by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER XXIV
FROM the rescue of Lord Southery my story bears me mercilessly on toother things. I may not tarry, as more leisurely penmen, to round myincidents; they were not of my choosing. I may not pause to make youbetter acquainted with the figure of my drama; its scheme is none ofmine. Often enough, in those days, I found a fitness in the lines ofOmar:
We are no other than a moving show Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held In Midnight by the Master of the Show.
But "the Master of the Show," in this case, was Dr. Fu-Manchu!
I have been asked many times since the days with which these recordsdeal: Who WAS Dr. Fu-Manchu? Let me confess here that my final answermust be postponed. I can only indicate, at this place, the trend of myreasoning, and leave my reader to form whatever conclusion he pleases.
What group can we isolate and label as responsible for the overthrow ofthe Manchus? The casual student of modern Chinese history will reply:"Young China." This is unsatisfactory. What do we mean by YoungChina? In my own hearing Fu-Manchu had disclaimed, with scorn,association with the whole of that movement; and assuming that the namewere not an assumed one, he clearly can have been no anti-Manchu, noRepublican.
The Chinese Republican is of the mandarin class, but of a newgeneration which veneers its Confucianism with Western polish. Theseyouthful and unbalanced reformers, in conjunction with older but noless ill-balanced provincial politicians, may be said to representYoung China. Amid such turmoils as this we invariably look for, andinvariably find, a Third Party. In my opinion, Dr. Fu-Manchu was oneof the leaders of such a party.
Another question often put to me was: Where did the Doctor hide duringthe time that he pursued his operations in London? This is moresusceptible of explanation. For a time Nayland Smith supposed, as Idid myself, that the opium den adjacent to the old Ratcliff Highway wasthe Chinaman's base of operations; later we came to believe that themansion near Windsor was his hiding-place, and later still, the hulklying off the downstream flats. But I think I can state withconfidence that the spot which he had chosen for his home was neitherof these, but the East End riverside building which I was the first toenter. Of this I am all but sure; for the reason that it not only wasthe home of Fu-Manchu, of Karamaneh, and of her brother, Aziz, but thehome of something else--of something which I shall speak of later.
The dreadful tragedy (or series of tragedies) which attended the raidupon the place will always mark in my memory the supreme horror of ahorrible case. Let me endeavor to explain what occurred.
By the aid of Karamaneh, you have seen how we had located the whilomwarehouse, which, from the exterior, was so drab and dreary, but whichwithin was a place of wondrous luxury. At the moment selected by ourbeautiful accomplice, Inspector Weymouth and a body of detectivesentirely surrounded it; a river police launch lay off the wharf whichopened from it on the river-side; and this upon a singularly blacknight, than which a better could not have been chosen.
"You will fulfill your promise to me?" said Karamaneh, and looked upinto my face.
She was enveloped in a big, loose cloak, and from the shadow of thehood her wonderful eyes gleamed out like stars.
"What do you wish us to do?" asked Nayland Smith.
"You--and Dr. Petrie," she replied swiftly, "must enter first, andbring out Aziz. Until he is safe--until he is out of that place--youare to make no attempt upon--"
"Upon Dr. Fu-Manchu?" interrupted Weymouth; for Karamaneh hesitated topronounce the dreaded name, as she always did. "But how can we be surethat there is no trap laid for us?"
The Scotland Yard man did not entirely share my confidence in theintegrity of this Eastern girl whom he knew to have been a creature ofthe Chinaman's.
"Aziz lies in the private room," she explained eagerly, her old accentmore noticeable than usual. "There is only one of the Burmese men inthe house, and he--he dare not enter without orders!"
"But Fu-Manchu?"
"We have nothing to fear from him. He will be your prisoner within tenminutes from now! I have no time for words--you must believe!" Shestamped her foot impatiently. "And the dacoit?" snapped Smith.
"He also."
"I think perhaps I'd better come in, too," said Weymouth slowly.
