 CHAPTER I A GENTLEMAN TO SEE YOU, DOCTOR. From across the common, a clock sounded the half hour. 10.30, I said. A late visitor. Show him up, if you please. I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lampshade as footsteps sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet, for a tall, lean man with his square-cut, clean-shaven face, sun-baked to the hue of coffee, entered and extended both hands with a cry. Good old Petrie! Didn't expect me, I'll swear. It was Nailan Smith, whom I had thought to be in Burma. Smith, I said, and gripped his hands hard. This is a delightful surprise. Whatever, however— Excuse me, Petrie, he broke in. Don't put it down to the sun. And he put out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. I was too surprised to speak. No doubt you would think me mad, he continued, and dimly I could see him at the window, peering out into the road. But before you were many hours older, you will know that I have good reason to be cautious. Ah, nothing suspicious. Perhaps I am the first this time. And stepping back to the writing-table, he relighted the lamp. Mysterious enough for you, he laughed, and glanced at my unfinished MS. A story, eh? From which I gather that the district is beastly healthy. What, Petrie? Well, I can put some material your way, that if sheer uncanny mystery is a markable commodity ought to make you independent of influenza and broken legs and shattered nerves and all the rest. I surveyed him doubtfully, but there was nothing in his appearance to justify me in supposing him to suffer from delusions. His eyes were too bright, certainly, and a hardness had now crept over his face. I got out the whiskey and siphoned, saying, You have taken your leave early? I am not on leave, he replied, and slowly filled his pipe. I am on duty. On duty, I exclaimed. What, are you moved to London or something? I have got a roving commission, Petrie, and it doesn't rest with me where I am today, nor where I shall be tomorrow. There was something ominous in the words, and putting down my glass its contents untasted, I faced round and looked him squarely in the eyes. Out with it, I said. What is it all about? Smith suddenly stood up and stripped off his coat. Rolling back his left shirt sleeve, he revealed a wicked-looking wound in the fleshy part of the forearm. It was quite healed, but curiously striated for an inch or so around. Ever seen one like it, he asked? Not exactly, I confessed. It appears to have been deeply cauterized. Right, very deeply, he rapped. A barb, steeped in the venom of hammer-dryad, went in there. A shudder I could not repress rang coldly through me at the mention of that most deadly of all the reptiles of the East. There's only one treatment, he continued, rolling his sleeve down again, and that's with a sharp knife, a match, and a broken cartridge. I lay on my back raving for three days afterwards in a forest that stank with malaria, but I should have been lying there now if I had hesitated. Here's the point. It was not an accident. What do you mean? I mean that it was a deliberate attempt on my life, and I am hard upon the tracks of the man who extracted that venom patiently drop by drop from the poisonous glands of the snake who prepared that arrow and who caused it to be shot at me. What fiend is this? A fiend who, unless my calculations are at fault, is now in London, and who regularly wars with pleasant weapons of that kind. Petrie, I have travelled from Burma not in the interests of the British Government merely, but in the interests of the entire White Race, and I honestly believe, though I pray I may be wrong, that its survival depends largely upon the success of my mission. To say that I was perplexed conveys no idea of the mental chaos created by these extraordinary statements, for into my humdrum suburban life Nalyn Smith had brought fantasy of the wildest. I did not know what to think, what to believe. I'm wasting precious time. He rapped decisively, and draining his glass he stood up. I came straight to you because you were the only man I dared to trust, except the big chief at headquarters. You were the only person in England, I hope, who knows that Nalyn Smith has quitted Burma. I must have someone with me, Petrie, all the time. It's imperative. Can you put me up here and spare a few days to the strangest business, I promise you, that ever was recorded in fact or fiction? I agreed with him readily enough, for unfortunately my professional duties were not onerous. Good man, he cried, ringing my hand in his impetuous way. We start now. What? Tonight? Tonight. I had thought of turning in. I must admit. I have not dared to sleep for forty-eight hours, except in fifteen-minute stretches. But there is one move that must be made tonight, and immediately I must warn Sir Crickton Davy. Sir Crickton Davy of the India? Petrie, he is a doomed man. Unless he follows my instructions without question, without hesitation before heaven, nothing can save him. I do not know when the blow will fall, how it will fall, or from whence, but I know that my first duty is to warn him. Let us walk down to the corner of the common and get a taxi. How strangely does the adventurous intrude upon the humdrum? For when it intrudes at all, more often than not its intrusion is sudden and unlooked for. Today we may seek for romance, and fail to find it, unsought, it lies in wait for us, at most prosaic corners of life's highway. The drive that night, though it divided the drably common place from the wildly bizarre, though it was the bridge between the ordinary and the autraire, has left no impression upon my mind. Into the heart of a weird mystery the camp bore me, and in reviewing my memories of those days I wonder that the busiest thoroughfares through which we passed did not display before my eyes sirens and portents. Warnings. It was not so. I recall nothing of the root and little of the import that passed between us. We both were strangely silent, I think, until we were to come to the journey's end. Then, what's this, muttered my friend hoarsely. Constables were moving on a little crowd of curious idlers who pressed about the steps of Sir Crickton Davies' house and sought to peer in at the open door. Without waiting for the cab to draw up to the curb, Nalyn Smith recklessly leaked out and I followed close at his heels. What has happened, he demanded breathlessly of a Constable. The latter glanced at him doubtfully, but something in his voice and bearing commanded respect. Sir Crickton Davies has been killed, sir. Smith lurched back as though he had received a physical blow and clutched my shoulder convulsively. Beneath the heavy tan his face had blanched and his eyes were set in a stare of horror. My God! he whispered. I'm too late. With clenched fists he turned and pressing through the group of loungers bounded up the steps. In the hall a man who unmistakably was a Scotland Yard official stood talking to a footman. Other members of the household were moving about more or less aimlessly and the chilly hand of King Fear had touched one and all, for as they came and went they glanced ever over their shoulders as if each shadow cloaked a menace and listened as it seemed for some sound which they dreaded to hear. Smith strode up to the detective and showed him a card. Upon glancing at which the Scotland Yard man said something in a low voice and nodding touched his hat to Smith in a respectful manner. A few brief questions and answers and in gloomy silence we followed the detective up the heavily carpeted stair along a corridor lined with pictures and bus and into a large library. A group of people were in this room and one in whom I recognised Charmers Cleave of Harley Street was bending over a motionless form stretched upon the couch. Another door communicated with a small study and through the opening I could see a man on all fours examining the carpet. The uncomfortable sense of hush, the group about the physician, the bizarre figure crawling beetle-like across the inner room, and the grim hub around which all this ominous activity turned, made up a scene that etched itself indelibly on my mind. As we entered Dr. Cleave straightened himself, frowning thoughtfully. Frankly I do not care to venture any opinion at present regarding the immediate cause of death, he said. Socrichton was addicted to cocaine, but there are indications which are not in accordance with cocaine poisoning. I fear that only a post-mortem can establish the facts if, he added, we ever arrive at them, a most mysterious case. Smith stepping forward and engaging the famous pathologist in conversation, I seized the opportunity to examine Socrichton's body. The dead man was in evening dress but wore an old smoking jacket. He had been of spare but hardy build, with thin aquiline features, which were now oddly puffy, as were his clenched hands. I pushed back his sleeve and saw the marks of the hypodermic syringe upon his left arm. Quite mechanically I turned my attention to the right arm. It was un-scarred, but on the back of the hand was a faint red mark, not unlike the imprint of painted lips. I examined it closely, and even tried to rub it off, but it evidently was caused by some morbid process of local inflammation, if it were not a birthmark. Turning to a pale young man whom I understood to be Socrichton's private secretary, I drew his attention to this mark, and inquired if it were constitutional. It is not, sir," answered Dr. Cleave, overhearing my question. I have already made that inquiry. Does it suggest anything to your mind? I must confess that it affords me no assistance. Nothing, I replied. It is most curious. Excuse me, Mr. Bourboisne, said Smith, now turning to the secretary. But Inspector Weymouth will tell you that I act with authority. I understand that Socrichton was seized with illness in his study. Yes, at half-past ten. I was working here in the library, and he inside, as was our custom. The communicating doors kept closed? Yes, always. It was open for a minute or less, about ten-twenty-five, when a message came for Socrichton. I took it into him, and he then seemed in his usual health. What was the message? I could not say. It was brought by a district messenger, and he placed it beside him on the table. It is there now, no doubt. And at half-past ten, Socrichton suddenly burst open the door and threw himself with a scream into the library. I ran to him, but he waved me back. His eyes were glaring horribly. I had just reached his side when he fell, writhing upon the floor. He seemed past speech. But as I raised him and laid him upon the couch, he gasped something that sounded like the red hand. Before I could get to the bell or telephone, he was dead. Mr. Bourboisne's voice shook as he spoke the words, and Smith seemed to find this evidence confusing. You do not think he referred to the mark on his own hand? I think not. From the direction of his last glance, I feel that he referred to something in the study. What did you do? Having summoned the servants, I ran into the study. But there was absolutely nothing unusual to be seen. The windows were closed and fastened. He worked with closed windows in the hottest weather. There is no other door for the study occupies the end of a narrow wing. So that no one could possibly have gained access to it, whilst I was in the library, unseen by me. Had someone concealed himself in the study earlier in the evening, and I am convinced that it offers no hiding-place, he could only have come out again by passing through here. Nail and Smith tugged at the lobe of his left ear, as was his habit when meditating. You had been at work here, in this way, for some time? Yes. Sir Crickton was preparing an important book. Had anything unusual occurred prior to this evening? Yes, said Mr. Burboyne, with evident perplexity. Though I attached no importance to it at the time. Three nights ago Sir Crickton came out to me, and appeared very nervous. But at times his nerves, you know—well, on this occasion he asked me to search the study. He had an idea that something was concealed there. Something or someone? Something was the word he used. I searched, but fruitlessly. And he seemed quite satisfied and returned to his work. Thank you, Mr. Burboyne. My friend and I would like a few minutes' private investigation in the study. End of Chapter 1 Recorded by FNH while visiting Sunny Anchorage in Alaska Chapter 2 Of the Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Recording by FNH Sir Crickton Davies' study was a small one, and a glance sufficed a show that, as the Secretary had said, it offered no hiding place. It was heavily carpeted, and over full of Burmese and Chinese ornaments and curios, and upon the mantelpiece stood several framed photographs, which showed this to be a sanctum of a wealthy bachelor who was no misogynist. A map of the Indian Empire occupied a larger part of one wall. The grate was empty, for the weather was extremely warm, and a green shaded lamp on the littered writing-table afforded the only light. The air was stale, but both windows were closed and fastened. Smith immediately pounced upon a large square envelope that lay beside the blotting-pad. Sir Crickton had not even trouble to open it, but my friend did so. It contained a blank sheet of paper. Smell, he directed, handing the letter to me. I raised it to my nostrils. It was scented with some pungent perfume. What is it? I asked. It is a rather rare essential oil, was the reply, which I have met before, though never in Europe. I begin to understand, Petrie. He tilted the lampshade and made a close examination of the scraps of paper, matches, and other debris that lay in the grate and on the hearth. I took up a copper vase from the mantelpiece, and was examining it curiously when he turned, a strange expression upon his face. Put that back, old man, he said quietly. Much surprised I did as he directed. Don't touch anything in the room. It may be dangerous. Something in the tone of his voice chilled me, and I hastily replaced the vase and stood by the door of the study, watching him search methodically every inch of the room, behind the books, and all the ornaments, in table-draws and cupboards, on shelves. That will do, he said at last. There is nothing here, and I have no time to search further. We return to the library. Inspector Weymouth, said my friend, I have a particular reason for asking that Sir Crichton's body be removed from this room at once, and the library locked. Let no one be admitted on any pretense whatever, until you hear from me. He spoke volumes for the mysterious credentials born by my friend, that the man from Scotland Yard accepted his orders without demure, and after a brief chat with Mr. Bourboyne, Smith passed briskly downstairs. In the hall a man who looked like a groom out of the livery was waiting. Are you Wills, asked Smith? Yes, sir. It was you who heard a cry of some kind at the rear of the house about the time of Crichton's death? Yes, sir. I was locking the garage door, and happening to look up at the window of Crichton's study. I saw him jump out of the chair where he used to sit at his writing, sir. You could see his shadow on the blind. Next minute I heard a call out in the lane. What kind of call? The man, who the uncanny happening clearly had frightened, seemed puzzled for a suitable description. A sort of wail, sir, he said at last. I never heard anything like it before, and don't want to again. Like this, inquired Smith, and he uttered a low wailing cry impossible to describe. Wills perceptibly shuddered, and indeed it was an eerie sound. The same, sir, I think, he said, but much louder. That would do, said Smith, and I thought I detected a note of triumph in his voice. But stay, take us through to the back of the house. The man bowed and led the way, so that shortly we found ourselves in a small paved courtyard. It was a perfect summer's night, and the deep blue vault above was dueled with myriads of starry points. How impossible it seemed to reconcile that vast eternal calm with the hideous passions and fiendish agencies which that night had loosed a soul upon the infinite. Up yonder are the study windows, sir. Over that wall on your left is the back lane from which the cry came, and beyond is Regent's Park. Are the study windows visible from there? Oh, yes, sir. Who occupies the adjoining house? Major General Platt Houston, sir, but the family is out of town. Hmm. Those iron stairs are a means of communications between the domestic offices and the servants' quarters, I take it? Yes, sir. Then send someone to make my business known to the Major General's housekeeper. I want to examine those stairs. Singular, though my friend's proceedings appeared to me, I had ceased to wonder at anything. Since Naylon Smith's arrival at my rooms, I seem to have been moving through the fitful phases of a nightmare. My friend's account of how he came by the wound in his arm, the scene on our arrival at the house of Sir Krypton Davy, the secretary's story of the dying man's cry, the red hand, the hidden perils of the study, the wail in the lane, all were fitter incidents of delirium than of sane reality. So when a white-faced butler, made known to us a nervous old lady who proved to be the housekeeper of next-door residents, I was not surprised at Smith's saying, Lounge up and down outside Petrie. Everyone is cleared off now. It is getting late. Keep your eyes open and be on your guard. I thought I had the start, but he is here before me. And what is worse, he probably knows by now that I'm here too. With which he entered the house and left me out in the square with leisure to think, to try and understand. The crowd which usually haunts the scene of a sensational crime had been cleared away, and it had been circulated that Sir Krypton had died from natural causes. The intense heat having driven most of the residents out of town, practically I had the square to myself, and I gave myself up to a brief consideration of the mystery in which I so suddenly had found myself involved. By what agency had Sir Krypton met his death? Did Nailan Smith know? I rather suspected that he did. What was the hidden significance of the perfumed envelope? Who was that mysterious personage whom Smith evidently dreaded, who had attempted his life, who presumably had murdered Sir Krypton? Sir Krypton Davy, during the time that he had held his office in India, and during his long term of service at home, had earned the good will of all British and native alike. Who was his secret enemy? Something touched me lightly on the shoulder. I turned with my heart fluttering like a child. This night's work had imposed a severe strain upon my callous nerves. A girl wrapped in a hooded opera cloak stood at my elbow, and as she glanced up at me, I thought that I had never seen a face so seductively lovely nor so unusual a type. With the skin of a perfect blonde, she had eyes and lashes as black as a Creole's, which together with her full red lips, told me that this beautiful stranger whose touch had so startled me was not a child of our northern shores. Forgive me, she said, speaking with an odd pretty accent, and laying a slim hand with jeweled fingers confidingly upon my arm, if I startled you. But is it true that Sir Krypton Davy has been murdered? I looked into a big questioning eyes, a harsh suspicion laboring in my mind, but could read nothing in their mysterious depths. Only I wondered anew, but my question is beauty. The grotesque idea momentarily possessed me, that were the bloom of her red lips due to the art and not to nature. Their kiss would leave, though not indelibly, just such a mark as I had seen upon the dead man's hand. But I dismissed the fantastic notion as bread of the night's horrors, and were the only of a medieval legend. No doubt she was some friend or acquaintance of Sir Krypton who lived close by. I cannot say that he has been murdered, I replied, acting upon the latter supposition, and seeking to tell her what she asked as gently as possible. But he is dead. I nodded. She closed her eyes and uttered a low, moaning sound, swaying dizzily. Thinking she was about to swoon, I threw my arm round her shoulder to support her, and she smiled sadly, and pushed me gently away. I am quite well, thank you, she said. You are certain? Let me walk with you until you feel quite sure of yourself. She shook her head, flashed a rapid glance at me with her beautiful eyes, and looked away in a sort of sorrowful embarrassment for which I was entirely at a loss to account. Suddenly she resumed, I cannot let my name be mentioned in this dreadful matter, but I think I have some information for the police. Will you give this to whoever you think proper? She handed me a sealed envelope, again met my eyes with one of her dazzling glances, and hurried away. She had gone no more than ten or twelve yards, and I still was standing bewildered, watching her graceful, retreating figure, when she turned abruptly and came back. Without looking directly at me, but alternately glancing towards a distant corner of the square, and towards the house of Major General Platts Houston, she made the following extraordinary request. If you would do me a very great service, for which I will always be grateful, she glanced at me with passionate intentness. When you have given my message to the proper person, leave him and do not go near him any more tonight. Before I could find words to reply, she gathered up her cloak and ran. Before I could determine whether or not to follow her, for her words had aroused anew all my worst suspicions, she had disappeared. I heard the whir of a restarted motor at no great distance, and in the instant that Naylen Smith came running down the steps, I knew that I had nodded at my post. Smith, I cried as he joined me, tell me what we must do, and rapidly I acquainted him with the incident. My friend looked very grave, then a grim smile crept round his lips. She was a big card to play, he said, but he did not know that I held one to beat it. What? You know this girl, who is she? She is one of the finest weapons in the enemy's armory, Petrie, but a woman is a two-edged sword and treacherous. To our great good fortune she has formed a sudden predilection characteristically oriental for yourself. Oh, you may scoff, but it is evident. She was employed to get this letter placed in my hands. Give it to me. I did so. She has succeeded. Smell. He held the envelope under my nose, and with a sudden sense of nausea I recognised the strange perfume. You know what this presaged in Sir Crichton's case. Can you doubt any longer? She did not want you to share my fate, Petrie. Smith, I said unsteadily. I followed your lead blindly in this horrible business, and have not pressed for an explanation, but I must insist before I go one step farther upon knowing what it all means. Just a few steps further, he rejoined, as far as a cab. We are hardly safe here. Oh, you need not fear shots or knives. The man whose servants are watching us now scorns to employ such clumsy tell-tale weapons. Only three cabs were on the rank, and as we entered the first, something hissed past my ear, mist both Smith and me by a miracle, and passing over the roof of the taxi, presumably fell in an enclosed garden occupying the centre of the square. What was that? I cried. Get in quickly, Smith wrapped back. It was attempt number one, more than that I cannot say. Don't let the man here, he has noticed nothing. Pull up the window on your side, Petrie, and look out behind. Good. We've started. The cab moved off with a metallic jerk, and I turned and looked back through the little window in the rear. Someone has got into another cab. It is following ours, I think. Nail and Smith lay back and laughed unmerthfully. Petrie, he said, if I escape alive from this business, I shall know that I bear a charmed life. I made no reply as he pulled out the dilapidated pouch and filled his pipe. You have asked me to explain matters, he continued, and I will do so to the best of my ability. You no doubt wonder why a servant of the British government, lately stationed in Burma, suddenly appears in London in the character of a detective. I am here, Petrie, and I bear credentials from the very highest sources, because quite by accident I came upon a clue. Following it up in the ordinary course of routine, I obtained evidence of the existence of malignant activity of a certain man. At the present stage of the case, I should not be justified in terming him the emissary of an Eastern power. But I may say that representations are shortly to be made to that powers ambassador in London. He paused and glanced back towards the pursuing cab. There is little to fear until we arrive home, he said calmly. Afterwards there is much. To continue, this man, whether a fanatic or a duly appointed agent, is unquestionably the most malign and formidable personality existing in the known world today. He is a linguist who speaks with almost equal facility in any of the civilised languages and in most of the barbaric. He is an adept in all the arts and sciences which a great university could teach him. He is also an adept in certain obscure arts and sciences which no university today can teach. He has the brains of any three men of genius. Petrie, he is a mental giant. You amaze me, I said. As to his mission among men. Why did M. Jules Fanueur fall dead in Paris Opera House? Because of a heart failure? No. Because his last speech had shown that he held the key to the secret of Tom King. What became of the Grand Duke Stanislaus? Elogement? Suicide? Nothing of the kind. He alone was fully alive to Russia's growing peril. He alone knew the truth about Mongolia. Why was Sir Crickton Davy murdered? Because had the work he was engaged upon ever seen the light, he would have shown him to be the only living Englishman who understood the importance of the Tibetan frontiers. I say to you solemnly, Petrie, that these are but a few. Is there a man who would arouse the West to a sense of the awakening of the East, who would teach the deaf to hear, the blind to see, that the millions only await their leader? He will die. And this is only one phase of the devilish campaign. The others I can merely surmise. But Smith, this is almost incredible. What perverted genius controls this awful secret movement? Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull and long magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest in with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government, which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture, of Dr. Fu Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man. End of Chapter 2 Recording by F.N.H. in Anchorage, sunny Alaska. Chapter 3 Of The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by F.N.H. The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Roma. Chapter 3 I sank into an armchair in my rooms, and gulped down a strong peg of brandy. We've been followed here, I said. Why did you make no attempt to throw the pursuers off the track, to have them intercepted? Smith laughed. Useless in the first place. Wherever we went, he would find us. And of what use to arrest his creatures? We could prove nothing against them. Further, it is evident that an attempt is to be made upon my life tonight, and by the same means that proves so successful in the case of Paul Sir Crickton. His square jaw grew truculently prominent, and he leapt stormily to his feet, shaking his clenched fists towards the window. The villain, he cried. The fiendishly clever villain. I suspected that Sir Crickton was next, and I was right. But I came too late, Petrie. That hits me hard, old man. To think that I knew, and yet failed to save him. He resumed his seat, smoking hard. Thou Manchu has made the blunder common to all men of unusual genius, he said. He has underrated his adversary. He has not given me credit for perceiving the meaning of the scented messages. He has thrown away one powerful weapon to get such a message into my hands, and he thinks that once safe within doors I shall sleep unsuspecting, and die as Sir Crickton died. But without the indiscretion of your charming friend, I should have known what to expect and when to receive her information. Which, by the way, consists of a blank sheet of paper. Smith, I broke in. Who is she? She is either Fou Manchu's daughter, his wife, or his slave. I am inclined to believe the last, for she has no will but his will, except with a quizzical glance, in a certain instance. How can you jest with some awful thing, heaven knows what, hanging over your head? What is the meaning of these perfumed envelopes? How did Sir Crickton die? He died of the Ziat kiss. Ask me what that is, and I reply, I do not know. The Ziats are the Burmese caravaniseries, or rest-houses. Along a certain route, upon which I set eyes for the first and only time upon Dr. Fou Manchu, travellers who use them sometimes die as Sir Crickton died, with nothing to show the cause of death but a little mark upon the neck, face, or limb, which is earned in those parts the title of the Ziat kiss. The rest-houses along that route are shunned now. I have my theory, and I hope to prove it tonight, if I live. It will be one more broken weapon in his fiendish armory, and it is thus, and only thus, that I can hope to crush him. This was my principal reason for not enlightening Dr. Cleave. Even walls have ears where Fou Manchu is concerned, so I feigned ignorance of the meaning of the mark, knowing that he would be almost certain to employ the same methods upon some other victim. I wanted an opportunity to study the Ziat kiss in operation, and I shall have one. But the scented envelopes? In the swampy forests of the district I have referred to, a rare species of orchid, almost green, and with a peculiar scent, is sometimes met with. I recognise the heavy perfume at once. I take it that the thing which kills the traveller is attracted by this orchid. You will notice that the perfume clings to whatever it touches. I doubt if it can be washed off in the ordinary way. After at least one unsuccessful attempt to kill Sir Crickton, you recall that he thought there was something concealed in his study on a previous occasion? Fou Manchu hit upon the perfumed envelopes. He may have a supply of these green orchids in his possession, possibly to feed the creature. What creature? How could any kind of creature got into Sir Crickton's room tonight? You no doubt observe that I examined the grate of the study. I found a fair quantity of fallen soot. I at once assumed, since it appeared to be the only means of entrance, that something had been dropped down, and I took it for granted that the thing, whatever it was, must still be concealed either in the study or in the library. But when I had obtained the evidence of the groom's wills, I perceived that the cry from the lane or from the park was a signal. I noted that the movements of any one seated at the study table were visible, in shadow, on the blind, and that the study occupied the corner of a two-storied wing, and therefore had a short chimney. What did the signal mean? That Sir Crickton had leaped up from his chair and either had received the Ziad kiss, or had seen the thing which someone on the roof had lowered down the straight chimney. It was the signal to withdraw that deadly thing. By means of the iron stairway at the rear of Major General Platt, Houston's, I quite easily gained access to the roof above Sir Crickton's study. And I found this. Out from his pocket, Nalyn Smith drew a tangled piece of silk, mixed up with which were a brass ring and a number of unusually large-sized split shot, nipped on, in the manner usually on a fishing line. My theory proven, he resumed, not anticipating a search on the roof, they had been careless. This was to wait the line, and to prevent the creature clinging to the walls of the chimney. Directly it had dropped into the grate, however, by means of this ring, I assumed that the weighted line was withdrawn. And the thing was only held by one slender thread, which suffice, though, to draw it back again when it had done its work. It might have got tangled, of course, but they reckoned on it making straight up the carved leg at the writing-table for the prepared envelope. From there to the hand of Sir Crickton, which, from having touched the envelope, would also be scented with the perfume, was a certain move. My God, how horrible, I exclaimed, and glanced apprehensively into the dusky shadows of the room. What is your theory respecting this creature? What shape? What colour? It is something that moves rapidly and silently. I will venture no more at present, but I think it works in the dark. The study was dark, remember, save for the bright patch beneath the reading-lamp? I have observed that the rear of this house is ivy-covered, right up to and above your bedroom. Let us make ostentatious preparations to retire, and I think we may rely upon Fu Manchu's servants to attempt my removal at any rate, if not yours. But, my dear fellow, it is a climb of thirty-five feet at the very least. You remember the cry in the back lane? He suggested something to me, and I tested my idea successfully. It was the cry of a dacoit. O dacoity, though quiescent, is by no means extinct. Fu Manchu has dacoits in his train, and probably it is one who operates the Ziat kiss, since it was a dacoit who watched the window of the study this evening. To such a man an ivy-covered wall is a grand staircase. The horrible events that followed are punctuated in my mind by the striking of a distant clock. It is singular how trivialities thus assert themselves in moments of high tension. I will proceed, then, by these punctuations, to the coming of the horror that it was written we should encounter. The clock across the common struck, too. Having removed all traces of the scent of the orchid from our hands with a solution of ammonia, Smith and I had followed the programme laid down. It was an easy matter to reach the rear of the house by simply climbing a fence, and we did not doubt that seeing the light go out in the front our unseen watcher would proceed to the back. The room was a large one, and we had made up my camp-bed at one end, stuffing odds and ends under the clothes to lend the appearance of a sleeper, which device we also adopted in the case of the larger bed. The perfumed envelope lay upon a little coffee-table in the centre of the floor, and Smith, with an electric pocket-lamp, a revolver and a brassie beside him, sat on cushions in the shadow of the wardrobe. I occupied a post between the windows. No unusual sound so far had disturbed the stillness of the night, say for the muffled throb of the rare all-night cars passing the front of the house. A vigil had been a silent one. The full moon had painted about the floor weird shadows of the clustering ivy, spreading the design gradually from the door across the room past the little table where the envelope lay, and finally to the foot of the bed. The distant clock struck a quarter-past too. A slight breeze stirred the ivy, and a new shadow added itself to the extreme edge of the moon's design. Something rose, inch by inch above the sill of the westerly window. I could see only its shadow, but a sharp, sibilant breath from Smith told me that he, from his post, could see the cause of the shadow. Every nerve in my body seemed to be strung tensely. I was icy cold, expectant, and prepared for whatever horror came upon us. The shadow became stationary. The decoyt was studying the interior of the room. Then it suddenly lengthened, and, craning my head to the left, I saw a lithe, black-clad form surmounted by a yellow face, sketchy in the moonlight, pressed against the window-panes. One thin, brown hand appeared over the edge of the lowered sash, which it grasped, and then another. The man made absolutely no sound, whatever. The second hand disappeared and reappeared. It held a small square box. It was a very faint click. The decoyt swung himself below the window, and with the agility of an ape, as with a dull, muffled thud, something dropped to the carpet. Standstill for your life came Smith's voice, high-pitched. A beam of white leaped across the room and played full upon the coffee-table in the centre. Prepared as I was for something horrible, I know that I paled at the sight of the thing that was running round the edge of the envelope. It was an insect full six inches long and of a vivid, venomous red colour. It had something of the appearance of a great ant, but its long, quivering antennae and its febrile horrible vitality, but it was proportionally longer of the body and smaller of the head, and had numberless rapid moving legs. In short, it was a giant centipede, apparently, of the scholar pender-goop, and of a form quite new to me. These things I realised in one breathless instant, in the next, Smith had dashed the thing's poisonous life out with a straight, true blow of the golf-club. I lept to the window and threw it widely open, feeling a silk thread brush my hand as I did so. A black shade was dropping with incredible agility from branch to branch of the ivy, and without once offering a mark for a revolver-shot, it merged into the