by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER VI
A SEEMINGLY drunken voice was droning from a neighboring alleyway asSmith lurched in hulking fashion to the door of a little shop abovewhich, crudely painted, were the words:
"SHEN-YAN, Barber."
I shuffled along behind him, and had time to note the box of studs,German shaving tackle and rolls of twist which lay untidily in thewindow ere Smith kicked the door open, clattered down three woodensteps, and pulled himself up with a jerk, seizing my arm for support.
We stood in a bare and very dirty room, which could only claim kinshipwith a civilized shaving-saloon by virtue of the grimy towel thrownacross the back of the solitary chair. A Yiddish theatrical bill ofsome kind, illustrated, adorned one of the walls, and another bill, inwhat may have been Chinese, completed the decorations. From behind acurtain heavily brocaded with filth a little Chinaman appeared, dressedin a loose smock, black trousers and thick-soled slippers, and,advancing, shook his head vigorously.
"No shavee--no shavee," he chattered, simian fashion, squinting fromone to the other of us with his twinkling eyes. "Too late! Shutteeshop!"
"Don't you come none of it wi' me!" roared Smith, in a voice of amazinggruffness, and shook an artificially dirtied fist under the Chinaman'snose. "Get inside and gimme an' my mate a couple o' pipes. Smokeepipe, you yellow scum--savvy?"
My friend bent forward and glared into the other's eyes with avindictiveness that amazed me, unfamiliar as I was with this form ofgentle persuasion.
"Kop 'old o' that," he said, and thrust a coin into the Chinaman'syellow paw. "Keep me waitin' an' I'll pull the dam' shop down,Charlie. You can lay to it."
"No hab got pipee--" began the other.
Smith raised his fist, and Yan capitulated.
"Allee lightee," he said. "Full up--no loom. You come see."
He dived behind the dirty curtain, Smith and I following, and ran up adark stair. The next moment I found myself in an atmosphere which wasliterally poisonous. It was all but unbreathable, being loaded withopium fumes. Never before had I experienced anything like it. Everybreath was an effort. A tin oil-lamp on a box in the middle of thefloor dimly illuminated the horrible place, about the walls of whichten or twelve bunks were ranged and all of them occupied. Most of theoccupants were lying motionless, but one or two were squatting in theirbunks noisily sucking at the little metal pipes. These had not yetattained to the opium-smoker's Nirvana.
"No loom--samee tella you," said Shen-Yan, complacently testing Smith'sshilling with his yellow, decayed teeth.
Smith walked to a corner and dropped cross-legged, on the floor,pulling me down with him.
"Two pipe quick," he said. "Plenty room. Two piecee pipe--or plentyheap trouble."
A dreary voice from one of the bunks came:
"Give 'im a pipe, Charlie, curse yer! an' stop 'is palaver."
Yan performed a curious little shrug, rather of the back than of theshoulders, and shuffled to the box which bore the smoky lamp. Holdinga needle in the flame, he dipped it, when red-hot, into an old cocoatin, and withdrew it with a bead of opium adhering to the end. Slowlyroasting this over the lamp, he dropped it into the bowl of the metalpipe which he held ready, where it burned with a spirituous blue flame.
"Pass it over," said Smith huskily, and rose on his knees with theassumed eagerness of a slave to the drug.
Yan handed him the pipe, which he promptly put to his lips, andprepared another for me.
"Whatever you do, don't inhale any," came Smith's whispered injunction.
It was with a sense of nausea greater even than that occasioned by thedisgusting atmosphere of the den that I took the pipe and pretended tosmoke. Taking my cue from my friend, I allowed my head gradually tosink lower and lower, until, within a few minutes, I sprawled sidewayson the floor, Smith lying close beside me.
"The ship's sinkin'," droned a voice from one of the bunks. "Look atthe rats."
Yan had noiselessly withdrawn, and I experienced a curious sense ofisolation from my fellows--from the whole of the Western world. Mythroat was parched with the fumes, my head ached. The viciousatmosphere seemed contaminating. I was as one dropped--
Somewhere East of Suez, where the best is like the worst, And thereain't no Ten Commandments and a man can raise a thirst.
Smith began to whisper softly.
"We have carried it through successfully so far," he said. "I don'tknow if you have observed it, but there is a stair just behind you,half concealed by a ragged curtain. We are near that, and well in thedark. I have seen nothing suspicious so far--or nothing much. But ifthere was anything going forward it would no doubt be delayed until wenew arrivals were well doped. S-SH!"
