She turned, quickly rearranging her dress, and watching me the
while. I could not trust myself to speak for a moment, then:
"If I am a stranger to you, as you claim, why do you give me
your confidence?" I asked.
"I have known you long enough to trust you!" she said simply,
and turned her head aside.
"Then why do you serve this inhuman monster?"
She snapped her fingers oddly, and looked up at me from under
her lashes. "Why do you question me if you think that everything I
say is a lie?"
It was a lesson in logic—from a woman! I changed the
subject.
"Tell me what you came here to do," I demanded.
She pointed to the net in my hands.
"To catch birds; you have said so yourself."
"What bird?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
And now a memory was born within my brain; it was that of the
cry of the nighthawk which had harbingered the death of Forsyth!
The net was a large and strong one; could it be that some horrible
fowl of the air—some creature unknown to Western naturalists—had
been released upon the common last night? I thought of the marks
upon Forsyth's face and throat; I thought of the profound knowledge
of obscure and dreadful things possessed by the Chinaman.
The wrapping, in which the net had been, lay at my feet. I
stooped and took out from it a wicker basket. Karamaneh stood
watching me and biting her lip, but she made no move to check me. I
opened the basket. It contained a large phial, the contents of
which possessed a pungent and peculiar smell.
I was utterly mystified.
"You will have to accompany me to my house," I said sternly.
Karamaneh upturned her great eyes to mine. They were wide with
fear. She was on the point of speaking when I extended my hand to
grasp her. At that, the look of fear was gone and one of rebellion
held its place. Ere I had time to realize her purpose, she flung
back from me with that wild grace which I had met with in no other
woman, turned and ran!
Fatuously, net and basket in hand, I stood looking after her.
The idea of pursuit came to me certainly; but I doubted if I could
have outrun her. For Karamaneh ran, not like a girl used to town or
even country life, but with the lightness and swiftness of a
gazelle; ran like the daughter of the desert that she was.
Some two hundred yards she went, stopped, and looked back. It
would seem that the sheer joy of physical effort had aroused the
devil in her, the devil that must lie latent in every woman with
eyes like the eyes of Karamaneh.
In the ever brightening sunlight I could see the lithe figure
swaying; no rags imaginable could mask its beauty. I could see the
red lips and gleaming teeth. Then—and it was music good to hear,
despite its taunt—she laughed defiantly, turned, and ran again!
I resigned myself to defeat; I blush to add, gladly! Some
evidences of a world awakening were perceptible about me now.
Feathered choirs hailed the new day joyously. Carrying the
mysterious contrivance which I had captured from the enemy, I set
out in the direction of my house, my mind very busy with
conjectures respecting the link between this bird snare and the cry
like that of a nighthawk which we had heard at the moment of
Forsyth's death.
The path that I had chosen led me around the border of the Mound
Pond—a small pool having an islet in the center. Lying at the
margin of the pond I was amazed to see the plate and jug which
Nayland Smith had borrowed recently!
Dropping my burden, I walked down to the edge of the water. I
was filled with a sudden apprehension. Then, as I bent to pick up
the now empty jug, came a hail:
"All right, Petrie! Shall join you in a moment!"
I started up, looked to right and left; but, although the voice
had been that of Nayland Smith, no sign could I discern of his
presence!
"Smith!" I cried—"Smith!"
"Coming!"
Seriously doubting my senses, I looked in the direction from
which the voice had seemed to proceed—and there was Nayland
Smith.
He stood on the islet in the center of the pond, and, as I
perceived him, he walked down into the shallow water and waded
across to me!
"Good heavens!" I began—
One of his rare laughs interrupted me.
"You must think me mad this morning, Petrie!" he said. "But I
have made several discoveries. Do you know what that islet in the
pond really is?"
"Merely an islet, I suppose—"
"Nothing of the kind; it is a burial mound, Petrie! It marks the
site of one of the Plague Pits where victims were buried during the
Great Plague of London. You will observe that, although you have
seen it every morning for some years, it remains for a British
Commissioner resident in Burma to acquaint you with its history!
Hullo!"—the laughter was gone from his eyes, and they were steely
hard again—"what the blazes have we here!"
He picked up the net. "What! a bird trap!"
"Exactly!" I said.
Smith turned his searching gaze upon me. "Where did you find it,
Petrie?"
"I did not exactly find it," I replied; and I related to him the
circumstances of my meeting with Karamaneh.
He directed that cold stare upon me throughout the narrative,
and when, with some embarrassment, I had told him of the girl's
escape—
"Petrie," he said succinctly, "you are an imbecile!"
I flushed with anger, for not even from Nayland Smith, whom I
esteemed above all other men, could I accept such words uttered as
he had uttered them. We glared at one another.
"Karamaneh," he continued coldly, "is a beautiful toy, I grant
you; but so is a cobra. Neither is suitable for playful
purposes."
"Smith!" I cried hotly—"drop that! Adopt another tone or I
cannot listen to you!"
"You must listen," he said, squaring his lean jaw truculently.
