Smith remained silent; he did not seem to have heard my words. I
knew these moods and had learnt that it was useless to seek to
interrupt them. With his brows drawn down, and his deep-set eyes
staring into space, he sat there gripping his cold pipe so tightly
that my own jaw muscles ached sympathetically. No man was better
equipped than this gaunt British Commissioner to stand between
society and the menace of the Yellow Doctor; I respected his
meditations, for, unlike my own, they were informed by an intimate
knowledge of the dark and secret things of the East, of that
mysterious East out of which Fu-Manchu came, of that jungle of
noxious things whose miasma had been wafted Westward with the
implacable Chinaman.
I walked quietly from the room, occupied with my own bitter
reflections.
"You say you have two items of news for me?" said Nayland Smith,
looking across the breakfast table to where Inspector Weymouth sat
sipping coffee.
"There are two points—yes," replied the Scotland Yard man,
whilst Smith paused, egg-spoon in hand, and fixed his keen eyes
upon the speaker. "The first is this: the headquarters of the
Yellow group is no longer in the East End."
"How can you be sure of that?"
"For two reasons. In the first place, that district must now be
too hot to hold Dr. Fu-Manchu; in the second place, we have just
completed a house-to-house inquiry which has scarcely overlooked a
rathole or a rat. That place where you say Fu-Manchu was visited by
some Chinese mandarin; where you, Mr. Smith," and—glancing in my
direction—"you, Doctor, were confined for a time—"
"Yes?" snapped Smith, attacking his egg.
"Well," continued the inspector, "it is all deserted, now. There
is not the slightest doubt that the Chinaman has fled to some other
abode. I am certain of it. My second piece of news will interest
you very much, I am sure. You were taken to the establishment of
the Chinaman, Shen-Yan, by a certain ex-officer of New York
Police—Burke… "
"Good God!" cried Smith, looking up with a start; "I thought
they had him!"
"So did I," replied Weymouth grimly; "but they haven't! He got
away in the confusion following the raid, and has been hiding ever
since with a cousin, a nurseryman out Upminster way… "
"Hiding?" snapped Smith.
"Exactly—hiding. He has been afraid to stir ever since, and has
scarcely shown his nose outside the door. He says he is watched
night and day."
"Then how… "
"He realized that something must be done," continued the
inspector, "and made a break this morning. He is so convinced of
this constant surveillance that he came away secretly, hidden under
the boxes of a market-wagon. He landed at Covent Garden in the
early hours of this morning and came straight away to the
Yard."
"What is he afraid of exactly?"
Inspector Weymouth put down his coffee cup and bent forward
slightly.
"He knows something," he said in a low voice, "and they are
aware that he knows it!"
"And what is this he knows?"
Nayland Smith stared eagerly at the detective.
"Every man has his price," replied Weymouth with a smile, "and
Burke seems to think that you are a more likely market than the
police authorities."
"I see," snapped Smith. "He wants to see me?"
"He wants you to go and see him," was the reply. "I think he
anticipates that you may make a capture of the person or persons
spying upon him."
"Did he give you any particulars?"
"Several. He spoke of a sort of gipsy girl with whom he had a
short conversation one day, over the fence which divides his
cousin's flower plantations from the lane adjoining."
"Gipsy girl!" I whispered, glancing rapidly at Smith.
"I think you are right, Doctor," said Weymouth with his slow
smile; "it was Karamaneh. She asked him the way to somewhere or
other and got him to write it upon a loose page of his notebook, so
that she should not forget it."
"You hear that, Petrie?" rapped Smith.
"I hear it," I replied, "but I don't see any special
significance in the fact."
"I do!" rapped Smith; "I didn't sit up the greater part of last
night thrashing my weary brains for nothing! But I am going to the
British Museum to-day, to confirm a certain suspicion." He turned
to Weymouth. "Did Burke go back?" he demanded abruptly.
"He returned hidden under the empty boxes," was the reply. "Oh!
you never saw a man in such a funk in all your life!"
"He may have good reasons," I said.
"He has good reasons!" replied Nayland Smith grimly; "if that
man really possesses information inimical to the safety of
Fu-Manchu, he can only escape doom by means of a miracle similar to
that which has hitherto protected you and me."
