Nayland Smith returned from the telephone. Nearly twenty-four
hours had elapsed since the awful death of Burke.
"No news, Petrie," he said, shortly. "It must have crept into
some inaccessible hole to die."
I glanced up from my notes. Smith settled into the white cane
armchair, and began to surround himself with clouds of aromatic
smoke. I took up a half-sheet of foolscap covered with penciled
writing in my friend's cramped characters, and transcribed the
following, in order to complete my account of the latest Fu-Manchu
outrage:
"The Amharun, a Semitic tribe allied to the Falashas, who have
been settled for many generations in the southern province of Shoa
(Abyssinia) have been regarded as unclean and outcast, apparently
since the days of Menelek—son of Suleyman and the Queen of
Sheba—from whom they claim descent. Apart from their custom of
eating meat cut from living beasts, they are accursed because of
their alleged association with the Cynocephalus hamadryas (Sacred
Baboon). I, myself, was taken to a hut on the banks of the Hawash
and shown a creature… whose predominant trait was an unreasoning
malignity toward… and a ferocious tenderness for the society of its
furry brethren. Its powers of scent were fully equal to those of a
bloodhound, whilst its abnormally long forearms possessed
incredible strength… a Cynocephalyte such as this, contracts
phthisis even in the more northern provinces of Abyssinia… "
"You have not explained to me, Smith," I said, having completed
this note, "how you got in touch with Fu-Manchu; how you learnt
that he was not dead, as we had supposed, but living—active."
Nayland Smith stood up and fixed his steely eyes upon me with an
indefinable expression in them. Then:
"No," he replied; "I haven't. Do you wish to know?"
"Certainly," I said with surprise; "is there any reason why I
should not?"
"There is no real reason," said Smith; "or"—staring at me very
hard—"I hope there is no real reason."
"What do you mean?"
"Well"—he grabbed up his pipe from the table and began furiously
to load it—"I blundered upon the truth one day in Rangoon. I was
walking out of a house which I occupied there for a time, and as I
swung around the corner into the main street, I ran into—literally
ran into… "
Again he hesitated oddly; then closed up his pouch and tossed it
into the cane chair. He struck a match.
"I ran into Karamaneh," he continued abruptly, and began to puff
away at his pipe, filling the air with clouds of tobacco smoke.
I caught my breath. This was the reason why he had kept me so
long in ignorance of the story. He knew of my hopeless, uncrushable
sentiments toward the gloriously beautiful but utterly hypocritical
and evil Eastern girl who was perhaps the most dangerous of all Dr.
Fu-Manchu's servants; for the power of her loveliness was magical,
as I knew to my cost.
"What did you do?" I asked quietly, my fingers drumming upon the
table.
"Naturally enough," continued Smith, "with a cry of recognition
I held out both my hands to her, gladly. I welcomed her as a dear
friend regained; I thought of the joy with which you would learn
that I had found the missing one; I thought how you would be in
Rangoon just as quickly as the fastest steamer could get you there…
"
"Well?"
"Karamaneh started back and treated me to a glance of absolute
animosity. No recognition was there, and no friendliness—only a
sort of scornful anger."
He shrugged his shoulders and began to walk up and down the
room.
"I do not know what you would have done in the circumstances,
Petrie, but I—"
"Yes?"
"I dealt with the situation rather promptly, I think. I simply
picked her up without another word, right there in the public
street, and raced back into the house, with her kicking and
fighting like a little demon! She did not shriek or do anything of
that kind, but fought silently like a vicious wild animal. Oh! I
had some scars, I assure you; but I carried her up into my office,
which fortunately was empty at the time, plumped her down in a
chair, and stood looking at her."
"Go on," I said rather hollowly; "what next?"
"She glared at me with those wonderful eyes, an expression of
implacable hatred in them! Remembering all that we had done for
her; remembering our former friendship; above all, remembering
you—this look of hers almost made me shiver. She was dressed very
smartly in European fashion, and the whole thing had been so sudden
that as I stood looking at her I half expected to wake up presently
and find it all a day-dream. But it was real—as real as her enmity.
I felt the need for reflection, and having vainly endeavored to
draw her into conversation, and elicited no other answer than this
glare of hatred—I left her there, going out and locking the door
behind me."
"Very high-handed?"
"A commissioner has certain privileges, Petrie, and any action I
might choose to take was not likely to be questioned. There was
only one window to the office, and it was fully twenty feet above
the level; it overlooked a narrow street off the main thoroughfare
(I think I have explained that the house stood on a corner) so I
did not fear her escaping. I had an important engagement which I
had been on my way to fulfil when the encounter took place, and
now, with a word to my native servant—who chanced to be
downstairs—I hurried off."