"You are playing, not only with a pretty girl who is the favorite
of a Chinese Nero, but with my life! And I object, Petrie, on
purely personal grounds!"
I felt my anger oozing from me; for this was strictly just. I
had nothing to say, and Smith continued:
"You know that she is utterly false, yet a glance or two from
those dark eyes of hers can make a fool of you! A woman made a fool
of me, once; but I learned my lesson; you have failed to learn
yours. If you are determined to go to pieces on the rock that broke
up Adam, do so! But don't involve me in the wreck, Petrie—for that
might mean a yellow emperor of the world, and you know it!"
"Your words are unnecessarily brutal, Smith," I said, feeling
very crestfallen, "but there—perhaps I fully deserve them all."
"You do!" he assured me, but he relaxed immediately. "A
murderous attempt is made upon my life, resulting in the death of a
perfectly innocent man in no way concerned. Along you come and let
an accomplice, perhaps a participant, escape, merely, because she
has a red mouth, or black lashes, or whatever it is that fascinates
you so hopelessly!"
He opened the wicker basket, sniffing at the contents.
"Ah!" he snapped, "do you recognize this odor?"
"Certainly."
"Then you have some idea respecting Karamaneh's quarry?"
"Nothing of the kind!"
Smith shrugged his shoulders.
"Come along, Petrie," he said, linking his arm in mine.
We proceeded. Many questions there were that I wanted to put to
him, but one above all.
"Smith," I said, "what, in Heaven's name, were you doing on the
mound? Digging something up?"
"No," he replied, smiling dryly; "burying something!"
Dusk found Nayland Smith and me at the top bedroom window. We
knew, now that poor Forsyth's body had been properly examined, that
he had died from poisoning. Smith, declaring that I did not deserve
his confidence, had refused to confide in me his theory of the
origin of the peculiar marks upon the body.
"On the soft ground under the trees," he said, "I found his
tracks right up to the point where something happened. There were
no other fresh tracks for several yards around. He was attacked as
he stood close to the trunk of one of the elms. Six or seven feet
away I found some other tracks, very much like this."
He marked a series of dots upon the blotting pad at his
elbow.
"Claws!" I cried. "That eerie call! like the call of a
nighthawk—is it some unknown species of—flying thing?"
"We shall see, shortly; possibly to-night," was his reply.
"Since, probably owing to the absence of any moon, a mistake was
made," his jaw hardened at the thoughts of poor Forsyth—"another
attempt along the same lines will almost certainly follow—you know
Fu-Manchu's system?"
So in the darkness, expectant, we sat watching the group of nine
elms. To-night the moon was come, raising her Aladdin's lamp up to
the star world and summoning magic shadows into being. By midnight
the highroad showed deserted, the common was a place of mystery;
and save for the periodical passage of an electric car, in blazing
modernity, this was a fit enough stage for an eerie drama.
No notice of the tragedy had appeared in print; Nayland Smith
was vested with powers to silence the press. No detectives, no
special constables, were posted. My friend was of opinion that the
publicity which had been given to the deeds of Dr. Fu-Manchu in the
past, together with the sometimes clumsy co-operation of the
police, had contributed not a little to the Chinaman's success.
"There is only one thing to fear," he jerked suddenly; "he may
not be ready for another attempt to-night."
"Why?"
"Since he has only been in England for a short time, his
menagerie of venomous things may be a limited one at present."
Earlier in the evening there had been a brief but violent
thunderstorm, with a tropical downpour of rain, and now clouds were
scudding across the blue of the sky. Through a temporary rift in
the veiling the crescent of the moon looked down upon us. It had a
greenish tint, and it set me thinking of the filmed, green eyes of
Fu-Manchu.
The cloud passed and a lake of silver spread out to the edge of
the coppice, where it terminated at a shadow bank.
"There it is, Petrie!" hissed Nayland Smith.
A lambent light was born in the darkness; it rose slowly,
unsteadily, to a great height, and died.
"It's under the trees, Smith!"
But he was already making for the door. Over his shoulder:
"Bring the pistol, Petrie!" he cried; "I have another. Give me
at least twenty yards' start or no attempt may be made. But the
instant I'm under the trees, join me."
Out of the house we ran, and over onto the common, which
latterly had been a pageant ground for phantom warring. The light
did not appear again; and as Smith plunged off toward the trees, I
wondered if he knew what uncanny thing was hidden there. I more
than suspected that he had solved the mystery.
His instructions to keep well in the rear I understood.
Fu-Manchu, or the creature of Fu-Manchu, would attempt nothing in
the presence of a witness. But we knew full well that the
instrument of death which was hidden in the elm coppice could do
its ghastly work and leave no clue, could slay and vanish. For had
not Forsyth come to a dreadful end while Smith and I were within
twenty yards of him?
Not a breeze stirred, as Smith, ahead of me—for I had slowed my
pace—came up level with the first tree. The moon sailed clear of
the straggling cloud wisps which alone told of the recent storm;
and I noted that an irregular patch of light lay silvern on the
moist ground under the elms where otherwise lay shadow.
