by Sax Rohmer
At the moment that the mummy-man — his head now on a level with the deck — perceived me, he stopped dead. Coincident with his stopping, the crack of a pistol sounded — from immediately beyond the boat.
Uttering a sort of sobbing sound, the creature fell — then clutched, with straining yellow fingers, at the rails, and, seemingly by dint of a great effort, swarmed along aft some twenty feet, with incredible swiftness and agility, and clambered on to the deck.
A second shot cracked sharply; and a voice (God, was I mad?) cried: “Hold him, Petrie!”
Rigid with fearful astonishment I stood, as out from the boat above me leapt a figure attired solely in shirt and trousers. The new-comer leapt away in the wake of the mummy-man — who had vanished around the corner by the smokeroom. Over his shoulder he cried back at me:
“The Bishop’s stateroom! See that no one enters!”
I clutched at my head — which seemed to be fiery hot; I realized, in my own person, the sensations of one who knows himself mad.
For the man who pursued the mummy was Nayland Smith!
I stood in the Bishop’s stateroom, Nayland Smith, his gaunt face wet with perspiration, beside me, handling certain odd-looking objects which littered the place, and lay about amid the discarded garments of the absent cleric.
“Pneumatic pads!” he snapped. “The man was a walking air-cushion!” He gingerly fingered two strange rubber appliances. “For distending the cheeks,” he muttered, dropping them disgustedly on the floor. “His hands and wrists betrayed him, Petrie. He wore his cuffs unusually long but could not entirely hide his bony wrists. To have watched him, whilst remaining myself unseen, was next to impossible; hence my device of tossing a dummy overboard, calculated to float for less than ten minutes! It actually floated nearly fifteen, as a matter of fact, and I had some horrible moments!”
“Smith!” I said, “how could you submit me ...?”
He clapped his hands on my shoulders.
“My dear old chap — there was no other way, believe me. From that boat I could see right into his stateroom, but, once in, I dare not leave it — except late at night, stealthily! The second spotted me one night and I thought the game was up, but evidently he didn’t report it.”
“But you might have confided....”
“Impossible! I’ll admit I nearly fell to the temptation that first night; for I could see into your room as well as into his!” He slapped me boisterously on the back, but his grey eyes were suspiciously moist. “Dear old Petrie! Thank God for our friends! But you’d be the first to admit, old man, that you’re a dead poor actor! Your portrayal of grief for the loss of a valued chum would not have convinced a soul on board!
“Therefore I made use of Stacey, whose callous attitude was less remarkable. Gad, Petrie! I nearly bagged our man the first night! The elaborate plan — Marconi message to get you out of the way, and so forth — had miscarried, and he knew the port-hole trick would be useless once we got into the open sea. He took a big chance. He discarded his clerical guise and peeped into your room — you remember? — but you were awake, and I made no move when he slipped back to his own cabin; I wanted to take him red-handed.”
“Have you any idea ...?”
“Who he is? No more than where he is! Probably some creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu specially chosen for the purpose; obviously a man of culture, and probably of thug ancestry. I hit him — in the shoulder; but even then he ran like a hare. We’ve searched the ship, without result. He may have gone overboard and chanced the swim to shore....”
We stepped out on to the deck. Around us was that unforgettable scene — Port Said by night. The ship was barely moving through the glassy water, now. Smith took my arm and we walked forward. Above us was the mighty peace of Egypt’s sky ablaze with splendour; around and about us moved the unique turmoil of the clearing-house of the Near East.
“I would give much to know the real identity of the Bishop of Damascus,” muttered Smith.
He stopped abruptly, snapping his teeth together and grasping my arm as in a vice. Hard upon his words had followed the rattling clangour as the great anchor was let go; but horribly intermingled with the metallic roar there came to us such a fearful inarticulate shrieking as to chill one’s heart.
The anchor plunged into the water of the harbour; the shrieking ceased. Smith turned to me, and his face was tragic in the light of the arc lamp swung hard by.
“We shall never know,” he whispered. “God forgive him — he must be in bloody tatters now. Petrie, the poor fool was hiding in the chain-locker!”
A little hand stole into mine. I turned quickly. Kâramanèh stood beside me. I placed my arm about her shoulders, drawing her close; and I blush to relate that all else was forgotten.
For a moment, heedless of the fearful turmoil forward, Nayland Smith stood looking at us. Then he turned, with his rare smile, and walked aft.
“Perhaps you’re right, Petrie!” he said.
THE SI-FAN MYSTERIES
OR, THE HAND OF FU MANCHU
This novel was published only a year after the previous novel concerning Fu Manchu, in 1917 — in America it had the title of The Hand of Fu Manchu — and had been serialised in 1916 in Collier’s magazine. It was so popular that the British publisher, Methuen, produced sixteen editions of the novel. Sadly and to the great disappointment of Fu Manchu’s many fans, this was to be the last story in the series until 1930. Rohmer was tiring of the characters and like Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, wanted to end the series and move on to other projects, which he did for some years. However, eventually Rohmer relented, just as Conan Doyle did.
