by Sax Rohmer
Into some dark, paved place, I was finally bundled. I divined, rather than knew, that Nayland Smith lay beside me.
“Sir Denis,” I gasped.
Wiry fingers gripped my throat, squeezing me to silence; but:
“Here!” Smith replied.
The word was cut off shortly—significantly.
There came a stirring up above—a sound of voices—of movement… shuffling.
My brain began to work rapidly, despite all the maltreatment my skull had received. This was an unexpected visit of some kind! The house was being cleared of its noxious elements, of its prisoners; made presentable for inspection!
Possibly—the thought set my heart hammering—Weymouth, after all, had secured some clue which had led him here.
I listened intently.
Short, regular breathing almost in my ear warned me that the slightest sound on my part would result in that strangle grip being renewed.
Yes! It was the police!
There were heavy footsteps in the lobby above—deep voices.
Those sounds died away.
I told myself that the search party had gone up to explore the higher floors—and I wondered who was posing as owner of the house—and what had been done with the body of Li King Su.
The cellar in which I lay possessed drum-like properties. I distinctly heard heavy footsteps on the stairs—descending.
Perhaps the searchers had been satisfied! Perhaps they were about to go!
Louder grew the footsteps… louder…
Then, I heard, and recognized, a deep voice—
Weymouth!
At that, I determined to risk all.
A significant choking sound which came from the darkness behind might have warned me—for, even as I opened my mouth, a lean, oily smelling hand covered it—a steely grip was on my throat!…
“I trust you are satisfied, Inspector?” I heard, in a quavering female voice. “If there is anything else—”
“Nothing further, madam, thank you!”… Weymouth!… “Evidently she didn’t come here. I can only apologize for troubling you.”
Receding footsteps… murmurs of conversation.
The bang of a street door!
My head dropped back limply as the deathly grip was removed; a whisper came out of the darkness:
“A divine accident—wasted!”
Nayland Smith was the speaker… and I knew that that indomitable spirit was very near to despair.
What possibly could have led Weymouth here? Clearly, he had no information to justify a detailed search; no warrant. “Evidently she didn’t come here…” In those words the clue lay. And who was the old woman of the quavering voice?
Rapidly, these reflections flashed through my mind—but uppermost was a sense of such bitter, hopeless disappointment as I had never known before.
Truly, it was Fate.
Perhaps, as Fah Lo Suee believed, as Li King Su had believed, the day of the West was ended; perhaps we were obstacles in the way of some cataclysmic change, ordained, inevitable—and so must be brushed aside.
When presently we found ourselves back in that room where the figure of Kâli sat, immutable, on a lacquer dais, I told myself that nothing which could happen now could stir me from this dreadful apathy into which I was fallen. And, as had been the case so often in my dealings with this fiendish group, I was wrong.
From my place on the divan I stared across at Nayland Smith where he sat limply in the armchair. Then I looked quickly around.
Some time before I had suspected the tall lacquer cabinet— because of its resemblance to one I remembered at Abbots Hold—of being a concealed door. I had imagined that the figure of Kâli which surmounted it was moving. I had been right.
The masked door opened and Fah Lo Suee came in.
She wore black gloves, carried a white silk shawl, a lace cap, and a pair of spectacles!… Her smile was mocking.
I might have known—from her uncanny power of mastering languages and dialects—who the “old woman” had been!
“A difficult moment, Shan,” she said composedly. “Something I had not foreseen or provided for. A keener brain—such as yours, Sir Denis—might have challenged the gloves, even in the case of a very eccentric old lady!”
She began to pull them off, revealing those beautiful, long, feline hands.
“But my hands are rather memorable,” she added, without hint of vanity and simply as a statement of fact. “A late but expected guest was traced here. Fortunately, the taxi driver upon whose evidence the visit, was made was uncertain of the number. But it was very clever of the superintendent—following a telephone call from the lady’s last address—to find the man who had driven her from the station.”
She turned her long, narrow eyes in Nayland Smith’s direction… and I saw his jaw harden as he clenched his teeth. I know, now, that already he understood.
