The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu (4 page)

At that moment I honestly would have given half of my worldly
possessions to have been spared the decision which I knew I must
come to. After all, what proof had I that she was a willing
accomplice of Dr. Fu-Manchu? Furthermore, she was an Oriental, and
her code must necessarily be different from mine. Irreconcilable as
the thing may be with Western ideas, Nayland Smith had really told
me that he believed the girl to be a slave. Then there remained
that other reason why I loathed the idea of becoming her captor. It
was almost tantamount to betrayal! Must I soil my hands with such
work?

Thus-I suppose-her seductive beauty argued against my sense of
right. The jeweled fingers grasped my shoulders nervously, and her
slim body quivered against mine as she watched me, with all her
soul in her eyes, in an abandonment of pleading despair. Then I
remembered the fate of the man in whose room we stood.

"You lured Cadby to his death," I said, and shook her off.

"No, no!" she cried wildly, clutching at me. "No, I swear by the
holy name I did not! I did not! I watched him, spied upon him-yes!
But, listen: it was because he would not be warned that he met his
death. I could not save him! Ah, I am not so bad as that. I will
tell you. I have taken his notebook and torn out the last pages and
burnt them. Look! in the grate. The book was too big to steal away.
I came twice and could not find it. There, will you let me go?"

"If you will tell me where and how to seize Dr.
Fu-Manchu-yes."

Her hands dropped and she took a backward step. A new terror was
to be read in her face.

"I dare not! I dare not!"

"Then you would-if you dared?"

She was watching me intently.

"Not if YOU would go to find him," she said.

And, with all that I thought her to be, the stern servant of
justice that I would have had myself, I felt the hot blood leap to
my cheek at all which the words implied. She grasped my arm.

"Could you hide me from him if I came to you, and told you all I
know?"

"The authorities-"

"Ah!" Her expression changed. "They can put me on the rack if
they choose, but never one word would I speak-never one little
word."

She threw up her head scornfully. Then the proud glance softened
again.

"But I will speak for you."

Closer she came, and closer, until she could whisper in my
ear.

"Hide me from your police, from HIM, from everybody, and I will
no longer be his slave."

My heart was beating with painful rapidity. I had not counted on
this warring with a woman; moreover, it was harder than I could
have dreamt of. For some time I had been aware that by the charm of
her personality and the art of her pleading she had brought me down
from my judgment seat-had made it all but impossible for me to give
her up to justice. Now, I was disarmed-but in a quandary. What
should I do? What COULD I do? I turned away from her and walked to
the hearth, in which some paper ash lay and yet emitted a faint
smell.

Not more than ten seconds elapsed, I am confident, from the time
that I stepped across the room until I glanced back. But she had
gone!

As I leapt to the door the key turned gently from the
outside.

"Ma 'alesh!" came her soft whisper; "but I am afraid to trust
you-yet. Be comforted, for there is one near who would have killed
you had I wished it. Remember, I will come to you whenever you will
take me and hide me."

Light footsteps pattered down the stairs. I heard a stifled cry
from Mrs. Dolan as the mysterious visitor ran past her. The front
door opened and closed.

"Shen-Yan's is a dope-shop in one of the burrows off the old
Ratcliff Highway," said Inspector Weymouth.

"'Singapore Charlie's,' they call it. It's a center for some of
the Chinese societies, I believe, but all sorts of opium-smokers
use it. There have never been any complaints that I know of. I
don't understand this."

We stood in his room at New Scotland Yard, bending over a sheet
of foolscap upon which were arranged some burned fragments from
poor Cadby's grate, for so hurriedly had the girl done her work
that combustion had not been complete.

"What do we make of this?" said Smith. "'… Hunchback… lascar
went up… unlike others… not return… till Shen-Yan' (there is no
doubt about the name, I think) 'turned me out… booming sound…
lascar in… mortuary I could ident… not for days, or suspici…
Tuesday night in a different make… snatch… pigtail… '"

"The pigtail again!" rapped Weymouth.

