The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer [knowledgeable books to read TXT] 📗

why did this person make for here? And how, having mastered the dog, get out of Redmoat? I am open to admit the possibility of someone’s getting in during the day whilst the gates are open, and hiding until dusk. But how in the name of all that’s wonderful does he get out? He must possess the attributes of a bird.”

I thought of Greba Eltham’s statements, reminding my friend of her description of the thing which she had seen passing into this strangely haunted shrubbery.

“That line of speculation soon takes us out of our depth, Petrie,” he said. “Let us stick to what we can understand, and that may help us to a clearer idea of what, at present, is incomprehensible. My view of the case to date stands thus:

“(1) Eltham, having rashly decided to return to the interior of China, is warned by an official whose friendship he has won in some way to stay in England.

“(2) I know this official for one of the Yellow group represented in England by Dr. Fu-Manchu.

“(3) Several attempts, of which we know but little, to get at Eltham are frustrated, presumably by his curious ‘defenses.’ An attempt in a train fails owing to Miss Eltham’s distaste for refreshment-room coffee. An attempt here fails owing to her insomnia.

“(4) During Eltham’s absence from Redmoat certain preparations are made for his return. These lead to:

“(a) The death of Denby’s collie;

“(b) The things heard and seen by Miss Eltham;

“(c) The things heard and seen by us all last night.

“So that the clearing up of my fourth point⁠—id est, the discovery of the nature of these preparations⁠—becomes our immediate concern. The prime object of these preparations, Petrie, was to enable someone to gain access to Eltham’s room. The other events are incidental. The dogs had to be got rid of, for instance; and there is no doubt that Miss Eltham’s wakefulness saved her father a second time.”

“But from what? For Heaven’s sake, from what?”

Smith glanced about into the light-patched shadows.

“From a visit by someone⁠—perhaps by Fu-Manchu himself,” he said in a hushed voice. “The object of that visit I hope we may never learn; for that would mean that it had been achieved.”

“Smith,” I said, “I do not altogether understand you; but do you think he has some incredible creature hidden here somewhere? It would be like him.”

“I begin to suspect the most formidable creature in the known world to be hidden here. I believe Fu-Manchu is somewhere inside Redmoat!”

Our conversation was interrupted at this point by Denby, who came to report that he had examined the moat, the roadside, and the bank of the stream, but found no footprints or clue of any kind.

“No one left the grounds of Redmoat last night, I think,” he said. And his voice had awe in it.

That day dragged slowly on. A party of us scoured the neighborhood for traces of strangers, examining every foot of the Roman ruin hard by; but vainly.

“May not your presence here induce Fu-Manchu to abandon his plans?” I asked Smith.

“I think not,” he replied. “You see, unless we can prevail upon him, Eltham sails in a fortnight. So the Doctor has no time to waste. Furthermore, I have an idea that his arrangements are of such a character that they must go forward. He might turn aside, of course, to assassinate me, if opportunity arose! But we know, from experience, that he permits nothing to interfere with his schemes.”

There are few states, I suppose, which exact so severe a toll from one’s nervous system as the anticipation of calamity.

All anticipation is keener, be it of joy or pain, than the reality whereof it is a mental forecast; but that inactive waiting at Redmoat, for the blow which we knew full well to be pending exceeded in its nerve taxation, anything I hitherto had experienced.

I felt as one bound upon an Aztec altar, with the priest’s obsidian knife raised above my breast!

Secret and malign forces throbbed about us; forces against which we had no armor. Dreadful as it was, I count it a mercy that the climax was reached so quickly. And it came suddenly enough; for there in that quiet Norfolk home we found ourselves at hand grips with one of the mysterious horrors which characterized the operations of Dr. Fu-Manchu. It was upon us before we realized it. There is no incidental music to the dramas of real life.

As we sat on the little terrace in the creeping twilight, I remember thinking how the peace of the scene gave the lie to my fears that we bordered upon tragic things. Then Caesar, who had been a docile patient all day, began howling again; and I saw Greba Eltham shudder.

I caught Smith’s eye, and was about to propose our retirement indoors, when the party was broken up in more turbulent fashion. I suppose it was the presence of the girl which prompted Denby to the rash act, a desire personally to distinguish himself. But, as I recalled afterwards, his gaze had rarely left the shrubbery since dusk, save to seek her face, and now he leaped wildly to his feet, overturning his chair, and dashed across the grass to the trees.

“Did you see it?” he yelled. “Did you see it?”

He evidently carried a revolver. For from the edge of the shrubbery a shot sounded, and in the flash we saw Denby with the weapon raised.

“Greba, go in and fasten the windows,” cried Eltham. “Mr. Smith, will you enter the bushes from the west. Dr. Petrie, east. Edwards, Edwards⁠—” And he was off across the lawn with the nervous activity of a cat.

As I made off in an opposite direction I heard the gardener’s voice from the lower gate, and I saw Eltham’s plan. It was to surround the shrubbery.

Two more shots and two flashes from the dense heart of greenwood. Then a loud cry⁠—I thought, from Denby⁠—and a second, muffled one.

Following⁠—silence, only broken by the howling of the mastiff.

I sprinted through the rose garden, leaped heedlessly over a