The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu

"When did you last hear from Nayland Smith?" asked my
visitor.

I paused, my hand on the syphon, reflecting for a moment.

"Two months ago," I said; "he's a poor correspondent and rather
soured, I fancy."

"What—a woman or something?"

"Some affair of that sort. He's such a reticent beggar, I really
know very little about it."

I placed a whisky and soda before the Rev. J. D. Eltham, also
sliding the tobacco jar nearer to his hand. The refined and
sensitive face of the clergy-man offered no indication of the
truculent character of the man. His scanty fair hair, already gray
over the temples, was silken and soft-looking; in appearance he was
indeed a typical English churchman; but in China he had been known
as "the fighting missionary," and had fully deserved the title. In
fact, this peaceful-looking gentleman had directly brought about
the Boxer Risings!

"You know," he said, in his clerical voice, but meanwhile
stuffing tobacco into an old pipe with fierce energy, "I have often
wondered, Petrie—I have never left off wondering—"

"What?"

"That accursed Chinaman! Since the cellar place beneath the site
of the burnt-out cottage in Dulwich Village—I have wondered more
than ever."

He lighted his pipe and walked to the hearth to throw the match
in the grate.

"You see," he continued, peering across at me in his oddly
nervous way, "one never knows, does one? If I thought that Dr.
Fu-Manchu lived; if I seriously suspected that that stupendous
intellect, that wonderful genius, Petrie, er—" he hesitated
characteristically—"survived, I should feel it my duty—"

"Well?" I said, leaning my elbows on the table and smiling
slightly.

"If that Satanic genius were not indeed destroyed, then the
peace of the world, may be threatened anew at any moment!"

He was becoming excited, shooting out his jaw in the truculent
manner I knew, and snapping his fingers to emphasize his words; a
man composed of the oddest complexities that ever dwelt beneath a
clerical frock.

"He may have got back to China, Doctor!" he cried, and his eyes
had the fighting glint in them. "Could you rest in peace if you
thought that he lived? Should you not fear for your life every time
that a night-call took you out alone? Why, man alive, it is only
two years since he was here among us, since we were searching every
shadow for those awful green eyes! What became of his band of
assassins—his stranglers, his dacoits, his damnable poisons and
insects and what-not—the army of creatures—"

He paused, taking a drink.

"You—" he hesitated diffidently—"searched in Egypt with Nayland
Smith, did you not?"

I nodded.

"Contradict me if I am wrong," he continued; "but my impression
is that you were searching for the girl—the girl—Karamaneh, I think
she was called?"

"Yes," I replied shortly; "but we could find no trace—no
trace."

"You—er—were interested?"

"More than I knew," I replied, "until I realized that I had—lost
her."

"I never met Karamaneh, but from your account, and from others,
she was quite unusually—"

"She was very beautiful," I said, and stood up, for I was
anxious to terminate that phase of the conversation.

Eltham regarded me sympathetically; he knew something of my
search with Nayland Smith for the dark-eyed, Eastern girl who had
brought romance into my drab life; he knew that I treasured my
memories of her as I loathed and abhorred those of the fiendish,
brilliant Chinese doctor who had been her master.

Eltham began to pace up and down the rug, his pipe bubbling
furiously; and something in the way he carried his head reminded me
momentarily of Nayland Smith. Certainly, between this pink-faced
clergyman, with his deceptively mild appearance, and the gaunt,
bronzed, and steely-eyed Burmese commissioner, there was externally
little in common; but it was some little nervous trick in his
carriage that conjured up through the smoky haze one distant summer
evening when Smith had paced that very room as Eltham paced it now,
when before my startled eyes he had rung up the curtain upon the
savage drama in which, though I little suspected it then, Fate had
cast me for a leading role.

I wondered if Eltham's thoughts ran parallel with mine. My own
were centered upon the unforgettable figure of the murderous
Chinaman. These words, exactly as Smith had used them, seemed once
again to sound in my ears: "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 him with all the cruel cunning of an entire
Eastern race accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the
resources of science, past and present, and you have a mental
picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the 'Yellow Peril' incarnate in one
man."

