The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu (9 page)

Then remains to tell the nature of the outrage whereby Fu-Manchu
had planned to prevent Eltham's leaving England for China. This we
learned from Denby. For Denby was not dead.

It was easy to divine that he had stumbled upon the fiendish
visitor at the very entrance to his burrow; had been stunned
(judging from the evidence, with a sand-bag), and dragged down into
the cache-to which he must have lain in such dangerous proximity as
to render detection of the dummy bush possible in removing him. The
quickest expedient, then, had been to draw him beneath. When the
search of the shrubbery was concluded, his body had been borne to
the edge of the bushes and laid where we found it.

Why his life had been spared, I cannot conjecture, but provision
had been made against his recovering consciousness and revealing
the secret of the shrubbery. The ruse of releasing the mastiff
alone had terminated the visit of the unbidden guest within
Redmoat.

Denby made a very slow recovery; and, even when convalescent,
consciously added not one fact to those we already had collated;
his memory had completely deserted him!

This, in my opinion, as in those of the several specialists
consulted, was due, not to the blow on the head, but to the
presence, slightly below and to the right of the first cervical
curve of the spine, of a minute puncture-undoubtedly caused by a
hypodermic syringe. Then, unconsciously, poor Denby furnished the
last link in the chain; for undoubtedly, by means of this
operation, Fu-Manchu had designed to efface from Eltham's mind his
plans of return to Ho-Nan.

The nature of the fluid which could produce such mental symptoms
was a mystery-a mystery which defied Western science: one of the
many strange secrets of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

Since Nayland Smith's return from Burma I had rarely taken up a
paper without coming upon evidences of that seething which had cast
up Dr. Fu-Manchu. Whether, hitherto, such items had escaped my
attention or had seemed to demand no particular notice, or whether
they now became increasingly numerous, I was unable to
determine.

One evening, some little time after our sojourn in Norfolk, in
glancing through a number of papers which I had brought in with me,
I chanced upon no fewer than four items of news bearing more or
less directly upon the grim business which engaged my friend and
I.

No white man, I honestly believe, appreciates the unemotional
cruelty of the Chinese. Throughout the time that Dr. Fu-Manchu
remained in England, the press preserved a uniform silence upon the
subject of his existence. This was due to Nayland Smith. But, as a
result, I feel assured that my account of the Chinaman's deeds
will, in many quarters, meet with an incredulous reception.

I had been at work, earlier in the evening, upon the opening
chapters of this chronicle, and I had realized how difficult it
would be for my reader, amid secure and cozy surroundings, to
credit any human being with a callous villainy great enough to
conceive and to put into execution such a death pest as that
directed against Sir Crichton Davey.

One would expect God's worst man to shrink from
employing-against however vile an enemy-such an instrument as the
Zayat Kiss. So thinking, my eye was caught by the following:-

EXPRESS CORRESPONDENT
NEW YORK.

"Secret service men of the United States Government are
searching the South Sea Islands for a certain Hawaiian from the
island of Maui, who, it is believed, has been selling poisonous
scorpions to Chinese in Honolulu anxious to get rid of their
children.

"Infanticide, by scorpion and otherwise, among the Chinese, has
increased so terribly that the authorities have started a searching
inquiry, which has led to the hunt for the scorpion dealer of
Maui.

"Practically all the babies that die mysteriously are unwanted
girls, and in nearly every case the parents promptly ascribe the
death to the bite of a scorpion, and are ready to produce some more
or less poisonous insect in support of the statement.

"The authorities have no doubt that infanticide by scorpion bite
is a growing practice, and orders have been given to hunt down the
scorpion dealer at any cost."

A Reuter message to The Globe and a paragraph in The Star also
furnished work for my scissors. Here were evidences of the
deep-seated unrest, the secret turmoil, which manifested itself so
far from its center as peaceful England in the person of the
sinister Doctor.

"HONG KONG, Friday.