“I respect you so much, Sir Denis,” she went on, “that I know your removal is vital to my council. But I promise you it shall be swift.”
Nayland Smith remained silent.
“A traitor has already paid the price which we demand. When Li King Su and yourself are found together—the inference will be obvious. And I have arranged for you to be found at the Limehouse end of the Canal.”
Then Sir Denis spoke.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You wear the cloak of your lamented father gracefully.”
Perhaps some shade of emotion passed swiftly across the impassive face of Fah Lo Suee; perhaps I only imagined it. But she continued without pause:
“For you, Shan, I have pleasant duties in China—where I must return immediately, my work here undone.” Again she stared at Nayland Smith. “But I am not greedy, Shan, and you shall not be lonely.”
She clapped her hands.
The door from the lobby opened…
And Rima was pushed into the room by the Nubian!
Over those first few moments that followed, I must leave a veil. Exactly what took place I shall never know. The shock of it stupefied me.
“… They said you were ill, Shan… I came right away without waiting to speak to a soul…”
Those words reached me through a sort of drumming in my head. Now I saw Rima’s grave eyes turn to Fah Lo Suee in such a look of loathing horror as I had never seen in them before.
But Fah Lo Suee met that glance without animosity. In her own strange eyes of jade green there was no glint of feminine triumph, no mockery. Only a calm consideration. She had mocked Nayland Smith, she had mocked me: we were her active potent enemies, and she had outwitted us. Rima she regarded with something strangely like a cold compassion.
That God had ever given life to a woman so far above the weaknesses of her sex as Fah Lo Suee was something I could never have believed without convincing evidence. Even her curious infatuation for myself was a mere feline fancy, ordered and contained. She would have sacrificed nothing to it; nor would it long outlast its realization.
“Shan!” Rima’s voice suddenly rose to a high emotional note; she moved forward. “Tell me—”
“Be silent, child,” said Fah Lo Suee. “Sit there.”
She indicated an armchair. Rima’s despairing glance met mine; then she obeyed that quiet, imperious command. Fah Lo Suee signaled to the Nubian to go. He withdrew, not wholly closing the door.
“Shan attracts me,” Fah Lo Suee went on. “Apart from which he has qualities which will prove useful when we move in Egypt. But I don’t want to steal him from you”—she glanced at Rima—“and he would be unhappy without you.”
We were all watching her. There was absolute silence in the room when she ceased speaking. Of the many violent scenes I had known from that dark hour when Sir Lionel’s voice—or so I had supposed at the time—called out to me in the wâdi where we were camped, this quiet, deadly interlude before the amazement to come recurs most frequently in my memory.
“It is very simple, Shan”—she turned to me. “Sir Denis has checked me—wo
uld always check me. He knows too much of our plans. So do you. The others can wait. If Superintendent Weymouth had come here alone—he would have remained… After you have gone… he will become dangerous. But he must wait.
“His arrival here tonight was an unfortunate accident—due to my consideration of your happiness.”
I met the steady gaze of those enthralling eyes… “Your happiness…” As though, unwittingly, she had communicated her secret thoughts to me, I grasped the truth; I saw the part that Rima was to play. I, alone, might prove difficult. Rima, helpless in the power of Fah Lo Suee, would make me a pliant slave! Suddenly:
“More and more,” said Nayland Smith, “I regret the absence of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I would rather deal with him than with his daughter!”
Fab Lo Suee turned, suddenly.
“Why do you assume my father to be dead?” she asked.
Nayland Smith exchanged a rapid glance with me; then:
“I don’t assume anything of the kind,” he rapped, with all his old vigour. “I know he’s alive!”
“How do you know?”
“That is my business. Kindly confine yourself to a statement of your own.”
There were some moments of silence; then:“Dr. Fu-Manchu,” said Fah Lo Suee, “is alive—yes. You were always a clever man, Sir Denis. But his age prohibits travel.”
I dared not trust myself to look at Nayland Smith. It was incredible.
She didn’t know that Fu-Manchu was in England!
