I knew that I was frozen with a sort of supernatural terror. I
stood there with hands clenched, staring—staring at that white
shape, which seemed to float.
As I stared, every nerve in my body thrilling, I distinguished
the outline of the phantom. With a subdued cry, I stepped forward.
A new sensation claimed me. In that one stride I passed from the
horrible to the bizarre.
I found myself confronted with something tangible, certainly,
but something whose presence in that place was utterly
extravagant—could only be reconcilable in the dreams of an opium
slave.
Was I awake, was I sane? Awake and sane beyond doubt, but surely
moving, not in the purlieus of Limehouse, but in the fantastic
realms of fairyland.
Swooping, with open arms, I rounded up in an angle against the
building and gathered in this screaming thing which had inspired in
me so keen a terror.
The great, ghostly fan was closed as I did so, and I stumbled
back toward the stair with my struggling captive tucked under my
arm; I mounted into one of London's darkest slums, carrying a
beautiful white peacock!
My adventure had done nothing to relieve the feeling of
unreality which held me enthralled. Grasping the struggling bird
firmly by the body, and having the long white tail fluttering a
yard or so behind me, I returned to where the taxi waited.
"Open the door!" I said to the man—who greeted me with such a
stare of amazement that I laughed outright, though my mirth was but
hollow.
He jumped into the road and did as I directed. Making sure that
both windows were closed, I thrust the peacock into the cab and
shut the door upon it.
"For God's sake, sir!" began the driver—
"It has probably escaped from some collector's place on the
riverside," I explained, "but one never knows. See that it does not
escape again, and if at the end of an hour, as arranged, you do not
hear from me, take it back with you to the River Police
Station."
"Right you are, sir," said the man, remounting his seat. "It's
the first time I ever saw a peacock in Limehouse!"
It was the first time I had seen one, and the incident struck me
as being more than odd; it gave me an idea, and a new, faint hope.
I returned to the head of the steps, at the foot of which I had met
with this singular experience, and gazed up at the dark building
beneath which they led. Three windows were visible, but they were
broken and neglected. One, immediately above the arch, had been
pasted up with brown paper, and this was now peeling off in the
rain, a little stream of which trickled down from the detached
corner to drop, drearily, upon the stone stairs beneath.
Where were the detectives? I could only assume that they had
directed their attention elsewhere, for had the place not been
utterly deserted, surely I had been challenged.
In pursuit of my new idea, I again descended the steps. The
persuasion (shortly to be verified) that I was close upon the
secret hold of the Chinaman, grew stronger, unaccountably. I had
descended some eight steps, and was at the darkest part of the
archway or tunnel, when confirmation of my theories came to me.
A noose settled accurately upon my shoulders, was snatched
tightly about my throat, and with a feeling of insupportable agony
at the base of my skull, and a sudden supreme knowledge that I was
being strangled—hanged—I lost consciousness!
How long I remained unconscious, I was unable to determine at
the time, but I learned later, that it was for no more than half an
hour; at any rate, recovery was slow.
The first sensation to return to me was a sort of repetition of
the asphyxia. The blood seemed to be forcing itself into my eyes—I
choked—I felt that my end was come. And, raising my hands to my
throat, I found it to be swollen and inflamed. Then the floor upon
which I lay seemed to be rocking like the deck of a ship, and I
glided back again into a place of darkness and forgetfulness.
My second awakening was heralded by a returning sense of smell;
for I became conscious of a faint, exquisite perfume.
It brought me to my senses as nothing else could have done, and
I sat upright with a hoarse cry. I could have distinguished that
perfume amid a thousand others, could have marked it apart from the
rest in a scent bazaar. For me it had one meaning, and one meaning
only—Karamaneh.
She was near to me, or had been near to me!
And in the first moments of my awakening, I groped about in the
darkness blindly seeking her.
Then my swollen throat and throbbing head, together with my
utter inability to move my neck even slightly, reminded me of the
facts as they were. I knew in that bitter moment that Karamaneh was
no longer my friend; but, for all her beauty and charm, was the
most heartless, the most fiendish creature in the service of Dr.
Fu-Manchu. I groaned aloud in my despair and misery.
