The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Sax Rohmer [nonfiction book recommendations .txt] 📗

would be for my reader, amid secure and cozy surroundings,

to credit any human being, with a callous villainy great enough

to conceive and to put into execution such a death pest

as that directed against Sir Crichton Davey.

 

One would expect God’s worst man to shrink from employing—

against however vile an enemy—such an instrument as the Zayat Kiss.

So thinking, my eye was caught by the following:—

 

EXPRESS CORRESPONDENT

 

NEW YORK.

 

“Secret service men of the United States Government are searching

the South Sea Islands for a certain Hawaiian from the island

of Maui, who, it is believed, has been selling poisonous scorpions

to Chinese in Honolulu anxious to get rid of their children.

 

“Infanticide, by scorpion and otherwise, among the Chinese,

has increased so terribly that the authorities have started

a searching inquiry, which has led to the hunt for the scorpion

dealer of Maui.

 

“Practically all the babies that die mysteriously are unwanted girls,

and in nearly every case the parents promptly ascribe the death to the bite

of a scorpion, and are ready to produce some more or less poisonous insect

in support of the statement.

 

“The authorities have no doubt that infanticide by scorpion

bite is a growing practice, and orders have been given to hunt

down the scorpion dealer at any cost.”

 

Is it any matter for wonder that such a people had produced a

Fu-Manchu? I pasted the cutting into a scrap-book, determined that,

if I lived to publish my account of those days, I would quote it

therein as casting a sidelight upon Chinese character.

 

A Reuter message to The Globe and a paragraph in The

Star also furnished work for my scissors. Here were evidences

of the deep-seated unrest, the secret turmoil, which manifested

itself so far from its center as peaceful England in the person

of the sinister Doctor.

 

“HONG KONG, Friday.

 

“Li Hon Hung, the Chinaman who fired at the Governor yesterday,

was charged before the magistrate with shooting at him with

intent to kill, which is equivalent to attempted murder.

The prisoner, who was not defended, pleaded guilty.

The Assistant Crown Solicitor, who prosecuted, asked for a remand

until Monday, which was granted.

 

“Snapshots taken by the spectators of the outrage yesterday disclosed

the presence of an accomplice, also armed with a revolver.

It is reported that this man, who was arrested last night,

was in possession of incriminating documentary evidence.”

 

Later.

 

“Examination of the documents found on Li Hon Hung’s accomplice

has disclosed the fact that both men were well financed by

the Canton Triad Society, the directors of which had enjoined

the assassination of Sir F. M. or Mr. C. S., the Colonial Secretary.

In a report prepared by the accomplice for dispatch to Canton,

also found on his person, he expressed regret that the attempt

had failed.”—Reuter.

 

“It is officially reported in St. Petersburg that a force of Chinese soldiers

and villagers surrounded the house of a Russian subject named Said Effendi,

near Khotan, in Chinese Turkestan.

 

“They fired at the house and set it in flames. There were in the house

about 100 Russians, many of whom were killed.

 

“The Russian Government has instructed its Minister at Peking to make

the most vigorous representations on the subject.”—Reuter.

 

Finally, in a Personal Column, I found the following:—

 

“HO-NAN. Have abandoned visit.—ELTHAM.”

 

I had just pasted it into my book when Nayland Smith came in and

threw himself into an arm-chair, facing me across the table.

I showed him the cutting.

 

“I am glad, for Eltham’s sake—and for the girl’s,” was his comment.

“But it marks another victory for Fu-Manchu! Just Heaven! Why is

retribution delayed!”

 

Smith’s darkly tanned face had grown leaner than ever

since he had begun his fight with the most uncanny opponent,

I suppose, against whom a man ever had pitted himself.

He stood up and began restlessly to pace the room,

furiously stuffing tobacco into his briar.

 

“I have seen Sir Lionel Barton,” he said abruptly; “and, to put the whole

thing in a nutshell, he has laughed at me! During the months that I

have been wondering where he had gone to he has been somewhere in Egypt.

He certainly bears a charmed life, for on the evidence of his letter

to The Times he has seen things in Tibet which Fu-Manchu would

have the West blind to; in fact, I think he has found a new keyhole

to the gate of the Indian Empire!”

 

Long ago we had placed the name of Sir Lionel Barton upon the list of

those whose lives stood between Fu-Manchu and the attainment of his end.

Orientalist and explorer, the fearless traveler who first had penetrated

to Lhassa, who thrice, as a pilgrim, had entered forbidden Mecca,

he now had turned his attention again to Tibet—thereby signing

his own death-warrant.

 

“That he has reached England alive is a hopeful sign?” I suggested.