"She evidently burned the torn-out pages all together,"
continued Smith. "They lay flat, and this was in the middle. I see
the hand of retributive justice in that, Inspector. Now we have a
reference to a hunchback, and what follows amounts to this: A
lascar (amongst several other persons) went up somewhere-presumably
upstairs-at Shen-Yan's, and did not come down again. Cadby, who was
there disguised, noted a booming sound. Later, he identified the
lascar in some mortuary. We have no means of fixing the date of
this visit to Shen-Yan's, but I feel inclined to put down the
'lascar' as the dacoit who was murdered by Fu-Manchu! It is sheer
supposition, however. But that Cadby meant to pay another visit to
the place in a different 'make-up' or disguise, is evident, and
that the Tuesday night proposed was last night is a reasonable
deduction. The reference to a pigtail is principally interesting
because of what was found on Cadby's body."

Inspector Weymouth nodded affirmatively, and Smith glanced at
his watch.

"Exactly ten-twenty-three," he said. "I will trouble you,
Inspector, for the freedom of your fancy wardrobe. There is time to
spend an hour in the company of Shen-Yan's opium friends."

Weymouth raised his eyebrows.

"It might be risky. What about an official visit?"

Nayland Smith laughed.

"Worse than useless! By your own showing, the place is open to
inspection. No; guile against guile! We are dealing with a
Chinaman, with the incarnate essence of Eastern subtlety, with the
most stupendous genius that the modern Orient has produced."

"I don't believe in disguises," said Weymouth, with a certain
truculence. "It's mostly played out, that game, and generally leads
to failure. Still, if you're determined, sir, there's an end of it.
Foster will make your face up. What disguise do you propose to
adopt?"

"A sort of Dago seaman, I think; something like poor Cadby. I
can rely on my knowledge of the brutes, if I am sure of my
disguise."

"You are forgetting me, Smith," I said.

He turned to me quickly.

"Petrie," he replied, "it is MY business, unfortunately, but it
is no sort of hobby."

"You mean that you can no longer rely upon me?" I said
angrily.

Smith grasped my hand, and met my rather frigid stare with a
look of real concern on his gaunt, bronzed face.

"My dear old chap," he answered, "that was really unkind. You
know that I meant something totally different."

"It's all right, Smith;" I said, immediately ashamed of my
choler, and wrung his hand heartily. "I can pretend to smoke opium
as well as another. I shall be going, too, Inspector."

As a result of this little passage of words, some twenty minutes
later two dangerous-looking seafaring ruffians entered a waiting
cab, accompanied by Inspector Weymouth, and were driven off into
the wilderness of London's night. In this theatrical business there
was, to my mind, something ridiculous-almost childish-and I could
have laughed heartily had it not been that grim tragedy lurked so
near to farce.

The mere recollection that somewhere at our journey's end
Fu-Manchu awaited us was sufficient to sober my
reflections-Fu-Manchu, who, with all the powers represented by
Nayland Smith pitted against him, pursued his dark schemes
triumphantly, and lurked in hiding within this very area which was
so sedulously patrolled-Fu-Manchu, whom I had never seen, but whose
name stood for horrors indefinable! Perhaps I was destined to meet
the terrible Chinese doctor to-night.

I ceased to pursue a train of thought which promised to lead to
morbid depths, and directed my attention to what Smith was
saying.

"We will drop down from Wapping and reconnoiter, as you say the
place is close to the riverside. Then you can put us ashore
somewhere below. Ryman can keep the launch close to the back of the
premises, and your fellows will be hanging about near the front,
near enough to hear the whistle."

"Yes," assented Weymouth; "I've arranged for that. If you are
suspected, you shall give the alarm?"

"I don't know," said Smith thoughtfully. "Even in that event I
might wait awhile."

"Don't wait too long," advised the Inspector. "We shouldn't be
much wiser if your next appearance was on the end of a grapnel,
somewhere down Greenwich Reach, with half your fingers
missing."

The cab pulled up outside the river police depot, and Smith and
I entered without delay, four shabby-looking fellows who had been
seated in the office springing up to salute the Inspector, who
followed us in.

"Guthrie and Lisle," he said briskly, "get along and find a dark
corner which commands the door of Singapore Charlie's off the old
Highway. You look the dirtiest of the troupe, Guthrie; you might
drop asleep on the pavement, and Lisle can argue with you about
getting home. Don't move till you hear the whistle inside or have
my orders, and note everybody that goes in and comes out. You other
two belong to this division?"

The C.I.D. men having departed, the remaining pair saluted
again.