shadows beneath the trees of the garden. As I turned and switched on the light, Nailan Smith dropped limply into a chair, leaning his head upon his hands. Even that grim courage had been tried sorely. Never mind the decoyed Petrie, he said. Nemesis will know where to find him. We know now what causes the mark of the ziac kiss. Therefore science is richer for our first brush with the enemy, and the enemy is poorer, unless he has any more unclassified centipedes. I understand now something that has been puzzling me since I heard of it, Sir Crichton's stifled cry. When we remember that he was almost past speech, it is reasonable to suppose that his cry was not the red hand, but the red ant. Petrie, to think that I failed by less than an hour to save him from such an end. End of Chapter 3. Recorded by FNH in sunny Anchorage, Alaska. Chapter 4 of the Insidious Dr. Fu Man Chu This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by FNH. The Insidious Dr. Fu Man Chu by Sax Roma. Chapter 4. The body of Alaska, dressed in the manner usual of the P&O boats, was recovered from the Thames off Tilbury by the River Police at 6 a.m. this morning. It is supposed that the man met with an accident in leaving his ship. Nailan Smith passed me the evening paper and pointed to the above paragraph. For Alaska, read Decoit, he said. Our visitor who came by way of the ivy, fortunately for us, failed to follow his instructions. Also he lost the centipede and left a clue behind him. Dr. Fu Man Chu does not overlook such lapses. It was a sidelight upon the character of the awful being with whom we had to deal. My very soul recoiled with the bare consideration of the fate that will be ours if ever we fell into his hands. The telephone bell rang. I went out and found that Inspector Weymouth of New Scotland Yard had called us up. Well, Mr. Nailan Smith, please come to the whopping River Police Station at once, was the message. Peaceful interludes were few enough throughout the wild pursuit. It is certainly something important, said my friend, and if Fu Man Chu is at the bottom of it, as we must presume him to be, probably something ghastly. A brief survey of the timetables showed us that there were no trains to serve our haste. We accordingly chartered a cab and proceeded east. Smith, throughout the journey, talked entertainingly about his work in Burma. Of intent, I think, he avoided any reference to the circumstances which first had brought him in contact with the sinister genius of the yellow movement. His talk was rather of the sunshine of the east than its shadows. But the drive concluded, and all too soon. In a silence which neither of us seemed disposed to break, we entered the police depot and followed an officer who received us into the room where Weymouth waited. The Inspector greeted us briefly, nodding towards the table. Poor Cadby, the most promising lad at the yard, he said, and his usually gruff voice had softened strangely. Smith struck his right fist into the palm of his left hand and swore under his breath, striding up and down the neat little room. No one spoke for a moment, and in the silence I could hear the whispering of the Thames outside, of the Thames which had so many strange secrets to tell, and now was burdened with another. The body lay prone upon the deal-table, this latest of the river's dead, dressed in rough sailor's garb, and to all outward seeming a seaman of nondescript nationality such as his no stranger in whopping and shadowel. His dark, curly hair clung clamily about the brown forehead. His skin was stained, they told me. He wore a gold ring in one ear, and three fingers of the left hand were missing. It was almost the same with Mason, the river police inspector was speaking. A week ago, on a Wednesday, he went off in his own time on some funny business down St. George Way, and Thursday night the ten o'clock boat got the grappner on him off Hanover Hole. His first two fingers on the right hand were cling on, and his left hand was mutilated frightfully. He paused and glanced at Smith. That laska, too, he continued. That you came down to see, sir. You remember his hands? Smith nodded. He was not a laska, he said shortly. He was a decoyte. Silence fell again. I turned to the array of objects lying on the table. Those which had been found in Cappy's clothing. None of them were noteworthy, except that which had been found thrust into the loose neck of his shirt. This last it was which had led the police to send for Nalen Smith, for it constituted the first clue which had come to light pointing to the authors of the mysterious tragedies. It was a Chinese pigtail. That alone was sufficiently remarkable, but it was rendered more so by the fact that the plaited queue was a false one being attached to a most ingenious bald wig. You're sure it wasn't part of a Chinese makeup, questioned Weymouth, his eye on the strange relic? Cappy was clever at disguise. Smith snatched the wig from my hands, and with a certain irritation and tried to fit it on the dead detective. Too small by inches, he jerked, and look how it padded in the crown. This thing was made for a most abnormal head. He threw it down, and fell to pacing the room again. Where did you find him? Exactly, he asked. Weymouth reached under commercial dock pier exactly an hour ago. And you last saw him at eight o'clock last night to Weymouth? Eight to a quarter-past. You think he's been dead nearly twenty-four hours, Petrie? Roughly twenty-four hours, I replied. Then we know that he was on the track of the Fu Man Chu group, that he followed up some clue which led him to the neighborhood of Old Ratcliffe Highway, and that he died that same night. He was sure that is where he was going? Yes, said Weymouth. He was jealous of giving anything away, poor chap. He meant a big lift for him if he pulled the case off. But he gave me to understand that he expected to spend last night in that district. He left the yard about eight, as I've said, to go to his rooms and dress for the job. Did he keep any record of his cases? Of course. He was most particular. Cabbie was a man with ambition, sir. You'll want to see his book. Wait while I get his address. It's somewhere in Brixton. He went to the telephone, and Inspector Ryman covered up the dead man's face. Naelyn Smith was pulpably excited. He almost succeeded where we failed, Petrie, he said. There is no doubt in my mind that he was hot on the track of Fu Man Chu. Poor Mason had probably blundered on the scent, too, and he met with a similar fate. Without other evidence, the fact that they both died in the same way as the decoyt would be conclusive, for we know that Fu Man Chu cured the decoyt. What is the meaning of the mutilated hand, Smith? God knows. Cabbie's death was from drowning, you say. There were no other marks of violence. But he was a very strong swimmer, Doctor, interrupted Inspector Ryman. Why, he pulled off the quarter-mile championship at the Crystal Palace last year. Cabbie wasn't a man easy to drown. And as for Mason, he was an R&R, and like a fish in the water. Smith shrugged his shoulders helplessly. Let us hope that one day we shall know how they died, he said simply. Weymouth returned from the telephone. The address is Cold Harbour Lane, he reported. I shall not be able to come along, but you can't miss it. He's close by the Brixton Police Station. There's no family, fortunately. He was quite alone in the world. His casebook isn't in the American desk, which you'll find in his sitting-room. It's in the cupboard in the corner, top shelf. Here are his keys, all intact. I think this is the cupboard key. Smith nodded. Come on, Petrie, he said. We haven't a second to waste. Our cab was waiting, and in a few seconds we were speeding along Whopping High Street. He'd gone no more than a few hundred yards, I think, when Smith suddenly slapped his open hand down on his knee. That pigtail, he cried. I've left it behind. We must have it, Petrie. Stop! Stop! The cab was pulled up, and Smith alighted. Don't wait for me, he directed hurriedly. Here, take away my card. Remember where you said that book was? It's all we want. Come straight onto Scotland Yard and meet me there. But Smith, I protested. A few minutes can make no difference. Can't it? he snapped. Do you suppose Fu Manchu is going to leave evidence like that lying about? It's a thousand to one, he has it already. But there is just a bare chance. It was a new aspect of the situation, and one that afforded no room for comment. And so lost in thought did I become, that the cab was outside the house for which I was bound, ere I realised that we had quitted the perlues of whopping. Yet I had had the leisure to review the whole troop of events which had crowded my life since the return of Naelyn Smith from Burma. Mentally, I had looked again upon the dead Sir Crickton Davy, and with Smith had waited in the dark for the dreadful thing that had killed him. Now, with those remorseless memories jostling in my mind, I was entering the house of Fu Manchu's last victim, and the shadow of that giant evil seemed to be upon it like a palpable cloud. Cadby's old landlady greeted me with a queer mixture of fear and embarrassment in her manner. I am Dr. Petrie, I said, and I regret that I bring bad news respecting Mr. Cadby. Oh, sir, she cried, don't tell me that anything has happened to him, and divining something of the mission on which I was come, for such sad duty often falls to the lot of the medical man. Oh, the poor brave lad! Indeed, I respected the dead man's memory more than ever from that hour, since the sorrow of the worthy old soul was quite pathetic and spoke eloquently for the unhappy cause of it. There was a terrible wailing at the back of the house last night, Doctor, and I heard it again to-night, a second before you knocked. Poor lad! It was the same when his mother died. At the moment I paid little attention to her words, for such beliefs are common, unfortunately. But when she was sufficiently composed, I went on to explain what I thought necessary. And now the old lady's embarrassment took precedence of her sorrow, and presently the truth came out. There's a young lady in his room, sir. I started. This might mean little, or it might mean much. She came and waited for him last night, Doctor, from ten until half-past, and this morning again. She came the third time about an hour ago, and has been upstairs since. Do you know her, Mrs. Dolan? Mrs. Dolan grew embarrassed again. Well, Doctor, she said, wiping her eyes the while. I do! And God knows he was a good lad, and I like a mother to him. But she is not the girl I should have liked for a son of mine to take up with. At any other time this would have been amusing. Now it might be serious. Mrs. Dolan's account of the wailing became suddenly significant, for perhaps it meant that one of Fu Manchu's decoyed followers was watching the house to give warning of any stranger's approach. Warning to whom? It was unlikely that I should forget the dark eyes of another of Fu Manchu's servants. Was that lure of men even now in the house completing her evil work? I should never have allowed her in the rooms, began Mrs. Dolan again. Then there was an interruption. A soft rustling reached my ears, intimately feminine. The girl was stealing down. I leaped out into the hall, and she turned and fled blindly before me, back up the stairs. Taking three steps at a time I followed her, bounded into the room above almost at her heels, and stood with my back to the door. She cowered against the desk by the window, a slim figure in a clinging silk gown, which alone explained Mrs. Dolan's distrust. The gas light was turned very low, and her hat shadowed her face, but could not hide its startling beauty, could not mar the brilliancy of the skin, nor dim the wonderful eyes of this modern Delilah, for it was she. So I came in time, I said grimly, and turned the key in the lock. Oh! she panted at that, and stood facing me, leaning back with her dual laden hands clutching the desk edge. Give me whatever you have removed from here, I said sternly, and then prepare to accompany me. She took a step forward, her eyes wide with fear, her lips parted. I have taken nothing, she said. Her breast was heaving tumultuously. Oh! let me go! please let me go! And impulsively she threw herself forward, pressing clasped hands against my shoulder, and looking up into my face with passionate, pleading eyes. It