The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
directions as far as my eyes could reach; but no swimmer showed above
it. Then it was that I concluded he had dived too deeply, become
entangled in the weeds and was drowned. With a final glance to right
and left and some feeling of awe at this sudden tragedy--this grim
going out of a life at glorious noonday--I turned away. Smith had the
woman securely; but I had not taken five steps towards him when a faint
splash behind warned me. Instinctively I ducked. From whence that
saving instinct arose I cannot surmise, but to it I owed my life. For
as I rapidly lowered my head, something hummed past me, something that
flew out over the grass bank, and fell with a jangle upon the dusty
roadside. A knife!
I turned and bounded back to the river's brink. I heard a faint cry
behind me, which could only have come from the gypsy woman. Nothing
disturbed the calm surface of the water. The reach was lonely of
rowers. Out by the farther bank a girl was poling a punt along, and
her white-clad figure was the only living thing that moved upon the
river within the range of the most expert knife-thrower.
To say that I was nonplused is to say less than the truth; I was
amazed. That it was the dacoit who had shown me this murderous
attention I could not doubt. But where in Heaven's name WAS he? He
could not humanly have remained below water for so long; yet he
certainly was not above, was not upon the surface, concealed amongst
the reeds, nor hidden upon the bank.
There, in the bright sunshine, a consciousness of the eerie possessed
me. It was with an uncomfortable feeling that my phantom foe might be
aiming a second knife at my back that I turned away and hastened
towards Smith. My fearful expectations were not realized, and I picked
up the little weapon which had so narrowly missed me, and with it in my
hand rejoined my friend.
He was standing with one arm closely clasped about the apparently
exhausted woman, and her dark eyes were fixed upon him with an
extraordinary expression.
"What does it mean, Smith?" I began.
But he interrupted me.
"Where is the dacoit?" he demanded rapidly.
"Since he seemingly possesses the attributes of a fish," I replied, "I
cannot pretend to say."
The gypsy woman lifted her eyes to mine and laughed. Her laughter was
musical, not that of such an old hag as Smith held captive; it was
familiar, too.
I started and looked closely into the wizened face.
"He's tricked you," said Smith, an angry note in his voice. "What is
that you have in your hand?"
I showed him the knife, and told him how it had come into my possession.
"I know," he rapped. "I saw it. He was in the water not three yards
from where you stood. You must have seen him. Was there nothing
visible?"
"Nothing."
The woman laughed again, and again I wondered.
"A wild-fowl," I added; "nothing else."
"A wild-fowl," snapped Smith. "If you will consult your recollections
of the habits of wild-fowl you will see that this particular specimen
was a RARA AVIS. It's an old trick, Petrie, but a good one, for it is
used in decoying. A dacoit's head was concealed in that wild-fowl!
It's useless. He has certainly made good his escape by now."
"Smith," I said, somewhat crestfallen, "why are you detaining this
gypsy woman?"
"Gypsy woman!" he laughed, hugging her tightly as she made an impatient
movement. "Use your eyes, old man."
He jerked the frowsy wig from her head, and beneath was a cloud of
disordered hair that shimmered in the sunlight.
"A wet sponge will do the rest," he said.
Into my eyes, widely opened in wonder, looked the dark eyes of the
captive; and beneath the disguise I picked out the charming features of
the slave girl. There were tears on the whitened lashes, and she was
submissive now.
"This time," said my friend hardly, "we have fairly captured her--and
we will hold her."
From somewhere up-stream came a faint call.
"The dacoit!"
Nayland Smith's lean body straightened; he stood alert, strung up.
Another call answered, and a third responded. Then followed the flatly
shrill note of a police whistle, and I noted a column of black vapor
rising beyond the wall, mounting straight to heaven as the smoke of a
welcome offering.
The surrounded mansion was in flames!
"Curse it!" rapped Smith. "So this time we were right. But, of
course, he has had ample opportunity to remove his effects. I knew
that. The man's daring is incredible. He has given himself till the
very last moment--and we blundered upon two of the outposts."
"I lost one."
"No matter. We have the other. I expect no further arrests, and the
house will have been so well fired by the Doctor's servants that
nothing can save it. I fear its ashes will afford us no clew, Petrie;
but we have secured a lever which should serve to disturb Fu-Manchu's
world."
He glanced at the queer figure which hung submissively in his arms.
She looked up proudly.
"You need not hold me so tight," she said, in her soft voice. "I will
come with you."
That I moved amid singular happenings, you, who have borne with me thus
far, have learned, and that I witnessed many curious scenes; but of the
many such scenes in that race-drama wherein Nayland Smith and Dr.
Fu-Manchu played the leading parts, I remember none more bizarre than
the one at my rooms that afternoon.
Without delay, and without taking the Scotland Yard men into our
confidence, we had hurried our prisoner back to London, for my friend's
authority was supreme. A strange trio we were, and one which excited
no little comment; but the journey came to an end at last. Now we were
in my unpretentious sitting-room--the room wherein Smith first had
unfolded to me the story of Dr. Fu-Manchu and of the great secret
society which sought to upset the balance of the world--to place Europe
and America beneath the scepter of Cathay.
