The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
plant, swept constantly through the open window. Inspector Weymouth
carefully relighted his cigar.
"I'm with you this far, Mr. Smith," he said. "Strozza, knowing Sir
Lionel to be absent, locked himself in here to rifle the mummy case,
for Croxted, entering by way of the window, found the key on the
inside. Strozza didn't know that the Chinaman was hidden in the
conservatory--"
"And Kwee did not dare to show himself, because he too was there for
some mysterious reason of his own," interrupted Smith.
"Having got the lid off, something,--somebody--"
"Suppose we say the mummy?"
Weymouth laughed uneasily.
"Well, sir, something that vanished from a locked room without opening
the door or the window killed Strozza."
"And something which, having killed Strozza, next killed the Chinaman,
apparently without troubling to open the door behind which he lay
concealed," Smith continued. "For once in a way, Inspector, Dr.
Fu-Manchu has employed an ally which even his giant will was incapable
entirely to subjugate. What blind force--what terrific agent of
death--had he confined in that sarcophagus!"
"You think this is the work of Fu-Manchu?" I said. "If you are
correct, his power indeed is more than human."
Something in my voice, I suppose, brought Smith right about. He
surveyed me curiously.
"Can you doubt it? The presence of a concealed Chinaman surely is
sufficient. Kwee, I feel assured, was one of the murder group, though
probably he had only recently entered that mysterious service. He is
unarmed, or I should feel disposed to think that his part was to
assassinate Sir Lionel whilst, unsuspecting the presence of a hidden
enemy, he was at work here. Strozza's opening the sarcophagus clearly
spoiled the scheme."
"And led to the death--"
"Of a servant of Fu-Manchu. Yes. I am at a loss to account for that."
"Do you think that the sarcophagus entered into the scheme, Smith?"
My friend looked at me in evident perplexity.
"You mean that its arrival at the time when a creature of the
Doctor--Kwee--was concealed here, may have been a coincidence?"
I nodded; and Smith bent over the sarcophagus, curiously examining the
garish paintings with which it was decorated inside and out. It lay
sideways upon the floor, and seizing it by its edge, he turned it over.
"Heavy," he muttered; "but Strozza must have capsized it as he fell.
He would not have laid it on its side to remove the lid. Hallo!"
He bent farther forward, catching at a piece of twine, and out of the
mummy case pulled a rubber stopper or "cork."
"This was stuck in a hole level with the floor of the thing," he said.
"Ugh! it has a disgusting smell."
I took it from his hands, and was about to examine it, when a loud
voice sounded outside in the hall. The door was thrown open, and a big
man, who, despite the warmth of the weather, wore a fur-lined overcoat,
rushed impetuously into the room.
"Sir Lionel!" cried Smith eagerly. "I warned you! And see, you have
had a very narrow escape."
Sir Lionel Barton glanced at what lay upon the floor, then from Smith
to myself, and from me to Inspector Weymouth. He dropped into one of
the few chairs unstacked with books.
"Mr. Smith," he said, with emotion, "what does this mean? Tell
me--quickly."
In brief terms Smith detailed the happenings of the night--or so much
as he knew of them. Sir Lionel Barton listened, sitting quite still
the while--an unusual repose in a man of such evidently tremendous
nervous activity.
"He came for the jewels," he said slowly, when Smith was finished; and
his eyes turned to the body of the dead Italian. "I was wrong to
submit him to the temptation. God knows what Kwee was doing in hiding.
Perhaps he had come to murder me, as you surmise, Mr. Smith, though I
find it hard to believe. But--I don't think this is the handiwork of
your Chinese doctor." He fixed his gaze upon the sarcophagus.
Smith stared at him in surprise. "What do you mean, Sir Lionel?"
The famous traveler continued to look towards the sarcophagus with
something in his blue eyes that might have been dread.
"I received a wire from Professor Rembold to-night," he continued.
"You were correct in supposing that no one but Strozza knew of my
absence. I dressed hurriedly and met the professor at the Traveler's.
He knew that I was to read a paper next week upon"--again he looked
toward the mummy case--"the tomb of Mekara; and he knew that the
sarcophagus had been brought, untouched, to England. He begged me not
to open it."
Nayland Smith was studying the speaker's face.
"What reason did he give for so extraordinary a request?" he asked.
Sir Lionel Barton hesitated.
"One," he replied at last, "which amused me--at the time. I must
inform you that Mekara--whose tomb my agent had discovered during my
absence in Tibet, and to enter which I broke my return journey to
Alexandria--was a high priest and first prophet of Amen--under the
Pharaoh of the Exodus; in short, one of the magicians who contested in
magic arts with Moses. I thought the discovery unique, until Professor
Rembold furnished me with some curious particulars respecting the death
of M. Page le Roi, the French Egyptologist--particulars new to me."
We listened in growing surprise, scarcely knowing to what this tended.
"M. le Roi," continued Barton, "discovered, but kept secret, the tomb
of Amenti--another of this particular brotherhood. It appears that he
opened the mummy case on the spot--these priests were of royal line,
and are buried in the valley of Biban-le-Moluk. His Fellah and Arab
servants deserted him for some reason--on seeing the mummy case--and he
was found dead, apparently strangled, beside it. The matter was hushed
up by the Egyptian Government. Rembold could not explain why. But he
begged of me not to open the sarcophagus of Mekara."