This visit of Eltham's no doubt was responsible for my mood; for
this singular clergyman had played his part in the drama of two
years ago.

"I should like to see Smith again," he said suddenly; "it seems
a pity that a man like that should be buried in Burma. Burma makes
a mess of the best of men, Doctor. You said he was not
married?"

"No," I replied shortly, "and is never likely to be, now."

"Ah, you hinted at something of the kind."

"I know very little of it. Nayland Smith is not the kind of man
to talk much."

"Quite so—quite so! And, you know, Doctor, neither am I; but"—he
was growing painfully embarrassed—"it may be your due—I—er—I have a
correspondent, in the interior of China—"

"Well?" I said, watching him in sudden eagerness.

"Well, I would not desire to raise—vain hopes—nor to occasion,
shall I say, empty fears; but—er… no, Doctor!" He flushed like a
girl—"It was wrong of me to open this conversation. Perhaps, when I
know more—will you forget my words, for the time?"

The telephone bell rang.

"Hullo!" cried Eltham—"hard luck, Doctor!"—but I could see that
he welcomed the interruption. "Why!" he added, "it is one
o'clock!"

I went to the telephone.

"Is that Dr. Petrie?" inquired a woman's voice.

"Yes; who is speaking?"

"Mrs. Hewett has been taken more seriously ill. Could you come
at once?"

"Certainly," I replied, for Mrs. Hewett was not only a
profitable patient but an estimable lady—"I shall be with you in a
quarter of an hour."

I hung up the receiver.

"Something urgent?" asked Eltham, emptying his pipe.

"Sounds like it. You had better turn in."

"I should much prefer to walk over with you, if it would not be
intruding. Our conversation has ill prepared me for sleep."

"Right!" I said; for I welcomed his company; and three minutes
later we were striding across the deserted common.

A sort of mist floated amongst the trees, seeming in the
moonlight like a veil draped from trunk to trunk, as in silence we
passed the Mound pond, and struck out for the north side of the
common.

I suppose the presence of Eltham and the irritating recollection
of his half-confidence were the responsible factors, but my mind
persistently dwelt upon the subject of Fu-Manchu and the atrocities
which he had committed during his sojourn in England. So actively
was my imagination at work that I felt again the menace which so
long had hung over me; I felt as though that murderous yellow cloud
still cast its shadow upon England. And I found myself longing for
the company of Nayland Smith. I cannot state what was the nature of
Eltham's reflections, but I can guess; for he was as silent as
I.

It was with a conscious effort that I shook myself out of this
morbidly reflective mood, on finding that we had crossed the common
and were come to the abode of my patient.

"I shall take a little walk," announced Eltham; "for I gather
that you don't expect to be detained long? I shall never be out of
sight of the door, of course."

"Very well," I replied, and ran up the steps.

There were no lights to be seen in any of the windows, which
circumstance rather surprised me, as my patient occupied, or had
occupied when last I had visited her, a first-floor bedroom in the
front of the house. My knocking and ringing produced no response
for three or four minutes; then, as I persisted, a scantily clothed
and half awake maid servant unbarred the door and stared at me
stupidly in the moonlight.

"Mrs. Hewett requires me?" I asked abruptly.

The girl stared more stupidly than ever.

"No, sir," she said, "she don't, sir; she's fast asleep!"

"But some one 'phoned me!" I insisted, rather irritably, I
fear.

"Not from here, sir," declared the now wide-eyed girl. "We
haven't got a telephone, sir."

For a few moments I stood there, staring as foolishly as she;
then abruptly I turned and descended the steps. At the gate I stood
looking up and down the road. The houses were all in darkness. What
could be the meaning of the mysterious summons? I had made no
mistake respecting the name of my patient; it had been twice
repeated over the telephone; yet that the call had not emanated
from Mrs. Hewett's house was now palpably evident. Days had been
when I should have regarded the episode as preluding some outrage,
but to-night I felt more disposed to ascribe it to a silly
practical joke.