"Li Hon Hung, the Chinaman who fired at the Governor yesterday,
was charged before the magistrate with shooting at him with intent
to kill, which is equivalent to attempted murder. The prisoner, who
was not defended, pleaded guilty. The Assistant Crown Solicitor,
who prosecuted, asked for a remand until Monday, which was
granted.

"Snapshots taken by the spectators of the outrage yesterday
disclosed the presence of an accomplice, also armed with a
revolver. It is reported that this man, who was arrested last
night, was in possession of incriminating documentary
evidence."

Later.

"Examination of the documents found on Li Hon Hung's accomplice
has disclosed the fact that both men were well financed by the
Canton Triad Society, the directors of which had enjoined the
assassination of Sir F. M. or Mr. C. S., the Colonial Secretary. In
a report prepared by the accomplice for dispatch to Canton, also
found on his person, he expressed regret that the attempt had
failed."-Reuter.

"It is officially reported in St. Petersburg that a force of
Chinese soldiers and villagers surrounded the house of a Russian
subject named Said Effendi, near Khotan, in Chinese Turkestan.

"They fired at the house and set it in flames. There were in the
house about 100 Russians, many of whom were killed.

"The Russian Government has instructed its Minister at Peking to
make the most vigorous representations on the subject."-Reuter.

Finally, in a Personal Column, I found the following:-

"HO-NAN. Have abandoned visit.-ELTHAM."

I had just pasted it into my book when Nayland Smith came in and
threw himself into an arm-chair, facing me across the table. I
showed him the cutting.

"I am glad, for Eltham's sake-and for the girl's," was his
comment. "But it marks another victory for Fu-Manchu! Just Heaven!
Why is retribution delayed!"

Smith's darkly tanned face had grown leaner than ever since he
had begun his fight with the most uncanny opponent, I suppose,
against whom a man ever had pitted himself. He stood up and began
restlessly to pace the room, furiously stuffing tobacco into his
briar.

"I have seen Sir Lionel Barton," he said abruptly; "and, to put
the whole thing in a nutshell, he has laughed at me! During the
months that I have been wondering where he had gone to he has been
somewhere in Egypt. He certainly bears a charmed life, for on the
evidence of his letter to The Times he has seen things in Tibet
which Fu-Manchu would have the West blind to; in fact, I think he
has found a new keyhole to the gate of the Indian Empire!"

Long ago we had placed the name of Sir Lionel Barton upon the
list of those whose lives stood between Fu-Manchu and the
attainment of his end. Orientalist and explorer, the fearless
traveler who first had penetrated to Lhassa, who thrice, as a
pilgrim, had entered forbidden Mecca, he now had turned his
attention again to Tibet-thereby signing his own death-warrant.

"That he has reached England alive is a hopeful sign?" I
suggested.

Smith shook his head, and lighted the blackened briar.

"England at present is the web," he replied. "The spider will be
waiting. Petrie, I sometimes despair. Sir Lionel is an impossible
man to shepherd. You ought to see his house at Finchley. A low,
squat place completely hemmed in by trees. Damp as a swamp; smells
like a jungle. Everything topsy-turvy. He only arrived to-day, and
he is working and eating (and sleeping I expect), in a study that
looks like an earthquake at Sotheby's auction-rooms. The rest of
the house is half a menagerie and half a circus. He has a Bedouin
groom, a Chinese body-servant, and Heaven only knows what other
strange people!"

"Chinese!"

"Yes, I saw him; a squinting Cantonese he calls Kwee. I don't
like him. Also, there is a secretary known as Strozza, who has an
unpleasant face. He is a fine linguist, I understand, and is
engaged upon the Spanish notes for Barton's forthcoming book on the
Mayapan temples. By the way, all Sir Lionel's baggage disappeared
from the landing-stage-including his Tibetan notes."

"Significant!"

