"But the hand, Smith, the luminous hand… "
Nayland Smith laughed shortly.
"Your superstitious fears overcame you to such an extent,
Petrie—and I don't wonder at it; the sight was a ghastly one—that
probably you don't remember what occurred when you struck out at
that same ghostly hand?"
"I seemed to hit something."
"That was why we ran. But I think our retreat had all the
appearance of a rout, as I intended that it should. Pardon my
playing upon your very natural fears, old man, but you could not
have simulated panic half so naturally! And if they had suspected
that the device was discovered, we might never have quitted the
Gables alive. It was touch-and-go for a moment."
"But… "
"Turn out the light!" snapped my companion.
Wondering greatly, I did as he desired. I turned out the light…
and in the darkness of my own study I saw a fiery fist being shaken
at me threateningly!… The bones were distinctly visible, and the
luminosity of the flesh was truly ghastly.
"Turn on the light, again!" cried Smith.
Deeply mystified, I did so… and my friend tossed a little
electric pocket-lamp on to the writing-table.
"They used merely a small electric lamp fitted into the handle
of a glass dagger," he said with a sort of contempt. "It was very
effective, but the luminous hand is a phenomenon producible by any
one who possesses an electric torch."
"The Gables—will be watched?"
"At last, Petrie, I think we have Fu-Manchu—in his own
trap!"
"Dash it all, Petrie!" cried Smith, "this is most
annoying!"
The bell was ringing furiously, although midnight was long past.
Whom could my late visitor be? Almost certainly this ringing
portended an urgent case. In other words, I was not fated to take
part in what I anticipated would prove to be the closing scene of
the Fu-Manchu drama.
"Every one is in bed," I said, ruefully; "and how can I possibly
see a patient—in this costume?"
Smith and I were both arrayed in rough tweeds, and anticipating
the labors before us, had dispensed with collars and wore soft
mufflers. It was hard to be called upon to face a professional
interview dressed thus, and having a big tweed cap pulled down over
my eyes.
Across the writing-table we confronted one another in dismayed
silence, whilst, below, the bell sent up its ceaseless clangor.
"It has to be done, Smith," I said, regretfully. "Almost
certainly it means a journey and probably an absence of some
hours."
I threw my cap upon the table, turned up my coat to hide the
absence of collar, and started for the door. My last sight of Smith
showed him standing looking after me, tugging at the lobe of his
ear and clicking his teeth together with suppressed irritability. I
stumbled down the dark stairs, along the hall, and opened the front
door. Vaguely visible in the light of a street lamp which stood at
no great distance away, I saw a slender man of medium height
confronting me. From the shadowed face two large and luminous eyes
looked out into mine. My visitor, who, despite the warmth of the
evening, wore a heavy greatcoat, was an Oriental!
I drew back, apprehensively; then:
"Ah! Dr. Petrie!" he said in a softly musical voice which made
me start again, "to God be all praise that I have found you!"
Some emotion, which at present I could not define, was stirring
within me. Where had I seen this graceful Eastern youth before?
Where had I heard that soft voice?
"Do you wish to see me professionally?" I asked—yet even as I
put the question, I seemed to know it unnecessary.
"So you know me no more?" said the stranger—and his teeth
gleamed in a slight smile.
Heavens! I knew now what had struck that vibrant chord within
me! The voice, though infinitely deeper, yet had an unmistakable
resemblance to the dulcet tones of Karamaneh—of Karamaneh whose
eyes haunted my dreams, whose beauty had done much to embitter my
years.
The Oriental youth stepped forward, with outstretched hand.
"So you know me no more?" he repeated; "but I know you, and give
praise to Allah that I have found you!"
I stepped back, pressed the electric switch, and turned, with
leaping heart, to look into the face of my visitor. It was a face
of the purest Greek beauty, a face that might have served as a
model for Praxiteles; the skin had a golden pallor, which, with the
crisp black hair and magnetic yet velvety eyes, suggested to my
fancy that this was the young Antinious risen from the Nile, whose
wraith now appeared to me out of the night. I stifled a cry of
surprise, not unmingled with gladness.
It was Aziz—the brother of Karamaneh!
Never could the entrance of a figure upon the stage of a drama
have been more dramatic than the coming of Aziz upon this night of
all nights. I seized the outstretched hand and drew him forward,
then reclosed the door and stood before him a moment in doubt.