He passed on, slowly. I began to run again. Black against the
silvern patch, I saw him emerge—and look up.
"Be careful, Smith!" I cried—and I was racing under the trees to
join him.
Uttering a loud cry, he leaped—away from the pool of light.
"Stand back, Petrie!" he screamed—"Back! further!"
He charged into me, shoulder lowered, and sent me reeling!
Mixed up with his excited cry I had heard a loud splintering and
sweeping of branches overhead; and now as we staggered into the
shadows it seemed that one of the elms was reaching down to touch
us! So, at least, the phenomenon presented itself to my mind in
that fleeting moment while Smith, uttering his warning cry, was
hurling me back.
Then the truth became apparent.
With an appalling crash, a huge bough fell from above. One
piercing, awful shriek there was, a crackling of broken branches,
and a choking groan…
The crack of Smith's pistol close beside me completed my
confusion of mind.
"Missed!" he yelled. "Shoot it, Petrie! On your left! For God's
sake don't miss it!"
I turned. A lithe black shape was streaking past me. I
fired—once—twice. Another frightful cry made yet more hideous the
nocturne.
Nayland Smith was directing the ray of a pocket torch upon the
fallen bough.
"Have you killed it, Petrie?" he cried.
"Yes, yes!"
I stood beside him, looking down. From the tangle of leaves and
twigs an evil yellow face looked up at us. The features were
contorted with agony, but the malignant eyes, wherein light was
dying, regarded us with inflexible hatred. The man was pinned
beneath the heavy bough; his back was broken; and as we watched, he
expired, frothing slightly at the mouth, and quitted his tenement
of clay, leaving those glassy eyes set hideously upon us.
"The pagan gods fight upon our side," said Smith strangely.
"Elms have a dangerous habit of shedding boughs in still
weather—particularly after a storm. Pan, god of the woods, with
this one has performed Justice's work of retribution."
"I don't understand. Where was this man—"
"Up the tree, lying along the bough which fell, Petrie! That is
why he left no footmarks. Last night no doubt he made his escape by
swinging from bough to bough, ape fashion, and descending to the
ground somewhere at the other side of the coppice."
He glanced at me.
"You are wondering, perhaps," he suggested, "what caused the
mysterious light? I could have told you this morning, but I fear I
was in a bad temper, Petrie. It's very simple: a length of tape
soaked in spirit or something of the kind, and sheltered from the
view of any one watching from your windows, behind the trunk of the
tree; then, the end ignited, lowered, still behind the tree, to the
ground. The operator swinging it around, the flame ascended, of
course. I found the unburned fragment of the tape last night, a few
yards from here."
I was peering down at Fu-Manchu's servant, the hideous yellow
man who lay dead in a bower of elm leaves.
"He has some kind of leather bag beside him," I began—
"Exactly!" rapped Smith. "In that he carried his dangerous
instrument of death; from that he released it!"
"Released what?"
"What your fascinating friend came to recapture this
morning."
"Don't taunt me, Smith!" I said bitterly. "Is it some species of
bird?"
"You saw the marks on Forsyth's body, and I told you of those
which I had traced upon the ground here. They were caused by claws,
Petrie!"
"Claws! I thought so! But what claws?"
"The claws of a poisonous thing. I recaptured the one used last
night, killed it—against my will—and buried it on the mound. I was
afraid to throw it in the pond, lest some juvenile fisherman should
pull it out and sustain a scratch. I don't know how long the claws
would remain venomous."
"You are treating me like a child, Smith," I said slowly. "No
doubt I am hopelessly obtuse, but perhaps you will tell me what
this Chinaman carried in a leather bag and released upon Forsyth.
It was something which you recaptured, apparently with the aid of a
plate of cold turbot and a jug of milk! It was something, also,
which Karamaneh had been sent to recapture with the aid—"
I stopped.
"Go on," said Nayland Smith, turning the ray to the left, "what
did she have in the basket?"
"Valerian," I replied mechanically.
The ray rested upon the lithe creature that I had shot down.
It was a black cat!
"A cat will go through fire and water for valerian," said Smith;
"but I got first innings this morning with fish and milk! I had
recognized the imprints under the trees for those of a cat, and I
knew, that if a cat had been released here it would still be hiding
in the neighborhood, probably in the bushes. I finally located a
cat, sure enough, and came for bait! I laid my trap, for the animal
was too frightened to be approachable, and then shot it; I had to.
That yellow fiend used the light as a decoy. The branch which
killed him jutted out over the path at a spot where an opening in
the foliage above allowed some moon rays to penetrate. Directly the
victim stood beneath, the Chinaman uttered his bird cry; the one
below looked up, and the cat, previously held silent and helpless
in the leather sack, was dropped accurately upon his head!"
"But"—I was growing confused.
Smith stooped lower.
"The cat's claws are sheathed now," he said; "but if you could
examine them you would find that they are coated with a shining
black substance. Only Fu-Manchu knows what that substance is,
Petrie, but you and I know what it can do!"