"Of course. But he argues that he has crossed Tibet from the
Kuen-Lun to the Himalayas without being assassinated, and therefore
that it is unlikely he will meet with that fate in London. I left
him dictating the book from memory, at the rate of about two
hundred words a minute."

"He is wasting no time."

"Wasting time! In addition to the Yucatan book and the work on
Tibet, he has to read a paper at the Institute next week about some
tomb he has unearthed in Egypt. As I came away, a van drove up from
the docks and a couple of fellows delivered a sarcophagus as big as
a boat. It is unique, according to Sir Lionel, and will go to the
British Museum after he has examined it. The man crams six months'
work into six weeks; then he is off again."

"What do you propose to do?"

"What CAN I do? I know that Fu-Manchu will make an attempt upon
him. I cannot doubt it. Ugh! that house gave me the shudders. No
sunlight, I'll swear, Petrie, can ever penetrate to the rooms, and
when I arrived this afternoon clouds of gnats floated like motes
wherever a stray beam filtered through the trees of the avenue.
There's a steamy smell about the place that is almost malarious,
and the whole of the west front is covered with a sort of
monkey-creeper, which he has imported at some time or other. It has
a close, exotic perfume that is quite in the picture. I tell you,
the place was made for murder."

"Have you taken any precautions?"

"I called at Scotland Yard and sent a man down to watch the
house, but-"

He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

"What is Sir Lionel like?"

"A madman, Petrie. A tall, massive man, wearing a dirty
dressing-gown of neutral color; a man with untidy gray hair and a
bristling mustache, keen blue eyes, and a brown skin; who wears a
short beard or rarely shaves-I don't know which. I left him
striding about among the thousand and one curiosities of that
incredible room, picking his way through his antique furniture,
works of reference, manuscripts, mummies, spears, pottery and what
not-sometimes kicking a book from his course, or stumbling over a
stuffed crocodile or a Mexican mask-alternately dictating and
conversing. Phew!"

For some time we were silent.

"Smith" I said, "we are making no headway in this business. With
all the forces arrayed against him, Fu-Manchu still eludes us,
still pursues his devilish, inscrutable way."

Nayland Smith nodded.

"And we don't know all," he said. "We mark such and such a man
as one alive to the Yellow Peril, and we warn him-if we have time.
Perhaps he escapes; perhaps he does not. But what do we know,
Petrie, of those others who may die every week by his murderous
agency? We cannot know EVERYONE who has read the riddle of China. I
never see a report of someone found drowned, of an apparent
suicide, of a sudden, though seemingly natural death, without
wondering. I tell you, Fu-Manchu is omnipresent; his tentacles
embrace everything. I said that Sir Lionel must bear a charmed
life. The fact that WE are alive is a miracle."

He glanced at his watch.

"Nearly eleven," he said. "But sleep seems a waste of time-apart
from its dangers."

We heard a bell ring. A few moments later followed a knock at
the room door.

"Come in!" I cried.

A girl entered with a telegram addressed to Smith. His jaw
looked very square in the lamplight, and his eyes shone like steel
as he took it from her and opened the envelope. He glanced at the
form, stood up and passed it to me, reaching for his hat, which lay
upon my writing-table.

"God help us, Petrie!" he said.

This was the message:

"Sir Lionel Barton murdered. Meet me at his house at
once.-WEYMOUTH, INSPECTOR."

Although we avoided all unnecessary delay, it was close upon
midnight when our cab swung round into a darkly shadowed avenue, at
the farther end of which, as seen through a tunnel, the moonlight
glittered upon the windows of Rowan House, Sir Lionel Barton's
home.

Stepping out before the porch of the long, squat building, I saw
that it was banked in, as Smith had said, by trees and shrubs. The
facade showed mantled in the strange exotic creeper which he had
mentioned, and the air was pungent with an odor of decaying
vegetation, with which mingled the heavy perfume of the little
nocturnal red flowers which bloomed luxuriantly upon the
creeper.

