by Sax Rohmer
I despised myself completely. This man—I judged him to be not less than seventy years of age—held no weapon other than a small tube, yet had me cowed. I was afraid to attack him, afraid to defend myself—for behind this thing which he held I saw all the deadly armament of his genius.
But my weakness of spirit was not due entirely to cowardice, to fear of the dreadful Chinese doctor. It was due in great part to sudden recognition of the frightful duplicity of Ardatha! She, she whom I longed to worship, she had tricked me into opening my door to this awful being!
“Do not misjudge Ardatha.”
Those words had something of the effect of a flash of lightning. In the first place, they answered my unspoken thought (which alone was terrifying), and in the second place, they brought hope to a mind filled with black despair.
“Tonight,” that strange impressive voice continued, “Ardatha lives, or Ardatha dies. One of my purposes is to be present at your interview, for I know that this interview is to take place.”
Love of a woman goes deep in a man as I learnt at that moment; for, clutching this slender thread of promise—a thread strengthened by Nayland Smith’s assurance that Dr Fu Manchu never lied—I found a new strength and a new courage. I raised my eyes.
“Make no fatal mistake, Mr. Kerrigan,” he said coldly, precisely. “You are weighing your weight against mine, youth against age. But consider this device which I hold in my hand. From a thing which once demanded heavy cables and arc lamps, it is now, as you see”—always pointing in my direction—”a small tube. I dislike that which is cumbersome. The apparatus with which I project those visible and audible images of which you have had experience can be contained in a suitcase. There are no masts, no busy engine rooms, no dynamos.”
I watched him but did not move.
“This is Ericksen’s Ray, in its infancy at the so-called death of its inventor, Doctor Sven Ericksen—rather before your time, I think—but now, perfected. Allow me to demonstrate its powers.”
He pointed the thing, which I now decided resembled a hypodermic syringe, towards a vase which Mrs. Merton had filled that morning with flowers.
“Do you value that vase, Mr. Kerrigan?”
“Not particularly. Why?”
“Because I propose to use it as a demonstration. Watch.”
He appeared to press a button at the end of the silver tube. There was no sound, no light, but where the vase of flowers had been there appeared a momentary cloud, a patch of darkness. I became aware of an acrid smell . . .
Vase and flowers had disappeared!
“Ericksen is a genius. You will observe that I say ‘is.’ For although dead to the world, he lives—to work for me. You will realize now why I said that I held death in my hands. Ardatha is coming to see you. She loves you: and when any of my women becomes thus infatuated with one who does not belong to me, I deal with her as I see fit. If she has betrayed me she shall die . . . Stand still! If she merely loves which is fallible but human, I may spare her. I am come in person, Mr. Kerrigan, not for this purpose alone, but for that of recovering from you the letter of instruction signed by every member of the Council of Seven, which Sir Denis Nayland Smith—I have always recognized his qualities—secured this afternoon from a house in Surrey.”
I did not speak; I continued to watch the tube.
“Love so transforms a woman that even my powers of plumbing human nature may be defeated. I am uncertain how low Ardatha has fallen in disloyalty to the Si-Fan where you have been concerned. I shall learn this tonight. But first, where is the document?”
I glanced into the brilliant green eyes and quickly glanced aside.
“I don’t know.”
He was silent. That deadly tube remained pointed directly at my breast.
“No. I recognize the truth. He brought it here but left without it. He has concealed it. He was afraid that my agents would intercept him on the way. He was afraid of you. No matter. Answer me. He left it here?”
I stared dazedly at the tube. The hand of Dr Fu Manchu might have been carved of ivory: it was motionless.
“Look at me—answer!”
I raised my eyes. Dr Fu Manchu spoke softly.
“He left it. I thought so. I shall find it.”
My doorbell rang.