The Si Fan was a secret society, sometimes chaired by Fu Manchu himself, and a forum for those criminals who wished to dominate the world with their activities and make China pre-eminent again. The concept of the Si Fan has been widely used in later twentieth century comics and graphic novels, in which its members are usually martial arts practitioners. It would appear that Rohmer did not invent the term Si Fan, but may have come across it in his reading for the novels; Si Fan has been used to describe a wide variety of real individuals and groups, for example a group of eastern Tibetan nomads carried this title, but generally speaking it does always apply to Eastern culture.
The story opens in a typically atmospheric way, with a late night visit to Petrie’s hotel room from Sir Denis Nayland Smith, determined hunter of the “Yellow Peril”. London is bathed in a “pea souper” of a fog, which adds to the mystery. Petrie is disappointed to hear that although (apparently) Fu Manchu is no more, an even more complex threat awaits the duo – the Si Fan, a dangerous criminal network. They go to meet with Sir Gregory Hale, newly returned from the Far East, as it would seem he has infiltrated the Si Fan and knows of their inner workings. They are too late: Hale is yet another victim of assassination, but in his dying moments he scrawls this note for them:
“Guard my diary…. Tibetan frontier … Key of India. Beware man …with the limp. Yellow … rising. Watch Tibet … the Si-Fan….”
The clues now appear thick and fast – mysterious petals in the dead man’s bed, a heavy metal chest that Hale was guarding literally with his life, and which is sought after by many undesirable criminal; and a partly veiled woman with dark, lustrous eyes, who seems very familiar to Petrie. Before long, the true and extraordinary mission of the venomous Si Fan is revealed to Petrie and Inspector Weymouth of Scotland Yard joins the case. A new and dangerous Oriental femme fatale makes an appearance in this story – Karmi, beautiful, exotic, dangerous and seductive. The object of Petrie’s unrequited love, the beautiful Karamaneh (who featured in the first two stories) also returns to Britain, but promptly disappears, to Petrie’s great disappointment. Even more dangerous, however, is the mysterious man with the limp. Who can he be?
The metal chest, it transpires, is known as the “Tûlun-Nûr box” and it is rather like a puzzle box, with a secret method of opening it. After a failed theft of the box that costs a man his life, Nayland Smit
h resolves to open it without delay. What does the mysterious box contain? Apart from its actual contents, it is an assassination tool, created by the man with the limp. It is not long before Petrie comes face to face with the man with the limp, and to his horror, realises who he is dealing with at last.
The gung-ho pace of the first two novels is slightly muted in this story, with atmosphere coming across as equally important as action. However, there are many clues, sinister characters, kidnappings, and forays into the Oriental dens of London, so fans of Fu Manchu and his pursuers will not be disappointed.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER I
THE TRAVELER FROM TIBET
“Who’s there?” I called sharply.
I turned and looked across the room. The window had been widely opened when I entered, and a faint fog haze hung in the apartment, seeming to veil the light of the shaded lamp. I watched the closed door intently, expecting every moment to see the knob turn. But nothing happened.
“Who’s there?” I cried again, and, crossing the room, I threw open the door.
The long corridor without, lighted only by one inhospitable lamp at a remote end, showed choked and yellowed with this same fog so characteristic of London in November. But nothing moved to right nor left of me. The New Louvre Hotel was in some respects yet incomplete, and the long passage in which I stood, despite its marble facings, had no air of comfort or good cheer; palatial it was, but inhospitable.
I returned to the room, reclosing the door behind me, then for some five minutes or more I stood listening for a repetition of that mysterious sound, as of something that both dragged and tapped, which already had arrested my attention. My vigilance went unrewarded. I had closed the window to exclude the yellow mist, but subconsciously I was aware of its encircling presence, walling me in, and now I found myself in such a silence as I had known in deserts but could scarce have deemed possible in fog-bound London, in the heart of the world’s metropolis, with the traffic of the Strand below me upon one side and the restless life of the river upon the other.
It was easy to conclude that I had been mistaken, that my nervous system was somewhat overwrought as a result of my hurried return from Cairo — from Cairo where I had left behind me many a fondly cherished hope. I addressed myself again to the task of unpacking my steamer-trunk and was so engaged when again a sound in the corridor outside brought me upright with a jerk.
A quick footstep approached the door, and there came a muffled rapping upon the panel.
This time I asked no question, but leapt across the room and threw the door open. Nayland Smith stood before me, muffled up in a heavy traveling coat, and with his hat pulled down over his brows.
“At last!” I cried, as my friend stepped in and quickly reclosed the door.
Smith threw his hat upon the settee, stripped off the great-coat, and pulling out his pipe began to load it in feverish haste.
“Well,” I said, standing amid the litter cast out from the trunk, and watching him eagerly, “what’s afoot?”
Nayland Smith lighted his pipe, carelessly dropping the match-end upon the floor at his feet.
“God knows what is afoot this time, Petrie!” he replied. “You and I have lived no commonplace lives; Dr. Fu-Manchu has seen to that; but if I am to believe what the Chief has told me to-day, even stranger things are ahead of us!”