The place looked a veritable wilderness, and when we were
admitted to the hall by Inspector Weymouth I saw that the interior
was in keeping with the exterior, for the hall was constructed from
the model of some apartment in an Assyrian temple, and the squat
columns, the low seats, the hangings, all were eloquent of neglect,
being thickly dust-coated. The musty smell, too, was almost as
pronounced here as outside, beneath the trees.

To a library, whose contents overflowed in many literary
torrents upon the floor, the detective conducted us.

"Good heavens!" I cried, "what's that?"

Something leaped from the top of the bookcase, ambled silently
across the littered carpet, and passed from the library like a
golden streak. I stood looking after it with startled eyes.
Inspector Weymouth laughed dryly.

"It's a young puma, or a civet-cat, or something, Doctor," he
said. "This house is full of surprises-and mysteries."

His voice was not quite steady, I thought, and he carefully
closed the door ere proceeding further.

"Where is he?" asked Nayland Smith harshly. "How was it
done?"

Weymouth sat down and lighted a cigar which I offered him.

"I thought you would like to hear what led up to it-so far as we
know-before seeing him?"

Smith nodded.

"Well," continued the Inspector, "the man you arranged to send
down from the Yard got here all right and took up a post in the
road outside, where he could command a good view of the gates. He
saw and heard nothing, until going on for half-past ten, when a
young lady turned up and went in."

"A young lady?"

"Miss Edmonds, Sir Lionel's shorthand typist. She had found,
after getting home, that her bag, with her purse in, was missing,
and she came back to see if she had left it here. She gave the
alarm. My man heard the row from the road and came in. Then he ran
out and rang us up. I immediately wired for you."

"He heard the row, you say. What row?"

"Miss Edmonds went into violent hysterics!"

Smith was pacing the room now in tense excitement.

"Describe what he saw when he came in."

"He saw a negro footman-there isn't an Englishman in the
house-trying to pacify the girl out in the hall yonder, and a Malay
and another colored man beating their foreheads and howling. There
was no sense to be got out of any of them, so he started to
investigate for himself. He had taken the bearings of the place
earlier in the evening, and from the light in a window on the
ground floor had located the study; so he set out to look for the
door. When he found it, it was locked from the inside."

"Well?"

"He went out and round to the window. There's no blind, and from
the shrubbery you can see into the lumber-room known as the study.
He looked in, as apparently Miss Edmonds had done before him. What
he saw accounted for her hysterics."

Both Smith and I were hanging upon his words.

"All amongst the rubbish on the floor a big Egyptian mummy case
was lying on its side, and face downwards, with his arms thrown
across it, lay Sir Lionel Barton."

"My God! Yes. Go on."

"There was only a shaded reading-lamp alight, and it stood on a
chair, shining right down on him; it made a patch of light on the
floor, you understand." The Inspector indicated its extent with his
hands. "Well, as the man smashed the glass and got the window open,
and was just climbing in, he saw something else, so he says."

He paused.

"What did he see?" demanded Smith shortly.

"A sort of GREEN MIST, sir. He says it seemed to be alive. It
moved over the floor, about a foot from the ground, going away from
him and towards a curtain at the other end of the study."

Nayland Smith fixed his eyes upon the speaker.

"Where did he first see this green mist?"

"He says, Mr. Smith, that he thinks it came from the mummy
case."

"Yes; go on."

"It is to his credit that he climbed into the room after seeing
a thing like that. He did. He turned the body over, and Sir Lionel
looked horrible. He was quite dead. Then Croxted-that's the man's
name-went over to this curtain. There was a glass door-shut. He
opened it, and it gave on a conservatory-a place stacked from the
tiled floor to the glass roof with more rubbish. It was dark
inside, but enough light came from the study-it's really a
drawing-room, by the way-as he'd turned all the lamps on, to give
him another glimpse of this green, crawling mist. There are three
steps to go down. On the steps lay a dead Chinaman."

