The Drums of Fu-Manchu

by Sax Rohmer

  “You understand now, Kerrigan,” snapped Smith, “that voice which we both heard in the study of M. Delibes? I am going to ask you, Ardatha, to show me how to get ‘directly in contact’!”

  Ardatha released my hand and stood up. She was supremely graceful in all her movements. Her poise was perfect, and I knew now that that momentary despair had been for me…

  “I will do so if you wish. Nothing may happen. You can only listen: you cannot reply.”

  She took the tiny instrument which Smith handed to her and made some adjustments. We both watched closely. Paris lay about us, not sleeping, but seething with rumours of war. But in that room was silence—silence in which we waited.

  It was broken.

  A guttural voice spoke rapidly in a tongue unknown to me. It ceased. Ardatha adjusted the instrument.

  “To move it to there,” she said—but her tones were not steady—“means ‘I do not understand.”

  And now (I confess that my heart leapt uncomfortably) that guttural voice spoke in English… and I knew that the speaker was Dr. Fu-Manchu!

  “Can it be Sir Denis who calls me?”

  Ardatha’s fingers moved.

  “Indeed! I rejoice that you live, Sir Denis. I suspect that Ardatha is with you. Any information which she may be able to impart you will find of small value. I assume that one of my three Negritos pygmies is lost. But this is no more than just. Your work in regard to M. Delibes resulted in the cancelling of the grotesque order for your removal. I welcome your co-operation… I regret my dwarf. Such a specimen represents twenty years’ culture. Destroy the Ericksen tube: it is dangerous. Those who use it do not live long. The radiophone I commend to you. Waste no time seeking me…”

  That unique voice faded away. Ardatha was trembling in my arms.

  INTRODUCTION TO “THE MARK OF THE MONKEY”

  BY WILLIAM PATRICK MAYNARD

  Following publication of Daughter of Fu Manchu, Sax Rohmer opted to rework “The Blue Monkey” as “The Mark of the Monkey.” The second of three stories the author wrote about Nayland Smith, but without his customary nemesis, it first appeared in Brittania & Eve in April 1931 before being printed in Collier’s and in Family Herald & Star Weekly and collected in the UK edition of Rohmer’s anthology of short fiction, Tales of East and West.

  As in “The Blue Monkey” before it, the tale begins with Smith and Dr. Petrie on holiday in Dartmoor and also borrows from Rohmer’s own life as the author spent several years in a secret marriage while continuing to live with his disapproving father. All three stories written over the course of a dozen years end in the perpetrator committing suicide rather than being brought to justice. A mysterious Burmese monkey once again adds exotic flavor to the mystery.

  These three orphaned adventures have only been collected as part of the Fu Manchu canon once before in an omnibus series published in France in the 1970s. The story ranks among Rohmer’s rarest published in book form, having been out of print for eighty years.

  * * *

  William Patrick Maynard was authorized by Sax Rohmer’s Literary Estate to continue the Fu-Manchu series beginning in 2009 for Black Coat Press. The titles are available online at blackcoatpress.com.

  THE MARK OF THE MONKEY

  INTRODUCING TWO OLD FRIENDS IN A NEW STORY OF MYSTERY AND MENACE

  BY SAX ROHMER

  “A peaceful spot,” said I, lighting a cigarette and tilting my chair back.

  Indeed, the cathedral close of Exeter retains its spirit of peace even under the most adverse circumstances. We had hurried over dinner, anxious to escape the clatter of a large party of tourists, and now, in the little forecourt of the hotel, watched the dusk of a tropically hot day claiming those ancient precincts. My companion nodded.

  “In the absence of sight-seers, very,” he agreed.

  I smiled. My friends nerves were rather highly strung at the moment and this short holiday was designed on the morrow to lead us to the moor, the air of which I have always maintained professionally to be the finest nerve cure in England.

  If ever a man needed a holiday that man was Nayland Smith, and in spite of the intense virility which showed in his every movement, in the vigor of his iron-gray hair, and the clear, eager outline of his sun-tanned face, I knew that my old friend had been taxed to the edge of even his iron endurance. But Fate plays us some strange tricks, and as I soaked myself in the healing balm which seemed to pour from the old cathedral I stood, unknowingly, upon the verge of desperate things.

