by Sax Rohmer
So in the darkness, expectant, we sat watching the group of nine elms. To-night the moon was come, raising her Aladdin's lamp up to the star world and summoning magic shadows into being. By midnight the high-road showed deserted, the common was a place of mystery; and save for the periodical passage of an electric car, in blazing modernity, this was a fit enough stage for an eerie drama.
No notice of the tragedy had appeared in print; Nayland Smith was vested with powers to silence the Press. No detectives, no special constables, were posted. My friend was of opinion that the publicity which had been given to the deeds of Dr. Fu-Manchu in the past, together with the sometimes clumsy co-operation of the police, had contributed not a little to the Chinaman's success.
"There is only one thing to fear," he jerked suddenly; "he may not be ready for another attempt to-night."
"Why?"
"Since he has only been in England for a short time, his menagerie of venomous things may be a limited one at present."
Earlier in the evening there had been a brief but violent thunderstorm, with a tropical downpour of rain, and now clouds were scudding across the blue of the sky. Through a temporary rift in the veiling the crescent of the moon looked down upon us. It had a greenish tint, and it set me thinking of the filmed, green eyes of Fu-Manchu.
The cloud passed and a lake of silver spread out to the edge of the coppice; where it terminated at a shadow bank.
"There it is, Petrie!" hissed Nayland Smith.
A lambent light was born in the darkness; it rose slowly, unsteadily, to a great height, and died.
"It's under the trees, Smith!"
But he was already making for the door. Over his shoulder:
"Bring the pistol, Petrie!" he cried; "I have another. Give me at least twenty yards' start or no attempt may be made. But the instant I'm under the trees, join me."
Out of the house we ran, and over on to the common, which latterly had been a pageant-ground for phantom warring. The light did not appear again; and as Smith plunged off toward the trees, I wondered if he knew what uncanny thing was hidden there. I more than suspected that he had solved the mystery.
His instructions to keep well in the rear I understood. Fu-Manchu, or the creature of Fu-Manchu, would attempt nothing in the presence of a witness. But we knew full well that the instrument of death which was hidden in the elm coppice could do its ghastly work and leave no clue, could slay and vanish. For had not Forsyth come to a dreadful end while Smith and I were within twenty yards of him?
Not a breeze stirred, as Smith, ahead of me—for I had slowed my pace—came up level with the first tree. The moon sailed clear of the straggling cloud wisps which alone told of the recent storm; and I noted that an irregular patch of light lay silvern on the moist ground under the elms where otherwise lay shadow.
He passed on, slowly. I began to run again. Black against the silvern patch, I saw him emerge—and look up.
"Be careful, Smith!" I cried—and I was racing under the trees to join him.
Uttering a loud cry, he leaped—away from the pool of light.
"Stand back, Petrie!" he screamed. "Back! farther!"
He charged into me, shoulder lowered, and sent me reeling!
Mixed up with his excited cry I had heard a loud splintering and sweeping of branches overhead; and now as we staggered into the shadows it seemed that one of the elms was reaching down to touch us! So, at least, the phenomenon presented itself to my mind in that fleeting moment while Smith, uttering his warning cry, was hurling me back.
Then the truth became apparent.
With an appalling crash, a huge bough fell from above. One piercing awful shriek there was, a crackling of broken branches, and a choking groan....
The crack of Smith's pistol close beside me completed my confusion of mind.
"Missed!" he yelled. "Shoot it, Petrie! On your left! For God's sake don't miss it!"
I turned. A lithe black shape was streaking past me. I fired—once—twice. Another frightful cry made yet more hideous the nocturne.
Nayland Smith was directing the ray of a pocket torch upon the fallen bough.
"Have you killed it, Petrie?" he cried.
"Yes, yes!"
I stood beside him, looking down. From the tangle of leaves and twigs an evil yellow face looked up at us. The features were contorted with agony, but the malignant eyes, wherein light was dying, regarded us with inflexible hatred. The man was pinned beneath the heavy bough; his back was broken; and, as we watched, he expired, frothing slightly at the mouth, and quitted his tenement of clay leaving those glassy eyes set hideously upon us.