He pressed my arm to emphasize the warning. Through my half-closedeyes I perceived a shadowy form near the curtain to which he hadreferred. I lay like a log, but my muscles were tensed nervously.
The shadow materialized as the figure moved forward into the room witha curiously lithe movement.
The smoky lamp in the middle of the place afforded scant illumination,serving only to indicate sprawling shapes--here an extended hand, brownor yellow, there a sketchy, corpse-like face; whilst from all aboutrose obscene sighings and murmurings in far-away voices--an uncanny,animal chorus. It was like a glimpse of the Inferno seen by someChinese Dante. But so close to us stood the newcomer that I was ableto make out a ghastly parchment face, with small, oblique eyes, and amisshapen head crowned with a coiled pigtail, surmounting a slight,hunched body. There was something unnatural, inhuman, about thatmasklike face, and something repulsive in the bent shape and the long,yellow hands clasped one upon the other.
Fu-Manchu, from Smith's account, in no way resembled this crouchingapparition with the death's-head countenance and lithe movements; butan instinct of some kind told me that we were on the right scent--thatthis was one of the doctor's servants. How I came to that conclusion,I cannot explain; but with no doubt in my mind that this was a memberof the formidable murder group, I saw the yellow man creep nearer,nearer, silently, bent and peering.
He was watching us.
Of another circumstance I became aware, and a disquieting circumstance.There were fewer murmurings and sighings from the surrounding bunks.The presence of the crouching figure had created a sudden semi-silencein the den, which could only mean that some of the supposedopium-smokers had merely feigned coma and the approach of coma.
Nayland Smith lay like a dead man, and trusting to the darkness, I,too, lay prone and still, but watched the evil face bending lower andlower, until it came within a few inches of my own. I completelyclosed my eyes.
Delicate fingers touched my right eyelid. Divining what was coming, Irolled my eyes up, as the lid was adroitly lifted and lowered again.The man moved away.
I had saved the situation! And noting anew the hush about me--a hushin which I fancied many pairs of ears listened--I was glad. For just amoment I realized fully how, with the place watched back and front, weyet were cut off, were in the hands of Far Easterns, to some extent inthe power of members of that most inscrutably mysterious race, theChinese.
"Good," whispered Smith at my side. "I don't think I could have doneit. He took me on trust after that. My God! what an awful face.Petrie, it's the hunchback of Cadby's notes. Ah, I thought so. Do yousee that?"
I turned my eyes round as far as was possible. A man had scrambleddown from one of the bunks and was following the bent figure across theroom.
They passed around us quietly, the little yellow man leading, with hiscurious, lithe gait, and the other, an impassive Chinaman, following.The curtain was raised, and I heard footsteps receding on the stairs.
"Don't stir," whispered Smith.
An intense excitement was clearly upon him, and he communicated it tome. Who was the occupant of the room above?
Footsteps on the stair, and the Chinaman reappeared, recrossed thefloor, and went out. The little, bent man went over to another bunk,this time leading up the stair on
e who looked like a lascar.
"Did you see his right hand?" whispered Smith. "A dacoit! They comehere to report and to take orders. Petrie, Dr. Fu-Manchu is up there."
"What shall we do?"--softly.
"Wait. Then we must try to rush the stairs. It would be futile tobring in the police first. He is sure to have some other exit. I willgive the word while the little yellow devil is down here. You arenearer and will have to go first, but if the hunchback follows, I canthen deal with him."
Our whispered colloquy was interrupted by the return of the dacoit, whorecrossed the room as the Chinaman had done, and immediately took hisdeparture. A third man, whom Smith identified as a Malay, ascended themysterious stairs, descended, and went out; and a fourth, whosenationality it was impossible to determine, followed. Then, as thesoftly moving usher crossed to a bunk on the right of the outer door--
"Up you go, Petrie," cried Smith, for further delay was dangerous andfurther dissimulation useless.
I leaped to my feet. Snatching my revolver from the pocket of therough jacket I wore, I bounded to the stair and went blundering up incomplete darkness. A chorus of brutish cries clamored from behind,with a muffled scream rising above them all. But Nayland Smith wasclose behind as I raced along a covered gangway, in a purer air, and atmy heels when I crashed open a door at the end and almost fell into theroom beyond.
