The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
A desire for laughter claimed me with sudden, all but irresistible
force. I knew what it portended and fought it down--grimly, sternly.
My garments weighed upon me like a suit of mail; with my chest aching
dully, my veins throbbing to bursting, I forced tired muscles to work,
and, every stroke an agony, approached the beam. Nearer I swam
. . . nearer. Its shadow fell black upon the water, which now had all
the seeming of a pool of blood. Confused sounds--a remote uproar--came
to my ears. I was nearly spent . . . I was in the shadow of the beam! If
I could throw up one arm. . .
A shrill scream sounded far above me!
"Petrie! Petrie!" (That voice must be Smith's!) "Don't touch the
beam! For God's sake DON'T TOUCH THE BEAM! Keep afloat another few
seconds and I can get to you!"
Another few seconds! Was that possible?
I managed to turn, to raise my throbbing head; and I saw the strangest
sight which that night yet had offered.
Nayland Smith stood upon the lowest iron rung . . . supported by the
hideous, crook-backed Chinaman, who stood upon the rung above!
"I can't reach him!"
It was as Smith hissed the words despairingly that I looked up--and saw
the Chinaman snatch at his coiled pigtail and pull it off! With it
came the wig to which it was attached; and the ghastly yellow mask,
deprived of its fastenings, fell from position! "Here! Here! Be
quick! Oh! be quick! You can lower this to him! Be quick! Be
quick!"
A cloud of hair came falling about the slim shoulders as the speaker
bent to pass this strange lifeline to Smith; and I think it was my
wonder at knowing her for the girl whom that day I had surprised in
Cadby's rooms which saved my life.
For I not only kept afloat, but kept my gaze upturned to that
beautiful, flushed face, and my eyes fixed upon hers--which were wild
with fear . . . for me!
Smith, by some contortion, got the false queue into my grasp, and I,
with the strength of desperation, by that means seized hold upon the
lowest rung. With my friend's arm round me I realized that exhaustion
was even nearer than I had supposed. My last distinct memory is of the
bursting of the floor above and the big burning joist hissing into the
pool beneath us. Its fiery passage, striated with light, disclosed two
sword blades, riveted, edges up along the top of the beam which I had
striven to reach.
"The severed fingers--" I said; and swooned.
How Smith got me through the trap I do not know--nor how we made our
way through the smoke and flames of the narrow passage it opened upon.
My next recollection is of sitting up, with my friend's arm supporting
me and Inspector Ryman holding a glass to my lips.
A bright glare dazzled my eyes. A crowd surged about us, and a clangor
and shouting drew momentarily nearer.
"It's the engines coming," explained Smith, seeing my bewilderment.
"Shen-Yan's is in flames. It was your shot, as you fell through the
trap, broke the oil-lamp."
"Is everybody out?"
"So far as we know."
"Fu-Manchu?"
Smith shrugged his shoulders.
"No one has seen him. There was some door at the back--"
"Do you think he may--"
"No," he said tensely. "Not until I see him lying dead before me shall
I believe it."
Then memory resumed its sway. I struggled to my feet.
"Smith, where is she?" I cried. "Where is she?"
"I don't know," he answered.
"She's given us the slip, Doctor," said Inspector Weymouth, as a
fire-engine came swinging round the corner of the narrow lane. "So has
Mr. Singapore Charlie--and, I'm afraid, somebody else. We've got six
or eight all-sorts, some awake and some asleep, but I suppose we shall
have to let 'em go again. Mr. Smith tells me that the girl was
disguised as a Chinaman. I expect that's why she managed to slip away."
I recalled how I had been dragged from the pit by the false queue, how
the strange discovery which had brought death to poor Cadby had brought
life to me, and I seemed to remember, too, that Smith had dropped it as
he threw his arm about me on the ladder. Her mask the girl might have
retained, but her wig, I felt certain, had been dropped into the water.
It was later that night, when the brigade still were playing upon the
blackened shell of what had been Shen-Yan's opium-shop, and Smith and I
were speeding away in a cab from the scene of God knows how many
crimes, that I had an idea.
"Smith," I said, "did you bring the pigtail with you that was found on
Cadby?"
"Yes. I had hoped to meet the owner."
"Have you got it now?"
"No. I met the owner."
I thrust my hands deep into the pockets of the big pea-jacket lent to
me by Inspector Ryman, leaning back in my corner.
"We shall never really excel at this business," continued Nayland
Smith. "We are far too sentimental. I knew what it meant to us,
Petrie, what it meant to the world, but I hadn't the heart. I owed her
your life--I had to square the account."
CHAPTER VII
NIGHT fell on Redmoat. I glanced from the window at the nocturne in
silver and green which lay beneath me. To the west of the shrubbery,
with its broken canopy of elms and beyond the copper beech which marked
the center of its mazes, a gap offered a glimpse of the Waverney where
it swept into a broad. Faint bird-calls floated over the water.
These, with the whisper of leaves, alone claimed the ear.
Ideal rural peace, and the music of an English summer evening; but to
my eyes, every shadow holding fantastic terrors; to my ears, every
sound a signal of dread. For the deathful hand of Fu-Manchu was
stretched over Redmoat, at any hour to loose strange, Oriental horrors
upon its inmates.
"Well," said Nayland Smith, joining me at the window, "we had dared to
hope him dead, but we know now that he lives!"