A vaguely troubled look momentarily crossed the handsome face;
with the Oriental's unerring instinct, he had detected the reserve
of my greeting. Yet, when I thought of the treachery of Karamaneh,
when I remember how she, whom we had befriended, whom we had
rescued from the house of Fu-Manchu, now had turned like the
beautiful viper that she was to strike at the hand that caressed
her; when I thought how to-night we were set upon raiding the place
where the evil Chinese doctor lurked in hiding, were set upon the
arrest of that malignant genius and of all his creatures, Karamaneh
amongst them, is it strange that I hesitated? Yet, again, when I
thought of my last meeting with her, and of how, twice, she had
risked her life to save me…
So, avoiding the gaze of the lad, I took his arm, and in silence
we two ascended the stairs and entered my study… where Nayland
Smith stood bolt upright beside the table, his steely eyes fixed
upon the face of the new arrival.
No look of recognition crossed the bronzed features, and Aziz
who had started forward with outstretched hands, fell back a step
and looked pathetically from me to Nayland Smith, and from the grim
commissioner back again to me. The appeal in the velvet eyes was
more than I could tolerate, unmoved.
"Smith," I said shortly, "you remember Aziz?"
Not a muscle visibly moved in Smith's face, as he snapped
back:
"I remember him perfectly."
"He has come, I think, to seek our assistance."
"Yes, yes!" cried Aziz laying his hand upon my arm with a
gesture painfully reminiscent of Karamaneh—"I came only to-night to
London. Oh, my gentlemen! I have searched, and searched, and
searched, until I am weary. Often I have wished to die. And then at
last I come to Rangoon… "
"To Rangoon!" snapped Smith, still with the gray eyes fixed
almost fiercely upon the lad's face.
"To Rangoon—yes; and there I heard news at last. I hear that you
have seen her—have seen Karamaneh—that you are back in London." He
was not entirely at home with his English. "I know then that she
must be here, too. I ask them everywhere, and they answer 'yes.'
Oh, Smith Pasha!"—he stepped forward and impulsively seized both
Smith's hands—"You know where she is—take me to her!"
Smith's face was a study in perplexity, now. In the past we had
befriended the young Aziz, and it was hard to look upon him in the
light of an enemy. Yet had we not equally befriended his
sister?—and she…
At last Smith glanced across at me where I stood just within the
doorway.
"What do you make of it, Petrie?" he said harshly. "Personally I
take it to mean that our plans have leaked out." He sprang suddenly
back from Aziz and I saw his glance traveling rapidly over the
slight figure as if in quest of concealed arms. "I take it to be a
trap!"
A moment he stood so, regarding him, and despite my
well-grounded distrust of the Oriental character, I could have
sworn that the expression of pained surprise upon the youth's face
was not simulated but real. Even Smith, I think, began to share my
view; for suddenly he threw himself into the white cane rest-chair,
and, still fixedly regarding Aziz:
"Perhaps I have wronged you," he said. "If I have, you shall
know the reason presently. Tell your own story!"
There was a pathetic humidity in the velvet eyes of Aziz—eyes so
like those others that were ever looking into mine in dreams—as
glancing from Smith to me he began, hands outstretched,
characteristically, palms upward and fingers curling, to tell in
broken English the story of his search for Karamaneh…
"It was Fu-Manchu, my kind gentlemen—it was the hakim who is
really not a man at all, but an efreet. He found us again less than
four days after you had left us, Smith Pasha!… He found us in
Cairo, and to Karamaneh he made the forgetting of all things—even
of me—even of me… "
Nayland Smith snapped his teeth together sharply; then:
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded.
For my own part I understood well enough, remembering how the
brilliant Chinese doctor once had performed such an operation as
this upon poor Inspector Weymouth; how, by means of an injection of
some serum prepared (as Karamaneh afterwards told us) from the
venom of a swamp adder or similar reptile, he had induced amnesia,
or complete loss of memory. I felt every drop of blood recede from
my cheeks.
"Smith!" I began…
"Let him speak for himself," interrupted my friend sharply.
"They tried to take us both," continued Aziz still speaking in
that soft, melodious manner, but with deep seriousness. "I escaped,
I, who am swift of foot, hoping to bring help."—He shook his head
sadly—"But, except the All Powerful, who is so powerful as the
Hakim Fu-Manchu? I hid, my gentlemen, and watched and waited,
one—two—three weeks. At last I saw her again, my sister, Karamaneh;
but ah! she did not know me, did not know me, Aziz her brother! She
was in an arabeeyeh, and passed me quickly along the Sharia
en-Nahhasin. I ran, and ran, and ran, crying her name, but although
she looked back, she did not know me—she did not know me! I felt
that I was dying, and presently I fell—upon the steps of the Mosque
of Abu."