  That peace was chimerical.

  A smart roadster came spinning around the close and was pulled up immediately in front of where we sat. A man stepped out and entered the hotel, glancing aside at Smith as he passed.

  I thought he started slightly as his glance rested on the gaunt, eager face, but a moment later he had disappeared into the building. He was a slimly built man, wearing a tweed suit of the familiar plus-four variety, and was of a very dark complexion, his coal-black hair white at the temples. I might have thought no more about it, but:

  “Did you particularly notice that man who went in?” Smith challenged.

  “Not particularly, but I saw him stare at you.”

  “Did he?” Smith jerked. “I thought so, too.”

  He made no further comment; nor did I.

  Presently, the man came out again carrying a number of letters. He was reading what looked like a cablegram. He paused for a moment almost beside me, so that I could study his profile without offense.

  He was, I saw, an ugly man, yet of a charming ugliness. His features were curiously irregular, and his fine, nervous hands, clearly visible as he held the cablegram before him, suddenly suggested to me an explanation of something exotic which I had found intriguing. Stuffing cablegram and letters into a capacious pocket of his jacket, he stepped into the car. As he went purring away around the corner, Smith stood up abruptly and, turning, walked into the hotel.

  I was used to his erratic behavior but nevertheless I leaned over in my chair and stared back to see where he had gone. He was standing outside the reception office, talking to Mrs. Sefton, the amiable manageress. I stood up and went over to join them.

  “Yes,” said the manageress, as I came up, evidently in reply to a question of Nayland Smith’s, “there were four letters and a cable for Mr. Marsburg and one registered parcel for Mr. Pine.”

  “Also from America, no doubt?” my friend suggested.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied. “From somewhere in India. I can’t really remember where.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Sefton,” said Nayland Smith, who was well known at the establishment. “I must have been mistaken. Pardon me for troubling you. But it is interesting to know that Henry Marsburg is in Devon. Staying near Moretonhampstead, you say?” he asked thoughtfully.

  “Yes. So Mr. Pine tells me. But they would know at the Quarry Inn. Mr. Pine is staying there.”

  She hurried back to the little office.

  “The Quarry Inn,” Smith murmured and, turning to me: “Do you know the Quarry Inn, Petrie?”

  “Yes. I’ve called there for a drink once or twice. It’s between Moretonhampstead and Princetown. One of the most bleak and desolate spots on the moor.”

  “Oh!” said Smith. “Do you suppose they would have a room at this Quarry Inn?”

  “A room?” I echoed blankly. “Do you propose to stay there?”

  “As good a center as any other, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose it is,” said I, watching him closely. “Has this sudden idea anything to do with the fact that Henry Marsburg is staying out there?”

  Nayland Smith laughed suddenly, clapping his hand on my shoulder.

  “You’ve hit it, Petrie!” he acknowledged.

  “I thought so,” I went on. “You scent a mystery in the fact that the owner of one of the largest department stores in America should choose to hide himself on Dartmoor?”

  “Not at all,” Smith assured me. “In the first place, he is not alone. There�
��s his daughter with him. Also his secretary, Mr. Pine, who called here tonight for letters. Marsburg stayed here for a time and continues to use the address for correspondence purposes. Furthermore, as I chance to know, his hobby is ferns and lichens. He has published a work on the subject, and has delivered a number of lectures before learned societies. He’s fern hunting, Petrie. There’s nothing irregular about that.”

  He was fencing with me and I knew it; but:

  “When do you suggest going?” I asked resignedly.

  “First thing in the morning.”

  * * *

  A wire-haired terrier gave us an unnecessarily warm reception until the lessee of the cottage—Henry Marsburg—came to our assistance.

  He was dressed in a manner which irresistibly suggested a Boy Scout: khaki shirt with open neck, and blue shorts; thick woolen socks disappearing into strong brown brogues. The outfit and the silver hair were wildly incongruous. He greeted us charmingly.

