by Sax Rohmer
I turned and ran back to the hotel, hoping I might meet no one to whom I should feel called upon to give an explanation of my eccentric conduct.
There came an ominous rumbling, and I saw with annoyance that crowds were pouring in at the entrance. However, I made a rush for it; earned some stinging comments on the part of guests into whom I bumped—dashed across the lobby and out onto the terrace.
A line of cars and taxicabs was drawn up outside. This I had time to note as I went flying down the steps. I turned sharply right.
I was only just in time. A wonderfully slender ankle, an arched instep, and a high-heeled golden shoe provided the only clue.
The woman had just entered a car stationed, not outside the terrace of the hotel, but over by the arcade opposite. At the very moment that I heard the clang of its closing door, the car moved off, going in the direction ofEsbekiyeh Gardens.
I ran to the end of the rank of waiting cabs and cars, and, grabbing an Egyptian driver who brought up the tail of the procession:
“Look!” I said rapidly in Arabic, and pulled him about, “where I am pointing!”
The hour being no later than ten o’clock, there was still a fair amount of traffic about. But I could see the car, a long, low two-seater, proceeding at no great speed, in the direction of the Continental.
“You see that yellow car? The one that has just reached the corner!”
The man stared as I pointed; and then:
“Yes, I see it.”
“Then follow it! Double fare if you keep it in sight!”
That settled the matter. He sprang to the wheel in a flash. And whilst I half knelt on the seat, looking back, he turned his cab with reckless disregard of oncoming traffic and started off at racing speed….
Other cars were in the way, now, but I could still discern that in which the woman had driven off. I saw it turn left. I bent forward, shouting to the driver.
They have turned left—did you see?”
“Yes.”
An English policeman shouted angrily as my driver swerved to avoid a pedestrian and drove madly on. But the magic of a double fare infected him like a virus. He took the comer by the Gardens, when we reached it, at breakneck speed, and foreseeing disaster if this continued:
“Take it easy!” I shouted, leaning forward. “I can see them ahead. I don’t want to catch them—only to keep them in sight.”
The man nodded, and our progress became less furious. The atmosphere remained oppressive, but a few stars began to creep out overhead, and I saw ragged borders of the black cloud moving away over the Mokattam Hills. Rumbling of thunder grew more distant.
I could see the car ahead very clearly, now, for indeed we were quite near to it. And I found time to wonder where it could possibly be going.
We were leaving the European city behind and heading for the Oriental. In fact, it began to dawn upon me that Fah Lo Suee was making for the Muski—that artery of the bazaar streets, hives of industry during the day, but desolate as a city of the dead at night.
I was right.
The last trace of native night life left behind us, I saw the yellow car, proceeding in leisurely fashion, head straight into that deserted thoroughfare. My driver followed. We passed a crossways but still carried on, presently to turn right. I saw a mosque ahead, but my brain was so excited that at the moment I failed to identify it. My knowledge of native Cairo is not extensive at the best.
We left the mosque behind, the narrow street being far from straight and I in a constant fever lest we should lose sight of the yellow car. Then, I saw it—just passing another, larger mosque.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Sukkariya,” he replied, slowing down still more and negotiating a right-angle turn.
Empty shops and unlighted houses were all about us. For some time now we had met not a single pedestrian. It was utterly mystifying. Where could the woman possibly be heading for?
“Where does this lead to?”
“Mosque of Muayyad-Bab ez Zuwela….”
Fah Lo Suee, of course, must have known now that she was pursued, but this I considered to be unavoidable, since in that maze of narrow streets that only a native driver could have negotiated, to lose sight of her for a moment would have meant failure.
Right again went the long, low French car.
“Don’t know the name,” my driver announced nonchalantly.
We turned into the narrowest street we had yet endeavoured to negotiate.
“Pull up!” I ordered sharply.
The place was laden with those indescribable smells which belong to the markets of the East, but nowhere could I see a light, or any evidence of human occupation. Narrow alleys intersected the street—mere black caverns.
