by Sax Rohmer
“Note,” snapped Smith—but his voice was slightly hoarse.
He removed the points of the bracelets. The box immediately reclosed with no other sound than a faint click.
“God forgive him,” said Smith, glancing toward the other room, “for he died in my stead!—and Dr. Fu-Manchu scores an undeserved failure!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ZARMI REAPPEARS
“Come in!” I cried.
The door opened and a page-boy entered.
“A cable for Dr. Petrie.”
I started up from my chair. A thousand possibilities—some of a sort to bring dread to my heart—instantly occurred to me. I tore open the envelope and, as one does, glanced first at the name of the sender.
It was signed “Kâramaneh!”
“Smith!” I said hoarsely, glancing over the massage, “Kâramaneh is on her way to England. She arrives by the Nicobar tomorrow!”
“Eh?” cried Nayland Smith, in turn leaping to his feet. “She had no right to come alone, unless—”
The boy, open-mouthed, was listening to our conversation, and I hastily thrust a coin into his hand and dismissed him. As the door closed—
“Unless what, Smith?” I said, looking my friend squarely in the eyes.
“Unless she has learnt something, or—is flying away from someone!”
My mind set in a whirl of hopes and fears, longings and dreads.
“What do you mean, Smith?” I asked. “This is the place of danger, as we know to our cost; she was safe in Egypt.”
Nayland Smith commenced one of his restless perambulations, glancing at me from time to time and frequently tugging at the lobe of his ear.
“Was she safe in Egypt?” he rapped. “We are dealing, remember, with the Si-Fan, which, if I am not mistaken, is a sort of Eleusinian Mystery holding some kind of dominion over the Eastern mind, and boasting initiates throughout the Orient. It is almost certain that there is an Egyptian branch, or group—call it what you will—of the damnable organization.”
“But Dr. Fu-Manchu—”
“Dr. Fu-Manchu—for he lives, Petrie! my own eyes bear witness to the fact—Dr. Fu-Manchu is a sort of delegate from the headquarters. His prodigious genius will readily enable him to keep in touch with every branch of the movement, East and West.”
He paused to knock out his pipe into an ashtray and to watch me for some moments in silence.
“He may have instructed his Cairo agents,” he added significantly.
“God grant she get to England in safety,” I whispered. “Smith! can we make no move to round up the devils who defy us, here in the very heart of civilized England? Listen. You will not have forgotten the wild-cat Eurasian Zarmi?”
Smith nodded. “I recall the lady perfectly!” he snapped.
“Unless my imagination has been playing me tricks, I have seen her twice within the last few days—once in the neighborhood of this hotel and once in a cab in Piccadilly.”
“You mentioned the matter at the time,” said Smith shortly; “but although I made inquiries, as you remember, nothing came of them.”
“Nevertheless, I don’t think I was mistaken. I feel in my very bones that the Yellow hand of Fu-Manchu is about to stretch out again. If only we could apprehend Zarmi.”
Nayland Smith lighted his pipe with care.
“If only we could, Petrie!” he said; “but, damn it!”—he dashed his left fist into the palm of his right hand—“we are doomed to remain inactive. We can only await the arrival of Kâramaneh and see if she has anything to tell us. I must admit that there are certain theories of my own which I haven’t yet had an opportunity of testing. Perhaps in the near future such an opportunity may arise.”
How soon that opportunity was to arise neither of us suspected then; but Fate is a merry trickster, and even as we spoke of these matters events were brewing which were to lead us along strange paths.
With such glad anticipations as my pen cannot describe, their gladness not unmixed with fear, I retired to rest that night, scarcely expecting to sleep, so eager was I for the morrow. The musical voice of Kâramaneh seemed to ring in my ears; I seemed to feel the touch of her soft hands and to detect, as I drifted into the borderland betwixt reality and slumber, that faint, exquisite perfume which from the first moment of my meeting with the beautiful Eastern girl, had become to me inseparable from her personality.