  “I have read your book, Mr. Marsburg,” said Nayland Smith, after we had introduced ourselves, “Mosses and Ferns of North America. In fact, it proved of great assistance to me in a recent official inquiry.”

  “Indeed!” said Marsburg, flushing with pleasure. “That’s certainly good to hear. Sir Denis. But really, you know, it’s very elementary, very elementary. Almost any Devon lane has something to teach me. Now, just look at this, sir…”

  He took up a little tray. But what it contained, I had no time to notice, for at this moment his daughter, Isola, came in.

  “Isola!” cried Marsburg eagerly, “I want you to meet Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie.”

  The girl greeted us with a charming smile; but her listless manner excited my professional curiosity. She was slight and unmistakably attractive. But although she had clear skin and a healthy, sunburned complexion, she nevertheless conveyed, in some mysterious way, an impression of colorlessness. Her very fair hair, which boasted a perfect wave, was by nature, I thought, straight and rather lank. Her large, blue, heavy-lidded eyes conveyed nothing but disinterested weariness. I wondered if she were recuperating from an illness or if she suffered from the effects of over-gayety. Her lips were too full for beauty, but her smile was sweet, and she smiled often but talked rarely.

  Mr. Marsburg addressed himself to Smith, and I chatted with the girl, endeavoring to learn if her listless manner might be due to the boredom of her present life; for it was easy to see that she did not share her father’s enthusiasms.

  However, she seemed to be perfectly contented with things as they were; and when a little later Smith and I took our leave, I was no nearer solving the mystery of her queerly detached manner, and found myself thrown back on my first theory or theories.

  The cottage commanded a view of one of the wildest parts of the moor. Immediately in front the ground fell away steeply, boulder-strewn and rugged, to where, far below, a little stream wound its way to the distant Dart. Beyond, it rose gradually to the sky line, and there, stark against a hot blue resembling that of Egypt, was one of those mysterious tors which are a feature of the moors.

  * * *

  Away to the left were wide expanses with no habitation visible, dotted with boulders like pebbles on a giant beach, and blotched with brilliant green, the blotches marking morasses which had swallowed many a sheep and pony during those heavy mists which sweep over the moor. To the right, through diamond-pure air tropically quivering under a merciless sun, stretched a granite wilderness beyond which lay the big convict prison of Princetown.

  As we headed back for the Quarry Inn, Smith very silent, I told myself that by noon the thermometer would register at least eighty-five in the shade, for there was no evidence in the weather reports of any break in the heat wave. Suddenly:

  “What do you make of the daughter?” Smith snapped.

  I turned, startled by the suddenness of his question.

  “She is quite unlike her father in character,” I replied, “and so listless that I should suspect anemia.”

  “Anemia!” Smith echoed. “Yes. You may be right. She has a trick of staring straight before her, like a dog whose master is absent. Very queer.”

  “Have you learned all you wanted to know?” I asked laughingly; “because. Smith, I was never deceived. From the first you suspected something or other and you have dragged me out here to test your suspicions.”

  Smith pulled out his pipe and began to load it as he walked rapidly along—too rapidly for my liking under that merciless sun.

  “Right, Petrie,” he admitted; “quite right. But, unfortunately, I don’t know what I did suspect, or what I expected to learn. As it is, I have learned nothing.”

  “Also,” I suggested, “you wore hoping to make the further acquaintance of Mr. Pine?”

  Nayland Smith nodded.

  “That man reminds me of someone or something. I’m sure he’s a link, but I can’t fit him into place—because I don’t know to what chain he belongs! I learned all I could from Marsburg, and it appears that Pine is an American citizen who has acted as one of his two private secretaries for nearly three years now. Pine’s province is the scientific. He assists the old man with his collection, and the preparation of his books and papers. Marsburg assured me that Pine had no mean knowledge of the subject.”

  “It’s odd we haven’t seen him.”

  “I saw him going out of the Inn this morning. It appears he has gone into Exeter again. Marsburg is expecting an important cablegram.”

