by Sax Rohmer
This discovery determined my course.
Unknown dangers were ahead, but a definite enemy was on my trail. Even now, as I stood there listening, I could hear him cautiously descending, step by step.
He exercised great precaution, but in the silence of the night, nevertheless, I could detect his movements. I must deal with him first. Moreover, as I recognized, I must deal with him speedily. This stealthy pursuit was taking toll of my nerves.
I pictured to myself Dr. Fu-Manchu, some strange death in his hand, stalking me — the man who had presumed to trick him — cat-like, cruel, and awaiting his own moment to spring.
I looked about me: my eyes were becoming used to semi-darkness. I taxed my brain for some scheme of dealing with the tracker.
And as I began again to grope my way down the steps and came to another bend, a possible plan presented itself. The next flight, branching away at a sharp angle, was palely lighted by the moon. A sharp shadow-belt cut anglewise across the first three steps.
Making as little noise as possible, I hauled myself up on the parapet; not without injury, for a spiny kind of cactus grew there. But I finally reached the desired position, squatting in dense shadow.
With the advantage which this take-off gave me, I aimed to wait until my follower reached the bend, and then to spring upon his back and hurl him down the steps, trusting to break his neck and to save my own...
I had no more than poised myself for the spring when I heard him on the last step of the shadowy stairs.
He paused for a long time — I could hear him breathing. I clenched my fists and prepared to spring... He took a pace forward.
For one instant I saw his silhouette against the light.
“My God!” I cried. “You!”
It was Nayland Smith!
CHAPTER THIRTY. NAYLAND SMITH
“Thank God I found you, Sterling,” said Nayland Smith when the first shock of that meeting was over. “It’s a break-neck job in the dark, but I think we should be wise to put a greater distance between ourselves and the house. Do you know the way?”
“No.”
“I do, from here. I discovered it tonight. There are five more flights of stone steps and then a narrow path — a mere goat track on the edge of a precipice. It ultimately leads one down to the beach. There may be another way, but I don’t know it.”
“But,” said I, as we began to grope our way downward, “when we get to the beach?”
“I have a boat lying off, waiting for me. We have a lot to tell each other, but let’s make some headway before we talk.”
And so in silence we pursued our way, presently coming to the track of which Nayland Smith had spoken, truly perilous navigation in the darkness; a false step would have precipitated one into an apparently bottomless gorge.
Willy-nilly, I began listening again for that eerie recall note which I was always expecting to hear, wondering what would happen if it came and I did not obey — and what steps would be taken in the awful house of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
Some parts of the path were touched by moonlight, and here we proceeded with greater confidence. But when it lay, as it often did, in impenetrable shadow overhung by great outjutting masses of rock, it was necessary to test every foot of the way before trusting one’s weight to it.
At a very easy gradient the path sloped downward until, at the end of twenty minutes’ stumbling and scrambling, it ended in a narrow cutting between two huge boulders. Far ahead, framed in their giant blackness, I saw the moon glittering on the sea, and white-fringed waves gently lapping the shore.
Clear of the cutting — which Nayland Smith appeared to distrust — he dropped down upon a pebbly slope.
“Phew!” he exclaimed. “One of the strangest experiences of a not uneventful life!”
I dropped down beside him; nervous excitement and physical exertion had temporarily exhausted me.
“There’s definitely no time to waste,” he went on, speaking very rapidly. “It might be wiser to return to the boat. But a few minutes’ rest is acceptable, and I doubt if they could overtake us now. Bring me up to date, Sterling, from the time you left Quinto’s restaurant. I have interviewed the people there, and your movements as reported, prior to the moment when you drove away in Petrie’s car, struck me as curious. You crossed and spoke to a man who was standing on the opposite side of the street. Why?”
“I had seen one of the Dacoits watching me, and I wanted to find out which way he had gone.”
“Ah! And did you find out?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Go ahead, Sterling, and be as concise as you can.”
Whereupon I told him, endeavouring to omit nothing, all that had taken place. Frankly, I did not expect to be believed, but Nayland Smith, who in the darkness was busily loading his pipe, never once interrupted me until I came to the incident where, escaping from the worm-man, I had turned to find Fleurette in the room.
“Who is this girl?” he rapped; “and where did you meet her?”
“Perhaps I should have mentioned the incident before, Sir Denis,” I replied, “but naturally I did not believe it to have any connection with this ghastly business. I met her on the beach, out there.”
And I told him as shortly as possible of my first meeting with Fleurette.
“Describe her very carefully,” he directed tersely.
I did so in loving detail.
“You say she has violet eyes?”
“They appear sometimes very dark violet; sometimes I have thought they were blue.”
“Good. Go on with the story.”
I went on; telling him of Fah Lo Suee’s intervention and of how she had tricked the Japanese surgeon; of my second interview with Dr. Fu-Manchu, and even of the dream which I had had. Then, of Fah Lo Suee’s midnight visit, outlining what she had told me. Finally, I described my escape, and the opium sleep of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Sir Denis had lighted his pipe and now was smoking furiously.