Ahead, I saw the yellow car moving away again. But, for the second time that night, I had a glimpse of an arched instep, of a golden shoe.
Fah Lo Suee had alighted from the car, which evidently someone else was driving, and had walked into a narrow alley not twenty yards along.
I jumped out.
“Stay here,” I ordered. “Don’t move, whatever happens, until I come back.”
I set out at the double, pulling up when I gained the entrance to the alley, and peering into its utter blackness. I heard the distant rumbling of thunder. It died away into oppressive silence.
No sound of footsteps reached me, and there was no glimmer of light ahead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH
DR. FU MANCHU
I began to grope my way along a dark, unevenly paved passage, but I had taken no more than two steps forward when the folly of my behaviour crashed upon me like a revelation. If the woman who had disappeared somewhere ahead were indeed she whom we had known as Madame Ingomar, what a fool I was to thrust myself into this rat trap!
For a man to experience such terrors in regard to a woman may seem feeble; but from bitter experience I knew something of the weapons at command of Fah Lo Suee. That I might be mistaken about the identity of the gold mask was remotely possible, but no more than remotely so.
In a few fleeting seconds I reviewed the queer episode from the moment when I had seen that green-robed figure in Shepheard’s garden—and I realised with bleak certainty that her behaviour had been directly to one end and to one end only. A trap had been baited…and I had fallen into it like the veriest fool.
I pulled up sharply, stretching out my hands to learn if any obstruction lay ahead. In the heat of the chase I had thrown precaution aside. I realised now, too late, that I was unarmed, alone; no one but the driver of the taxicab had the slightest idea where I had gone.
This same counsel came in the same moment that panic threatened. What else I could have done if the woman were not to escape unmasked was not clear. But to have sent a message to Smith, to Petrie, to the chief, before setting out, seemed, now, a more reasonable course.
And as the things which I had not done presented themselves starkly before me, a wave of that abominable perfume of mimosa which to the end of my days I must associate with the death of poor Van Berg was swept into my face….
It stifled me, engulfed me, struck me dumb. I remember that I tried to cry out, recognising in this awful moment that my only chance was to attract the attention of the Egyptian driver.
But never a sound came, only an increase of darkness, a deadly sickness, and a maddening knowledge that among fools in the land of Egypt I might claim high rank….
My next impression was of acute pain in the left ankle. My head was swimming as though I had recently indulged in a wild debauch, and my eyelids were so heavy that I seemed to experience physical difficulty in raising them.
I did raise them, however, and (a curious circumstance, later to be explained) my brain immediately began to function from the very moment that I had smelled that ghastly perfume.
My first thought, now, overlapped my last before unconsciousness had claimed me. I thought that I lay in that nameless alley somewhere behind the Mosque ofMuayyad and that in fall
ing I had twisted my ankle. I expected darkness, but I saw light.
Raising my hands, I rubbed my aching eyes, staring about me dazedly. I was furiously thirsty, but in absolute possession of my senses. I looked down at my ankle, which pained me intensely, and made a discovery so remarkable that it engaged my attention even in the surroundings amid which I found myself.
I was lying on a divan; and about each of my ankles was fastened a single loop of dull, gray-yellow line resembling catgut and no thicker than a violin string. Amazing to relate—there were apparently no knots!
One of these loops was drawn so tightly as to be painful, and a single strand, some twelve inches long, connected the left ankle with the right. I struggled to my feet—and was surprised, since I knew I had been drugged, to find that my muscular reactions were perfectly normal.
Evidently my common sense was subnormal (or I am slow to profit by experience); for, resting one foot firmly on the floor, I kicked forward with the other, fully anticipating that this fragile link would snap.
The result must have been comic; but I had no audience. I kicked myself backward with astonishing velocity, falling among the cushions of the divan, from which I had not moved away!
