The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu (22 page)

Dinner was out of the question that night for all of us.
Karamaneh who had spoken no word, but, grasping my hands, had
looked into my eyes—her own glassy with unshed tears—and then
stolen away to her cabin, had not since reappeared. Seated upon my
berth, I stared unseeingly before me, upon a changed ship, a
changed sea and sky upon another world. The poor old bishop, my
neighbor, had glanced in several times, as he hobbled by, and his
spectacles were unmistakably humid; but even he had vouchsafed no
word, realizing that my sorrow was too deep for such
consolation.

When at last I became capable of connected thought, I found
myself faced by a big problem. Should I place the facts of the
matter, as I knew them to be, before the captain? or could I hope
to apprehend Fu-Manchu's servant by the methods suggested by my
poor friend? That Smith's death was an accident, I did not believe
for a moment; it was impossible not to link it with the attempt
upon Karamaneh. In my misery and doubt, I determined to take
counsel with Dr. Stacey. I stood up, and passed out on to the
deck.

Those passengers whom I met on my way to his room regarded me in
respectful silence. By contrast, Stacey's attitude surprised and
even annoyed me.

"I'd be prepared to stake all I possess—although it's not much,"
he said, "that this was not the work of your hidden enemy."

He blankly refused to give me his reasons for the statement and
strongly advised me to watch and wait but to make no communication
to the captain.

At this hour I can look back and savor again something of the
profound dejection of that time. I could not face the passengers; I
even avoided Karamaneh and Aziz. I shut myself in my cabin and sat
staring aimlessly into the growing darkness. The steward knocked,
once, inquiring if I needed anything, but I dismissed him abruptly.
So I passed the evening and the greater part of the night.

Those groups of promenaders who passed my door, invariably were
discussing my poor friend's tragic end; but as the night wore on,
the deck grew empty, and I sat amid a silence that in my miserable
state I welcomed more than the presence of any friend, saving only
the one whom I should never welcome again.

Since I had not counted the bells, to this day I have only the
vaguest idea respecting the time whereat the next incident occurred
which it is my duty to chronicle. Perhaps I was on the verge of
falling asleep, seated there as I was; at any rate, I could
scarcely believe myself awake, when, unheralded by any footsteps to
indicate his coming, some one who seemed to be crouching outside my
stateroom, slightly raised himself and peered in through the
porthole—which I had not troubled to close.

He must have been a fairly tall man to have looked in at all,
and although his features were indistinguishable in the darkness,
his outline, which was clearly perceptible against the white boat
beyond, was unfamiliar to me. He seemed to have a small, and oddly
swathed head, and what I could make out of the gaunt neck and
square shoulders in some way suggested an unnatural thinness; in
short, the smudgy silhouette in the porthole was weirdly like that
of a mummy!

For some moments I stared at the apparition; then, rousing
myself from the apathy into which I had sunk, I stood up very
quickly and stepped across the room. As I did so the figure
vanished, and when I threw open the door and looked out upon the
deck… the deck was wholly untenanted!

I realized at once that it would be useless, even had I chosen
the course, to seek confirmation of what I had seen from the
officer on the bridge: my own berth, together with the one
adjoining—that of the bishop—was not visible from the bridge.

For some time I stood in my doorway, wondering in a
disinterested fashion which now I cannot explain, if the hidden
enemy had revealed himself to me, or if disordered imagination had
played me a trick. Later, I was destined to know the truth of the
matter, but when at last I fell into a troubled sleep, that night,
I was still in some doubt upon the point.

My state of mind when I awakened on the following day was
indescribable; I found it difficult to doubt that Nayland Smith
would meet me on the way to the bathroom as usual, with the cracked
briar fuming between his teeth. I felt myself almost compelled to
pass around to his stateroom in order to convince myself that he
was not really there. The catastrophe was still unreal to me, and
the world a dream-world. Indeed I retain scarcely any recollections
of the traffic of that day, or of the days that followed it until
we reached Port Said.