“Amazing, Sterling,” he commented. “You seem actually to have seen what took place in Berlin. You have correctly described my movements up to the time that I reached the house of Professor Krus. This can have been no ordinary dream. It is possible that his girl possesses a gift of clairvoyance which Dr. Fu-Manchu uses. And it rather appears that, given suitable circumstances, her visions, or whatever we should term them, are communicated to your own brain. Have you ever dreamed of her before?”
“Yes,” I replied, my heart giving a sudden leap. “I fell asleep at the Villa Jasmin shortly after our first meeting, and dreamed that I saw her and Dr. Fu-Manchu — whom I had never met at the time — riding in a purple cloud which was swooping down upon a city... I thought, New York.”
“Ah!” rapped Nayland Smith. “My theory was right. There was once another woman, Sterling, who, under hypnotic direction from Dr. Fu-Manchu, possessed somewhat similar gifts. The doctor is probably the most accomplished hypnotist in the world. Many of his discoveries are undoubtedly due to his employment of these powers. And it would seem that there is some mental affinity between this girl’s brain and your own.”
My heart beat faster as he spoke the words.
“But as to what happened in Berlin: I arrived to find the Professor’s laboratory in flames!”
“What!”
“The origin of the fire could not be traced. Incendiarism was suspected by the police. Briefly, the place was burned to a shell, in spite of the efforts of the fire brigade... It is feared that the Professor was trapped in the flames.”
“Dead?”
“At the time of my hurried departure, the heat remained too great for any examination of the ruins. But from the moment that Dr. Krus was seen to enter his laboratory, no one attached to his household ever saw him again.”
“Good heavens!” I groaned, “the very gods seem to have been fighting against poor Petrie.”
“The gods?” Nayland Smith echoed grimly. “The gods of China — Fu-Manchu’s China...”
“Whatever do you mean, Sir Denis?”
“The burglary at Sir Manston Rorke’s,” he said, “Sir Manston’s sudden death — the fire at Professor Krus’s laboratory, and his disappearance: these things are no more coincidences than Fah Lo Suee’s visit to the hospital where Petrie lay. Then — something else, which I am going to tell you.”
He rested his hand upon my knee and went on rapidly:
“I dashed back to the aerodrome: there was nothing more I could do in Berlin. There came a series of unaccountable delays — none of which I could trace to its source. But they were deliberate, Sterling, they were deliberate. Someone was interested in hindering my return. However, ultimately I got away. It was late in the afternoon before I reached the hospital. I had had the news — about Petrie — when I landed, of course.”
He stopped for a moment, and I could tell he was clenching his pipe very tightly between his teeth; then:
“As is the custom,” he went on, “in cases of pestilence in a hot climate, they had... buried him.”
I reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
“It hit me very hard, too,” I said.
“I know it did. There is a long bill against Dr. Fu-Manchu, but you don’t know all yet. You see, the history of this brilliant Chinese horror is known to me in considerable detail. Although I didn’t doubt your word when you assured me that Fah Lo Suee had not touched Petrie in the hospital, you may recall that I questioned you very closely as to where she was sitting during the greater part of her visit?”
“I do.”
“Well!” He paused, taking his pipe from between his teeth and staring at me in the darkness. “She had brought something — probably hidden in a pocket inside her cloak—”
“You mean—”
“I mean that she succeeded in the purpose of her visit. Yes, Sterling! Oh, no blame attaches to you. That hell-cat is nearly as brilliant an illusionist as her illustrious father. Briefly, when Cartier and Brisson gave me a detailed account of the symptoms which had preceded the end — I was not satisfied.”
“Not satisfied of what?”
“You shall hear.”
He paused for a moment and grasped my arm.
“Listen!”
We sat there, both listening intently.
“What did you think you heard?” I whispered.
“I am not certain that I heard anything; but it may have been a vague movement on the path. Are you armed?”
“No.”
“I am. If I give the word — run for it. I’ll bring up the rear. The boat is hidden just under the headland. They will pull in, and we can wade out to them.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE. FU-MANCHU’S ARMY
“Your disappearance on the road from Monte Carlo,” Nayland Smith went on, “puzzled me extraordinarily. The guiding hand behind this business had ceased to be a matter of speculation: I knew that we were dealing with Dr. Fu-Manchu. But where you belonged in the scheme was not clear to me. I had urgent personal work to do, necessitating the bringing of pressure to bear on the French authorities. Therefore, I delegated to a local chief of police the task of tracing your movements step by step, on the night of your disappearance.
“This was undertaken with that admirable thoroughness which characterizes police work here, and involved a house-to-house inquiry along many miles of the Corniche road. In the meantime, working unremittingly, I had secured the powers which I sought. Petrie’s grave — a very hurried one — was reopened...”
“What!”
“Yes; it was a pretty ghastly task. In order to perform it in secrecy we had to close the place and post police upon the roads approaching it. However, it was accomplished at last, and the common coffin in which the interment had taken place was hauled up and laid upon the earth.”
“My God!” I groaned.
“I have undertaken some unpleasant duties, Sterling, but the sound of the screws being extracted and the thought that presently—”
He broke off and sat silent for a while.
“It was done at last,” he went on, “and I think I came nearer to fainting than I have ever been in my life. Not from horror, not from sorrow; but because my theory — my eleventh-hour hope — had proved to have a substratum of fact.”
