by Sax Rohmer
“Mrs. Valetti and the man lay side by side upon the day-bed in the sitting-room. On the woman’s arms and on the man’s neck there were a number of blood-red spots. They were both dead, and a window was wide open. Miss Dumas collapsed on recognizing the man as her fiancé, Paul Salvaletti. She is alleged to have uttered the words, ‘The Scarlet Bride’ — which the police engaged on the case believe to relate to the dead woman. But Miss Dumas, to whom the sympathy of the entire country goes out in this hour of her unimaginable sorrow, is critically ill and cannot be questioned.
“The crisis which this tragedy will create in political circles it would be impossible to exaggerate…”
CHAPTER FORTY. “THUNDER OF WATERS”
“They’re just landing!” cried the man in the bows of the Customs launch— “at the old Indian Ferry.”
“Guess those Canadian bums showed ‘emselves,” growled another voice. “We had ’em trapped, if they’d gone ashore where they planned.”
Nayland Smith standing up and peering through night-glasses, saw a tall, dark figure on the rock-cut steps. It was unmistakable. It was Dr. Fu-Manchu! He saw him beckon to the second passenger in the little motor-boat; and the other, a man whose hair shone like silver in the moonlight, joined him on the steps. A third remained in the boat at the wheel. Dr. Fu-Manchu, arms folded, stood for a moment looking out across the river. He did not seem to be watching the approaching Customs craft so swiftly bearing down upon him, but rather to be studying the shadowed American bank, the frontier of the United States.
It came to Nayland Smith, as they drew nearer and nearer to the motionless figure, that Dr. Fu-Manchu was bidding a silent farewell to the empire he had so nearly won…
Just as words of command trembled on Smith’s lips Fu-Manchu spoke to the occupant of the boat; turned, and with his white-haired companion strode up the steps — steps hewn by the red man in days before any white traveler had seen or heard “The Thunder of Waters.”
The motor-boat spluttered into sudden life and set off downstream.
“Stop that man!” rapped Nayland Smith.
Dr. Fu-Manchu and the other already were lost in the shadow.
“Heave to — Federal orders!” roared a loud voice.
Farmer Clutterbuck’s motor-boat was kept on its course.
“Shall we let him have it?”
“Yes — but head for the steps.”
Three shots came almost together. Raising the glasses again, Nayland Smith had a glimpse of a form crouching low over the wheel… then a bluff which protected the Indian Ferry obscured the boat from sight. As they swung into the steps:
“What was that move?” somebody inquired. “I guess we missed him anyway.”
But Nayland Smith was already running up the steps. He found himself in a narrow gorge on one side completely overhung by tangled branches. He flashed a light ahead. Three Federal agents came clattering up behind him.
“What I’m wondering,” said one, “is, where’s Captain Hepburn.”
Nayland Smith wondered also. Hepburn, in another launch, had been put ashore higher up on the Canadian bank, armed with Smith’s personal card upon which a message had been scribbled…
Dr. Fu-Manchu and his companion seemed to have disappeared.
But now, heralded by a roar of propellors, Captain Kingswell came swooping down out of the night, and the first Véry light burst directly overhead! Nayland Smith paused, raised his glasses, and stared upward. Kingswell, flying very low, circled, dipped, and headed down river.
“He’s seen them!” snapped Smith.
Came a dim shouting… Hepburn was heading in their direction. A second light broke.
“By God!” Nayland Smith cried savagely, “are we all blind? Look at Kingswell’s signals. They have rejoined the motor-boat at some place below!”
Two more army planes flew into view…
“Back to the launch?” Smith shouted.
But when at last they set out again, the bat-like maneuvers of the aviators and the points at which they threw out their flares indicated that the cunning quarry had a long start. It seemed to Nayland Smith, crouched in the bows, staring ahead, that time, elastic, had stretched out to infinity. Then he sighted the motor-boat. Kingswell, above, was flying just ahead of it. He threw out a light.
