by Sax Rohmer
There was an old tradition in my family of which my mother had told me—that we were slow to hate but quick to love. Fleurette and I were well met. I doubted if mutual love had ever been unmasked under circumstances more peculiar.
What she told me did not fully register at the time, nor, perhaps, were my questions those which Nayland Smith would have selected. Nevertheless, I learned much respecting this queer household of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
I began to realize the greatness of the menace which he represented; because, through Fleurette, the knowledge came to me that many who served him loved him.
Perhaps, among the lower orders of his strange entourage, fear was his sceptre. But, as I gathered—and I dared not speak a word to shatter that ideal—Fleurette’s sentiments were those of profound respect.
Mahdi Bey, her guardian, had taught her to look upon the Chinese doctor as upon a man supreme among men. It was an honourable fate to be chosen by the Prince who one day would rule the world— be its Emperor...
Fleurette had received a remarkable education, embracing the icy peaks of sexless philosophy, to which she had been taught to look up in a Buddhist monastery in the north of China, to the material feminism of a famous English school. Yet she remained completely human; for she lay in my arms whispering those replies to my eager questions.
She had not been denied the companionship of men, but always, in whichever part of the world she had chanced to find herself, had been constantly accompanied and never left alone in the society of others for more than those few minutes which Western social custom demands. There were girls of good family and of her own age in some of the larger establishments. But as to how they came to be there I was unable to form any idea: apparently they had been selected purely as companions for Fleurette...
Fah Lo Suee, to whom she referred as “the Princess,” she distrusted, but evidently feared. Fah Lo Suee, it seemed, had partisans of her own among the many leaders of this mysterious movement which Fleurette called the Si-Fan. Regarding the political side of the organization, she clearly knew next to nothing. That a great war was pending in which Dr. Fu-Manchu expected to overthrow all opposition, she was aware: the character of this war she did not seem even to suspect.
Without recourse to the Ericksen telephone, Dr. Fu-Manchu was able to call her, she told me—and she was compelled to go to him.
He sometimes made her look into a disk in which strange images appeared...
There were times—of which tonight was an instance—when his influence dropped from her—unaccountably; when she questioned the meaning of her life—and followed her own impulses. Those times, beyond doubt, although I did not tell her so, corresponded to the doctor’s bouts of opium-smoking.
“Why did you tell me to think of you as Derceto?”
Fleurette laughed, but not happily.
“Because you found me on the shore—and to love me meant destruction...”
During the greater part of the telling of her strange story, she had lain in my arms—and there had been silent intervals. But at last I seemed to hear the crisp voice of Sir Denis demanding that I should put duty first...
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE SECTION DOORS
“He is here,” said Fleurette. “Leave the door open, I will call if anyone comes.”
At that moment, as I crossed the threshold into a small white bedroom, even Fleurette was forgotten. Petrie, pale as I had ever seen him, his hair blanched as by the brushes of ten years, lay there, watching me!
There was a dull flush on his forehead where the Purple Shadow had been.
“Petrie, old man!” I whispered. “Petrie!... Thank God!”
Had I not met other dead men in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu, this must have been a moment of stupefaction.
He nodded weakly and smiled—the same patient smile which I knew, even extending his hand, which I grasped between both my own.
“This,” I said, “is a miracle.”
“I agree.” His voice was very low. “I must have the constitution of a rattlesnake, Sterling. For I have not only survived the new plague—but an injection of the preparation known as ‘Fu-Manchu katalepsis’ or briefly—‘F. katalepsis.’”
“You know all this?”
“Yes; I even knew that you were here. But this is no time—” He stopped, breathlessly, and I realized how weak he was.
“Don’t tire yourself,” I urged, grasping his shoulder. “Sir Denis is waiting for the news.”
“Nayland Smith!” His eyes lighted up. “He is here?”
“Yes—standing by, outside.”
Petrie clenched his teeth; closed his eyes. I recognized all that this news had meant to him; then:
“There is only one thing you must wait for,” he said. “Give me that scribbling block from the table, Sterling, and a pencil.”
I did as he directed—I could see that it would be useless to object.
“Lift me up,” he went on. “It’s going to be a struggle to write, but it has to be done—in case—of—accidents.”
“What, Petrie? Why is all this necessary?”
He shook his head and began very slowly to write. Bending over him, I saw that he was writing a prescription.
The truth dawned upon me!
“‘654’?”
He nodded, and went on writing. For a moment he paused, and:
“This must be circulated throughout the world,” he whispered weakly, “without delay.”
He glanced over what he had written, and nodded his wish to be laid back upon the pillows. This accomplished, I tore the sheet off the block, folded it, and slipped it into a pocket of my overall.
“Now, bolt!” he whispered. “Bolt for your life while there’s a chance. Everything depends upon your success.”
I had turned to go—when, unaided, he sat upright in bed, his eyes fixed upon the open door.
“Alan!” I heard softly.
I turned in time to see Fleurette’s head hurriedly withdrawn. Someone was coming!
“Sterling! Sterling!” Petrie clutched my shoulder: his eyes were suddenly wild. “Who was that at the door?”