Karamaneh shrugged her shoulders with quick impatience, and unlockedthe door in the high brick wall which divided the gloomy, evil-smellingcourt from the luxurious apartments of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
"Make no noise," she warned. And Smith and myself followed her alongthe uncarpeted passage beyond.
Inspector Weymouth, with a final word of instruction to his second incommand, brought up the rear. The door was reclosed; a few pacesfarther on a second was unlocked. Passing through a small room,unfurnished, a farther passage led us to a balcony. The transition wasstartling.
Darkness was about us now, and silence: a perfumed, slumberousdarkness--a silence full of mystery. For, beyond the walls of theapartment whereon we looked down waged the unceasing battle of soundsthat is the hymn of the great industrial river. About the scentedconfines which bounded us now floated the smoke-laden vapors of theLower Thames.
From the metallic but infinitely human clangor of dock-side life, fromthe unpleasant but homely odors which prevail where ships swallow inand belch out the concrete evidences of commercial prosperity, we hadcome into this incensed stillness, where one shaded lamp painted dimenlargements of its Chinese silk upon the nearer walls, and left thegreater part of the room the darker for its contrast.
Nothing of the Thames-side activity--of the riveting and scraping--thebumping of bales--the bawling of orders--the hiss of steam--penetratedto this perfumed place. In the pool of tinted light lay the deathlikefigure of a dark-haired boy, Karamaneh's muffled form bending over him.
"At last I stand in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu!" whispered Smith.
Despite the girl's assurance, we knew that proximity to the sinisterChinaman must be fraught with danger. We stood, not in the lion's den,but in the serpent's lair.
From the time when Nayland Smith had come from Burma in pursuit of thisadvance-guard of a cogent Yellow Peril, the face of Dr. Fu-Manchurarely had been absent from my dreams day or night. The millions mightsleep in peace--the millions in whose cause we labored!--but we whoknew the reality of the danger knew that a veritable octopus hadfastened upon England--a yellow octopus whose head was that of Dr.Fu-Manchu, whose tentacles were dacoity, thuggee, modes of death,secret and swift, which in the darkness plucked men from life and leftno clew behind.
"Karamaneh!" I called softly.
The muffled form beneath the lamp turned so that the soft light fellupon the lovely face of the slave girl. She who had been a pliantinstrument in the hands of Fu-Manchu now was to be the means wherebysociety should be rid of him.
She raised her finger warningly; then beckoned me to approach.
My feet sinking in the rich pile of the carpet, I came through thegloom of the great apartment in to the patch of light, and, Karamanehbeside me, stood looking down upon the boy. It was Aziz, her brother;dead so far as Western lore had power to judge, but kept alive in thatdeathlike trance by the uncanny power of the Chinese doctor.
"Be quick," she said; "be quick! Awaken him! I am afraid."
From the case which I carried I took out a needle-syringe and a phialcontaining a small quantity of amber-hued liquid. It was a drug not tobe found in the British Pharmacopoeia. Of its constitution I knewnothing. Although I had had the phial in my possession for some days Ihad not dared to devote any of its precious contents to analyticalpurposes. The amber drops spelled life for the boy Aziz, spelledsuccess for the mission of Nayland Smith, spelled ruin for the fiendishChinaman.
I raised the white coverlet. The boy, fully dressed, lay with his armscrossed upon his breast. I discerned the mark of previous injectionsas, charging the syringe from the phial, I made what I hoped would bethe last of such experiments upon him. I would have given hal
f of mysmall worldly possessions to have known the real nature of the drugwhich was now coursing through the veins of Aziz--which was tinting thegrayed face with the olive tone of life; which, so far as my medicaltraining bore me, was restoring the dead to life.
But such was not the purpose of my visit. I was come to remove fromthe house of Dr. Fu-Manchu the living chain which bound Karamaneh tohim. The boy alive and free, the Doctor's hold upon the slave girlwould be broken.
