The Hand of Fu Manchu (21 page)

When, at last, the brakes were applied, and the pillars and platforms
of the great terminus glided into view, how welcome was the smoky
glare, how welcome the muffled roar of busy London!

A huge negro—the double of the man I had overthrown—opened the door
of the compartment, bestowing upon me a glance in which enmity and
amazement were oddly blended, and the woman, drawing the cloak about
her graceful figure, stood up composedly.

She reached for a small leather case on the rack, and her loose sleeve
fell back, to reveal a bare arm—soft, perfectly molded, of the even
hue of old ivory. Just below the elbow a strange-looking snake bangle
clasped the warm-flesh; the eyes; dull green, seemed to hold a
slumbering fire—a spark—a spark of living light.

Then—she was gone!

"Thank Heaven!" I muttered, and felt like another Dante emerging from
the Hades.

As I passed out of the station, I had a fleeting glimpse of a gray
figure stepping into a big car, driven by a black chauffeur.

Half-past twelve was striking as I came out of the terminus, buttoning
up my overcoat, and pulling my soft hat firmly down upon my head,
started to walk to Hyde Park Corner.

I had declined the services of the several taxi-drivers who had
accosted me and had determined to walk a part of the distance homeward,
in order to check the fever of excitement which consumed me.

Already I was ashamed of the strange fears which had been mine during
the journey, but I wanted to reflect, to conquer my mood, and the
midnight solitude of the land of Squares which lay between me and Hyde
Park appealed quite irresistibly.

There is a distinct pleasure to be derived from a solitary walk through
London, in the small hours of an April morning, provided one is so
situated as to be capable of enjoying it. To appreciate the solitude
and mystery of the sleeping city, a certain sense of prosperity—a
knowledge that one is immune from the necessity of being abroad at
that hour—is requisite. The tramp, the night policeman and the
coffee-stall keeper know more of London by night than most people—but
of the romance of the dark hours they know little. Romance succumbs
before necessity.

I had good reason to be keenly alive to the aroma of mystery which
pervades the most commonplace thoroughfare after the hum of the
traffic has subsided—when the rare pedestrian and the rarer cab alone
traverse the deserted highway. With more intimate cares seeking to
claim my mind, it was good to tramp along the echoing, empty streets
and to indulge in imaginative speculation regarding the strange
things that night must shroud in every big city. I have known the
solitude of deserts, but the solitude of London is equally fascinating.

He whose business or pleasure had led him to traverse the route which
was mine on this memorable night must have observed how each of the
squares composing that residential chain which links the outer with
the inner Society has a popular and an exclusive side. The angle used
by vehicular traffic in crossing the square from corner to corner
invariably is rich in a crop of black board bearing house-agent's
announcements.

In the shadow of such a board I paused, taking out my case an
leisurely selecting a cigar. So many of the houses in the southwest
angle were unoccupied, that I found myself taking quite an interest
in one a little way ahead; from the hall door and from the long
conservatory over the porch light streamed out.

Excepting these illuminations, there was no light elsewhere in the
square to show which houses were inhabited and which vacant. I might
have stood in a street of Pompeii or Thebes—a street of the dead past.
I permitted my imagination to dwell upon this idea as I fumbled for
matches and gazed about me. I wondered if a day would come when some
savant of a future land, in a future age, should stand where I stood
and endeavor to reconstruct, from the crumbling ruins, this typical
London square. A slight breeze set the hatchet-board creaking above
my head, as I held my gloved hands about the pine-vesta.

At that moment some one or something whistled close beside me!

I turned, in a flash, dropping the match upon the pavement. There was
no lamp near the spot whereat I stood, and the gateway and porch of
the deserted residence seemed to be empty. I stood there peering in
the direction from which the mysterious whistle had come.

The drone of a taxicab, approaching from the north, increased in
volume, as the vehicle came spinning around the angle of the square,
passed me, and went droning on its way. I watched it swing around
the distant corner ... and, in the new stillness, the whistle was
repeated!

