by Sax Rohmer
He paused, staring into the heart of the fire.
“Demanded what?” Nayland Smith asked, quietly.
He was listening—but no sound came from the room occupied by Fleurette.
“He has an exaggerated idea of my powers as a physician. He is a man of great age—God knows what age; and it appears that he is cut off from a supply of the strange elixir by means of which, alone, he remains alive. His offer is this: I am to bring him certain ingredients which he has named, and assist him in preparing the elixir, which apparently he is unable to prepare alone; or—”
“I fully appreciate the alternative,” snapped Nayland Smith. “But one thing I don’t quite understand. I am wondering if something else underlies it, why his need of your services?”
Petrie smiled unmirthfully.
“It appears that he is in a situation—he frankly admits that he is hunted—where the attendance of any physician attached to his group would be impossible. Also, it appears, the pharmaceutical details require adroit manipulation.”
“What does he want you to do?”
Gallaho came in from the lobby.
“That was a Westminster call, sir,” he reported. “The caller was in this area. I expect further details later.”
“Excellent,” murmured Nayland Smith. “Listen to this, Gallaho. Go ahead, Petrie.”
“He assured me,” Dr. Petrie went on, “and neither you nor I, Smith—” he looked at Sir Denis appealingly—“has ever doubted his word, that Fleurette would remain mentally his slave in the state in which she is, now, unless he chose to restore her to normal life.”
“If he said so,” said Nayland Smith solemnly, “I don’t doubt it.”
“Your job is to go, sir,” said Gallaho, with a faint show of excitement. “I’ll have you covered, and we’ll get this yellow devil!”
“Thank you, Inspector.” Dr. Petrie smiled wearily. “Where Dr. Fu-Manchu is concerned, things are not quite so simple as that. You see, my daughter’s sanity is at stake.”
“You mean that no one but this Fu-Manchu can put her right?”
“That’s what I mean, Inspector.”
Chief Detective-inspector Gallaho picked up his hat, looked at it, and threw it down again. He began to chew invisible gum, glancing from Sir Denis to Dr. Petrie.
“Sir Denis and I know this man,” the latter went on; “we know what he can do—what he has done. You would be entitled officially to take the steps you have mentioned, Inspector; I can only ask you not to take them; to treat what I have told you as a confidence.”
“As you say, sir.”
“I am ordered to assemble certain drugs; some of them difficult to obtain, but none, I believe, unobtainable. The final ingredient, the indispensable ingredient, is a certain essential oil unknown anywhere in the world except in the laboratory of Dr. Fu-Manchu. A small quantity of this still remains in existence.”
“Where?” jerked Nayland Smith.
Dr. Petrie did not reply for a few seconds. He bowed his head, resting it in a raised hand; then:
“At a spot which I have given my word not to name,” he replied. “I am to go there, and get it. And when I have collected the other items of the prescription, and certain chemical apparatus described to me, I am to join Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
“Where are you to join him?” Inspector Gallaho asked, hoarsely.
“This I cannot tell you, Inspector. My daughter’s life is at stake.”
There was another silence, and then:
“He is, then, in extremis?” murmured Nayland Smith.
“He is dying,” Dr. Petrie replied. “If I can save him, he will restore Fleurette to me—on the word of Fu-Manchu.”
Nayland Smith nodded.
“Which in all my knowledge of his execrable life, he has never broken.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
JOHN KI
“Don’t wake her,” said Dr. Petrie.
He beckoned to the nurse to follow him. Outside in the sitting-room, where misty morning light was just beginning to assert itself, Nayland Smith in pyjamas and dressing-gown was pacing up and down smoking furiously. Petrie was fully dressed, and:
“Hello, Petrie!” said Smith. “You’ll crack up if you go on like this.”
“She is so beautiful,” said the nurse, a dour Scotch woman, but as capable as all London could supply. “She is sleeping like a child. It’s a strange case!”
“It is a very strange case,” Petrie assured her. “But you fully understand my instructions, nurse, and I know that you will carry them out.”