"The pagan gods fight upon our side," said Smith strangely. "Elms have a dangerous habit of shedding boughs in still weather—particularly after a storm. Pan, god of the woods, with this one has performed Justice's work of retribution."
"I don't understand. Where was this man—?"
"Up the tree, lying along the bough which fell, Petrie! That is why he left no footmarks. Last night no doubt he made his escape by swinging from bough to bough, ape-fashion, and descending to the ground somewhere at the other side of the coppice."
He glanced at me.
"You are wondering, perhaps," he suggested, "what caused the mysterious light? I could have told you this morning, but I fear I was in a bad temper, Petrie. It's very simple; a length of tape soaked in spirit or something of the kind, and sheltered from the view of any one watching from your windows, behind the trunk of the tree; then, the end ignited, lowered, still behind the tree, to the ground. The operator swinging it around, the flame ascended, of course. I found the unburned fragment of the tape used last night, a few yards from here."
I was peering down at Fu-Manchu's servant, the hideous yellow man who lay dead in a bower of elm leaves.
"He has some kind of leather bag beside him," I began.
"Exactly!" rapped Smith. "In that he carried his dangerous instrument of death; from that he released it!"
"Released what?"
"What your fascinating friend came to recapture this morning."
"Don't taunt me, Smith!" I said bitterly. "Is it some species of bird?"
"You saw the marks on Forsyth's body, and I told you of those which I had traced upon the ground here. They were caused by claws, Petrie!"
"Claws! I thought so! But what claws?"
"The claws of a poisonous thing. I recaptured the one used last night, killed it—against my will—and buried it on the mound. I was afraid to throw it in the pond, lest some juvenile fisherman should pull it out and sustain a scratch. I don't know how long the claws would remain venomous."
"You are treating me like a child, Smith," I said, slowly. "No doubt I am hopelessly obtuse, but perhaps you will tell me what this Chinaman carried in a leather bag and released upon Forsyth. It was something which you recaptured, apparently with the aid of a plate of cold turbot and a jug of milk. It was something, also, which Kâramanèh had been sent to recapture with the aid—"
I stopped.
"Go on," said Nayland Smith, turning the ray to the left; "what did she have in the basket?"
"Valerian," I replied mechanically.
The ray rested upon the lithe creature that I had shot down.
It was a black cat!
"A cat will go through fire and water for valerian," said Smith; "but I got first innings this morning with fish and milk! I had recognized the imprints under the trees for those of a cat, and I knew that if a cat had been released here it would still be hiding in the neighbourhood, probably in the bushes. I finally located a cat, sure enough, and came for bait! I laid my trap, for the animal was too frightened to be approachable, and then shot it; I had to. That yellow fiend used the light as a decoy. The branch which killed him jutted out over the path at a spot where an opening in the foliage above allowed some moon rays to penetrate. Directly the victim stood beneath, the Chinaman uttered his bird-cry; the one below looked up, and the cat, previously held silent and helpless in the leather s
ack, was dropped accurately upon his head!"
"But—" I was growing confused.
Smith stooped lower.
"The cat's claws are sheathed now," he said; "but if you could examine them you would find that they are coated with a shining black substance. Only Fu-Manchu knows what that substance is, Petrie; but you and I know what it can do!"
Chapter VII - Enter Mr. Abel Slattin
*
"I don't blame you!" rapped Nayland Smith. "Suppose we say, then, a thousand pounds if you show us the present hiding-place of Fu-Manchu, the payment to be in no way subject to whether we profit by your information or not?"
Abel Slattin shrugged his shoulders, racially, and returned to the armchair which he had just quitted. He reseated himself, placing his hat and cane upon my writing-table.
"A little agreement in black and white?" he suggested smoothly.
Smith raised himself up out of the white cane chair, and, bending forward over a corner of the table, scribbled busily upon a sheet of notepaper with my fountain-pen.
