The Wrath of Fu Manchu and Other Stories (2 page)

Thurston put his glass down.

“Woman with green eyes? Ivory skin? Wonderful figure?”

Burns’ eyes, which were not green, but blue, twinkled.

“Powers of observation good! That’s the dame. Her papers show that she’s from the Dutch East Indies.”

“Ah! That may explain it. A yellow streak?”

“Could be. She’s Mrs van Roorden, widow of a Javanese planter. But her pock-marked attendant, who’s in the servant’s quarters, of course, is Burmese! Add that up.”

“I can’t,” Thurston confessed. “Is she travelling alone—I mean, except for the manservant?”

Burns nodded and began to light his pipe.

“More or less, yes. She came on board with a Mr Fordwich, whom I don’t know anything about, except that I’m told he’s a member of a big Chicago concern with overseas interests. He came from Java to England and then flew over to France. That is, according to his passport.”

Thurston, accepting a nod from Burns, passed his glass for a refill and smiled.

“I can add to your information about the mysterious Mrs van Roorden. Listen to this.”

He told the purser what he had seen in the alleyway. Burns’ eyes opened even more widely than usual.

“Damn funny! I’ll get Jenkins to check on the cook’s staff. We have some Chinese boys down there, I know. Sure he was Chinese?”

Thurston considered. He was not well up on Far Eastern types.

“Almost sure,” he said at last. “You see, I had only a glimpse of the man. But I’m certain he was an Asiatic.”

Burns nodded thoughtfully.

“Now, on our last run, we had a mutual friend on board who could have settled the point out of hand! Sir Denis Nayland Smith.”

“What! He may be in New York when I get there. I’ll look him up. Amazing man, isn’t he? I knew him very well when he was head of the CID at Scotland Yard. Member of my club. Smith’s a fellow who has crowded more adventure into his life than any ten ordinary men. He must be out on a job. Wonder what it is?”

“Communists, I expect,” Burns murmured.

But Burns happened to be wrong, as Thurston was to find out.

* * *

In fact, at about the time that he sat talking to the purser of the
Lauretania
, the centre of a stormcloud the existence of which had brought Nayland Smith to New York was actually located in Cairo.

In an old Arab house not far from the Mosque of El Ashraf, a house still undisturbed by Western “improvements,” a tall, gaunt man paced slowly up and down a room which once had been the
Na’ah
or saloon of the
harêm
.

Lofty, and lighted by a lantern in the painted roof, it was tastefully paved in the Arabian manner, had elaborate panelled walls and two
mushrabiyeh
windows. Before one of these recessed windows a screen had been placed.

The man pacing the tiled floor wore a loose yellow robe, a black cap on his massive skull. Although unmistakably Chinese, his finely lined features were those of a scholar who had never spared himself in his quest of knowledge. It was a wonderful face. It might have belonged to a saint—or to the Fallen Angel in person.

His walk was feline, silent. He seemed to be listening for some expected sound. Suddenly he paused, turned.

A door opened at the end of the saloon and a man entered quietly, an old white-bearded man who wore Arab dress. He was met and challenged by a glance from emerald green eyes. Momentarily, an expression of eagerness crept across the impassive Chinese face.

“You have it,
hakîm
?”

The words were spoken in Arabic, sibilantly. They were answered by a deep bow.

“I have it, Excellency.”

From under his black robe, the old physician took out a small phial, half filled with a nearly colourless liquid.

“You guarantee its absolute purity?”

“I swear to it. Am I a fool to dream of deceiving Dr Fu-Manchu?”

Dr Fu-Manchu’s nearly unendurable gaze remained focussed on the bearded face a while longer, and then:

“Follow,” he directed.

He walked under a decorated arch into a neighbouring room equipped as a laboratory. Much of the apparatus in this singular apartment would have puzzled any living man of science to define its purpose or application. On a long, glass-topped table a number of test tubes was ranged in a rack.

Dr Fu-Manchu seated himself at the table and held out his hand for the phial. Watched by the Arab physician, he removed the stopper and inserted a glass dipper. The unerring delicacy of touch displayed by those long-nailed fingers was miraculous. He replaced the stopper and smeared a spot from the dipper on to a slide, putting the slide into place in a large microscope. Stooping, he stared through the lens, which he slightly adjusted. Without looking up:

“You are sure of hormone B?” he challenged harshly.

