by Sax Rohmer
I closed my eyes for a moment. My head was aching furiously, and my mouth so parched that it caused me constantly to cough, every cough producing excruciating pain.
Then I opened my eyes again. But the insane apartment remained. I sat up and swung my feet to the floor.
The covering had the feeling of rubber, as its appearance indicated. My new viewpoint brought other objects within focus. In a white metal rack was ranged a series of vessels resembling test tubes. The smallest was perhaps a foot high, and from this the others graduated like the pipes of an organ, creating an impression in my mind of something seen through a powerful lens.
Each tube was about half filled with some sort of thick fluid, and this, from vessel to vessel, passed through shades from deepest ruby to delicate rose pink.
I stood up.
And now I could see the whole of that fabulous room. I perceived that it was a kind of laboratory — containing not one instrument nor one system of lighting with which I was acquainted!
Other items of its equipment now became visible, and I realized that a continuous throbbing characterized the whole place. Some powerful plant was at work. This throbbing, which was more felt than heard, and the crackling of those changing rays, alone disturbed the silence.
Still doubting if I really lived, if I had been rescued from the thug, I asked myself — assuming it to be so — who was my rescuer, and to what strange sanctuary had he brought me?
No human figure was visible.
And now I observed a minor but a curious point: the rubber couch upon which I had been lying was placed in a corner. And upon the floor-covering were two black lines forming a right angle. Its ends, touching the walls, made a perfect square — in which I stood.
I looked about that cavernous place, pervaded by a sort of violent light, and I realized that certain pieces of apparatus, and certain tables, were surrounded by similar black marks upon the floor.
Apparently there was no door, nor could I find anything resembling a bell. If this were not mirage — or death — what was this place in which I found myself; and why was I there alone?
I set out to explore.
One step forward I made, and had essayed a second, when I recall uttering a loud cry.
As my foot crossed the black mark on the floor, a shock ran through my body which numbed my muscles! I dropped to my knees, looking about me — perhaps, had there been any to see, as caged animals glare from their cages.
What did it mean? That some impassable barrier hedged me in!
The shock had served a double purpose: it had frightened me intensely — this I confess without hesitation; but as I got to my feet again, I knew that also it had revived that cold, murderous rage which had governed my mind up to the moment that the Dacoit had buried his fingers in my throat.
“Where the devil am I?” I said aloud; “and what am I doing here?”
I sprang forward... and fell back as though a cunning opponent had struck me a straight blow over the heart!
Collapsed on the rubber-covered floor I lay quivering — temporarily stunned. I experienced, now, not so much fear as awe. I was a prisoner of the invisible.
But, looking about at the nameless things which surrounded me, I knew that the invisible must be controlled by an intelligence. If this were not death — I had fallen into a trap.
I rose up again, shaken, but master of myself. Then I sat down on the couch. I felt in the pocket of my overalls — and found my cigarette case! A box of Monaco matches (which rarely light) was there also. I lighted a cigarette. My hands were fairly steady.
Some ghostly image of the truth — a mocking reply to those doubts which I had held hitherto — jazzed spectrally before me. I stared around, looking up at the dull, glassy roof, and at unimaginable instruments and paraphernalia which lent this place the appearance of a Martian factory, devoted to experiments of another age — another planet.
Then I sprang up.
A panel in one of the glass walls slid open. A man came in. The panel closed behind him. He stood, looking in my direction.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. DR. FU-MANCHU
He wore a plain yellow robe and walked in silent, thick-soled slippers. Upon his head was set a little black cap surmounted by a coral bead. His hands concealed in the loose sleeves of his robe, he stood there, watching me.
And I knew that this man had the most wonderful face that I had ever looked upon.
It was aged, yet ageless. I thought that if Benvenuto Cellini had conceived the idea of executing a death-mask of Satan in gold, it must have resembled very closely this living-dead face upon which my gaze was riveted.