Fortunately, the tendon escaped serious injury; but this first experiment was also the last. I had, tardily, recognized my bonds to be of that mysterious substance which had figured in our Ispahan adventure. I should not have been more helpless, save that I could shuffle about the room, if iron fetters had confined me.
I lay where I had fallen, gazing about. And I knew, as I had known in the very moment of opening my heavy-lidded eyes, that this was an amazing room in which I found myself.
It was a long, low salon, obviously that of an old Egyptian house, as the woodwork, a large mushrabiyeh window, and the tiling upon part of the wall clearly indicated. There were a few good rugs upon the floor, and light was furnished by several lamps, shaded incongruously in unmistakable Chinese fashion, which swung from the wooden ceiling.
The furniture was scanty, some of it Arab in character but some of it of Chinese lacquer. Right and left of the recessed window (which, wrongly, as after events showed, I assumed to overlook a street adjoining that alleyway behind the mosque) were deep bookcases laden with volumes. These, to judge from their unfamiliar binding, might have been rare works.
There were a number of glass cases in the room, containing most singular objects. In one was what looked like a living human head, that of a woman. But, as I focused my horrified gaze upon it, I saw that it was an unusually perfect mummy head. In another, which was obviously heated, I saw growing foliage and, watching it more closely, realised that a number of small, vividly green snakes moved among the leaves. A human skeleton, perfect, I thought, even to the small bones, stood in a rack in a gap between the bookcases. The window recess was glazed to form a sort of small conservatory, and through the glass, dimly, I could see that bloated flesh-coloured orchids were growing.
I stood up again, testing my injured ankle. It pained intensely, but the tendon had survived the jerk. I began to shuffle forward in the direction of a large, plain wooden table, resembling a monkish refectory table, before which was set one of those polished, inlaid chairs which are produced in the bazaars of Damascus.
There were some of those strange-looking volumes upon this table, as well as a number of scientific instruments, test tubes, and chemical paraphernalia. As I stood up, I saw that the table was covered with a sheet of glass.
Changing my position, other glass cases came into view;
they contained rows of chemical bottles and apparatus. The place was more than half a laboratory. And I noticed, looking behind me, that there was a working bench in one comer fitted with electrical devices, although of a character quite unfamiliar.
The truth came subconsciously ahead of its positive confirmation. There were three doors to the salon, perfectly plain white teak doors. And in the very moment that I recognized a peculiar fact—viz: that they possessed neither bolts, handles, nor keyholes—one of these doors opened and slid noiselessly to the left.
I found myself alone with Dr. Fu Manchu.
CHAPTER NINETEENTH
FORMULA ELIXIR VITAE
He wore a green robe upon which was embroidered a white peacock, and on the dome of his wonderful skull a little cap was perched—a black cap surmounted by a coral ball. The door slid silently to behind him, and he stood watching me.
Once and once only, hitherto, had I seen the mandarin Fu Manchu. He had impressed me, then, as one of the most gigantic forces ever embodied in a human form: but amazing—and amazingly horrible—he seemed, now, as he stood looking at me, to have shaken off part of the burden of years under which he had stooped on that unforgettable night in London.
He carried no stick; his long, bony hands were folded upon his breast. He was drawn up to his full, gaunt height, which I judged to be over six feet. His eyes, which were green as the eyes of a leopard, fixed me with a glance so piercing that it extended my powers to the full to sustain it.
There are few really first-class brains in the world to-day, but no man with any experience of humanity, looking into those long brilliant eyes could have doubted that he stood in the presence of a super-mind.
I cannot better describe my feelings than by saying I felt myself to be absorbed; mentally and spiritually sucked empty by that awful gaze.
Even as this ghastly sensation, which I find myself unable properly to convey in words, overwhelmed me, a queer sort of film obscured the emerald eyes of Dr. Fu Manchu, and I experienced immediate relief.