is with some shame that I confess how her charm enveloped me like a magic cloud. Unfamiliar with the complex oriental temperament, I had laughed at Nail and Smith when he had spoken of this girl's infatuation. Love in the east, he had said, is like the conjurer's mango-tree. It is borne, grows, and flowers at the touch of her hand. Now in those pleading eyes I read confirmation of his words. Her clothes or her hair exhaled a faint perfume. Like all Fumanchu's servants, she was perfectly chosen for her peculiar duties. Her beauty was wholly intoxicating. But I thrust her away. You have no claim to mercy, I said. Do not count upon any. What have you taken from here? She grasped the lapels of my coat. I will tell you all I can, all I dare, she panted eagerly, fearfully. I should know how to deal with your friend, but with you I am lost. If you could only understand, you would not be so cruel. Her slight accent added charm to the musical voice. I am not free, as your English women are. What I do I must do, for it is the will of my master, and I am only a slave. Ah, you are not a man if you can give me to the police. You have no heart if you can forget that I tried to save you once. I had feared that plea. For, in her own oriental fashion, she certainly had tried to save me from a deadly peril once, at the expense of my friend. But I had feared the plea, for I did not know how to meet it. How could I give her up, perhaps to stand her trial for murder? And now I fell silent. And she saw why I was silent. I may deserve no mercy. I may be even as bad as you think. But what of you to do with the police? It is not your work to hound a woman to death. Could you ever look another woman in the eyes, one that you have loved, and know that she trusted you, if you had done such a thing? Ah, I have no friend in all the world, or I should not be here. Do not be my enemy, my judge, and make me worse than I am. Be my friend, and save me from him. The tremulous lips were close to mine, her breath fan my cheek. Have mercy on me. At that moment, I honestly would have given half my worldly possessions to have been spared the decision which I knew I must come to. After all, what proof had I that she was a willing accomplice of Dr. Fu Manchu? Furthermore, she was an Oriental, and her code must necessarily be different from mine. Irreconcilable, as the thing may be with Western ideas, Naelyn Smith had really told me that he believed the girl to be a slave. Then there remained that other reason why I loathe the idea of becoming her captor. It was almost tantamount to betrayal. Must I soil my hands with such work? Thus, I suppose, her seductive beauty argued against my sense of right. The dual fingers grasped my shoulders nervously, and her slim body quivered against mine as she watched me, with all her soul in her eyes, in an abandonment of pleading despair. Then I remembered the fate of the man in whose room we stood. You lured Cadby to his death, I said, and shook her off. No, no, she cried wildly, clutching at me. No, I swear by the holy name I did not. I did not. I watched him, spied upon him, yes. But listen, it was because he would not be warned that he met his death. I could not save him. Ah, I am not so bad as that. I will tell you, I have taken his notebook and torn out the last pages and burnt them. Look, in the grate. The book was too big to steal away. I came twice and could not find it. There, will you let me go? If you will tell me where and how to seize Dr. Fu Manchu, yes. Her hands dropped, and she took a backward step. A new terror was to be read in her face. I dare not. I dare not. Then you would, if you dared. She was watching me intently. Not if you would go to find him, she said. And with all that I thought her to be, the stern servant of justice that I would have had myself, I felt the hot blood leap to my cheek at all which the words implied. She grasped my arm. Could you hide me from him, if I came to you, and told you all I know? The authorities, ah, her expression changed. They can put me on the rack if they choose, but never one word would I speak, never one little word. She threw up her head scornfully. Then the proud glance softened again. But I will speak to you. Closer she came, and closer, until she could whisper in my ear. Hide me from the police, from him, from everybody, and I will no longer be his slave. My heart was beating with painful rapidity. I had not counted on this warring with a woman. Moreover, it was harder than I could have dreamt of. For some time I had been aware that by the charm of her personality and the art of her pleading she had brought me down from my judgment seat, and had made it all the more impossible for me to give her up to justice. Now I was disarmed. But in a quandary. What should I do? What could I do? I turned away from her, and walked to the hearth in which some paper ash lay, and yet admitted a faint smell. Not more than ten seconds elapsed, I am confident, from the time that I stepped across the room until I glanced back, as she had gone. As I leapt to the door the key turned gently from the outside. Ma-a-lèche came a soft whisper. But I am afraid to trust you yet, be comforted. For there is one near who would have killed you had I wished it. Remember I will come to you whenever you will take me and hide me." Light footsteps patted down the stairs. I heard a stifled cry from Mrs. Dolan as the mysterious visitor ran past her. The front door opened, and closed. End of Chapter 4 Recording by FNH in sunny Anchorage, Alaska Chapter 5 The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Recording by FNH The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Roma Chapter 5 Shen Yanzi is a dope shop in one of the burrows off Old Ratcliffe Highway, said Inspector Weymouth. Singapore Charlies, they call it. It's a centre for some of the Chinese societies, I believe, but all sorts of opium smokers use it. There have never been any complaints that I know of. I don't understand this. We stood in his room at New Scotland Yard, bending over a sheet of full-scap, upon which were arranged some burned fragments from poor Cadbury's great, for so hurriedly had the girl done her work that combustion had not been complete. What do we make of this? said Smith. Hunchback. Laskar. Went up. Unlike others. Not return. Till Shen Yan. There is no doubt about the name, I think. Turn me out. Booming sound. Laskar in. Mortuary I could. Ident. Not for days or s- Tuesday night. In a different make. Snatch. Pigtail. The pigtail again, wrapped Weymouth. She evidently burned the torn-out pages altogether, continued Smith. They lay flat, and this was in the middle. I see the hand of retributive justice in that. Inspector, now we have a reference to a hunchback, and what follows amounts to this. A Laskar, amongst several other persons, went up somewhere, presumably upstairs, at Shen Yan's, and did not come down again. Cadbury, who was there disguised, noted a booming sound. Later he identified the Laskar in some mortuary. We have no means of fixing the date of his visit to Shen Yan's, but I feel inclined to put down the Laskar as the decoyt who was murdered by Fu Manchu. It is sheer supposition, however, but that Cadbury meant to pay another visit to the place in a different make-up or disguise is evident, and that the Tuesday night proposed was last night is a reasonable deduction. The reference to a pigtail is principally interesting because of what was found on Cadbury's body. Inspector Weymouth nodded affirmatively, and Smith glanced at his watch. Exactly ten-twenty-three, he said. I will trouble you, Inspector, for the freedom of your fancy wardrobe. There is time to spend an hour in the company of Shen Yan's opium friends. Weymouth raised his eyebrows. It might be risky. What about an official visit? Nail and Smith laughed. Worse than useless. By your own showing, the place is open to inspection. No. Gael against Gael. We are dealing with a Chinaman with the incarnate essence of Eastern subtlety with the most stupendous genius that the modern Orient has produced. I don't believe in disguises, said Weymouth with a certain truculence. It's mostly played out, that game, and generally leads to failure. Still, if you're determined, sir, there's an end of it. Foster will make your face up. What disguise do you propose to adopt? A sort of Dago seaman, I think. Something like poor Cadbury. I can rely on my knowledge of the Brutes if I'm sure of my disguise. You are forgetting me, Smith, I said. He turned to me quickly. Petrie, he replied. It is my business, unfortunately, but it is no sort of hobby. You mean that you can no longer rely upon me? I said angrily. Smith grasped my hand, and met my rather frigid stare with a look of real concern on his gaunt, bronzed face. My dear old chap, he answered. That was really unkind. You know that I meant something totally different. It's all right, Smith, I said, immediately ashamed of my collar, and wrung his hand heartily. I can pretend to smoke opium as well as another. I shall be going too, Inspector. As a result of this little passage of words, some twenty minutes later, two dangerous-looking, sea-faring ruffians entered a waiting cab, accompanied by Inspector Weymouth, and were driven off to the wilderness of London's night. In this theatrical business there was, to my mind, something ridiculous, almost childish, and I could have laughed heartily, had it not been that grim tragedy lurked so near to farce. The mere recollection that somewhere at our journey's end Fou Manchu awaited us was sufficient to sober my reflections. Fou Manchu, who with all the powers represented by Nail and Smith pitted against him, pursued his dark schemes triumphantly, and lurked in hiding within this very area which was so sediciously patrolled. Fou Manchu, whom I had never seen, but whose name stood for horrors indefinable. Perhaps I was destined to meet the terrible Chinese doctor. Tonight. I ceased to pursue a train of thought which promised to lead to morbid depths, and directed my attention to what Smith was saying. We will drop down from whopping and reconnoiter, as you say, the place is close to the riverside. Then you can put us ashore somewhere below. Ryman can keep the launch close to the back of the premises, and your fellows will be hanging about near the front, near enough to hear the whistle. Yes," ascended Weymouth. I've arranged for that. If you are suspected, you shall give the alarm. I don't know," said Smith thoughtfully. Even in that event I might wait a while. Don't wait too long, advised the Inspector. We shouldn't be much wiser if your next appearance was on the end of a grapnel somewhere down Greenwich Reach with half your fingers missing. The cab pulled up outside the River Police depot, and Smith and I entered without delay. Four shabby-looking fellows who had been seated in the office, springing up to salute the Inspector, who followed us in. Guthrey and Lizel, he said briskly, get along and find a dark corner which commands the door of Singapore Charlie's, off the old highway. You look the dirtiest of the troop, Guthrey. You might drop a sleep on the pavement, and Lizel can argue with you about getting home. Don't move too much, and you'll be fine. Don't move till you hear the whistle inside, or have my orders, and note everybody that goes in and comes out. You other two, belong to this division. The CID men having departed, the remaining pair saluted again. Well, you're on special duty tonight. You've been prompt, but don't stick your chests out so much. Do you know of a backway to Shenyans? The men looked at one another, and both shook their heads. There's an empty shop nearly opposite, sir, replied one of them. I know a broken window at the back where we could climb in, then we could get through to the front and watch from there. Good, cried the Inspector. See, you're not spotted though, and if you hear the whistle, don't mind doing a bit of damage, but be inside Shenyans like lightning. Otherwise, wait for orders. Inspector Ryman came in, glancing at the clock. Launch is waiting, he said. Right, replied Smith thoughtfully. I'm half-afraid, though, that the recent alarms may have scared our quarry, your man Mason, and then Cadby. Against which, we have that, so far as he is likely to know, there has been no clue pointing to this opium then. Remember, he thinks Cadby's notes are destroyed. The whole business is an