“Positive, Excellency. I extracted it myself.”

Then Fu-Manchu raised his head and pressed one of several studs on a switchboard. A door opened and a young Japanese came in. He wore a chemist’s white tunic. Fu-Manchu indicated the phial.

“The missing elements, at last, Matsukata. Use sparingly.” He spoke in Japanese. “Above all, watch the temperature. Inoculate a rat, a guinea pig and two rabbits. Report to me at ten minute intervals. Proceed.”

Matsukata took the phial, three of the test tubes, bowed, and went out. Dr Fu-Manchu turned to the Arab physician.

“How long have you known me,
hakîm?”

He spoke softly.

The old Arab stroked his beard as if in meditation.

“Since I was twenty years of age, Excellency.”

“And what age was I then?”

“I could not say.”

“What age did I appear to be?”

“As you appear now, Excellency.”

Fu-Manchu stood up.

“Follow.”

They returned to the long saloon. Fu-Manchu crossed to the screen set before a
mushrabiyeh
window and moved it aside. In the recess, motionless in a silk-padded basket, lay a tiny grey marmoset!

“My little friend, Peko.” Dr Fu-Manchu spoke in a sibilant whisper. “The companion of my wanderings.”

The old physician conquered his astonishment. Unmistakably, Dr Fu-Manchu was deeply moved.

“He is asleep?”

“No. He is dying.”

“Of tuberculosis? These creatures are subject to it.”

“No. Of senility.”

“What, then, is his age, Excellency?”

“The same as my own.”

“What do you say?… Pardon me, Excellency. I was startled. Such a thing seems impossible.”

Dr Fu-Manchu replaced the screen. They stepped down again into the saloon; and the Arab physician found himself called upon to sustain the fixed regard of those hypnotic eyes.

“Peko had already reached his normal, allotted span of years at the time that I completed my long experiments so vainly attempted by the old alchemists. Yes—I had discovered what they termed the
Elixir Vitae
: The Elixir of Life! Upon Peko I made the first injection; upon myself, the second.”

“And now?” It was a hushed murmur.

“Failure threatens my science. Peko was not due for treatment until next spring. Yet—you see? I found myself unprovided with the materials. I searched Cairo. I laboured in the laboratory day and night. Can you understand?”

His voice rose harshly on a note of frenzy. His eyes blazed.

“Yes, Excellency… I do understand.”

“If death claims him, I am defeated. A plan upon which may rest the peace of the world, even the survival of man, demands my presence in America. But, if I fail to fan that tiny spark which still smoulders within Peko into a flame, of life, this means that I too—I, Fu-Manchu—may die at any hour!”

* * *

Weather remained fresh, but clear and fine throughout the
Lauretania
’s run. Thurston, that unimaginative man of business, had no suspicion as yet of the rôle for which Fate had cast him. But he found a magnetic attraction in the personality of Mrs van Roorden.

This beautiful enigma, always correctly but exquisitely dressed, engrossed his attention to the exclusion of everybody else on board. Nor was he alone in this. Mrs van Roorden would have become a focus of interest in any community.

She was much in the company of Mr Fordwich. He was a man of middle height and spare build, his skin yellowed as if by long residence in the tropics. A heavy stick with a rubber ferule was never far from his hand, for he was afflicted by a slight limp. His keen, dark eyes lighted up at times, as if a laughing dare-devil lay hidden under the cool facade which he showed to the world. Without being handsome in the Hollywood sense, Thurston could well believe that Fordwich might be attractive to women. They were an intriguing pair.

Mrs van Roorden rarely permitted her graceful languor to become disturbed. She possessed an aura of sublime self-confidence, as if some invulnerable power protected her from any intrusion upon her queenly serenity. Sometimes, when in Fordwich’s company, she smiled. It was a strange smile, secretly voluptuous. But it promised little and revealed nothing.

There was acid comment amongst the passengers and ship’s officers concerning the strange arrangement whereby no one was permitted to enter Mrs van Roorden’s cabin except her dangerous looking Burmese manservant. Whenever she took one of her leisurely constitutional strolls, a barrage of glances fell upon her from the massed batteries of deck-chairs.