What I saw were merely a dirty table, with some odds and ends upon itof which I was too excited to take note, an oil-lamp swung by a brasschain above, and a man sitting behind the table. But from the momentthat my gaze rested upon the one who sat there, I think if the placehad been an Aladdin's palace I should have had no eyes for any of itswonders.
He wore a plain yellow robe, of a hue almost identical with that of hissmooth, hairless countenance. His hands were large, long and bony, andhe held them knuckles upward, and rested his pointed chin upon theirthinness. He had a great, high brow, crowned with sparse,neutral-colored hair.
Of his face, as it looked out at me over the dirty table, I despair ofwriting convincingly. It was that of an archangel of evil, and it waswholly dominated by the most uncanny eyes that ever reflected a humansoul, for they were narrow and long, very slightly oblique, and of abrilliant green. But their unique horror lay in a certain filminess(it made me think of the membrana nictitans in a bird) which, obscuringthem as I threw wide the door, seemed to lift as I actually passed thethreshold, revealing the eyes in all their brilliant iridescence.
I know that I stopped dead, one foot within the room, for the malignantforce of the man was something surpassing my experience. He wassurprised by this sudden intrusion--yes, but no trace of fear showedupon that wonderful face, only a sort of pitying contempt. And, as Ipaused, he rose slowly to his feet, never removing his gaze from mine.
"IT'S FU-MANCHU!" cried Smith over my shoulder, in a voice that wasalmost a scream. "IT'S FU-MANCHU! Cover him! Shoot him dead if--"
The conclusion of that sentence I never heard.
Dr. Fu-Manchu reached down beside the table, and the floor slipped fromunder me.
One last glimpse I had of the fixed green eyes, and with a scream I wasunable to repress I dropped, dropped, dropped, and plunged into icywater, which closed over my head.
Vaguely I had seen a spurt of flame, had heard another cry following myown, a booming sound (the trap), the flat note of a police whistle.But when I rose to the surface impenetrable darkness enveloped me; Iwas spitting filthy, oily liquid from my mouth, and fighting down theblack terror that had me by the throat--terror of the darkness aboutme, of the unknown depths beneath me, of the pit into which I was castamid stifling stenches and the lapping of tidal water.
"Smith!" I cried. . . . "Help! Help!"
My voice seemed to beat back upon me, yet I was about to cry out again,when, mustering all my presence of mind and all my failing courage, Irecognized that I had better employment of my energies, and began toswim straight ahead, desperately determined to face all the horrors ofthis place--to die hard if die I must.
A drop of liquid fire fell through the darkness and hissed into thewater beside me!
I felt that, despite my resolution, I was going mad.
Another fiery drop--and another!
I touched a rotting wooden post and slimy timbers. I had reached onebound of my watery prison. More fire fell from above, and the screamof hysteria quivered, unuttered, in my throat.
Keeping myself afloat with increasing difficulty in my heavy garments,I threw my head back and raised my eyes.
No more drops fell, and no more drops would fall; but it was merely aquestion of time for the floor to collapse. For it was beginning toemit a dull, red glow.
The room above me was in flames!
It was drops of burning oil from the lamp, finding passage through thecracks in the crazy flooring, which had fallen about me--for the deathtrap had reclosed, I suppose, mechanically.
My saturated garments were dragging me down, and now I could hear theflames hungrily eating into the ancient rottenness overhead. Shortlythat cauldron would be loosed upon my head. The glow of the flamesgrew brighter . . . and showed me the half-rotten piles upholding thebuilding, showed me the tidal mark upon the slime-coated walls--showedme that there was no escape!
By some subterranean duct the foul place was fed from the Thames. Bythat duct, with the outgoing tide, my body would pass, in the wake ofMason, Cadby, and many another victim!
Rusty iron rungs were affixed to one of the walls communicating with atrap--but the bottom three were missing!
Brighter and brighter grew the awesome light the light of what shouldbe my funeral pyre--reddening the oily water and adding a new dread tothe whispering, clammy horror of the pit. But something it showedme . . . a projecting beam a few feet above the water . . . and directlybelow the iron ladder!
"Merciful Heaven!" I breathed. "Have I the strength?"
A desire for laughter claimed me with sudden, all but irresistibleforce. I knew what it portended and fought it down--grimly, sternly.
