The Bride of Fu-Manchu (31 page)

“I thought I had lost that for you, Sir Denis!” I said.

“So did I,” he rapped; “but I found it on my way down. It’s an old friend which I should have hated to lose. Hello! Here we are.”

As he began to charge his pipe, the driver of the car had turned into that steeply sloping lane which led up to the iron gates of the Villa Ste Claire.

“I don’t expect to learn anything here, Sterling,” said Sir Denis, “which is worthwhile. But there’s no other line of investigation open at the moment. Dr. Fu-Manchu’s arrest is a very delicate matter. He has already applied to his Consul, and demanded that the Chinese Legation in Paris shall be notified of the state of affairs! To put the thing in a nutshell: unless there is some evidence here—and I don’t expect to find it—to connect him with the recent outrages in the neighbourhood or to establish his association with the epidemic, which is frankly hopeless, it means extradition.”

“Have you arranged for it?” I asked eagerly.

“Yes. But even if we get him back to England—and I know his dossier at Scotland Yard from A to Z—”

He paused and stuffed the big pouch into his pocket; some coarse-cut mixture which overhung the bowl of his briar lent it the appearance of a miniature rock garden.

“What!”

“The law of England has many loopholes.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

T
he absence of reporters from Ste Claire, the gate of which was guarded by police, amazed me.

“There are some things which are too important for publicity,” said Sir Denis. “And in France, as well as in England, we have this advantage over America: we can silence the newspapers. The only witnesses of any use in a court of law which we have captured so far are the four Chinese body-servants of the doctor’s who were on board the yacht. Some of these you can identify, I believe?”

“Three of them I have seen before.”

Sir Denis opened the door of the car. We had reached the end of that sanded drive which swept around the side of the villa and terminated near the southerly wing of the terrace.

“Have you ever tried to interrogate a Chinaman who didn’t want to commit himself?” he asked.

“Yes, I have employed Chinese servants, and I know what they can be like.”

Nayland Smith turned to me—he was standing on the drive.

“They are loyal, Sterling,” he snapped. “Bind them to a tradition, and no human power can tear them away from it...”

Many of the section doors had been forced, but more than half the party remained imprisoned. Under instructions from Sir Denis, I gathered, a party had been landed in that tiny bay which was the sea-bound terminus of the exit from the water cave. Suitably prepared, they had landed there, and were operating upon the first of the section doors in order to liberate members of the raiding party trapped in that long, glass-lined corridor. The local Chief of Police was still among the missing.

“I think,” said Sir Denis, “we can afford to overlook infection from the hybrid flies, and even from other insects which you have described to me. Those used experimentally by Dr. Fu-Manchu— for instance, the fly in Petrie’s laboratory—seem to have survived the evening chill. But you may have noticed that there has been a drop in the temperature during the last two days. I think it was these eccentricities of climate which baffled the doctor. His flying army couldn’t compete with them.”

We spent an hour at Ste Claire; but it was an hour wasted.

When, presently, we left for Nice, where Dr. Fu-Manchu was temporarily confined, I reflected that if Ste Claire was a minor base of the Si-Fan, as Fleurette had given me to understand, then the organization must be at least as vast as Sir Denis Nayland Smith believed.

Ste Claire was a scientific fortress; its destruction in one way and another represented a loss to human knowledge which could not be estimated. His section doors had checked pursuit of the doctor so effectively that, failing my adventurous swim across the pool and discovery of that other exit, the fugitive could conveniently have landed from the motor yacht
Lola
at any one of many ports before the radio had got busy with his description.

I wondered if the measures taken to ensure secrecy would prove to be effective.

The very air was charged with rumours; the Nice police had caught the infection. Such suppressed excitement prevailed that the atmosphere vibrated with it.

Dr. Fu-Manchu had declined to be transported to Paris until he had had an opportunity of consulting with his legal adviser. In this he was acting within his rights, as he had pointed out; and the departmental authorities, at a loss, welcomed the arrival of Sir Denis.

M. Chamrousse awaited us, his magisterial dignity unmistakably disturbed.

There was a guard before the doubly locked door, but in due course it was opened. The Préfet conducted Sir Denis and myself into the apartment occupied by Dr. Fu-Manchu.

This officially was a cell; actually, a plainly furnished bed-sitting room.

At the moment of my entrance the scene was unreal—wholly chimerical. During my acquaintance with the Chinese doctor I had formed the opinion, reinforced later by what I had heard from Sir Denis of the monstrous tentacles of the organization called Si-Fan, that ordinary frail human laws did not apply to this man who transcended the normal.

And, as I saw him seated in a meanly furnished room, this feeling of phantasy, of unreality, claimed me.

It was just as fantastic, I thought, as the mango-apple; the
tsetse
fly crossed with the plague flea; the date palms growing huge figs; the black spider which could reason...

He had discarded his astrakhan cap and fur coat, and I saw that he wore a yellow robe of a kind with which I was familiar. Chinese slippers were upon his feet. Something strikingly unusual in his appearance at first defeated me; then I realized what it was. He did not wear the little cap which hitherto he had worn.