The while he did so, I covertly studied our visitor. He lay back in the armchair, his heavy eyelids lowered deceptively. He was a thought overdressed—a big man, dark-haired and well-groomed, who toyed with a monocle most unsuitable to his type. During the preceding conversation, I had been vaguely surprised to note Mr. Abel Slattin's marked American accent.
Sometimes, when Slattin moved, a big diamond which he wore upon the third finger of his right hand glittered magnificently. There was a sort of bluish tint underlying the dusky skin, noticeable even in his hands but proclaiming itself significantly in his puffy face and especially under the eyes. I diagnosed a labouring valve somewhere in the heart system.
Nayland Smith's pen scratched on. My glance strayed from our Semitic caller to his cane, lying upon the red leather before me. It was of most unusual workmanship, apparently Indian, being made of some kind of dark brown, mottled wood, bearing a marked resemblance to a snake's skin; and the top of the cane was carved in conformity, to represent the head of what I took to be a puff-adder, fragments of stone, or beads, being inserted to represent the eyes, and the whole thing being finished with an artistic realism almost startling.
When Smith had tossed the written page to Slattin, and he, having read it with an appearance of carelessness, had folded it neatly and placed it in his pocket, I said:
"You have a curio here?"
Our visitor, whose dark eyes revealed all the satisfaction which, by his manner, he sought to conceal, nodded and took up the cane in his hand.
"It comes from Australia, doctor," he replied; "it's aboriginal work, and was given to me by a client. You thought it was Indian? Everybody does. It's my mascot."
"Really?"
"It is indeed. Its former owner ascribed magical powers to it! In fact, I believe he thought that it was one of those staffs mentioned in biblical history—"
"Aaron's rod?" suggested Smith, glancing at the cane.
"Something of the sort," said Slattin, standing up and again preparing to depart.
"You will 'phone us, then?" asked my friend.
"You will hear from me to-morrow," was the reply.
Smith returned to the cane armchair, and Slattin, bowing to both of us, made his way to the door as I rang for the girl to show him out.
"Considering the importance of his proposal," I began, as the door closed, "you hardly received our visitor with cordiality."
"I hate to have any relations with him," answered my friend; "but we must not be squeamish respecting our instruments in dealing with Dr. Fu-Manchu. Slattin has a rotten reputation—even for a private inquiry agent. He is little better than a blackmailer—"
"How do you know?"
"Because I called on our friend Weymouth at the Yard yesterday and looked up the man's record."
"Whatever for?"
"I knew that he was concerning himself, for some reason, in the case. Beyond doubt he has established some sort of communication with the Chinese group; I am only wondering—"
"You don't mean—"
"Yes—I do, Petrie! I tell you he is unscrupulous enough to stoop even to that."
No doubt Slattin knew that this gaunt, eager-eyed Burmese commissioner was vested with ultimate authority in his quest of the mighty Chinaman who represented things unutterable, whose potentialities for evil were boundless as his genius, who personified a secret danger, the extent and nature of which none of us truly understood. And, learning of these things, with unerring Semitic instinct he had sought an opening in this glittering Rialto. But there were two bidders!
"You think he may have sunk so low as to become a creature of Fu-Manchu?" I asked, aghast.
"Exactly! If it paid him well I do not doubt that he would serve that master as readily as any other. His record is about as black as it well could be. Slattin is, of course, an assumed name; he was known as Lieutenant Pepley when he belonged to the New York Police, and he was kicked out of the service for complicity in an unsavoury Chinatown case."
"Chinatown!"
"Yes, Petrie, it made me wonder, too; and we must not forget that he is undeniably a clever scoundrel."
"Shall you keep any appointment which he may suggest?"
"Undoubtedly. But I shall not wait until to-morrow."
"What!"
"I propose to pay a little informal visit to Mr. Abel Slattin to-night."
"At his office?"
"No; at his private residence. If, as I more than suspect, his object is to draw us into some trap, he will probably report his favourable progress to his employer to-night!"
