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

purple shadows above.

 

In a chair piled high with dragon-covered cushions a man sat

behind this table. The light from the swinging lamp fell fully

upon one side of his face, as he leaned forward amid the jumble

of weird objects, and left the other side in purplish shadow.

From a plain brass bowl upon the corner of the huge table smoke

writhed aloft and at times partially obscured that dreadful face.

 

From the instant that my eyes were drawn to the table and to the man

who sat there, neither the incredible extent of the room, nor the nightmare

fashion of its mural decorations, could reclaim my attention.

I had eyes only for him.

 

For it was Dr. Fu-Manchu!

 

Something of the delirium which had seemed to fill my veins

with fire, to people the walls with dragons, and to plunge me

knee-deep in the carpet, left me. Those dreadful, filmed green

eyes acted somewhat like a cold douche. I knew, without removing

my gaze from the still face, that the walls no longer lived,

but were merely draped in exquisite Chinese dragon tapestry.

The rich carpet beneath my feet ceased to be as a jungle and became

a normal carpet—extraordinarily rich, but merely a carpet.

But the sense of vastness nevertheless remained, with the uncomfortable

knowledge that the things upon the table and overflowing about it

were all, or nearly all, of a fashion strange to me.

 

Then, and almost instantaneously, the comparative sanity which I had

temporarily experienced began to slip from me again; for the smoke

faintly penciled through the air—from the burning perfume on the table—

grew in volume, thickened, and wafted towards me in a cloud of gray horror.

It enveloped me, clammily. Dimly, through its oily wreaths, I saw

the immobile yellow face of Fu-Manchu. And my stupefied brain acclaimed him

a sorcerer, against whom unwittingly we had pitted our poor human wits.

The green eyes showed filmy through the fog. An intense pain shot

through my lower limbs, and, catching my breath, I looked down.

As I did so, the points of the red slippers which I dreamed that I wore

increased in length, curled sinuously upward, twined about my throat

and choked the breath from my body!

 

Came an interval, and then a dawning like consciousness;

but it was a false consciousness, since it brought with it the idea

that my head lay softly pillowed and that a woman’s hand caressed

my throbbing forehead. Confusedly, as though in the remote past,

I recalled a kiss—and the recollection thrilled me strangely.

Dreamily content I lay, and a voice stole to my ears:

 

“They are killing him! they are killing him! Oh! do you not understand?”

In my dazed condition, I thought that it was I who had died, and that this

musical girl-voice was communicating to me the fact of my own dissolution.

 

But I was conscious of no interest in the matter.

 

For hours and hours, I thought, that soothing hand caressed me.

I never once raised my heavy lids, until there came a resounding

crash that seemed to set my very bones vibrating—a metallic,

jangling crash, as the fall of heavy chains. I thought that, then,

I half opened my eyes, and that in the dimness I had a fleeting

glimpse of a figure clad in gossamer silk, with arms covered

with barbaric bangles and slim ankles surrounded by gold bands.

The girl was gone, even as I told myself that she was an houri,

and that I, though a Christian, had been consigned by some error

to the paradise of Mohammed.

 

Then—a complete blank.

 

My head throbbed madly; my brain seemed to be clogged—inert; and though

my first, feeble movement was followed by the rattle of a chain, some moments

more elapsed ere I realized that the chain was fastened to a steel collar—

that the steel collar was clasped about my neck.

 

I moaned weakly.

 

“Smith!” I muttered, “Where are you? Smith!”

 

On to my knees I struggled, and the pain on the top of my skull grew

all but insupportable. It was coming back to me now; how Nayland Smith

and I had started for the hotel to warn Graham Guthrie; how, as we

passed up the steps from the Embankment and into Essex Street,

we saw the big motor standing before the door of one of the offices.

I could recall coming up level with the car—a modern limousine;

but my mind retained no impression of our having passed it—

only a vague memory of a rush of footsteps—a blow. Then, my vision

of the hall of dragons, and now this real awakening to a worse reality.

 

Groping in the darkness, my hands touched a body that lay close beside me.

My fingers sought and found the throat, sought and found the steel

collar about it.

 

“Smith,” I groaned; and I shook the still form. “Smith, old man—

speak to me! Smith!”

 

Could he be dead? Was this the end of his gallant fight with Dr. Fu-Manchu

and the murder group? If so, what did the future hold for me—

what had I to face?

 

He stirred beneath my trembling hands.

 

“Thank God!” I muttered, and I cannot deny that my joy was tainted

with selfishness. For, waking in that impenetrable darkness, and yet obsessed

with the dream I had dreamed, I had known what fear meant, at the realization

that alone, chained, I must face the dreadful Chinese doctor in the flesh.

Smith began incoherent mutterings.

 

“Sand-bagged!…Look out, Petrie!…He has us at last!…Oh, Heavens!”

…He struggled on to his knees, clutching at my hand.

 

“All right, old man,” I said. “We are both alive!

So let’s be thankful.”

 

A moment’s silence, a groan, then:

 

“Petrie, I have dragged you into this. God forgive me—”

 

“Dry up, Smith,” I said slowly. “I’m not a child.

There is no question of being dragged into the matter.

I’m here; and if I can be of any use, I’m glad I am here!”

