The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long,
magnetic eyes of the true cat-green: invest him with all the cruel
cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant
intellect. . ."
Dr. Fu-Manchu! Fu-Manchu as Smith had described him to me on that
night which now seemed so remotely distant--the night upon which I had
learned of the existence of the wonderful and evil being born of that
secret quickening which stirred in the womb of the yellow races.
As Smith, for the ninth or tenth time, knocked out his pipe on a bar of
the grate, the cuckoo clock in the kitchen proclaimed the hour.
"Two," said James Weymouth.
I abandoned my task, replacing notes and writing-block in the bag that
I had with me. Weymouth adjusted the lamp which had begun to smoke.
I tiptoed to the stairs and, stepping softly, ascended to the sick
room. All was quiet, and Mrs. Weymouth whispered to me that the
patient still slept soundly. I returned to find Nayland Smith pacing
about the room in that state of suppressed excitement habitual with him
in the approach of any crisis. At a quarter past two the breeze
dropped entirely, and such a stillness reigned all about us as I could
not have supposed possible so near to the ever-throbbing heart of the
great metropolis. Plainly I could hear Weymouth's heavy breathing. He
sat at the window and looked out into the black shadows under the
cedars. Smith ceased his pacing and stood again on the rug very still.
He was listening! I doubt not we were all listening.
Some faint sound broke the impressive stillness, coming from the
direction of the village street. It was a vague, indefinite
disturbance, brief, and upon it ensued a silence more marked than ever.
Some minutes before, Smith had extinguished the lamp. In the darkness
I heard his teeth snap sharply together.
The call of an owl sounded very clearly three times.
I knew that to mean that a messenger had come; but from whence or
bearing what tidings I knew not. My friend's plans were
incomprehensible to me, nor had I pressed him for any explanation of
their nature, knowing him to be in that high-strung and somewhat
irritable mood which claimed him at times of uncertainty--when he
doubted the wisdom of his actions, the accuracy of his surmises. He
gave no sign.
Very faintly I heard a clock strike the half-hour. A soft breeze stole
again through the branches above. The wind I thought must be in a new
quarter since I had not heard the clock before. In so lonely a spot it
was difficult to believe that the bell was that of St. Paul's. Yet such
was the fact.
And hard upon the ringing followed another sound--a sound we all had
expected, had waited for; but at whose coming no one of us, I think,
retained complete mastery of himself.
Breaking up the silence in a manner that set my heart wildly leaping it
came--an imperative knocking on the door!
"My God!" groaned Weymouth--but he did not move from his position at
the window.
"Stand by, Petrie!" said Smith.
He strode to the door--and threw it widely open.
I know I was very pale. I think I cried out as I fell back--retreated
with clenched hands from before THAT which stood on the threshold.
It was a wild, unkempt figure, with straggling beard, hideously staring
eyes. With its hands it clutched at its hair--at its chin; plucked at
its mouth. No moonlight touched the features of this unearthly
visitant, but scanty as was the illumination we could see the gleaming
teeth--and the wildly glaring eyes.
It began to laugh--peal after peal--hideous and shrill.
Nothing so terrifying had ever smote upon my ears. I was palsied by
the horror of the sound.
Then Nayland Smith pressed the button of an electric torch which he
carried. He directed the disk of white light fully upon the face in
the doorway.
"Oh, God!" cried Weymouth. "It's John!"--and again and again: "Oh,
God! Oh, God!"
Perhaps for the first time in my life I really believed (nay, I could
not doubt) that a thing of another world stood before me. I am ashamed
to confess the extent of the horror that came upon me. James Weymouth
raised his hands, as if to thrust away from him that awful thing in the
door. He was babbling--prayers, I think, but wholly incoherent.
"Hold him, Petrie!"
Smith's voice was low. (When we were past thought or intelligent
action, he, dominant and cool, with that forced calm for which, a
crisis over, he always paid so dearly, was thinking of the woman who
slept above.)
He leaped forward; and in the instant that he grappled with the one who
had knocked I knew the visitant for a man of flesh and blood--a man who
shrieked and fought like a savage animal, foamed at the mouth and
gnashed his teeth in horrid frenzy; knew him for a madman--knew him for
the victim of Fu-Manchu--not dead, but living--for Inspector
Weymouth--a maniac!
In a flash I realized all this and sprang to Smith's assistance. There
was a sound of racing footsteps and the men who had been watching
outside came running into the porch. A third was with them; and the
five of us (for Weymouth's brother had not yet grasped the fact that a
man and not a spirit shrieked and howled in our midst) clung to the
infuriated madman, yet barely held our own with him.
"The syringe, Petrie!" gasped Smith. "Quick! You must manage to make
an injection!"
I extricated myself and raced into the cottage for my bag. A
hypodermic syringe ready charged I had brought with me at Smith's
request. Even in that thrilling moment I could find time to admire the
wonderful foresight of my friend, who had divined what would
befall--isolated the strange, pitiful truth from the chaotic
circumstances which saw us at Maple Cottage that night.
Let me not enlarge upon the end of the awful struggle. At one time I
despaired (we all despaired) of quieting the poor, demented creature.