Smith made no reply.
“The work that he laid down,” Fah Lo Suee went on, “I have taken up. The Si-Fan, Sir Denis, is a power again. But time is precious. The unforeseen visit of Superintendent Weymouth delayed me. There are only two members in England now. They are in this house. They will leave with me… Shan, do you choose that yourself and Rima shall travel as baggage, or will you bow to—the inevitable?”
“Agree!” rapped Nayland Smith. “A hundred chances of helping the world present themselves to a live man—but not to a synthetic corpse.”
“Shan!”
Rima, wild-eyed, was staring at me. She had sprung up from her chair.
“What?” I asked dully.
“I don’t know the meaning of it all—I can only guess; but you wouldn’t bargain, Shan?”
Nayland Smith caught my wandering glance, and:
“He would Rima,” he answered. “So would I—it I had the chance! Don’t be foolish, little lady. This isn’t a game of tennis. It’s a game of which you don’t know the rules. There’s only one thing to play for… life. Because, while one of us lives, there’s always a chance that one may win!—Agree, Greville! It’s nine thousand miles to China—and with two active brains alert, anything may happen.”
I closed my eyes. This was agony. An age seemed to pass. Had Nayland Smith some scheme behind his words? And where did my duty lie?… My duty to Rima; my duty to the world…
“I will agree,” I said at last—and my voice was one I could never have recognized, “on the distinct understanding that Rima is not to be harmed or molested in any way—and that Sir Denis is released tonight.”
Opening my eyes, I glanced quickly at Fah Lo Suee. Her expression was inscrutable. I looked at Rima. She was staring at me—an uncomprehending stare… Lastly, I looked at Nayland Smith.
His steely eyes regarded me wistfully. He twisted his lips in a wry grimace and shook his head, as:
“Your second condition is impossible,” Fah Lo Suee replied.
And as she spoke the miracle happened; the thing of which to this very hour I sometimes doubt the reality, seeming, as it does now, rather part of a fevered dream than an actual occurrence.
I don’t know what prompted me, as that bell-like voice ceased, to look again at Rima. But I did so.
She was staring past me—at the lacquer cabinet where Kâli sat— the hidden doorway Fah Lo Suee had closed again.
I twisted around.
Very slowly—inch by inch—inch by inch—the door was opening! Then, suddenly, it was opened wide. Out of the darkness beyond two figures came; first, the Dyak, who, instant on entering the room, turned again to the lacquered, door and dropped on his knees; second, the Nubian—who also prostrated himself!
Thirdly, and last, came a figure whose image must remain imprinted on my mind for ever…
It was that of a very tall old man; emaciated to a degree which I had hitherto associated only with mummies. His great height was not appreciable at first glance, by reason of the fact that he stooped very much, resting his weight on a stout stick. He wore a plain black garment, resembling a cassock, and a little black cap was set on his head…
His skull—his fleshless yellow skull—was enormous. I thought that such a brain must be that either of a madman or of a genius. And his face, a map of wrinkles, resembled nothing so much as the shriveled majesty of the Pharaoh Seti I who lives in the Cairo Museum!
Deeply sunken eyes emitted a dull green spark.
But this frail old man radiated such power that I was chilled—it seemed to be physical; I could not have experienced a more dreadful sense of impotent horror if the long-dead Pharaoh himself had appeared before me…
Those sunken, commanding eyes ignored my existence. Their filmy but potent regard passed the grovelling men, passed me, and was set upon Fah Lo Suee. Then came a sibilant command, utterly beyond my powers to describe:
“Kneel, little thief! I am standing…”
I twisted around.
Fah Lo Suee, a chalky quality tingeing the peach bloom of her skin, had lowered that insolent head! As I turned, staring, she dropped to her knees!
And now I saw that Nayland Smith, bound as he was, arms and ankles, had got to his feet. Through the tropical yellow of his complexion, through the artificial stain which still lingered, he had paled.
The hissing voice spoke again.
“Greeting, Sir Denis. Be seated.”
