The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu (20 page)

From the rescue of Lord Southery my story bears me mercilessly
on to other things. I may not tarry, as more leisurely penmen, to
round my incidents; they were not of my choosing. I may not pause
to make you better acquainted with the figure of my drama; its
scheme is none of mine. Often enough, in those days, I found a
fitness in the lines of Omar:

We are no other than a moving
show
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show.

But "the Master of the Show," in this case, was Dr.
Fu-Manchu!

I have been asked many times since the days with which these
records deal: Who WAS Dr. Fu-Manchu? Let me confess here that my
final answer must be postponed. I can only indicate, at this place,
the trend of my reasoning, and leave my reader to form whatever
conclusion he pleases.

What group can we isolate and label as responsible for the
overthrow of the Manchus? The casual student of modern Chinese
history will reply: "Young China." This is unsatisfactory. What do
we mean by Young China? In my own hearing Fu-Manchu had disclaimed,
with scorn, association with the whole of that movement; and
assuming that the name were not an assumed one, he clearly can have
been no anti-Manchu, no Republican.

The Chinese Republican is of the mandarin class, but of a new
generation which veneers its Confucianism with Western polish.
These youthful and unbalanced reformers, in conjunction with older
but no less ill-balanced provincial politicians, may be said to
represent Young China. Amid such turmoils as this we invariably
look for, and invariably find, a Third Party. In my opinion, Dr.
Fu-Manchu was one of the leaders of such a party.

Another question often put to me was: Where did the Doctor hide
during the time that he pursued his operations in London? This is
more susceptible of explanation. For a time Nayland Smith supposed,
as I did myself, that the opium den adjacent to the old Ratcliff
Highway was the Chinaman's base of operations; later we came to
believe that the mansion near Windsor was his hiding-place, and
later still, the hulk lying off the downstream flats. But I think I
can state with confidence that the spot which he had chosen for his
home was neither of these, but the East End riverside building
which I was the first to enter. Of this I am all but sure; for the
reason that it not only was the home of Fu-Manchu, of Karamaneh,
and of her brother, Aziz, but the home of something else-of
something which I shall speak of later.

The dreadful tragedy (or series of tragedies) which attended the
raid upon the place will always mark in my memory the supreme
horror of a horrible case. Let me endeavor to explain what
occurred.

By the aid of Karamaneh, you have seen how we had located the
whilom warehouse, which, from the exterior, was so drab and dreary,
but which within was a place of wondrous luxury. At the moment
selected by our beautiful accomplice, Inspector Weymouth and a body
of detectives entirely surrounded it; a river police launch lay off
the wharf which opened from it on the river-side; and this upon a
singularly black night, than which a better could not have been
chosen.

"You will fulfill your promise to me?" said Karamaneh, and
looked up into my face.

She was enveloped in a big, loose cloak, and from the shadow of
the hood her wonderful eyes gleamed out like stars.

"What do you wish us to do?" asked Nayland Smith.

"You-and Dr. Petrie," she replied swiftly, "must enter first,
and bring out Aziz. Until he is safe-until he is out of that
place-you are to make no attempt upon-"

"Upon Dr. Fu-Manchu?" interrupted Weymouth; for Karamaneh
hesitated to pronounce the dreaded name, as she always did. "But
how can we be sure that there is no trap laid for us?"

The Scotland Yard man did not entirely share my confidence in
the integrity of this Eastern girl whom he knew to have been a
creature of the Chinaman's.

"Aziz lies in the private room," she explained eagerly, her old
accent more noticeable than usual. "There is only one of the
Burmese men in the house, and he-he dare not enter without
orders!"

"But Fu-Manchu?"

"We have nothing to fear from him. He will be your prisoner
within ten minutes from now! I have no time for words-you must
believe!" She stamped her foot impatiently. "And the dacoit?"
snapped Smith.

"He also."

"I think perhaps I'd better come in, too," said Weymouth
slowly.

Karamaneh shrugged her shoulders with quick impatience, and
unlocked the door in the high brick wall which divided the gloomy,
evil-smelling court from the luxurious apartments of Dr.
Fu-Manchu.

