past the little table where the envelope lay, and finally to the foot of the bed.

The distant clock struck a quarter-past two.

A slight breeze stirred the ivy, and a new shadow added itself to the extreme edge of the moon’s design.

Something rose, inch by inch, above the sill of the westerly window. I could see only its shadow, but a sharp, sibilant breath from Smith told me that he, from his post, could see the cause of the shadow.

Every nerve in my body seemed to be strung tensely. I was icily cold, expectant, and prepared for whatever horror was upon us.

The shadow became stationary. The dacoit was studying the interior of the room.

Then it suddenly lengthened, and, craning my head to the left, I saw a lithe, black-clad form, surmounted by a yellow face, sketchy in the moonlight, pressed against the window-panes!

One thin, brown hand appeared over the edge of the lowered sash, which it grasped—and then another. The man made absolutely no sound whatever. The second hand disappeared—and reappeared. It held a small, square box.

There was a very faint click.

The dacoit swung himself below the window with the agility of an ape, as, with a dull, sickening thud, something dropped upon the carpet!

“Stand still, for your life!” came Smith’s voice, high-pitched.

A beam of white light leapt out across the room and played fully upon the coffee-table in the centre.

Prepared as I was for something horrible, I know that I paled at sight of the thing that was running around the edge of the envelope.

It was an insect, full six inches long, and of a vivid, venomous red colour! It had something of the appearance of a great ant, with its long, quivering antennae and its febrile, horrible vitality; but it was proportionately longer of body and smaller of head, and had numberless rapidly moving legs. In short, it was a giant centipede, apparently of the scolopendra group, but of a form quite new to me.

These things I realized in one breathless instant; in the next—Smith had dashed the thing’s poisonous life out with one straight, true blow of the golf club!

I leapt to the window and threw it widely open feeling a silk thread brush my hand as I did so. A black shape was dropping, with incredible agility, from branch to branch of the ivy, and, without once offering a mark for a revolver-shot, it merged into the shadows beneath the trees of the garden.

As I turned and switched on the light Nayland Smith dropped limply into a chair, leaning his head upon his hands. Even that grim courage had been tried sorely.

“Never mind the dacoit, Petrie,” he said. “Nemesis will know where to find him. We know now what causes the mark of the Zayat Kiss. Therefore science is richer for our first brush with the enemy, and the enemy is poorer—unless he has any more unclassified centipedes. I understand now something that has been puzzling me since I heard of it—Sir Crichton’s stifled cry. When we remember that he was almost past speech, it is reasonable to suppose that his cry was not ‘The red hand!’ but ‘The red ant!’ Petrie, to think that I failed, by less than an hour, to save him from such an end!”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE CLUE OF THE PIGTAIL

“The body of a lascar dressed in the manner usual on the P & O boats, was recovered from the Thames off Tilbury by the river police at six a.m. this morning. It is supposed that the man met with an accident in leaving his ship.”

Nayland Smith passed me the evening paper, and pointed to the above paragraph.

“For ‘lascar’ read ‘dacoit’,” he said. “Our visitor, who came by way of the ivy, fortunately for us failed to follow his instructions. Also, he lost the centipede and left a clue behind him. Dr. Fu-Manchu does not overlook such lapses.”

It was a sidelight upon the character of the awful being with whom we had to deal. My very soul recoiled from bare consideration of the fate that would be ours if ever we fell into his hands.

The telephone bell rang. I went out and found that Inspector Weymouth of New Scotland Yard had called us up.

“Will Mr. Nayland Smith please come to the Wapping River Police Station at once?” was the message.

Peaceful interludes were few enough throughout that wild pursuit.

“It is certainly something important,” said my friend, “and, if Fu-Manchu is at the bottom of it—as we must presume him to be—probably something ghastly.”

A brief survey of the timetables showed us that there were no trains to serve our haste. We accordingly chartered a cab and proceeded east.

Smith, throughout the journey, talked entertainingly about his work in Burma. Of intent, I think, he avoided any reference to the circumstances which first had brought him in contact with the sinister genius of the Yellow movement. His talk was rather of the sunshine of the East than of its shadows.

But the drive concluded—and all too soon. In a silence which neither of us seemed disposed to break, we entered the police depôt, and followed an officer, who received us, into the room where Weymouth waited.

The inspector greeted us briefly, nodding toward the table.

“Poor Cadby, the most promising lad at the Yard,” he said; and his usually gruff voice had softened strangely.