He was fully six feet in height and appeared even taller by reason of the thickly padded slippers which he wore. For the little cap (which I recognized from descriptions I had read to be that of a mandarin of high rank) I substituted mentally the astrakhan cap of the traveller glimpsed in the big car on the Corniche road; for the yellow robe, the fur-collared coat.
I knew at the instant that he entered that I had seen him twice before; the second time, at Quinto’s.
One memory provoked another.
Although in the restaurant he had sat with his back towards me, I remembered now, and must have noted it subconsciously at the time, that tortoiseshell loops had surrounded his yellow, pointed ears. He had been wearing spectacles.
Then, as he moved slowly and noiselessly in my direction, I captured the most elusive memory of all —
I had seen this man in a dream — riding a purple cloud which swept down upon a doomed city!
The veil was torn — no possibility of misunderstanding remained. Those brilliant green eyes, fixed upon me in an unflinching regard, conveyed as though upon astral rays a sense of force unlike anything I had known.
This was Dr. Fu-Manchu!
My gothic surroundings, the man’s awesome personality, my attempt to cross the black line surrounding an invisible prison, these things had temporarily put me out of action. But now, as this definite conviction seized upon my mind, my hand plunged to my pocket.
Flesh and blood might fail to pass that mysterious zone; perhaps a bullet would succeed.
The man in the yellow robe now stood no more than ten feet away from me. And as I jerked my hand down, a sort of film passed instantaneously over those green eyes, conveying a momentary — but no more than momentary — impression of blindness. This phenomenon disappeared in the very instant that I came to my senses — in the very instant that I remembered I was wearing strange garments...
How mad of me to look for a charged automatic in the pocket of these white overalls!
I set my foot upon the smouldering cigarette which I had dropped, and with clenched fists faced my jailer; for I could no longer blink the facts of the situation.
“Ah! Mr. Sterling,” he said, and approached me so closely that he stood but a pace beyond the black line. “Your attempt to explore the radio research room caused a signal to appear in my study, and I knew that you had revived.”
His voice had a guttural quality, the sibilants being very stressed. He spoke deliberately, giving every syllable its full value. I suppose, in a way, he spoke perfect English, yet many words so treated sounded wholly unfamiliar so that I knew I had never heard them pronounced in that manner before.
I could think of nothing to say. I was helpless, and this man had come to mock me.
“You seem to have a disregard for the sanctity of human life,” he continued, “unusual in Englishmen. You killed one of my servants at the Villa Jasmin — a small matter. But your zeal for murder did not end there. Fortunately, I was less than half a mile behind at the time, and I had you carried to a place of safety before some passing motorist should be attracted by the spectacle of two bodies in the Corniche road. You mortally wounded Gana Ghat, head of my Burmese bodyguard.”
“I am glad to hear it,” I replied.
Those green eyes watched me immutably.
“Rejoice not unduly,” he said softly. “I wished
you no harm, but you have thrust yourself upon me. As a result, you find yourself in China—”
“In China!”
I heard the note of horror in my own voice. My glance strayed swiftly around that incredible room, and returned again to the tall, impassive, yellow-robed figure.
Good heavens! It was a shattering idea — yet not wholly impossible. I had no means of knowing how long I had been unconscious. The dreadful theory flashed through my mind that this brilliant madman — for I could not account him sane — had, by means of drugs, kept me in a comatose condition, and had had me transported in some private vessel from France to China.
I tried to challenge those glittering green eyes — but the task was one beyond my powers.
“You left me no choice,” Dr. Fu-Manchu went on. “I can permit no stranger to intrude upon my experiments. It was a matter of deciding between your death — which would not have profited me — and your services, which may do so.”
He turned slowly and walked in the direction of the hidden glass door. He glanced at me over his shoulder.
“Follow,” he directed.
Since at the moment I could see no alternative to obedience, I stepped cautiously forward.