"Burke insists," said Weymouth at this point, "that something
comes almost every night after dusk, slinking about the house—it's
an old farmhouse, I understand; and on two or three occasions he
has been awakened (fortunately for him he is a light sleeper) by
sounds of coughing immediately outside his window. He is a man who
sleeps with a pistol under his pillow, and more than once, on
running to the window, he has had a vague glimpse of some creature
leaping down from the tiles of the roof, which slopes up to his
room, into the flower beds below… "
"Creature!" said Smith, his gray eyes ablaze now—"you said
creature!"
"I used the word deliberately," replied Weymouth, "because Burke
seems to have the idea that it goes on all fours."
There was a short and rather strained silence. Then:
"In descending a sloping roof," I suggested, "a human being
would probably employ his hands as well as his feet."
"Quite so," agreed the inspector. "I am merely reporting the
impression of Burke."
"Has he heard no other sound?" rapped Smith; "one like the
cracking of dry branches, for instance?"
"He made no mention of it," replied Weymouth, staring.
"And what is the plan?"
"One of his cousin's vans," said Weymouth, with his slight
smile, "has remained behind at Covent Garden and will return late
this afternoon. I propose that you and I, Mr. Smith, imitate Burke
and ride down to Upminster under the empty boxes!"
Nayland Smith stood up, leaving his breakfast half finished, and
began to wander up and down the room, reflectively tugging at his
ear. Then he began to fumble in the pockets of his dressing-gown
and finally produced the inevitable pipe, dilapidated pouch, and
box of safety matches. He began to load the much-charred agent of
reflection.
"Do I understand that Burke is actually too afraid to go out
openly even in daylight?" he asked suddenly.
"He has not hitherto left his cousin's plantations at all,"
replied Weymouth. "He seems to think that openly to communicate
with the authorities, or with you, would be to seal his death
warrant."
"He's right," snapped Smith.
"Therefore he came and returned secretly," continued the
inspector; "and if we are to do any good, obviously we must adopt
similar precautions. The market wagon, loaded in such a way as to
leave ample space in the interior for us, will be drawn up outside
the office of Messrs. Pike and Pike, in Covent Garden, until about
five o'clock this afternoon. At, say, half past four, I propose
that we meet there and embark upon the journey."
The speaker glanced in my direction interrogatively.
"Include me in the program," I said. "Will there be room in the
wagon?"
"Certainly," was the reply; "it is most commodious, but I cannot
guarantee its comfort."
Nayland Smith promenaded the room, unceasingly, and presently he
walked out altogether, only to return ere the inspector and I had
had time to exchange more than a glance of surprise, carrying a
brass ash-tray. He placed this on a corner of the breakfast table
before Weymouth.
"Ever seen anything like that?" he inquired.
The inspector examined the gruesome relic with obvious
curiosity, turning it over with the tip of his little finger and
manifesting considerable repugnance—in touching it at all. Smith
and I watched him in silence, and, finally, placing the tray again
upon the table, he looked up in a puzzled way.
"It's something like the skin of a water rat," he said.
Nayland Smith stared at him fixedly.
"A water rat? Now that you come to mention it, I perceive a
certain resemblance—yes. But"—he had been wearing a silk scarf
about his throat and now he unwrapped it—"did you ever see a water
rat that could make marks like these?"
Weymouth started to his feet with some muttered exclamation.
"What is this?" he cried. "When did it happen, and how?"
In his own terse fashion, Nayland Smith related the happenings
of the night. At the conclusion of the story:
"By heaven!" whispered Weymouth, "the thing on the roof—the
coughing thing that goes on all fours, seen by Burke… "
"My own idea exactly!" cried Smith…
"Fu-Manchu," I said excitedly, "has brought some new, some
dreadful creature, from Burma… "
"No, Petrie," snapped Smith, turning upon me suddenly. "Not from
Burma—from Abyssinia."
That day was destined to be an eventful one; a day never to be
forgotten by any of us concerned in those happenings which I have
to record. Early in the morning Nayland Smith set off for the
British Museum to pursue his mysterious investigations, and having
performed my brief professional round (for, as Nayland Smith had
remarked on one occasion, this was a beastly healthy district), I
found, having made the necessary arrangements, that, with over
three hours to spare, I had nothing to occupy my time until the
appointment in Covent Garden Market. My lonely lunch completed, a
restless fit seized me, and I felt unable to remain longer in the
house. Inspired by this restlessness, I attired myself for the
adventure of the evening, not neglecting to place a pistol in my
pocket, and, walking to the neighboring Tube station, I booked to
Charing Cross, and presently found myself rambling aimlessly along
the crowded streets. Led on by what link of memory I know not, I
presently drifted into New Oxford Street, and looked up with a
start—to learn that I stood before the shop of a second-hand
book-seller where once two years before I had met Karamaneh.