“You can count upon that, Doctor.”
“Go back to your patient now, and report to Sir Denis, here, if there is any change when she awakens.”
“I understand, Doctor.”
Nurse Craig went out of the room, and Petrie turned to Nayland Smith. The latter paused in his restless promenade, puffing furiously upon a cracked briar, and:
“This job is going to crock you, Petrie,” he declared. “Neither you nor I is getting younger; only Dr. Fu-Manchu can defy the years. You look like hell, old man. You have been up all night, and now—”
“And now my job begins,” said Petrie quietly. “Oh, I know I am stretching myself to the limit, but the stakes are very high, Smith.”
Nayland Smith gripped Petrie’s shoulder and then began to walk up and down again.
Petrie dropped into an armchair, clutching his knees, and staring into the heart of the fire. Fey came in unobtrusively and made the fire up. It had been burning all night, and he, too, had not slept.
“Can I get you anything, sir?”
“Yes,” said Nayland Smith. “Dr. Petrie has to go out in an hour. Get bacon and eggs, Fey, and coffee.”
“Very good, sir.”
Fey went out.
“I haven’t slept,” rapped Nayland Smith; “couldn’t sleep, but at least I have relaxed physically. You,” he stared at Petrie, “haven’t even undressed.”
“No—” Petrie smiled; “but as you may have observed, I have shaved.”
“A hit, Petrie. I haven’t. But I propose to do so immediately. Take my advice. Strip and have a bath before bacon and eggs. You’ll feel a new man.”
“I believe you are right, Smith.”
And when presently, the two, who many years before had set out to combat the menace represented by Dr. Fu-Manchu, sat down to breakfast, except for asides to Fey who waited at table, they were strangely silent. But when Fey had withdrawn:
“I don’t doubt,” said Nayland Smith, “and you cannot doubt, that Fleurette would live in a borderland to the end of her days if the man who has set her there does not will it otherwise. We are compromising with a remorseless enemy, Petrie, but in this compromise I am wholly with you. Gallaho is out for the moment. He is the most fearless and the most conscientious officer I have met with in recent years. He will go far. It rests between us now, old man, and I suppose it means defeat.”
“I suppose it does,” said Petrie, dully.
“Naturally, you know where to assemble the drugs and paraphernalia demanded by Dr. Fu-Manchu. You have passed your word about the place where the particular ingredient is to be found.”
He ceased speaking and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.
“I shall have to be going, Smith,” said Petrie, wearily. “It is utterly preposterous and utterly horrible. But—”
He stood up.
Nayland Smith grasped his hand.
“It’s just Fate,” he said. “Dr. Fu-Manchu seems to be our fate, Petrie.”
“You don’t blame me for consenting?”
“Petrie, you had no choice.”
* * *
Dr. Petrie discharged his taxicab at a spot in Vauxhall Bridge Road where he had been told by Dr. Fu-Manchu to discharge it. Carrying the suitcase with which he had set out from Nayland Smith’s flat, and which now contained drugs and apparatus which must have surprised any physician who examined them, and which indeed surprised Dr. Petrie, he walked alo
ng that dingy thoroughfare until he came to a certain house.
It was a gray and a gloomy house, its door approached by three dirty steps.
Battersea was coming to life.
Battersea is one of London’s oddest suburbs—a suburb which produced John Burns, a big man frustrated; Communist today, if votes count for anything, encircled in red on the Crimes’ Map; yet housing thousands of honest citizens, staunch men and true. A queer district— and just such a district as might harbor an agent of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
Laden tramcars went rocking by, bound cityward. There were many pedestrians. Battersea was alert, alive—it was a nest of workers.
But of all this Dr. Petrie was only vaguely conscious: his interest lay far from Battersea.
He went up the three steps and rang the bell.
In response to his ringing, the door, presently, was opened by a very old Chinaman.