It seemed that sleep had but just claimed me when I was awakened by someone roughly shaking my shoulder. I sprang upright, my mind alert to sudden danger. The room looked yellow and dismal, illuminated as it was by a cold light of dawn which crept through the window and with which competed the luminance of the electric lamps.
Nayland Smith stood at my bedside, partially dressed!
“Wake up, Petrie!” he cried; “your instincts serve you better than my reasoning. Hell’s afoot, old man! Even as you predicted it, perhaps in that same hour, the yellow fiends were at work!”
“What, Smith, what!” I said, leaping out of bed; “you don’t mean—”
“Not that, old man,” he replied, clapping his hand upon my shoulder; “there is no further news of her, but Weymouth is waiting outside. Sir Baldwin Frazer has disappeared!”
I rubbed my eyes hard and sought to clear my mind of the vapors of sleep.
“Sir Baldwin Frazer!” I said, “of Half-Moon Street? But what—”
“God knows what,” snapped Smith; “but our old friend Zarmi, or so it would appear, bore him off last night, and he has completely vanished, leaving practically no trace behind.”
Only a few sleeping servants were about as we descended the marble stairs to the lobby of the hotel where Weymouth was awaiting us.
“I have a cab outside from the Yard,” he said. “I came straight here to fetch you before going on to Half-Moon Street.”
“Quite right!” snapped Smith; “but you are sure the cab is from the Yard? I have had painful experience of strange cabs recently!”
“You can trust this one,” said Weymouth, smiling slightly. “It has carried me to the scene of many a crime.”
“Hem!” said Smith—“a dubious recommendation.”
We entered the waiting vehicle and soon were passing through the nearly deserted streets of London. Only those workers whose toils began with the dawn were afoot at that early hour, and in the misty gray light the streets had an unfamiliar look and wore an aspect of sadness in ill accord with the sentiments which now were stirring within me. For whatever might be the fate of the famous mental specialist, whatever the mystery before us—even though Dr. Fu-Manchu himself, malignantly active, threatened our safety—Kâramaneh would be with me again that day—Kâramaneh, my beautiful wife to be!
So selfishly occupied was I with these reflections that I paid little heed to the words of Weymouth, who was acquainting Nayland Smith with the facts bearing upon the mysterious disappearance of Sir Baldwin Frazer. Indeed, I was almost entirely ignorant upon the subject when the cab pulled up before the surgeon’s house in Half-Moon Street.
Here, where all else spoke of a city yet sleeping or but newly awakened, was wild unrest and excitement. Several servants were hovering about the hall eager to glean any scrap of information that might be obtainable; wide-eyed and curious, if not a little fearful. In the somber dining-room with its heavy oak furniture and gleaming silver, Sir Baldwin’s secretary awaited us. He was a young man, fair-haired, clean-shaven and alert; but a real and ever-present anxiety could be read in his eyes.
“I am sorry,” he began, “to have been the cause of disturbing you at so early an hour, particularly since this mysterious affair may prove to have no connection with the matters which I understand are at present engaging your attention.”
Nayland Smith raised his hand deprecatingly.
“We are prepared, Mr. Logan,” he replied, “to travel to the uttermost ends of the earth at all times, if by doing so we can obtain even a meager clue to the enigma which baffles us.”
“I shoul
d not have disturbed Mr. Smith,” said Weymouth, “if I had not been pretty sure that there was Chinese devilry at work here: nor should I have told you as much as I have, Mr. Logan,” he added, a humorous twinkle creeping into his blue eyes, “if I had thought you could not be of use to us in unraveling our case!”
“I quite understand that,” said Logan, “and now, since you have voted for the story first and refreshments afterward, let me tell you what little I know of the matter.”
“Be as brief as you can,” snapped Nayland Smith, starting up from the chair in which he had been seated and beginning restlessly to pace the floor before the open fireplace—“as brief as is consistent with clarity. We have learnt in the past that an hour or less sometimes means the difference between—”
He paused, glancing at Sir Baldwin’s secretary.
“Between life and death,” he added.
Mr. Logan started perceptibly.
