The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
for his return. These lead to:
"(a) The death of Denby's collie;
"(b) The things heard and seen by Miss Eltham;
"(c) The things heard and seen by us all last night.
"So that the clearing up of my fourth point--id est, the discovery of
the nature of these preparations--becomes our immediate concern. The
prime object of these preparations, Petrie, was to enable someone to
gain access to Eltham's room. The other events are incidental. The
dogs HAD to be got rid of, for instance; and there is no doubt that
Miss Eltham's wakefulness saved her father a second time."
"But from what? For Heaven's sake, from what?"
Smith glanced about into the light-patched shadows.
"From a visit by someone--perhaps by Fu-Manchu himself," he said in a
hushed voice. "The object of that visit I hope we may never learn; for
that would mean that it had been achieved."
"Smith," I said, "I do not altogether understand you; but do you think
he has some incredible creature hidden here somewhere? It would be
like him."
"I begin to suspect the most formidable creature in the known world to
be hidden here. I believe Fu-Manchu is somewhere inside Redmoat!"
Our conversation was interrupted at this point by Denby, who came to
report that he had examined the moat, the roadside, and the bank of the
stream, but found no footprints or clew of any kind.
"No one left the grounds of Redmoat last night, I think," he said. And
his voice had awe in it.
That day dragged slowly on. A party of us scoured the neighborhood for
traces of strangers, examining every foot of the Roman ruin hard by;
but vainly.
"May not your presence here induce Fu-Manchu to abandon his plans?" I
asked Smith.
"I think not," he replied. "You see, unless we can prevail upon him,
Eltham sails in a fortnight. So the Doctor has no time to waste.
Furthermore, I have an idea that his arrangements are of such a
character that they MUST go forward. He might turn aside, of course,
to assassinate me, if opportunity arose! But we know, from experience,
that he permits nothing to interfere with his schemes."
There are few states, I suppose, which exact so severe a toll from
one's nervous system as the ANTICIPATION of calamity.
All anticipation is keener, be it of joy or pain, than the reality
whereof it is a mental forecast; but that inactive waiting at Redmoat,
for the blow which we knew full well to be pending exceeded in its
nerve taxation, anything I hitherto had experienced.
I felt as one bound upon an Aztec altar, with the priest's obsidian
knife raised above my breast!
Secret and malign forces throbbed about us; forces against which we had
no armor. Dreadful as it was, I count it a mercy that the climax was
reached so quickly. And it came suddenly enough; for there in that
quiet Norfolk home we found ourselves at hand grips with one of the
mysterious horrors which characterized the operations of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
It was upon us before we realized it. There is no incidental music to
the dramas of real life.
As we sat on the little terrace in the creeping twilight, I remember
thinking how the peace of the scene gave the lie to my fears that we
bordered upon tragic things. Then Caesar, who had been a docile
patient all day, began howling again; and I saw Greba Eltham shudder.
I caught Smith's eye, and was about to propose our retirement indoors,
when the party was broken up in more turbulent fashion. I suppose it
was the presence of the girl which prompted Denby to the rash act, a
desire personally to distinguish himself. But, as I recalled
afterwards, his gaze had rarely left the shrubbery since dusk, save to
seek her face, and now he leaped wildly to his feet, overturning his
chair, and dashed across the grass to the trees.
"Did you see it?" he yelled. "Did you see it?"
He evidently carried a revolver. For from the edge of the shrubbery a
shot sounded, and in the flash we saw Denby with the weapon raised.
"Greba, go in and fasten the windows," cried Eltham. "Mr. Smith, will
you enter the bushes from the west. Dr. Petrie, east. Edwards,
Edwards--" And he was off across the lawn with the nervous activity of
a cat.
As I made off in an opposite direction I heard the gardener's voice
from the lower gate, and I saw Eltham's plan. It was to surround the
shrubbery.
Two more shots and two flashes from the dense heart of greenwood. Then
a loud cry--I thought, from Denby--and a second, muffled one.
Following--silence, only broken by the howling of the mastiff.
I sprinted through the rose garden, leaped heedlessly over a bed of
geranium and heliotrope, and plunged in among the bushes and under the
elms. Away on the left I heard Edwards shouting, and Eltham's
answering voice.
"Denby!" I cried, and yet louder: "Denby!"
But the silence fell again.
Dusk was upon Redmoat now, but from sitting in the twilight my eyes had
grown accustomed to gloom, and I could see fairly well what lay before
me. Not daring to think what might lurk above, below, around me, I
pressed on into the midst of the thicket.
"Vernon!" came Eltham's voice from one side.
"Bear more to the right, Edwards," I heard Nayland Smith cry directly
ahead of me.
With an eerie and indescribable sensation of impending disaster upon
me, I thrust my way through to a gray patch which marked a break in the
elmen roof. At the foot of the copper beech I almost fell over Eltham.
Then Smith plunged into view. Lastly, Edwards the gardener rounded a
big rhododendron and completed the party.
We stood quite still for a moment.
A faint breeze whispered through the beech leaves.
"Where is he?"
I cannot remember who put it into words; I was too dazed with amazement
to notice. Then Eltham began shouting:
"Vernon! Vernon! VERNON!"
His voice pitched higher upon each repetition. There was something
horrible about that vain calling, under the whispering beech, with
shrubs banked about us cloaking God alone could know what.
