by Sax Rohmer
There came a low moaning sound, which rose and fell—rose and fell—and faded away…
“I know you think you are dreaming, Kerrigan!” Smith’s voice had lost none of its snap. “I thought so myself, until I found it impossible to wake up. But I assure you we are both here and both awake.”
Tentatively I tried to move the chair. Stooping, I touched the iron bands about my ankles. Then I stared wanly across at my fellow captive… I knew I was awake.
“Thank God you’re alive, Smith!”
“Alive, as you say, but not, I fear, for long!”
He laughed. It was not a mirthful laugh. The sound of our voices in that horrible musty place was muted, toneless, as the voices of those who speak in a crypt. I had never seen Smith otherwise than well groomed, but now, growing accustomed to the gloom, I saw that there was stubble on his chin. His hair was of that crisp, wavy sort which never seems to be disordered. But this growth of beard deepened the shadows beneath his cheekbones, and the quick gleam of his small even teeth as he laughed seemed to accentuate the haggardness of his appearance.
“I left in rather a hurry, Kerrigan; I forgot my pipe. It’s been damnable here, waiting for… whatever he intends to do to me. You will find that the chains are long enough to enable you to reach that recess on your right, where, very courteously, the designer of this apartment has placed certain toilet facilities for the use of one confined here during any considerable time. I am similarly equipped. A Thug of hideous aspect, whom I recognise as an old servant of Doctor Fu-Manchu, has waited upon me excellently.”
He indicated the remains of a meal on a ledge in the niche beside him.
“Knowing the doctor’s penchant for experiments in toxicology, frankly, my appetite has not been good.”
I stood up and moved cautiously forward, dragging the chains behind me.
“No, no!” Smith smiled grimly. “It is well thought out, Kerrigan. We cannot get within six feet of one another.”
I stood there, at the full length of my tether watching him where he sat.
“What I was about to ask is: do you happen to have any cigarettes?”
I clapped a hand to my pocket. My automatic, my clasp knife, these were gone—but not my cigarettes!
“Yes, the case is full.”
“Do you mind tossing one across to me? I have a lighter.”
I did as he suggested, and he lighted a cigarette. Returning to the immovable chair I followed his example; and as I drew the smoke between my lips I asked myself the question: Am I sane? Is it a fact that I and Nayland Smith are confined in a cell belonging to the Middle Ages?
That gruesome moaning arose again—and died away. “What is it, Smith?”
“I don’t know. I have been wondering for some time.”
“You don’t think it’s some wretched—”
“It isn’t a human sound, Kerrigan. It seems to be growing louder… However—how did you fall into this?”
I told him—and I was perfectly frank. I told him of Ardatha’s visit, of the sounds which I had heard out on the canal side, of all that had followed right to the time that I had fallen into the trap prepared for me.
“There would seem to be a point, Kerrigan, where courage becomes folly.”
I laughed.
“What of yourself, Smith? I have yet to learn how you come to be here.”
“Oddly enough, our stories are not dissimilar. As you know, I did not turn in when you left me, but I put out the lights and stared from the window. The room was not ideal in view of the peril in which I knew myself to be. But I noted with gratitude a moored gondola in which a stout policeman was seated, apparently watching my window. It occurred to me that the sitting-room windows were equally accessible and, quietly, for I assumed you had gone to bed, I went in to look.
“I found that one was wide open and as I moved across to close it, I heard voices in your room. My first instinct was to dash in, but I waited for a moment because I detected a woman’s voice. Then I realised what had happened. Ardatha had paid you a secret visit!
“Knowing your sentiments about this girl, I was by no means easy in my mind. However, I determined not to disturb you or to bring you into the matter in any way. But here was a chance not to be missed.
“Dropping out of the sitting-room window (which the man in the gondola could not see) I tripped and fell. The sound of my fall must have attracted your attention. I discovered a half-gate which shut me off from the courtyard directly below your room. I tried it very gently. It was not locked. Knowing that Ardatha must have approached from the other end, I crept past your window and concealed myself in a patch of shadow near the small bridge which crosses the canal at that point.