"Well, you're on special duty to-night. You've been prompt, but
don't stick your chests out so much. Do you know of a back way to
Shen-Yan's?"

The men looked at one another, and both shook their heads.

"There's an empty shop nearly opposite, sir," replied one of
them. "I know a broken window at the back where we could climb in.
Then we could get through to the front and watch from there."

"Good!" cried the Inspector. "See you are not spotted, though;
and if you hear the whistle, don't mind doing a bit of damage, but
be inside Shen-Yan's like lightning. Otherwise, wait for
orders."

Inspector Ryman came in, glancing at the clock.

"Launch is waiting," he said.

"Right," replied Smith thoughtfully. "I am half afraid, though,
that the recent alarms may have scared our quarry-your man, Mason,
and then Cadby. Against which we have that, so far as he is likely
to know, there has been no clew pointing to this opium den.
Remember, he thinks Cadby's notes are destroyed."

"The whole business is an utter mystery to me," confessed Ryman.
"I'm told that there's some dangerous Chinese devil hiding
somewhere in London, and that you expect to find him at Shen-Yan's.
Supposing he uses that place, which is possible, how do you know
he's there to-night?"

"I don't," said Smith; "but it is the first clew we have had
pointing to one of his haunts, and time means precious lives where
Dr. Fu-Manchu is concerned."

"Who is he, sir, exactly, this Dr. Fu-Manchu?"

"I have only the vaguest idea, Inspector; but he is no ordinary
criminal. He is the greatest genius which the powers of evil have
put on earth for centuries. He has the backing of a political group
whose wealth is enormous, and his mission in Europe is to PAVE THE
WAY! Do you follow me? He is the advance-agent of a movement so
epoch-making that not one Britisher, and not one American, in fifty
thousand has ever dreamed of it."

Ryman stared, but made no reply, and we went out, passing down
to the breakwater and boarding the waiting launch. With her crew of
three, the party numbered seven that swung out into the Pool, and,
clearing the pier, drew in again and hugged the murky shore.

The night had been clear enough hitherto, but now came scudding
rainbanks to curtain the crescent moon, and anon to unveil her
again and show the muddy swirls about us. The view was not
extensive from the launch. Sometimes a deepening of the near
shadows would tell of a moored barge, or lights high above our
heads mark the deck of a large vessel. In the floods of moonlight
gaunt shapes towered above; in the ensuing darkness only the oily
glitter of the tide occupied the foreground of the night-piece.

The Surrey shore was a broken wall of blackness, patched with
lights about which moved hazy suggestions of human activity. The
bank we were following offered a prospect even more gloomy-a dense,
dark mass, amid which, sometimes, mysterious half-tones told of a
dock gate, or sudden high lights leapt flaring to the eye.

Then, out of the mystery ahead, a green light grew and crept
down upon us. A giant shape loomed up, and frowned crushingly upon
the little craft. A blaze of light, the jangle of a bell, and it
was past. We were dancing in the wash of one of the Scotch
steamers, and the murk had fallen again.

Discords of remote activity rose above the more intimate
throbbing of our screw, and we seemed a pigmy company floating past
the workshops of Brobdingnagian toilers. The chill of the near
water communicated itself to me, and I felt the protection of my
shabby garments inadequate against it.

Far over on the Surrey shore a blue light-vaporous,
mysterious-flicked translucent tongues against the night's curtain.
It was a weird, elusive flame, leaping, wavering, magically
changing from blue to a yellowed violet, rising, falling.

"Only a gasworks," came Smith's voice, and I knew that he, too,
had been watching those elfin fires. "But it always reminds me of a
Mexican teocalli, and the altar of sacrifice."

The simile was apt, but gruesome. I thought of Dr. Fu-Manchu and
the severed fingers, and could not repress a shudder.

"On your left, past the wooden pier! Not where the lamp
is-beyond that; next to the dark, square building-Shen-Yan's."

It was Inspector Ryman speaking.

"Drop us somewhere handy, then," replied Smith, "and lie close
in, with your ears wide open. We may have to run for it, so don't
go far away."

From the tone of his voice I knew that the night mystery of the
Thames had claimed at least one other victim.

"Dead slow," came Ryman's order. "We'll put in to the Stone
Stairs."