But at last it was done; and the gaunt, blood-stained savage whom we
had known as Detective-Inspector Weymouth lay passive upon the couch in
his own sitting-room. A great wonder possessed my mind for the genius
of the uncanny being who with the scratch of a needle had made a brave
and kindly man into this unclean, brutish thing.
Nayland Smith, gaunt and wild-eyed, and trembling yet with his
tremendous exertions, turned to the man whom I knew to be the messenger
from Scotland Yard.
"Well?" he rapped.
"He is arrested, sir," the detective reported. "They have kept him at
his chambers as you ordered."
"Has she slept through it?" said Smith to me. (I had just returned
from a visit to the room above.) I nodded.
"Is HE safe for an hour or two?"--indicating the figure on the couch.
"For eight or ten," I replied grimly.
"Come, then. Our night's labors are not nearly complete."
CHAPTER XXX
LATER was forthcoming evidence to show that poor Weymouth had lived a
wild life, in hiding among the thick bushes of the tract of land which
lay between the village and the suburb on the neighboring hill.
Literally, he had returned to primitive savagery and some of his food
had been that of the lower animals, though he had not scrupled to
steal, as we learned when his lair was discovered.
He had hidden himself cunningly; but witnesses appeared who had seen
him, in the dusk, and fled from him. They never learned that the
object of their fear was Inspector John Weymouth. How, having escaped
death in the Thames, he had crossed London unobserved, we never knew;
but his trick of knocking upon his own door at half-past two each
morning (a sort of dawning of sanity mysteriously linked with old
custom) will be a familiar class of symptom to all students of
alienation.
I revert to the night when Smith solved the mystery of the knocking.
In a car which he had in waiting at the end of the village we sped
through the deserted streets to New Inn Court. I, who had followed
Nayland Smith through the failures and successes of his mission, knew
that to-night he had surpassed himself; had justified the confidence
placed in him by the highest authorities.
We were admitted to an untidy room--that of a student, a traveler and a
crank--by a plain-clothes officer. Amid picturesque and disordered
fragments of a hundred ages, in a great carven chair placed before a
towering statue of the Buddha, sat a hand-cuffed man. His white hair
and beard were patriarchal; his pose had great dignity. But his
expression was entirely masked by the smoked glasses which he wore.
Two other detectives were guarding the prisoner.
"We arrested Professor Jenner Monde as he came in, sir," reported the
man who had opened the door. "He has made no statement. I hope there
isn't a mistake."
"I hope not," rapped Smith.
He strode across the room. He was consumed by a fever of excitement.
Almost savagely, he tore away the beard, tore off the snowy wig--dashed
the smoked glasses upon the floor.
A great, high brow was revealed, and green, malignant eyes, which fixed
themselves upon him with an expression I never can forget.
IT WAS DR. FU-MANCHU!
One intense moment of silence ensued--of silence which seemed to throb.
Then:
"What have you done with Professor Monde?" demanded Smith.
Dr. Fu-Manchu showed his even, yellow teeth in the singularly evil
smile which I knew so well. A manacled prisoner he sat as unruffled as
a judge upon the bench. In truth and in justice I am compelled to say
that Fu-Manchu was absolutely fearless.
"He has been detained in China," he replied, in smooth, sibilant
tones--"by affairs of great urgency. His well-known personality and
ungregarious habits have served me well, here!"
Smith, I could see, was undetermined how to act; he stood tugging at
his ear and glancing from the impassive Chinaman to the wondering
detectives.
"What are we to do, sir?" one of them asked.
"Leave Dr. Petrie and myself alone with the prisoner, until I call you."
The three withdrew. I divined now what was coming.
"Can you restore Weymouth's sanity?" rapped Smith abruptly. "I cannot
save you from the hangman, nor"--his fists clenched convulsively--"would
I if I could; but--"
Fu-Manchu fixed his brilliant eyes upon him.
"Say no more, Mr. Smith," he interrupted; "you misunderstand me. I do
not quarrel with that, but what I have done from conviction and what I
have done of necessity are separated--are seas apart. The brave
Inspector Weymouth I wounded with a poisoned needle, in self-defense;
but I regret his condition as greatly as you do. I respect such a man.
There is an antidote to the poison of the needle."
"Name it," said Smith.
Fu-Manchu smiled again.
"Useless," he replied. "I alone can prepare it. My secrets shall die
with me. I will make a sane man of Inspector Weymouth, but no one else
shall be in the house but he and I."
"It will be surrounded by police," interrupted Smith grimly.
"As you please," said Fu-Manchu. "Make your arrangements. In that
ebony case upon the table are the instruments for the cure. Arrange
for me to visit him where and when you will--"
"I distrust you utterly. It is some trick," jerked Smith.
Dr. Fu-Manchu rose slowly and drew himself up to his great height. His
manacled hands could not rob him of the uncanny dignity which was his.
He raised them above his head with a tragic gesture and fixed his
piercing gaze upon Nayland Smith.
"The God of Cathay hear me," he said, with a deep, guttural note in his
voice--"I swear--"
The most awful visitor who ever threatened the peace of England, the
end of the visit of Fu-Manchu was characteristic--terrible--inexplicable.
Strange to relate, I did not doubt that this weird being had conceived
some kind of admiration or respect for the man to whom he had wrought