“When Ardatha came out (I recognised her from your description) I followed; and my experiences from this point are uncommonly like your own. She entered the old stone storehouse facing the Palazzo Mori; and I, too, performed that clammy journey through the tunnels. I lost her at the top of the steps leading out of the wine cellar. But having learned all I hoped to learn I was about to return when something prompted me to look into the room with the lotus floor.”
He paused.
“Now, I want to make it quite clear, Kerrigan: I have no evidence to show that Ardatha suspected she was being followed. The presence of the woman whom I found in that room may have been accidental, but as I looked in I saw her…”
“You saw whom?”
“The zombie!”
“Good God!”
“My theories regarding her identity were confirmed. I had been right. Failing the presence of Doctor Fu-Manchu in the case, she could only be a spirit, a creature of another world. For myself, I had seen her consigned to a horrible death. But woman or spirit, I knew now that she had to be silenced. I sprang forward to seize her—”
“I know!” I groaned.
“At that moment, Kerrigan, my usefulness to the world ended.”
He stared down at the smoke arising from the tip of his cigarette.
“You say you recognised her. Who is she?”
“She is Doctor Fu-Manchu’s daughter.”
“What!”
“Unchanged from the first moment I set eyes upon her. She is a living miracle, a corpse moving among the living. But—here we are! And frankly, I confess here we deserve to be!”
He paused for a moment as if listening—perhaps for that awesome moaning. But I could detect no sound save a faint drip-drip of water.
“Of course you realise, Smith,” I said in a dull voice, “that Rudolf Adlon is in the hands of Doctor Fu-Manchu?”
“I realise it fully. I may add that I doubt if he is alive.”
Why I should have felt so about one who was something of a storm centre in Europe I cannot say, but momentarily forgetting my own peril I was chilled by the thought that Rudolf Adlon no longer lived, that the power which swayed a nation had ceased to be. We were silent for a long time, sitting there smoking and staring vacantly at each other. At last:
“As I see it,” said Nayland Smith, “we have just one chance.”
“What is that?”
“Ardatha!”
“Why do you think so?”
“Now that I know her Oriental origin, which all along I had suspected, I think if she learns that you are here she will try to save you.”
I shook my head.
“Even if you are right I doubt if she would have the power… and I am sorry to say that I believe her to be utterly evil.”
“Let us pray that she is not. She risked perhaps more than you understand to save you once before. If she fails to try again…”
That unendurable moaning arose, as if to tell us that Ardatha would fail—that all would fail.
* * *
I don’t know how long I had been sitting there in hopeless dejection when I heard a slow, soft footstep approaching. I glanced across at Nayland Smith. His face was set, expressionless.
A rattling of keys came, and the heavy door swung open. At the same
moment a light set somewhere behind that squat pillar sprang up, and I saw as I had suspected a fully equipped torture chamber. Nocturnal insects rustled to cover.
Dr. Fu-Manchu came in…
He wore a plain yellow robe having long sleeves, and upon his feet I saw thick-soled slippers. His phenomenal skull was hidden by a mandarin’s cap, perhaps that which I had found in a hut on the Essex marshes.
I am unable to record my emotions at this moment, for I cannot recall that I had any. When on a previous occasion I had found myself in the power of the Chinese doctor, I had been fortified by the knowledge that Nayland Smith was free, that there was a chance of his coming to my aid. Now we were fellow captives. I was numbly resigned to whatever was to be.
Seated on Dr. Fu-Manchu’s left shoulder I saw a tiny, wizened marmoset. I thought that it peered at me inquisitively. Fu-Manchu crossed nearly to the centre of the cell—he had a queer, catlike gait. There, standing midway between us, he looked long and searchingly, first at Nayland Smith and then at me. I tried to sustain the gaze of his half-closed eyes. I was mortified when I found that I could not do it.