utter mystery to me, confess Ryman. I'm told that there's some dangerous Chinese devil hiding somewhere in London, and that you expect to find him in Shenyans? Supposing he uses that place, which is possible, how do you know he's there tonight? I don't, said Smith. But it is the first clue we have had pointing to one of his haunts, and time means precious lies where Dr. Fu Manchu is concerned. Who is he, sir? Exactly, this Dr. Fu Manchu. I have only the vaguest idea, Inspector, but he is no ordinary criminal. He is the greatest genius which the powers of evil have put on Earth for centuries. He has the backing of a political group whose wealth is enormous, and his mission in Europe is to pave the way. Do you follow me? He is the advanced agent of a movement so epoch-making that no one Britisher and not one American in fifty thousand has ever dreamed of it. Ryman stared, but made no reply, and he went out, passing down to the breakwater and boarding the waiting-launch. With a crew of three, the party numbered seven that swung out into the pool, and, clearing the pier, drew in again and hugged the murky shore. The night had been clear enough hitherto, but now came scudding rain-banks to curtain the crescent moon, and anon to unveil her again and show the muddy swirls about us. The view was not extensive from the launch. Sometimes a deepening of the near-shadows would tell of a moored barge, or lights high above our heads mark the deck of a large vessel. In the floods of moonlight gaunt shapes towered above, in the ensuing darkness only the oily glitter of the tide occupied the foreground of the night-piece. The surrey shore was a broken wall of blackness, patched with lights about which moved hazy suggestions of human activity. The banquet we were following offered a prospect even more gloomy, a dense, dark mass amid which sometimes mysterious half-tones told of a dock gate, or sudden highlights let flaring to the eye. Then out of the mystery ahead a green light grew and crept upon us, a giant shape loomed up and frowned crushingly upon the little craft. A blaze of light, the jangle of a bell, and it was passed. We were dancing in the wash of one of the scotch steamers, and the murk had fallen again. Discords of remote activity rose above the more intimate throbbing of our screw, and we seemed a pygmy company floating past the workshops of Rob Dignaggy and Toilers. The chill of the near-water communicated itself to me, and I felt the protection of my shabby garments inadequate against it. Far over on the surrey shore a blue light, vaporous, mysterious, flicked translucent tongues against the night's curtain. It was a weird elusive flame, leaping, waving, magically changing from blue to a yellowed violet, rising, falling. Only a gas-works came Smith's voice, and I knew that he too had been watching those elf in fires. But it always reminds me of a Mexican Tia Kali and the altar of sacrifice. The simile was apt, but gruesome. I thought of Dr. Fu Manchu and the severed fingers, and could not repress a shudder. On your left passed the wooden pier, not where the lamp is, beyond that, next to the dark square building, Shenyans. It was Inspector Ryman speaking. Drop us somewhere handy, then, replied Smith, and lie close in with your ears wide open. We may have to run for it, so don't go far away. From the tone of his voice I knew that the night mystery of the Thames had claimed at least one other victim. Dead slow came Ryman's order, or put into the stone stairs. End of Chapter 5. Recording by FNH in sunny Anchorage, Alaska. Chapter 6 of the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by FNH. The insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Roma. Chapter 6. A seemingly drunken voice was droning from a neighbouring alleyway, a Smith lurched in hulking fashion, to the door of a little shop, above which crudely painted were the words Shenyan, Baba. I shuffled along behind him, and had time to note the box of studs, German shaving tackle, and rolls of twist, which lay untidily in the window, air-Smith kicked the door open, clattered down three wooden steps, and pulled himself up with a jerk, seizing my arm for support. We stood in a bare and very dirty room, which could only claim kinship with a civilized shaving saloon by virtue of the grimy towel thrown across the back of the solitary chair. A Yiddish theatrical bill of some kind, illustrated, adorned one of the walls, and another bill in what may have been Chinese completed the decorations. From behind a curtain heavily brocaded with filth, a little Chinaman appeared dressed in a loose smock, black trousers, and thick-soled slippers, and, advancing, shook his head vigorously. No chavee, no chavee, he chattered, simian fashion, squinting from one to the other of us with his twinkling eyes, too late, shutty shop. Don't you come none of it with me, roared Smith, in a voice of amazing gruffness, and shook an artificially dirtied fist under the Chinaman's nose. Get inside, and gimme, and my mate a couple of pipes. Smoky pipe, you yellow scum? Savvy? My friend bent forward, and glared into the other's eyes with a vindictiveness that amazed me, unfamiliar as I was with this form of gentle persuasion. Cop older that, he said, and thrust a coin into the Chinaman's yellow pour. Keep me weigh in, and I'll pull the damn shop down, Charlie. You can lay to it. No habgot pipee, began the other. Smith raised his fist, and Yang capitulated. Ally lighty, he said, full up, no loom, you come see. He dived behind the dirty curtain, Smith and I following, and ran up the dark stair. The next moment I found myself in an atmosphere which was literally poisonous. It was all but unbreathable, being loaded with opium fumes. Never before had I experienced anything like it. Every breath was an effort. A tin-oil lamp on a box in the middle of the floor dimly illuminated the horrible place, about the walls of which ten or twelve bunks were ranged and all of them occupied. Most of the occupants were lying motionless, but one or two were squatting in their bunks, noisily sucking at the little metal pipes. These had not yet attained to the opium smoker's nirvana. No loom, Sammy teller you, said Shen-Yan, complacently testing Smith's shilling with his yellow decayed teeth. Smith walked across to a corner and dropped cross-legged on the floor, pulling me down with him. Two pipe quick, he said, plenty room, two piece of pipe, or plenty heap trouble. A dreary voice from one of the bunks came. Give him a pipe, Charlie Kershia, and stop his plava. Yam performed a curious little shrug, rather of the back than of the shoulders, and shuffled to the box which bore the smoky lamp. Holding a needle in the flame, he dipped it when red-hot into the old cocoa tin, and withdrew it with a bead of opium adhering to the end. Slowly roasting this over the lamp, he dropped it into the bowl of a metal pipe, which he held ready where it burned with a spiritous blue flame. Pass it over, said Smith huskily, and rose on his knees with the assumed eagerness of a slave to the drug. Jan handed in the pipe, which he promptly put to his lips, and prepared another for me. Whatever you do, don't inhale any, came Smith's whispered in junction. It was with the sense of nausea greater even than that occasion by the disgusting atmosphere of the den that I took the pipe and pretended to smoke. Taking my cue from my friend, I allowed my head gradually to sink lower and lower, until within a few minutes I sprawled sideways on the floor, Smith lying close beside me. The ship sinking, droned a voice from one of the bunks. Look at the rats! Jan had noiselessly withdrawn, and I experienced a curious sense of isolation from my fellows, from the whole of the western world. My throat was parched with the fumes, my head ached. The viscous atmosphere seemed contaminating. I was as one drop—somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, and there ain't no ten commandments, and a man can raise a thirst. Smith began to whisper softly. We've carried it through successfully so far, he said. I don't know if you have observed it, but there is a stare just behind you, half concealed by a ragged curtain. We are near that, and well in the dark. I have seen nothing suspicious so far or nothing much, but if there was anything going forward it would no doubt be delayed until the new arrivals were well doped. He pressed my arm to emphasise the warning. Through my half-closed eyes I perceived a shadowy form near the curtain to which he had referred. I lay like a dog, but my muscles were tense nervously. The shadow materialised as the figure moved forward into the room with a curiously lithe movement. The smoky lamp in the middle of the place afforded scan to illumination, serving only to indicate sprawling shapes, here an extended hand, brown or yellow, there a sketchy corpse-like face. Whilst from all about rose obscene sighings and murmurings in faraway voices, an uncanny animal chorus. It was like a glimpse of the inferno seen by some Chinese dante. But so close to us stood the newcomer, that I was able to make out a ghastly parchment face with small oblique eyes and a misshapen head crowned with a coiled pigtail surmounting a slight hunched body. There was something unnatural, inhuman, about that mask-like face, and something repulsive in the bent shape and the long yellow hands clasped one upon the other. Fu Manchu, from Smith's account, in no way resembled this crouching apparition with the death's head countenance and lithe movements. But an instinct of some kind told me that we were on the right scent, that this was one of the doctor's servants. How I came to that conclusion I cannot explain, but with no doubt in my mind that this was a member of the formedable murder group, I saw the yellow man creek nearer, nearer, silently, bent and peering. He was watching us. Of another circumstance I became aware, and a disquieting circumstance, there were fewer murmurings and sighings from the surrounding bunks. The presence of the crouching figure had created a sudden semi-silence in the den, which could only mean that some of the supposed opium smokers had merely feigned coma and the approach of coma. Naelyn Smith lay like a dead man, and trusting to the darkness, I too lay prone and still, but watched the evil face bending lower and lower, until it came within a few inches of my own. I completely closed my eyes. Delicate fingers touched my right eyelid, defining what was coming. I rolled my eyes up, and the lid was adroitly lifted and lowered again. The man moved away. I had saved the situation, but noting anew the hush about me, a hush in which I fancied many pairs of ears listened. I was glad. For just a moment I realised fully how, with the place watched back and front, we were yet cut off. We're in the hands of Far Easterns, to some extent in the power of members of that most inscrutable mysterious race, the Chinese. Good! whispered Smith at my side. I don't think I could have done it. He took me on trust after that. My God, what an awful face. Petrie, it's the hunchback of Cadby's notes. Ah, I thought so. Do you see that? I turned my eyes round as far as was possible. A man had scrambled down from one of the bunks, and was following the bent figure across the room. They passed around us quietly, the little yellow man leading with his curious lithe gate, and the other an impassive Chinaman following. The curtain was raised, and I heard footsteps receding on the stairs. Don't stir, whispered Smith. An intense excitement was clearly upon him, and he communicated it to me. Who was the occupant of the room above? Footsteps on the stair, and the Chinaman reappeared, recrossed the floor and went out. The little bent man went over to another bunk, this time leading up the stair one who looked like a laska. Did you see his right hand, whispered Smith? A tocoit. They came here to report and to take orders. Petrie, Dr. Fu Manchu, is up there. What shall we do, softly? Wait. Then we must try and rush the stairs. It would be futile to bring in the police first. He is sure to have some other exit. I will give the word while the little yellow devil is down here. You are nearer, and will have to go up first. But if the hunchback follows, I can then deal with him. A whispered Kalliliqui was interrupted by the return of the tocoit, who recrossed the room as the Chinaman had done, and immediately took his