 

He grasped my hand.

 

“There were two Chinese, in European clothes—lord, how my head throbs!—

in that office door. They sand-bagged us, Petrie—think of it!—

in broad daylight, within hail of the Strand! We were rushed

into the car—and it was all over, before—” His voice grew faint.

“God! they gave me an awful knock!”

 

“Why have we been spared, Smith? Do you think he is saving us for—”

 

“Don’t, Petrie! If you had been in China, if you had seen

what I have seen—”

 

Footsteps sounded on the flagged passage. A blade of light crept

across the floor towards us. My brain was growing clearer.

The place had a damp, earthen smell. It was slimy—some noisome cellar.

A door was thrown open and a man entered, carrying a lantern.

Its light showed my surmise to be accurate, showed the

slime-coated walls of a dungeon some fifteen feet square—

shone upon the long yellow robe of the man who stood watching us,

upon the malignant, intellectual countenance.

 

It was Dr. Fu-Manchu.

 

At last they were face to face—the head of the great Yellow Movement,

and the man who fought on behalf of the entire white race.

How can I paint the individual who now stood before us—

perhaps the greatest genius of modern times?

 

Of him it had been fitly said that he had a brow like Shakespeare and a face

like Satan. Something serpentine, hypnotic, was in his very presence.

Smith drew one sharp breath, and was silent. Together, chained to the wall,

two mediaeval captives, living mockeries of our boasted modern security,

we crouched before Dr. Fu-Manchu.

 

He came forward with an indescribable gait, catlike yet awkward,

carrying his high shoulders almost hunched. He placed the lantern

in a niche in the wall, never turning away the reptilian gaze

of those eyes which must haunt my dreams forever. They possessed

a viridescence which hitherto I had supposed possible only in the eye

of the cat—and the film intermittently clouded their brightness—

but I can speak of them no more.

 

I had never supposed, prior to meeting Dr. Fu-Manchu, that so intense

a force of malignancy could radiate—from any human being. He spoke.

His English was perfect, though at times his words were oddly chosen;

his delivery alternately was guttural and sibilant.

 

“Mr. Smith and Dr. Petrie, your interference with my plans has gone too far.

I have seriously turned my attention to you.”

 

He displayed his teeth, small and evenly separated,

but discolored in a way that was familiar to me.

I studied his eyes with a new professional interest,

which even the extremity of our danger could not wholly banish.

Their greenness seemed to be of the iris; the pupil was

oddly contracted—a pin-point.

 

Smith leaned his back against the wall with assumed indifference.

 

“You have presumed,” continued Fu-Manchu, “to meddle with a

world-change. Poor spiders—caught in the wheels of the inevitable!

You have linked my name with the futility of the Young China Movement—

the name of Fu-Manchu! Mr. Smith, you are an incompetent meddler—

I despise you! Dr. Petrie, you are a fool—I am sorry for you!”

 

He rested one bony hand on his hip, narrowing the long

eyes as he looked down on us. The purposeful cruelty

of the man was inherent; it was entirely untheatrical.

Still Smith remained silent.

 

“So I am determined to remove you from the scene of your blunders!”

added Fu-Manchu.

 

“Opium will very shortly do the same for you!” I rapped at him savagely.

 

Without emotion he turned the narrowed eyes upon me.

 

“That is a matter of opinion, Doctor,” he said. “You may have lacked

the opportunities which have been mine for studying that subject—

and in any event I shall not be privileged to enjoy your advice

in the future.”

 

“You will not long outlive me,” I replied. “And our deaths will not

profit you, incidentally; because—” Smith’s foot touched mine.

 

“Because?” inquired Fu-Manchu softly.

 

“Ah! Mr. Smith is so prudent! He is thinking that I have FILES!”

He pronounced the word in a way that made me shudder. “Mr. Smith

has seen a WIRE JACKET! Have you ever seen a wire jacket?

As a surgeon its functions would interest you!”

 

I stifled a cry that rose to my lips; for, with a shrill whistling sound,

a small shape came bounding into the dimly lit vault, then shot upward.

A marmoset landed on the shoulder of Dr. Fu-Manchu and peered grotesquely

into the dreadful yellow face. The Doctor raised his bony hand and fondled

the little creature, crooning to it.

 

“One of my pets, Mr. Smith,” he said, suddenly opening

his eyes fully so that they blazed like green lamps.

“I have others, equally useful. My scorpions—have you

met my scorpions? No? My pythons and hamadryads?

Then there are my fungi and my tiny allies, the bacilli.

I have a collection in my laboratory quite unique. Have you ever

visited Molokai, the leper island, Doctor? No? But Mr. Nayland

Smith will be familiar with the asylum at Rangoon!

And we must not forget my black spiders, with their diamond eyes—

my spiders, that sit in the dark and watch—then leap!”

 

He raised his lean hands, so that the sleeve of the robe fell back

to the elbow, and the ape dropped, chattering, to the floor and ran

from the cellar.

 

“O God of Cathay!” he cried, “by what death shall these die—

these miserable ones who would bind thine Empire, which is boundless!”

 

Like some priest of Tezcat he stood, his eyes upraised to the roof,

his lean body quivering—a sight to shock the most unimpressionable mind.

 

“He is mad!” I