President Fu-Manchu

by Sax Rohmer

  “I feel as well as I ever felt in my life.”

  “You are as well.”

  She sat down beside the bed and rested a cool hand on his forehead. Her dark eyes when she bent towards him he thought extraordinarily beautiful.

  And now Orwin Prescott sat up. There was vigor in his movements.

  “Still I don’t understand. I assure you I recall whole passages in the debate at Carnegie Hall! I can remember Bragg’s triumph, my own ineptitude, my inability to counter his crude thrusts…”

  “You were dreaming, Doctor; naturally the debate has been on your mind. Don’t overtire yourself.”

  Gently she compelled him to lie down again.

  “Then what really occurred?” he challenged.

  The nurse smiled again soothingly.

  “Nothing has occurred yet: except that we have got you in splendid form for the debate tonight.”

  “What!”

  “The debate at Carnegie Hall takes place tonight, and after a talk with your secretary, Mr. Norbert, who is waiting outside, I am quite sure you will be ready for it.”

  Orwin Prescott stared at the speaker fixedly. A new, a dreadful idea, had presented itself to him, and:

  “Do you assure me,” he said—“I beg you will be frank—that the debate has not taken place?”

  “I give you my word,” she answered, meeting his glance with absolute candor. There is no mystery about it all except that you have had a vivid dream of the thing upon which your brain has been centered for so long.”

  “Then I have been here—?”

  “Ever since the accident, Doctor.” She stood up, crossed, and pressed a bell. “I am sending for Mr. Norbert,” she explained. “He is naturally anxious to see you.”

  But whole phases of the debate seemed to ring in Prescott’s ears! He saw himself, he saw Bragg, he saw the vast audience as though a talking picture were being performed inside his brain!

  The door opened, and Norbert came in; dark, perfectly groomed. The neat black moustache suggested a British army officer. He came forward with outstretched hand.

  “Dr. Prescott!” he exclaimed, “this is fine.” He turned to the nurse. “Nurse Arlen, I must congratulate you. Dr. Sigmund, I know, is delighted.”

  “Perhaps, Norbert,” said Prescott, “now that you are here we can get this thing straight. There are many points which are quite dark to me. It is all but incredible that I could have lain here—”

  “Forget all that, Doctor,” Norbert urged, “for the moment. I am told that you are fit to talk shop, and so there is one thing upon which to concentrate—tonight’s debate.”

  “It really is tonight?”

  “I understand your bewilderment—but it really is tonight. Imagine our anxiety! It means the biggest check in Bragg’s headlong career to the White House. I am going to refresh your memory with all our notes up to the date of the accident at Weaver’s Farm. I had left you, you recall, to go to Washington. I have added some later points. Do you feel up to business?”

  He turned to the nurse. “Nurse Arlen, you are sure it will not tire him?”

  “Dr. Sigmund is confident that it will complete his cure.”

  Orwin Prescott’s glance lingered on the beautiful dark face. Then, again sitting up, he turned to Maurice Norbert. He was conscious of growing enthusiasm, of an intense ardor for his great task.

  “Perhaps one day I shall understand,” he said, ‘but at the moment—”

  Norbert opened his portfolio.

  * * *

  In a small, square, stone-faced room deep in the Chinese Catacombs, old Sam Pak crouched upon a settee placed against a wall. One would have thought, watching the bent, motionless figure, that it was that of an embalmed Chinaman. There was little furniture in the room: a long narrow table, with a chair set behind it; upon the table appointments suggesting a medical consultant; upon the floor, two rugs. The arched doorway was closed by scarlet tapestry drapings.

  Now these were drawn aside. A tall figure entered, a man who wore a black overcoat with a heavy astrakhan collar, and an astrakhan cap upon his head; also, he wore spectacles. As he entered, and he entered quite silently, Sam Pak stood up as if electrified, bowing very low in the Chinese manner. The tall man walked to the chair behind the table and seated himself.

  He removed his spectacles. The wonderful lined face which had reminded so many observers of that of Seti I was revealed in its yellow mastery. Dr. Fu-Manchu spoke.