“This is Ardatha.” The voice became guttural, a voice of doom. “You have a fine mushrabiyeh screen here, Mr. Kerrigan, which I believe you brought from Arabia when you went there on behalf of your newspaper last autumn. I shall stand behind this screen, and you will admit Ardatha. She has been followed; she is covered. Any attempt to leave the building would be futile. Do not dare to warn her of my presence. Bring her into this room and let her say what she has come to say. I shall be listening. Upon her words rest life or death. Always I am just.”
Fists clenched, bathed in clammy perspiration, I turned and walked to the door.
“No word, no hint of warning—or I shall not spare you!”
I opened the door. Ardatha stood on the landing.
“My dear!” I exclaimed.
God knows how I looked, how wild my eyes must have been, but she crept into my extended arms as into a haven.
“Darling! I cannot bear it any longer! I had to come to save you!” I thought that our embrace would never end, except in death.
The Mushrabiyeh Screen
Ardatha, perhaps with the very next word which she uttered, was about to betray herself to the master of the Si-Fan!
My inclination was to take her up and race downstairs to the street. But Fu Manchu’s servants were watching; he had said so, and he never lied. On the other hand, few human brains could hold a secret long from those blazing green eyes. If I tried to warn her, if I failed to return, I was convinced deep within me that it would be the end of us. I thought of that gleaming tube like a hypodermic syringe of which Dr Fu Manchu had said:
“I hold death in my hand.”
No, I must return to the study must allow Ardatha to say what she was there to say—and abide by the consequences.
Her manner was strangely disturbed: I had felt her trembling during those bitter-sweet moments when I had held her in my arms. Remembering her composure on the occasion of that secret visit in Venice, I knew that tonight marked some crisis in her affairs—in mine—perhaps in the history of the world.
I led her towards the study. At the doorway she looked up at me. I tried to tell her silently with my eyes (but knew how hopelessly I failed) that behind the mushrabiyeh screen Dr Fu Manchu was hidden.
“Sit down, dear, and let me get you a drink.”
I forced myself to speak casually, but:
“No, no, please don’t go!” she said. “I want nothing. I had to see you, but I have only a few moments in which to tell you—oh, so many things! Please listen.” The amethyst eyes were wide open as she raised them to me. “Every second is of value. Just stay where you are and listen!”
Looking down at her, I stood there. She wore a very simple frock and her adorable creamy arms were bare. The red gleam of her wind-blown hair filled me with an insane longing to plunge my fingers in its living waves. I watched her. I tried to tell her . . .
“Although the affair of Venice was successful in its main purpose,” she went on swiftly, “it failed in some other ways. High officials of the French police know that James Brownlow Wilton was stolen away from the Blue Train, that it was not James Brownlow Wilton who died on the yacht. Sir Denis—yes?—he knows all about it too. And Baron Trenck, who silenced General Diesler, he was not given safe protection . . . All these things are charged against the president.”
She spoke those words with awe—the president! And watching her, watching her intently, I tried to say without moving my lips:
“The president is here!”
But as a telepathist I found myself a failure, for she continued:
“I betray no Si-Fan secrets in what I tell you, because I tell you only what you know already. I am one of them—and all the wrong I have ever d
one has been to try to save you. Because I am a woman I cannot help myself. But now what I am here to say to you—and when I have said it I must go—is this: A new president is to be elected!”
“What!”
“By him all the power of the Si-Fan—you cannot even guess what that power is—will be turned upon Sir Denis and—you.”
She clasped her hands and stood up.
“Please, please! if you value my happiness a little bit I beseech you from my soul, when that notice comes, make him obey it! Force him to obey it! Imprison him if you like!—for I tell you, if you fail in this, nothing, nothing on earth can save him—nor you! Come to the door with me, but no further. I must go.”
“But not yet, Ardatha!”
Dr Fu Manchu stepped from behind the screen.
It was a situation so appalling that it seemed to dull my sensibilities. Such a weakling and traitor did I stand in my own regard that I would have welcomed complete oblivion.
Ardatha drew back from that tall cloaked figure—back and back—until she came to the wall behind her; and there, arms outstretched, she stood. The color was draining from her cheeks, her expression was one of utter despair.