"Then we should have followed him!"
Nayland Smith stood up and divested himself of the old shooting-jacket.
"He has been followed, Petrie," he replied, with one of his rare smiles. "Two C.I.D. men have been watching the house all night!"
This was entirely characteristic of my friend's farseeing methods.
"By the way," I said, "you saw Eltham this morning. He will soon be convalescent. Where, in Heaven's name, can he—"
"Don't be alarmed on his behalf, Petrie," interrupted Smith. "His life is no longer in danger."
I stared, stupidly.
"No longer in danger!"
"He received, some time yesterday, a letter, written in Chinese, upon Chinese paper, and enclosed in an ordinary business envelope, having a typewritten address and bearing a London postmark."
"Well?"
"As nearly as I can render the message in English it reads: 'Although, because you are a brave man, you would not betray your correspondent in China, he has been discovered. He was a mandarin, and as I cannot write the name of a traitor, I may not name him. He was executed four days ago. I salute you and pray for your speedy recovery.—FU-MANCHU.'"
"Fu-Manchu! But it is almost certainly a trap."
"On the contrary, Petrie, Fu-Manchu would not have written in Chinese unless he were sincere; and, to clear all doubt, I received a cable this morning reporting that the Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat was assassinated in his own garden, in Nan-Yang, one day last week."
Chapter VIII - Dr. Fu-Manchu Strikes
*
Together we marched down the slope of the quiet, suburban avenue; to take pause before a small, detached house displaying the hatchet boards of the estate agent. Here we found unkempt laurel bushes, and acacias run riot, from which arboreal tangle protruded the notice: "To be Let or Sold."
Smith, with an alert glance to right and left, pushed open the wooden gate and drew me in upon the gravel path. Darkness mantled all; for the nearest street lamp was fully twenty yards beyond.
From the miniature jungle bordering the path, a soft whistle sounded.
"Is that Carter?" called Smith sharply.
A shadowy figure uprose, and vaguely I made it out for that of a man in the unobtrusive blue serge which is the undress uniform of the Force.
"Well?" rapped my companion.
"Mr. Slattin returned ten minutes ago, sir," reported th
e constable. "He came in a cab which he dismissed—"
"He has not left again?"
"A few minutes after his return," the man continued, "another cab came up, and a lady alighted."
"A lady!"
"The same, sir, that has called upon him before."
"Smith!" I whispered, plucking at his arm—"is it—?"
He half turned, nodding his head; and my heart began to throb foolishly. For now the manner of Slattin's campaign suddenly was revealed to me. In our operations against the Chinese murder-group two years before, we had had an ally in the enemy's camp—Kâramanèh, the beautiful slave, whose presence in those happenings of the past had coloured the sometimes sordid drama with the opulence of old Arabia; who had seemed a fitting figure for the romances of Bagdad during the Caliphate—Kâramanèh, whom I had thought sincere, whose inscrutable Eastern soul I had presumed, fatuously, to have laid bare and analysed.
Now once again she was plying her old trade of go-between; professing to reveal the secrets of Dr. Pu-Manchu, and all the time—I could not doubt it—inveigling men into the net of this awful fisher.
Yesterday, I had been her dupe; yesterday, I had rejoiced in my captivity. To-day, I was not the favoured one; to-day I had not been selected recipient of her confidences—confidences sweet, seductive, deadly: but Abel Slattin, a plausible rogue, who, in justice, should be immured in Sing Sing, was chosen out, was enslaved by those lovely mysterious eyes, was taking to his soul the lies which fell from those perfect lips, triumphant in a conquest that must end in his undoing; deeming, poor fool, that for love of him this pearl of the Orient was about to betray her master, to resign herself a prize to the victor!
Companioned by these bitter reflections, I had lost the remainder of the conversation between Nayland Smith and the police officer; now, casting off the succubus memory which threatened to obsess me, I put forth a giant mental effort to purge my mind of this uncleanness, and became again an active participant in the campaign against the Master—the director of all things noxious.