Petrie stared at an intricate map of wrinkles which decorated that ape-like face. Memory bridged the years; he knew that this was John Ki, once keeper of the notorious “Joy Shop” in the older Chinatown, and now known as Sam Pak.
A sort of false gaiety claimed him. He had gone over to the enemy, become one with them, and accordingly:
“Good morning, John,” he said; “a long time since I saw you.”
“Velly much long time before.”
The toothless mouth opened in a grin, and old Sam Pak ceremoniously stood aside, bowing his visitor in.
Petrie found himself in a frowsy, evil-smelling passage, the floor covered with worn and cracked linoleum; hideous paper peeling from the walls. There was a room immediately on the left, the door of which was open. He entered, heard the front door close, and the old Chinaman came in behind him.
This was a room which had apparently remained untouched, undecorated and undusted since the days of Queen Victoria. Upon a round mahogany table were wax flowers under a glass case; indescribably filthy horsehair chairs; a carpet through which the floor appeared from point to point; a large print on one wall representing King Edward VII as Prince of Wales, and a brass gas chandelier hanging from the center of a ceiling of the color of Thames mud.
Petrie set down his suitcase very carefully on the floor, and turned to Sam Pak.
“What now, John?”
“Waitee, please; go be long yet.”
The aged creature went out; and Petrie, staring through indescribably dirty lace curtains upon the prospect outside, saw a Morris car pull up.
It was driven by a man who wore a tweed cap, pulled well down over his eyes, but who almost certainly was an Asiatic...
Old Sam Pak, better known to Dr. Petrie as John Ki, returned.
He was carrying a small steel casket. He handled it as though it had been a piece of fragile Ming porcelain, and with one skinny hand indicated the suitcase.
Petrie nodded, and unfastened the case.
A quantity of cotton waste was produced by Sam Pak from somewhere, and wrapped around the steel receptacle; this was then deposited in the case, and the case was closed.
“Key?”
The aged Chinaman extended upon one skinny finger a curiously shaped key attached to a ring.
“Keep—velly particular.”
“I understand.”
Dr. Petrie took it, placed it in his note-case and returned the notecase to his pocket.
Sam Pak signaled from the window and the driver of the Morris came up the steps.
He carried the suitcase out to the car.
“Very careful, my man!” called Petrie, urgently; and realized that, for the first time in his life, he was interested in the survival of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
He was indifferent to his destination. He lay back in the car and dully watched a panorama of sordid streets.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
LIMEHOUSE
That strange journey terminated at a small house in Pelling Street, Limehouse.
The driver of the Morris, who might have been Chinese, but who more probably was a half-caste, jumped down and banged on an iron knocker which took the place of a bell.
The door was opened almost immediately, but Petrie was unable to see by whom.
His driver’s behavior during this long and dismal journey had been eccentric. Drizzling rain had taken the place of fog, and the crowded City streets under these conditions would have reduced a Sam Weller to despair. Many byways had been explored for no apparent reason. The driver constantly pulled up, and waited, and watched.
Dr. Petrie understood these maneuvers.
The man suspected pursuit, and was anxious to throw his pursuers off the track.
Now he signaled to Dr. Petrie to come in. Petrie climbed out of the car and walked into the open doorway.
“The bag?” he said.
“Leave now,” the driver replied; “get presently.”
“Those are my orders, Dr. Petrie,” came in a cultured voice.
And Petrie found that a Japanese gentleman who wore spectacles was smiling at him out of the shadows of the little passage-way.
“If those are your orders, good enough.”
The driver went out; the door was closed. And Petrie followed the Japanese to a back room, the appointments of which aroused him from the lethargy into which he was falling.
This might have been a private room in an up-to-date hairdresser’s establishment, or it might have been an actor’s dressing-room. All the impedimenta of make-up was represented and there was a big winged mirror set right of the window. The prospect was that of a wall beyond which appeared a number of chimneys.
“My name is Ecko Yusaki,” said the man who wore spectacles, “and it is a great privilege to meet you, Dr. Petrie. Will you please sit in the armchair, facing the light.”