"A dead Chinaman!"

"A dead CHINAMAN."

"Doctor seen them?" rapped Smith.

"Yes; a local man. He was out of his depth, I could see.
Contradicted himself three times. But there's no need for another
opinion-until we get the coroner's."

"And Croxted?"

"Croxted was taken ill, Mr. Smith, and had to be sent home in a
cab."

"What ails him?"

Detective-Inspector Weymouth raised his eyebrows and carefully
knocked the ash from his cigar.

"He held out until I came, gave me the story, and then fainted
right away. He said that something in the conservatory seemed to
get him by the throat."

"Did he mean that literally?"

"I couldn't say. We had to send the girl home, too, of
course."

Nayland Smith was pulling thoughtfully at the lobe of his left
ear.

"Got any theory?" he jerked.

Weymouth shrugged his shoulders.

"Not one that includes the green mist," he said. "Shall we go in
now?"

We crossed the Assyrian hall, where the members of that strange
household were gathered in a panic-stricken group. They numbered
four. Two of them were negroes, and two Easterns of some kind. I
missed the Chinaman, Kwee, of whom Smith had spoken, and the
Italian secretary; and from the way in which my friend peered about
the shadows of the hall I divined that he, too, wondered at their
absence. We entered Sir Lionel's study-an apartment which I despair
of describing.

Nayland Smith's words, "an earthquake at Sotheby's
auction-rooms," leaped to my mind at once; for the place was simply
stacked with curious litter-loot of Africa, Mexico and Persia. In a
clearing by the hearth a gas stove stood upon a packing-case, and
about it lay a number of utensils for camp cookery. The odor of
rotting vegetation, mingled with the insistent perfume of the
strange night-blooming flowers, was borne in through the open
window.

In the center of the floor, beside an overturned sarcophagus,
lay a figure in a neutral-colored dressing-gown, face downwards,
and arms thrust forward and over the side of the ancient Egyptian
mummy case.

My friend advanced and knelt beside the dead man.

"Good God!"

Smith sprang upright and turned with an extraordinary expression
to Inspector Weymouth.

"You do not know Sir Lionel Barton by sight?" he rapped.

"No," began Weymouth, "but-"

"This is not Sir Lionel. This is Strozza, the secretary."

"What!" shouted Weymouth.

"Where is the other-the Chinaman-quick!" cried Smith.

"I have had him left where he was found-on the conservatory
steps," said the Inspector.

Smith ran across the room to where, beyond the open door, a
glimpse might be obtained of stacked-up curiosities. Holding back
the curtain to allow more light to penetrate, he bent forward over
a crumpled-up figure which lay upon the steps below.

"It is!" he cried aloud. "It is Sir Lionel's servant, Kwee."

Weymouth and I looked at one another across the body of the
Italian; then our eyes turned together to where my friend,
grim-faced, stood over the dead Chinaman. A breeze whispered
through the leaves; a great wave of exotic perfume swept from the
open window towards the curtained doorway.

It was a breath of the East-that stretched out a yellow hand to
the West. It was symbolic of the subtle, intangible power
manifested in Dr. Fu-Manchu, as Nayland Smith-lean, agile, bronzed
with the suns of Burma, was symbolic of the clean British
efficiency which sought to combat the insidious enemy.

"One thing is evident," said Smith: "no one in the house,
Strozza excepted, knew that Sir Lionel was absent."

"How do you arrive at that?" asked Weymouth.

"The servants, in the hall, are bewailing him as dead. If they
had seen him go out they would know that it must be someone else
who lies here."

"What about the Chinaman?"

"Since there is no other means of entrance to the conservatory
save through the study, Kwee must have hidden himself there at some
time when his master was absent from the room."

"Croxted found the communicating door closed. What killed the
Chinaman?"

"Both Miss Edmonds and Croxted found the study door locked from
the inside. What killed Strozza?" retorted Smith.