I remembered in that fleeting moment a discussion between Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie touching this phenomenal quality of Fu Manchu’s eyes, which the doctor frankly admitted he had never met with before, and for which he could not account.
Walking slowly, but with a cat-like dignity, Fu Manchu crossed to the long table, seating himself in the chair. His slippered feet made no sound. The room was silent as a tomb.
The scene had that quality which belongs to dreams. No plan presented itself, and I found myself tongue-tied.
Fu Manchu pressed the button of a shaded lamp upon a silver pedestal, and raising a small, pear-shaped vessel from a rack, examined its contents against the light. It contained some colourless fluid.
His hands were singular: long, bony, flexible fingers, in which, caricatured, as it were, I saw the unforgettable ivory fingers of Fah Lo Suee.
He replaced the vessel in the rack and turned to a page of one of those large volumes which lay open beside him. Seemingly considering it, he began to speak absent-mindedly.
His voice was as I remembered it, except that I thought it had acquired greater power: guttural but perfectly clear. He gave to every syllable its true value. Indeed, he spoke the purest English of any man I have ever heard.
“Mr Greville,” he said, “I trust that any slight headache which you may have experienced on awakening has now disappeared.”
I stood watching him where he sat, but attempted no reply.
“Formerly,” he continued, “I employed sometimes a preparation of Indian hemp and at other times various derivatives of opium with greater or less success. An anaesthetic prepared from the common puffball for many years engaged my attention also; but I have now improved upon these.”
He extended one long, green-draped arm, picking up and dropping with a faint rattling sound a number of brownish objects which looked like dried peas and which lay in a little tray upon the table.
“Seeds of a species of Mimosa pudica, found in Brazil and in parts of Asia,” he continued, never once glancing in my direction. “I should like you to inform our mutual friend Dr. Petrie, whom I esteem, that Western science is on the wrong track, and that the perfect anaesthetic is found in Mimosa pudica. You succumbed to it to-night, Mr. Greville, and you have been unconscious for nearly half an hour. But if you were a medical man you would admit that the effects are negligible. The mental hiatus, also, is bridged immediately.
Your first conscious thought was liked with your last. Am I right?”
“You are right,” I replied, looking down at my feet and won dering if a sudden spring would enable me to get my hands around that lean throat.
“Your reflexes are normal,” the slow, guttural voice continued. “The visceral muscles are unimpaired; there is no cardiac reaction. You are even now contemplating an assault upon me.” He turned to another page of the large volume. “But consider the facts, Mr. Greville. You are still young enough to be impetuous: permit me to warn you. That slender thread which confines your ankles, and which I understand Sir Lionel Barton mistook for silkworm gut, is actually prepared from the flocculent secretion of Theridion—a well known but interesting spider….
“You seem to be surprised. The secret of that preparation would make the fortune of any man of commerce into whose hands it might fall. I may add that it will not fall into the hands of any man of commerce. But I am wasting time.”
He stood up.
“I have studied you closely, Mr. Greville, in an endeavour to discern those qualities which have attracted my daughter.”
I started violently and clenched my fists.
“I find them to be typically British,” the calm voice continued, “and rather passive than active. You will never be a Nayland Smith, and you lack that odd detachment which might have made our mutual friend. Dr. Petrie, the most prominent physician of the Western world had he not preferred domesticity with an ex-servant of mine.”
Inch by inch I was edging nearer to him as he spoke.
“You cannot have failed to note an improvement in my physical condition since last we met, Mr. Greville. This is due to the success of an inquiry which has engaged me for no less a period than twenty-five years.”
He moved slowly in the direction of the mushrabiyeh window, and, frustrated, I pulled up.
“These orchids,” he continued, extending one bony hand to the glass case which occupied the recess, “I discovered nearly thirty years ago in certain forests of Burma. They occur at extremely rare intervals—traditionally only once in a century, but actually with rather greater frequency. From these orchids I have at last obtained, after twenty-five years of study, an essential oil which completes a particular formula—”