The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer [free novels .txt] 📗

So, avoiding the gaze of the lad, I took his arm, and in silence we two ascended the stairs and entered my study... where Nayland Smith stood bolt upright beside the table, his steely eyes fixed upon the face of the new arrival.

No look of recognition crossed the bronzed features, and Aziz who had started forward with outstretched hands, fell back a step and looked pathetically from me to Nayland Smith, and from the grim commissioner back again to me. The appeal in the velvet eyes was more than I could tolerate, unmoved.

“Smith,” I said shortly, “you remember Aziz?”

Not a muscle visibly moved in Smith’s face, as he snapped back:

“I remember him perfectly.”

“He has come, I think, to seek our assistance.”

“Yes, yes!” cried Aziz laying his hand upon my arm with a gesture painfully reminiscent of Karamaneh—“I came only to-night to London. Oh, my gentlemen! I have searched, and searched, and searched, until I am weary. Often I have wished to die. And then at last I come to Rangoon...”

“To Rangoon!” snapped Smith, still with the gray eyes fixed almost fiercely upon the lad’s face.

“To Rangoon—yes; and there I heard news at last. I hear that you have seen her—have seen Karamaneh—that you are back in London.” He was not entirely at home with his English. “I know then that she must be here, too. I ask them everywhere, and they answer ‘yes.’ Oh, Smith Pasha!”—he stepped forward and impulsively seized both Smith’s hands—“You know where she is—take me to her!”

Smith’s face was a study in perplexity, now. In the past we had befriended the young Aziz, and it was hard to look upon him in the light of an enemy. Yet had we not equally befriended his sister?—and she...

At last Smith glanced across at me where I stood just within the doorway.

“What do you make of it, Petrie?” he said harshly. “Personally I take it to mean that our plans have leaked out.” He sprang suddenly back from Aziz and I saw his glance traveling rapidly over the slight figure as if in quest of concealed arms. “I take it to be a trap!”

A moment he stood so, regarding him, and despite my well-grounded distrust of the Oriental character, I could have sworn that the expression of pained surprise upon the youth’s face was not simulated but real. Even Smith, I think, began to share my view; for suddenly he threw himself into the white cane rest-chair, and, still fixedly regarding Aziz:

“Perhaps I have wronged you,” he said. “If I have, you shall know the reason presently. Tell your own story!”

There was a pathetic humidity in the velvet eyes of Aziz—eyes so like those others that were ever looking into mine in dreams—as glancing from Smith to me he began, hands outstretched, characteristically, palms upward and fingers curling, to tell in broken English the story of his search for Karamaneh...

“It was Fu-Manchu, my kind gentlemen—it was the hakim who is really not a man at all, but an efreet. He found us again less than four days after you had left us, Smith Pasha!... He found us in Cairo, and to Karamaneh he made the forgetting of all things—even of me—even of me...”

Nayland Smith snapped his teeth together sharply; then:

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

For my own part I understood well enough, remembering how the brilliant Chinese doctor once had performed such an operation as this upon poor Inspector Weymouth; how, by means of an injection of some serum prepared (as Karamaneh afterwards told us) from the venom of a swamp adder or similar reptile, he had induced amnesia, or complete loss of memory. I felt every drop of blood recede from my cheeks.

“Smith!” I began...

“Let him speak for himself,” interrupted my friend sharply.

“They tried to take us both,” continued Aziz still speaking in that soft, melodious manner, but with deep seriousness. “I escaped, I, who am swift of foot, hoping to bring help.”—He shook his head sadly—“But, except the All Powerful, who is so powerful as the Hakim Fu-Manchu? I hid, my gentlemen, and watched and waited, one—two—three weeks. At last I saw her again, my sister, Karamaneh; but ah! she did not know me, did not know me, Aziz her brother! She was in an arabeeyeh, and passed me quickly along the Sharia en-Nahhasin. I ran, and ran, and ran, crying her name, but although she looked back, she did not know me—she did not know me! I felt that I was dying, and presently I fell—upon the steps of the Mosque of Abu.”

He dropped the expressive hands wearily to his sides and sank his chin upon his breast.

“And then?” I said, huskily—for my heart was fluttering like a captive bird.

“Alas! from that day to this I see her no more, my gentlemen. I travel, not only in Egypt, but near and far, and still I see her no more until in Rangoon I hear that which brings me to England again”—he extended his palms naively—“and here I am—Smith Pasha.”

Smith sprang upright again and turned to me.

“Either I am growing over-credulous,” he said, “or Aziz speaks the truth. But”—he held up his hand—“you can tell me all that at some other time, Petrie! We must take no chances. Sergeant Carter is downstairs with the cab; you might ask him to step up. He and Aziz can remain here until our return.”