"Make no noise," she warned. And Smith and myself followed her
along the uncarpeted passage beyond.

Inspector Weymouth, with a final word of instruction to his
second in command, brought up the rear. The door was reclosed; a
few paces farther on a second was unlocked. Passing through a small
room, unfurnished, a farther passage led us to a balcony. The
transition was startling.

Darkness was about us now, and silence: a perfumed, slumberous
darkness-a silence full of mystery. For, beyond the walls of the
apartment whereon we looked down waged the unceasing battle of
sounds that is the hymn of the great industrial river. About the
scented confines which bounded us now floated the smoke-laden
vapors of the Lower Thames.

From the metallic but infinitely human clangor of dock-side
life, from the unpleasant but homely odors which prevail where
ships swallow in and belch out the concrete evidences of commercial
prosperity, we had come into this incensed stillness, where one
shaded lamp painted dim enlargements of its Chinese silk upon the
nearer walls, and left the greater part of the room the darker for
its contrast.

Nothing of the Thames-side activity-of the riveting and
scraping-the bumping of bales-the bawling of orders-the hiss of
steam-penetrated to this perfumed place. In the pool of tinted
light lay the deathlike figure of a dark-haired boy, Karamaneh's
muffled form bending over him.

"At last I stand in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu!" whispered
Smith.

Despite the girl's assurance, we knew that proximity to the
sinister Chinaman must be fraught with danger. We stood, not in the
lion's den, but in the serpent's lair.

From the time when Nayland Smith had come from Burma in pursuit
of this advance-guard of a cogent Yellow Peril, the face of Dr.
Fu-Manchu rarely had been absent from my dreams day or night. The
millions might sleep in peace-the millions in whose cause we
labored!-but we who knew the reality of the danger knew that a
veritable octopus had fastened upon England-a yellow octopus whose
head was that of Dr. Fu-Manchu, whose tentacles were dacoity,
thuggee, modes of death, secret and swift, which in the darkness
plucked men from life and left no clew behind.

"Karamaneh!" I called softly.

The muffled form beneath the lamp turned so that the soft light
fell upon the lovely face of the slave girl. She who had been a
pliant instrument in the hands of Fu-Manchu now was to be the means
whereby society should be rid of him.

She raised her finger warningly; then beckoned me to
approach.

My feet sinking in the rich pile of the carpet, I came through
the gloom of the great apartment in to the patch of light, and,
Karamaneh beside me, stood looking down upon the boy. It was Aziz,
her brother; dead so far as Western lore had power to judge, but
kept alive in that deathlike trance by the uncanny power of the
Chinese doctor.

"Be quick," she said; "be quick! Awaken him! I am afraid."

From the case which I carried I took out a needle-syringe and a
phial containing a small quantity of amber-hued liquid. It was a
drug not to be found in the British Pharmacopoeia. Of its
constitution I knew nothing. Although I had had the phial in my
possession for some days I had not dared to devote any of its
precious contents to analytical purposes. The amber drops spelled
life for the boy Aziz, spelled success for the mission of Nayland
Smith, spelled ruin for the fiendish Chinaman.

I raised the white coverlet. The boy, fully dressed, lay with
his arms crossed upon his breast. I discerned the mark of previous
injections as, charging the syringe from the phial, I made what I
hoped would be the last of such experiments upon him. I would have
given half of my small worldly possessions to have known the real
nature of the drug which was now coursing through the veins of
Aziz-which was tinting the grayed face with the olive tone of life;
which, so far as my medical training bore me, was restoring the
dead to life.

But such was not the purpose of my visit. I was come to remove
from the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu the living chain which bound
Karamaneh to him. The boy alive and free, the Doctor's hold upon
the slave girl would be broken.

My lovely companion, her hands convulsively clasped, knelt and
devoured with her eyes the face of the boy who was passing through
the most amazing physiological change in the history of
therapeutics. The peculiar perfume which she wore-which seemed to
be a part of her-which always I associated with her-was faintly
perceptible. Karamaneh was breathing rapidly.

"You have nothing to fear," I whispered; "see, he is reviving.
In a few moments all will be well with him."

