The Bride of Fu-Manchu (22 page)

This was the supreme moment.

I was disposed to think that it was he, awakening, who had summoned me. I lost count of time as I stood before that blank wall, charging myself with cowardice, flogging my failing courage.

At last I took the plunge... and the door opened.

He sat there like the mummy of Seti the First, upright on his throne. Opium still held him in its grasp. A jungle smell was mingling now with the poppy fumes, for the doors leading into the great palm house remained open. The marmoset was crouching on that yellow shoulder, nor did he stir as I went tiptoe across the carpet.

So far, I was safe.

I closed the first door, hurried to the second, and closed that also. I hadn’t the courage to pause to adjust the gauge. I ran through the place, ducking to avoid overhanging branches, many of them flower-laden. And coming to the next door I pulled up and listened.

There was no pursuit.

From thence onward, I adjusted all the gauges, until, opening the final door, I stepped into the botanical research room, from which I had set out upon that memorable pilgrimage...

Stock still I pulled up on the threshold. Fleurette stood there watching me!

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“F
leurette!” I exclaimed.

She wore a silk wrap over night attire; sandals on her slim brown feet. She watched me gravely.

“Fleurette! Who called me?”

“I called you.”

“But”—I was astounded—“how did you know—?”

“I know most of the things that go on here,” she returned calmly.

I moved nearer to her and looked at the dial close to which she was standing. My number—103—was registered upon it; and:

“How often did you call me?” I asked.

“Twice.”

Her unmoving regard, in which there was an unpleasant question, began to disturb me.

My conception of her as a victim of the powerful and evil man who sought to destroy white civilization was entirely self-created. I remembered that she had been reared in this atmosphere from birth; and conscious of an unpleasant chill I realized that she, whom I had regarded as a partner in misfortune, an ally, might prove to be the means of my unmasking. I decided to be diplomatic.

“Yes—of course you called me twice,” I replied.

The second call would have been taken by Nayland Smith! How would he have read it?

“Why didn’t you come?” she asked. “Where were you?”

Her beautiful eyes were fixed upon me with a regard which I found almost terrifying. An hour before, an instant before, I would have met her gaze gladly, happily; but now—I wondered.

After all, the romance between this girl and myself existed only in my own imagination. It was built upon nothing but a stairs of sand—her remarkable beauty. She was, as Dr. Fu-Manchu had said, that most rare jewel—a perfect woman.

But I—I was far removed from a perfect man. Vanity had blinded me. She belonged body and soul to the group surrounding the Chinese doctor. And perhaps it was no more than poetic justice that she and none of the others should expose me.

“I was in the palm house. I had never seen such trees. And, as you know, I am a botanist.”

“But you were a long time coming,” she insisted. “You are sure you were alone?”

As if a black cloud had lifted, I saw—or dared to hope that I saw—the truth in the regard of those sunset violet eyes. Or was it vanity, self-delusion, again? But, moving nearer to her:

“Alone!” I echoed. “Who could be with me at this hour of the night?”

And now at last, unfalteringly, I looked into her eyes.

“The Princess is very beautiful,” she said, in a low voice.

“The Princess?”

I had no idea at the moment to whom she referred; but chaotically, delightfully, it was as I had dared to hope!

My sudden, wild passion for this exquisite, unattainable girl had not failed utterly of its objective. She was sufficiently interested to be jealous! And now, watching her, it dawned upon me to whom she referred.

“Do you mean Fah Lo Suee?”

She made a little grimace and turned aside.

“I wondered why you had joined us,” she murmured. “If she is Fah Lo Suee to you—I know. I was merely curious. Goodnight.”

“Fleurette!” I cried. “Fleurette!”

She turned and walked away.

She did not look back.

I sprang forward, threw my arms around her and held her.

Even so, she did not look back; she merely stood still. But my doubts, my diffidence, were gone: my heart was singing...

She had given me that age-old sign which is woman’s prerogative. The next move was mine. Revelation was so sudden, so wholly unexpected, that it swept me out of myself. To my shame I confess that, although vast issues hung in the balance, establishment of an understanding with Fleurette was the only thing in life at which at that moment I aimed.

I had fallen irrevocably in love with her at first sight.

Recognition of the fact that she was interested produced a state of mind little short of delirium.

“Fleurette!” I said, holding her tightly and bending close to her averted head, “that woman you call the Princess I call Fah Lo Suee because I was told that that was her name: I know her by no other. She means nothing more to me than I thought I meant to you. I had seen her once only in my life before I came here...”

I checked my words: I had been on the point of saying too much. Fah Lo Suee had told me, “she has Eastern blood in her, and to Eastern women love comes suddenly.” Of all that Fu-Manchu’s daughter had revealed, this alone I was disposed to believe.

Fleurette turned quickly and looked up at me.

Nothing, I think, short of sudden death could have checked me then.

Raising my left hand to her shoulder, I twisted her about, so that I had her clasped in my arms. And stooping to those delicious, tremulous lips, I kissed her until we both were breathless.

One instantaneous moment there was of rebellion, and then such exquisite surrender that when presently she buried her lovely little head in my shoulder, so that I could feel her heart beating, I think there was in the whole world no happier man than I.