“Look at me, Ardatha”—Dr Fu Manchu spoke softly.
As she raised her eyes to the majestic evil of his face I thought of a hare and a cobra.
“I am satisfied”—his voice was little more than a whisper—”that your motives have been as you say, but I can no longer employ you in my personal service. Mr. Kerrigan”—it was a harsh command. He raised the Ericksen tube—”be good enough to look out of your window and to report to me what you see.”
Without hesitation I obeyed, stepping forward to the window so that Dr Fu Manchu stood behind me.
“Draw the curtain aside.”
I did so. Immediately I recognized the fact that the house was invested by the forces of the Si-Fan!
Two men over by the closed park gate unmistakably were watching the windows. Two others lingered in conversation near the door below. A big car was drawn up on the comer, and another pair were engaged in peering under the bonnet.
“Be good enough, Mr. Kerrigan, to raise your hand. The signal will be understood.”
Automatically, I was about to obey . . . when a number of strange things happened.
A car coming from the direction of Marble Arch swung out sharply against oncoming traffic. It was pulled up by a skilful driver almost directly at my door. Another, approaching from the opposite direction, stopped with a great shrieking of brakes almost at the park gate. A third, which apparently had been following the first, checked dead on the comer of Porchester Terrace.
In a matter of seconds twelve or fifteen men were disgorged into Bayswater Road . . . Without a moment’s hesitation they hurled themselves upon the loiterers!
My heart leapt madly. It was the flying squad!
One warning came; and one only—a weird, minor, wailing cry—but I knew that it was meant for Dr Fu Manchu. Its effect was immediate. From behind me he spoke in a changed voice, harsh, gutteral:
“What has occurred? Answer.”
“The police, I think. Three cars.”
“Stay where you are. Don’t stir. Ardatha—with me.”
I stood still, fists clenched, watching the melee below.
“Bart! Bart!” Ardatha cried my name despairingly.
“Be silent! Precede me.”
I heard them hurrying along the passage. But he had said “Don’t stir,” and I did not stir. I made no move until the opening and closing of the door told me that they were gone. Then I sprang around.
Footsteps were bounding up the stairs. I could hear excited voices—and an amazing, an all but unbelievable fact dawned upon me:
Dr Fu Manchu was trapped!
Pursuing A Shadow
“Kerrigan! Kerrigan!”
Nayland Smith was banging on the door.
I ran to open it. He sprang in, his eyes gleaming excitedly. He had removed the synthetic beard but still wore his shabby suit. Beside him was Inspector Gallaho, head bandaged beneath a soft hat which took the place of his usual tight-fitting bowler. Four or five plainclothes police came crowding up behind.
“Where is he?”
“Gone! He went at the moment that I heard you on the stair!”
“What!”
“That’s not possible,” growled Gallaho, staring at me in a questioning way. “No one passed us, that I’ll swear.”
“Lights on that upper stair!” snapped Smith. “Stay where you are, Gallaho—you men, also.”
He examined me intently.
“I know what you’re thinking. Smith,” I said, “but I am quite myself. Ardatha and Fu Manchu were here two minutes ago. He held me up with a thing which disintegrates whatever it touches.”
“Ericksen’s Ray?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Good God! But it’s a cumbersome affair!”
“No larger than a fountain pen. Smith! He has perfected it, so he says. But—where is he?”
Nayland Smith tugged at the lobe of his ear.
“You say the girl went with him?”
“Yes.”
“Who lives above?”
“A young musician, Basil Acton—but he’s abroad at present.”
“Sure?”
He began to run upstairs, crying out over his shoulder:
“Gallaho and two men! The others stand by where they are.”
We reached the top landing and paused before my neighbor’s closed door.
Gallaho rang the bell, but there was no response.
“Hello!”
Smith stooped.
I had switched on the landing light, and now I saw what had attracted his attention. Also I became aware of a queer acrid smell.
