The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
But West went on hoarsely:
"Just before the blank came a name flashed before my eyes. It was
'Bayard Taylor.'"
At that I interrupted West.
"I understand!" I cried. "I understand! Another name has just
occurred to me, Mr. West--that of the Frenchman, Moreau."
"You have solved the mystery," said Smith. "It was natural Mr. West
should have thought of the American traveler, Bayard Taylor, though.
Moreau's book is purely scientific. He has probably never read it."
"I fought with the stupor that was overcoming me," continued West,
"striving to associate that vaguely familiar name with the fantastic
things through which I moved. It seemed to me that the room was empty
again. I made for the hall, for the telephone. I could scarcely drag
my feet along. It seemed to take me half-an-hour to get there. I
remember calling up Scotland Yard, and I remember no more."
There was a short, tense interval.
In some respects I was nonplused; but, frankly, I think Inspector
Weymouth considered West insane. Smith, his hands locked behind his
back, stared out of the window.
"ANDAMAN--SECOND" he said suddenly. "Weymouth, when is the first train
to Tilbury?"
"Five twenty-two from Fenchurch Street," replied the Scotland Yard man
promptly.
"Too late!" rapped my friend. "Jump in a taxi and pick up two good men
to leave for China at once! Then go and charter a special to Tilbury
to leave in twenty-five minutes. Order another cab to wait outside for
me."
Weymouth was palpably amazed, but Smith's tone was imperative. The
Inspector departed hastily.
I stared at Smith, not comprehending what prompted this singular course.
"Now that you can think clearly, Mr. West," he said, "of what does your
experience remind you? The errors of perception regarding time; the
idea of SEEING A SOUND; the illusion that the room alternately
increased and diminished in size; your fit of laughter, and the
recollection of the name Bayard Taylor. Since evidently you are
familiar with that author's work--'The Land of the Saracen,' is it
not?--these symptoms of the attack should be familiar, I think."
Norris West pressed his hands to his evidently aching head.
"Bayard Taylor's book," he said dully. "Yes! . . . I know of what my
brain sought to remind me--Taylor's account of his experience under
hashish. Mr. Smith, someone doped me with hashish!"
Smith nodded grimly.
"Cannabis indica," I said--"Indian hemp. That is what you were drugged
with. I have no doubt that now you experience a feeling of nausea and
intense thirst, with aching in the muscles, particularly the deltoid.
I think you must have taken at least fifteen grains."
Smith stopped his perambulations immediately in front of West, looking
into his dulled eyes.
"Someone visited your chambers last night," he said slowly, "and for
your chloral tabloids substituted some containing hashish, or perhaps
not pure hashish. Fu-Manchu is a profound chemist."
Norris West started.
"Someone substituted--" he began.
"Exactly," said Smith, looking at him keenly; "someone who was here
yesterday. Have you any idea whom it could have been?"
West hesitated. "I had a visitor in the afternoon," he said, seemingly
speaking the words unwillingly, "but--"
"A lady?" jerked Smith. "I suggest that it was a lady."
West nodded.
"You're quite right," he admitted. "I don't know how you arrived at
the conclusion, but a lady whose acquaintance I made recently--a
foreign lady."
"Karamaneh!" snapped Smith.
"I don't know what you mean in the least, but she came here--knowing
this to be my present address--to ask me to protect her from a
mysterious man who had followed her right from Charing Cross. She said
he was down in the lobby, and naturally, I asked her to wait here
whilst I went and sent him about his business."
He laughed shortly.
"I am over-old," he said, "to be guyed by a woman. You spoke just now
of someone called Fu-Manchu. Is that the crook I'm indebted to for the
loss of my plans? I've had attempts made by agents of two European
governments, but a Chinaman is a novelty."
"This Chinaman," Smith assured him, "is the greatest novelty of his
age. You recognize your symptoms now from Bayard Taylor's account?"
"Mr. West's statement," I said, "ran closely parallel with portions of
Moreau's book on 'Hashish Hallucinations.' Only Fu-Manchu, I think,
would have thought of employing Indian hemp. I doubt, though, if it
was pure Cannabis indica. At any rate, it acted as an opiate--"
"And drugged Mr. West," interrupted Smith, "sufficiently to enable
Fu-Manchu to enter unobserved."
"Whilst it produced symptoms which rendered him an easy subject for the
Doctor's influence. It is difficult in this case to separate
hallucination from reality, but I think, Mr. West, that Fu-Manchu must
have exercised an hypnotic influence upon your drugged brain. We have
evidence that he dragged from you the secret of the combination."
"God knows we have!" said West. "But who is this Fu-Manchu, and
how--how in the name of wonder did he get into my chambers?"
Smith pulled out his watch. "That," he said rapidly, "I cannot delay
to explain if I'm to intercept the man who has the plans. Come along,
Petrie; we must be at Tilbury within the hour. There is just a bare
chance."
CHAPTER XX
IT was with my mind in a condition of unique perplexity that I hurried
with Nayland Smith into the cab which waited and dashed off through the
streets in which the busy life of London just stirred into being. I
suppose I need not say that I could penetrate no farther into this,
Fu-Manchu's latest plot, than the drugging of Norris West with hashish?