He dropped the expressive hands wearily to his sides and sank
his chin upon his breast.
"And then?" I said, huskily—for my heart was fluttering like a
captive bird.
"Alas! from that day to this I see her no more, my gentlemen. I
travel, not only in Egypt, but near and far, and still I see her no
more until in Rangoon I hear that which brings me to England
again"—he extended his palms naively—"and here I am—Smith
Pasha."
Smith sprang upright again and turned to me.
"Either I am growing over-credulous," he said, "or Aziz speaks
the truth. But"—he held up his hand—"you can tell me all that at
some other time, Petrie! We must take no chances. Sergeant Carter
is downstairs with the cab; you might ask him to step up. He and
Aziz can remain here until our return."
The muffled drumming of sleepless London seemed very remote from
us, as side by side we crept up the narrow path to the studio. This
was a starry but moonless night, and the little dingy white
building with a solitary tree peeping, in silhouette, above the
glazed roof, bore an odd resemblance to one of those tombs which
form a city of the dead so near to the city of feverish life on the
slopes of the Mokattam Hills. This line of reflection proved
unpleasant, and I dismissed it sternly from my mind.
The shriek of a train-whistle reached me, a sound which breaks
the stillness of the most silent London night, telling of the
ceaseless, febrile life of the great world-capital whose activity
ceases not with the coming of darkness. Around and about us a very
great stillness reigned, however, and the velvet dusk which, with
the star-jeweled sky, was strongly suggestive of an Eastern
night—gave up no sign to show that it masked the presence of more
than twenty men. Some distance away on our right was the Gables,
that sinister and deserted mansion which we assumed, and with good
reason, to be nothing less than the gateway to the subterranean
abode of Dr. Fu-Manchu; before us was the studio, which, if Nayland
Smith's deductions were accurate, concealed a second entrance to
the same mysterious dwelling.
As my friend, glancing cautiously all about him, inserted the
key in the lock, an owl hooted dismally almost immediately above
our heads. I caught my breath sharply, for it might be a signal;
but, looking upward, I saw a great black shape float slantingly
from the tree beyond the studio into the coppice on the right which
hemmed in the Gables. Silently the owl winged its uncanny flight
into the greater darkness of the trees, and was gone. Smith opened
the door and we stepped into the studio. Our plans had been well
considered, and in accordance with these, I now moved up beside my
friend, who was dimly perceptible to me in the starlight which
found access through the glass roof, and pressed the catch of my
electric pocket-lamp…
I suppose that by virtue of my self-imposed duty as chronicler
of the deeds of Dr. Fu-Manchu—the greatest and most evil genius
whom the later centuries have produced, the man who dreamt of an
universal Yellow Empire—I should have acquired a certain facility
in describing bizarre happenings. But I confess that it fails me
now as I attempt in cold English to portray my emotions when the
white beam from the little lamp cut through the darkness of the
studio, and shone fully upon the beautiful face of Karamaneh!
Less than six feet away from me she stood, arrayed in the gauzy
dress of the harem, her fingers and slim white arms laden with
barbaric jewelry! The light wavered in my suddenly nerveless hand,
gleaming momentarily upon bare ankles and golden anklets, upon
little red leather shoes.
I spoke no word, and Smith was as silent as I; both of us, I
think, were speechless rather from amazement than in obedience to
the evident wishes of Fu-Manchu's slave-girl. Yet I have only to
close my eyes at this moment to see her as she stood, one finger
raised to her lips, enjoining us to silence. She looked ghastly
pale in the light of the lamp, but so lovely that my rebellious
heart threatened already, to make a fool of me.
So we stood in that untidy studio, with canvases and easels
heaped against the wall and with all sorts of litter about us, a
trio strangely met, and one to have amused the high gods watching
through the windows of the stars.
"Go back!" came in a whisper from Karamaneh.
I saw the red lips moving and read a dreadful horror in the
widely opened eyes, in those eyes like pools of mystery to taunt
the thirsty soul. The world of realities was slipping past me; I
seemed to be losing my hold on things actual; I had built up an
Eastern palace about myself and Karamaneh wherein, the world shut
out, I might pass the hours in reading the mystery of those dark
eyes. Nayland Smith brought me sharply to my senses.
"Steady with the light, Petrie!" he hissed in my ear. "My
skepticism has been shaken, to-night, but I am taking no
chances."
He moved from my side and forward toward that lovely, unreal
figure which stood immediately before the model's throne and its
background of plush curtains. Karamaneh started forward to meet
him, suppressing a little cry, whose real anguish could not have
been simulated.
