 CHAPTER X. In utter darkness we groped our way through into the hallway of Slatton's house, having entered stealthily from the rear, for Smith had selected the study as a suitable base of operations. We reached it without mis-happened, presently I found myself seated in the very chair which Karamina had occupied. My companion took up a post just within the widely opened door. So we commenced our ghostly business in the house of the murdered man, a house from which, but a few hours since, his body had been removed. This was such a vigil as I had endured once before, when, with Nalen Smith and another, I had waited for the coming of one of Fu Manchu's death agents. Of all the sounds which one by one now began to detach themselves from the silence, there was a particular sound, homely enough at another time which spoke to me more dreadfully than the rest. It was the ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece, and I thought how this sound must have been familiar to Abel Slatton, how it must have formed part and parcel of his life, as it were, and how it went on now, tick, tick, tick, tick, wills tea for whom it had ticked lay unheeding, would never heed it more. As I grew more accustomed to the gloom I found myself staring at his office chair, once I found myself expecting Abel Slatton to enter the room and occupy it. There was a little china-budder upon the bureau in one corner, with a gilded cap upon its head, and as some reflection of the moonlight sought out this little cap, my thoughts grotesquely turned upon the murdered man's gold tooth. Vague creakings from within the house, sounds as though of stealthy footsteps upon the stair, set my nerves tingling, but Nalen Smith gave no sign, and I knew that my imagination was magnifying these ordinary night sounds out of all proportion to their actual significance. Things rustled faintly outside the window at my back. I construed their sibilant whispers into the dreaded name, foo-man-choo, foo-man-choo, foo-man-choo. So wore on the night, and when the ticking clock hollily boomed the hour of one, I almost leaped out of my chair, so highly strong were my nerves, and so appallingly did the sudden clamour beat upon them. Smith, like a man of stone, showed no sign. He was capable of so subduing his constitutionally high-strung temperament at times that, temporally, he became immune from human dreads. On such occasions he would be icely cool amid universal panic, but his object accomplished. I have seen him in such a state of collapse that utter nervous exhaustion is the only term by which I can describe it. Tick, tick, tick, tick went the clock, and with my heart still thumping noisily in my breast, I began to count the ticking's, one, two, three, four, five, and so on to a hundred, and from one hundred to many hundreds. Then out from the confusion of minor noises a new arresting sound detached itself. I ceased my counting. No longer I noted the tick, tick of the clock, nor the vague creakings, rustlings, and whispers. I saw Smith, shadowy, raise his hand in warning, in needless warning, for I was almost holding my breath in an effort of acute listening. From high up in the house this new sound came from above the topmost room, it seemed, up under the roof, a regular squeaking, oddly familiar, yet elusive. On it followed a very soft and muffled thud, and a metallic sound as of a rusty hinge in motion, and a new silence, pregnant with a thousand possibilities more eerie than any clamour. My mind was rapidly at work. Lighting the topmost landing of the house was a sort of glazed trap, evidently set on the floor of a loft-like place extending over the entire building. There in the red-tiled roof above there presumably existed a corresponding skylight, or lantern. So I argued, and ere I had come to any proper decision another sound more intimate came to interrupt me. This time I could be in no doubt, someone was lifting the trap above the stair-head, slowly, cautiously, and all but silently, yet to my ears attuned to trifling disturbances the trap creaked and groaned noisily. Nalyn Smith waved to me to take a stand on the other side of the opened door, behind it, in fact, where I should be concealed from the view of anyone descending the stair. I stood up and crossed the floor to my new post. A dull thud told of the trap fully raised and resting upon some supporting joist. A faint rustling of discarded garments, I told myself, spoke to my newly awakened acute perceptions of the visitor preparing to lower himself to the landing, followed a groan of woodwork submitted to sudden strain and the unmistakable pad of bare feet upon the linoleum of the top corridor. I knew now that one of Dr. Fu Manchu's uncanny servants had gained the roof of the house by some means, had broken through the skylight, and had descended by means of the trap beneath onto the landing. In such a tensed up state as I cannot describe nor at this hour mentally reconstruct, I waited for the creaking of the stairs which should tell of the creature's descent. I was disappointed. Removed scarce a yard from me as he was, I could hear Nalyn Smith's soft staccato breathing, but my eyes were all for the darkened hallway, for the smudgy outline of the stair rail with the faint patterning in the background which alone indicated the wall. It was amid utter silence, unheralded by even so slight a sound as those which I had acquired the power of detecting, that I saw the continuity of the smudgy line of the stair rail to be interrupted. A dark patch showed upon it just within my line of sight invisible to Smith on the other side of the doorway, and some ten or twelve stairs up. No sound reached me, but the dark patch vanished and reappeared three feet lower down. Still I knew that this phantom approach must be unknown to my companion, and I knew that it was impossible for me to advise him of it unseen by the dreaded visitor. The third time the dark patch, the hand of one who, ghostly, silent, was creeping down into the hallway, vanished and reappeared on a level with my eyes. Then a vague shape became visible, no more than a blur upon the dim design of the wallpaper, and Nalyn Smith got his first sight of the stranger. The clock on the mantelpiece boomed out the half hour. At that, such was my state, I blushed to relate. I uttered a faint cry. It ended all secrecy, that hysterical weakness of mine. In might have frustrated our hopes, that it did not do so was in no measure due to me, but in a sort of passionate whirl the ensuing events moved swiftly. Smith hesitated not one instant, with a panther-like leap he hurled himself into the hall. The lights, Petrie, he cried. The lights! The switch is near the street door. I clenched my fists in a swift effort to regain control of my treacherous nerves and bounding past Smith, and past the foot of the stair I reached out my hand to the switch, the situation of which, fortunately, I knew. Around I came in response to a shrill cry from behind me, an inhuman cry, less a cry than a shriek of some enraged animal. With his left foot upon the first stair Nalyn Smith stood, his lean body bent perilously backward, his arms rigidly thrust out, and his sinewy fingers gripping the throat of an almost naked man, a man whose brown body glistened unctuously, whose shave and head was apish low, whose bloodshot eyes were the eyes of a mad dog. His teeth, upper and lower, were bared, they glistened, they gnashed, and a froth was on his lips. With both hands he clutched a heavy stick, and once, twice, he brought it down upon Nalyn Smith's head. I leaped forward to my friend's aid, but as though the blows had been those of a feather, he stood like some figure of archaic statuary, not for an instant relaxed the death grip which he had upon his adversary's throat. Thrusting my way up the stairs, I wrenched the stick from the hand of the daiquet, for in this glistening brown man I recognized one of that deadly brotherhood, who hailed Dr. Fu Manchu as their lord and master. I cannot dwell upon the end of that encounter, I cannot hope to make acceptable to my readers an account of how Nalyn Smith, glassy-eyed and with consciousness ebbing from him instant by instant, stood there, a realization of Layton's athlete, his arms rigid as iron bars, even after Fu Manchu's servant hung limply in that frightful grip. In his last moments of consciousness, with the blood from his wounded head trickling down into his eyes, he pointed to the stick which I had torn from the grip of the daiquet, and which I still held in my hand. Not Aaron's rod, Petrie, he gasped torsely. The rod of Moses! Slatten stick! Even and upon my anxiety for my friend, amazement intruded, but, I began, and turned to the rack in which Slatten's favorite cane at that moment reposed, had reposed at the time of his death. Yes, there stood Slatten's cane, we had not moved it, we had disturbed nothing in that stricken house, there it stood in company with an umbrella and a mallocca. I glanced at the cane in my hand. Surely there could not be two such in the world. Smith collapsed on the floor at my feet. Examine the one in the rack, Petrie, he whispered, almost inaudibly, but do not touch it. It may not be yet. I propped him against the foot of the stairs, and as the constable began knocking violently at the street door, crossed to the rack and lifted out the replica of the cane which I held in my hand. A faint cry from Smith, and as if it had been a leprous thing, I dropped the cane instantly. Merciful God! I groaned. Although in every other particular, it corresponded with that which I held, which I had taken from the daiquet, which he had come to substitute for the cane now lying upon the floor, in one dreadful particular it differed. Up to the snake's head it was an accurate copy, but the head lived. Either from pain, fear, or starvation, the thing confined in the hollow tube of this awful duplicate was become torpid. Otherwise no power on earth could have saved me from the fate of Abel Slatton. For the creature was an Australian death-adder. End of Chapter 10 Recording by Elaine Thuddle Sterling Ontario Chapter 11 of The Return of Dr. Fu Man Chu This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elaine Thuddle The Return of Dr. Fu Man Chu by Sacks Romer Chapter 11 The White Peacock Nailin Smith wasted no time in pursuing the plan of campaign which she had mentioned to Inspector Weymouth. Less than forty-eight hours after quitting the house of the murdered Slatton, I found myself bound along Whitechapel Road upon strange enough business. A very fine rain was falling which rendered it difficult to see clearly from the windows, that the weather apparently had little effect upon the commercial activities of the district. The cab was threading a hazardous way through the cosmopolitan throne crowding the street. On either side of me extended a row of stalls, seemingly established in opposition to the more legitimate shops upon the inner side of the pavement. Jewish hawkers, many of them in their shirts leaves, acclaimed the rarity of the bargains which they had to offer, and allowing for the differences of costume these tireless Israelites, heedless of climactic conditions, sweating at their mongry, might well have stood not in a squalid London thoroughfare, but in an equally squalid market street of the Orient. They offered linen and fine rainmen, from footgear to hair oil their wares ranged. They enlivened their auctioneering with conjuring tricks and witty stories, selling watches by the aid of ledgermen, and fancy vests by grace of seasonable anecdote. Poles, Russians, Serbs, Romanians, Jews of Hungary, and Italians of Whitechapel, mingled in the throng. Near east and far east rubbed shoulders. Pigeon English contested with Yiddish for the ownership of some tawdry article offered by an auctioneer whose nationality defied conjecture, say that always some branch of his ancestry had drawn nourishment from the soil of the eternal Judea. Some wearing men's cap, some were shawls thrown over their oily locks, and some more true to primitive instincts defying bare-headed the unkindly elements, but draggled women, more often than not burdened with muffled infants crowded the pavements and the roadway, thronged about the stalls like white ants upon some choicer-carion. And the fine drizzling rain fell upon all alike, pattering on the hood of the taxi cab, trickling down the front windows, glistening upon the unctuous hair of those in the street who were hatless, dwing the bare arms of the auctioneers, and dripping melon clay from the tarpaulin coverings of the stalls. Heedless of the rain above and of the mud beneath, north, south, east and west mingled their cries, their bids, their blandishments, their railery, mingled their persons in that joyless throng. Sometimes a yellow face showed close to one of the steaming windows, sometimes a black-eyed, pallid face, but never a face wholly sane and healthy. This was an underworld where squalor and vice went hand in hand through the beautyless streets, a melting pot of the world's outcasts. This was a shadowland, which last night had swallowed up Nalyn Smith. Seaslessly I peered to right and left, searching amid that rain-soaked company for any face known to me. Whom I expected to find there I know not, but I should have counted it no matter