The Bride of Fu-Manchu (17 page)

Something touched me coldly.

In an instant I was awake—in utter darkness—my heart thumping.

Where was I?

In the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu!... and someone, or something, was close beside me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“D
o not speak—nor turn on the light!”

Fah Lo Suee! Fah Lo Suee was somewhere in the room beside me.

“Listen—for there are some things you must know tonight. First, look upon yourself as in China. For although this is France—”

“France! I am still in France?”

“You are in Ste Claire de la Roche... It makes no difference; you are in China. No one can leave here day or night without my father’s consent—or mine. Very soon now he opens his war upon the world. He will almost certainly succeed; he has with him some of the finest brains in science, military strategy, and politics which Europe, Asia, and America have ever produced.”

I resigned myself to the magic of her voice.

But if I was indeed in Ste Claire, it remained to be seen if no one could leave.

This house, she told me, was a mere outpost, used chiefly as a base for certain experiments. Elsewhere she had allies of her own, but in Ste Claire, none.

“For you see I do not agree with all that my father plans— especially his plans concerning Fleurette.”

“Fleurette! What are these plans?”

“Ssh!” Cool fingers were laid upon my arm. “Not so loudly. It is about her I came to tell you. She was chosen—before her birth—for this purpose. She has Eastern and Western blood; her pedigree on both sides is of the kind my father seeks. I am his only child. It will be Fleurette’s duty to give him a son.”

“What! Good God! You mean he
loves
her?”

Fah Lo Suee laughed softly.

“How little you know him! She is part of our experiment—the success of which is of political importance. But listen,” she lowered her voice. “I do not wish this experiment to take place... Soon, very soon, we shall be leaving France. Fleurette—I think—has found love. She is of a race, on her mother’s side, to whom love comes swiftly...”

“Do you mean...”

“I mean that if you want Fleurette I will help you. Is that direct enough? It was for this reason I emptied the syringe and recharged it with a harmless fluid. I had seen... once, in the bay; again, in this room...”

She had seen me on the beach! Hoping—doubting—trying to think, to plan, I listened...

Fah Lo Suee had gone.

That voice which seemed to caress the spirit, in which there was a fluttering quality like the touch of butterfly wings and sometimes a hard, inexorable purpose which made me think of the glittering beauty of a serpent, had ceased. The presence of the sorceress was withdrawn.

The room remained in utter darkness; yet I seemed to see her gliding towards the door, and I envisioned her as a slender ivory statue created by some long-dead Greek, and endowed with life, synthetic but potent, by a black magician whose power knew no bounds.

I waited, as I had promised to wait, until I thought that fully a minute had elapsed; then I groped for the switch, found it, and flooded the room with light.

The door, visible from where I lay, I saw to be closed, nor had I heard it open. The location of the other door I did not know.

But I was the sole occupant of the place.

I had still half an hour before I should be summoned to the strange duties which awaited me—half an hour in which to think, to try to plan.

Going into the bathroom, I turned on the taps. Shaving materials and every other toilet necessity were provided in lavish form. I remembered that I had to memorize the Morse code, and leaving the taps running I returned to the little sitting room and took up a chart of Morse which lay there on the table.

A brief inspection satisfied me that I could learn it in a few hours. I have that kind of brain which can assimilate exact information very rapidly.

I returned to the bathroom and mechanically proceeded...

To what extent could I rely upon the dream, or what had seemed to be a dream, which had preceded the visit of Fah Lo Suee? There was no evidence, so far as I could see, to indicate that one episode was more real than the other.

Perhaps the woman’s visit had been part of the same dream— or perhaps I had dreamed neither! That almost miraculous experiments in radio and television were being carried out in these secret laboratories, I could not doubt. It might be that that queer scene, resembling one in the cave of some mediaeval astrologer, had actually taken place; that for some reason, accidentally or purposefully, I had become a witness of it.

“There is as much truth in fable as in fact,” Dr. Fu-Manchu had said, when he had drawn my attention to the handbook of the modern alchemist.

Perhaps the lost Sybilline books, upon which much of the policy of ancient Rome was based, were not mere guesses, but scientific prophecy. Perhaps Fu-Manchu had discovered Fleurette to possess the fabulous powers once attributed to the Cumaean oracle...

I considered the strange things which Fah Lo Suee had told me, but greater significance lay, I thought, in the facts which she had withheld. Nevertheless, some glimmering of an enormity about to be loosed upon the world was penetrating even to my dull mind.

For good or evil, I must work in concert with this treacherous woman. Her purpose was revealed, and it was one which I understood. In her alone lay safety, not only for myself, but for Western civilization.

I had just completed dressing when that tiny penetrating sound seemed to vibrate throughout my frame. It sustained one long note and then ceased; no attempt was made to send me a message other than the signal which told me that my six hours’ watch had commenced.

The door slid open, and one of the white-robed Chinamen appeared in the opening, inclining his head slightly and indicating that I should follow him. I slipped the code book into a pocket of my overall...

Exit without leave (which only Fu-Manchu had power to give) was out of the question, Fah Lo Suee had assured me. Failing outside assistance, there was no means of leaving save by the main gate.