The hanging lamp with its garishly colored shade swung gently
above us, wafted, it seemed, by some draught which passed through
the apartment. The boy's heavy lids began to quiver, and Karamaneh
nervously clutched my arm, and held me so whilst we watched for the
long-lashed eyes to open. The stillness of the place was positively
unnatural; it seemed inconceivable that all about us was the
discordant activity of the commercial East End. Indeed, this eerie
silence was becoming oppressive; it began positively to appall
me.

Inspector Weymouth's wondering face peeped over my shoulder.

"Where is Dr. Fu-Manchu?" I whispered, as Nayland Smith in turn
appeared beside me. "I cannot understand the silence of the
house-"

"Look about," replied Karamaneh, never taking her eyes from the
face of Aziz.

I peered around the shadowy walls. Tall glass cases there were,
shelves and niches: where once, from the gallery above, I had seen
the tubes and retorts, the jars of unfamiliar organisms, the books
of unfamiliar lore, the impedimenta of the occult student and man
of science-the visible evidences of Fu-Manchu's presence.
Shelves-cases-niches-were bare. Of the complicated appliances
unknown to civilized laboratories, wherewith he pursued his strange
experiments, of the tubes wherein he isolated the bacilli of
unclassified diseases, of the yellow-bound volumes for a glimpse at
which (had they known of their contents) the great men of Harley
Street would have given a fortune-no trace remained. The silken
cushions; the inlaid tables; all were gone.

The room was stripped, dismantled. Had Fu-Manchu fled? The
silence assumed a new significance. His dacoits and kindred
ministers of death all must have fled, too.

"You have let him escape us!" I said rapidly. "You promised to
aid us to capture him-to send us a message-and you have delayed
until-"

"No," she said; "no!" and clutched at my arm again. "Oh! is he
not reviving slowly? Are you sure you have made no mistake?"

Her thoughts were all for the boy; and her solicitude touched
me. I again examined Aziz, the most remarkable patient of my busy
professional career.

As I counted the strengthening pulse, he opened his dark
eyes-which were so like the eyes of Karamaneh-and, with the girl's
eager arms tightly about him, sat up, looking wonderingly
around.

Karamaneh pressed her cheek to his, whispering loving words in
that softly spoken Arabic which had first betrayed her nationality
to Nayland Smith. I handed her my flask, which I had filled with
wine.

"My promise is fulfilled!" I said. "You are free! Now for
Fu-Manchu! But first let us admit the police to this house; there
is something uncanny in its stillness."

"No," she replied. "First let my brother be taken out and placed
in safety. Will you carry him?"

She raised her face to that of Inspector Weymouth, upon which
was written awe and wonder.

The burly detective lifted the boy as tenderly as a woman,
passed through the shadows to the stairway, ascended, and was
swallowed up in the gloom. Nayland Smith's eyes gleamed feverishly.
He turned to Karamaneh.

"You are not playing with us?" he said harshly. "We have done
our part; it remains for you to do yours."

"Do not speak so loudly," the girl begged. "HE is near us-and,
oh, God, I fear him so!"

"Where is he?" persisted my friend.

Karamaneh's eyes were glassy with fear now.

"You must not touch him until the police are here," she said-but
from the direction of her quick, agitated glances I knew that, her
brother safe now, she feared for me, and for me alone. Those
glances sent my blood dancing; for Karamaneh was an Eastern jewel
which any man of flesh and blood must have coveted had he known it
to lie within his reach. Her eyes were twin lakes of mystery which,
more than once, I had known the desire to explore.

"Look-beyond that curtain"-her voice was barely audible-"but do
not enter. Even as he is, I fear him."

Her voice, her palpable agitation, prepared us for something
extraordinary. Tragedy and Fu-Manchu were never far apart. Though
we were two, and help was so near, we were in the abode of the most
cunning murderer who ever came out of the East.

It was with strangely mingled emotions that I crossed the thick
carpet, Nayland Smith beside me, and drew aside the draperies
concealing a door, to which Karamaneh had pointed. Then, upon
looking into the dim place beyond, all else save what it held was
forgotten.