"Go back! go back!" she whispered urgently, and thrust out her
hands against Smith's breast. "For God's sake, go back! I have
risked my life to come here to-night. He knows, and is ready!"…
The words were spoken with passionate intensity, and Nayland
Smith hesitated. To my nostrils was wafted that faint, delightful
perfume which, since one night, two years ago, it had come to
disturb my senses, had taunted me many times as the mirage taunts
the parched Sahara traveler. I took a step forward.
"Don't move!" snapped Smith.
Karamaneh clutched frenziedly at the lapels of his coat.
"Listen to me!" she said, beseechingly and stamped one little
foot upon the floor—"listen to me! You are a clever man, but you
know nothing of a woman's heart—nothing—nothing—if seeing me,
hearing me, knowing, as you do know, I risk, you can doubt that I
speak the truth. And I tell you that it is death to go behind those
curtains—that he… "
"That's what I wanted to know!" snapped Smith. His voice
quivered with excitement.
Suddenly grasping Karamaneh by the waist, he lifted her and set
her aside; then in three bounds he was on to the model's throne and
had torn the Plush curtains bodily from their fastenings.
How it occurred I cannot hope to make dear, for here my
recollections merge into a chaos. I know that Smith seemed to
topple forward amid the purple billows of velvet, and his muffled
cry came to me:
"Petrie! My God, Petrie!"…
The pale face of Karamaneh looked up into mine and her hands
were clutching me, but the glamour of her personality had lost its
hold, for I knew—heavens, how poignantly it struck home to me!—that
Nayland Smith was gone to his death. What I hoped to achieve, I
know not, but hurling the trembling girl aside, I snatched the
Browning pistol from my coat pocket, and with the ray of the lamp
directed upon the purple mound of velvet, I leaped forward.
I think I realized that the curtains had masked a collapsible
trap, a sheer pit of blackness, an instant before I was
precipitated into it, but certainly the knowledge came too late.
With the sound of a soft, shuddering cry in my ears, I fell,
dropping lamp and pistol, and clutching at the fallen hangings. But
they offered me no support. My head seemed to be bursting; I could
utter only a hoarse groan, as I fell—fell—fell…
When my mind began to work again, in returning consciousness, I
found it to be laden with reproach. How often in the past had we
blindly hurled ourselves into just such a trap as this? Should we
never learn that where Fu-Manchu was, impetuosity must prove fatal?
On two distinct occasions in the past we had been made the victims
of this device, yet even although we had had practically conclusive
evidence that this studio was used by Dr. Fu-Manchu, we had relied
upon its floor being as secure as that of any other studio, we had
failed to sound every foot of it ere trusting our weight to its
support… .
"There is such a divine simplicity in the English mind that one
may lay one's plans with mathematical precision, and rely upon the
Nayland Smiths and Dr. Petries to play their allotted parts.
Excepting two faithful followers, my friends are long since
departed. But here, in these vaults which time has overlooked and
which are as secret and as serviceable to-day as they were two
hundred years ago, I wait patiently, with my trap set, like the
spider for the fly!… "
To the sound of that taunting voice, I opened my eyes. As I did
so I strove to spring upright—only to realize that I was tied fast
to a heavy ebony chair inlaid with ivory, and attached by means of
two iron brackets to the floor.
"Even children learn from experience," continued the
unforgettable voice, alternately guttural and sibilant, but always
as deliberate as though the speaker were choosing with care words
which should perfectly clothe his thoughts. "For 'a burnt child
fears the fire,' says your English adage. But Mr. Commissioner
Nayland Smith, who enjoys the confidence of the India Office, and
who is empowered to control the movements of the Criminal
Investigation Department, learns nothing from experience. He is
less than a child, since he has twice rashly precipitated himself
into a chamber charged with an anesthetic prepared, by a process of
my own, from the lycoperdon or Common Puff-ball."
I became fully master of my senses, and I became fully alive to
a stupendous fact. At last it was ended; we were utterly in the
power of Dr. Fu-Manchu; our race was run.
I sat in a low vaulted room. The roof was of ancient brickwork,
but the walls were draped with exquisite Chinese fabric having a
green ground whereon was a design representing a grotesque
procession of white peacocks. A green carpet covered the floor, and
the whole of the furniture was of the same material as the chair to
which I was strapped, viz:—ebony inlaid with ivory. This furniture
was scanty. There was a heavy table in one corner of the
dungeonesque place, on which were a number of books and papers.