for surprise, had I detected amid that ungracious ugliness the beautiful face of Karamina, the eastern slave girl, the leering yellow face of a Burmese dacquot, the gaunt bronzed features of Nalyn Smith a hundred times I almost believed I had seen the ruddy countenance of Inspector Weymouth, and once, at which instant my heart seemed to stand still, I suffered from the singular delusion that the oblique green eyes of Dr. Fu Man Chu peered out from the shadows between two stalls. It was mere fantasy, of course, the sick imaginings of a mind overwrought. I had not slept and had scarcely tasted food for more than thirty hours, for, following upon a faint clue supplied by Burke, Slatton's man, and, like his master and ex-officer of the New York police, my friend Nalyn Smith, on the previous evening had set out in quest of some obscene den, where the man called Shen Yan, former keeper of an opium shop, was now said to be in hiding. Shen Yan, we knew to be a creature of the Chinese doctor, and only a most urgent call had prevented me from joining Smith upon this promising, no hazardous expedition. At any rate, fate-willing it so, he had gone without me, and now, although Inspector Weymouth, assisted by a number of CID men, was sweeping the district about me, to the time of my departure nothing whatever had been heard of Smith. The ordeal of waiting finally had proved too great to be borne. With no definite idea of what I proposed to do, I had thrown myself into the search, filled with such a dreadful apprehensions as I hope never again to experience. I did not know the exact situation of the place to which Smith was gone, for owing to the urgent case which I have mentioned, I had been absent at the time of his departure. Nor could Scotland Yard enlighten me upon this point. Weymouth was in charge of the case, under Smith's direction, and since the Inspector had left the Yard early that morning, he had disappeared as completely a Smith, no report having been received from him. As my driver turned into the black mouth of a narrow, ill-lighted street, and the glare and clamour of the great thoroughfare died behind me, I sank into the corner of the cab, burdened with such a sense of desolation as mercifully comes, but rarely. We were heading now for that strange settlement off the West India Dock Road, which, bounded by Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields, and narrowly confined within four streets, composes a unique Chinatown, a miniature of that at Liverpool, and of the greater one in San Francisco. Inspired with an idea which promised, hopefully, I raised the speaking tube. Take me first to the River Police Station, I directed, along Ratcliffe Highway. The man turned and nodded comprehendingly as I could see through the wet pain. Presently we swerved to the right and into an even narrower street. This inclined in an easterly direction, and proved to communicate with a wide thoroughfare, along which passed brilliantly lighted electric trams. I had lost all sense of direction, and when, swinging to the left and to the right again, I looked through the window and perceived that we were before the door of the police station. I was dully surprised. In quite mechanical fashion I entered the depot. Inspector Ryman, our associate in one of the darkest episodes of the campaign with a yellow doctor two years before, received me in his office. By a negative shake of the head he answered my unspoken question. The ten o'clock boat is lying off the stone stairs, doctor, he said, and cooperating with some of the Scotland Yardmen who were dragging that district. I shuddered at the word dragging. Ryman had not used it literally, but nevertheless it had conjured up a dread possibility, a possibility in accordance with the methods of Dr. Fu Manchu. All within space of an instant I saw the tide of Limehouse Reach, the Thames lapping about the green-coated timbers of a dock-peer, and rising, falling, sometimes disclosing to the pallid light a rigid hand, sometimes a horribly bloated face. I saw the body of Naelyn Smith at the mercy of those oily waters. Ryman continued. There was a launch-out, too, patrolling the riverside from here to Tilbury, another lies at the breakwater. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Should you care to take a rundown and see for yourself? No thanks, I replied, shaking my head. You were doing all that could be done. Can you give me the address of the place to which Mr. Smith went last night? Certainly, said Ryman, I thought you knew it. You remember Shen Yan's place, by Limehouse Basin? Well, further east, east of the causeway between Gilstreet and the Three Cold Street, is a block of wooden buildings. You recall them? Yes, I replied. Is the man established there again, then? It appears so, but although you have evidently not been informed of the fact, Weymouth raided the establishment in the early hours of this morning. Well, I cried. Unfortunately, with no result, continued the inspector. The notorious Shen Yan was missing, and although there is no real doubt that the place is used as a gaming-house, not a particle of evidence to that effect could be obtained. Also, there was no sign of Mr. Nailen Smith, and no sign of the American Burke who had led him to the place. Is it certain that they went there? Two CID men who were shadowing actually saw the pair of them enter. The signal had been arranged, but it was never given, and at about half-past four the place was raided. Surely some arrests were made. But there was no evidence, cried Ryman. Every inch of the rat borough was searched. The Chinese gentleman who posed as the proprietor of what he claimed to be a respectable lodging-house offered every facility to the police. What could we do? I take it that the place is being watched. Certainly, said Ryman, from both the river and from the shore, Oh, they are not there. God knows where they are, but they are not there. I stood for a moment in silence, endeavouring to determine my course, then telling Ryman that I hoped to see him later, I walked out slowly into the rain and missed, and nodding to the taxi-driver to proceed to our original destination, I re-entered the cab. As we moved off, the lights of the river-police depot were swallowed up in the humid murk, and again I found myself being carried through the darkness of those narrow streets, which, like a maze, holding secret within their labyrinth mysteries as great, and at least as foul as that of Pasafay. The marketing-centres I had left far behind me, to my right stretched the broken range of Riverside buildings, and beyond them flowed the Thames, a stream more heavily burdened with the secrets than ever was Tiber or Tigris. On my left occasional flickering lights broke through the mist, for the most part the lights of taverns, and saving these rents in the veil the darkness was punctuated with nothing but the faint and yellow luminance of the street-lamps. A head was a black mouth which promised to swallow me up as it had swallowed up my friend. In short, what lowered my condition and consequent frame of mind, and what, with the traditions for me inseparable from that gloomy quarter of London, I was in the grip of a shadowy menace which at any moment might become tangible, I perceived, in the most commonplace objects, the yellow hand of Dr. Fu Man Chu. When the cab stopped in a place of utter darkness, I aroused myself with an effort, opened the door, and stepped out into the mud of a narrow lane. A high brick wall frowned upon me from one side, and dimly perceptible there towered a smokestack beyond. On my right up rose the side of a wharf building, shadowy, and some distance ahead, almost obscured by the drizzling rain, a solitary lamp flickered. I turned up the collar of my raincoat, shivering as much at the prospect as from physical chill. You will wait here, I said to the man, and feeling in my breast pocket, I added, if you hear the notes of a whistle, drive on and rejoin me. He listened attentively, and with a certain eagerness, I had selected him that night for the reason that he had driven Smith and myself on previous occasions, and had proved himself a man of intelligence. Transferring a browning pistol from my hip pocket to that of my raincoat, I trudged on into the mist. The headlights of the taxi were swallowed up behind me, and just a breast of the street-lamp I stood listening. Save for the dismal sound of rain and the trickling of water along the gutters, all about me was silent. Sometimes this silence would be broken by the distant muffled note of a steam siren, and always forming a sort of background to the near-stillness was the remote din of riverside activity. I walked on to the corner just beyond the lamp. This was the street in which the wooden buildings were situated. I had expected to detect some evidences of surveillance, but if any were indeed being observed the fact was effectively masked. Not a living creature was visible, pure as I could. Plans I had none, and perceiving that the street was empty and that no light showed in any of the windows I passed on, only to find that I had entered a cul-de-sac. A rickety gate gave access to a descending flight of stone steps, the bottom invisible in the denser shadows of an archway, beyond which I doubted not lay the river. Still uninspired by any definite design I tried the gate and found that it was unlocked. Like some wandering soul, as it has since seemed to me, I descended. There was a lamp over the archway, but the glass was broken, and the rain apparently had extinguished the light. As I passed under it I could hear the gas whistling from the burner. Continuing my way I found myself upon a narrow wharf with the tens flowing gloomily beneath me. A sort of fog hung over the river, shutting me in. Then came the incident. Suddenly, quite near, there arose a weird and mournful cry, a cry indescribable and inexpressibly uncanny. I started back so violently that how I escaped falling into the river I do not know to this day that cry so eerie and so wholly unexpected had unnerved me, and realising the nature of my surroundings and the folly of my presence alone in such a place, I began to edge back toward the foot of the steps, away from the thing that cried, when a great white shape uproads like a phantom before me. There are few men, I suppose, whose lives have been crowded with so many eerie happenings as mine, but this phantom thing which grew out of the darkness, which seemed about to envelop me, takes rank in my memory among the most fearsome apparitions which I have witnessed. I knew that I was frozen with a sort of supernatural terror. I stood there with hands clenched, staring, staring at that white shape which seemed to float. As I stared every nerve in my body thrilling, I distinguished the outline of the phantom. With a subdued cry I stepped forward. A new sensation claimed me. In that one stride I passed from the horrible to the bizarre. I found myself confronted with something tangible, certainly, but something whose presence in that place was utterly extravagant, could only be reconcilable in the dreams of an opium slave. Was I awake? Was I sane? Awake and sane beyond doubt, but surely moving, not in the perlews of Limehouse, but in the fantastic realms of Fairyland. Swooping with open arms I rounded up in an angle against the building and gathered in this screaming thing which had inspired in me so keen a terror. The great ghostly fan was closed as I did so, and I stumbled back toward the stair with my struggling captive tucked under my arm. I mounted into one of London's darkest slums, carrying a beautiful white peacock. End of CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. Dark eyes looked into mine. My adventure had done nothing to relieve the feelings of unreality which held me enthralled. Grasping the struggling bird firmly by the body and having the long tail fluttering a yard or so behind me, I returned to where the taxi waited. Opened the door, I said to the man, who greeted me with such a stare of amazement that I laughed outright, though my mirth was but hollow. He jumped into the road and did as I directed, making sure that both windows were closed. I thrust the peacock into the cab and shut the door upon it. For God's sake, sir! began the driver. It has probably escaped from some collectus place on the riverside, I explained, but one never knows. See that it does not escape again, and if at the end of an hour, as arranged, you do not hear from me, take it back with you to the river police station. Right you are, sir! said the man, remounting his seat. Is the first time I ever saw a peacock in Larmouse? It was the first time I had seen one, and the incident struck me as being more than odd. It gave me an idea, and a new faint hope. I returned to the head of the steps, at the foot of which I had met with this singular experience, and gazed up at the dark building beneath which they led. Three windows were visible, but they were broken and neglected. One immediately above the arch had been pasted up with brown paper, and this was now peeling off in the rain, a little stream of which trickled down from the detached corner to drop, drearily, upon the stone stairs beneath. Where were the detectives? I could only assume that they had directed their attention elsewhere, for had