The Drums of Fu-Manchu
Read The Drums of Fu-Manchu Online
Authors: Sax Rohmer
Contents
Chapter One: Mystery Comes to Bayswater
Chapter Two: Sir Malcolm’s Guest
Chapter Three: The Green Death
Chapter Four: The Girl Outside
Chapter Seven: “Inspector Gallaho Reports”
Chapter Eight: In the Essex Marshes
Chapter Nine: The Hut by the Creek
Chapter Ten: The Mandarin’s Cap
Chapter Eleven: At the Monks’ Arms
Chapter Twelve: Dr. Fu-Manchu’s Bodyguard
Chapter Thirteen: In the Wine Cellars
Chapter Fourteen: The Monks’ Arms (Concluded)
Chapter Seventeen: In the Laboratory
Chapter Eighteen: Dr. Martin Jasper
Chapter Nineteen: Constable Isles’s Statement
Chapter Twenty: A Modern Vampire
Chapter Twenty-One: The Red Button
Chapter Twenty-Two: Living Death
Chapter Twenty-Three: Tremors Under Europe
Chapter Twenty-Four: A Car in Hyde Park
Chapter Twenty-Five: “The Brain is Dr. Fu-Manchu”
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Nayland Smith’s Room
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Venice Claims a Victim
Chapter Thirty: A Woman Drops a Rose
Chapter Thirty-One: Palazzo Mori
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Zombie
Chapter Thirty-Three: Ancient Tortures
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Tongs
Chapter Thirty-Six: Behind the Arras
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Lotus Floor
Chapter Thirty-Eight: In the Palazzo Brioni
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Silver Heels
Chapter Forty: Silver Heels (Continued)
Chapter Forty-One: Silver Heels (Concluded)
Chapter Forty-Two: The Man in the Park
Chapter Forty-Three: My Doorbell Rings
Chapter Forty-Four: “Always I am Just”
Chapter Forty-Five: The Mushrabîyeh Screen
Chapter Forty-Six: Pursuing a Shadow
Chapter Forty-Seven: What Happened in Downing Street
Chapter Forty-Eight: “First Notice”
Chapter Forty-Nine: Blue Carnations
Chapter Fifty: Ardatha’s Message
Chapter Fifty-One: The Thing with Red Eyes
Chapter Fifty-Two: The Thing with Red Eyes (Concluded)
Introduction to “The Mark of the Monkey”
Also Available from Titan Books
“Without Fu-Manchu we wouldn’t have Dr. No, Doctor Doom or Dr. Evil. Sax Rohmer created the first truly great evil mastermind. Devious, inventive, complex, and fascinating. These novels inspired a century of great thrillers!”
Jonathan Maberry,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Assassin’s Code
and
Patient Zero
“The true king of the pulp mystery is Sax Rohmer—and the shining ruby in his crown is without a doubt his Fu-Manchu stories.”
James Rollins,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Devil Colony
“Fu-Manchu remains the definitive diabolical mastermind of the 20th Century. Though the arch-villain is ‘the Yellow Peril incarnate,’ Rohmer shows an interest in other cultures and allows his protagonist a complex set of motivations and a code of honor which often make him seem a better man than his Western antagonists. At their best, these books are very superior pulp fiction… at their worst, they’re still gruesomely readable.”
Kim Newman, award-winning author of
Anno Dracula
“Sax Rohmer is one of the great thriller writers of all time! Rohmer created in Fu-Manchu the model for the super-villains of James Bond, and his hero Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie are worthy stand-ins for Holmes and Watson… though Fu-Manchu makes Professor Moriarty seem an under-achiever.”
Max Allan Collins,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Road to Perdition
“I grew up reading Sax Rohmer’s Fu-Manchu novels, in cheap paperback editions with appropriately lurid covers. They completely entranced me with their vision of a world constantly simmering with intrigue and wildly overheated ambitions. Even without all the exotic detail supplied by Rohmer’s imagination, I knew full well that world wasn’t the same as the one I lived in… For that alone, I’m grateful for all the hours I spent chasing around with Nayland Smith and his stalwart associates, though really my heart was always on their intimidating opponent’s side.”
K. W. Jeter, acclaimed author of
Infernal Devices
“A sterling example of the classic adventure story, full of excitement and intrigue. Fu-Manchu is up there with Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and Zorro—or more precisely with Professor Moriarty, Captain Nemo, Darth Vader, and Lex Luthor—in the imaginations of generations of readers and moviegoers.”
Charles Ardai, award-winning novelist and founder of Hard Case Crime
“I love Fu-Manchu, the way you can only love the really GREAT villains. Though I read these books years ago he is still with me, living somewhere deep down in my guts, between Professor Moriarty and Dracula, plotting some wonderfully hideous revenge against an unsuspecting mankind.”
Mike Mignola, creator of
Hellboy
“Fu-Manchu is one of the great villains in pop culture history, insidious and brilliant. Discover him if you dare!”
Christopher Golden,
New York Times
bestselling co-author of
Baltimore: The Plague Ships
Available now from Titan Books:
THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU
THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU
THE HAND OF FU-MANCHU
THE DAUGHTER OF FU-MANCHU
THE MASK OF FU-MANCHU
THE BRIDE OF FU-MANCHU
THE TRAIL OF FU-MANCHU
PRESIDENT FU-MANCHU
Coming soon from Titan Books:
THE ISLAND OF FU-MANCHU
THE SHADOW OF FU-MANCHU
RE-ENTER: FU-MANCHU
EMPEROR FU-MANCHU
THE WRATH OF FU-MANCHU
THE DRUMS OF FU-MANCHU
Print edition ISBN: 9780857686114
E-book edition ISBN: 9780857686770
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First published as a novel in the UK by Cassell and Co. Ltd, 1939
First published in the US by Doubleday, Doran, 1939
First Titan Books edition: June 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
The Authors Guild and the Society of Authors assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Copyright © 2014 The Authors Guild and the Society of Authors
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Frontispiece photograph by William Ritter, from
Collier’s Weekly
, April 1, 1939. Special thanks to Dr. Lawrence Knapp for the illustrations as they appeared on “The Page of Fu-Manchu,”
http://www.njedge.net/~knapp/FuFrames.htm
.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
“Long, narrow eyes seemed to be watching me. They held my gaze hypnotically.”.
“
D
amn it! There
is
someone there!”
I sprang up irritably, jerked the curtains aside and stared down into Bayswater Road. My bell, “Bart Kerrigan” inscribed above it on a plate outside in the street, was sometimes rung wantonly, by late revellers. The bell was out of order and I had tried to ignore its faint tinkling. But now, staring down, I saw someone looking up at me as I stood in the lighted room: a man wearing a Burberry and a soft hat, a man who signalled urgently with his arms, indicating: “Come down!”
Shooting the bolt open so that I should not be locked out, I ran downstairs. A light in the glazed arcade which led to the front door refused to function. Groping my way I threw the door open.
The man in the Burberry almost upset me as he leapt in.
“Who the devil are
you
?”
The door was closed quietly and the intruder spoke, his back to it as he faced me.
“It’s not a holdup,” came in coldly incisive tones. “I just
had
to get in. Thanks, Kerrigan, but you were a long time coming down.”
“Good heavens!” I stepped forward in the darkness and extended my hand. “Nayland Smith! Can I believe it?”
“Absolutely! I was desperate. Is your bell out of order?”