Petrie sat in the armchair.
“Your interests are not the same as my own,” the smooth voice continued, and Mr. Yusaki busied himself with mysterious preparations; “but they are, I imagine, as keen. I am one of the most ancient brotherhood in the world, Dr. Petrie—the Si-Fan.” (He made a curious gesture with which Petrie was unpleasantly familiar) “and at last my turn has come to be useful. I am—” he turned, displaying a row of large, gleaming teeth—“a specialist in make-up, but recently returned from Hollywood.”
“I see,” said Petrie. “Regard me as entirely in your hands.” Thereupon, courteously, and with a deft assurance which spoke of the enthusiast, Mr. Yusaki set to work.
Petrie submitted, closing his eyes and thinking of Fleurette, of his wife, of Nayland Smith, of Sterling, of all those caught in the mesh of the dreadful Chinese doctor.
At last, Mr. Yusaki seemed to be satisfied, and:
“Please glance at this photograph, Dr. Petrie,” he said... “No! One moment!” he snatched the photograph away... “Through these!”
He adjusted tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles over Petrie’s ears.
Petrie stared at a photograph nearly life size which the Japanese was holding before him. It was that of a man apparently gray-haired, who wore a mustache and a short pointed beard, and who also wore spectacles; a sad looking man nearer sixty than fifty, but well preserved for his years. “You see?”
“Yes. Who is it?”
“Please look now in the mirror.”
Petrie turned to the big mirror.
“Good God!” he exclaimed. “Good God!”
He saw the original of the photograph—yet the face at which he looked was his own!
Speech failed him for a moment, and then:
“Who am I?” he asked, in a dull voice.
“You are a member of the Si-Fan—” Again the respectful gesture resembling the Roman Catholic Sign of the Cross—“who today is making a great sacrifice for the Cause. My part is done, Dr. Petrie— except for a small change of dress; and the car is waiting...”
CHAPTER SIXTY
DR. PETRIE’S PATIENT
When the Queenstown Bay came to her berth, Dr. Petrie was one of the first visitors aboard.
Shortly after he
reached the deck, endeavoring to recall his instructions, an elderly Egyptian, wearing European dress, approached him. The usual scurry characterized the docking of the liner; stewards and porters were rushing about with baggage; visitors were looking for those they had come to meet; cargo was being swung out from the holds; and drizzling rain descended dismally upon the scene.
“Dr. Petrie!”
The man spoke urgently, close to Petrie’s ear.
“Yes.”
“My name is Ibrahim. Please—your dock check.”
Petrie handed the slip to the Egyptian.
“Please wait here. I shall come back.”
He moved along the deck, and presently disappeared amongst a group of passengers crowding towards the gangway.
Petrie felt that he was in a dream. Yet he forced himself to play his part in this grotesque pantomime, the very purpose of which he could not comprehend: the sanity of his daughter was at stake.
Ibrahim rejoined him. He handed him a passport.
“Please see that it is in order,” he said. “You have to pass the Customs.”
Petrie, inured to shock, opened the little book; saw a smaller version of the photograph which Mr. Yusaki had shown to him, gummed upon the front page; and learned that he was a Mr. Jacob Edward Crossland, aged fifty-five, of no occupation, and residing at 14, Westminster Mansions!
The extent and the powers of the organization called the Si-Fan were so amazing that he had never succeeded in getting used to them. No society, with the possible exception of the Jesuits, ever had wielded such influence nor had its roots so deeply set in unsuspected quarters.
He could only assume that Mr. Crossland, husband of the well-known woman novelist, was one of these strange brethren: assume, too, that Mr. Crossland would slip ashore as a visitor.
And—what?
Disappear from his place in society? Yusaki had said he was making a great sacrifice for the Cause. It was all very wonderful and very terrifying.
“I have tipped the stewards, effendim—and your baggage is already in the Custom House. Will you please follow me?...”