the place not been utterly deserted, surely I would have been challenged. In pursuit of my new idea I again descended the steps. The persuasion, shortly to be verified, that I was close upon the secret hold of the Chinaman, grew stronger, unaccountably. I had descended some eight steps, and was at the darkest part of the archway or tunnel. When confirmation of my theories came to me, a noose settled accurately upon my shoulders, was snatched tightly about my throat, and with a feeling of insupportable agony at the base of my skull, and a sudden supreme knowledge that I was being strangled, hanged, I lost consciousness. How long I remained unconscious I was unable to determine at the time, but I learned later that it was for no more than half an hour, at any rate recovery was slow. The first sensation to return to me was a sort of repetition of the asphyxia. The blood seemed to be forcing itself into my eyes. I choked. I felt that my end was come. And raising my hands to my throat I found it to be swollen and inflamed. Then the floor upon which I lay seemed to be rocking like the deck of a ship. I glided back again into a place of darkness and forgetfulness. My second awakening was heralded by a returning sense of smell, for I became conscious of a faint, exquisite perfume. It brought me to my senses as nothing else could have done, and I sat upright with a hoarse cry. I could have distinguished that perfume amid a thousand others, could have marked it apart from the rest of a scent bazaar. For me it had one meaning, and one meaning only. Caramena. She was near to me, or had been near to me. And in the first moments of my awakening I groped about in the darkness blindly seeking her. Then my swollen throat and throbbing head, together with my utter inability to move my neck even slightly reminded me of the facts, as they were. I knew in that bitter moment that Caramena was no longer my friend, but for all her beauty and charm was the most heartless, the most fiendish creature in the service of Dr. Fu Manchu. I groaned aloud in my despair and misery. Something stirred near to me in the room and set my nerves creeping with new apprehension. I became fully alive to the possibilities of the darkness. To my certain knowledge Dr. Fu Manchu at this time had been in England for fully three months, which meant that by now he must be equipped with all the instruments of destruction, animate and inanimate, which dread experience had taught me to associate with him. Now as I crouched there in that dark apartment listening for a repetition of the sound, I scarcely dared to conjecture what might have occasioned it, that my imagination peepled the place with reptiles which rived upon the floor, with tarantulas and other deadly insects which crept upon the walls, which might drop upon me from the ceiling at any moment. Then, since nothing stirred about me, I ventured to move, turning my shoulders, for I was unable to move my aching head, and I looked in the direction from which a faint, very faint light proceeded. A regular tapping sound now began to attract my attention, and, having turned about, I perceived that behind me was a broken window, in places patched with brown paper. The corner of one sheet of paper was detached, and the rain trickled down upon it with a rhythmical sound. In a flash I realised that I lay in the room immediately above the archway, and, listening intently, I perceived above the other faint sounds of the night, or thought that I perceived, the hissing of the gas from the extinguished lamp burner. Unsteadily I rose to my feet, but found myself swaying like a drunken man. I reached out for support, stumbling in the direction of the wall. My foot came in contact with something that lay there, and I pitched forward and fell. I anticipated a crash which would have put an end to my hopes of escape, but my fall was comparatively noiseless, for I fell upon the body of a man who lay bound up with ropes close against the wall. A moment I stayed as I fell, the chest of my fellow captive rising and falling beneath me as he breathed, knowing that my life depended upon retaining a firm hold upon myself, I succeeded in overcoming the dizziness and nausea which threatened to drown my senses, and moving back so that I knelt upon the floor, I fumbled in my pocket for the electric lamp which I had placed there. My raincoat had been removed whilst I was unconscious, and with it my pistol, but the lamp was untouched. I took it out, pressed the button, and directed the ray upon the face of the man beside me. It was Naelyn Smith. Trust up and fashioned to a ring in the wall, he lay, having a cork gag strapped so tightly between his teeth that I wondered how he had escaped suffocation. But although a grayish pallor showed through the tan of his skin, his eyes were feverishly bright, and there as I knelt beside him I thanked heaven silently but fervently. Then in furious haste I set to work to remove the gag. It was most ingeniously secured by means of leather straps buckled at the back of his head, but I infacened these without much difficulty, and he spat out the gag, uttering an exclamation of disgust. Thank God, old man, he said huskily, thank God that you are alive! I saw them drag you in, and I thought, I have been thinking the same about you for more than twenty-four hours, I said reproachfully. Why did you start without—I did not want you to come, Petrie, he replied. I had a sort of premonition. You see, it was realised, and instead of being as helpless as I, fate has made you the instrument of my release. Quick, you have a knife? Good! The old feverish energy was by no means extinguished in him. Cut the ropes about my wrist and ankles, but don't otherwise disturb them. I set to work, eagerly. Now, Smith continued, put that filthy gag in place again, but you need not strap it so tightly. Directly that they find you are alive, they will treat you the same. You understand? She has been here three times. Karamina? Shhh! I heard a sound like the opening of a distant door. Quick, the straps of the gag, whispered Smith, and pretend to recover consciousness just as they enter. Clumsily I followed his directions, for my fingers were none too steady, replaced the lamp in my pocket, and threw myself upon the floor. Through half-shut eyes I saw the door open, and obtained a glimpse of a desolate empty passage beyond. On the threshold stood Karamina. She held in her hand a common tin oil lamp which smoked and flickered with every movement, filling the already none to clean the air with an odour of burning paraffin. She personified the outweigh, nothing so incongruous as her presence in that place could well be imagined. She was dressed as I remembered once to have seen her two years before, in the gauzy silks of the harem. There were pearls glittering like great tears amid the cloud of her wonderful hair. She wore broad gold bangles upon her bare arms, and her fingers were laden with jewellery. A heavy girdle swung from her hips, defining the lines of her slim shape, and about one white ankle there was a gold band. As she appeared in the doorway I almost entirely closed my eyes, but my gaze rested fascinatedly upon the little red slippers which she wore. Again I detected the exquisite elusive perfume which like a breath of musk spoke of the Orient, and as always it played havoc with my reason, seeming to intoxicate me as though it were the very essence of her loveliness. But I had a part to play, and throwing out one clenched hand so that my fist struck upon the floor I uttered a loud groan, and made as if to rise upon my knees. One quick glimpse I had of her wonderful eyes widely opened and turned upon me with such an enigmatic expression as set my heart leaping wildly. Then, stepping back, her amina placed the lamp upon the boards of the passage and clapped her hands. As I sank upon the floor in assumed exhaustion, a Chinaman with a perfectly impassive face, and a Berman whose pockmarked evil countenance was set in an apparently habitual slayer, came running into the room past the girl. The hand which trembled violently she held the lamp whilst the two yellow ruffians tied me. I groaned and struggled feebly, fixing my gaze upon the lamp-bearer in a silent reproach which was by no means without its effect. She lowered her eyes, and I could see her biting her lip whilst the color gradually faded from her cheeks. Then glancing up again quickly and still meeting that reproachful stare, she turned her head aside altogether, and rested one hand upon the wall, swaying slightly as she did so. It was a singular ordeal for more than one of that incongruous group, but an order that I may not be charged with hypocrisy or with seeking to hide my own folly. I confess here that when again I found myself in darkness. My heart was leaping not because of the success of my strategy, but because of the success of that reproachful glance which I had directed towards the lovely dark-eyed Karamina, toward the faithless, evil Karamina, so much for myself. The door had not been closed ten seconds, ere Smith again was spitting out the gag, swearing under his breath and stretching his cramped limbs free from their binding. Within a minute of the time from my trusting I was a free man again, save that look where I would to right, to left, or inward, to my own conscience. Two dark eyes met mine enigmatically. What now? I whispered. Let me think, replied Smith. A false move would destroy us. How long have you been here, since last night? Is Fu Manchu? Fu Manchu is here, replied Smith grimly, and not only Fu Manchu, but another. Another? A higher than Fu Manchu, apparently. I have an idea of the identity of this person, but no more than an idea. Something unusual is going on, Petrie. Otherwise I should have been a dead man twenty-four hours ago. Something even more important than my death engages Fu Manchu's attention, and this can only be the presence of the mysterious visitor. Your seductive friend, Karamia, is arrayed in her very becoming national costume in his honour, I presume. He stopped abruptly, then added, I would give five hundred pounds for a glimpse of that visitor's face. Is Burke? God knows what's become of Burke, Petrie. We were both caught napping in the establishment of the amiable Shen Yan, where amid a very mixed company of poker players we were losing our money, like gentlemen. But Weymouth. Burke and I had both been neatly sandbagged by dear Petrie, and removed elsewhere, some hours before Weymouth raided the gaming house. Oh, I don't know how they smuggle us away with the police watching the place, but my presence here is sufficient evidence of the fact. Are you armed? No. My pistol was in my raincoat, which is missing. In the dim light from the broken window I could see Smith tugging reflectedly at the lobe of his left ear. I am without arms too, he mused. We might escape from the window. It's a long drop. Ah, I imagine so. If only I had a pistol or a revolver. What should you do? I should present myself before the important meeting which I am assured is being held somewhere in this building, and to-night would see the end of my struggle with the Fu Man Chu group, the end of the whole yellow menace. For not only is Fu Man Chu here, Petrie, with all his gang of assassins, but he whom I believe to be the real head of the group, a certain Mandarin is here also. Order. Smith stepped quietly across the room and tried the door. It proved to be unlocked, and an instant later we were both outside in the passage. Coincident with our arrival there arose a sudden outcry from some place at the westward end. A high-pitched grating sound in which guttural notes alternated with a serpent-like hissing was raised in anger. Dr. Fu Man Chu, whispered Smith, grasping my arm. Indeed, it was the unmistakable voice of the Chinaman, raised hysterically in one of those outbursts which in the past I had diagnosed as symptomatic of dangerous mania. The voice rose to a scream, the scream of some angry animal rather than anything human. Then, chokingly, it ceased. Another short, sharp cry followed, but not in the voice of Fu Man Chu, a dull groan and the sound of a fall. With Smith still grasping my wrist, I shrank back into the doorway as something that looked in the darkness like a great ball of fluff came rapidly along the passage toward me. Just at my feet the thing stopped, and I made it out for a small animal. The tiny gleaming eyes looked up at me, and, chattering wickedly, the creature bounded past and was lost from view. It was Dr. Fu Man Chu's marmoset. Smith dragged me back into the room which we had just left. As he partly reclosed the door, I heard the clapping of hands. In a condition of most dreadful suspense we waited, until a new ominous sound proclaimed itself. Some heavy body was being dragged into the passage. I heard the opening of a trap. Exclamations in guttural voices told of a heavy task in progress. There was a great straining and creaking whereupon the trap was softly reclosed. Smith bent to my ear. Fu Man Chu has gestised one of his servants, he whispered. There will be food for the grappling irons tonight. I shudded violently for, without Smith's words, I knew that a bloody deed had been done in that house within a few yards of where we stood. In the new silence I could hear the drip, drip, drip