My lovely companion, her hands convulsively clasped, knelt and devouredwith her eyes the face of the boy who was passing through the mostamazing physiological change in the history of therapeutics. Thepeculiar perfume which she wore--which seemed to be a part ofher--which always I associated with her--was faintly perceptible.Karamaneh was breathing rapidly.
"You have nothing to fear," I whispered; "see, he is reviving. In afew moments all will be well with him."
The hanging lamp with its garishly colored shade swung gently above us,wafted, it seemed, by some draught which passed through the apartment.The boy's heavy lids began to quiver, and Karamaneh nervously clutchedmy arm, and held me so whilst we watched for the long-lashed eyes toopen. The stillness of the place was positively unnatural; it seemedinconceivable that all about us was the discordant activity of thecommercial East End. Indeed, this eerie silence was becomingoppressive; it began positively to appall me.
Inspector Weymouth's wondering face peeped over my shoulder.
"Where is Dr. Fu-Manchu?" I whispered, as Nayland Smith in turnappeared beside me. "I cannot understand the silence of the house--"
"Look about," replied Karamaneh, never taking her eyes from the face ofAziz.
I peered around the shadowy walls. Tall glass cases there were,shelves and niches: where once, from the gallery above, I had seen thetubes and retorts, the jars of unfamiliar organisms, the books ofunfamiliar lore, the impedimenta of the occult student and man ofscience--the visible evidences of Fu-Manchu's presence.Shelves--cases--niches--were bare. Of the complicated appliancesunknown to civilized laboratories, wherewith he pursued his strangeexperiments, of the tubes wherein he isolated the bacilli ofunclassified diseases, of the yellow-bound volumes for a glimpse atwhich (had they known of their contents) the great men of Harley Streetwould have given a fortune--no trace remained. The silken cushions;the inlaid tables; all were gone.
The room was stripped, dismantled. Had Fu-Manchu fled? The silenceassumed a new significance. His dacoits and kindred ministers of deathall must have fled, too.
"You have let him escape us!" I said rapidly. "You promised to aid usto capture him--to send us a message--and you have delayed until--"
"No," she said; "no!" and clutched at my arm again. "Oh! is he notreviving slowly? Are you sure you have made no mistake?"
Her thoughts were all for the boy; and her solicitude touched me. Iagain examined Aziz, the most remarkable patient of my busyprofessional career.
As I counted the strengthening pulse, he opened his dark eyes--whichwere so like the eyes of Karamaneh--and, with the girl's eager armstightly about him, sat up, looking wonderingly around.
Karamaneh pressed her cheek to his, whispering loving words in thatsoftly spoken Arabic which had first betrayed her nationality toNayland Smith. I handed her my flask, which I had filled with wine.
"My promise is fulfilled!" I said. "You are free! Now for Fu-Manchu!But first let us admit the police to this house; there is somethinguncanny in its stillness."
"No," she replied. "First let my brother be taken out and placed insafety. Will you carry him?"
She raised her face to that of Inspector Weymouth, upon which waswritten awe and wonder.
The burly detective lifted the boy as tenderly as a woman, passedthrough the shadows to the stairway, ascended, and was swallowed up inthe gloom. Nayland Smith's eyes gleamed feverishly. He turned toKaramaneh.
"You are not playing with us?" he said harshly. "We have done ourpart; it remains for you to do yours."
"Do not speak so loudly," the girl begged. "HE is near us--and, oh,God, I fear him so!"
"Where is he?" persisted my friend.
Karamaneh's eyes were glassy with fear now.
"You must not touch him until the police are here," she said--but fromthe direction of her quick, agitated glances I knew that, her brothersafe now, she feared for me, and for me alone. Those glances sent myblood dancing; for Karamaneh was an Eastern jewel which any man offlesh and blood must have coveted had he known it to lie within hisreach. Her eyes were twin lakes of mystery which, more than once, Ihad known the desire to explore.
"Look--beyond that curtain"--her voice was barely audible--"but do notenter. Even as he is, I fear him."
Her voice, her palpable agitation, prepared us for somethingextraordinary. Tragedy and Fu-Manchu were never far apart. Though wewere two, and help was so near, we were in the abode of the mostcunning murderer who ever came out of the East.