From the back of the house came Caesar's faint reply.
"Quick! Lights!" rapped Smith. "Every lamp you have!"
Off we went, dodging laurels and privets, and poured out on to the
lawn, a disordered company. Eltham's face was deathly pale, and his
jaw set hard. He met my eye.
"God forgive me!" he said. "I could do murder to-night!"
He was a man composed of strange perplexities.
It seemed an age before the lights were found. But at last we returned
to the bushes, really after a very brief delay; and ten minutes
sufficed us to explore the entire shrubbery, for it was not extensive.
We found his revolver, but there was no one there--nothing.
When we all stood again on the lawn, I thought that I had never seen
Smith so haggard.
"What in Heaven's name can we do?" he muttered. "What does it mean?"
He expected no answer; for there was none to offer one.
"Search! Everywhere," said Eltham hoarsely.
He ran off into the rose garden, and began beating about among the
flowers like a madman, muttering: "Vernon! Vernon!" For close upon
an hour we all searched. We searched every square yard, I think,
within the wire fencing, and found no trace. Miss Eltham slipped out
in the confusion, and joined with the rest of us in that frantic hunt.
Some of the servants assisted too.
It was a group terrified and awestricken which came together again on
the terrace. One and then another would give up, until only Eltham and
Smith were missing. Then they came back together from examining the
steps to the lower gate.
Eltham dropped on to a rustic seat, and sank his head in his hands.
Nayland Smith paced up and down like a newly caged animal, snapping his
teeth together and tugging at his ear.
Possessed by some sudden idea, or pressed to action by his tumultuous
thoughts, he snatched up a lantern and strode silently off across the
grass and to the shrubbery once more. I followed him. I think his
idea was that he might surprise anyone who lurked there. He surprised
himself, and all of us.
For right at the margin he tripped and fell flat. I ran to him.
He had fallen over the body of Denby, which lay there!
Denby had not been there a few moments before, and how he came to be
there now we dared not conjecture. Mr. Eltham joined us, uttered one
short, dry sob, and dropped upon his knees. Then we were carrying
Denby back to the house, with the mastiff howling a marche funebre.
We laid him on the grass where it sloped down from the terrace.
Nayland Smith's haggard face was terrible. But the stark horror of the
thing inspired him to that, which conceived earlier, had saved Denby.
Twisting suddenly to Eltham, he roared in a voice audible beyond the
river:
"Heavens! we are fools! LOOSE THE DOG!"
"But the dog--" I began.
Smith clapped his hand over my mouth.
"I know he's crippled," he whispered. "But if anything human lurks
there, the dog will lead us to it. If a MAN is there, he will fly!
Why did we not think of it before. Fools, fools!" He raised his voice
again. "Keep him on leash, Edwards. He will lead us."
The scheme succeeded.
Edwards barely had started on his errand when bells began ringing
inside the house.
"Wait!" snapped Eltham, and rushed indoors.
A moment later he was out again, his eyes gleaming madly. "Above the
moat," he panted. And we were off en masse round the edge of the trees.
It was dark above the moat; but not so dark as to prevent our seeing a
narrow ladder of thin bamboo joints and silken cord hanging by two
hooks from the top of the twelve-foot wire fence. There was no sound.
"He's out!" screamed Eltham. "Down the steps!"
We all ran our best and swiftest. But Eltham outran us. Like a fury
he tore at bolts and bars, and like a fury sprang out into the road.
Straight and white it showed to the acclivity by the Roman ruin. But
no living thing moved upon it. The distant baying of the dog was borne
to our ears.
"Curse it! he's crippled," hissed Smith. "Without him, as well pursue
a shadow!"
A few hours later the shrubbery yielded up its secret, a simple one
enough: A big cask sunk in a pit, with a laurel shrub cunningly affixed
to its movable lid, which was further disguised with tufts of grass. A
slender bamboo-jointed rod lay near the fence. It had a hook on the
top, and was evidently used for attaching the ladder.
"It was the end of this ladder which Miss Eltham saw," said Smith, "as
he trailed it behind him into the shrubbery when she interrupted him in
her father's room. He and whomever he had with him doubtless slipped in
during the daytime--whilst Eltham was absent in London--bringing the
prepared cask and all necessary implements with them. They concealed
themselves somewhere--probably in the shrubbery--and during the night
made the cache. The excavated earth would be disposed of on the
flower-beds; the dummy bush they probably had ready. You see, the
problem of getting IN was never a big one. But owing to the 'defenses'
it was impossible (whilst Eltham was in residence at any rate) to get
OUT after dark. For Fu-Manchu's purposes, then, a working-base INSIDE
Redmoat was essential. His servant--for he needed assistance--must
have been in hiding somewhere outside; Heaven knows where! During the
day they could come or go by the gates, as we have already noted."
"You think it was the Doctor himself?"
"It seems possible. Who else has eyes like the eyes Miss Eltham saw
from the window last night?"
Then remains to tell the nature of the outrage whereby Fu-Manchu had
planned to prevent Eltham's leaving England for China. This we learned
from Denby. For Denby was not dead.
It was easy to divine that he had stumbled upon the fiendish visitor at
the very entrance to his burrow; had been stunned (judging from the