Something stirred, near to me in the room, and set my nerves
creeping with a new apprehension. I became fully alive to the
possibilities of the darkness.
To my certain knowledge, Dr. Fu-Manchu at this time had been in
England for fully three months, which meant that by now he must be
equipped with all the instruments of destruction, animate and
inanimate, which dread experience had taught me to associate with
him.
Now, as I crouched there in that dark apartment listening for a
repetition of the sound, I scarcely dared to conjecture what might
have occasioned it, but my imagination peopled the place with
reptiles which writhed upon the floor, with tarantulas and other
deadly insects which crept upon the walls, which might drop upon me
from the ceiling at any moment.
Then, since nothing stirred about me, I ventured to move,
turning my shoulders, for I was unable to move my aching head; and
I looked in the direction from which a faint, very faint, light
proceeded.
A regular tapping sound now began to attract my attention, and,
having turned about, I perceived that behind me was a broken
window, in places patched with brown paper; the corner of one sheet
of paper was detached, and the rain trickled down upon it with a
rhythmical sound.
In a flash I realized that I lay in the room immediately above
the archway; and listening intently, I perceived above the other
faint sounds of the night, or thought that I perceived, the hissing
of the gas from the extinguished lamp-burner.
Unsteadily I rose to my feet, but found myself swaying like a
drunken man. I reached out for support, stumbling in the direction
of the wall. My foot came in contact with something that lay there,
and I pitched forward and fell… .
I anticipated a crash which would put an end to my hopes of
escape, but my fall was comparatively noiseless—for I fell upon the
body of a man who lay bound up with rope close against the
wall!
A moment I stayed as I fell, the chest of my fellow captive
rising and falling beneath me as he breathed. Knowing that my life
depended upon retaining a firm hold upon myself, I succeeded in
overcoming the dizziness and nausea which threatened to drown my
senses, and, moving back so that I knelt upon the floor, I fumbled
in my pocket for the electric lamp which I had placed there. My
raincoat had been removed whilst I was unconscious, and with it my
pistol, but the lamp was untouched.
I took it out, pressed the button, and directed the ray upon the
face of the man beside me.
It was Nayland Smith!
Trussed up and fastened to a ring in the wall he lay, having a
cork gag strapped so tightly between his teeth that I wondered how
he had escaped suffocation.
But, although a grayish pallor showed through the tan of his
skin, his eyes were feverishly bright, and there, as I knelt beside
him, I thanked heaven, silently but fervently.
Then, in furious haste, I set to work to remove the gag. It was
most ingeniously secured by means of leather straps buckled at the
back of his head, but I unfastened these without much difficulty,
and he spat out the gag, uttering an exclamation of disgust.
"Thank God, old man!" he said, huskily. "Thank God that you are
alive! I saw them drag you in, and I thought… "
"I have been thinking the same about you for more than
twenty-four hours," I said, reproachfully. "Why did you start
without—"
"I did not want you to come, Petrie," he replied. "I had a sort
of premonition. You see it was realized; and instead of being as
helpless as I, Fate has made you the instrument of my release.
Quick! You have a knife? Good!" The old, feverish energy was by no
means extinguished in him. "Cut the ropes about my wrists and
ankles, but don't otherwise disturb them—"
I set to work eagerly.
"Now," Smith continued, "put that filthy gag in place again—but
you need not strap it so tightly! Directly they find that you are
alive, they will treat you the same—you understand? She has been
here three times—"
"Karamaneh?"…
"Ssh!"
I heard a sound like the opening of a distant door.
"Quick! the straps of the gag!" whispered Smith, "and pretend to
recover consciousness just as they enter—"
Clumsily I followed his directions, for my fingers were none too
steady, replaced the lamp in my pocket, and threw myself upon the
floor.
Through half-shut eyes, I saw the door open and obtained a
glimpse of a desolate, empty passage beyond. On the threshold stood
Karamaneh. She held in her hand a common tin oil lamp which smoked
and flickered with every movement, filling the already none too
cleanly air with an odor of burning paraffin. She personified the
outre; nothing so incongruous as her presence in that place could
well be imagined. She was dressed as I remembered once to have seen
her two years before, in the gauzy silks of the harem. There were
pearls glittering like great tears amid the cloud of her wonderful
hair. She wore broad gold bangles upon her bare arms, and her
fingers were laden with jewelry. A heavy girdle swung from her
hips, defining the lines of her slim shape, and about one white
ankle was a gold band.