A silence fell.
The strange facts regarding the sudden death of Page le Roi, which I
now heard for the first time, had impressed me unpleasantly, coming
from a man of Sir Lionel Barton's experience and reputation.
"How long had it lain in the docks?" jerked Smith.
"For two days, I believe. I am not a superstitious man, Mr. Smith, but
neither is Professor Rembold, and now that I know the facts respecting
Page le Roi, I can find it in my heart to thank God that I did not
see . . . whatever came out of that sarcophagus."
Nayland Smith stared him hard in the face. "I am glad you did not, Sir
Lionel," he said; "for whatever the priest Mekara has to do with the
matter, by means of his sarcophagus, Dr. Fu-Manchu has made his first
attempt upon your life. He has failed, but I hope you will accompany
me from here to a hotel. He will not fail twice."
CHAPTER XII
IT was the night following that of the double tragedy at Rowan House.
Nayland Smith, with Inspector Weymouth, was engaged in some mysterious
inquiry at the docks, and I had remained at home to resume my strange
chronicle. And--why should I not confess it?--my memories had
frightened me.
I was arranging my notes respecting the case of Sir Lionel Barton.
They were hopelessly incomplete. For instance, I had jotted down the
following queries:--(1) Did any true parallel exist between the death
of M. Page le Roi and the death of Kwee, the Chinaman, and of Strozza?
(2) What had become of the mummy of Mekara? (3) How had the murderer
escaped from a locked room? (4) What was the purpose of the rubber
stopper? (5) Why was Kwee hiding in the conservatory? (6) Was the
green mist a mere subjective hallucination--a figment of Croxted's
imagination--or had he actually seen it?
Until these questions were satisfactorily answered, further progress
was impossible. Nayland Smith frankly admitted that he was out of his
depth. "It looks, on the face of it, more like a case for the
Psychical Research people than for a plain Civil Servant, lately of
Mandalay," he had said only that morning.
"Sir Lionel Barton really believes that supernatural agencies were
brought into operation by the opening of the high priest's coffin. For
my part, even if I believed the same, I should still maintain that Dr.
Fu-Manchu controlled those manifestations. But reason it out for
yourself and see if we arrive at any common center. Don't work so much
upon the datum of the green mist, but keep to the FACTS which are
established."
I commenced to knock out my pipe in the ash-tray; then paused, pipe in
hand. The house was quite still, for my landlady and all the small
household were out.
Above the noise of the passing tramcar I thought I had heard the hall
door open. In the ensuing silence I sat and listened.
Not a sound. Stay! I slipped my hand into the table drawer, took out
my revolver, and stood up.
There WAS a sound. Someone or something was creeping upstairs in the
dark!
Familiar with the ghastly media employed by the Chinaman, I was seized
with an impulse to leap to the door, shut and lock it. But the
rustling sound proceeded, now, from immediately outside my partially
opened door. I had not the time to close it; knowing somewhat of the
horrors at the command of Fu-Manchu, I had not the courage to open it.
My heart leaping wildly, and my eyes upon that bar of darkness with its
gruesome potentialities, I waited--waited for whatever was to come.
Perhaps twelve seconds passed in silence.
"Who's there?" I cried. "Answer, or I fire!"
"Ah! no," came a soft voice, thrillingly musical. "Put it down--that
pistol. Quick! I must speak to you."
The door was pushed open, and there entered a slim figure wrapped in a
hooded cloak. My hand fell, and I stood, stricken to silence, looking
into the beautiful dark eyes of Dr. Fu-Manchu's messenger--if her own
statement could be credited, slave. On two occasions this girl, whose
association with the Doctor was one of the most profound mysteries of
the case, had risked--I cannot say what; unnameable punishment,
perhaps--to save me from death; in both cases from a terrible death.
For what was she come now?
Her lips slightly parted, she stood, holding her cloak about her, and
watching me with great passionate eyes.
"How--" I began.
But she shook her head impatiently.
"HE has a duplicate key of the house door," was her amazing statement.
"I have never betrayed a secret of my master before, but you must
arrange to replace the lock."
She came forward and rested her slim hands confidingly upon my
shoulders. "I have come again to ask you to take me away from him,"
she said simply.
And she lifted her face to me.
Her words struck a chord in my heart which sang with strange music,
with music so barbaric that, frankly, I blushed to find it harmony.
Have I said that she was beautiful? It can convey no faint conception
of her. With her pure, fair skin, eyes like the velvet darkness of the
East, and red lips so tremulously near to mine, she was the most
seductively lovely creature I ever had looked upon. In that electric
moment my heart went out in sympathy to every man who had bartered
honor, country, all for a woman's kiss.
"I will see that you are placed under proper protection," I said
firmly, but my voice was not quite my own. "It is quite absurd to talk
of slavery here in England. You are a free agent, or you could not be
here now. Dr. Fu-Manchu cannot control your actions."
"Ah!" she cried, casting back her head scornfully, and releasing a
cloud of hair, through whose softness gleamed a jeweled head-dress.
"No? He cannot? Do you know what it means to have been a slave?
Here, in your free England, do you know what it means--the razzia, the
desert journey, the whips of the drivers, the house of the dealer, the
shame. Bah!"
How beautiful she was in her indignation!