of the rain outside the window, then a steam siren hooted dismally upon the river, and I thought how the screw of that very vessel, even as we listened, might be tearing the body of Fu Man Chu's servant. Have you someone waiting? whispered Smith eagerly. How long was I insensible? About half an hour. Then the cab man will be waiting. Have you a whistle with you? I felt in my coat pocket. Yes, I reported. Good, then we will take a chance. Again we slipped out into the passage and began a stealthy progress to the west. Ten paces amid absolute darkness, and we found ourselves abreast of a branch corridor, at the further end through a kind of little window a dim light shone. See if you can find the trap, whispered Smith, light your lamp. I directed the ray of the pocket lamp upon the floor, and there at my feet was a square wooden trap. As I stooped to examine it I glanced back painfully over my shoulder, and saw Nalen Smith tiptoeing away from me along the passage toward the light. Inwardly I cursed his folly, but the temptation to peep in at that little window proved too strong for me, as it had proved too strong for him. Fearful that some board would creak beneath my tread, I followed, and side by side we too crouched, looking into the small rectangular room. It was a bare and cheerless apartment with unpapered walls and carpetless floor. A table and a chair constituted the sole furniture. Seated in the chair with his back towards us was a portly Chinaman who wore a yellow silken robe. His face it was impossible to see, but he was beating his fist upon the table and pouring out a torrent of words in a thin piping voice. So much I perceived at a glance, then, interview at the distant end of the room, paced a tall high-shouldered figure, a figure unforgettable at once imposing and dreadful, stately and sinister. With the long bony hands behind him, fingers twining and intertwining serpentinely around the handle of a little fan, and with the pointed chin resting on the breast of the yellow robe, so that the light from the lamp swinging in the centre of the ceiling gleamed upon the great dome-like brow, this tall man paced somberly from left to right. He cast a side-long venomous glance at the voluble speaker out of half-shut eyes, and in the act they seemed to light up as with an internal luminance. Momentarily they spark of like emeralds, then their brilliance was filmed over as in the eyes of a bird when the membrane is lowered. My blood seemed to chill, and my heart to double its pulsations. Beside me Smith was breathing more rapidly than usual. I knew now the explanation of the feeling which had claimed me when first I had descended the stone stairs. I knew what it was that hung like a miasma over that house. It was the aura, the glamour which radiated from this wonderful and evil man as light radiates from radium. It was the vril, the force of Dr. Fu Manchu. I began to move away from the window, but Smith held my wrist as in a vice. He was listening rapidly to the torrential speech of the Chinaman who sat in the chair, and I perceived in his eyes the light of a sudden comprehension. As the tall figure of the Chinese doctor came pacing into view again, Smith, his head below the level of the window, pushed me gently along the passage. Regaining the sight of the trap, he whispered to me, We owe our lives, Petrie, to the national childishness of the Chinese. A race of ancestor worshippers is capable of anything, but Dr. Fu Manchu, the dreadful being who has reigned terror upon Europe, stands in imminent peril of disgrace for having lost a decoration. What do you mean, Smith? I mean that this is no time for delay, Petrie. Here, unless I am greatly mistaken, lies the rope by means of which you made your entrance. It shall be the means of your exit. Open the trap. Handing the lamp to Smith, I stooped and carefully raised the trap door, at which moment a singular and dramatic thing happened. A softly musical voice, the voice of my dream, spoke, Not that way, O God! Not that way! In my surprise and confusion I all but let the trap fall, but I retained sufficient presence of mind to replace it gently. Standing upright I turned and there, with her little jewelled hand resting upon Smith's arm, stood Karamina. In all my experience of him I had never seen Naelyn Smith so utterly perplexed. Between anger, distrust and dismay he wavered, and each passing emotion was written legibly upon the lean, bronzed features. Rigid with surprise he stared at the beautiful face of the girl. She, although her hand still rested upon Smith's arm, had her dark eyes turned upon me, with that same enigmatic expression. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breast heaved tumultuously. This ten seconds of silence, in which we three stood looking at one another, encompassed the whole gamut of human emotion. The silence was broken by Karamina. They will be coming back that way, she whispered, bending eagerly toward me. How, in the most desperate moments, I love to listen to that odd musical accent. Please, if you would save your life and spare mine, trust me! She suddenly clasped her hands together and looked up into my face passionately. Trust me just for once, and I will show you the way. Naelyn Smith never removed his gaze from her for a moment, nor did he stir. Oh! she whispered tremulously, and stamped one little red slipper upon the floor. You won't hit me? Come, or it will be too late. I glanced anxiously at my friend. The voice of Dr. Fu Manchu now raised in anger was audible above the piping tones of the other Chinaman, and as I caught Smith's eye in silent query, the trap at my feet began slowly to lift. Karamina stifled a little sobbing cry, but the warning came too late. A hideous yellow face with oblique, squinting eyes appeared in the aperture. I found myself inert, useless. I could neither think nor act. Naelyn Smith, however, as if instinctively, delivered a pitiless kick at the head protruding above the trap. A sickening, crushing sound, with a sort of muffled snap, spoke of a broken jaw bone, and with no word or cry the Chinaman fell. As the trap descended with a bang, I heard the thud of his body on the stone stairs beneath. But we were lost. Karamina fled along one of the passages, likely as a bird, and disappeared as Dr. Fu Manchu, his top lip drawn above his teeth in the manner of an angry jackal, appeared from the other. This way! cried Smith, in a voice that rose almost to a shriek. This way! He led toward the room overhanging the steps. Off we dashed with panic swiftness, only to find that this retreat also was cut off. Dimly visible in the darkness was a group of yellow men, and despite the gloom, the curved blades of the knives which they carried glittered menacingly. The passage was full of daiquats. Smith and I turned together. The trap was raised again, and the burman who had helped to time me was just scrambling up beside Dr. Fu Manchu, who stood there watching us, a shadow, sinister figure. The game's up, Petrie, muttered Smith. It's been a long fight, but Fu Manchu wins. Not entirely, I cried. I whipped the police whistle from my pocket, and raised it to my lips. But brief as the interval had been, the daiquats were upon me. A sinewy brown arm shot over my shoulder, and the whistle was dashed from my grasp. Then came a whirl of maelstrom fighting with Smith and myself, ever sinking lower amid a whirlpool, as it seemed of bloodlustful eyes, yellow fangs and gleaming blades. I had some vague idea that the rasping voice of Fu Manchu broke once through the turmoil, and when, with my wrist tied behind me, I emerged from the strife to find myself lying beside Smith in the passage. I could only assume that the Chinaman had ordered his bloody servants to take us alive. For saving numerous bruises and a few superficial cuts, I was unwounded. The place was utterly deserted again, and we two panting captives found ourselves alone with Dr. Fu Manchu. The scene was unforgettable, that dimly lighted passage, its extremities masked in shadow, and the tall yellow-robed figure of the satanic Chinaman towering over us where we lay. He had recovered his habitual calm, and as I peered at him through the gloom, I was impressed and new with the tremendous intellectual force of the man. He had the brow of a genius, the features of a born ruler, and even in that moment I could find time to search my memory and to discover that the face, saving the indescribable evil of its expression, was identical to that of Seti, the mighty pharaoh who lies in the Cairo Museum. Down the passage came leaping and gambling the doctor's marmoset. Uttering its shrill whistling cry, it leaped onto his shoulder, clutched with its tiny fingers at the scanty, neutral-colored hair upon his crown, and bent forward, peering grotesquely into that still, dreadful face. Dr. Fu Manchu stroked the little creature and crooned to it as a mother to her infant. Only this crooning and the laboured breathing of Smith and myself broke that impressive stillness. Suddenly the guttural voice began. You come at an opportune time, Mr. Commissioner Neywon Smith and Dr. Pete Wee, at a time when the greatest man in China forlattas me the visit. In my absence from home, a tremendous honour has been conferred upon me, and in the hour of this supreme honour, dishonour and calamity have befallen. For my services to China, the new China, the China of the future, I have been admitted to the sublime prince of the sacred order of the white peacock. Warming to his discourse, he threw wide his arms hurling the chattering marmoset, fully five yards along the corridor. Oh, God of Gathay! he cried sibilantly. In what have I sinned that this catastrophe has been visited upon my head? Learn, my two dear friends, that the sacred white peacock brought to these misty shores for my undying glory has been lost to me. Death is the penalty of such a sacrilege. Death shall be my lot, since death I deserve. Covertly Smith nudged me with his elbow. I knew what the nudge was designed to convey. He would remind me of his words, and then the childish trifles which sway the life of intellectual China. Personally, I was amazed that Fuma and Shu's anger, grief, sorrow and resignation were real. No one watching him and hearing his voice could doubt. He continued, By one deed and one deed alone, may I win a lighter punishment. By one deed and the resignation of all my titles, all my lands, all my honours, may I merit to be spared to my work which has only begun. I knew now that we were lost indeed. These were confidences which our grave should hold in violet. He suddenly opened fully those blazing green eyes and directed their baneful glare upon Naelyn Smith. The director of our universe, he continued softly, has relented toward me. Tonight or you die. Tonight the arch enemy of our caste shall be no more. This is my offering, the price of redemption. My mind was working again and actively. I managed to grasp the stupendous truth and the stupendous possibility. Dr. Fu Man Shu was in the act of clapping his hands when I spoke. Stop! I cried. He paused and the weird film which sometimes became visible in his eyes now obscured their greenness and lent him the appearance of a blind man. Dr. Petrie, he said softly, I shall always or wasn't to you with all respect. I have an offer to make, I continued, seeking to steady my voice. Give us our freedom and I will restore your shattered honour. I will restore the sacred peacock. Dr. Fu Man Shu bent forward until his face was so close to mine that I could see the innumerable lines which an intricate network covered his yellow skin. Speak, he hissed. You'll lift up my heart from a dark pit. I can restore your white peacock, I said. I and I alone know where it is. And I strove not to shrink from the face so close to mine. Upright shot the tall figure, high above his head, Fu Man Shu threw his arms, and a light of exultation gleamed in the now widely opened cat-like eyes. O God! he screamed frenziedly. O God of the golden age! Like a phoenix I arise from the heart of my death. He turned to me quick, quick, make a bargain, end my suspense. Smith stared at me like a man dazed, but ignoring him I went on. You will release me now, immediately. In another ten minutes it will be too late. My friend will remain. One of your servants can accompany me, and give the signal when I return with the peacock. Mr. Naelyn Smith and yourself, or another, will join me at the corner of the street where the raid took place last night. We shall then give you ten minutes' grace, after which we shall take whatever steps we choose. Agreed, cried Fu Man Shu, I ask but one thing from an Englishman. Your word of honor. I give it. I also, said Smith hoarsely. Ten minutes later, Naelyn Smith and I, standing beside the cab whose lights gleamed yellowly through the mist, exchanged a struggling frightened bird for our lives, capitulated with the enemy of the white race. With characteristic audacity, and characteristic trust in the British sense of honour, Dr. Fu Man Shu came in person with Naelyn Smith, in response to the wailing signal of the backward who had accompanied me. No word was spoken, save that the cabman suppressed a curse of amazement, and the Chinaman, his sinister servant at his elbow, bowed low and left us, surely to the mocking