“A friend... you need not be afraid... Fleurette.”
“Fleurette? My God! Am I growing delirious?”
I assisted him back on to his pillows. His manner was alarmingly strange.
“Who is she?”
“She is a victim of Dr. Fu-Manchu—but we are going to get her away.”
“Great heaven!” He closed his eyes. “Can it be true? Is it possible?... Don’t wait, Sterling—go... go!”
Indeed I knew that I had no alternative; and squeezing his hand hard, I ran out of the room.
Fleurette was standing just beyond the door, which she closed instantly upon my appearance.
“Someone is coming!” she said, in a low voice. “I think it is Companion Yamamata. Quick!—this way!”
She led me along a short passage to the head of a descending stair.
“Don’t make a noise,” she warned.
We crept to the bottom, my arm about her waist.
“Who is Dr. Petrie?” she whispered. “He stared at me as though he knew me; yet I have never seen him in my life before.”
“He is one of my oldest friends,” I replied, “and unfortunately I hadn’t time to ask him. But I saw how he looked at you. Yes! He thinks he knows you.”
And now I wondered what knowledge was common to Dr. Petrie and Sir Denis but not shared by me...
Both had recognized Fleurette!
We turned a corner, and I saw that we stood directly under a little green lamp.
“There is your way,” said Fleurette, “straight ahead. It is the only door on to the terrace.”
At which moment I realized that we were standing directly outside her room.
“Darling, at last!” I exclaimed, and felt my heart leap. “Come on! Hurry! There isn’t a moment to waste!”
She slipped by me and opened the door of her room. I stared at her in blank amaz
ement—and her expression baffled me. She took my hand, pulled me gently forward... and then closed the door.
“Someone might see or hear us in the corridor,” she said. “We are safe here. Please say goodbye to me.”
“What!”
She watched me, and in the dim light of that room which Nayland Smith had described as the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty, her eyes looked like violets wet with dew.
“What did you think I meant to do?” she asked softly. “I have never cared for anyone before. I suppose I am to blame because I cared for you? But although you have not told me—I know what you think of Dr. Fu-Manchu... of all of us. You belong to the poor ignorant world. You are not really one of us. You are a spy.”
I tried to take her in my arms, but she eluded me.
“Fleurette! This is madness!”
“The world is mad—Alan.” That moment of hesitation before my name was a rainbow. “But you belong to it, and you must go back. I should hate to believe that you could think me capable of deserting those who have never denied me anything as long as I can remember. No, dear, I sink or swim with my friends! I am betraying them, now, by letting you go. But the moment you have reached safety—I shall warn them.”
“Fleurette!”
“If I could love you without wronging them, I would—but I can’t.” She rested her hands on my shoulders. “Please say goodbye to me. You must hurry—you must hurry!”
Then she was in my arms, and as her lips met mine I knew that the greatest decision of my life was being asked of me.
The philosophy of a young girl, crazy though it may be, is intensely difficult to upset—and beyond doubt there was fatalism in Fleurette’s blood. Yet—how could I let her go?
My heart seemed to be beating like a steam hammer. I wanted to pick her up, to carry her from that accursed house. She began to plead.
“If you force me to go,” I said, “I shall get you back—follow you if necessary all around the world.”
“It would be useless. I can never belong to you—I belong to him.”
I wanted to curse the name of Fu-Manchu and to curse all his works. Knowing, as I knew, that he was a devil incarnate, a monster, an evil superhuman, the monument which he stood for in the mind of this beautiful child—for she was little more—was a shrine I yearned to shatter.
Yet for all the frenzy of passion which burned me up, enough of common sense remained to warn me that this was not the time; that such an attempt must be worse than futile.
I held her tightly, cruelly, kissing her eyes, her hair, her neck, her shoulders. I found myself on the verge of something resembling hysteria.
“I can’t leave you here!” I said hoarsely; “I won’t—I daren’t.”
A dim throbbing sound had become perceptible. This, at first, I had believed to be a product of excitement. But now Fleurette seemed to grow suddenly rigid in my arms.
“Oh, God!” she whispered. “Quick! Quick! Someone has found out! Listen!”
A cold chill succeeded fever.
“They are closing the section doors! Quick, for your life... and for my sake!”
It was inevitable. For her sake?—yes! If I should be found there...
She sprang to the control button.
The door remained closed.
She twisted about, her back pressed against the door, her arms outstretched—such terror in her eyes as I had hoped never to see there.
“All the doors have been locked as well,” she whispered. “It is impossible to get out!”
“But, Fleurette!” I began.
“It’s useless! It’s hopeless!”
“But if I am found here?”
“It’s unavoidable now.”
“I could hide.”
“No one can hide from him. He could force me to tell him.”
Her lips began to tremble, and I groaned impotently, knowing well that I could do nothing to comfort her—that I, and I alone, was the cause of this disaster about to fall.
And through those dreadful moments, the vibration of the descending doors might faintly be detected, together with that muted gong note which I had learned to dread.
“There must be something we can do!”