departure. A third man, whom Smith identified as a Malay, ascended the mysterious stairs, descended and went out. And a fourth, whose nationality it was impossible to determine, followed. Then, as the softly moving usher crossed to a bunk on the right of the outer door. Up you go, Petrie! cried Smith. For further delay was dangerous, and further dissimulation useless. I leaped to my feet, snatching my revolver from the pocket of the rough jacket I wore. I bounded to the stair, and went blundering up in complete darkness. A chorus of brutish cries clamoured from behind with a muffled scream rising above them all. But Nail and Smith was close behind as I raced along the covered gangway, in a purer air and at my heels when I crashed open a door at the end and almost fell into the room beyond. What I saw was merely a dirty table with some odds and ends upon it, of which I was too excited to take note, an oil lamp swung by a brass chain above, and a man sitting behind the table. But from the moment that my gaze rested upon the one who sat there, I think if the place had been in Aladdin's palace, I should have had no eyes for any of its wonders. He wore a plain yellow robe of a hue almost identical with that of his smooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large, long and bony, and he held them knuckles upwards, and rested his pointed chin upon their thinness. He had a great high brow crowned with a sparse, neutral-coloured hair. Of his face, as it looked out at me over the dirty table, I despair of writing convincingly. It was that of an archangel of evil, and it was wholly dominated by the most uncanny eyes that ever reflected a human soul, for they were narrow and long, and very slightly oblique, and of a brilliant green. But their unique horror lay in a certain filminess. It made me think of the membrane and nicotans in a bird, which obscuring them as I threw wide the door, seemed to lift as I actually passed the threshold, revealing the eyes in all their brilliant iridescence. I know that I stopped dead, one foot within the room, for the malignant force of the man was something surpassing my experience. He was surprised by this sudden intrusion, yes, but no trace of fear showed upon that wonderful face, only a sort of pitting contempt, and as I paused he rose slowly to his feet, never removing his gaze from mine. It's Fu Man Chu! cried Smith over my shoulder, in a voice that was almost a scream. It's Fu Man Chu! Cover him! Shoot him! Dead if—! The conclusion of that sentence I never heard. Dr. Fu Man Chu reached down beside the table, and the floor slipped from under me. One last glimpse I had of the fixed green eyes, and with a scream I was unable to repress, I dropped, dropped, dropped, and plunged into icy water which closed over my head. Vaguely I had seen a spurt of flame, and heard another cry following my own, a booming sound, the trap, the flat note of a police whistle. But when I rose to the surface, impenetrable darkness enveloped me. I was spitting filthy, oily liquid from my mouth, and fighting down the black terror that had me by the throat—terror of the darkness about me, of the unknown depths beneath me, of the pit into which I was cast amid stifling stenches, and the lapping of tidal water. Smith! I cried, Help! Help! My voice seemed to beat back upon me, yet I was about to cry out again, when, mustering all my presence of mind and with all my failing courage, I recognized that I had better employment of my energies, and began to swim straight ahead, desperately determined to face all the horrors of this place, to die hard if die I must. A drop of liquid fire fell through the darkness and hissed into the water beside me. I felt that, despite my resolution, I was going mad. Another fiery drop, and another. I touched a rotting wooden post and slimy timbers. I had reached one of the bounds of my watery prison. More fire fell from above, and the scream of hysteria quivered unuttered in my throat. Keeping myself afloat with increasing difficulty in my heavy garments, I threw my head back and raised my eyes. No more drops fell, and no more drops would fall. But it was merely a question of time for the floor to collapse, for it was beginning to emit a dull red glow. The room above was in flames. It was drops of burning oil from the lamp, finding passage through the cracks in the crazy flooring which had fallen about me. For the death-trap had reclosed, I suppose, mechanically. My saturated garments were dragging me down, and now I could hear the flames hungrily eating the ancient rottenness overhead. Shortly that cauldron would be loosed upon my head. The glow of the flames grew brighter, and showed me the half-rotten piles upholding the building, showed me the tidal mark upon the slime-coated walls, showed me that there was no escape. By some subterranean duct that foul place was fed from the Thames. By that duct, with the outgoing tide, my body would pass, in the wake of Mason, Cadby, and many another victim. Rusty iron rungs were affixed to one of the walls communicating with the trap, but the bottom three were missing. Brighter and brighter grew the awesome light, the light of what should be my funeral-pire, reddening the oily water and adding a new dread to the whispering, clary horror of the pit. But something it showed me. A projecting beam a few feet above the water, and directly below the iron ladder. Merciful heaven, I breathed. Have I the strength? A desire for laughter claimed to me with sudden, all but irresistible force. I knew what it portended, and fought it down grimly, sternly. My garments weighed upon me like a suit of mail. With my chest aching dully, my veins throbbing to bursting, I forced tired muscles to work, and every stroke and agony approached the beam. Nearer I swam, nearer. It shadow fell upon the black water, which now had all the seeming of a pool of blood. Confused sounds, a remote uproar, came to my ears. I was nearly spent. I was in the shadow of the beam. If I could throw up one arm, a shrill scream sounded far above me. Petri! Petri! That voice must be Smith's. Don't touch the beam! For God's sake, don't touch the beam! Keep afloat another few seconds, and I can get to you. Another few seconds? Was that possible? I managed to turn, to raise my throbbing head, and I saw the strangest sight which that night yet had offered. Nailin Smith stood upon the lowest iron rung, supported by the hideous crook-backed Chinaman, who stood upon the rung above. I can't reach him! It was as Smith hissed the words despairingly, that I looked up and saw the Chinaman snatch at his coiled pigtail, and pull it off. With it came the wig to which it was attached, and the ghastly yellow mask deprived of its fastenings fell from position. Here! Here! Be quick! Oh! Be quick! You can lower this to him! Be quick! Be quick! A cloud of hair came falling about the slim shoulders as the speaker bent to pass this strange lifeline to Smith, and I think it was my wonder at knowing her for the girl whom that day I had surprised in Cadby's room which saved my life. For I not only kept her float, but kept my gaze upturned to that beautiful flushed face, and my eyes fixed upon hers, which were wild with fear. For me! Smith, by sun contortion, got the false cue into my grasp, and I with the strength of desperation by that means seized hold upon the lowest rung. With my friend's arm round me, I realized that exhaustion was even nearer than I had supposed. My last distinct memory is of the bursting of the floor above, and the big burning joist hissing into the pool beneath us. Its fiery passage striated with light disclosed two sore blades, riveted edges up along the top of the beam which I had striven to reach. The severed fingers, I said, and swooned. How Smith got me through the trap I do not know, nor how we made our way through the smoke and flames of the narrow passage it opened upon. My next recollection is of sitting up with my friend's arm supporting me, and Inspector Ryman holding a glass to my lips. A bright glare dazzled my eyes. A crowd surged about us, and a clanger and a shouting drew momentarily nearer. It's the engines coming, explained Smith, seeing my bewilderment. Shenyanzi's in flames. It was your shot as you fell through the trap, broke the oil lamp. Is everybody out? So far as we know. Fu Manchu? Smith shrugged his shoulders. No one has seen him. There was some door at the back. Do you think he may...? No, he said tensely. Not until I see him lying dead before me, shall I believe it. Then memory resumed its sway. I struggled to my feet. Smith, where is she? I cried. Where is she? I don't know, he answered. She's given us the slip, Doctor, said Inspector Weymouth, as a fire engine came swinging round the corner of the narrow lane. So has Mr. Singapore Charlie, and I'm afraid somebody else. We've got six or eight all sorts, some awake and some asleep, but I suppose we shall have to let them go again. Mr. Smith tells me that the girl was disguised as a Chinaman. I expect that's why she managed to slip away. I recalled how I had been dragged from the pit by the false queue. Held a strange discovery which had brought death to poor Cadby, had brought life to me, and I seem to remember too that Smith had dropped it as he threw his arm about me on the ladder. Her mask the girl might have retained, but a wig, I felt certain, had been dropped into the water. It was later that night, when the Brigades still were playing upon the blackened shell of what had been Shenyang's opium shop, and Smith and I were speeding away in a cab from the scene of God knows how many crimes, that I had an idea. Smith, I said, did you bring the pigtail with you that was found on Cadby? Yes, I had hoped to meet the owner. Have you got it now? No, I met the owner. I thrust my hands deep into the pockets of the big P-jacket lent to me by Inspector Ryman, leaning back in my corner. We shall never really excel at this business, continued Naylon Smith. We are far too sentimental. I knew what it meant to us, Petrie, and what it meant to the world. But I hadn't the heart. I owed her your life. I had to square the account. CHAPTER VII Night fell on red-mote. A glance from the window at the nocturne in silver and green, which lay beneath me. To the west of the shrubbery, with its broken canopy of elms and beyond the copper beach which marked the centre of its mazes, a gap offered a glimpse of the waveny where it swept into abroad. Faint bird calls floated over the water. The ease with the whisper of the leaves alone, claimed the ear. Ideal rural peace, and the music of an English summer evening. But to my eyes every shadow holding fantastic terrors. To my ears every sound a signal of dread. For the dreadful hand a foo-man chew was stretched over red-mote, at any hour to lose strange oriental horrors upon its inmates. Well, said Naylon Smith, joining me at the window. We had dared to hope him dead, but we know now that he lives. The Reverend J. D. Altham coughed nervously, and I turned leaning my elbow upon the table, and studied the play of expression upon the refined, sensitive face of the clergyman. You think I acted rightly in sending for you, Mr. Smith? Naylon Smith smoked furiously. Mr. Altham, he replied, You see in me a man groping in the dark. I am today no nearer to the conclusion of my mission than upon the day when I left Mandalay. You offer me a clue. I am here. Your affair, I believe, stands thus. A series of attempted burglaries, or something of the kind, has alarmed your household. Yesterday returning from London with your daughter, you were both drugged in some way, and occupying a compartment to yourselves, you both slept. Your daughter awoke, and saw someone else in the carriage, a yellow-faced man who held a case of instruments in his hands. Yes, I was, of course, unable to enter into particulars over the telephone. The man was standing by one of the windows, directly observed that my daughter was awake, he stepped towards her. What did he do with the case in his hands? She did not notice, or did not mention having noticed. In fact, as was natural, she was so frightened that she recalls nothing more beyond the fact that she strove to arouse me, without succeeding, felt hands, grasped her shoulders, and swooned. But someone used the emergency cord and stopped the train? Greba has no recollection of having done so. Hmm. Of course, no yellow-faced man was on the