The Rev. J. D. Eltham coughed nervously, and I turned, leaning my elbow
upon the table, and studied the play of expression upon the refined,
sensitive face of the clergyman.
"You think I acted rightly in sending for you, Mr. Smith?"
Nayland Smith smoked furiously.
"Mr. Eltham," he replied, "you see in me a man groping in the dark. I
am to-day no nearer to the conclusion of my mission than upon the day
when I left Mandalay. You offer me a clew; I am here. Your affair, I
believe, stands thus: A series of attempted burglaries, or something of
the kind, has alarmed your household. Yesterday, returning from London
with your daughter, you were both drugged in some way and, occupying a
compartment to yourselves, you both slept. Your daughter awoke, and
saw someone else in the carriage--a yellow-faced man who held a case of
instruments in his hands."
"Yes; I was, of course, unable to enter into particulars over the
telephone. The man was standing by one of the windows. Directly he
observed that my daughter was awake, he stepped towards her."
"What did he do with the case in his hands?"
"She did not notice--or did not mention having noticed. In fact, as
was natural, she was so frightened that she recalls nothing more,
beyond the fact that she strove to arouse me, without succeeding, felt
hands grasp her shoulders--and swooned."
"But someone used the emergency cord, and stopped the train."
"Greba has no recollection of having done so."
"Hm! Of course, no yellow-faced man was on the train. When did you
awake?"
"I was aroused by the guard, but only when he had repeatedly shaken me."
"Upon reaching Great Yarmouth you immediately called up Scotland Yard?
You acted very wisely, sir. How long were you in China?"
Mr. Eltham's start of surprise was almost comical.
"It is perhaps not strange that you should be aware of my residence in
China, Mr. Smith," he said; "but my not having mentioned it may seem
so. The fact is"--his sensitive face flushed in palpable
embarrassment--"I left China under what I may term an episcopal cloud.
I have lived in retirement ever since. Unwittingly--I solemnly declare
to you, Mr. Smith, unwittingly--I stirred up certain deep-seated
prejudices in my endeavors to do my duty--my duty. I think you asked
me how long I was in China? I was there from 1896 until 1900--four
years."
"I recall the circumstances, Mr. Eltham," said Smith, with an odd note
in his voice. "I have been endeavoring to think where I had come
across the name, and a moment ago I remembered. I am happy to have met
you, sir."
The clergyman blushed again like a girl, and slightly inclined his
head, with its scanty fair hair.
"Has Redmoat, as its name implies, a moat round it? I was unable to
see in the dusk."
"It remains. Redmoat--a corruption of Round Moat--was formerly a
priory, disestablished by the eighth Henry in 1536." His pedantic
manner was quaint at times. "But the moat is no longer flooded. In
fact, we grow cabbages in part of it. If you refer to the strategic
strength of the place"--he smiled, but his manner was embarrassed
again--"it is considerable. I have barbed wire fencing, and--other
arrangements. You see, it is a lonely spot," he added apologetically.
"And now, if you will excuse me, we will resume these gruesome
inquiries after the more pleasant affairs of dinner."
He left us.
"Who is our host?" I asked, as the door closed.
Smith smiled.
"You are wondering what caused the 'episcopal cloud?'" he suggested.
"Well, the deep-seated prejudices which our reverend friend stirred up
culminated in the Boxer Risings."
"Good heavens, Smith!" I said; for I could not reconcile the diffident
personality of the clergyman with the memories which those words
awakened.
"He evidently should be on our danger list," my friend continued
quickly; "but he has so completely effaced himself of recent years that
I think it probable that someone else has only just recalled his
existence to mind. The Rev. J. D. Eltham, my dear Petrie, though he
may be a poor hand at saving souls, at any rate, has saved a score of
Christian women from death--and worse."
"J. D. Eltham--" I began.
"Is 'Parson Dan'!" rapped Smith, "the 'Fighting Missionary,' the man
who with a garrison of a dozen cripples and a German doctor held the
hospital at Nan-Yang against two hundred Boxers. That's who the Rev.
J. D. Eltham is! But what is he up to, now, I have yet to find out.
He is keeping something back--something which has made him an object of
interest to Young China!"
During dinner the matters responsible for our presence there did not
hold priority in the conversation. In fact, this, for the most part,
consisted in light talk of books and theaters.
Greba Eltham, the clergyman's daughter, was a charming young hostess,
and she, with Vernon Denby, Mr. Eltham's nephew, completed the party.
No doubt the girl's presence, in part, at any rate, led us to refrain
from the subject uppermost in our minds.
These little pools of calm dotted along the torrential course of the
circumstances which were bearing my friend and me onward to unknown
issues form pleasant, sunny spots in my dark recollections.
So I shall always remember, with pleasure, that dinner-party at
Redmoat, in the old-world dining-room; it was so very peaceful, so
almost grotesquely calm. For I, within my very bones, felt it to be
the calm before the storm. When, later, we men passed to the library,
we seemed to leave that atmosphere behind us.
"Redmoat," said the Rev. J. D. Eltham, "has latterly become the theater
of strange doings."
He stood on the hearth-rug. A shaded lamp upon the big table and
candles in ancient sconces upon the mantelpiece afforded dim
illumination. Mr. Eltham's nephew, Vernon Denby, lolled smoking on the
window-seat, and I sat near to him. Nayland Smith paced restlessly up
and down the room.
"Some months ago, almost a year," continued the clergyman, "a