The Hand of Fu Manchu

"Who's there?" I called sharply.

I turned and looked across the room. The window had been widely opened
when I entered, and a faint fog haze hung in the apartment, seeming to
veil the light of the shaded lamp. I watched the closed door intently,
expecting every moment to see the knob turn. But nothing happened.

"Who's there?" I cried again, and, crossing the room, I threw open the
door.

The long corridor without, lighted only by one inhospitable lamp at a
remote end, showed choked and yellowed with this same fog so
characteristic of London in November. But nothing moved to right nor
left of me. The New Louvre Hotel was in some respects yet incomplete,
and the long passage in which I stood, despite its marble facings, had
no air of comfort or good cheer; palatial it was, but inhospitable.

I returned to the room, reclosing the door behind me, then for some
five minutes or more I stood listening for a repetition of that
mysterious sound, as of something that both dragged and tapped, which
already had arrested my attention. My vigilance went unrewarded. I
had closed the window to exclude the yellow mist, but subconsciously I
was aware of its encircling presence, walling me in, and now I found
myself in such a silence as I had known in deserts but could scarce
have deemed possible in fog-bound London, in the heart of the world's
metropolis, with the traffic of the Strand below me upon one side and
the restless life of the river upon the other.

It was easy to conclude that I had been mistaken, that my nervous
system was somewhat overwrought as a result of my hurried return from
Cairo—from Cairo where I had left behind me many a fondly cherished
hope. I addressed myself again to the task of unpacking my
steamer-trunk and was so engaged when again a sound in the corridor
outside brought me upright with a jerk.

A quick footstep approached the door, and there came a muffled rapping
upon the panel.

This time I asked no question, but leapt across the room and threw the
door open. Nayland Smith stood before me, muffled up in a heavy
traveling coat, and with his hat pulled down over his brows.

"At last!" I cried, as my friend stepped in and quickly reclosed the
door.

Smith threw his hat upon the settee, stripped off the great-coat, and
pulling out his pipe began to load it in feverish haste.

"Well," I said, standing amid the litter cast out from the trunk, and
watching him eagerly, "what's afoot?"

Nayland Smith lighted his pipe, carelessly dropping the match-end upon
the floor at his feet.

"God knows what
is
afoot this time, Petrie!" he replied. "You and I
have lived no commonplace lives; Dr. Fu-Manchu has seen to that; but
if I am to believe what the Chief has told me to-day, even stranger
things are ahead of us!"

I stared at him wonder-stricken.

"That is almost incredible," I said; "terror can have no darker
meaning than that which Dr. Fu-Manchu gave to it. Fu-Manchu is dead,
so what have we to fear?"

"We have to fear," replied Smith, throwing himself into a corner of
the settee, "the Si-Fan!"

I continued to stare, uncomprehendingly.

"The Si-Fan—"

"I always knew and you always knew," interrupted Smith in his short,
decisive manner, "that Fu-Manchu, genius that he was, remained
nevertheless the servant of another or others. He was not the head of
that organization which dealt in wholesale murder, which aimed at
upsetting the balance of the world. I even knew the name of one, a
certain mandarin, and member of the Sublime Order of the White Peacock,
who was his immediate superior. I had never dared to guess at the
identity of what I may term the Head Center."

He ceased speaking, and sat gripping his pipe grimly between his teeth,
whilst I stood staring at him almost fatuously. Then—

"Evidently you have much to tell me," I said, with forced calm.

I drew up a chair beside the settee and was about to sit down.

"Suppose you bolt the door," jerked my friend.

I nodded, entirely comprehending, crossed the room and shot the little
nickel bolt into its socket.

"Now," said Smith as I took my seat, "the story is a fragmentary one
in which there are many gaps. Let us see what we know. It seems that
the despatch which led to my sudden recall (and incidentally yours)
from Egypt to London and which only reached me as I was on the point
of embarking at Suez for Rangoon, was prompted by the arrival here of
Sir Gregory Hale, whilom attaché at the British Embassy, Peking. So
much, you will remember, was conveyed in my instructions."

"Quite so."

"Furthermore, I was instructed, you'll remember, to put up at the New
Louvre Hotel; therefore you came here and engaged this suite whilst I
reported to the chief. A stranger business is before us, Petrie, I
verily believe, than any we have known hitherto. In the first place,
Sir Gregory Hale is here—"

"Here?"