In the glare, while it prevailed, a grim scene was shown. The man at the wheel (probably the same who had piloted the plane) lay over it, if not dead, unconscious; and the silver-haired passenger was locked in a fierce struggle with Dr. Fu-Manchu!
Professor Morgenstahl’s hour had come! In the stress of that last fight for freedom the Doctor’s control, for a matter of seconds only, had relaxed. But in those seconds Morgenstahl had acted…
“This is where we check out!” came a cry. “Hard over, Jim!”
Absorbed in the drama being played before him — a drama the real significance of which he could only guess — Nayland Smith had remained deaf to the deepening roar of the river. Suddenly the launch rolled and swung about.
“What’s this?” he shouted, turning.
“Twenty lengths more and we’d be in the rapids!”
The rapids!
He craned his head, looking astern. Somewhere, far back, a light broke. Three planes were flying low over the river… and now to his ears came the awesome song of Niagara, “The Thunder of Waters.”
An icy hand seemed to touch Nayland Smith’s heart…
Dr. Fu-Manchu had been caught in the rapids; no human power nor his own superlative genius could prevent his being carried over the great falls! The man who had dared to remodel nature’s forces had been claimed at last by the gods he had outraged.
THE DRUMS OF FU MANCHU
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE. MYSTERY COMES TO BAYSWATER
CHAPTER TWO. SIR MALCOLM’S GUEST
CHAPTER THREE. THE GREEN DEATH
CHAPTER FOUR. THE GIRL OUTSIDE
CHAPTER FIVE. THREE NOTICES
CHAPTER SIX. SATAN INCARNATE
CHAPTER SEVEN. “INSPECTOR GALLAHO REPORTS”
CHAPTER EIGHT. IN THE ESSEX MARSHES
CHAPTER NINE. THE HUT BY THE CREEK
CHAPTER TEN. THE MANDARIN’S CAP
CHAPTER ELEVEN. AT THE MONKS’ ARMS
CHAPTER TWELVE. DR. FU-MANCHU’S BODYGUARD
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. IN THE WINE CELLARS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. THE MONKS’ ARMS (CONCLUDED)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THE SI-FAN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN. GREAT OAKS
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. IN THE LABORATORY
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. DR. MARTIN JASPER
CHAPTER NINETEEN. CONSTABLE ISLES’S STATEMENT
CHAPTER TWENTY. A MODERN VAMPIRE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. THE RED BUTTON
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. LIVING DEATH
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. TREMORS UNDER EUROPE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. A CAR IN HYDE PARK
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. “THE BRAIN IS DR. FU-MANCHU”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX. VENICE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN. ARDATHA
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT. NAYLAND SMITH’S ROOM
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. VENICE CLAIMS A VICTIM
CHAPTER THIRTY. A WOMAN DROPS A ROSE
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE. PALAZZO MORI
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO. THE ZOMBIE
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE. ANCIENT TORTURES
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR. THE TONGS
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE. KORÊANI
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX. BEHIND THE ARRAS
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN. THE LOTUS FLOOR
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT. IN THE PALAZZO BRIONI
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE. SILVER HEELS
CHAPTER FORTY. SILVER HEELS (CONTINUED)
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE. SILVER HEELS (CONCLUDED)
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO. THE MAN IN THE PARK
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE. MY DOORBELL RINGS
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR. “ALWAYS I AM JUST”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE. THE MUSHRABÎYEH SCREEN
&nbs
p; CHAPTER FORTY-SIX. PURSUING A SHADOW
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN. WHAT HAPPENED IN DOWNING STREET
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT. “FIRST NOTICE”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE. BLUE CARNATIONS
CHAPTER FIFTY. ARDATHA’S MESSAGE
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE. THE THING WITH RED EYES
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO. THE THING WITH RED EYES (CONCLUDED)
CHAPTER ONE. MYSTERY COMES TO BAYSWATER
“Damn it! There is someone there!”