The Sphinx could not have shown more perfect indifference.

Thurston, in his quest of information, seized every opportunity to talk to Mr Fordwich, with whom he sometimes had a drink in the smoking room. But Mr Fordwich proved himself a master of reticence.

And so it was not until their last night at sea that Thurston met Mrs van Roorden. She was one of the guests at a cocktail party in the purser’s quarters. Somewhat to his surprise, Mr Fordwich was not present. Mrs van Roorden wore a green backless frock entirely justified by her faultless ivory arms and shoulders. A band of emeralds was clasped around her throat.

Burns presented his friend, at the same time treating him to a sly wink.

“I’m very glad to meet you at last, Mrs van Roorden,” Thurston declared. “It would be annoying to have to leave the ship without making the acquaintance of the most beautiful woman on board.”

That vague smile curved disdainful lips as she glanced at him when he sat down beside her. Her eyes slanted very slightly.

“A compliment from an Englishman is as unexpected as an Ave Maria from a tabby.”

What a lovely voice she had, Thurston thought! A wall-lamp just behind her touched bronze highlights in her hair, which he had believed to be quite black.

“A compliment may sometimes be a fact. Are you staying in New York, Mrs van Roorden?”

She shrugged slightly.

“Perhaps for a little while. This journey is not of my choosing. But there are some duties which must override personal inclination.”

“Then what does personal inclination suggest?”

She turned and looked at him directly. He started, rebuked himself. He was an experienced man of the world… But he had the utmost difficulty in meeting that penetrating gaze. Then Mrs van Roorden seemed to be satisfied. She turned her head aside again, languidly.

“I belong to the old world. The new world has little to offer me.”

Thurston recovered himself.

“You are too young to be cynical.”

“I am too old to embrace shadows. Truth is dying today. We are all so smug, although we dance on the edge of a precipice. Where are the men, who can see—the great adventurers who put self last?”

“Not all dead, I assure you! I should like you to meet my friend, Nayland Smith, for instance.”

Mrs van Roorden seemed to become quite still, statuesque. At last, she stirred, turned her head, and again he found himself claimed by those jade-green eyes.

“Sir Denis Nayland Smith?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

Her lips curved in that provocative, voluptuous yet impersonal smile. She glanced aside as a steward offered a selection of cocktails. Taking one:

“I used to know him,” she replied, a deep, caressing note in her musical voice. “Were you ever in Java, Mr Thurston?”

Her wish to change the subject was so unmistakable that Thurston had no choice but that of following her lead. So that when the party broke up, although he knew that the Communists in the Dutch Indies were worse than the Japanese, he knew no more about Mrs van Roorden than he had ever known.

But he wondered very much why she had steered him off the subject of Nayland Smith…

During belated dinner, an urgent message came for the purser. He excused himself and hurried out.

Thurston, later, passing his door and finding it open, rapped and went in.

Burns was sitting in an armchair, smoking his pipe.

“Sit down, old man. There’s something very queer going on aboard this ship.”

“Why—what’s happened?”

Thurston sat down.

“Well, the steward who generally looks after the room occupied by Mrs van Roorden nearly ran into her as she rushed out into the alleyway. She said that a thief had been in there!”

“What!”

“Fact. The man reported to Jenkins, and Jenkins sent for me. I went along. Mrs van Roorden opened the door when I knocked. She was as cool as an icicle, but those eyes of hers were just blazing. She stuck to the story, but said that she didn’t intend to make an official complaint. Insisted, in fact.”

“This is all very strange.”

“There’s more to come. This man of hers, who I believe acts as her bodyguard as much as anything else, was found in his cabin—insensible!”

“You mean—he’d been assaulted?”

“Rubber truncheon, the doctor thinks! This is all off the record. Not a word. The cops would hold us up for hours if they got on to it.”

“But, what—”

“Yes.” Burns stood up. “That’s what
I’m
wondering. Let’s have a drink.”

* * *

Landing was delayed the next day by unexpected mist which blanketed East River. Thurston, taking a final look into closets and drawers, heard a rap on the door, and supposed his steward had come for the baggage.

“All ready!”

Mr Fordwich entered, leaning on his stick.