train. When did you awake? I was aroused by the guard, but only when he had repeatedly shaken me. Upon reaching Great Yarmouth, you immediately called Scotland Yard? You acted very wisely, sir. How long were you in China? Mr. Elfam's start of surprise was almost comical. It is perhaps not strange that you should be aware of my residence in China, Mr. Smith, he said. But my having not mentioned it may seem so. The fact is, his sensitive face was flushed in palpable embarrassment. I left China under what I may term as an episcopal cloud. I have lived in retirement ever since. Unwittingly, I solemnly declare to you, Mr. Smith, unwittingly, I stirred up certain deep-seated prejudices in my endeavours to do my duty, my duty. I think you asked me how long I was in China? I was there from 1896 until 1900, four years. I recall the circumstances, Mr. Elfam, said Smith, with a nod no to his voice. I have been endeavouring to think where I had come across the name, and a moment ago I remembered. I am happier to have met you, sir. The clergyman blushed again, like a girl, and slightly inclined his head with its scanty fair hair. Has red moat as its name implies a moat around it? I was unable to see in the dusk. It remains. Red moat, a corruption of round moat, was formerly a priory, disestablished by the 8th Henry in 1536. His pedantic manner was quaint at times. But the moat is no longer flooded. In fact, we grow cabbages in part of it. If you refer to the strategic strength of the place—he smiled, but his manner was embarrassed again—it is considerable. I have barbed wire fencing and other arrangements. You see, it is a lonely spot, he added apologetically. And now, if you will excuse me, we will resume these gruesome inquiries after the more pleasant affairs of dinner. He left us. Who is our host? I asked as the door closed. Smith smiled. You are wondering what caused the episcopal cloud, he suggested? Well, the deep-seated prejudices which our reverend friend stirred up culminated in the box of risings. Good heavens, Smith! I said, for I could not reconcile the diffident personality of the clergyman with the memories which those words awakened. He evidently should be on our danger list, my friend continued quickly, but he is so completely effaced himself of recent years that I think it is probable that someone else has only just recalled his existence to mind. The reverend J. D. Eltham, my dear Petrie, though he may be a poor hand at saving souls at any rate, has saved a score of Christian women from death, and worse. J. D. Eltham, I began. It's Parson Dan, Wrapsmith, the fighting missionary. The man who, with a garrison of a dozen cripples and a German doctor, held the hospital at Nanyang against two hundred boxes. That's who the reverend J. D. Eltham is. But what is he up to now? I have yet to find out. He's keeping something back, something which has made him an object of interest to young China. During dinner the matters responsible for our presence there did not hold priority in the conversation. In fact this, for the most part, consisted in light talk of books and theatres. Grieber Eltham, the clergyman's daughter, was a charming young hostess, and she, with Vernon Denby, Mr. Eltham's nephew, completed the party. No doubt the girl's presence in part, at any rate, led us to refrain from the subject uppermost in our minds. These little pools of calm dotted along the torrential course of the circumstances which were bearing my friend and me onwards to unknown issues form pleasant, sunny spots in my dark recollections. So I shall always remember with pleasure that dinner-party at Redmote, in the old world dining-room. It was so very peaceful, so almost grotesquely calm. For I, within my very bones, felt it to be the calm before the storm. When later, we men passed to the library, we seemed to leave that atmosphere behind us. Redmote, said the Reverend J. D. Eltham, has latterly become the theatre of strange doings. He stood on the hearth-rug, a shaded lamp upon the big table, and candles in ancient sconces upon the mantelpiece afforded dim illumination. Mr. Eltham's nephew, Vernon Denby, lulled, smoking on the window-seat, and I sat near to him. Nail and Smith paced restlessly, up and down the room. Some months ago, almost a year, continued the clergyman. A burglaryous attempt was made upon the house. There was an arrest, and the man confessed that he had been tempted by my collection. He waved his hand vaguely toward several cabinets about the shadowed room. It was shortly afterwards that I allowed my hobby for playing at forts, to run away with me. He smiled an apology. I virtually fortified Redmote against trespassers of any kind. I mean, you have seen that the house stands upon a kind of large mound. This is artificial, being the buried ruins of a Roman outwork, a portion of the ancient castrum. Again, he waved indicatively, this time towards the window. When it was a priory, it was completely isolated in the house. It was completely isolated and defended by its invironing moat. Today, it's completely surrounded by barbed wire fencing. Below this fence, on the east, is a narrow stream, a tributary of the Waverney. On the north and west, the high road, but nearly twenty feet below the bank's being perpendicular. On the south is the remaining part of the moat, now my kitchen garden. But from there up to the level of the house is nearly twenty feet again, and the barbed wire must also be counted with. The entrance, as you know, is by way of a kind of cutting. There is a gate at the foot of the steps. There are some sort of original steps of the priory, Dr. Petrie, and another gate at the head. He paused, and smiled around at us boishly. My secret defences remain to be mentioned, he resumed, and opening a cupboard, he pointed to a row of batteries with a number of electric bells upon the wall behind. The more vulnerable spots are connected at night with these bells, he said triumphantly. Any attempt to scale the barbed wire, or to force either gate, would set two or more of these ringing. A stray cow raised one false alarm, he added, and a careless rook threw us into a perfect panic on the other occasion. He was so boish, so nervously brisk and acutely sensitive, that it would be difficult to see in him the hero of the Nanyang Hospital. I could only suppose that he had treated the boxers raid in the same spirit wherein he met the would-be trespasses within the precincts of Redmote. It had been an escapade of which he was afterwards ashamed, as faintly as he was ashamed of his fortifications. But, Rapsmith, it was not the visit of the burglar which prompted these elaborate precautions. Mr. Eltham coughed nervously. I am aware, he said, that having invoked official aid, I must be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Smith. It was the burglar who was responsible for my continuing the wire fence all round the grounds, but the electrical contrivance followed later, as a result of several disturbed nights. My servants grew uneasy about someone who came, they said, after dusk. No one could describe this nocturnal visitor, but certainly we found traces. I must admit to that. Then I received what I may term a warning. My position is a peculiar one—a peculiar one. My daughter, too, saw this prowling person over by the Roman castrum, and described him as a yellow man. It was the incident in the train following closely upon this other, which led me to speak to the police—little as I desired to, erm, court publicity. Nalyn Smith walked to the window, and looked out across the sloping lawn to where the shadows of the shrubbery lay. A dog was howling dismally somewhere. Your defences are not impregnable after all, then, he jerked. On our way up this evening Mr. Denby was telling us about the death of his collie a few nights ago. The clergyman's face clouded. That certainly was alarming, he confessed. I had been in London for a few days, and during my absence Vernon came down, bringing the dog with him. On the night of his arrival it ran barking into the shrubbery yonder, and did not come out. He went to look for it with a lantern, and found it lying among the bushes quite dead. The poor creature had been dreadfully beaten about the head. The gates were locked, Denby interrupted, and no one could have got out of the grounds without a ladder and someone to assist him, but there was no sign of a living thing about. Edwards and I searched every corner. How long has that other dog taken to howling, inquired Smith? Only since Rex's death, said Denby quickly. It is my mastiff, explained the clergyman. He is confined in the yard, he is never allowed out on this side of the house. Naelyn Smith wondered aimlessly about the library. I am sorry to have to press you, Mr. Eltham, he said, but what was the nature of the warning to which you referred, and from whom did it come? Mr. Eltham hesitated for a long time. I have been so unfortunate, he said at last, in my previous efforts, that I feel assured of your hostile criticism when I tell you that I am contemplating an immediate return to Ho-Nan. Smith jumped round upon him, as though moved by a spring. Then you're going back to Nanyang, he cried. Now I understand. Why have you not told me before? That is the key for which I have vainly been seeking. Your troubles, date from the time of your decision to return? Yes, I must admit it, confessed the clergyman diffidently. And your warning came from China? It did. From a Chinaman? From the Mandarin, Yen Sun Yat. Yen Sun Yat, my good sir. He warned you to abandon your visit, and you reject his advice. Listen to me. Smith was intensely excited now. His eyes bright, his lean figure curiously strung up, alert. The Mandarin, Yen Sun Yat, is one of the seven. I do not follow you, Mr. Smith. No, sir. China today is not the China of 98. It is a huge, secret machine, and Ho-Nan one of its most important wheels. But if, as I understand, this official is a friend of yours, believe me, he has saved your life. You would be a dead man now if it were not for your friend in China. My dear sir, you must accept his counsel. Then, for the first time since I had made his acquaintance, Parson Dan showed through the surface of Reverend J. D. Elfam. No, sir, replied the clergyman, and the change in his voice was startling. I am called to Nanyang. Only one made to turn my going. The admixture of deep spiritual reverence with intense truculence in his voice was dissimilar from anything I had ever heard. Then only one can protect you, cried Smith, for by heaven no man will be able to do so. Your presence in Ho-Nan can do no possible good at present. It must do harm. Your experience in 1900 should be fresh in your memory. Hard words, Mr. Smith. The class of missionary work which you favour, sir, is injurious to the international peace. At the present moment Ho-Nan is a barrel of gunpowder. You would be the lighted match. I do not willingly stand between any man and what he chooses to consider his duty. But I insist that you abandon your visit to the interior of China. You insist, Mr. Smith? As your guest, I regret the necessity for reminding you that I hold authority to enforce it. Denby fidgeted uneasily. The tone of the conversation was growing harsh and the atmosphere of the library portentous with brewing storms. There was a short, silent interval. This is what I had feared and expected, said the clergyman. This was my reason for not seeking official protection. The phantom yellow peril, said Naylon Smith. Today materializes under the very eyes of the western world. The yellow peril? You scoff, sir, and so do others. We take the prophet right hand of friendship nor inquire if the hidden left holds a knife. The peace of the world is at stake, Mr. Eltham. Unknowingly, you tamper with tremendous issues. Mr. Eltham drew a deep breath, thrusting both hands into his pockets. You were painfully frank, Mr. Smith, he said. But I like you for it. I will reconsider my position and talk this matter over again with you tomorrow. Thus, then, the storm blew over. Yet I had never experienced such an overwhelming sense of imminent peril, of a sinister presence, as oppressed me at that moment. The very atmosphere of red moat was impregnated with eastern devilry. It loaded the air like some evil perfume. And then, through the silence, cut a throbbing scream, the scream of a woman in direst fear. My God, it's Grieber, whispered Mr. Eltham.