I sprang up irritably, jerked the curtains aside and stared down into Bayswater Road. My bell, “Bart Kerrigan” inscribed above it on a plate outside in the street, was sometimes rung wantonly, by late revellers. The bell was out of order and I had tried to ignore its faint tinkling. But now, staring down, I saw someone looking up at me as I stood in the lighted room: a man wearing a Burberry and a soft hat, a man who signalled urgently with his arms, indicating: “Come down!”
Shooting the bolt open so that I should not be locked out, I ran downstairs. A light in the glazed arcade which led to the front door refused to function. Groping my way I threw the door open.
The man in the Burberry almost upset me as he leapt in.
“Who the devil are you?”
The door was closed quietly and the intruder spoke, his back to it as he faced me.
“It’s not a holdup,” came in coldly incisive tones. “I just had to get in. Thanks, Kerrigan, but you were a long time coming down.”
“Good heavens!” I stepped forward in the darkness and extended my hand. “Nayland Smith! Can I believe it?”
“Absolutely! I was desperate. Is your bell out of order?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. Don’t turn the light up.”
“I can’t; the fuse is blown.”
“Good. I gather that I interrupted you, but I had an excellent reason. Come on.”
As we hurried up the semi-dark staircase, I found my brain in some confusion. And when we entered my flat:
“Leave your dining room in darkness,” snapped Nayland Smith. “I want to look out of the window.”
Breathless, between astonishment and the race up the stairs, I stood behind him as he stared out of the dining-room window. Two men were loitering near the front door — and glancing up toward my lighted study.
“Only just in time!” said Nayland Smith. “I tricked them — but you see how wonderfully they are informed. Evidently they know every possible spot in which I might take cover. Unpleasantly near thing, Kerrigan.”
In the lighted study I gazed at my visitor. Hat removed, Nayland Smith revealed a head of virile curling hair, more grey than black. Stripping off his Burberry, he faced me. His clean-cut features, burned by a recent visit to the tropics, looked almost haggardly thin, but the fire in his eyes, the tense nervous vitality of the man must have struck a spark of animosity or of friendship in any but a soul dead.
He stared at me analytically.
“You look well, Kerrigan. You have passed twenty-seven, but you are lean as a hare, clean-cut and obviously fit as a flea. The last time I saw you was in Addis-Ababa. You were sending articles to the Orbit and I was sending reports to the Foreign Office. Well, what is it now?”
He stared down at the littered writing desk. I moved towards the dining room.
“Drinks? Good!” he snapped. “But you must find them in the dark.”
“I understand.”
When presently I returned with a decanter and syphon:
“Look here,” I said, “I was never happier to see a man in my life. But bring me up to date: what’s the meaning of all this?”
Nayland Smith dropped a page which he had been reading and began reflectively to stuff coarse-cut mixture into his briar.
“You are writing a book about Abyssinia, I see.”
“Yes.”
“You are not on the staff of the Orbit, are you?”
“No. I am in the fortunate position of picking and choosing my jobs. I did the series on Abyssinia for them because I know that part of Africa pretty well. Now, I am doing a book on present conditions.”
As I poured out drinks:
“Excuse me,” said Nayland Smith, “I just want to make sure.”
He walked into the darkened dining room, carefully closing the door behind him. When he returned:
“May I use your phone?”
“Certainly.”
I handed him a drink of which he took a sip, then, raising the telephone receiver, he dialled a number rapidly, and:
“Yes!” His speech was curiously staccato. “Put me through to Chief Inspector Wessex’ office. Sir Denis Nayland Smith speaking. Hurry!”
There was an interval. I watched my visitor fascinatedly. In my considerable experience of men, I had never known one who lived at such high pressure.
“Is that Inspector Wessex?… Good. I have a job for you, Inspector. Instruct Paddington Police Station to send a party in a fast car. They will find two men — dark-skinned foreigners — hanging about near the corner of Porchester Terrace. They are to arrest them — never mind the charge — and lock them up. I will deal with them later. Can I leave this to you?”
Presumably the invisible chief inspector agreed to take charge of the matter, for Nayland Smith hung up the receiver.