Smith's pipe had gone out as usual, and he proceeded to relight
it, whilst, with my eyes lowered, I continued to drum upon the
table.
"This boy took her some tea later in the afternoon," he
continued, "and apparently found her in a more placid frame of
mind. I returned immediately after dusk, and he reported that when
last he had looked in, about half an hour earlier, she had been
seated in an armchair reading a newspaper (I may mention that
everything of value in the office was securely locked up!) I was
determined upon a certain course by this time, and I went slowly
upstairs, unlocked the door, and walked into the darkened office. I
turned up the light… the place was empty!"
"Empty!"
"The window was open, and the bird flown! Oh! it was not so
simple a flight—as you would realize if you knew the place. The
street, which the window overlooked, was bounded by a blank wall,
on the opposite side, for thirty or forty yards along; and as we
had been having heavy rains, it was full of glutinous mud.
Furthermore, the boy whom I had left in charge had been sitting in
the doorway immediately below the office window watching for my
return ever since his last visit to the room above… "
"She must have bribed him," I said bitterly—"or corrupted him
with her infernal blandishments."
"I'll swear she did not," rapped Smith decisively. "I know my
man, and I'll swear she did not. There were no marks in the mud of
the road to show that a ladder had been placed there; moreover,
nothing of the kind could have been attempted whilst the boy was
sitting in the doorway; that was evident. In short, she did not
descend into the roadway and did not come out by the door… "
"Was there a gallery outside the window?"
"No; it was impossible to climb to right or left of the window
or up on to the roof. I convinced myself of that."
"But, my dear man!" I cried, "you are eliminating every natural
mode of egress! Nothing remains but flight."
"I am aware, Petrie, that nothing remains but flight; in other
words I have never to this day understood how she quitted the room.
I only know that she did."
"And then?"
"I saw in this incredible escape the cunning hand of Dr.
Fu-Manchu—saw it at once. Peace was ended; and I set to work along
certain channels without delay. In this manner I got on the track
at last, and learned, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the
Chinese doctor lived—nay! was actually on his way to Europe
again!"
There followed a short silence. Then:
"I suppose it's a mystery that will be cleared up some day,"
concluded Smith; "but to date the riddle remains intact." He
glanced at the clock. "I have an appointment with Weymouth;
therefore, leaving you to the task of solving this problem which
thus far has defied my own efforts, I will get along."
He read a query in my glance.
"Oh! I shall not be late," he added; "I think I may venture out
alone on this occasion without personal danger."
Nayland Smith went upstairs to dress, leaving me seated at my
writing table, deep in thought. My notes upon the renewed activity
of Dr. Fu-Manchu were stacked at my left hand, and, opening a new
writing block, I commenced to add to them particulars of this
surprising event in Rangoon which properly marked the opening of
the Chinaman's second campaign. Smith looked in at the door on his
way out, but seeing me thus engaged, did not disturb me.
I think I have made it sufficiently evident in these records
that my practice was not an extensive one, and my hour for
receiving patients arrived and passed with only two professional
interruptions.
My task concluded, I glanced at the clock, and determined to
devote the remainder of the evening to a little private
investigation of my own. From Nayland Smith I had preserved the
matter a secret, largely because I feared his ridicule; but I had
by no means forgotten that I had seen, or had strongly imagined
that I had seen, Karamaneh—that beautiful anomaly, who (in modern
London) asserted herself to be a slave—in the shop of an antique
dealer not a hundred yards from the British Museum!
A theory was forming in my brain, which I was burningly anxious
to put to the test. I remembered how, two years before, I had met
Karamaneh near to this same spot; and I had heard Inspector
Weymouth assert positively that Fu-Manchu's headquarters were no
longer in the East End, as of yore. There seemed to me to be a
distinct probability that a suitable center had been established
for his reception in this place, so much less likely to be
suspected by the authorities. Perhaps I attached too great a value
to what may have been a delusion; perhaps my theory rested upon no
more solid foundation than the belief that I had seen Karamaneh in
the shop of the curio dealer. If her appearance there should prove
to have been phantasmal, the structure of my theory would be
shattered at its base. To-night I should test my premises, and upon
the result of my investigations determine my future action.
Museum Street certainly did not seem a likely spot for Dr.