The thoughts conjured up at that moment were almost too bitter
to be borne, and without so much as glancing at the books displayed
for sale, I crossed the roadway, entered Museum Street, and, rather
in order to distract my mind than because I contemplated any
purchase, began to examine the Oriental Pottery, Egyptian
statuettes, Indian armor, and other curios, displayed in the window
of an antique dealer.
But, strive as I would to concentrate my mind upon the objects
in the window, my memories persistently haunted me, and haunted me
to the exclusion even of the actualities. The crowds thronging the
Pavement, the traffic in New Oxford Street, swept past unheeded; my
eyes saw nothing of pot nor statuette, but only met, in a misty
imaginative world, the glance of two other eyes—the dark and
beautiful eyes of Karamaneh. In the exquisite tinting of a Chinese
vase dimly perceptible in the background of the shop, I perceived
only the blushing cheeks of Karamaneh; her face rose up, a taunting
phantom, from out of the darkness between a hideous, gilded idol
and an Indian sandalwood screen.
I strove to dispel this obsessing thought, resolutely fixing my
attention upon a tall Etruscan vase in the corner of the window,
near to the shop door. Was I losing my senses indeed? A doubt of my
own sanity momentarily possessed me. For, struggle as I would to
dispel the illusion—there, looking out at me over that ancient
piece of pottery, was the bewitching face of the slave-girl!
Probably I was glaring madly, and possibly I attracted the
notice of the passers-by; but of this I cannot be certain, for all
my attention was centered upon that phantasmal face, with the
cloudy hair, slightly parted red lips, and the brilliant dark eyes
which looked into mine out of the shadows of the shop.
It was bewildering—it was uncanny; for, delusion or verity, the
glamour prevailed. I exerted a great mental effort, stepped to the
door, turned the handle, and entered the shop with as great a show
of composure as I could muster.
A curtain draped in a little door at the back of one counter
swayed slightly, with no greater violence than may have been
occasioned by the draught. But I fixed my eyes upon this swaying
curtain almost fiercely… as an impassive half-caste of some kind
who appeared to be a strange cross between a Graeco-Hebrew and a
Japanese, entered and quite unemotionally faced me, with a slight
bow.
So wholly unexpected was this apparition that I started
back.
"Can I show you anything, sir?" inquired the new arrival, with a
second slight inclination of the head.
I looked at him for a moment in silence. Then:
"I thought I saw a lady of my acquaintance here a moment ago," I
said. "Was I mistaken?"
"Quite mistaken, sir," replied the shopman, raising his black
eyebrows ever so slightly; "a mistake possibly due to a reflection
in the window. Will you take a look around now that you are
here?"
"Thank you," I replied, staring him hard in the face; "at some
other time."
I turned and quitted the shop abruptly. Either I was mad, or
Karamaneh was concealed somewhere therein.
However, realizing my helplessness in the matter, I contented
myself with making a mental note of the name which appeared above
the establishment—J. Salaman—and walked on, my mind in a chaotic
condition and my heart beating with unusual rapidity.
Within my view, from the corner of the room where I sat in
deepest shadow, through the partly opened window (it was screwed,
like our own) were rows of glass-houses gleaming in the moonlight,
and, beyond them, orderly ranks of flower-beds extending into a
blue haze of distance. By reason of the moon's position, no light
entered the room, but my eyes, from long watching, were grown
familiar with the darkness, and I could see Burke quite clearly as
he lay in the bed between my post and the window. I seemed to be
back again in those days of the troubled past when first Nayland
Smith and I had come to grips with the servants of Dr. Fu-Manchu. A
more peaceful scene than this flower-planted corner of Essex it
would be difficult to imagine; but, either because of my knowledge
that its peace was chimerical, or because of that outflung
consciousness of danger which, actually, or in my imagination,
preceded the coming of the Chinaman's agents, to my seeming the
silence throbbed electrically and the night was laden with stilly
omens.