“You alarm me, Mr. Smith,” he declared; “for I can conceive of no earthly manner in which this mysterious Eastern organization of which Inspector Weymouth speaks, could profit by the death of Sir Baldwin.”
Nayland Smith suddenly turned and stared grimly at the speaker.
“I call it death,” he said harshly, “to be carried off to the interior of China, to be made a mere slave, having no will but the great and evil man who already—already, mark you!—has actually accomplished such things.”
“But Sir Baldwin—”
“Sir Baldwin Frazer,” snapped Smith, “is the undisputed head of his particular branch of surgery. Dr. Fu-Manchu may have what he deems useful employment for such skill as his. But,” glancing at the clock, “we are wasting time. Your story, Mr. Logan.”
“It was about half-past twelve last night,” began the secretary, closing his eyes as if he were concentrating his mind upon certain past events, “when a woman came here and inquired for Sir Baldwin. The butler informed her that Sir Baldwin was entertaining friends and that he could receive no professional visitors until the morning. She was so insistent, however, absolutely declining to go away, that I was sent for—I have rooms in the house—and I came down to interview her in the library.”
“Be very accurate, Mr. Logan,” interrupted Smith, “in your description of this visitor.”
“I shall do my best,” pursued Logan, closing his eyes again in concentrated thought. “She wore evening dress, of a fantastic kind, markedly Oriental in character, and had large gold rings in her ears. A green embroidered shawl, with raised figures of white birds as a design, took the place of a cloak. It was certainly of Eastern workmanship, possibly Arab; and she wore it about her shoulders with one corner thrown over her head—again, something like a burnous. She was extremely dark, had jet-black, frizzy hair and very remarkable eyes, the finest of their type I have ever seen. She possessed beauty of a sort, of course, but without being exactly vulgar, it was what I may term ostentatious; and as I entered the library I found myself at a loss to define her exact place in society—you understand what I mean?”
We all nodded comprehendingly and awaited with intense interest the resumption of the story. Mr. Logan had vividly described the Eurasian Zarmi, the creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
“When the woman addressed me,” he continued, “my surmise that she was some kind of half-caste, probably a Eurasian, was confirmed by her broken English. I shall not be misunderstood”—a slight embarrassment became perceptible in his manner—“if I say that the visitor quite openly tried to bewitch me; and since we are all human, you will perhaps condone my conduct when I add that she succeeded, in a measure, inasmuch as I consented to speak to Sir Baldwin, although he was actually playing bridge at the time.
“Either my eloquence, or, to put it bluntly, the extraordinary fee which the woman offered, resulted in Sir Baldwin’s agreeing to abandon his friends and accompany the visitor in a cab which was waiting to see the patient.”
“And who was the patient?” rapped Smith.
“According to the woman’s account, the patient was her mother, who had met with a street accident a week before. She gave the name of the consultant who had been called in, and who, she stated, had advised the opinion of Sir Baldwin. She represented that the matter was urgent, and that it might be necessary to perform an operation immediately in order to save the patient’s life.”
“But surely,” I interrupted, in surprise, “Sir Baldwin did not take his instruments?”
“He took his case with him—yes,” replied Logan; “for he in turn yielded to the appeals of the visitor. The very last words that I heard him speak as he left the house were to assure her that no such operation could be undertaken at such short notice in that way.”
Logan paused, looking around at us a little wearily.
“And what aroused your suspicions?” said Smith.
“My suspicions were aroused at the very moment of Sir Baldwin’s departure, for as I came out onto the steps with him I noticed a singular thing.”
“And that was?” snapped Smith.
“Directly Sir Baldwin had entered the cab the woman got out,” replied Logan with some excitement in his manner, “and reclosing the door took her seat beside the driver of the vehicle—which immediately moved off.”
Nayland Smith glanced significantly at me.
“The cab trick again, Petrie!” he said; “scarcely a doubt of it.” Then, to Logan: “Anything else?”