Before this table was a high-backed, heavily carven chair. A
smaller table stood upon the right of the only visible opening, a
low door partially draped with bead work curtains, above which hung
a silver lamp. On this smaller table, a stick of incense, in a
silver holder, sent up a pencil of vapor into the air, and the
chamber was loaded with the sickly sweet fumes. A faint haze from
the incense-stick hovered up under the roof.
In the high-backed chair sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a green robe
upon which was embroidered a design, the subject of which at first
glance was not perceptible, but which presently I made out to be a
huge white peacock. He wore a little cap perched upon the dome of
his amazing skull, and with one clawish hand resting upon the ebony
of the table, he sat slightly turned toward me, his emotionless
face a mask of incredible evil. In spite of, or because of, the
high intellect written upon it, the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu was more
utterly repellent than any I have ever known, and the green eyes,
eyes green as those of a cat in the darkness, which sometimes
burned like witch lamps, and sometimes were horribly filmed like
nothing human or imaginable, might have mirrored not a soul, but an
emanation of hell, incarnate in this gaunt, high-shouldered
body.
Stretched flat upon the floor lay Nayland Smith, partially
stripped, his arms thrown back over his head and his wrists chained
to a stout iron staple attached to the wall; he was fully conscious
and staring intently at the Chinese doctor. His bare ankles also
were manacled, and fixed to a second chain, which quivered tautly
across the green carpet and passed out through the doorway, being
attached to something beyond the curtain, and invisible to me from
where I sat.
Fu-Manchu was now silent. I could hear Smith's heavy breathing
and hear my watch ticking in my pocket. I suddenly realized that
although my body was lashed to the ebony chair, my hands and arms
were free. Next, looking dazedly about me, my attention was drawn
to a heavy sword which stood hilt upward against the wall within
reach of my hand. It was a magnificent piece, of Japanese
workmanship; a long, curved Damascened blade having a double-handed
hilt of steel, inlaid with gold, and resembling fine Kuft work. A
host of possibilities swept through my mind. Then I perceived that
the sword was attached to the wall by a thin steel chain some five
feet in length.
"Even if you had the dexterity of a Mexican knife-thrower," came
the guttural voice of Fu-Manchu, "you would be unable to reach me,
dear Dr. Petrie."
The Chinaman had read my thoughts.
Smith turned his eyes upon me momentarily, only to look away
again in the direction of Fu-Manchu. My friend's face was slightly
pale beneath the tan, and his jaw muscles stood out with unusual
prominence. By this fact alone did he reveal his knowledge that he
lay at the mercy of this enemy of the white race, of this inhuman
being who himself knew no mercy, of this man whose very genius was
inspired by the cool, calculated cruelty of his race, of that race
which to this day disposes of hundreds, nay! thousands, of its
unwanted girl-children by the simple measure of throwing them down
a well specially dedicated to the purpose.
"The weapon near your hand," continued the Chinaman,
imperturbably, "is a product of the civilization of our near
neighbors, the Japanese, a race to whose courage I prostrate myself
in meekness. It is the sword of a samurai, Dr. Petrie. It is of
very great age, and was, until an unfortunate misunderstanding with
myself led to the extinction of the family, a treasured possession
of a noble Japanese house… "
The soft voice, into which an occasional sibilance crept, but
which never rose above a cool monotone, gradually was lashing me
into fury, and I could see the muscles moving in Smith's jaws as he
convulsively clenched his teeth; whereby I knew that, impotent, he
burned with a rage at least as great as mine. But I did not speak,
and did not move.
"The ancient tradition of seppuku," continued the Chinaman, "or
hara-kiri, still rules, as you know, in the great families of
Japan. There is a sacred ritual, and the samurai who dedicates
himself to this honorable end, must follow strictly the ritual. As
a physician, the exact nature of the ceremony might possibly
interest you, Dr. Petrie, but a technical account of the two
incisions which the sacrificant employs in his self-dismissal,
might, on the other hand, bore Mr. Nayland Smith. Therefore I will
merely enlighten you upon one little point, a minor one, but
interesting to the student of human nature. In short, even a
samurai—and no braver race has ever honored the world—sometimes
hesitates to complete the operation. The weapon near to your hand,
my dear Dr. Petrie, is known as the Friend's Sword. On such
occasions as we are discussing, a trusty friend is given the
post—an honored one of standing behind the brave man who offers
himself to his gods, and should the latter's courage momentarily
fail him, the friend with the trusty blade (to which now I
especially direct your attention) diverts the hierophant's mind
from his digression, and rectifies his temporary breach of
etiquette by severing the cervical vertebrae of the spinal column
with the friendly blade—which you can reach quite easily, Dr.
Petrie, if you care to extend your hand."