Already cramped by my journey in the market-cart, I found it
difficult to remain very long in any one position. What information
had Burke to sell? He had refused, for some reason, to discuss the
matter that evening, and now, enacting the part allotted him by
Nayland Smith, he feigned sleep consistently, although at intervals
he would whisper to me his doubts and fears.
All the chances were in our favor to-night; for whilst I could
not doubt that Dr. Fu-Manchu was set upon the removal of the
ex-officer of New York police, neither could I doubt that our
presence in the farm was unknown to the agents of the Chinaman.
According to Burke, constant attempts had been made to achieve
Fu-Manchu's purpose, and had only been frustrated by his (Burke's)
wakefulness.
There was every probability that another attempt would be made
to-night.
Any one who has been forced by circumstance to undertake such a
vigil as this will be familiar with the marked changes
(corresponding with phases of the earth's movement) which take
place in the atmosphere, at midnight, at two o'clock, and again at
four o'clock. During those fours hours falls a period wherein all
life is at its lowest ebb, and every Physician is aware that there
is a greater likelihood of a patient's passing between midnight and
four A. M., than at any other period during the cycle of the
hours.
To-night I became specially aware of this lowering of vitality,
and now, with the night at that darkest phase which precedes the
dawn, an indescribable dread, such as I had known before in my
dealings with the Chinaman, assailed me, when I was least prepared
to combat it. The stillness was intense. Then:
"Here it is!" whispered Burke from the bed.
The chill at the very center of my being, which but corresponded
with the chill of all surrounding nature at that hour, became
intensified, keener, at the whispered words.
I rose stealthily out of my chair, and from my nest of shadows
watched—watched intently, the bright oblong of the window…
Without the slightest heralding sound—a black silhouette crept
up against the pane… the silhouette of a small, malformed head, a
dog-like head, deep-set in square shoulders. Malignant eyes peered
intently in. Higher it arose—that wicked head—against the window,
then crouched down on the sill and became less sharply defined as
the creature stooped to the opening below. There was a faint sound
of sniffing.
Judging from the stark horror which I experienced, myself, I
doubted, now, if Burke could sustain the role allotted him. In
beneath the slightly raised window came a hand, perceptible to me
despite the darkness of the room. It seemed to project from the
black silhouette outside the pane, to be thrust forward—and
forward—and forward… that small hand with the outstretched
fingers.
The unknown possesses unique terrors; and since I was unable to
conceive what manner of thing this could be, which, extending its
incredibly long arms, now sought the throat of the man upon the
bed, I tasted of that sort of terror which ordinarily one knows
only in dreams.
"Quick, sir—quick!" screamed Burke, starting up from the
pillow.
The questing hands had reached his throat!
Choking down an urgent dread that I had of touching the thing
which reached through the window to kill the sleeper, I sprang
across the room and grasped the rigid, hairy forearms.
Heavens! Never have I felt such muscles, such tendons, as those
beneath the hirsute skin! They seemed to be of steel wire, and with
a sudden frightful sense of impotence, I realized that I was as
powerless as a child to relax that strangle-hold. Burke was making
the most frightful sounds and quite obviously was being asphyxiated
before my eyes!
"Smith!" I cried, "Smith! Help! help! for God's sake!"
Despite the confusion of my mind I became aware of sounds
outside and below me. Twice the thing at the window coughed; there
was an incessant, lash-like cracking, then some shouted words which
I was unable to make out; and finally the staccato report of a
pistol.
Snarling like that of a wild beast came from the creature with
the hairy arms, together with renewed coughing. But the steel grip
relaxed not one iota.
I realized two things: the first, that in my terror at the
suddenness of the attack I had omitted to act as pre-arranged: the
second, that I had discredited the strength of the visitant, whilst
Smith had foreseen it.
Desisting in my vain endeavor to pit my strength against that of
the nameless thing, I sprang back across the room and took up the
weapon which had been left in my charge earlier in the night, but
which I had been unable to believe it would be necessary to employ.
This was a sharp and heavy axe, which Nayland Smith, when I had met
him in Covent Garden, had brought with him, to the great amazement
of Weymouth and myself.
As I leaped back to the window and uplifted this primitive
weapon, a second shot sounded from below, and more fierce snarling,
coughing, and guttural mutterings assailed my ears from beyond the
pane.
Lifting the heavy blade, I brought it down with all my strength
upon the nearer of those hairy arms where it crossed the
window-ledge, severing muscle, tendon and bone as easily as a knife
might cut cheese… .