“This,” replied the secretary: “I thought, although I could not be sure, that the face of Sir Baldwin peered out of the window for a moment as the cab moved away from the house, and that there was a strange expression upon it, almost a look of horror. But of course as there was no light in the cab and the only illumination was that from the open door, I could not be sure.”
“And now tell Mr. Smith,” said Weymouth, “how you got confirmation of your fears.”
“I felt very uneasy in my mind,” continued Logan, “for the whole thing was so irregular, and I could not rid my memory of the idea of Sir Baldwin’s face looking out from the cab window. Therefore I rang up the consultant whose name our visitor had mentioned.”
“Yes?” cried Smith eagerly.
“He knew nothing whatever of the matter,” said Logan, “and had no such case upon his books! That of course put me in a dreadful state of mind, but I was naturally anxious to avoid making a fool of myself and therefore I waited for some hours before mentioning my suspicions to anyone. But when the morning came and no message was received I determined to communicate with Scotland Yard. The rest of the mystery it is for you, gentlemen, to unravel.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I TRACK ZARMI
“What does it mean?” said Nayland Smith wearily, looking at me through the haze of tobacco smoke which lay between us. “A well-known man like Sir Baldwin Frazer is decoyed away—undoubtedly by the woman Zarmi; and up to the present moment not so much as a trace of him can be found. It is mortifying to think that with all the facilities of New Scotland Yard at our disposal we cannot trace that damnable cab! We cannot find the headquarters of the group—we cannot move! To sit here inactive whilst Sir Baldwin Frazer—God knows for what purpose!—is perhaps being smuggled out of the country, is maddening—maddening!” Then, glancing quickly across to me: “To think ...”
I rose from my chair, head averted. A tragedy had befallen me which completely overshadowed all other affairs, great and small. Indeed, its poignancy was not yet come to its most acute stage; the news was too recent for that. It had numbed my mind; dulled the pulsing life within me.
The S.S. Nicobar, of the Oriental Navigation Line, had arrived at Tilbury at the scheduled time. My heart leaping joyously in my bosom, I had hurried on board to meet Kâramaneh.
I have sustained some cruel blows in my life; but I can state with candor that this which now befell me was by far the greatest and the most crushing I had ever been called upon to bear; a calamity dwarfing all others which I could imagine.
She had left the ship at Sou
thampton—and had vanished completely.
“Poor old Petrie,” said Smith, and clapped his hands upon my shoulders in his impulsive sympathetic way. “Don’t give up hope! We are not going to be beaten!”
“Smith,” I interrupted bitterly, “what chance have we? What chance have we? We know no more than a child unborn where these people have their hiding-place, and we haven’t a shadow of a clue to guide us to it.”
His hands resting upon my shoulders and his gray eyes looking straightly into mine.
“I can only repeat, old man,” said my friend, “don’t abandon hope. I must leave you for an hour or so, and, when I return, possibly I may have some news.”
For long enough after Smith’s departure I sat there, companioned only by wretched reflections; then, further inaction seemed impossible; to move, to be up and doing, to be seeking, questing, became an imperative necessity. Muffled in a heavy traveling coat I went out into the wet and dismal night, having no other plan in mind than that of walking on through the rain-swept streets, on and always on, in an attempt, vain enough, to escape from the deadly thoughts that pursued me.
Without having the slightest idea that I had done so, I must have walked along the Strand, crossed Trafalgar Square, proceeded up the Haymarket to Piccadilly Circus, and commenced to trudge along at the Oriental rugs displayed in Messrs. Liberty’s window, when an incident aroused me from the apathy of sorrow in which I was sunken.
“Tell the cab feller to drive to the north side of Wandsworth Common,” said a woman’s voice—a voice speaking in broken English, a voice which electrified me, had me alert and watchful in a moment.
I turned, as the speaker, entering a taxi-cab that was drawn up by the pavement, gave these directions to the door-porter, who with open umbrella was in attendance. Just one glimpse I had of her as she stepped into the cab, but it was sufficient. Indeed, the voice had been sufficient; but that sinuous shape and that lithe swaying movement of the hips removed all doubt.