laughter of the gods. CHAPTER XIV I leaped up in bed with a great start. My sleep was troubled often enough in these days, which immediately followed our almost miraculous escape from the den of Fu Man Shu, and now as I crouched there, nerves acquiver, listening, listening, I could not be sure if this dark panic which possessed me had its origin in nightmare or in something else. Surely a scream, a choking cry for help, had reached my ears, but now almost holding my breath in that sort of nervous density peculiar to one aroused thus, I listened, and the silence seemed complete. Perhaps I had been dreaming, Help! Petrie! Help! It was Naelyn Smith in the room above me. My doubts were dissolved, this was no trick of the imagination disordered. Some dreadful menace threatened my friend. Not delaying even to snatch my dressing-gown, I rushed out onto the landing, up the stairs, barefooted as I was, threw open the door of Naelyn Smith's room, and literally hurled myself in. Those cries had been the cries of one assailed, had been uttered I judged in the brief interval of a life-and-death struggle, had been choked off. A certain amount of moonlight found access to the room, without spreading so far as the bed in which my friend lay, but at the moment of my headlong entrance, and before I had switched on the light, my gaze automatically was directed to the pale moonbeam streaming through the window, and down onto one corner of the sheepskin rug beside the bed. There came a sound of faint and muffled coughing. What with my recent awakening and the panic at my heart, I could not claim that my vision was true, but across this moonbeam passed a sort of gray streak, for all the world as though some long thin shape had been withdrawn, snake-like from the room and through the open window. From somewhere outside the house and below I heard the cough again, followed by a sharp cracking sound, like the lashing of a whip. I depressed the switch, flooding the room with light, and as I leaped forward to the bed a weird picture of what I had seen formed in my mind, and I found I was thinking of a gray feather boa. Smith, I cried, my voice seemed to pitch itself unwilled in a very high key. Smith, old man! He made no reply, and a sudden sorrowful fear clutched at my heartstrings. He was lying half out of bed flat upon his back, his head at a dreadful angle with his body. As I bent over him and seized him by the shoulders I could see the whites of his eyes. His arms hung limply, and his fingers touched the carpet. My God! I whispered, what has happened? I heaved him back onto the pillow and looked anxiously into his face. Habitually gaunt, the flesh so refined away by the consuming nervous energy of the man, as to reveal the cheekbones in sharp prominence, he now looked truly ghastly. His skin was so sun-baked as to have changed constitutionally, nothing could ever eradicate that tan. But tonight a fearful grayness was mingled with the brown. His lips were purple, and there were marks of strangulation upon the lean throat, ever darkening wheels made by clutching fingers. He began to breathe stentoriously and convulsively, inhalation being accompanied by a significant gurgling in the throat. But now my calm was restored in face of a situation which called for professional attention. I aided my friend's laboured respirations by the usual means, setting to work vigorously, so that presently he began to clutch at his inflamed throat, which that murderous pressure had threatened to close. I could hear sounds of movement about the house, showing that not I alone had been awakened by those hoarse screams. It's all right, old man, I said, bending over him, brace up. He opened his eyes, they looked bleared and bloodshot, and gave me a quick glance of recognition. It's all right, Smith, I said. No, don't sit up, lie there for a moment. I ran across to the dressing-table, whereupon I perceived his flask to lie, and mixed him a weak stimulant with which I returned to the bed. As I bent over him again, my housekeeper appeared in the doorway, pale and wide-eyed. There's no occasion for alarm, I said over my shoulder. Mr. Smith's nerves are overwrought, and he was awakened by some disturbing dream. You can return to bed, Mrs. Newsom. Nail and Smith seemed to experience much difficulty in swallowing the contents of the tumbler which I held to his lips, and from the way in which he fingered the swollen glands I could see that his throat, which I had vigorously massaged, was occasioning him great pain. But the danger was past, and already that glassy look was disappearing from his eyes, nor did they protrude so unnaturally. God, Petrie, he whispered, that was a near shave. I haven't the strength of a kitten. The weakness will pass off, I replied, but there will be no collapse now, a little more fresh air. I stood up, glancing at the windows, then back at Smith, who forced a wry smile and answer to my look. Couldn't be done, Petrie, he said, huskily. His words referred to the state of the windows. Although the night was oppressively hot, these were only open some four inches at top and bottom. Further opening was impossible, because of iron brackets screwed firmly into the casements, which prevented the windows being raised or lowered further. It was a precaution adopted after long experience of the servants of Dr. Fu Manchu. Now, as I stood looking from the half-strangled man upon the bed to those screwed-up windows, the fact came home to my mind that this precaution had proved futile. I thought of the thing which I had likened to a feather boa, and I looked at the swollen wheels made by clutching fingers upon the throat of Naelyn Smith. The bed stood fully four feet from the nearest window. I suppose the question was written in my face, for as I turned again to Smith, who having struggled upright was still fingering his injured throat roofily. God only knows, Petrie, he said. No human arm could have reached me. For us the night was ended so far as sleep was concerned. A raid in his dressing-gant Smith sat in the white cane chair in my study, with a glass of brandy and water beside him, and, despite my official prohibition, with the cracked briar which had sent up its incense in many strange and dark places of the East, and which yet survived to perfume these prosy runes in the suburban London, steaming between his teeth. I stood with my elbow resting upon the mantelpiece, looking down at him where he sat. By God, Petrie, he said, yet again, with his fingers straying gently over the surface of his throat. That was a narrow shave. Damn narrow shave! Narrow, perhaps, and you appreciate, old man, I replied. You were a most unusual shade of blue when I found you. I managed, said Smith, evenly, to tear those clutching fingers away for a moment, and to give a cry for help. It was only for a moment, though, Petrie. They were fingers of steel. Of steel. The bed I began. I know that, wrapped Smith. I shouldn't have been sleeping in it. Had it been within the reach of the window, but knowing that the doctor avoids noisy methods, I had thought myself fairly safe, so long as I made it impossible for anyone to actually enter the room. I have always insisted, Smith, I cried, that that was the danger, what of poisoned darts, what of the damnable reptiles and insects which form part of the armory of Fu Manchu. Familiarity breeds contempt, I suppose, he replied, but as it happened none of those agents was employed. The very menace that I sought to avoid reached me somehow. It had almost seen the doctor Fu Manchu deliberately accepted the challenge of those screwed-up windows. Hang it all, Petrie. One cannot sleep in a room hermetically sealed in weather like this. It's positively Burmese, and although I can stand tropical heat, curiously enough the heat of London gets me down almost immediately. The humidity, that's easily understood, but you have put up with it in the future. After nightfall our windows must be closed entirely, Smith. Nailin Smith knocked out his pipe upon the side of the fireplace. The bowl sizzled furiously, but without delay he stuffed broad-cut mixture into the hot pipe, dropping a liberal quantity upon the carpet during the process. He raised his eyes to me. His face was very grim. Petrie, he said, striking a match on the heel of his slipper. The resources of Doctor Fu Manchu are by no means exhausted. Before we quit this room it is up to us to come to a decision upon a certain point. He got his pipe well alight. What kind of thing, what unnatural distorted creature, laid hands upon my throat tonight? I owe my life primarily to you, old man, but secondly to the fact that I was awakened just before the attack by the creature's coughing, by its vile, high-pitched coughing. I glanced around at the books upon my shelves, often enough following some outrage by the brilliant Chinese doctor, whose genius was directed to the discovery of new and unique death agents, we had obtained a clue in those works of a scientific nature which bulked largely in the library of a medical man. There are creatures, there are drugs, which ordinarily innocuous may be so employed as to become inimical to human life, and in the distorting of nature, in the disturbing of balances, and the diverting of beneficent forces into strange and dangerous channels, Doctor Fu Manchu excelled. I had known him to enlarge, by artificial culture, a minute species of fungus so as to render it a powerful agent capable of attacking man. His knowledge of venomous insects has probably never been paralleled in the history of the world, whilst in the sphere of pure toxicology he had, and has, no rival. The Borges were children by comparison. But look where I would, think how I might, no adequate explanation of this latest outrage seem possible among normal lines. There's the clue, said Nalen Smith, pointing to a little ashtray upon the table nearby. Follow it if you can. But I could not. As I have explained, continued my friend, I was awakened by a sound of coughing. Then came a death-grip upon my throat, and instinctively my hand shot out in search of my attacker. I could not reach him. My hands came in contact with nothing palpable. Therefore I clutched at the fingers which were dug into my windpipe, and found them to be small, as the marks show, and hairy. I managed to give that first cry for help, then with all my strength I tried to unfasten the grip that was throttling the life out of me. At last I contrived to move one of the hands, and I called out again, though not so loudly. Then both the hands were back again. I was weakening, but I clawed like a madman at the thin hairy arms of the strangling thing, and with a blood-red mist dancing before my eyes I seemed to be whirling madly round and round, until all became a blank. Evidently I used my nails pretty freely, and here's the trophy. For the twentieth time I should think I carried the ashtray in my hand, and laid it immediately under the table-lamp in order to examine its contents. In the little brass bowl lay a blood stained fragment of grayish hair attached to a tatter of skin. This fragment of epidermis had an oddly bluish tinge, and the attached hair was much darker at the roots than elsewhere. Saving its singular color it might have been torn from the forearm of a very hirsute human, but although my thoughts wandered unfettered north, south, east and west, although knowing the resources of Fu Manchu, I considered all the recognized Mongolian types, and in quest of hirsute mankind, even roamed far north among the blubbering Esquimo. Although I glanced at Australasia, at Central Africa, and passed in mental review the dark places of the Congo, nowhere in the known world, nowhere in the history of the human species, could I come upon a type of man answering to the description suggested by our strange clue. Nailan Smith was watching me curiously as I bent over the little brass ashtray. You are puzzled, he rapped in his short way. So I am, utterly puzzled, Fu Manchu's gallery of monstrosities clearly has become reinforced, for even if we identified the type, we should not be in sight of our explanation. You mean, I began, fully four feet from the window, Petrie, in that window but a few inches open. Look! He bent forward, resting his chest against the table, and stretched at his hand toward me. You have a rule there, just measure. Setting down the ashtray, I opened out the rule and measured the distance from the further edge of the table to the tips of Smith's fingers. Twenty-eight inches, and I have a long reach, snapped Smith, withdrawing his arm and striking a match to relight his pipe. There's one thing, Petrie, often proposed before, which now we must do without delay. The ivy must be stripped from the walls at the back. It's a pity, but we cannot afford to sacrifice our lives to our sense of the aesthetic. Won't you make of the sound like a cracking of a whip? I make nothing of it, Smith, I replied wearily. It might have been a thick branch of ivy breaking beneath the weight of a climber. Did it sound like it? I must confess that the explanation does not convince me, but I have no better one. Smith, permitting his pipe to go out, sat staring straight before him and tugging at the lobe of his left ear. The old bewilderment, his seizing me, I continued. At first, when I realised that Dr. Fu