Smith’s teeth were clenched so hard that his jaw muscles stood out lumpishly. But, relaxing and speaking in a low, even tone:
“Greeting,” he replied, “Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
Three times, heavily, Dr. Fu-Manchu beat his stick upon the floor.
Two Burmans came in and saluted him.
I knew them. They were the Dacoits who had been present at the Council of Seven in el-Khârga.
Dr. Fu-Manchu advanced into the room. Extending a bony, clawlike hand, he indicated the kneeling Fah Lo Suee.
And, without word or glance, eyes lowered, Fah Lo Suee went out with her dreadful escort! It was in my heart to pity her, so utterly was she fallen, so slavishly did that proud woman bow her head to this terrible, imperious old man.
As he passed the prostrate figures of the Nubian and the Dyak, walking heavily and slowly, he touched them each with his stick. He spoke in a low voice, gutturally.
They sprang up and approached Rima!
Throughout this extraordinary scene, which had passed much more quickly than its telling conveys, Rima had remained seated— stupefied. Now, realizing the meaning of Fu-Manchu’s last order, she stood up—horror in her eyes.
“Shan! Shan!” she cried. “What is he going to do to me?”
Dr. Fu-Manchu beat upon the floor again and spoke one harsh word. The Nubian and the Dyak stood still. No sergeant of the Guards ever had more complete control of men.
“Miss Barton,” he said, his voice alternating uncannily between the sibilant and the guttural and seeming to be produced with difficulty, “your safety is assured. I wish to be alone with Sir Denis and Mr. Greville. For your greater ease, Sir Denis will tell you that my word is my bond.”
He turned those sunken, filmed eyes in the direction of the big armchair and:
“You needn’t worry, Rima,” said Nayland Smith. “Dr. Fu- Manchu guarantees your safety.”
I was amazed beyond reason. Even so fortified, Rima’s eyes were dark with terror. A swift flow of words brought the Dyak sharply about to take his instructions. Then he and the Nubian escor
ted Rima from the room.
I tugged, groaning, at the cords which held me. I stared at Nayland Smith. Was he holding a candle to the devil? How could a sane man accept the assurances of such a proven criminal?
But, as though my ideas had been spoken aloud:
“Do not misjudge Sir Denis,” came the harsh voice. “He knows that in warfare I am remorseless. But he knows also that no mandarin of my order has ever willingly broken his promise.”
The Nubian had closed the door leading to the lobby. Dr. Fu-Manchu had closed that of the false cabinet as he came into the room. No sound entered the arena where this menace to white supremacy and the man whose defenses had defied him confronted one another.
“It is a strange fact,” said Dr. Fu-Manchu, “that only the circumstance of your being a prisoner allows of our present conversation.”
He paused, watching, watching Nayland Smith with those physically weak but spiritually powerful eyes. The Chinaman’s force was incredible. It was as though a great lamp burned in that frail, angular body.
“Yet, now, by a paradox, we stand together.”
Resting on his ebony stick, he drew himself up so that his thin frame assumed something of its former height.
“My methods are not your methods. Perhaps I have laughed at your British scruples. Perhaps a day may come, Sir Denis, when you will join in my laughter. But, as much as I have hated you, I have always admired your clarity of mind and your tenacity. You were instrumental in defeating me, when I had planned to readjust the center of world power. No doubt you thought me mad—a megalomaniac. You were wrong.”
He spoke the last three words in a low voice—almost a whisper.
“I worked for my country. I saw China misruled, falling into decay; with all her vast resources, becoming prey for carrion. I hoped to give China that place in the world to which her intellect, her industry, and her ideals entitle her. I hoped to awaken China. My methods, Sir Denis, were bad. My motive was good.”
His voice rose. He raised one gaunt hand in a gesture of defiance. Nayland Smith spoke no word. And I watched this wraith of terror as one watches a creature uncreated, who figures hideously in some disordered dream. His sincerity was unmistakable; his power of intellect enormous. But when I realized what he defended, what he stood for—and that I, Shan Greville, was listening to him in a house somewhere in Regent’s Park, I felt like laughing hysterically…