Two things only made any striking appeal to my dulled
intelligence at that time. These were: the aloof attitude of Dr.
Stacey, who seemed carefully to avoid me; and a curious
circumstance which the second officer mentioned in conversation one
evening as we strolled up and down the main deck together.

"Either I was fast asleep at my post, Dr. Petrie," he said, "or
last night, in the middle watch, some one or something came over
the side of the ship just aft the bridge, slipped across the deck,
and disappeared."

I stared at him wonderingly.

"Do you mean something that came up out of the sea?" I said.

"Nothing could very well have come up out of the sea," he
replied, smiling slightly, "so that it must have come up from the
deck below."

"Was it a man?"

"It looked like a man, and a fairly tall one, but he came and
was gone like a flash, and I saw no more of him up to the time I
was relieved. To tell you the truth, I did not report it because I
thought I must have been dozing; it's a dead slow watch, and the
navigation on this part of the run is child's play."

I was on the point of telling him what I had seen myself, two
evenings before, but for some reason I refrained from doing so,
although I think had I confided in him he would have abandoned the
idea that what he had seen was phantasmal; for the pair of us could
not very well have been dreaming. Some malignant presence haunted
the ship; I could not doubt this; yet I remained passive, sunk in a
lethargy of sorrow.

We were scheduled to reach Port Said at about eight o'clock in
the evening, but by reason of the delay occasioned so tragically, I
learned that in all probability we should not arrive earlier than
midnight, whilst passengers would not go ashore until the following
morning. Karamaneh who had been staring ahead all day, seeking a
first glimpse of her native land, was determined to remain up until
the hour of our arrival, but after dinner a notice was posted up
that we should not be in before two A.M. Even those passengers who
were the most enthusiastic thereupon determined to postpone, for a
few hours, their first glimpse of the land of the Pharaohs and even
to forego the sight—one of the strangest and most interesting in
the world—of Port Said by night.

For my own part, I confess that all the interest and hope with
which I had looked forward to our arrival, had left me, and often I
detected tears in the eyes of Karamaneh whereby I knew that the
coldness in my heart had manifested itself even to her. I had
sustained the greatest blow of my life, and not even the presence
of so lovely a companion could entirely recompense me for the loss
of my dearest friend.

The lights on the Egyptian shore were faintly visible when the
last group of stragglers on deck broke up. I had long since
prevailed upon Karamaneh to retire, and now, utterly sick at heart,
I sought my own stateroom, mechanically undressed, and turned
in.

It may, or may not be singular that I had neglected all
precautions since the night of the tragedy; I was not even
conscious of a desire to visit retribution upon our hidden enemy;
in some strange fashion I took it for granted that there would be
no further attempts upon Karamaneh, Aziz, or myself. I had not
troubled to confirm Smith's surmise respecting the closing of the
portholes; but I know now for a fact that, whereas they had been
closed from the time of our leaving the Straits of Messina,
to-night, in sight of the Egyptian coast, the regulation was
relaxed again. I cannot say if this is usual, but that it occurred
on this ship is a fact to which I can testify—a fact to which my
attention was to be drawn dramatically.

The night was steamingly hot, and because I welcomed the
circumstance that my own port was widely opened, I reflected that
those on the lower decks might be open also. A faint sense of
danger stirred within me; indeed, I sat upright and was about to
spring out of my berth when that occurred which induced me to
change my mind.

All passengers had long since retired, and a midnight silence
descended upon the ship, for we were not yet close enough to port
for any unusual activities to have commenced.

Clearly outlined in the open porthole there suddenly arose that
same grotesque silhouette which I had seen once before.

Prompted by I know not what, I lay still and simulated heavy
breathing; for it was evident to me that I must be partly visible
to the watcher, so bright was the night. For ten—twenty—thirty
seconds he studied me in absolute silence, that gaunt thing so like
a mummy; and, with my eyes partly closed, I watched him, breathing
heavily all the time. Then, making no more noise than a cat, he
moved away across the deck, and I could judge of his height by the
fact that his small, swathed head remained visible almost to the
time that he passed to the end of the white boat which swung
opposite my stateroom.