This time the sound chilled me. The whistle was pitched in a curious,
inhuman key, and it possessed a mocking note that was strangely uncanny.

Listening intently and peering towards the porch of the empty house,
I struck a second match, pushed the iron gate open and made for the
steps, sheltering the feeble flame with upraised hand. As I did so,
the whistle was again repeated, but from some spot further away, to
the left of the porch, and from low down upon the ground.

Just as I glimpsed something moving under the lee of the porch,
the match was blown out, for I was hampered by the handbag which I
carried. Thus reminded of its presence, however, I recollected that
my pocket-lamp was in it. Quickly opening the bag, I took out the
lamp, and, passing around the corner of the steps, directed a ray of
light into the narrow passage which communicated with the rear of
the building.

Half-way along the passage, looking back at me over its shoulder, and
whistling angrily, was a little marmoset!

I pulled up as sharply as though the point of a sword had been held at
my throat. One marmoset is sufficiently like another to deceive the
ordinary observer, but unless I was permitting a not unnatural
prejudice to influence my opinion, this particular specimen was the
pet of Dr. Fu-Manchu!

Excitement, not untinged with fear, began to grow up within me. Hyde
Park was no far cry, this was near to the heart of social London; yet,
somewhere close at hand, it might be, watching me as I stood—lurked,
perhaps, the great and evil being who dreamed of overthrowing the
entire white race!

With a grotesque grimace and a final, chattering whistle, the little
creature leapt away out of the beam of light cast by my lamp. Its
sudden disappearance brought me to my senses and reminded me of my
plain duty. I set off along the passage briskly, arrived at a small,
square yard ... and was just in time to see the ape leap into a
well-like opening before a basement window. I stepped to the brink,
directing the light down into the well.

I saw a collection of rotten leaves, waste paper, and miscellaneous
rubbish—but the marmoset was not visible. Then I perceived that
practically all the glass in the window had been broken. A sound of
shrill chattering reached me from the blackness of the underground
apartment.

Again I hesitated. What did the darkness mask?

The note of a distant motor-horn rose clearly above the vague throbbing
which is the only silence known to the town-dweller.

Gripping the unlighted cigar between my teeth, I placed my bag upon
the ground and dropped into the well before the broken window. To raise
the sash was a simple matter, and, having accomplished it, I inspected
the room within.

The light showed a large kitchen, with torn wall-paper and decorator's
litter strewn about the floor, a whitewash pail in one corner, and
nothing else.

I climbed in, and, taking from my pocket the Browning pistol without
which I had never traveled since the return of the dreadful Chinaman
to England, I crossed to the door, which was ajar, and looked out into
the passage beyond.

Stifling an exclamation, I fell back a step. Two gleaming eyes stared
straightly into mine!

The next moment I had forced a laugh to my lips ... as the marmoset
turned and went gamboling up the stairs. The house was profoundly
silent. I crossed the passage and followed the creature, which now was
proceeding, I thought, with more of a set purpose.

Out into a spacious and deserted hallway it led me, where my cautious
footsteps echoed eerily, and ghostly faces seemed to peer down upon me
from the galleries above. I should have liked to have unbarred the
street door, in order to have opened a safe line of retreat in the
event of its being required, but the marmoset suddenly sprang up the
main stairway at a great speed, and went racing around the gallery
overhead toward the front of the house.

Determined, if possible, to keep the creature in view, I started in
pursuit. Up the uncarpeted stairs I went, and, from the rail of the
landing, looked down into the blackness of the hallway apprehensively.
Nothing stirred below. The marmoset had disappeared between the
half-opened leaves of a large folding door. Casting the beam of light
ahead of me I followed. I found myself in a long, lofty apartment,
evidently a drawing-room.

Of the quarry I could detect no sign; but the only other door of the
room was closed; therefore, since the creature had entered, it must,
I argued, undoubtedly be concealed somewhere in the apartment.
Flashing the light about to right and left, I presently perceived that
a conservatory (no doubt facing on the square) ran parallel with one
side of the room. French windows gave access to either end of it; and
it was through one of these, which was slightly open, that the
questioning ray had intruded.