For the first time I appreciated the amazing frontal development of his skull. I had never seen such a head. I had thought of him as resembling Seti the First; but the great king had the skull of a babe in comparison with that of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

He sat there watching us as we entered. There was no expression whatever in that wonderful face—a face which might well have looked upon centuries of the ages known to man.

“I shall be glad to see you, Sir Denis,” came the guttural, imperturbable voice, “and Mr. Sterling may also remain. Pray be seated.”

He fixed a glance of his emerald-green eyes upon the préfet, and I knew and sympathized with the effect which that glance had upon its recipient. The dignified official backed towards the door. Sir Denis saved his dignity.

“It may be better if you leave us for a few moments, M. Chamrousse,” he whispered...

When we were alone:

“Alan Sterling,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu. And prisoner though he was, he was not so truly a prisoner as I; for he had caught and held my glance as no other man in the world had ever had power to do. I knew that my will was helpless. A dreadful sense of weakness possessed me, which I cannot hope to make clear to anyone lacking experience of that singular regard.

“I speak as one,” the guttural voice continued, “who may be at the end of his career. You lack brilliance, but you have qualities which I respect. You may look upon Dr. Petrie’s daughter as your woman, since she has chosen you. Take her, and hold her—if you can.”

He turned his eyes away. And it was as though a dazzling light had been moved so that I could see the world again in true perspective; then:

“Sir Denis,” he continued.

I twisted aside and looked at Nayland Smith. His jaws were clenched. It was plain that every reserve of his enormous vitality, mental energy, his will, was being called upon as he stared into the face of the uncanny being whom he had captured, who was his prisoner.

“In order that we may understand one another more completely,” the imperious voice continued, “I desire to make plain to you, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, that the laws of France, the laws of England, the laws of Europe, are cobwebs which I blow aside. It is your wish that I shall be carried to Paris, and thence to London. You believe that your English courts can end my labours...

“I have this to say to you: the work of a world reformer is a work in which there is no sleep—no rest. That which he achieves is always in the past, as he moves forward upon his endless path. Himself, he is alone—always looking into the future. You have fought me; but because you are untiring as myself, you have stimulated, you have checked me. But you cannot hold back the cloudburst nor stifle the volcano. I may fall—thanks to you. But what I have made stands granite fast.

“Ask me no questions: I shall answer none.”

I stared again at Sir Denis. His profile was as grimly mask-like as that of the Chinaman. He made no reply.

“Maître Foli,” Dr. Fu-Manchu continued, “my French legal adviser, has been detained unavoidably, but will be here at any moment.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

W
hen presently we left the apartment of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Nayland Smith’s face was very stern.

“He was rather obscure,” I said.

“Obscure?”

He turned his piercing grey eyes upon me with a glance almost scornful.

“I thought so.”

Whereupon Sir Denis smiled, that rare smile which when it came must have disarmed his bitterest enemy. He grasped my arm.

“Dr. Fu-Manchu is never obscure,” he said; “he spoke the plain truth, Sterling. And truth is sometimes a bitter pill.”

“But—Maître Foli! He is one of the greatest advocates in France!”

“Certainly. What did you expect? Surely you know that Dr. Fu-Manchu never looks below excellence—living or dead! I warned you that Fu-Manchu arrested and Fu-Manchu convicted were totally different matters.”

We returned to the office of the préfet, and:

“Hello!” Sir Denis exclaimed. “He’s here!”

A stooping but imposing figure was seated in the leathern armchair before the table of the préfet. M. Chamrousse, not yet entirely his own man, following his encounter with the formidable Chinaman, was listening with every mark of deference to his distinguished visitor. The latter ceased speaking, and the préfet stood up as we entered.

“Sir Denis,” said Chamrousse, “this is Maître Foli—Dr. Fu-Manchu’s legal adviser.”

Maître Foli stood up and bowed very formally.

I had recognized him immediately from his photographs published during the progress of a Paris
cause célèbre
in which he had secured the vindication of his client—a distinguished officer accused of espionage. I judged his age to be close to seventy; his yellow face was a map of wrinkles rendered more conspicuous by a small, snow-white moustache and a tiny tuft of beard under the lower lip.

He was buttoned up in a black, caped overcoat from the lapels of which bulged a flowing tie; and a wide-brimmed hat lay on the carpet beside a bulky portfolio. A close-fitting silk skullcap lent him a mediaeval appearance, which was lost when he adjusted large, slightly tinted spectacles in order more closely to observe us.

It was a memorable situation.

“Your reputation is well known to me, Maître Foli,” said Sir Denis.

“Indeed, yes,” M. Chamrousse murmured, bowing to the famous lawyer.

“But the identity of your present client surprises me.”

“Sir Denis Nayland Smith,” Maître Foli replied in a harsh, strident voice, “I have acted for Dr. Fu-Manchu over a period of some forty years.”

“Is that so?” Sir Denis muttered drily.

“You and I do not see eye to eye in the matters which we know about. You have behaved, and behaved honourably, in accordance with your principles, Sir Denis. Dr. Fu-Manchu has followed another star. His codes are those of a civilization different from ours—and older. A day will come, must come, when you will recognize your outlook—as I have recognized mine—to be limited. His manner of warfare appals you—yet I can only regret, Sir Denis, that a man of your great capacity should have been called upon to oppose the inevitable over a period of so many years.”