by Sax Rohmer
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 Kâramanèh — of Kâramanèh, 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 Antinoüs 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 Azîz — the brother of Kâramanèh!
Never could the entrance of a figure upon the stage of a drama have been more dramatic than the coming of Azîz 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 Kâramanèh, when I remembered 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, Kâramanèh 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 Azîz, 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 Azîz?”
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 Azîz, laying his hand upon my arm with a gesture painfully reminiscent of Kâramanèh— “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 grey eyes fixed almost fiercely upon the lad’s face.
“To Rangoon — yes; and there I hear news at last. I hear that you have seen her — have seen Kâramanèh — 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 Azîz, 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 Azîz, and I saw his glance travelling 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 Azîz:
“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 Azîz — 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 Kâramanèh....
“It was Fu-Manchu, my kind gentlemen — it was the hâkîm 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 Kâramanèh 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 Kâramanèh 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 Azîz, 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 Hâkîm Fu-Manchu? I hid, my gentlemen, and watched and waited, one — two — three weeks. At last I saw her again, my sister Kâramanèh; but ah! she did not know me, did not know me, Azîz, her brother! She was in an arabeeyeh, and passed me quickly along the Sharia en-Nahhâsin. 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 naïvely— “and here I am — Smith Pasha.”
Smith sprang upright again and turned to me.
“Either I am growing over-credulous,” he said, “or Azîz 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 Azîz can remain here until our return.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SAMURAI’S SWORD
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 solit
ary tree peeping, in silhouette above its 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-jewelled 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 a 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 Kâramanèh!
Less than six feet away from me she stood, arrayed in the gauzy dress of the harêm, 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 Kâramanèh.
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 Kâramanèh, 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 scepticism 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. Kâramanèh 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 traveller. I took a step forward.
“Don’t move!” snapped Smith.
Kâramanèh 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, what 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 Kâramanèh 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 clear, 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 Kâramanèh 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 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 charge
d with an anæsthetic prepared, by a process of my own, from the lycoperdon or Common Puffball.”
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 vapour 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 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 burnt 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.