Of his having been so drugged with Indian hemp--that is, converted
temporarily into a maniac--would have been evident to any medical man
who had heard his statement and noted the distressing after-effects
which conclusively pointed to Indian hemp poisoning. Knowing something
of the Chinese doctor's powers, I could understand that he might have
extracted from West the secret of the combination by sheer force of
will whilst the American was under the influence of the drug. But I
could not understand how Fu-Manchu had gained access to locked chambers
on the third story of a building.
"Smith," I said, "those bird tracks on the window-sill--they furnish
the key to a mystery which is puzzling me."
"They do," said Smith, glancing impatiently at his watch. "Consult
your memories of Dr. Fu-Manchu's habits--especially your memories of
his pets."
I reviewed in my mind the creatures gruesome and terrible which
surrounded the Chinaman--the scorpions, the bacteria, the noxious
things which were the weapons wherewith he visited death upon
whomsoever opposed the establishment of a potential Yellow Empire. But
no one of them could account for the imprints upon the dust of West's
window-sill.
"You puzzle me, Smith," I confessed. "There is much in this
extraordinary case that puzzles me. I can think of nothing to account
for the marks."
"Have you thought of Fu-Manchu's marmoset?" asked Smith.
"The monkey!" I cried.
"They were the footprints of a small ape," my friend continued. "For a
moment I was deceived as you were, and believed them to be the tracks
of a large bird; but I have seen the footprints of apes before now, and
a marmoset, though an American variety, I believe, is not unlike some
of the apes of Burma."
"I am still in the dark," I said.
"It is pure hypothesis," continued Smith, "but here is the theory--in
lieu of a better one it covers the facts. The marmoset--and it is
contrary from the character of Fu-Manchu to keep any creature for mere
amusement--is trained to perform certain duties.
"You observed the waterspout running up beside the window; you observed
the iron bar intended to prevent a window-cleaner from falling out?
For an ape the climb from the court below to the sill above was a
simple one. He carried a cord, probably attached to his body. He
climbed on to the sill, over the bar, and climbed down again. By means
of this cord a rope was pulled up over the bar, by means of the rope
one of those ladders of silk and bamboo. One of the Doctor's servants
ascended--probably to ascertain if the hashish had acted successfully.
That was the yellow dream-face which West saw bending over him. Then
followed the Doctor, and to his giant will the drugged brain of West
was a pliant instrument which he bent to his own ends. The court would
be deserted at that hour of the night, and, in any event, directly
after the ascent the ladder probably was pulled up, only to be lowered
again when West had revealed the secret of his own safe and Fu-Manchu
had secured the plans. The reclosing of the safe and the removing of
the hashish tabloids, leaving no clew beyond the delirious ravings of a
drug slave--for so anyone unacquainted with the East must have
construed West's story--is particularly characteristic. His own
tabloids were returned, of course. The sparing of his life alone is a
refinement of art which points to a past master."
"Karamaneh was the decoy again?" I said shortly.
"Certainly. Hers was the task to ascertain West's habits and to
substitute the tabloids. She it was who waited in the luxurious
car--infinitely less likely to attract attention at that hour in that
place than a modest taxi--and received the stolen plans. She did her
work well.
"Poor Karamaneh; she had no alternative! I said I would have given a
hundred pounds for a sight of the messenger's face--the man to whom she
handed them. I would give a thousand now!"
"ANDAMAN--SECOND," I said. "What did she mean?"
"Then it has not dawned upon you?" cried Smith excitedly, as the cab
turned into the station. "The ANDAMAN, of the Oriental Navigation
Company's line, leaves Tilbury with the next tide for China ports. Our
man is a second-class passenger. I am wiring to delay her departure,
and the special should get us to the docks inside of forty minutes."
Very vividly I can reconstruct in my mind that dash to the docks
through the early autumn morning. My friend being invested with
extraordinary powers from the highest authorities, by Inspector
Weymouth's instructions the line had been cleared all the way.
Something of the tremendous importance of Nayland Smith's mission came
home to me as we hurried on to the platform, escorted by the
station-master, and the five of us--for Weymouth had two other C.I.D.
men with him--took our seats in the special.
Off we went on top speed, roaring through stations, where a glimpse
might be had of wondering officials upon the platforms, for a special
train was a novelty on the line. All ordinary traffic arrangements
were held up until we had passed through, and we reached Tilbury in
time which I doubt not constituted a record.
There at the docks was the great liner, delayed in her passage to the
Far East by the will of my royally empowered companion. It was novel,
and infinitely exciting.
"Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith?" said the captain interrogatively,
when we were shown into his room, and looked from one to another and
back to the telegraph form which he held in his hand.
"The same, Captain," said my friend briskly. "I shall not detain you a
moment. I am instructing the authorities at all ports east of Suez to
apprehend one of your second-class passengers, should he leave the
ship. He is in possession of plans which practically belong to the
British Government!"
"Why not arrest him now?" asked the seaman bluntly.
"Because I don't know him. All second-class passengers' baggage will
be searched as they land. I am hoping something from that, if all else
fails. But I want you privately to instruct your stewards to watch any