Fu-Manchu to establish himself, yet, unless my imagination had
strangely deceived me, from the window of the antique dealer who
traded under the name of J. Salaman, those wonderful eyes of
Karamaneh like the velvet midnight of the Orient, had looked out at
me.
As I paced slowly along the pavement toward that lighted window,
my heart was beating far from normally, and I cursed the folly
which, in spite of all, refused to die, but lingered on, poisoning
my life. Comparative quiet reigned in Museum Street, at no time a
busy thoroughfare, and, excepting another shop at the Museum end,
commercial activities had ceased there. The door of a block of
residential chambers almost immediately opposite to the shop which
was my objective, threw out a beam of light across the pavement,
but not more than two or three people were visible upon either side
of the street.
I turned the knob of the door and entered the shop.
The same dark and immobile individual whom I had seen before,
and whose nationality defied conjecture, came out from the
curtained doorway at the back to greet me.
"Good evening, sir," he said monotonously, with a slight
inclination of the head; "is there anything which you desire to
inspect?"
"I merely wish to take a look around," I replied. "I have no
particular item in view."
The shop man inclined his head again, swept a yellow hand
comprehensively about, as if to include the entire stock, and
seated himself on a chair behind the counter.
I lighted a cigarette with such an air of nonchalance as I could
summon to the operation, and began casually to inspect the varied
objects of interest loading the shelves and tables about me. I am
bound to confess that I retain no one definite impression of this
tour. Vases I handled, statuettes, Egyptian scarabs, bead
necklaces, illuminated missals, portfolios of old prints, jade
ornaments, bronzes, fragments of rare lace, early printed books,
Assyrian tablets, daggers, Roman rings, and a hundred other
curiosities, leisurely, and I trust with apparent interest, yet
without forming the slightest impression respecting any one of
them.
Probably I employed myself in this way for half an hour or more,
and whilst my hands busied themselves among the stock of J.
Salaman, my mind was occupied entirely elsewhere. Furtively I was
studying the shopman himself, a human presentment of a Chinese
idol; I was listening and watching; especially I was watching the
curtained doorway at the back of the shop.
"We close at about this time, sir," the man interrupted me,
speaking in the emotionless, monotonous voice which I had noted
before.
I replaced upon the glass counter a little Sekhet boat, carved
in wood and highly colored, and glanced up with a start. Truly my
methods were amateurish; I had learnt nothing; I was unlikely to
learn anything. I wondered how Nayland Smith would have conducted
such an inquiry, and I racked my brains for some means of
penetrating into the recesses of the establishment. Indeed, I had
been seeking such a plan for the past half an hour, but my mind had
proved incapable of suggesting one.
Why I did not admit failure I cannot imagine, but, instead, I
began to tax my brains anew for some means of gaining further time;
and, as I looked about the place, the shopman very patiently
awaiting my departure, I observed an open case at the back of the
counter. The three lower shelves were empty, but upon the fourth
shelf squatted a silver Buddha.
"I should like to examine the silver image yonder," I said;
"what price are you asking for it?"
"It is not for sale, sir," replied the man, with a greater show
of animation than he had yet exhibited.
"Not for sale!" I said, my eyes ever seeking the curtained
doorway; "how's that?"
"It is sold."
"Well, even so, there can be no objection to my examining
it?"
"It is not for sale, sir."
Such a rebuff from a tradesman would have been more than
sufficient to call for a sharp retort at any other time, but now it
excited the strangest suspicions. The street outside looked
comparatively deserted, and prompted, primarily, by an emotion
which I did not pause to analyze, I adopted a singular measure;
without doubt I relied upon the unusual powers vested in Nayland
Smith to absolve me in the event of error. I made as if to go out
into the street, then turned, leaped past the shopman, ran behind
the counter, and grasped at the silver Buddha!
That I was likely to be arrested for attempted larceny I cared
not; the idea that Karamaneh was concealed somewhere in the
building ruled absolutely, and a theory respecting this silver
image had taken possession of my mind. Exactly what I expected to
happen at that moment I cannot say, but what actually happened was
far more startling than anything I could have imagined.
At the instant that I grasped the figure I realized that it was
attached to the woodwork; in the next I knew that it was a
handle … as I tried to pull it toward me I became aware that
this handle was the handle of a door. For that door swung open
before me, and I found myself at the foot of a flight of heavily
carpeted stairs.
Anxious as I had been to proceed a moment before, I was now
trebly anxious to retire, and for this reason: on the bottom step
of the stair, facing me, stood Dr. Fu-Manchu!