Manchu was back in England, when I realised that an elaborate murder machine was set up somewhere in London, it seemed unreal, fantastical. Then I met Karamina, she, whom we thought to be his victim, showed herself again to be his slave. Now, with Weymouth and Scotland Yard at work, the old secret evil is established to gain in our midst. Unaccountably, our lives are menaced. Sleep is a danger. Every shadow threatens death. Oh, it is awful. Smith remained silent. He did not seem to have heard my words. I knew these moods and had learned that it was useless to seek to interrupt them. With his brows drawn down and his deep-set eyes staring into space, he sat there gripping his cold pipe so tightly that my own jaw muscles ached sympathetically. No man was better equipped than this gaunt British commissioner to stand between society and the menace of the Yellow Doctor. I respected his meditations, for, unlike my own, they were informed by the intimate knowledge of the dark and secret things of the East, of that mysterious East out of which Fu Manchu came, of that jungle of noxious things whose miasma had been wafted westward with the implacable Chinaman. I walked quietly from the door, occupied with my own bitter reflections. End of Chapter 14 Recording by Elaine Tweddle Sterling Ontario Chapter 15 Of The Return Of Dr. Fu Manchu This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elaine Tweddle The Return Of Dr. Fu Manchu Chapter 15 Bewitchment You say you have two items of news for me? said Nalen Smith, looking across the breakfast table to wear Inspector Weymouth, sat sipping coffee. There are two points. Yes, replied the Scotland yarn-man, while Smith paused, egg-spoon in hand, and fixed his keen eyes upon the speaker. The first is this. The headquarters of the Yellow Group is no longer in the East End. How can you be sure of that? For two reasons. In the first place, that district must now be too hot to hold Dr. Fu Manchu. In the second place, we have just completed a house-to-house inquiry, which has scarcely overlooked a rat-hole, or a rat. In the place where you say Fu Manchu was visited by some Chinese Mandarin, where you, Mr. Smith, and, glancing in my direction, you, Dr., were confined for time. Yes, snapped Smith, attacking his egg. Well, continued the Inspector, it is all deserted now. There is not the slightest doubt that the Chinaman has fled to some other abode. I am certain of it. My second piece of news will interest you very much, I am sure. You were taken to the establishment of the Chinaman Shenyang, by a certain ex-officer of New York Police, Burke. Good God! cried Smith, looking up with a start. I thought they had him. So did I, replied Weymouth Grimly, but they haven't. He got away in the confusion following the raid, and has been hiding ever since, with a cousin, a nurseryman, out, up, minced away. Hiding, snapped Smith? Exactly, hiding. And what is this he knows? Naelyn Smith stared eagerly at the detective. Every man has his price, replied Weymouth, with a smile, and Burke seems to think you are a more likely market than the police authorities. I see, snapped Smith. He wants to see me. He wants you to go and see him, was the reply. I think he anticipates that you may make a capture of the person or person spying upon him. Did he give you any particulars? Several. He spoke of a sort of gypsy girl, with whom he had a short conversation one day, over the fence which divides his cousin's flower plantations from the lane adjourning. Gypsy girl? I whispered, glancing rapidly at Smith. I think you were right, doctor, said Weymouth, with his slow smile. It was Karamina. She asked him the way to somewhere or other, and got him to write it upon a loose page of his notebook, so that she should not forget it. You hear that, Petrie? Wrapped Smith. I hear it, I replied, but I don't see any special significance in the fact. I do, Wrapped Smith. I didn't sit up the greater part of last night, thrashing my weary brains for nothing. But I'm going to the British Museum today, to confirm a certain suspicion. He turned to Weymouth. Did Burke go back? He demanded abruptly. He returned hidden under the empty boxes, was the reply, Oh, you never saw a man in such a funk in all your life. He may have good reasons, I said. He has good reasons, replied Nailen Smith Grimley. If that man really possesses information inimical to the safety of Fu Manchu, he can only escape doom by means of a miracle, similar to that which has hitherto protected you and me. Burke insists, said Weymouth at this point, that something comes almost every night after dusk, slinking about the house. It's an old farmhouse, I understand. And on two or three occasions he has been awakened. Fortunately for him he is a light sleeper, by sounds of coughing immediately outside his window. He is a man who sleeps with a pistol under his pillow, and more than once, on running to the window. He has had a vague glimpse of some creature leaping down from the tiles of the roof, which slopes up to his room, into the flower beds below. Creature, said Smith, his gray eyes ablaze now. You said, Creature? I used the word deliberately, replied Weymouth, because Burke seems to have an idea that it goes on all fours. There was a short and rather strange silence, then, in descending a sloping roof, I suggested, a human being would probably employ his hands as well as his feet. Quite so, agreed the Inspector. I am merely reporting the impression of Burke. As he heard no other sound, wrapped Smith, one like the cracking of dry branches, for instance. He made no mention of it, replied Weymouth, staring. And what is the plan? One of his cousins' vans, said Weymouth, with his slight smile, has remained behind at Covent Garden, and will remain late this afternoon. I propose that you and I, Mr. Smith, imitate Burke and ride down to Upminster under the empty boxes. Naelyn Smith stood up, leaving his breakfast half finished, and began to wander up and down the room, reflectively tugging at his ear. Then he began to fumble in the pockets of his dressing gown, and finally produced the inevitable pipe, dilapidated pouch and a box of safety matches. He began to load the much charred agent of reflection. Do I understand that Burke is actually too afraid to go out openly, even in daylight? He asked suddenly. He has not hitherto left his cousin's plantations at all, replied Weymouth. He seems to think that openly to communicate with the authorities, or with you, would be to seal his death warrant. He's right, snapped Smith. Therefore he came and returned secretly, continued the inspector. And if we are to do any good, obviously we must adopt similar precautions. The market wagon, loaded in such a way as to leave ample space in the interior for us, will be drawn up outside the office of Mrs. Pike and Pike at Covent Garden, until about five o'clock this afternoon. At, say, half-past four, I propose that we meet there and embark upon the journey. The speaker glanced in my direction interrogatively. Include me in the programme, I said. Will there be room in the wagon? Certainly was the reply. It is most commodious, but I cannot guarantee its comfort. Nailin Smith promenaded the room unceasingly, and presently he walked out altogether. Only to return ere the inspector and I had had time to exchange more than a glance of surprise, carrying a brass astray. He placed this on a corner of the breakfast table before Weymouth. Never seen anything like that, he inquired. The inspector examined the gruesome relic with obvious curiosity, turning it over with the tip of his little finger, and manifesting considerable repugnance in touching it at all. Smith and I watched him in silence, and, finally, placing the tray again upon the table, he looked up in a puzzled way. It's something like the skin of a water rat, he said. Nailin Smith stared at him fixedly. A water rat? Now that you come to mention it, I perceive a certain resemblance, he has. But he had been wearing a silk scarf around his throat, and now he unwrapped it. Did you ever see a water rat that could make marks like these? Weymouth started to his feet with some muttered exclamation. What is this, he cried. When did it happen, and how? In his own tourist fashion, Nailin Smith related the happenings of the night, and the conclusion of the story. By heaven, whispered Weymouth, the thing on the roof, the coughing thing that goes on all fours seen by Bert. My own idea exactly, cried Smith. Fumanchou, I said excitedly, has brought some new, some dreadful creature from Burma. No, Petrie, snapped Smith, turning upon me suddenly, not from Burma, from Abyssinia. That day was destined to be an eventful one, a day never to be forgotten by any of his concerned and those happenings which I have to record. Early in the morning Nailin Smith set off for the British Museum to pursue his mysterious investigations, and having performed my brief professional round, for, as Nailin Smith had remarked on one occasion, this was a beastly healthy district. I found, having made the necessary arrangements that, with over three hours to spare, I had nothing to occupy my time until the appointment in Covent Garden Market. My lonely lunch completed, a restless fit seized me, and I felt unable to remain longer in the house. Inspired by this restlessness, I attired myself for the adventure of the evening, not neglecting to place a pistol in my pocket, and walking to the neighbouring tube station, I booked to Charing Cross, and presently found myself rambling aimlessly along the crowded streets. Led on by what link of memory I know not, I presently drifted into New Oxford Street, and looked up with a start, to learn that I stood before the shop of a second hand bookseller, where once, two years before, I had met Karamina. The thoughts conjured up at that moment were almost too bitter to be borne, and without so much as glancing at the books displayed for sale, I crossed the roadway, entered Museum Street, and rather in order to distract my mind than because I contemplated any purchase, began to examine the Oriental Pottery, Egyptian statuettes, Indian armour, and other curios displayed in the window of an antique dealer. But strive as I would to concentrate my mind upon the objects in the window, my memories persistently haunted me, and haunted me to the exclusion even of the actualities. The crowds thronging the pavement, the traffic in New Oxford Street, swept past unheeded. My eyes saw nothing of pot nor statuette, but only met in a misty imaginative world, the glance of two other eyes, the dark and beautiful eyes of Karamina. In the exquisite tinting of a Chinese vase dimly perceptible in the background of the shop, I perceived only the blushing cheeks of Karamina, her face rose up a taunting phantom from out of the darkness between a hideous gilded idol and an Indian sandalwood screen. I strove to dispel this obsessing thought, resolutely fixing my attention upon a taller Truscan vase in the corner of the window near to the shop door. Was I losing my senses indeed? A doubt of my own sanity momentarily possessed me, for struggle as I would to dispel the illusion there looking out at me over the ancient piece of pottery was the bewitching face of the slave girl. Probably I was glaring madly, and possibly I attracted the notice of passes by, but of this I cannot be certain, for all my attention was centred upon that fantasmal face with the cloudy hair, slightly parted red lips, and the brilliant dark eyes which looked into mine out of the shadows of the shop. It was bewildering, it was uncanny, for delusion or verity the glamour prevailed. I exerted a great mental effort, stepped to the door, turned the handle, and entered the shop with as great a show of composure as I could muster. A curtain draped in a little door at the back of one counter swayed slightly, with no greater violence than may have been occasioned by the draught. But I fixed my eyes upon this swaying curtain almost fiercely, as an impassive half-caste of some kind who appeared to be a strange cross between a Greco-Hebrew and a Japanese, entered and quite unemotionally faced me with a slight bow. So wholly unexpected was this apparition that I stared back. Can I show you anything, sir? Inquired the new arrival with a second slight inclination of the head. I looked at him for a moment in silence, then. I thought I saw a lady of my acquaintance here a moment ago, I said. Was I mistaken? Quite mistaken, sir, replied the shopman, raising his black eyebrows ever so slightly, a mistake possibly due to a reflection in the window. Will you take a look around now that you are here? Thank you, I replied, staring him hard in the face, at some other time. I turned and quitted the shop abruptly. Either I was mad, or Caramino was concealed somewhere therein. However, realising my helplessness in the matter, I contented myself with making a mental note of the name which appeared above the establishment, Jay Salomon, and walked on my mind a chaotic condition, and my heart beating with unusual rapidity. End of Chapter 15 Recording by Elaine Twaddle Sterling Ontario Chapter 16 OF THE RETURN OF DR. FU MAN CHU This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elaine Twaddle THE RETURN OF DR. FU MAN CHU BY SAXROMER Chapter 16 THE QUESTING HANDS Within my view from the