There was an old tradition in my family of which my mother had told me—that we were slow to hate but quick to love. Fleurette and I were well met. I doubted if mutual love had ever been unmasked under circumstances more peculiar.

What she told me did not fully register at the time, nor, perhaps, were my questions those which Nayland Smith would have selected. Nevertheless, I learned much respecting this queer household of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

I began to realize the greatness of the menace which he represented; because, through Fleurette, the knowledge came to me that many who served him loved him.

Perhaps, among the lower orders of his strange entourage, fear was his sceptre. But, as I gathered—and I dared not speak a word to shatter that ideal—Fleurette’s sentiments were those of profound respect.

Mahdi Bey, her guardian, had taught her to look upon the Chinese doctor as upon a man supreme among men. It was an honourable fate to be chosen by the Prince who one day would rule the world— be its Emperor...

Fleurette had received a remarkable education, embracing the icy peaks of sexless philosophy, to which she had been taught to look up in a Buddhist monastery in the north of China, to the material feminism of a famous English school. Yet she remained completely human; for she lay in my arms whispering those replies to my eager questions.

She had not been denied the companionship of men, but always, in whichever part of the world she had chanced to find herself, had been constantly accompanied and never left alone in the society of others for more than those few minutes which Western social custom demands. There were girls of good family and of her own age in some of the larger establishments. But as to how they came to be there I was unable to form any idea: apparently they had been selected purely as companions for Fleurette...

Fah Lo Suee, to whom she referred as “the Princess,” she distrusted, but evidently feared. Fah Lo Suee, it seemed, had partisans of her own among the many leaders of this mysterious movement which Fleurette called the Si-Fan. Regarding the political side of the organization, she clearly knew next to nothing. That a great war was pending in which Dr. Fu-Manchu expected to overthrow all opposition, she was aware: the character of this war she did not seem even to suspect.

Without recourse to the Ericksen telephone, Dr. Fu-Manchu was able to call her, she told me—and she was compelled to go to him.

He sometimes made her look into a disk in which strange images appeared...

There were times—of which tonight was an instance—when his influence dropped from her—unaccountably; when she questioned the meaning of her life—and followed her own impulses. Those times, beyond doubt, although I did not tell her so, corresponded to the doctor’s bouts of opium-smoking.

“Why did you tell me to think of you as Derceto?”

Fleurette laughed, but not happily.

“Because you found me on the shore—and to love me meant destruction...”

During the greater part of the telling of her strange story, she had lain in my arms—and there had been silent intervals. But at last I seemed to hear the crisp voice of Sir Denis demanding that I should put duty first...

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“H
e is here,” said Fleurette. “Leave the door open, I will call if anyone comes.”

At that moment, as I crossed the threshold into a small white bedroom, even Fleurette was forgotten. Petrie, pale as I had ever seen him, his hair blanched as by the brushes of ten years, lay there, watching me!

There was a dull flush on his forehead where the Purple Shadow had been.

“Petrie, old man!” I whispered. “Petrie!... Thank God!”

Had I not met other dead men in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu, this must have been a moment of stupefaction.

He nodded weakly and smiled—the same patient smile which I knew, even extending his hand, which I grasped between both my own.

“This,” I said, “is a miracle.”

“I agree.” His voice was very low. “I must have the constitution of a rattlesnake, Sterling. For I have not only survived the new plague—but an injection of the preparation known as ‘Fu-Manchu
katalepsis’
or briefly—
‘F. katalepsis.’”

“You
know
all this?”

“Yes; I even knew that you were here. But this is no time—” He stopped, breathlessly, and I realized how weak he was.

“Don’t tire yourself,” I urged, grasping his shoulder. “Sir Denis is waiting for the news.”

“Nayland Smith!” His eyes lighted up. “
He
is here?”

“Yes—standing by, outside.”

Petrie clenched his teeth; closed his eyes. I recognized all that this news had meant to him; then:

“There is only one thing you must wait for,” he said. “Give me that scribbling block from the table, Sterling, and a pencil.”

I did as he directed—I could see that it would be useless to object.

“Lift me up,” he went on. “It’s going to be a struggle to write, but it has to be done—in case—of—accidents.”

“What, Petrie? Why is all this necessary?”

He shook his head and began very slowly to write. Bending over him, I saw that he was writing a prescription.

The truth dawned upon me!

“‘654’?”

He nodded, and went on writing. For a moment he paused, and:

“This must be circulated throughout the world,” he whispered weakly, “without delay.”

He glanced over what he had written, and nodded his wish to be laid back upon the pillows. This accomplished, I tore the sheet off the block, folded it, and slipped it into a pocket of my overall.

“Now, bolt!” he whispered. “Bolt for your life while there’s a chance. Everything depends upon your success.”

I had turned to go—when, unaided, he sat upright in bed, his eyes fixed upon the open door.

“Alan!” I heard softly.

I turned in time to see Fleurette’s head hurriedly withdrawn. Someone was coming!

“Sterling! Sterling!” Petrie clutched my shoulder: his eyes were suddenly wild. “Who was that at the door?”