  “Be seated,” he said.

  Sam Pak resumed his seat.

  “You guarantee,” the harsh, guttural voice continued—those brilliant green eyes were fixed inflexibly upon the ancient Chinaman, “the appearance of Dr. Orwin Prescott tonight?”

  “You have my word, Marquis.”

  “Three drops of the tincture must be administered ten minutes before he leaves.”

  “It shall be administered.”

  “Already, my friend, we are suffering at the hands of the bunglers we are compelled to employ. The pestilential priest Patrick Donegal has slipped through all our nets. Nor is it certain that he is not in the hands of Enemy Number One.”

  The ancient head of Sam Pak was slowly nodded.

  “The appearance of the Abbot at Carnegie Hall,” Dr. Fu-Manchu continued, “might be fatal to my plans. Yet”—removing heavy gloves he laid two long bony hands upon the table before him—“I remain in uncertainty.”

  “In war, Master, there is always an element of uncertainty.”

  “Uncertainty is part of the imperfect plan,” Fu-Manchu replied sibilantly. “Only the fool is uncertain. But the odds are heavy, my friend. Produce to me the man Herman Grosset, whom you have chosen for tonight’s great task.”

  Sam Pak moved slightly, pressing a bell. The curtain was drawn aside, and a Chinese boy appeared. A few words of rapid instructions and he went out, dropping the curtain behind him.

  There was silence in the queer room. Dr. Fu-Manchu, eyes half closed, leaned back in his chair. Sam Pak resembled a mummy set upright in ghastly raillery by some light-minded excavator. Then came vigorous footsteps, the curtains were switched aside and a man strode in.

  Above medium height, of tremendously powerful build, dark-faced and formidable, Herman Grosset was a man with whom no one would willingly pick a quarrel. He looked about him challengingly, meeting the gaze of those half-closed green eyes with apparent indifference and merely glancing at old Sam Pak. He stepped to the table, staring down at Dr. Fu-Manchu.

  His movements, his complete sang-froid, something, too, in the dark-browed face, might have reminded a close observer of Harvey Bragg; and indeed, Grosset was a half-brother of the potential dictator of the United States.

  “So you are the President?” he said—and his gruff voice held a note of amused self-assurance. “I’m sure glad to meet you, President There’s some saying about ‘fools step in…’ I don’t know if it applies to me, but it’s kind of funny that you’ve stayed in the background with Harvey, but asked me to step right into the office.”

  “The circumstances under which you stepped into the office,” came coldly, sibilantly, “are such that if you displease me, you will find it difficult to step out again.”

  “Oh! I’m supposed to be impressed by the closed auto and the secret journey?” Grosset laughed and banged his fist on the table. “Look!”

  With a lightning movement he snatched an automatic from his pocket and covered Dr. Fu-Manchu.

  “I take big risks, because I know how to protect myself. While you’re for Harvey, I’m for you. If I thought you’d dare to cross him, you’d start out for your Chinese paradise this very minute. Harvey is going to be President. Harvey is going to be Dictator. Nothing else can set the country to rights. I wouldn’t hesitate—” he tapped the gun barrel on the table, watching out of the corner of his eye the old Chinaman on the settee—“I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot down any man living that got in his way. When he made me boss of his bodyguard he did the right thing.”

&n
bsp; Dr. Fu-Manchu’s long, yellow hands with their cruelly pointed nails remained quite motionless. He did not stir a muscle; his eyes were mere green slits in the yellow mask. Then:

  “No one doubts your loyalty to Harvey Bragg,” he said softly; “that point is not in dispute. It is known that you love him.”

  “I’d die for him.”

  The automatic disappeared into the pocket from which it had been taken. Two men stripped to the waist entered so silently that even the movement of the curtain was not audible. They sprang from behind like twin panthers upon Grosset.

  “Hell!” he roared, “what’s this game!”

  He bent his powerful body forward, striving to throw one of his assailants across his shoulder, but realized that he was gripped in a stranglehold.

  “You damned yellow double-crosser,” he groaned, as his right arm was twisted back to breaking-point.