There was no shock when I passed the black line, but I continued to move warily across that silent floor, in the direction of the opening in which the Chinaman stood, glancing back at me.
The idea of springing upon him the moment I found myself within reach crossed my mind. But China! If I should actually be in China, what fate awaited me in the event of my attack being successful?
I knew something of the Chinese, having met and employed many of them. I had found them industrious, kindly, and simple. My knowledge of the punishments inflicted by autocratic officials in the interior was confined entirely to hearsay. Certain stories came back to me now, counselling prudence. If Nayland Smith were correct, it would be a good deed to rid the world of this Chinese physician — even at the price of a horrible martyrdom.
But I might fail... and pay the price nevertheless.
These were my thoughts as I drew nearer and nearer to the glass door. I had almost reached it when Fu-Manchu spoke again.
“Dismiss any idea of personal attack,” he said in a soft voice, the sibilants more than usually pronounced. “Accept my assurance that it could not possibly succeed. Follow!”
He moved on, and I crossed the threshold into a small room furnished as a library. Many of the volumes burdening the shelves were in strange bindings, and their lettering in characters even less familiar. There was a commodious table upon which a number of books lay open. Also, there was a smell in the room which I thought I identified as that of burning opium; and a little jade pipe lying in a bronze tray served to confirm my suspicion.
The library was lighted by one silk-shaded lantern suspended from the ceiling, and by a queer globular lamp set in an ebony pedestal on a corner of the table.
So much I observed as I crossed this queer apartment, richly carpeted, and came by means of a second doorway into the largest glasshouse I had seen outside Kew Gardens. Its floor was covered with that same rubber-like material used in the “radio research room.”
The roof was impressively lofty, and the vast conservatory softly lighted by means of some system of hidden lamps. Tropical heat prevailed, and a damp, miasmatic smell. There were palms there, and flowering creepers, rare shrubs in perfect condition, and banks of strange orchids embedded amid steaming moss.
CHAPTER NINETEEN. THE SECRET JUNGLE
The place was a bulb-hunter’s paradise, a dream jungle, in parts almost impenetrable by reason of the fact that luxurious growths had overrun the sometimes narrow paths.
I discovered as we proceeded that it was divided into sections, and that the temperature, in what was really a series of isolated forcing houses, varied from tropical to subtropical. The doors were very ingenious. There was a space between them large enough to accommodate several persons, and a gauge set beside a thermometer which could be adjusted as one door was closed before the next was opened.
Let me confess that I myself had ceased to exist. I was submerged in the flowers, in the jungle, in the vital, intense personality of my guide. This was phantasy — yet it was not phantasy. It was a mad reality: the dream of a super-scientist, a genius whose brilliance transcended anything normally recognized, expressed in rare foliage, in unique blooms.
Dr. Fu-Manchu consented to enlighten me from point to point.
At an early stage he drew my attention to species which I had sought in vain in the forests of Brazil; to orchids which Borneo, during one long expedition, had failed to reveal to me: Indian varieties and specimens from the Burmese swamps.
“This is mango-apple, a fruit which first appeared here two months ago... Notice near its roots the beautiful flowers which occasion the heavy perfume — Cypripedium-Cycaste; a hybrid cultivated in these houses successfully for the first time... the very large blooms are rose-peonies — scentless, of course, but interesting...”
At one point in a very narrow path, overhung by a most peculiar type of hibiscus in full bloom, he paused and pointed.
I saw pitcher plants of many species, and not far away drosophyllum — of that kind of which I had already met with two specimens.
“These insectivorous varieties,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu, “have proved useful in certain experiments. I have outlined several inquiries, upon which I shall request you to commence work shortly, relating to this interesting subject. We come now to the botanical research room...”
He opened a door, and with one long-nailed yellow hand beckoned me imperiously to follow.
I obeyed.
He closed the door and adjusted the gauge, continuing to speak as he did so.