Where a Yale lock had been there was nothing but a hole, some two inches in diameter, drilled clean through the door!
“It’s bolted inside,” said Gallaho.
“But they are trapped!” I cried excitedly. “There is no other way out!”
“Unfortunately,” growled Gallaho,”there is no other way in. Down to the tool chest, somebody.”
There came a rush of footsteps on the stair, an interval during which Gallaho tried to peer through the hole in the door and Nayland Smith, ear pressed to a panel, listened but evidently heard nothing. To the high landing window which overlooked Bayswater Road rose sounds of excited voices from the street below.
“Seven black beauties roped in there,” said Gallaho grimly,”but it remains to be seen if we’ve got anything on them.”
One of the flying squad men returning with the necessary implements, it was a matter of only a few minutes to break the door down. I had been in my neighbour’s flat on one or two occasions, and when we entered I switched the lights up, for we found it in darkness.
“Is there anyone here?” called Gallaho.
There was no reply.
We entered the big, untidy apartment which, sometimes to my sorrow, I knew that Acton used as a music room. It had something of the appearance of a studio. Bundles of music were littered on chairs and settees. The grand piano was open. An atmosphere stale as that inside a pyramid told of closed windows. Knowing his careless ways, I doubted if Acton had made arrangements to have his flat cleaned or aired during his absence. There was no one there.
“How many rooms, Kerrigan?” Smith snapped.
“Four, and a kitchenette.”
“Three men stay on the landing!” shouted Gallaho.
We explored every foot of the place, and the only evidence we found to show that Dr Fu Manchu and Ardatha had entered was the hole drilled through the front door, until:
“What’s this?” cried one of the searchers.
We hurried into the kitchenette which bore traces of a meal prepared at some time but not cleared up. The man had opened a big cupboard in which I saw an ascending ladder.
“The cisterns are up there,” I explained. “This is an old house converted.�
��
“At last!” Smith’s eyes glinted. “That’s where he is hiding!”
Before I could restrain him he had darted up the ladder, shining the light of a flashlamp ahead. Gallaho followed and I came next.
We found ourselves under the sloping roof in an attic containing several large tanks, unventilated, and oppressively stuffy.
There was no one there.
“Doctor Fu Manchu is a man of genius,” said Smith, “but not a spirit. He must be somewhere in this building.”
“Not so certain, sir!” came a cry.
One of the Scotland Yard men was directing light upon lath and plaster at that side of the attic furthest from the door. It revealed a ragged hole—and now we all detected a smell of charred wood.
“What’s beyond there?” Gallaho demanded.
“The adjoining house, at the moment in the hands of renovators. It is being converted into modern flats.”
But already Smith, stooping, was making his way through the aperture—and we all followed.
We found ourselves in an attic similar to that which we had quitted. We crossed it and climbed down a ladder. At the bottom was a room smelling strongly of fresh paint, cluttered up with decorators’ materials, in fact almost impassable. We forced a way through onto the landing, to discover planks stretched across a staircase, scaffolding, buckets of whitewash . . .
Nayland Smith ran down the stairs like a man demented, and even now in memory I can recapture the thud of our hammering feet as we followed him. It drummed around that empty, echoing house; the lights of our lamps danced weirdly on stripped walls, bare boards and half-painted woodwork. We came to the lobby. Smith flung open the front door.
It opened not on Bayswater Road as in the case of the adjoining house, but upon a side street, Porchester Terrace. He raced down three steps and stood there looking to right and to left.
Dr Fu Manchu had escaped . . .
* * *
“The biggest failure of my life, Kerrigan.”
Nayland Smith was pacing up and down my study; he had even forgotten to light his pipe. His face was wan—lined.
“I don’t think I follow, Smith. It’s amazing that you arrived here in the nick of time. His escape is something no one could have anticipated. He has supernormal equipment. This disintegrating ray which he carried defeats locks, bolts and bars. How could any man have foreseen it?”