corner of the room where I sat in deepest shadow, through the partly opened window, it was screwed like our own, were rows of glass houses gleaning in the moonlight, and, beyond them, orderly ranks of flower beds extending into a blue haze of distance. By reason of the moon's position no light entered the room, but my eyes from long watching were grown familiar with the darkness, and I could see Burke quite clearly as he lay in the bed between my post and the window. I seemed to be back again in those days of the troubled past when first Naelyn Smith and I had come to grips with the servants of Dr. Fu Man Chu. A more peaceful scene than this flower-painted corner of Essex it would be difficult to imagine, but either because of my knowledge that its piece was chimerical, or because of that outflung consciousness of danger which, actually, or in my imagination, preceded the coming of the Chinaman's agents, to my seeming the silence throbbed electrically and the night was laden with stilly omens. Already cramped by my journey in the market cart, I found it difficult to remain very long in any one position. What information had Burke to sell? He had refused for some reason to discuss the matter that evening, and now enacting the part allotted him by Naelyn Smith. He feigned sleep consistently, although at intervals he would whisper to me his doubts and fears. All the chances were in our favor tonight, for whilst I could not doubt that Dr. Fu Man Chu was set upon the removal of the ex-officer of New York police, neither could I doubt that our presence in the farm was unknown to the agents of the Chinaman. According to Burke, constant attempts had been made to achieve Fu Man Chu's purpose, and had only been frustrated by his, Burke's, wakefulness. There was every probability that another attempt would be made tonight. Anyone who has been forced by circumstance to undertake such a vigil as this will be familiar with the marked changes, corresponding with the phases of the earth's movement, which take place in the atmosphere at midnight, at two o'clock, and again at four o'clock. During those four hours falls a period wherein all life is at its lowest ebb, and every physician is aware that there is a greater likelihood of a patient's passing between midnight and four a.m. than at any other period during the cycle of the hours. Tonight I became especially aware of this lowering of vitality, and now, with a night at the darkest phase which precedes the dawn, an indescribable dread, such as I had known before in my dealings with the Chinaman, assailed me, when I was least prepared to combat it. The stillness was intense, then. Here it is, whispered Burke from the bed. The chill at the very centre of my being, which but corresponded with the chill of all surrounding nature at that hour, became intensified, keener at the whispered words. I rose stealthily out of my chair, and from my nest of windows watched, watched intently, the bright oblong of the window. Without the slightest heralding sound, a black silhouette crept up against the pane. The silhouette of a small, malformed head, a dog-like head, deep set in square shoulders. Malignant eyes peered intently in. Higher it arose that wicked head against the window, then crouched down on the sill and became less sharply defined as the creature stooped to the opening below. There was a faint sound of sniffing. Judging from the stark horror which I experienced myself, I doubted now if Burke could sustain the role allotted him. In beneath the slightly raised window came a hand, perceptible to me despite the darkness of the room. It seemed to project from the black silhouette outside the pane to be thrust forward and forward and forward, that small hand with the outstretched fingers. The unknown possesses unique terrors, and since I was unable to conceive what manner of thing this could be, which extending its incredibly long arms now sought the throat of the man upon the bed, I tasted of that sort of terror which ordinarily one only knows in dreams. Quick, sir, quick! screamed Burke, starting up from the pillow. The questing hands had reached his throat. Choking down an urgent dread that I had of touching the thing which reached through the window to kill the sleeper, I sprang across the room and grasped the rigid, hairy forearms. Heavens! Never have I felt such muscles, such tendons as those beneath the heresute skin. They seemed to be of steel wire, and with a sudden frightful sense of impotence, I realized I was as powerless as a child to relax that stranglehold. Burke was making the most frightful sounds, and quite obviously was being asphyxiated before my eyes. Smith! I cried. Smith! Help! Help! For God's sake! Despite the confusion of my mind, I became aware of sounds outside and below me. Twice the thing at the window coughed. There was an incessant, lash-like cracking when some shouted words which I was unable to make out, and finally the staccato report of a pistol. Snarling like that of a wild beast came from the creature with the hairy arms, together with renewed coughing, but the steel grip relaxed not one eye out. I realized two things. The first, that in my terror at the suddenness of the attack, I had omitted to act as prearranged. The second, that I had discredited the strength of the visitant, whilst Smith had foreseen it. Desisting in my vain endeavour to pit my strength against that of the nameless thing, I sprang back across the room and took up the weapon which had been left in my charge earlier in the night, but which I had been unable to believe it would be necessary to employ. This was a sharp and heavy axe, which Naelyn Smith, when I had met him in Covent Garden, had brought with him to the great amazement of Weymouth and myself. As I leaped back to the window and uplifted this primitive weapon, a second shot sounded from below, and more fierce snarling, coughing, and guttural mutterings assailed my ears from beyond the pain. Lifting the heavy blade, I brought it down with all my strength upon the nearer of those hairy arms where it crossed the window ledge, severing muscle, tendon, and bone as easily as a knife might cut cheese. A shriek, a shriek neither human nor animal, but gruesomely compounded of both followed and merged into a choking cough. Like a flash, the other shaggy arm was withdrawn, and some vaguely seen body went rolling down the sloping red tiles and crashed on the ground beneath. With a second piercing shriek louder than that recently uttered by Burke, wailing through the night from somewhere below, I turned desperately to the man on the bed who now was become significantly silent. A candle with matches stood upon a table hard by, and, my fingers far from steady, I set about obtaining a light. This accomplished, I stood the candle upon the little chest of drawers and returned to Burke's side. Merciful God, I cried! Of all the pictures which remain in my memory, some of them dark enough, I can find none more horrible than that which now confronted me in the dim candle light. Burke lay crosswise on the bed, his head thrown back and sagging, one rigid hand he held in the air, and with the other grasped the hairy forearm which I had severed with the axe, for in a death-grip the dead fingers were still fastened, vice-like, at his throat. His face was nearly black, and his eyes projected from their sockets horribly. Mastering my repugnance, I seized the hideous piece of bleeding anatomy and strove to release it. It defied all my efforts. In death it was as implacable as in life. I took a knife from my pocket, and tendon by tendon cut away that uncanny grip from Burke's throat. But my labour was in vain. Burke was dead. I think I failed to realise this for some time. My clothes were sticking clamily to my body. I was bathed in perspiration, and, shaking furiously, I clutched at the edge of the window, avoiding the bloody patch upon the ledge, and looked out over the roofs to wear in more distant plantations I could hear excited voices. What had been the meaning of that scream which I had heard, but to which in my frantic state of mind I paid comparatively little attention. There was a great stirring all about me. Smith! I cried from the window. Smith, for mercy's sake, where are you? Footsteps came racing up the stairs. Behind me the door burst open, and Nalen Smith stumbled into the room. God! he said, and started back in the doorway. Have you got it, Smith? I demanded hoarsely. Insanity's name! What is it? What is it? Come downstairs, replied Smith quietly, and see for yourself. He turned his head aside from the bed. Very unsteadily I followed him down the stairs, and threw the rambling old house out into the stone-paved courtyard. There were figures moving at the end of a long alleyway between the glass houses, and one carrying a lantern stooped over something which lay upon the ground. That's Brooke's cousin with a lantern, whispered Smith in my ear. Don't tell him yet. I nodded, and we hurried up to join the group. I found myself looking down at one of those thick-set bermans whom I always associated with Fu Manchu's activities. He lay quite flat, face downward, but the back of his head was a shapeless, blood-dotted mass, and a heavy stock whip, the butt end ghastly because of the blood and hair which clung to it lay beside him. I started back up hauled as Smith caught my arm. It turned on its keeper, he hissed in my ear. I wounded it twice from below, and you severed one arm. In its insensate fury, its unreasoning malignity, it turned, and there lies its second victim. Then it's gone, Petrie. It has the strength of four men even now. Look! He stooped, and from the clenched left hand of the dead birman extracted a piece of paper and opened it. Hold the lantern a moment, he said. As I expected, a leaf of Burke's notebook it worked by scent. He turned to me with an odd expression in his grey eyes. I wonder what piece of my personal property Fu Manchu has pilfered, he said, in order to enable it to sleuth me. He met the gaze of the man holding the lantern. Perhaps you had better return to the house, he said, looking him squarely in the eyes. The other's face blanched. You don't mind, sir, you don't mind. Brace up, said Smith, laying his hand upon his shoulder. Remember, he chose to play with fire. One wild look the man cast from Smith to me, then went off, staggering toward the farm. Smith, I began. He turned to me with an impatient gesture. Where Smith has driven into Upminster, he snapped, and the whole district will be scarred before morning. They probably motored here, but the sounds of the shots will have enabled whoever was in the car to make good his escape, and exhausted from loss of blood. It's capture is only a matter of time, Petrie. End of Chapter 16 Recording by Elaine Tweddle, Stirling, Ontario Chapter 17 Of The Return Of Dr. Fu Manchu This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elaine Tweddle The Return Of Dr. Fu Manchu, by Sax Romer Chapter 17 One Day In Rangoon Naelyn Smith returned from the telephone. Nearly twenty-four hours had elapsed since the awful death of Burke. No news, Petrie, he said shortly. It must have crept into some inaccessible hole to die. I glanced up from my notes. Smith settled into the white cane armchair, and began to surround himself with clouds of aromatic smoke. I took up a half-sheet of fool-scap, covered with penciled writing in my friend's cramped characters, and transcribed the following in order to complete my account of the latest Fu Manchu outrage. The Amaran, a Semitic tribe allied to the Falaches, who have been settled for many generations in the southern promise of Shoah, Abyssinia, have been regarded as unclean and outcast, apparently since the days of Menelaic, son of Suleiman and the Queen of Sheba, from whom they claim descent. Apart from their custom of eating meat cut from living beasts, they are accursed because of their alleged association with the Senecephalus Hamadrius, sacred baboon. I myself was taken to a hut on the banks of the Hawash and shown a creature whose predominant trait was an unreasoning malignity to ward, and a ferocious tenderness for the society of its furry brethren. Its powers of scent were fully equal to those of a bloodhound, whilst its abnormally long forearms possessed incredible strength. Asynosephalate, such as this, contracts Phithesis, even in the more northern provinces of Abyssinia. You have not explained to me, Smith, I said, having completed this note, how you got in touch with Fu Manchu, how you learnt that he was not dead as we had supposed, but living, active. Naelyn Smith stood up and fixed his steely eyes upon me with an indefinable expression in them, then. No, he replied, I haven't. Do you wish to know? Certainly, I said with surprise. Is there any reason why I should not? There is no real reason, said Smith, or staring at me very hard. I hope there is no real reason. What do you mean? Well, he grabbed up his pipe from the table, and began furiously to load it. I blundered upon the truth one day, and ran goon. I was walking out of a house, which I occupied there for a time, and as I swung round the corner into the main street, I ran into, literally ran into. Again he hesitated oddly, then closed up his pouch, and tossed it into the cane chair. He struck a match. I ran into Karamina, he