Eltham walked up briskly.

"You're in demand to-night, Doctor," he said. "A young person
called for you almost directly you had left your house, and,
learning where you were gone, followed you."

"Indeed!" I said, a trifle incredulously. "There are plenty of
other doctors if the case is an urgent one."

"She may have thought it would save time as you were actually up
and dressed," explained Eltham; "and the house is quite near to
here, I understand."

I looked at him a little blankly. Was this another effort of the
unknown jester?

"I have been fooled once," I said. "That 'phone call was a
hoax—"

"But I feel certain," declared Eltham, earnestly, "that this is
genuine! The poor girl was dreadfully agitated; her master has
broken his leg and is lying helpless: number 280, Rectory
Grove."

"Where is the girl?" I asked, sharply.

"She ran back directly she had given me her message."

"Was she a servant?"

"I should imagine so: French, I think. But she was so wrapped up
I had little more than a glimpse of her. I am sorry to hear that
some one has played a silly joke on you, but believe me—" he was
very earnest—"this is no jest. The poor girl could scarcely speak
for sobs. She mistook me for you, of course."

"Oh!" said I grimly, "well, I suppose I must go. Broken leg, you
said?—and my surgical bag, splints and so forth, are at home!"

"My dear Petrie!" cried Eltham, in his enthusiastic way—"you no
doubt can do something to alleviate the poor man's suffering
immediately. I will run back to your rooms for the bag and rejoin
you at 280, Rectory Grove."

"It's awfully good of you, Eltham—"

He held up his hand.

"The call of suffering humanity, Petrie, is one which I may no
more refuse to hear than you."

I made no further protest after that, for his point of view was
evident and his determination adamant, but told him where he would
find the bag and once more set out across the moonbright common, he
pursuing a westerly direction and I going east.

Some three hundred yards I had gone, I suppose, and my brain had
been very active the while, when something occurred to me which
placed a new complexion upon this second summons. I thought of the
falsity of the first, of the improbability of even the most
hardened practical joker practising his wiles at one o'clock in the
morning. I thought of our recent conversation; above all I thought
of the girl who had delivered the message to Eltham, the girl whom
he had described as a French maid—whose personal charm had so
completely enlisted his sympathies. Now, to this train of thought
came a new one, and, adding it, my suspicion became almost a
certainty.

I remembered (as, knowing the district, I should have remembered
before) that there was no number 280 in Rectory Grove.

Pulling up sharply I stood looking about me. Not a living soul
was in sight; not even a policeman. Where the lamps marked the main
paths across the common nothing moved; in the shadows about me
nothing stirred. But something stirred within me—a warning voice
which for long had lain dormant.

What was afoot?

A breeze caressed the leaves overhead, breaking the silence with
mysterious whisperings. Some portentous truth was seeking for
admittance to my brain. I strove to reassure myself, but the sense
of impending evil and of mystery became heavier. At last I could
combat my strange fears no longer. I turned and began to run toward
the south side of the common—toward my rooms—and after Eltham.

I had hoped to head him off, but came upon no sign of him. An
all-night tramcar passed at the moment that I reached the high
road, and as I ran around behind it I saw that my windows were
lighted and that there was a light in the hall.

My key was yet in the lock when my housekeeper opened the
door.

"There's a gentleman just come, Doctor," she began—

I thrust past her and raced up the stairs into my study.

Standing by the writing-table was a tall, thin man, his gaunt
face brown as a coffee-berry and his steely gray eyes fixed upon
me. My heart gave a great leap—and seemed to stand still.

It was Nayland Smith!

"Smith," I cried. "Smith, old man, by God, I'm glad to see
you!"

He wrung my hand hard, looking at me with his searching eyes;
but there was little enough of gladness in his face. He was
altogether grayer than when last I had seen him—grayer and
sterner.

"Where is Eltham?" I asked.