It was with strangely mingled emotions that I crossed the thick carpet,Nayland Smith beside me, and drew aside the draperies concealing adoor, to which Karamaneh had pointed. Then, upon looking into the dimplace beyond, all else save what it held was forgotten.
We looked upon a small, square room, the walls draped with fantasticChinese tapestry, the floor strewn with cushions; and reclining in acorner, where the faint, blue light from a lamp, placed upon a lowtable, painted grotesque shadows about the cavernous face--was Dr.Fu-Manchu!
At sight of him my heart leaped--and seemed to suspend its functions,so intense was the horror which this man's presence inspired in me. Myhand clutching the curtain, I stood watching him. The lids veiled themalignant green eyes, but the thin lips seemed to smile. Then Smithsilently pointed to the hand which held a little pipe. A sicklyperfume assailed my nostrils, and the explanation of the hushedsilence, and the ease with which we had thus far executed our plan,came to me. The cunning mind was torpid--lost in a brutish world ofdreams.
Fu-Manchu was in an opium sleep!
The dim light traced out a network of tiny lines, which covered theyellow face from the pointed chin to the top of the great domed brow,and formed deep shadow pools in the hollows beneath his eyes. At lastwe had triumphed.
I could not determine the depth of his obscene trance; and masteringsome of my repugnance, and forgetful of Karamaneh's warning, I wasabout to step forward into the room, loaded with its nauseating opiumfumes, when a soft breath fanned my cheek.
"Do not go in!" came Karamaneh's warning voice--hushed--trembling.
Her little hand grasped my arm. She drew Smith and myself back fromthe door.
"There is danger there!" she whispered.
"Do not enter that room! The police must reach him in some way--anddrag him out! Do not enter that room!"
The girl's voice quivered hysterically; her eyes blazed into savageflame. The fierce resentment born of dreadful wrongs was consuming hernow; but fear of Fu-Manchu held her yet. Inspector Weymouth came downthe stairs and joined us.
"I have sent the boy to Ryman's room at the station," he said. "Thedivisional surgeon will look after him until you arrive, Dr. Petrie.All is ready now. The launch is just off the wharf and every side ofthe place under observation. Where's our man?"
He drew a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and raised his eyebrowsinterrogatively. The absence of sound--of any demonstration from theuncanny Chinaman whom he was there to arrest--puzzled him.
Nayland Smith jerked his thumb toward the curtain.
At that, and before we could utter a word, Weymouth stepped to thedraped door. He was a man who drove straight at his goal and savedreflections for subsequent leisure. I think, moreover, that theatmosphere of the place (stripped as it was it retained its heavy,voluptuous perfume) had begun to get a hold upon him. He was anxiousto shake it off; to be up and doing.
He pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the room. Smith and Iperforce followed him. Just within the door the three of us stoodlooking acr
oss at the limp thing which had spread terror throughout theEastern and Western world. Helpless as Fu-Manchu was, he inspiredterror now, though the giant intellect was inert--stupefied.
In the dimly lit apartment we had quitted I heard Karamaneh utter astifled scream. But it came too late.
As though cast up by a volcano, the silken cushions, the inlaid tablewith its blue-shaded lamp, the garish walls, the sprawling figure withthe ghastly light playing upon its features--quivered, and shot upward!
So it seemed to me; though, in the ensuing instant I remembered, toolate, a previous experience of the floors of Fu-Manchu's privateapartments; I knew what had indeed befallen us. A trap had beenreleased beneath our feet.
I recall falling--but have no recollection of the end of my fall--ofthe shock marking the drop. I only remember fighting for my lifeagainst a stifling something which had me by the throat. I knew that Iwas being suffocated, but my hands met only the deathly emptiness.
Into a poisonous well of darkness I sank. I could not cry out. I washelpless. Of the fate of my companions I knew nothing--could surmisenothing. Then . . . all consciousness ended.