“I have brought you your biggest story, Kerrigan. I know you can afford to await my word before publishing. I may add” — tapping the loose manuscript on the desk— “that you have missed the real truth about Abyssinia, but I can rectify that.” He began in his restless way to pace up and down the carpet. “Without mentioning any names, a prominent cabinet minister resigned quite recently. Do you recall it?”
“Certainly.”
“He was a wise man. Do you know why he retired?”
“There are several versions of the story.”
“He has a fine brain — and he retired because he recognised that there was in the world one first-class brain. He retired to review his ideas on the immediate destiny of civilisation.”
“What do you mean?”
“The thing most desired, Kerrigan, by all women, by all sensible men, in this life, is peace. Wars are made by few but fought by many. The greatest intellect in the world today has decided that there must be peace! It has become my business to try to save the lives of certain prominent persons who are blind enough to believe that they can make war. I was en route for Sir Malcolm Locke’s house, which is not five minutes’ drive away, when I realised that a small Daimler was following me. I remembered, fortunately, that your flat was here, and trusted to luck that you would be at home. I worked an old trick. Fey, my man, slowed up around a corner just before the following car had turned it. I stepped out and cut through a mews. Fey drove on. But my two followers evidently detected the trick. I saw them coming back just before you opened the door! They know I am in one of two buildings. What I don’t want them to know is where I am going. Hello — !”
The sound of a speeding automobile suddenly braked came up from Bayswater Road.
“Into the dining room!”
I dashed in behind Nayland Smith. We stared down. A police car stood outside. There were few pedestrians and there was comparatively little traffic. It was the lull before eleven o’clock, the lull which precedes the storm of returning theatre and picture goers. A queer scene was being enacted on the pavement almost directly below my windows.
Two men (except that they were dark fellows I could discern no more from my viewpoint) were struggling and protesting volubly amid a group of uniformed constables. Beyond, on the park side, I saw now a small car standing — it looked like a Daimler. A constable on patrol joined the party, and the police driver pointed in the direction of the Daimler. The expostulating prisoners were hustled in, the police car was driven off and the constable in the determined but leisurely way of his kind paced stolidly across the road.
“All clear!” said Nayland Smith. “Come along! I want you with me!”
“But, Sir Malcolm Locke? In wh
at way can he be?”
“He’s the cousin of the home secretary. As a matter of fact, he’s abroad. It isn’t Locke I want to see, but a guest who is staying at his house. I must get to him, Kerrigan, without a moment’s delay!”
“A guest?”
“Say, rather, someone who is hiding there.”
“Hiding?”
“I can’t mention his name — yet. But he returned secretly from Africa. He is the driving power behind one of Europe’s dictators. By consent of the British Foreign Office, he came, also secretly, to London. Can you imagine why?”
“No.”
“To see me!”
CHAPTER TWO. SIR MALCOLM’S GUEST
Fey, that expressionless, leather-faced valet-chauffeur of Nayland Smith’s, was standing at the door beside the Rolls, rug over arm, as though nothing unusual had occurred; and as we proceeded towards Sir Malcolm’s house, Smith, smoking furiously, fell into a silence which I did not care to interrupt.
I count myself psychic, for this is a Celtic heritage, yet on this short journey nothing told me that, although as correspondent for the Orbit I had had a not uneventful life, I was about to become mixed up in a drama the outcome of which meant nothing less than the destruction of what we are pleased to call Civilisation. And in averting Armageddon, by the oddest paradox I was to find myself opposed to the one man who, alone, could save Europe from destruction.
Sir Malcolm Locke’s house presented an unexpectedly festive appearance as we approached. Nearly every window in the large building was illuminated; a number of cars were drawn up and a considerable group of people had congregated outside the front door.
“Hello!” muttered Nayland Smith. He knocked out his pipe in the ash tray and dropped the briar into a pocket of his Burberry. “This is very odd.”
Before Fey had pulled in Smith was out and dashing up the steps. I followed and reached him just as the door was opened by a butler. The man’s face wore a horrified expression: a constable was hurrying up behind us.
“Sir Malcolm is not at home, sir.”