I stepped into the conservatory. Linen blinds covered the windows, but
a faint light from outside found access to the bare, tiled apartment.
Ten paces on my right, from an aperture once closed by a square wooden
panel that now lay upon the floor, the marmoset was grimacing at me.

Realizing that the ray of my lamp must be visible through the blinds
from outside, I extinguished it ... and, a moving silhouette against a
faintly luminous square, I could clearly distinguish the marmoset
watching me.

There was a light in the room beyond!

The marmoset disappeared—and I became aware of a faint, incense-like
perfume. Where had I met with it before? Nothing disturbed the silence
of the empty house wherein I stood; yet I hesitated for several seconds
to pursue the chase further. The realization came to me that the hole
in the wall communicated with the conservatory of the corner house in
the square, the house with the lighted windows.

Determined to see the thing through, I discarded my overcoat—and
crawled through the gap. The smell of burning perfume became almost
overpowering, as I stood upright, to find myself almost touching
curtains of some semi-transparent golden fabric draped in the door
between the conservatory and the drawing-room.

Cautiously, inch by inch, I approached my eyes to the slight gap in
the draperies, as, from somewhere in the house below, sounded the
clangor of a brazen gong. Seven times its ominous note boomed out. I
shrank back into my sanctuary; the incense seemed to be stifling me.

Never can I forget that nightmare apartment, that efreet's hall. It
was identical in shape with the room of the adjoining house through
which I had come, but its walls were draped in somber black and a
dead black carpet covered the entire floor. A golden curtain—similar
to that which concealed me—broke the somber expanse of the end wall
to my right, and the door directly opposite my hiding-place was closed.

Across the gold curtain, wrought in glittering black, were seven
characters, apparently Chinese; before it, supported upon seven ebony
pedestals, burned seven golden lamps; whilst, dotted about the black
carpet, were seven gold-lacquered stools, each having a black cushion
set before it. There was no sign of the marmoset; the incredible room
of black and gold was quite empty, with a sort of stark emptiness that
seemed to oppress my soul.

Close upon the booming of the gong followed a sound of many footsteps
and a buzz of subdued conversation. Keeping well back in the welcome
shadow I watched, with bated breath, the opening of the door
immediately opposite.

The outer sides of its leaves proved to be of gold, and one glimpse of
the room beyond awoke a latent memory and gave it positive form. I had
been in this house before; it was in that room with the golden door
that I had had my memorable interview with the mandarin Ki-Ming! My
excitement grew more and more intense.

Singly, and in small groups, a number of Orientals came in. All wore
European, or semi-European garments, but I was enabled to identify two
for Chinamen, two for Hindus and three for Burmans. Other Asiatics
there were, also, whose exact place among the Eastern races I could
not determine; there was at least one Egyptian and there were several
Eurasians; no women were present.

Standing grouped just within the open door, the gathering of Orientals
kept up a ceaseless buzz of subdued conversation; then, abruptly,
stark silence fell, and through a lane of bowed heads, Ki-Ming, the
famous Chinese diplomat, entered, smiling blandly, and took his seat
upon one of the seven golden stools. He wore the picturesque yellow
robe, trimmed with marten fur, which I had seen once before, and he
placed his pearl-encircled cap, surmounted by the coral ball denoting
his rank, upon the black cushion beside him.

Almost immediately afterward entered a second and even more striking
figure. It was that of a Lama monk! He was received with the same
marks of deference which had been accorded the mandarin; and he
seated himself upon another of the golden stools.

Silence, a moment of hushed expectancy, and ... yellow-robed, immobile,
his wonderful, evil face emaciated by illness, but his long, magnetic
eyes blazing greenly, as though not a soul but an elemental spirit
dwelt within that gaunt, high-shouldered body, Dr. Fu-Manchu entered,
slowly, leaning upon a heavy stick!