  From behind, an expanding gag was slipped into his gaping mouth. He gurgled, groaned, tried to kick, then collapsed as the pressure of fingers made itself felt, agonizingly, upon his eyeballs…

  He had not even seen his assailants when straps were buckled about his legs, and his arms lashed behind him.

  Throughout, Dr. Fu-Manchu never stirred. But when the man, his eyes fixed in frenzied hate upon the Chinese doctor, was carried, uttering inarticulate sounds, from the room, and the curtain fell behind his bearers:

  “It is good, my friend,” Fu-Manchu said gutturally, addressing the mummy-like figure on the settee, “that you succeeded in bringing me a few expert servants.”

  “It was well done,” old Sam Pak muttered.

  “Tonight,” the precise tones continued, “we put our fortunes to the test. The woman Adair, to whom I have entrusted the tuition of Harvey Bragg, is one I can rely upon; I hold her in my hand. But the man himself, in his bloated arrogance, may fail us. I fear for little else.” His eyes became closed; he was thinking aloud. “If Enemy Number One has Abbot Donegal, all approaches to Carnegie Hall must be held against them. This I can arrange. We have little else to fear.”

  From the material upon the table he delicately charged a hypodermic syringe with a pale-green fluid. Sam Pak watched him with misty eyes, and Dr. Fu-Manchu stood up.

  “It is unfortunate,” he said, but there was a note of scientific enthusiasm in the guttural voice, “that my first important experiment in the use of this interesting drug should involve in success or failure such high issues. Come, my friend; I desire you to be present…”

  Across the silent temple of the seven-eyed goddess they went: Fu-Manchu with his catlike walk; old Sam Pak shuffling behind. The place was silent and empty. They descended a stone stair, traversed the corridor lined with the six painted coffins, and passed the steel door beyond which a secret passage led to East River.

  In a small, cell-like room, brightly lighted by a pendant lamp, Herman Grosset lay strapped to a fixed teak bench. The two immobile Chinamen had just completed their task as Dr. Fu-Manchu entered, and:

  “Go!” he commanded in Chinese.

  The men bowed and went out; their muscular bodies were dewy with perspiration. Grosset’s skin also gleamed wetly. He had been stripped to the waist; his eyes were starting from his head.

  “Remove the gag, my friend,” Dr. Fu-Manchu directed.

  Old Sam Pak stepped forward, bent over Grosset, and with a sudden, amazingly agile movement, wrenched the man’s mouth open and plucked out the expanding gag. Grosset turned his head aside and spat disgustedly; then:

  “Dirty yellow thugs!” he whispered: he was panting. “You’ve been bought over! Maybe you think”—his powerful chest expanded hugely—“that if you get Harvey, Orwin Prescott has a chance! I’m telling you this: If any harm comes to Harvey, there’ll never be a Dictator in the United States.”

  “We do not doubt,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu, “your love for Harvey Bragg.”

  “No need to doubt it! Looks like I’m dying for him right here and now. I want to tell you this: He’s the biggest man this country has known for a whole generation and more. Think that over. I say it.”

  “You would not consider changing your opinion?”

  “I knew it!” Grosset was recovering vigor. “Saw it coming. Listen, you saffron-faced horror! You couldn’t buy me for all the gold in Washington. I’ve lived for Harvey right along… I’ll die for Harvey.”

  “Admirable sentiments,” Dr. Fu-Manchu muttered, and bent over the strapped figure, hypodermic syringe in hand.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Grosset shrieked, a sudden note of horror in his voice. “What are you going to do to me? Oh, you filthy yellow swine! If only my hands were free!”

  “I am going to kill you, my friend. I have no future place for you in my plans.”

  “Well, do it with a gun,” the man groaned, “or even a knife if you like. But that thing—”

  He uttered a wild, despairing shriek as the needle point was plunged into his flesh. Veins like blue whipcords sprang up on his forehead, on his powerful arms, as he fought to evade the needle point. All was in vain: he groaned and, in the excess of his mental agony, became still.

  Dr. Fu-Manchu handed the syringe to the old mandarin, who unemotionally had watched the operation. He stooped and applied his ear to the diaphragm of the unconscious man. Then, standing upright, he nodded.