“So you have decided to join me, Sir Denis?” He spoke softly and raising one hand caressed the marmoset. “At last, the Si-Fan is to enjoy the benefit of your great ability.”
Nayland Smith said nothing. He watched and listened.
“Later I shall make arrangements for your transport to my temporary headquarters. I shall employ you to save civilisation from the madmen who seek to ruin it.”
The meaning of these strange words was not entirely clear to me, but I noted, and drew my own conclusions, that Dr. Fu-Manchu seemed to have forgotten my presence.
“Tonight, a man who threatens the peace of the world will make a far-reaching decision. To me his life or death are matters of no importance, but I am determined that there shall be peace; the assumption of the West that older races can benefit by your ridiculous culture must be corrected. Your culture!”
His voice sank contemptuously on a guttural note.
“What has it done? What have your aeroplanes—those toys of a childish people—accomplished? Beyond bringing every man’s home into the firing line—nothing! Napoleon had no bombers, no high explosives, nor any other of your modern boons. He conquered a great part of Europe without them. Poor infants, who transfer your prayers from angels to aeroplanes!”
He ceased for a moment and the silence was uncanny. From my point of view in the low wooden chair, Dr. Fu-Manchu appeared abnormally tall. He possessed a physical repose which was terrifying, because in some way it made more manifest the volcanic activity of his brain. He was like a pylon supporting a blinding light.
The silence was broken by shrill chattering from the marmoset. With a tiny hand it patted the cheek of its master.
Dr. Fu-Manchu glanced aside at the wizened little creature.
“You have met my marmoset before, Sir Denis, and I think I have mentioned that he is of great age. I shall not tell you his age since you might be tempted to doubt my word, which I could not tolerate.” There was mockery in his voice. “My earliest experiments in arresting senility were carried out on my faithful Peko. As you see, they were successful.”
He removed the marmoset from his shoulder and couched it in a yellow fold covering his left arm. Nayland Smith’s face remained completely expressionless. I counted the paces between the chair in which I sat and the spot upon which Dr. Fu-Manchu stood.
He was just beyond my reach.
“You have genius, Sir Denis, but it is marred by a streak of that bulldog breed of which the British are so proud. In striving to bolster up the ridiculous pretensions of those who misdirect the West, you have inevitably found yourself opposed to me. Consider what it is that you would preserve, what contentment it has brought in its train. Look around at the happy homes of Europe and America, the labourers singing in your vineyards, the peace and prosperity which your ‘progress’ has showered on mankind.”
His voice rose. I detected a note of repressed but feverish excitement.
“But no matter. There will be ample time in future to direct your philosophy into more suitable channels. I will gratify your natural curiosity regarding my presence in the world, which continues even after my unpleasant experience at Niagara Falls…”
Nayland Smith’s hands closed tightly.
“You recovered the body of that brilliant maniac, Professor Morgenstahl, I understand, and also the wreckage of the motorboat. One of my most devoted servants was driving the boat. He was not killed as you supposed and his body lost. He was temporarily stunned in the struggle with Morgenstahl—whom I overcame, however. He recovered in time to deal with the emergency. He succeeded in running the boat against a rock near the head of a rapid. In this he was aided by a Very light contributed by an airman flying over us. This fellow of mine—a sea Dyak—is a magnificent surf swimmer. Carrying a line he swam from point to point and finally reached the Canadian shore.”
Dr. Fu-Manchu stroked the marmoset reflectively.
“Unaided by this line and the strength of my servant, I doubt if I could have crossed to the bank. The crossing seriously exhausted me—and the boat became dislodged no more than a few seconds after I had taken the plunge…”
Nayland Smith neither spoke nor moved. His hands remained clenched, his face expressionless.