In a moment I slipped quietly to the floor, crossed, and peered
out of the porthole; so that at last I had a clear view of the
sinister mummy-man. He was crouching under the bow of the boat, and
attaching to the white rails, below, a contrivance of a kind with
which I was not entirely unfamiliar. This was a thin ladder of
silken rope, having bamboo rungs, with two metal hooks for
attaching it to any suitable object.

The one thus engaged was, as Karamaneh had declared, almost
superhumanly thin. His loins were swathed in a sort of linen
garment, and his head so bound about, turban fashion, that only his
gleaming eyes remained visible. The bare limbs and body were of a
dusky yellow color, and, at sight of him, I experienced a sudden
nausea.

My pistol was in my cabin-trunk, and to have found it in the
dark, without making a good deal of noise, would have been
impossible. Doubting how I should act, I stood watching the man
with the swathed head whilst he threw the end of the ladder over
the side, crept past the bow of the boat, and swung his gaunt body
over the rail, exhibiting the agility of an ape. One quick glance
fore and aft he gave, then began to swarm down the ladder: in which
instant I knew his mission.

With a choking cry, which forced itself unwilled from my lips, I
tore at the door, threw it open, and sprang across the deck. Plans,
I had none, and since I carried no instrument wherewith to sever
the ladder, the murderer might indeed have carried out his design
for all that I could have done to prevent him, were it not that
another took a hand in the game… .

At the moment that the mummy-man—his head now on a level with
the deck—perceived me, he stopped dead. Coincident with his
stopping, the crack of a pistol shot sounded—from immediately
beyond the boat.

Uttering a sort of sobbing sound, the creature fell—then
clutched, with straining yellow fingers, at the rails, and,
seemingly by dint of a great effort, swarmed along aft some twenty
feet, with incredible swiftness and agility, and clambered onto the
deck.

A second shot cracked sharply; and a voice (God! was I mad!)
cried: "Hold him, Petrie!"

Rigid with fearful astonishment I stood, as out from the boat
above me leaped a figure attired solely in shirt and trousers. The
newcomer leaped away in the wake of the mummy-man—who had vanished
around the corner by the smoke-room. Over his shoulder he cried
back at me:

"The bishop's stateroom! See that no one enters!"

I clutched at my head—which seemed to be fiery hot; I realized
in my own person the sensation of one who knows himself mad.

For the man who pursued the mummy was Nayland Smith!

I stood in the bishop's state-room, Nayland Smith, his gaunt
face wet with perspiration, beside me, handling certain odd looking
objects which littered the place, and lay about amid the discarded
garments of the absent cleric.

"Pneumatic pads!" he snapped. "The man was a walking
air-cushion!" He gingerly fingered two strange rubber appliances.
"For distending the cheeks," he muttered, dropping them disgustedly
on the floor. "His hands and wrists betrayed him, Petrie. He wore
his cuff unusually long but he could not entirely hide his bony
wrists. To have watched him, whilst remaining myself unseen, was
next to impossible; hence my device of tossing a dummy overboard,
calculated to float for less than ten minutes! It actually floated
nearly fifteen, as a matter of fact, and I had some horrible
moments!"

"Smith!" I said—"how could you submit me… "

He clapped his hands on my shoulders.

"My dear old chap—there was no other way, believe me. From that
boat I could see right into his stateroom, but, once in, I dare not
leave it—except late at night, stealthily! The second spotted me
one night and I thought the game was up, but evidently he didn't
report it."

"But you might have confided… "

"Impossible! I'll admit I nearly fell to the temptation that
first night; for I could see into your room as well as into his!"
He slapped me boisterously on the back, but his gray eyes were
suspiciously moist. "Dear old Petrie! Thank God for our friends!
But you'd be the first to admit, old man, that you're a dead rotten
actor! Your portrayal of grief for the loss of a valued chum would
not have convinced a soul on board!