continued abruptly, and began to puff away at his pipe, filling the air with clouds of tobacco smoke. I caught my breath. This was the reason why he had kept me so long in ignorance of the story. He knew of my hopeless, uncrushable sentiments towards the gloriously beautiful, but utterly hypocritical and evil Eastern girl, who was perhaps the most dangerous of all Dr. Fu Manchu's servants, for the power of her loveliness was magical, as I knew to my cost. What did you do? I asked quietly, my fingers drumming upon the table. Naturally enough, continued Smith, with a cry of recognition, I held out both my hands to her gladly. I welcomed her as a dear friend regained. I thought of the joy with which you would learn that I had found the missing one. I thought how you would be in ran goon just as quickly as the fastest steamer could get you there. Well? Karamina stared back and treated me to a glance of absolute animosity. No recognition was there, no friendliness, only a sort of scornful anger. He shrugged his shoulders and began to walk up and down the room. I do not know what you would have done in the circumstances, Petrie, but I—yes. I dealt with the situation rather promptly, I think. I simply picked her up without another word, right there in the public street, and raced back into the house with her kicking and fighting like a little demon. She did not shriek or do anything of that kind, but fought silently like a vicious wild animal. Oh! I had some scars, I assure you, but I carried her up to my office, which fortunately was empty at the time, plumped her down in a chair, and stood looking at her. Go on, I said rather hollily. What next? She glared at me with those wonderful eyes, an expression of implacable hatred in them. Remembering all that we had done for her, remembering our former friendship, above all remembering you, this look of hers almost made me shiver. She was dressed very smartly in European fashion, and the whole thing had been so sudden, that as I stood looking at her, I half expected to wake up presently and find it all a daydream. But it was real, as real as her enmity. I felt the need for reflection, and having vainly endeavored to draw her into conversation, and elicited no other answer than this glare of hatred, I left her there, going out and locking the door behind me. Very high-handed. A commissioner has certain privileges, Petrie, and any action I might choose to take was not likely to be questioned. There was only one window to the office, and it was fully twenty feet above the level. It overlooked a narrow street off the main thoroughfare, I think I have explained that the house stood on a corner. So I did not fear her escaping. I had an important engagement, which I had been on my way to fulfill when the encounter took place, and now, with a word to my native servant, who chanced to be downstairs, I hurried off. Smith's pipe had gone out as usual, and he proceeded to relight it, whilst with my eyes lowered, I continued to drum upon the table. This boy took her some tea later in the afternoon, he continued, and apparently found her in a more placid frame of mind. I returned immediately after dusk, and he reported that when last he had looked in about half an hour earlier, she had been seated in an armchair reading a newspaper. I may mention that everything of value in the office was securely locked up. I was determined upon a certain course by this time, and I went slowly upstairs, unlocked the door, and walked into the darkened office. I turned up the light. The place was empty. Empty? The window was open, and the bird flown. Oh, it was not so simple a flight, as you would realise if you knew the place. The street, which the window overlooked, was bounded by a blank wall on the opposite side. For thirty or forty yards along, and as we had been having heavy rains, it was full of glutinous mud. Furthermore, the boy whom I had left in charge had been sitting in the doorway immediately below the office window, watching for my return, ever since his last visit to the room above. She must bribed him, I said bitterly, or corrupted him with her infernal blandishments. I swear she did not, wrapped Smith decisively. I know my man, and I swear she did not. There were no marks in the mud on the road to show that a ladder had been placed there. Moreover, nothing of the kind could have been attempted while the boy was sitting in the doorway. That was evident. In short, she did not descend into the roadway, and did not come out by the door. Was there a gallery outside the window? No. It was impossible to climb to right or left of the window, or up on the roof. I convinced myself of that. But my dear man, I cried, you are eliminating every natural mode of egress. Nothing remains but flight. I am aware, Petrie, that nothing remains but flight. In other words, I have never to this day understood how she quitted the room. I only know that she did. And then I saw in this incredible escape the cunning hand of Dr. Fu Manchu sorted once. Peace was ended, and I said to work along certain channels without delay. In this manner I got on the track at last and learned, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the Chinese doctor lived, nay, was actually on his way to Europe again. There followed a short silence then. I suppose it's a mystery that will be cleared up someday, concluded Smith, but to date the riddle remains intact. He glanced at the clock. I have an appointment with Weymouth, therefore leaving you to the task of solving this problem, which thus far has defied my own efforts. I will get along. He read a query in my glance. Oh, I shall not be late, he added. I think I may venture out alone on this occasion without personal danger. Nayland Smith went upstairs to dress, leaving me seated at my writing-table, deep in thought. My notes upon the renewed activity of Dr. Fu Manchu were stacked at my left hand, and opening a new writing-block I commenced to add to them, particulars of this surprising event in Rangoon, which properly marked the opening of the Chinaman Second campaign. Smith looked in at the door on his way out, but seeing me thus engaged did not disturb me. I think I have made it sufficiently evident in these records that my practice was not an extensive one, and my hour for receiving patients arrived and passed with only two professional interruptions. My task concluded. I glanced at the clock and determined to devote the remainder of the evening to a little private investigation of my own. From Nayland Smith I had preserved the matter a secret, largely because I feared his ridicule, but I had by no means forgotten that I had seen or strongly imagined that I had seen Karamina, that beautiful anomaly who, in modern London, asserted herself to be a slave, in the shop of an antique dealer not a hundred yards from the British Museum. A theory was forming in my brain, which I was burning anxious to put to the test. I remembered how, two years before, I had met Karamina near to this same spot, and I had heard Inspector Weymouth assert positively that Fu Manchu's headquarters were no longer in the East End, as of your. There seemed to me to be a distinct possibility that a suitable centre had been established for his reception in this place, so much less likely to be suspected by the authorities. Perhaps I attached too great a value to what may have been a delusion. Perhaps my theory rested upon no more solid foundation than the belief that I had seen Karamina in the shop of the Curio dealer. If her appearance there should prove to have been phantasmal, the structure of my theory would be shattered at its base. To-night I should test my premises, and upon the result of my investigations, determine my future action. End of Chapter 17 Recording by Elaine Tweddle Sterling, Ontario Chapter 18 of the Return of Dr. Fu Manchu This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elaine Tweddle The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu by Sachs Romer Chapter 18 The Silver Buddha Museum Street certainly did not seem a likely spot for Dr. Fu Manchu to establish himself. Yet, unless my imagination had strangely deceived me, from the window of the antique dealer who traded under the name of Jay Salomon, those wonderful eyes of Karamina, like the velvet midnight of the Orient, had looked out at me. As I paced slowly along the pavement toward that lighted window, my heart was beating far from normally, and I cursed the folly which, in spite of all refused to die, but lingered on poisoning my life. Comparative quiet reigned in Museum Street, at no time a busy thoroughfare, and, accepting another shop at the museum end, commercial activities had ceased there. The door of a block of residential chambers almost immediately opposite to the shop, which was my objective, threw out a beam of light across the pavement, but not more than two or three people were visible upon either side of the street. I turned the knob of the door and entered the shop. The same dark and immobile individual whom I had seen before, and whose nationality defied conjecture, came out from the curtain doorway at the back to greet me. Good evening, sir, he said monotonously, with a slight inclination of the head. Is there anything which you desire to inspect? I merely wish to take a look round, I replied. I have no particular item in view. The shopman inclined his head again, swept a yellow hand comprehensively about, as if to include the entire stock, and seated himself on a chair behind the counter. I lighted a cigarette with such an air of nonchalance as I could summon to the operation, and began casually to inspect the varied objects of interest loading the shelves and tables about me. I am bound to confess that I retain no one definite impression of this tour. Varses are handled, statuettes, Egyptian scarabs, bead necklaces, illuminated missiles, portfolios of old prints, jade ornaments, bronzes, fragments of rare lace, early printed books, Assyrian tablets, daggers, Roman rings, and a hundred other curiosities, leisurely, and I trust with apparent interest, yet without forming the slightest impression respecting any one of them. Probably I employed myself in this way for half an hour or more, and whilst my hands busied themselves among the stock of J. Salomon, my mind was occupied entirely elsewhere. Fertively I was studying the shopman himself, a human presentment of the Chinese idol, and I was listening and watching, especially I was watching the curtain doorway at the back of the shop. We close at about this time, sir, the man interrupted me speaking in the emotionless, monotonous voice which I had noted before. I replaced upon the glass counter a little secate boat, carved in wood and highly coloured, and glanced up with a start. Truly my methods were amateurish, I had learned nothing, I was unlikely to learn anything. I wondered how Nail and Smith would have conducted such an inquiry, and I racked my brains for some means of penetrating into the recesses of the establishment. Indeed I had been seeking such a plan for the past half hour, but my mind had proved incapable of suggesting one. Why I did not admit failure, I cannot imagine. But instead I began to tax my brains anew for some means of gaining further time, and as I looked about the place, the shopman very patiently awaiting my departure, I observed an open case at the back of the counter. The three lower shelves were empty, but upon the fourth shelf squatted a silver Buddha. I should like to examine the silver image gender, I said. What price are you asking for it? It is not for sale, sir, replied the man, with a greater show of animation than he had yet exhibited. Not for sale, I said, my eyes ever seeking the curtain doorway. How's that? It is sold. Well, even now there can be no objection to my examining it. It is not for sale, sir. Such a rebuff from a tradesman would have been more than sufficient to call for a sharp retort at any other time, but now I'd excited the strangest suspicions. The street outside looked comparatively deserted and prompted primarily by an emotion which I did not pause to analyse. I adopted a singular measure. Without doubt I relied upon the unusual powers vested in Naelyn Smith to absolve me in the event of error. I made as if to go out into the street, then turned, leaped past the shopman, ran behind the counter and grasped the silver Buddha. That I was likely to be arrested for attempted larceny, I cared not. The idea that Karamina was concealed somewhere in the building ruled absolutely, and a theory respecting this silver image had taken possession of my mind. Exactly what I expected to happen at that moment I cannot say, but what actually happened was far more startling than anything I could have imagined. At the instant that I grasped the figure I realised that it was attached to the woodwork. In the next I knew that it was a handle, as I tried to pull it toward me I became aware that this handle was the handle of a door. For that door swung open before me, and I found myself at the foot of a flight of heavily carpeted stairs. Anxious as I had been to proceed a moment before, I was now trebly anxious to retire, and for this reason, on the bottom step of the stair facing me, stood Dr. Fu Man Chu. End of Chapter 18 Recording by Elaine Tweddle Sterling, Ontario