I stared at him wonder-stricken.
“That is almost incredible,” I said; “terror can have no darker meaning than that which Dr. Fu-Manchu gave to it. Fu-Manchu is dead, so what have we to fear?”
“We have to fear,” replied Smith, throwing himself into a corner of the settee, “the Si-Fan!”
I continued to stare, uncomprehendingly.
“The Si-Fan — —”
“I always knew and you always knew,” interrupted Smith in his short, decisive manner, “that Fu-Manchu, genius that he was, remained nevertheless the servant of another or others. He was not the head of that organization which dealt in wholesale murder, which aimed at upsetting the balance of the world. I even knew the name of one, a certain mandarin, and member of the Sublime Order of the White Peacock, who was his immediate superior. I had never dared to guess at the identity of what I may term the Head Center.”
He ceased speaking, and sat gripping his pipe grimly between his teeth, whilst I stood staring at him almost fatuously. Then —
“Evidently you have much to tell me,” I said, with forced calm.
I drew up a chair beside the settee and was about to sit down.
“Suppose you bolt the door,” jerked my friend.
I nodded, entirely comprehending, crossed the room and shot the little nickel bolt into its socket.
“Now,” said Smith as I took my seat, “the story is a fragmentary one in which there are many gaps. Let us see what we know. It seems that the despatch which led to my sudden recall (and incidentally yours) from Egypt to London and which only reached me as I was on the point of embarking at Suez for Rangoon, was prompted by the arrival here of Sir Gregory Hale, whilom attaché at the British Embassy, Peking. So much, you will remember, was conveyed in my instructions.”
“Quite so.”
“Furthermore, I was instructed, you’ll remember, to put up at the New Louvre Hotel; therefore you came here and engaged this suite whilst I reported to the chief. A stranger business is before us, Petrie, I verily believe, than any we have known hitherto. In the first place, Sir Gregory Hale is here — —”
“Here?”
“In the New Louvre Hotel. I ascertained on the way up, but not by direct inquiry, that he occupies a suite similar to this, and incidentally on the same floor.”
“His report to the India Office, whatever its nature, must have been a sensational one.”
“He has made no report to the India Office.”
“What! made no report?”
“He has not entered any office whatever, nor will he receive any representative. He’s been playing at Robinson Crusoe in a private suite here for close upon a fortnight — id est since the time of his arrival in London!”
I suppose my growing perplexity was plainly visible, for Smith suddenly burst out with his short, boyish laugh.
“Oh! I told you it was a strange business,” he cried.
“Is he mad?”
Nayland Smith’s gaiety left him; he became suddenly stern and grim.
“Either mad, Petrie, stark raving mad, or the savior of the Indian Empire — perhaps of all Western civilization. Listen. Sir Gregory Hale, whom I know slightly and who honors me, apparently, with a belief that I am the only man in Europe worthy of his confidence, resigned his appointment at Peking some time ago, and set out upon a private expedition to the Mongolian frontier with the avowed intention of visiting some place in the Gobi Desert. From the time that he actually crossed the frontier he disappeared for nearly six months
, to reappear again suddenly and dramatically in London. He buried himself in this hotel, refusing all visitors and only advising the authorities of his return by telephone. He demanded that I should be sent to see him; and — despite his eccentric methods — so great is the Chief’s faith in Sir Gregory’s knowledge of matters Far Eastern, that behold, here I am.”
He broke off abruptly and sat in an attitude of tense listening. Then —
“Do you hear anything, Petrie?” he rapped.
“A sort of tapping?” I inquired, listening intently myself the while.
Smith nodded his head rapidly.
We both listened for some time, Smith with his head bent slightly forward and his pipe held in his hands; I with my gaze upon the bolted door. A faint mist still hung in the room, and once I thought I detected a slight sound from the bedroom beyond, which was in darkness. Smith noted me turn my head, and for a moment the pair of us stared into the gap of the doorway. But the silence was complete.
“You have told me neither much nor little, Smith,” I said, resuming for some reason, in a hushed voice. “Who or what is this Si-Fan at whose existence you hint?”
Nayland Smith smiled grimly.
“Possibly the real and hitherto unsolved riddle of Tibet, Petrie,” he replied— “a mystery concealed from the world behind the veil of Lamaism.” He stood up abruptly, glancing at a scrap of paper which he took from his pocket— “Suite Number 14a,” he said. “Come along! We have not a moment to waste. Let us make our presence known to Sir Gregory — the man who has dared to raise that veil.”
CHAPTER II
THE MAN WITH THE LIMP
“Lock the door!” said Smith significantly, as we stepped into the corridor.
I did so and had turned to join my friend when, to the accompaniment of a sort of hysterical muttering, a door further along, and on the opposite side of the corridor, was suddenly thrown open, and a man whose face showed ghastly white in the light of the solitary lamp beyond, literally hurled himself out. He perceived Smith and myself immediately. Throwing one glance back over his shoulder he came tottering forward to meet us.