"In the New Louvre Hotel. I ascertained on the way up, but not by
direct inquiry, that he occupies a suite similar to this, and
incidentally on the same floor."

"His report to the India Office, whatever its nature, must have been
a sensational one."

"He has made no report to the India Office."

"What! made no report?"

"He has not entered any office whatever, nor will he receive any
representative. He's been playing at Robinson Crusoe in a private
suite here for close upon a fortnight—
id est
since the time of his
arrival in London!"

I suppose my growing perplexity was plainly visible, for Smith
suddenly burst out with his short, boyish laugh.

"Oh! I told you it was a strange business," he cried.

"Is he mad?"

Nayland Smith's gaiety left him; he became suddenly stern and grim.

"Either mad, Petrie, stark raving mad, or the savior of the Indian
Empire—perhaps of all Western civilization. Listen. Sir Gregory Hale,
whom I know slightly and who honors me, apparently, with a belief that
I am the only man in Europe worthy of his confidence, resigned his
appointment at Peking some time ago, and set out upon a private
expedition to the Mongolian frontier with the avowed intention of
visiting some place in the Gobi Desert. From the time that he actually
crossed the frontier he disappeared for nearly six months, to reappear
again suddenly and dramatically in London. He buried himself in this
hotel, refusing all visitors and only advising the authorities of his
return by telephone. He demanded that
I
should be sent to see him;
and—despite his eccentric methods—so great is the Chief's faith in
Sir Gregory's knowledge of matters Far Eastern, that behold, here I am."

He broke off abruptly and sat in an attitude of tense listening. Then—

"Do you hear anything, Petrie?" he rapped.

"A sort of tapping?" I inquired, listening intently myself the while.

Smith nodded his head rapidly.

We both listened for some time, Smith with his head bent slightly
forward and his pipe held in his hands; I with my gaze upon the bolted
door. A faint mist still hung in the room, and once I thought I
detected a slight sound from the bedroom beyond, which was in darkness.
Smith noted me turn my head, and for a moment the pair of us stared
into the gap of the doorway. But the silence was complete.

"You have told me neither much nor little, Smith," I said, resuming
for some reason, in a hushed voice. "Who or what is this Si-Fan at
whose existence you hint?"

Nayland Smith smiled grimly.

"Possibly the real and hitherto unsolved riddle of Tibet, Petrie," he
replied—"a mystery concealed from the world behind the veil of
Lamaism." He stood up abruptly, glancing at a scrap of paper which he
took from his pocket—"Suite Number 14a," he said. "Come along! We have
not a moment to waste. Let us make our presence known to Sir Gregory—
the man who has dared to raise that veil."

"Lock the door!" said Smith significantly, as we stepped into the
corridor.

I did so and had turned to join my friend when, to the accompaniment
of a sort of hysterical muttering, a door further along, and on the
opposite side of the corridor, was suddenly thrown open, and a man
whose face showed ghastly white in the light of the solitary lamp
beyond, literally hurled himself out. He perceived Smith and myself
immediately. Throwing one glance back over his shoulder he came
tottering forward to meet us.

"My God! I can't stand it any longer!" he babbled, and threw himself
upon Smith, who was foremost, clutching pitifully at him for support.
"Come and see him, sir—for Heaven's sake come in! I think he's dying;
and he's going mad. I never disobeyed an order in my life before, but
I can't help myself—I can't help myself!"

"Brace up!" I cried, seizing him by the shoulders as, still clutching
at Nayland Smith, he turned his ghastly face to me. "Who are you, and
what's your trouble?"

"I'm Beeton, Sir Gregory Hale's man."

Smith started visibly, and his gaunt, tanned face seemed to me to have
grown perceptively paler.

"Come on, Petrie!" he snapped. "There's some devilry here."

Thrusting Beeton aside he rushed in at the open door—upon which, as I
followed him, I had time to note the number, 14a. It communicated with
a suite of rooms almost identical with our own. The sitting-room was
empty and in the utmost disorder, but from the direction of the
principal bedroom came a most horrible mumbling and gurgling sound—a
sound utterly indescribable. For one instant we hesitated at the
threshold—hesitated to face the horror beyond; then almost side by
side we came into the bedroom....