As she appeared in the doorway I almost entirely closed my eyes,
but my gaze rested fascinatedly upon the little red slippers which
she wore.
Again I detected the exquisite, elusive perfume, which, like a
breath of musk, spoke of the Orient; and, as always, it played
havoc with my reason, seeming to intoxicate me as though it were
the very essence of her loveliness.
But I had a part to play, and throwing out one clenched hand so
that my fist struck upon the floor, I uttered a loud groan, and
made as if to rise upon my knees.
One quick glimpse I had of her wonderful eyes, widely opened and
turned upon me with such an enigmatical expression as set my heart
leaping wildly—then, stepping back, Karamaneh placed the lamp upon
the boards of the passage and clapped her hands.
As I sank upon the floor in assumed exhaustion, a Chinaman with
a perfectly impassive face, and a Burman, whose pock-marked, evil
countenance was set in an apparently habitual leer, came running
into the room past the girl.
With a hand which trembled violently, she held the lamp whilst
the two yellow ruffians tied me. I groaned and struggled feebly,
fixing my gaze upon the lamp-bearer in a silent reproach which was
by no means without its effect.
She lowered her eyes, and I could see her biting her lip, whilst
the color gradually faded from her cheeks. Then, glancing up again
quickly, and still meeting that reproachful stare, she turned her
head aside altogether, and rested one hand upon the wall, swaying
slightly as she did so.
It was a singular ordeal for more than one of that incongruous
group; but in order that I may not be charged with hypocrisy or
with seeking to hide my own folly, I confess, here, that when again
I found myself in darkness, my heart was leaping not because of the
success of my strategy, but because of the success of that
reproachful glance which I had directed toward the lovely,
dark-eyed Karamaneh, toward the faithless, evil Karamaneh! So much
for myself.
The door had not been closed ten seconds, ere Smith again was
spitting out the gag, swearing under his breath, and stretching his
cramped limbs free from their binding. Within a minute from the
time of my trussing, I was a free man again; save that look where I
would—to right, to left, or inward, to my own conscience—two dark
eyes met mine, enigmatically.
"What now?" I whispered.
"Let me think," replied Smith. "A false move would destroy
us."
"How long have you been here?"
"Since last night."
"Is Fu-Manchu—"
"Fu-Manchu is here!" replied Smith, grimly—"and not only
Fu-Manchu, but—another."
"Another!"
"A higher than Fu-Manchu, apparently. I have an idea of the
identity of this person, but no more than an idea. Something
unusual is going on, Petrie; otherwise I should have been a dead
man twenty-four hours ago. Something even more important than my
death engages Fu-Manchu's attention—and this can only be the
presence of the mysterious visitor. Your seductive friend,
Karamaneh, is arrayed in her very becoming national costume in his
honor, I presume." He stopped abruptly; then added: "I would give
five hundred pounds for a glimpse of that visitor's face!"
"Is Burke—"
"God knows what has become of Burke, Petrie! We were both caught
napping in the establishment of the amiable Shen-Yan, where, amid a
very mixed company of poker players, we were losing our money like
gentlemen."
"But Weymouth—"
"Burke and I had both been neatly sand-bagged, my dear Petrie,
and removed elsewhere, some hours before Weymouth raided the
gaming-house. Oh! I don't know how they smuggled us away with the
police watching the place; but my presence here is sufficient
evidence of the fact. Are you armed?"
"No; my pistol was in my raincoat, which is missing."
In the dim light from the broken window, I could see Smith
tugging reflectively at the lobe of his left ear.
"I am without arms, too," he mused. "We might escape from the
window—"
"It's a long drop!"
"Ah! I imagined so. If only I had a pistol, or a revolver—"
"What should you do?"
"I should present myself before the important meeting, which, I
am assured, is being held somewhere in this building; and to-night
would see the end of my struggle with the Fu-Manchu group—the end
of the whole Yellow menace! For not only is Fu-Manchu here, Petrie,
with all his gang of assassins, but he whom I believe to be the
real head of the group—a certain mandarin—is here also!"