My garments weighed upon me like a suit of mail; with my chest achingdully, my veins throbbing to bursting, I forced tired muscles to work,and, every stroke an agony, approached the beam. Nearer I swam. . . nearer. Its shadow fell black upon the water, which now had allthe seeming of a pool of blood. Confused sounds--a remote uproar--cameto my ears. I was nearly spent . . . I was in the shadow of the beam! IfI could throw up one arm. . .
A shrill scream sounded far above me!
"Petrie! Petrie!" (That voice must be Smith's!) "Don't touch thebeam! For God's sake DON'T TOUCH THE BEAM! Keep afloat another fewseconds and I can get to you!"
Another few seconds! Was that possible?
I managed to turn, to raise my throbbing head; and I saw the strangestsight which that night yet had offered.
Nayland Smith stood upon the lowest iron rung . . . supported by thehideous, crook-backed Chinaman, who stood upon the rung above!
"I can't reach him!"
It was as Smith hissed the words despairingly that I looked up--and sawthe Chinaman snatch at his coiled pigtail and pull it off! With itcame the wig to which it was attached; and the ghastly yellow mask,deprived of its fastenings, fell from position! "Here! Here! Bequick! Oh! be quick! You can lower this to him! Be quick! Bequick!"
A cloud of hair came falling about the slim shoulders as the speakerbent to pass this strange lifeline to Smith; and I think it was mywonder at knowing her for the girl whom that day I had surprised inCadby's rooms which saved my life.
For I not only kept afloat, but kept my gaze upturned to thatbeautiful, flushed face, and my eyes fixed upon hers--which were wildwith fear . . . for me!
Smith, by some contortion, got the false queue into my grasp, and I,with the strength of desperation, by that means seized hold upon thelowest rung. With my friend's arm round me I realized that exhaustionwas even nearer than I had supposed. My last distinct memory is of thebursting of the
floor above and the big burning joist hissing into thepool beneath us. Its fiery passage, striated with light, disclosed twosword blades, riveted, edges up along the top of the beam which I hadstriven to reach.
"The severed fingers--" I said; and swooned.
How Smith got me through the trap I do not know--nor how we made ourway through the smoke and flames of the narrow passage it opened upon.My next recollection is of sitting up, with my friend's arm supportingme and Inspector Ryman holding a glass to my lips.
A bright glare dazzled my eyes. A crowd surged about us, and a clangorand shouting drew momentarily nearer.
"It's the engines coming," explained Smith, seeing my bewilderment."Shen-Yan's is in flames. It was your shot, as you fell through thetrap, broke the oil-lamp."
"Is everybody out?"
"So far as we know."
"Fu-Manchu?"
Smith shrugged his shoulders.
"No one has seen him. There was some door at the back--"
"Do you think he may--"
"No," he said tensely. "Not until I see him lying dead before me shallI believe it."
Then memory resumed its sway. I struggled to my feet.
"Smith, where is she?" I cried. "Where is she?"
"I don't know," he answered.
"She's given us the slip, Doctor," said Inspector Weymouth, as afire-engine came swinging round the corner of the narrow lane. "So hasMr. Singapore Charlie--and, I'm afraid, somebody else. We've got sixor eight all-sorts, some awake and some asleep, but I suppose we shallhave to let 'em go again. Mr. Smith tells me that the girl wasdisguised as a Chinaman. I expect that's why she managed to slip away."
I recalled how I had been dragged from the pit by the false queue, howthe strange discovery which had brought death to poor Cadby had broughtlife to me, and I seemed to remember, too, that Smith had dropped it ashe threw his arm about me on the ladder. Her mask the girl might haveretained, but her wig, I felt certain, had been dropped into the water.
It was later that night, when the brigade still were playing upon theblackened shell of what had been Shen-Yan's opium-shop, and Smith and Iwere speeding away in a cab from the scene of God knows how manycrimes, that I had an idea.
"Smith," I said, "did you bring the pigtail with you that was found onCadby?"
"Yes. I had hoped to meet the owner."
"Have you got it now?"
"No. I met the owner."
I thrust my hands deep into the pockets of the big pea-jacket lent tome by Inspector Ryman, leaning back in my corner.
"We shall never really excel at this business," continued NaylandSmith. "We are far too sentimental. I knew what it meant to us,Petrie, what it meant to the world, but I hadn't the heart. I owed heryour life--I had to square the account."