“What do you mean, Sir Denis?”
“I mean that Petrie was not in the coffin!”
“Not in the coffin!... It was empty?”
“Not at all.” He laughed grimly. “It contained a body right enough. The body of a Burman. The mark of Kali was on his brow — and he had died from a shot wound in the stomach.”
“Good heavens! The Dacoit who—”
“Exactly, Sterling! Your late friend of the Villa Jasmin, beyond doubt. You will observe that Dr. Fu-Manchu finds uses for his servants — dead, as well as living!”
“But this is astounding! What does it mean?”
Quite a long time elapsed before Sir Denis replied:
“I don’t dare to hope that it means what I wish it to mean,” he said; “but — Petrie was not buried.”
I was literally breathless with astonishment, but at last:
“Whenever can so amazing a substitution have taken place?” I asked.
“The very question to which I next applied myself,” Nayland Smith replied. “Half an hour’s inquiry established the facts. The little mortuary, which, I believe, you have visited, is not guarded. And his body, hastily encased, as I have indicated, lay there throughout the night. The mortuary is a lonely building, as you may remember. For Dr. Fu-Manchu’s agents such a substitution was a simple matter.”
“What do you think?” I broke in.
“I don’t dare tell you what I think — or hope. But Dr. Fu-Manchu is the greatest physician the world has ever known. Come on! Let’s establish contact with the police boat.”
He stood up and began to walk rapidly down to the beach. We had about reached the spot where first I had set eyes upon Fleurette, when a boat with two rowers and two men in the stern shot out from shadow into moonlight and was pulled in towards us.
Sir Denis suddenly raised his arm, signalling that they should go about.
I watched the boat swing round and saw it melt again into the shadows from which it had come. I met the glance of eyes steely in the moonlight.
“An idea has occurred to me,” said Sir Denis.
I thought that he watched me strangely.
“If it concerns myself,” I replied, “count on me for anything.”
“Good man!”
He clapped his hand on my shoulder.
“Before I mention it, I must bring you up to date. Move back into the shadow.”
We walked up the beach, and then:
“I checked up on the police reports,” he went on. “That dealing with Ste Claire was the only one which I regarded as unsatisfactory. Ste Claire, as you probably know, was formerly an extensive monastery; in fact, many of the vineyards in this neighbourhood formerly yielded their produce to the Father Abbot. When the community dispersed, it came into the possession of some noble family whose name I have forgotten. The point of interest and the point which attracted me was this: The place is built on a steep hillside, opening into a deep cleft which we have just negotiated, rather less than a mile in length. The chief building, now known as a villa, but a reconstruction of the former monastery, is surrounded by one or two other buildings — and there is a little straggling street. It has been the property for the last fifteen years of a certain wealthy Argentine gentleman, regarding whose history I have set inquiries on foot.
“More recently, the lease was taken over by one Mahdi Bey, of whom I have been able to learn very little — except that he practised as a physician in Alexandria at one time, and is evidently a man of great wealth. He it was who closed Ste Claire to the public. However, the police in the course of their inquiries paid a domiciliary visit some time during yesterday afternoon. They were received by a major domo who apologized for the absence of his master, who is apparently in Paris.
“They were shown over the villa and
the adjoining houses, occupied now, I gather, by dependents of the Bey. No information was obtained upon the subject of your disappearance.
“But, in glancing through the police report, bearing in mind that I was definitely looking for a place occupied by Dr. Fu-Manchu, a process of elimination showed me that of all the establishments visited, Ste Claire alone remained suspect.
“The Argentine owner had built a number of remarkable forcing houses. The police, under my directions and unaware of the reasons for them, were ostensibly searching for an escaped criminal, which enabled them tactfully to explore the various villas en route. I noted in their report that they had merely glanced into these houses, nor did I come upon any account of the enormous wine cellars, enlargements of natural caves, which, I was informed, lay below the former monastery.
“The character and extent of Dr. Fu-Manchu’s new campaign dawned upon me suddenly, Sterling. I wonder if it has dawned upon you?”
“I’m afraid it hasn’t,” I confessed. “I have alternated between the belief that I was dead and the belief that I was delirious almost throughout the time that I have been in that house. But, knowing now that what I saw was not phantasy, I am still in doubt, I must confess, as to the nature of this ‘war’ which threatens.”
“Its nature is painfully clear,” Nayland Smith rapped. “Somewhere in this place there are thousands — perhaps millions — of those damnable flies! The deaths of which we know were merely experimental. The cases were watched secretly, with great interest, by Dr. Fu-Manchu or his immediate agents. It was the duty of one of his servants — probably a Burman — to release one of these flies in the neighbourhood of the selected victim. I have learned that they seek shadow during the daytime, and operate at dusk and in artificial light. Directly there was presumptive evidence that the fly had bitten the selected subject, it was the duty of Fu-Manchu’s servant to place a spray of this fly-catching plant — the name of which I don’t know — where it would attract the fly.
“To make assurance doubly sure, the seductive leaves were sprayed with human blood! Vegetable fly-papers, Sterling — nothing less!”