  * * *

  The days wore on uneventfully. We tramped miles over the moor, north, south, east and west, returning healthily tired at night and turning in early, after sharing a drink with the cheery landlord in the bar of the Inn.

  Once or twice we sighted Henry Marsburg’s sun helmet gleaming like a giant toadstool amid the stony wastes or had a nearer glimpse of the fern hunter, laden with the paraphernalia of his craft, in some obscure part of the moor. Once he was accompanied by Isola, but of Mr. Pine we saw nothing, although he was actually living under the same roof with us.

  Smith, however, had apparently ceased to interest himself in our neighbors, and I had more or less dismissed the eccentric scientist and his household from my mind, when, perhaps by accident, but more probably because Fate had willed it so, their affairs were again thrust upon our notice.

  Isola Marsburg came in one morning, very disconsolate, her heavy-lidded eyes tearful, just as Smith and I were setting out with the idea of following-the course of the little stream to which I have referred to its distant source somewhere on a tor-topped crag.

  “Oh, Dr, Petrie!” she said excitedly, “I’m in such trouble…”

  “What is the matter?” I cried, a sudden unaccountable fear claiming my mind.

  “Jack has disappeared!” she added brokenly.

  For a moment I was silent, the name at first conveying nothing to me. Then, suddenly, the solution came. While I was sorry for the girl, I was aware, too, of a wave of relief.

  “Your dog!” snapped a voice at my elbow.

  Turning, I saw that Nayland Smith had joined us.

  “Yes, Sir Denis. I loved him so. We’ve been pals for five years.”

  Nayland Smith’s face was very grim, and when he spoke again I realized with surprise that he was not merely trying to be sympathetic, but that he attached almost as great an importance to the girl’s loss as she did herself, for:

  “Tell me, Miss Marsburg,” he went on rapidly, “when did you miss the dog?”

  “Last night.”

  “Did you search?”

  “Yes. We all searched for miles around. Father and Mr. Pine are out now, still looking. I came here in the vain hope that you might have found him and brought him back to the Inn.”

  * * *

  She bit her lip, restraining tears with difficulty. We walked back part of the way with her, meeting old miss Ugglestone, their resident housekeeper, vigorously prodding a big stick into every bush that might have concealed the body of a dog.

&nb
sp; The episode left an unpleasant impression, heightened by Nayland Smith’s manner. And when presently we resumed our original route:

  “I don’t like it, Petrie,” he said. “Why should a good watchdog like that wander away from the cottage?”

  “What are you suggesting?” said I guardedly: “that the dog has been stolen?”

  “Well,” he snapped, “I’m not prepared to believe that a highly intelligent dog would voluntarily walk into a mire. But short of his being stolen, or lured away—which is the same thing—what other explanation remains?”

  We went on, in silence. At points we walked in a narrow ravine, overhung by foliage, the little stream dancing and gurgling at our very feet. Then the ravine would widen out and great boulders flank our path, until presently, hot and tired, we pulled up for a rest.

  “According to the big map,” said Nayland Smith, “at somewhere about here, I imagine over the top yonder, there’s an ancient mine-working dating back to very early times. Shall we explore and have a look at it?”

  I agreed. And climbing steeply up from the stream, across a sparsely vegetated slope with great up-crops of granite, we found ourselves at the edge of what was evidently a deserted quarry.

  “Phew!” Smith whistled. “Dangerous!”

  We pulled up, staring into the depths. There was a clearly marked path, below, to the left, bordering a bright green patch which I strongly suspected to be morass. This path was lost in the shadows, below, but wound out of the artificial gully of the quarry in the direction of a little valley dotted with those primitive stone huts which mark the abode of some vanished race.

  “The mine-working is somewhere beyond the huts,” said Smith. “But how the devil do we get to the bottom without breaking our necks?”

  “There’s the way,” said I, triumphantly, and pointed.

  It was a detour of a quarter of a mile. Nayland Smith stared, shading his eyes with upraised hand; then:

  “You’re right, Petrie,” he agreed. “Come on.”