This was the problem exercising my mind as I followed my silent guide downstairs and along to the botanical research room.

I found the famous Dutch botanist in a state of great scientific excitement. Already I was partly reconciled to the indisputable fact that he had died some years earlier in Sumatra. He led me to a small house where artificial sunlight prevailed.

About the mummy-like roots of some kind of dwarf mangrove which grew there, a bank of muddy soil steamed malariously. The place stank like an Amazon forest in the rainy season.

“Look!” said Trenck, with emotion.

He pointed; and, creeping up from the steaming mud, I saw tender flesh-coloured tendrils clasping the swampy roots.

“The orchid of life!” Trenck cried. “The doctor so terms. But imagine! Watch this thermometer—watch it as though your life depended, Mr. Sterling! Here is a culture of fourteen days! In its natural state in Burma, flowering occurs at intervals of rarely less than eighty years! Do you realize what this means?”

I shook my head rather blankly.

“Come, Companion! It means that if we can produce flowers, and I expect these buds to break within the next few hours, no one of us, no member of the Si-Fan, shall ever die except by violence!”

Probably my expression had grown even more blank, for:

“The doctor has not told you?” he went on excitedly. “Very well! The knowledge which we accumulate is common to us all, and it is my privilege to explain to you that from this orchid the doctor has obtained a certain oil. It is the missing ingredient for which the old alchemists sought. It is the Oil of Life!”

As he spoke, mentally I conjured up the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu, recalling the image which had occurred to me—that of Seti the First, the Egyptian Pharaoh. Could it be possible that this Chinese wizard had solved a problem which had taunted the ages?

“He spoke of it,” I said, “but gave me no details. How old then is Dr. Fu-Manchu?”

Trenck burst out laughing.

“Do you think,” he cried, his voice rising to a note almost hysterical, “that a man could know what
he
knows in one short span of life? How can I tell you? It is only necessary to prevent the veins from clogging as in vegetable life. The formula which first came into his possession demanded an ingredient no longer obtainable. For this, after nearly thirty years’ inquiry, he found a substitute in the oil expressed from this Burmese orchid. Ah! I must go. It is tantalizing to leave at such a moment, but regulations must be obeyed. But I forget; you are a novice. I will show you how to call me if a bud breaks.”

He hurried back to the laboratory and pointed to a dial set upon the wall. He illustrated its simple mechanism, and it was not unlike that of a dial telephone.

“You see,” he said, “my number is ninety-five.”

He twisted the mechanism until the number ninety-five appeared in a small, illuminated oval.

At which moment I heard again that strange vibrating note which had so intrigued me on the beach at Ste Claire.

Trenck pressed a button and the number ninety-five disappeared from the illuminated space, and that incredibly high sound which was almost like the note of a bat ceased.

“At the moment that a bud begins to break,” he said, “you will call me? It would be tragic for a new world to open before us in all its perfection and Father Time to cut us off before we could enjoy it. Eh? I envy you your hours of duty; they may bring the honour of being the first man to witness a thing which shall revolutionize human life!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

M
y course was already set.

That there would be some kind of night patrol—probably one of those immobile Chinamen—I could not doubt. But since I had no orders to the contrary, I was presumably entitled to proceed wherever I pleased, definitely within the botanical department, and by presumption elsewhere, always supposing that the communicating doors were not locked.

Complete silence descended upon the laboratory, which was not more than twenty feet square. I found it necessary to keep reminding myself of the fact that in the eyes of those surrounding me, including the formidable Dr. Fu-Manchu himself, I had become a Companion of the Si-Fan, a devotee of the cause, a blind slave of the Chinese doctor.

The more I considered the situation, the more obvious it became that I had only one person to fear—Fah Lo Suee! Fah Lo Suee alone knew that I was still the captain of my soul.

She counted on my interest in Fleurette to ensure my complicity. She thought—and she was right—that I would hesitate at nothing to save the lovely Rose-petal from that unimaginable fate mapped out for her by the insane master of so many destinies.

And as I paced up and down that silent room I tried to work out where my duty lay.

Fah Lo Suee clearly took it for granted that I could not escape from the place: this remained to be seen! But assuming that I did escape, and my absence be noted, this would precipitate some catastrophe, at the nature of which I could little more than guess.

Fleurette would be lost to me forever! Sir Frank Narcomb and the rest—what would be their fate?

Moreover, recognizing the imminence of his danger, Fu-Manchu might open his war on the world!

Yet, now that I knew myself to be not in China, but in Ste Claire de la Roche, my determination to endeavour to get in touch with Nayland Smith was firmly established: the route alone remained doubtful.

And upon this point I formed a sudden resolution.

I had noted that in one of the houses—the first which I had entered with Dr. Fu-Manchu, and the loftiest; that in which many fantastic species of palms grew—there was a spiral staircase leading to a series of gangways. By means of these presumably the upper foliage of the trees could be inspected.

From up there, I thought, I might obtain a view of whatsoever lay outside, and thus get my bearings. Otherwise, I was just as likely to penetrate farther and farther into this maze of laboratories and workshops, as to find a way out of it.