"You will have noted," continued the Inspector, "that the
secretary is wearing Sir Lionel's dressing-gown. It was seeing him
in that, as she looked in at the window, which led Miss Edmonds to
mistake him for her employer-and consequently to put us on the
wrong scent."

"He wore it in order that anybody looking in at the window would
be sure to make that mistake," rapped Smith.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because he came here for a felonious purpose. See." Smith
stooped and took up several tools from the litter on the floor.
"There lies the lid. He came to open the sarcophagus. It contained
the mummy of some notable person who flourished under Meneptah II;
and Sir Lionel told me that a number of valuable ornaments and
jewels probably were secreted amongst the wrappings. He proposed to
open the thing and to submit the entire contents to examination
to-night. He evidently changed his mind-fortunately for
himself."

I ran my fingers through my hair in perplexity.

"Then what has become of the mummy?"

Nayland Smith laughed dryly.

"It has vanished in the form of a green vapor apparently," he
said. "Look at Strozza's face."

He turned the body over, and, used as I was to such spectacles,
the contorted features of the Italian filled me with horror,
so-suggestive were they of a death more than ordinarily violent. I
pulled aside the dressing-gown and searched the body for marks, but
failed to find any. Nayland Smith crossed the room, and, assisted
by the detective, carried Kwee, the Chinaman, into the study and
laid him fully in the light. His puckered yellow face presented a
sight even more awful than the other, and his blue lips were drawn
back, exposing both upper and lower teeth. There were no marks of
violence, but his limbs, like Strozza's, had been tortured during
his mortal struggles into unnatural postures.

The breeze was growing higher, and pungent odor-waves from the
damp shrubbery, bearing, too, the oppressive sweetness of the
creeping plant, swept constantly through the open window. Inspector
Weymouth carefully relighted his cigar.

"I'm with you this far, Mr. Smith," he said. "Strozza, knowing
Sir Lionel to be absent, locked himself in here to rifle the mummy
case, for Croxted, entering by way of the window, found the key on
the inside. Strozza didn't know that the Chinaman was hidden in the
conservatory-"

"And Kwee did not dare to show himself, because he too was there
for some mysterious reason of his own," interrupted Smith.

"Having got the lid off, something,-somebody-"

"Suppose we say the mummy?"

Weymouth laughed uneasily.

"Well, sir, something that vanished from a locked room without
opening the door or the window killed Strozza."

"And something which, having killed Strozza, next killed the
Chinaman, apparently without troubling to open the door behind
which he lay concealed," Smith continued. "For once in a way,
Inspector, Dr. Fu-Manchu has employed an ally which even his giant
will was incapable entirely to subjugate. What blind force-what
terrific agent of death-had he confined in that sarcophagus!"

"You think this is the work of Fu-Manchu?" I said. "If you are
correct, his power indeed is more than human."

Something in my voice, I suppose, brought Smith right about. He
surveyed me curiously.

"Can you doubt it? The presence of a concealed Chinaman surely
is sufficient. Kwee, I feel assured, was one of the murder group,
though probably he had only recently entered that mysterious
service. He is unarmed, or I should feel disposed to think that his
part was to assassinate Sir Lionel whilst, unsuspecting the
presence of a hidden enemy, he was at work here. Strozza's opening
the sarcophagus clearly spoiled the scheme."

"And led to the death-"

"Of a servant of Fu-Manchu. Yes. I am at a loss to account for
that."

"Do you think that the sarcophagus entered into the scheme,
Smith?"

My friend looked at me in evident perplexity.

"You mean that its arrival at the time when a creature of the
Doctor-Kwee-was concealed here, may have been a coincidence?"

I nodded; and Smith bent over the sarcophagus, curiously
examining the garish paintings with which it was decorated inside
and out. It lay sideways upon the floor, and seizing it by its
edge, he turned it over.