“You will work under the direction of Companion Herman Trenck—”
“What!” His words aroused me from a sort of stupor. “Dr. Trenck? Trenck died five years ago in Sumatra!”
Dr. Fu-Manchu opened the second door, and I saw a beautifully equipped laboratory, but much smaller than that in which I had first found myself.
A Chinaman wearing white overalls resembling my own bowed to my guide and stood aside as we entered.
Bending over a microscope was a grey-haired, bearded man. I had met him once; twice heard him lecture. He stood upright and confronted us.
No possibility of doubt remained. It was Herman Trenck... who had been dead for five years!
Dr. Fu-Manchu glanced aside at me.
“It will be your privilege, Mr. Sterling,” he said, “to meet under my roof many distinguished dead men.”
He turned to the famous Dutch botanist.
“Companion Trenck,” he continued, “allow me to introduce to you your new assistant. Companion Alan Sterling, of whose work I know you have heard.”
“Indeed, yes,” said the Dutchman cordially, and advanced with outstretched hand. “It is a great pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sterling, and a great privilege to enjoy such assistance. Your recent work in Brazil for the Botanical Society is well known to me.”
I shook hands. I was a man in a dream. This was a dream meeting.
Of the bona fides of Dr. Trenck in life, there could never have been any question. His was one of the great names in botany. But now, I thought, I had entered a spirit world, under the guidance of a master magician.
“If you will pardon me,” said Trenck, “there is something here to which I must draw the doctor’s attention.”
I made no reply. I stood stricken silent, now most horribly convinced that my first impression had been the true one — that definitely I was dead. And I watched, as that tall, gaunt figure in the yellow robe bent over the microscope. Herman Trenck studied his every movement with intense anxiety; and presently:
“Not yet,” said the Chinaman, standing upright. “But you are very near.”
“I agree,” said the Dutch botanist earnestly.
“That I am still wrong?”
“It is more probable, doctor, tha
t I am wrong...”
And it was at this moment, while I firmly believed that I had stepped into the other world, that a phrase flashed through my mind, spoken in a low, musical voice:
“Think of me as Derceto...”
Fleurette!
This thought was powerful enough to drag me away from that phantasmal laboratory — powerful enough to make me forget, for a moment, Dr. Fu-Manchu, and the dead Dutch botanist who talked with him so earnestly.
Was Fleurette also a phantom?
Did Fleurette belong to the life of which until recently I had believed myself to form a unit, or was she one of the living-dead? In either case, she belonged to Dr. Fu-Manchu; and every idea which I had formed respecting her was scrapped, swept away by this inexorable tidal wave which had carried me into a ghost world...
A new thought. Perhaps this was insanity!
In the course of my struggle with the Dacoit I might have received a blow upon the skull, and all this be but a dream within a dream; delirium, feverish fancy.
Through all these chaotic speculations a guttural voice issued a command:
“Follow.”
And dumbly, blindly, I followed.
CHAPTER TWENTY. DREAM CREATURES
I found myself in a long, gloomily lighted corridor.
My frame of mind by this time was one which I cannot hope to convey in words. In a setting fantastic, chimerical, I had found myself face to face with that eerie monster whose existence I had seriously doubted — Dr. Fu-Manchu. I had been made helpless by means of some electrical device outside my experience. I had seen botanical monstrosities which challenged sanity... and I had shaken the hand of a dead man!
Now, as I followed my tall, yellow-clad guide:
“The radio research room,” he said, “in which you recently found yourself, is in charge of Companion Henrick Ericksen.”
This was too much; it broke through the cloud of apathy which had been descending upon me.
“Ericksen!” I exclaimed. “Inventor of the Ericksen Ray? He died during the World War — or soon after!”
“The most brilliant European brain in the sphere of what is loosely termed radio. Van Rembold, the mining engineer, also is with us. He ‘died,’ as you term it, a few months before Ericksen. His work in the radium mines of Ho Nan has proved to be valuable.”