  “The second injection two hours before we want him.” He looked down at the powerful body strapped to the bench. “You have killed many men in defense of your idol, Grosset,” he murmured, apostrophizing the insensible figure. “Seven I have checked, and there are others. You shall end your career in a killing that is really worth while…

  * * *

  Carnegie Hall was packed to saturation point. It was an even bigger audience than Fritz Kreisler could have commanded; an audience equally keen with anticipation, equally tense. The headlong advance made by Harvey Bragg—once regarded as a petty local potentate by serious politicians, now recognized as a national force—had awakened the country to the fact that dictatorship, until latterly a subject for laughter, might, incredible though it seemed, be imminent.

  The League of Good Americans reputedly numbered fifteen million members upon its roll. That many thousands of the homeless and hopeless had been given employment by Harvey Bragg was an undisputed fact The counter measures of the old administration, dramatically drastic, had apparently done little to check a growing feverish enthusiasm awakened throughout the country by “Bluebeard.” An ever-expanding section of the public regarded him as a savior; another and saner element recognized that he was a menace to the Constitution. Dr. Orwin Prescott, scholarly, sincere, had succeeded in driving a wedge between two conflicting bodies—and the gap was widening.

  That Orwin Prescott advocated a sane administration, every sensible citizen appreciated. His avowed object was to split the Bragg camp; but there were those who maintained, although he had definitely denied the charge, that secretly he aimed at nomination to the Presidency.

  There was a rumor abroad that he would declare himself tonight.

  Among the more thoughtful elements he undoubtedly had a large following, and if the weight of the Abbot of Holy Thorn at the eleventh hour should be thrown into the scales, it was obvious to students of the situation that the forces of Orwin Prescott would become nearly as formidable as those of Harvey Bragg.

  In the course of the last few hectic months other contestants had been wiped off the political map. Republican voters, recanting their vows of 1932, had rallied to Orwin Prescott. Agriculture stood solid for the old administration, although Ohio had a big Bragg faction. The ghost of a conservative third party had been exorcised by Abbot Donegal, a close friend of Prescott.

  There was a certain studious mystery about Dr. Orwin Prescott which appealed to a large intellectual class. His periodical retirements from public life, a certain aura of secret studies which surrounded him, and the recent silence of Abbot Donegal, had been interpreted as a piece of strategy, the importance of which
might at any moment become manifest. One would have had to search far back in American history for a parallel of the almost hysterical excitement which dominated this packed assembly.

  The huge building was entirely in the hands of police and federal agents. Hidden patrols covered the route from the Dumases’ apartment on Park Avenue right to the door of the hall by which Harvey Bragg would enter. Up to an hour before the meeting was timed to open, no one knew where Prescott was, or even if he were in the city. The audience, which numbered over three thousand, had been admitted to their seats, every man and woman closely scrutinized by hawk-eyed police officers. The buzz of that human beehive was something all but incredible.

  A military band played patriotic music, many numbers being sung in unison by three thousand voices. Suspense was intense; excitement electrical.

  Nayland Smith, in an office cut off from the emotional vibrations of that vast gathering, was in constant touch with police headquarters, and with Fey, who sat at the telephone at the top of the Regal Tower. Mark Hepburn, bearded and bespectacled, ranged the building from floor to floor, reporting at intervals in the office which Nayland Smith had made his temporary base.

  Outside, limelight turned night into day, and a team of cameramen awaited the arrival of distinguished members of the audience. Thousands who had been disappointed in obtaining admittance thronged the sidewalks; the corner of 57th Street was impassable. Patrolmen, mounted and on foot, kept a way open for arriving cars.

  Hepburn walked into the office just as Nayland Smith replaced the telephone. Smith turned, sprang up.

  Sarah Lakin, seated in a rest-chair on the other side of the big desk, flashed an earnest query into the bespectacled eyes. Mark Hepburn shook his head and removed his spectacles.

  “Almost certainly,” he said in his dry, unemotional way, “Abbot Donegal is not in the hall, so far.”