“You have observed,” Fu-Manchu continued, “that my daughter is again acting in my interests. She is unaware, however, of her former identity: Fah lo Suee is dead. I have reincarnated her as Korêani, an Oriental dancer whose popularity is useful. This is her punishment…”
The marmoset uttered a whistling sound. It was uncannily derisive.
“Later you will experience this form of amnesia, yourself. The ordeal by fire to which I once submitted Korêani in your presence was salutary, but the furnace contained no fuel. It was one which I had prepared for you, Sir Denis. I had designed it as a gateway to your new life in China.”
Mentally I seemed to remain numb. Some of the Chinese doctor’s statements I failed to follow. Others were all too horribly clear. At times there came a note almost of exultation, severely repressed but perceptible, into the speaker’s voice. He had the majesty which belongs to great genius, or, and there was a new horror in the afterthought, to insanity. He was perhaps a brilliant madman!
“I am satisfied to observe,” he continued, “that my new anesthetic, a preparation of crataegus, the common hawthorn, serves its purpose so admirably. Anesthesia is immediate and complete. There are no distressing after-symptoms. I foresee that it will supplant my mimosa mixture with which, Sir Denis, you have been familiar in the past.”
Slowly he extended a gaunt hand in the direction of the torture room:
“Medieval devices designed to stimulate reluctant memories.”
He stepped aside and took up a pair of long-handled tongs.
“Forceps used to tear sinews.”
He spoke softly, then dropped those instruments of agony. The clang of their fall made my soul sick.
“Primitive and clumsy. China has done better. No doubt you recall the Seven Gates? However, these forms of questions are no longer necessary. I can learn all that I wish to know by the mere exercise of that neglected implement, the human will. I recently discovered in this way that Ardatha—hitherto a staunch ally—is not to be trusted where Mr Kerrigan is concerned.” I ceased to breathe as he spoke those words…
“Accordingly I have taken steps to ensure her noninterference… You are silent, Sir Denis?”
“Why should I speak?” Smith’s voice was flatly unemotional. “I allowed myself to fall into a trap which a schoolboy would have distrusted. I have nothing to say.”
“You refer to the lotus floor no doubt? Yes, ingenious in its way. That room with others giving access to the cellars and dungeons had been walled up for several generations. I recently had them reopened, but confess I did not foresee it would be for the accommodation of so distinguished a guest. In a dung
eon adjoining this I came across two skeletons, those of a man and a woman. Irregularities in certain of the small bones suggested that they had not died happily—”
He turned as if to go.
“I look forward to further conversation in the future, Sir Denis, but now I must leave you. A matter of the gravest urgency demands my attention.”
As he moved towards the door the marmoset sprang from his arm to his shoulder, and turning its tiny head, gibed at us… The light went out… I heard the key turned in the lock—I heard those padding, catlike steps receding in the stone-paved passage…
I was drenched in perspiration.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THE TONGS
The silence which followed Dr. Fu-Manchu’s departure was broken by that awful moaning as of some lost soul who had died horribly in one of the dungeons. It rose and fell, rose and fell… and faded away.
“Kerrigan!” Smith snapped, and I admired the vigour of his manner. “Was the wind rising out there?”
“Yes, in gusts… What do you think he meant about—”
“The wind was from the sea?”
“Yes. Oh my God! Is she alive?”
Again that awful moaning arose—and now to it was added a ghostly metallic clanking.
“What ever is it, Smith?”
“I have been wondering for some time… Yes, she’s, alive, Kerrigan, but we can’t count on her!… Now that you tell me a breeze has risen, I know what it is. There’s a window or a ventilator outside in the passage. What we hear is wind howling through a narrow opening.”
“But that awful clanking!”
“Irritatingly significant.”
“Why?”
“It was not there before the doctor’s visit! It means that he has left the key in the lock with the other keys attached to it. The draught of air—I can feel it blowing on the top of my head now through these bars—is swinging the attached keys to and fro.”
Across the darkened cell he watched me.
“Among those keys, Kerrigan, in all probability, are the keys to our manacles!”