A shriek—a shriek neither human nor animal, but gruesomely
compounded of both—followed… and merged into a choking cough. Like
a flash the other shaggy arm was withdrawn, and some vaguely-seen
body went rolling down the sloping red tiles and crashed on to the
ground beneath.
With a second piercing shriek, louder than that recently uttered
by Burke, wailing through the night from somewhere below, I turned
desperately to the man on the bed, who now was become significantly
silent. A candle, with matches, stood upon a table hard by, and, my
fingers far from steady, I set about obtaining a light. This
accomplished, I stood the candle upon the little chest-of-drawers
and returned to Burke's side.
"Merciful God!" I cried.
Of all the pictures which remain in my memory, some of them dark
enough, I can find none more horrible than that which now
confronted me in the dim candle-light. Burke lay crosswise on the
bed, his head thrown back and sagging; one rigid hand he held in
the air, and with the other grasped the hairy forearm which I had
severed with the ax; for, in a death-grip, the dead fingers were
still fastened, vise-like, at his throat.
His face was nearly black, and his eyes projected from their
sockets horribly. Mastering my repugnance, I seized the hideous
piece of bleeding anatomy and strove to release it. It defied all
my efforts; in death it was as implacable as in life. I took a
knife from my pocket, and, tendon by tendon, cut away that uncanny
grip from Burke's throat…
But my labor was in vain. Burke was dead!
I think I failed to realize this for some time. My clothes were
sticking clammily to my body; I was bathed in perspiration, and,
shaking furiously, I clutched at the edge of the window, avoiding
the bloody patch upon the ledge, and looked out over the roofs to
where, in the more distant plantations, I could hear excited
voices. What had been the meaning of that scream which I had heard
but to which in my frantic state of mind I had paid comparatively
little attention?
There was a great stirring all about me.
"Smith!" I cried from the window; "Smith, for mercy's sake where
are you?"
Footsteps came racing up the stairs. Behind me the door burst
open and Nayland Smith stumbled into the room.
"God!" he said, and started back in the doorway.
"Have you got it, Smith?" I demanded hoarsely. "In sanity's name
what is it—what is it?"
"Come downstairs," replied Smith quietly, "and see for
yourself." He turned his head aside from the bed.
Very unsteadily I followed him down the stairs and through the
rambling old house out into the stone-paved courtyard. There were
figures moving at the end of a long alleyway between the glass
houses, and one, carrying a lantern, stooped over something which
lay upon the ground.
"That's Burke's cousin with the lantern," whispered Smith in my
ear; "don't tell him yet."
I nodded, and we hurried up to join the group. I found myself
looking down at one of those thick-set Burmans whom I always
associated with Fu-Manchu's activities. He lay quite flat, face
downward; but the back of his head was a shapeless blood-dotted
mass, and a heavy stock-whip, the butt end ghastly because of the
blood and hair which clung to it, lay beside him. I started back
appalled as Smith caught my arm.
"It turned on its keeper!" he hissed in my ear. "I wounded it
twice from below, and you severed one arm; in its insensate fury,
its unreasoning malignity, it returned—and there lies its second
victim… "
"Then… "
"It's gone, Petrie! It has the strength of four men even now.
Look!"
He stooped, and from the clenched left hand of the dead Burman,
extracted a piece of paper and opened it.
"Hold the lantern a moment," he said.
In the yellow light he glanced at the scrap of paper.
"As I expected—a leaf of Burke's notebook; it worked by scent."
He turned to me with an odd expression in his gray eyes. "I wonder
what piece of my personal property Fu-Manchu has pilfered," he
said, "in order to enable it to sleuth me?"
He met the gaze of the man holding the lantern.
"Perhaps you had better return to the house," he said, looking
him squarely in the eyes.
The other's face blanched.
"You don't mean, sir—you don't mean… "
"Brace up!" said Smith, laying his hand upon his shoulder.
"Remember—he chose to play with fire!"
One wild look the man cast from Smith to me, then went off,
staggering, toward the farm.
"Smith," I began…
He turned to me with an impatient gesture.
"Weymouth has driven into Upminster," he snapped; "and the whole
district will be scoured before morning. They probably motored
here, but the sounds of the shots will have enabled whoever was
with the car to make good his escape. And exhausted from loss of
blood, its capture is only a matter of time, Petrie."