I sat with my elbows upon the writing-table, my chin in my hands; Smith
restlessly paced the floor, relighting his blackened briar a dozen
times in as many minutes. In the big arm-chair the pseudogypsy was
curled up. A brief toilet had converted the wizened old woman's face
into that of a fascinatingly pretty girl. Wildly picturesque she
looked in her ragged Romany garb. She held a cigarette in her fingers
and watched us through lowered lashes.
Seemingly, with true Oriental fatalism, she was quite reconciled to her
fate, and ever and anon she would bestow upon me a glance from her
beautiful eyes which few men, I say with confidence, could have
sustained unmoved. Though I could not be blind to the emotions of that
passionate Eastern soul, yet I strove not to think of them. Accomplice
of an arch-murderer she might be; but she was dangerously lovely.
"That man who was with you," said Smith, suddenly turning upon her,
"was in Burma up till quite recently. He murdered a fisherman thirty
miles above Prome only a month before I left. The D.S.P. had placed a
thousand rupees on his head. Am I right?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"Suppose--What then?" she asked.
"Suppose I handed you over to the police?" suggested Smith. But he
spoke without conviction, for in the recent past we both had owed our
lives to this girl.
"As you please," she replied. "The police would learn nothing."
"You do not belong to the Far East," my friend said abruptly. "You may
have Eastern blood in your veins, but you are no kin of Fu-Manchu."
"That is true," she admitted, and knocked the ash from her cigarette.
"Will you tell me where to find Fu-Manchu?"
She shrugged her shoulders again, glancing eloquently in my direction.
Smith walked to the door.
"I must make out my report, Petrie," he said. "Look after the
prisoner."
And as the door closed softly behind him I knew what was expected of
me; but, honestly, I shirked my responsibility. What attitude should I
adopt? How should I go about my delicate task? In a quandary, I stood
watching the girl whom singular circumstances saw captive in my rooms.
"You do not think we would harm you?" I began awkwardly. "No harm
shall come to you. Why will you not trust us?"
She raised her brilliant eyes.
"Of what avail has your protection been to some of those others," she
said; "those others whom HE has sought for?"
Alas! it had been of none, and I knew it well. I thought I grasped
the drift of her words.
"You mean that if you speak, Fu-Manchu will find a way of killing you?"
"Of killing ME!" she flashed scornfully. "Do I seem one to fear for
myself?"
"Then what do you fear?" I asked, in surprise.
She looked at me oddly.
"When I was seized and sold for a slave," she answered slowly, "my
sister was taken, too, and my brother--a child." She spoke the word
with a tender intonation, and her slight accent rendered it the more
soft. "My sister died in the desert. My brother lived. Better, far
better, that he had died, too."
Her words impressed me intensely.
"Of what are you speaking?" I questioned. "You speak of slave-raids,
of the desert. Where did these things take place? Of what country are
you?"
"Does it matter?" she questioned in turn. "Of what country am I? A
slave has no country, no name."
"No name!" I cried.
"You may call me Karamaneh," she said. "As Karamaneh I was sold to Dr.
Fu-Manchu, and my brother also he purchased. We were cheap at the
price he paid." She laughed shortly, wildly.
"But he has spent a lot of money to educate me. My brother is all that
is left to me in the world to love, and he is in the power of Dr.
Fu-Manchu. You understand? It is upon him the blow will fall. You ask
me to fight against Fu-Manchu. You talk of protection. Did your
protection save Sir Crichton Davey?"
I shook my head sadly.
"You understand now why I cannot disobey my master's orders--why, if I
would, I dare not betray him."
I walked to the window and looked out. How could I answer her
arguments? What could I say? I heard the rustle of her ragged skirts,
and she who called herself Karamaneh stood beside me. She laid her
hand upon my arm.
"Let me go," she pleaded. "He will kill him! He will kill him!"
Her voice shook with emotion.
"He cannot revenge himself upon your brother when you are in no way to
blame," I said angrily. "We arrested you; you are not here of your own
free will."
She drew her breath sharply, clutching at my arm, and in her eyes I
could read that she was forcing her mind to some arduous decision.
"Listen." She was speaking rapidly, nervously. "If I help you to take
Dr. Fu-Manchu--tell you where he is to be found ALONE--will you promise
me, solemnly promise me, that you will immediately go to the place
where I shall guide you and release my brother; that you will let us
both go free?"
"I will," I said, without hesitation. "You may rest assured of it."
"But there is a condition," she added.
"What is it?"
"When I have told you where to capture him you must release me."
I hesitated. Smith often had accused me of weakness where this girl
was concerned. What now was my plain duty? That she would utterly
decline to speak under any circumstances unless it suited her to do so
I felt assured. If she spoke the truth, in her proposed bargain there
was no personal element; her conduct I now viewed in a new light.
Humanity, I thought, dictated that I accept her proposal; policy also.
"I agree," I said, and looked into her eyes, which were aflame now with
emotion, an excitement perhaps of anticipation, perhaps of fear.
She laid her hands upon my shoulders.
"You will be careful?" she said pleadingly.
"For your sake," I replied, "I shall."
"Not for my sake."
"Then for your brother's."
"No." Her voice had sunk to a whisper. "For your own."
CHAPTER XVII