“There is nothing.”
Silence.
The section doors were closed.
And in that stillness I seemed to live again through years of life. I had in my pocket the means of saving the world. Useless, now! Within call, perhaps within sight from the terrace, eagerly awaiting me, was Sir Denis—freedom—sanity!
And here was I, helpless as a mouse in a trap, awaiting... what?
My heart, which had been beating so rapidly, seemed to check, to grow cold; my brain jibbed at the task.
What would be Fleurette’s fate if I were discovered there, in her room, by Dr. Fu-Manchu?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THE UNSULLIED MIRROR
Many minutes elapsed, every one laden with menace. Then— came that eerie note which I knew.
Fleurette stood quite still. Used now to its significance and purpose, I could detect the dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet, given at a speed which only an adept could have followed.
The sound ceased.
Fleurette dropped into an armchair, looking up at me, hopelessly.
“They are searching for you,” she said, in a dull tone. “He doesn’t know yet.”
I stood there dumb of tongue and numb of brain for long moments; then ideas began to come. Someone had called me—possibly Trenck— and I had not replied. Nayland Smith had received those messages.
What had they been, and how had he construed them?
This uncertainty only added to the madness of the situation. I had an idea born of experience.
“Fleurette,” I said, dropping upon my knees beside her, “why could I not have come in here as you came into my room when the alarm sounded?”
She looked at me; her face was like a beautiful mask: immutable, expressionless.
“It would be useless,” she replied. “No one can lie to Dr. Fu-Manchu.”
And I accepted the finality of those words, for I believed it. I sprang upright. I had become aware of a faint distant vibration.
“Can the doors be raised separately?”
“Yes; any one of them can be raised alone.”
I stepped across the room and pressed the control button.
There was no response. I bent close to the metal, listening intently. I formed the impression, and it was a definitely horrible impression, that the control doors were being raised, one by one... that someone was approaching this room in which I was trapped with Fleurette.
Beyond doubt, that ominous sound was growing nearer— growing in volume. And finally the vibration grew so great that I could feel it upon the metal against which my head rested.
I stepped back—my fists automatically clenched. The door slid open—and Dr. Fu-Manchu stood there watching me!
His majestic calm was terrible. Those long, brilliant eyes glanced aside, and I knew that he was studying Fleurette.
“Woman—the lever which a word can bend,” he said softly.
He made a signal with his long-nailed hand, and two of his Chinese servants sprang in.
I stepped back debating my course.
“Heroics are uncalled for,” he added, “and could profit no one.”
For an instant I glanced aside at Fleurette.
Her beautiful eyes were raised to Dr. Fu-Manchu, and her expression was that of a saint who sees the Holy Vision!
He spoke rapidly in Chinese and entered the room, giving me not another glance. My arms were grasped and I found myself propelled forcibly out into the corridor. The strength of these little immobile men was amazing.
The section door at the corner where those stairs terminated which led down to the radio research room was not yet fully raised: two feet or more still protruded from the slot in the ceiling which accommodated it.
Our human brains possess very definite limitati
ons: mine had reached the edge of endurance.
My memory registers a blank from the moment that I left Fleurette’s room to that when I found myself seated in a hard, high-backed chair in the memorable study of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Beside me, Yamamata was seated, and at the moment at which I suppose my brain began to function again—suddenly that door which I knew led into the palm house opened—and Fah Lo Suee came in.
She wore a bright green pyjama suit and was smoking a cigarette in a jade holder. One glance I received from her unfathomable eyes— but if it conveyed a message, the message failed to reach me.
She closed the door by which she had entered and dropped on to a little settee close beside it.
I glanced at Yamamata. His yellow skin was clammy with perspiration. In doing so, I noticed that the door in the archway was open—and now through the opening came Dr. Fu-Manchu; silent— with cat-like dignity.
The door closed behind him.
Yamamata stood up, and so did Fah Lo Suee. It was farcically like a court of law. I wrenched my head aside, clenching my teeth. My passion for Fleurette had thrown true perspective out of focus.
This man who assumed the airs of an emperor was, in fact, a common criminal: the hangman awaited him. And then I heard his guttural voice:
“Stand up!”
All that was me, all that I had proudly been wont to regard as my personality, fought against this command—for a command it was. Yet—the plain fact must be recorded: I stood up...
He took his seat in the dragon-carved chair behind the big table. I had kept my eyes deliberately averted, but now, in the silence which followed, I stole a glance at him. He was staring intently at Fah Lo Suee.
Suddenly he spoke:
“Companion Yamamata,” he said softly, “you may go.” Yamamata sprang up; I saw his lips move, but no sound issued from them. He bowed, and opening the door which led into the big laboratory, went out, closing it behind him.
Dr. Fu-Manchu began to speak rapidly in Chinese, and at the end of the first sentence Fah Lo Suee, dropping her jade cigarette holder into a bronze tray upon the floor, came down to her knees on the carpet and buried that evilly beautiful face in upraised hands— delicate ivory hands—patrician hands—shadows, etherialized, of those of her formidable father.