 

Smith shook his head, and lighted the blackened briar.

 

“England at present is the web,” he replied. “The spider will be waiting.

Petrie, I sometimes despair. Sir Lionel is an impossible man to shepherd.

You ought to see his house at Finchley. A low, squat place completely

hemmed in by trees. Damp as a swamp; smells like a jungle.

Everything topsy-turvy. He only arrived to-day, and he is working and eating

(and sleeping I expect), in a study that looks like an earthquake at Sotheby’s

auction-rooms. The rest of the house is half a menagerie and half a circus.

He has a Bedouin groom, a Chinese body-servant, and Heaven only knows

what other strange people!”

 

“Chinese!”

 

“Yes, I saw him; a squinting Cantonese he calls Kwee. I don’t like him.

Also, there is a secretary known as Strozza, who has an unpleasant face.

He is a fine linguist, I understand, and is engaged upon the Spanish

notes for Barton’s forthcoming book on the Mayapan temples.

By the way, all Sir Lionel’s baggage disappeared from the landing-stage—

including his Tibetan notes.”

 

“Significant!”

 

“Of course. But he argues that he has crossed Tibet from the Kuen-Lun

to the Himalayas without being assassinated, and therefore

that it is unlikely he will meet with that fate in London.

I left him dictating the book from memory, at the rate of about

two hundred words a minute.”

 

“He is wasting no time.”

 

“Wasting time! In addition to the Yucatan book and the work on Tibet,

he has to read a paper at the Institute next week about some tomb he has

unearthed in Egypt. As I came away, a van drove up from the docks

and a couple of fellows delivered a sarcophagus as big as a boat.

It is unique, according to Sir Lionel, and will go to the British Museum

after he has examined it. The man crams six months’ work into six weeks;

then he is off again.”

 

“What do you propose to do?”

 

“What CAN I do? I know that Fu-Manchu will make an attempt upon him.

I cannot doubt it. Ugh! that house gave me the shudders.

No sunlight, I’ll swear, Petrie, can ever penetrate to the rooms,

and when I arrived this afternoon clouds of gnats floated like motes

wherever a stray beam filtered through the trees of the avenue.

There’s a steamy smell about the place that is almost malarious,

and the whole of the west front is covered with a sort of

monkey-creeper, which he has imported at some time or other.

It has a close, exotic perfume that is quite in the picture.

I tell you, the place was made for murder.”

 

“Have you taken any precautions?”

 

“I called at Scotland Yard and sent a man down to watch the house, but—”

 

He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

 

“What is Sir Lionel like?”

 

“A madman, Petrie. A tall, massive man, wearing a dirty

dressing-gown of neutral color; a man with untidy gray hair

and a bristling mustache, keen blue eyes, and a brown skin;

who wears a short beard or rarely shaves—I don’t know which.

I left him striding about among the thousand and one curiosities

of that incredible room, picking his way through his antique

furniture, works of reference, manuscripts, mummies, spears,

pottery and what not—sometimes kicking a book from his course,

or stumbling over a stuffed crocodile or a Mexican mask—

alternately dictating and conversing. Phew!”

 

For some time we were silent.

 

“Smith” I said, “we are making no headway in this business.

With all the forces arrayed against him, Fu-Manchu still eludes us,

still pursues his devilish, inscrutable way.”

 

Nayland Smith nodded.

 

“And we don’t know all,” he said. “We mark such and such a man

as one alive to the Yellow Peril, and we warn him—if we have time.

Perhaps he escapes; perhaps he does not. But what do we know, Petrie,

of those others who may die every week by his murderous agency?

We cannot know EVERYONE who has read the riddle of China.

I never see a report of someone found drowned, of an apparent suicide,

of a sudden, though seemingly natural death, without wondering.

I tell you, Fu-Manchu is omnipresent; his tentacles embrace everything.

I said that Sir Lionel must bear a charmed life. The fact that

WE are alive is a miracle.”

 

He glanced at his watch.

 

“Nearly eleven,” he said. “But sleep seems a waste of time—

apart from its dangers.”

 

We heard a bell ring. A few moments later followed a knock

at the room door.

 

“Come in!” I cried.

 

A girl entered with a telegram addressed to Smith.

His jaw looked very square in the lamplight, and his eyes shone

like steel as he took it from her and opened the envelope.

He glanced at the form, stood up and passed it to me,

reaching for his hat, which lay upon my writing-table.

 

“God help us, Petrie!” he said.

 

This was the message:

 

“Sir Lionel Barton murdered. Meet me at his house

at once.—WEYMOUTH, INSPECTOR.”