The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Sax Rohmer [nonfiction book recommendations .txt] 📗
- Author: Sax Rohmer
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I noticed how it affected you.”
My friend nodded and lighted his pipe.
“There was a ghastly business there in 1908 or early in 1909,”
he replied: “an utterly mysterious epidemic. And this beastly
wailing was associated with it.”
“In what way? And what do you mean by an epidemic?”
“It began, I believe, at the Palace Mansions Hotel, in the cantonments.
A young American, whose name I cannot recall, was staying there on business
connected with some new iron buildings. One night he went to his room,
locked the door, and jumped out of the window into the courtyard.
Broke his neck, of course.”
“Suicide?”
“Apparently. But there were singular features in the case.
For instance, his revolver lay beside him, fully loaded!”
“In the courtyard?”
“In the courtyard!”
“Was it murder by any chance?”
Smith shrugged his shoulders.
“His door was found locked from the inside; had to be broken in.”
“But the wailing business?”
“That began later, or was only noticed later. A French doctor,
named Lafitte, died in exactly the same way.”
“At the same place?”
“At the same hotel; but he occupied a different room.
Here is the extraordinary part of the affair: a friend shared
the room with him, and actually saw him go!”
“Saw him leap from the window?”
“Yes. The friend—an Englishman—was aroused by the uncanny wailing.
I was in Rangoon at the time, so that I know more of the case of Lafitte
than of that of the American. I spoke to the man about it personally.
He was an electrical engineer, Edward Martin, and he told me that the cry
seemed to come from above him.”
“It seemed to come from above when we heard it at Fu-Manchu’s house.”
“Martin sat up in bed, it was a clear moonlight night—
the sort of moonlight you get in Burma. Lafitte, for some reason,
had just gone to the window. His friend saw him look out.
The next moment with a dreadful scream, he threw himself forward—
and crashed down into the courtyard!”
“What then?”
“Martin ran to the window and looked down.
Lafitte’s scream had aroused the place, of course.
But there was absolutely nothing to account for the occurrence.
There was no balcony, no ledge, by means of which anyone could
reach the window.”
“But how did you come to recognize the cry?”
“I stopped at the Palace Mansions for some time;
and one night this uncanny howling aroused me.
I heard it quite distinctly, and am never likely to forget it.
It was followed by a hoarse yell. The man in the next room,
an orchid hunter, had gone the same way as the others!”
“Did you change your quarters?”
“No. Fortunately for the reputation of the hotel—a first-class establishment—
several similar cases occurred elsewhere, both in Rangoon, in Prome
and in Moulmein. A story got about the native quarter, and was fostered
by some mad fakir, that the god Siva was reborn and that the cry was his call
for victims; a ghastly story, which led to an outbreak of dacoity and gave
the District Superintendent no end of trouble.”
“Was there anything unusual about the bodies?”
“They all developed marks after death, as though they had been strangled!
The marks were said all to possess a peculiar form, though it was not
appreciable to my eye; and this, again, was declared to be the five
heads of Siva.”
“Were the deaths confined to Europeans?”
“Oh, no. Several Burmans and others died in the same way.
At first there was a theory that the victims had contracted leprosy and
committed suicide as a result; but the medical evidence disproved that.
The Call of Siva became a perfect nightmare throughout Burma.”
“Did you ever hear it again, before this evening?”
“Yes. I heard it on the Upper Irrawaddy one clear,
moonlight night, and a Colassie—a deck-hand—leaped from
the top deck of the steamer aboard which I was traveling!
My God! to think that the fiend Fu-Manchu has brought
That to England!”
“But brought what, Smith?” I cried, in perplexity.
“What has he brought? An evil spirit? A mental disease?
What is it? What CAN it be?”
“A new agent of death, Petrie! Something born in a plague-spot of Burma—
the home of much that is unclean and much that is inexplicable.
Heaven grant that we be in time, and are able to save Guthrie.”
THE train was late, and as our cab turned out of Waterloo Station
and began to ascend to the bridge, from a hundred steeples rang
out the gongs of midnight, the bell of St. Paul’s raised above
them all to vie with the deep voice of Big Ben.
I looked out from the cab window across the river to where, towering above
the Embankment, that place of a thousand tragedies, the light of some
of London’s greatest caravanserais formed a sort of minor constellation.
From the subdued blaze that showed the public supper-rooms I looked
up to the hundreds of starry points marking the private apartments
of those giant inns.
I thought how each twinkling window denoted the presence of some
bird of passage, some wanderer temporarily abiding in our midst.
There, floor piled upon floor above the chattering throngs,
were these less gregarious units, each something of a mystery
to his fellow-guests, each in his separate cell; and each as remote
from real human companionship as if that cell were fashioned,
not in the bricks of London, but in the rocks of Hindustan!
In one of those rooms Graham Guthrie might at that moment be sleeping,
all unaware that he would awake to the Call of Siva, to the summons of death.
As we neared the Strand, Smith stopped the cab, discharging the man
outside Sotheby’s auction-rooms.
“One of the doctor’s watch-dogs may be in the foyer,” he said thoughtfully,
“and it might spoil everything if we were seen to go to Guthrie’s rooms.
There must be a back entrance to the kitchens, and so on?”
“There is,” I replied quickly. “I have seen the vans delivering there.
But have we time?”
“Yes. Lead on.”
We walked up the Strand and hurried westward. Into that narrow court,
with its iron posts and descending steps, upon which opens a well-known
wine-cellar, we turned. Then, going parallel with the Strand,
but on the Embankment level, we ran round the back of the great hotel,
and came to double doors which were open. An arc lamp illuminated
the interior and a number of men were at work among the casks,
crates and packages stacked about the place. We entered.
“Hallo!” cried a man in a white overall, “where d’you think you’re going?”
Smith grasped him by the arm.
“I want to get to the public part of the hotel without being seen
from the entrance hall,” he said. “Will you please lead the way?
“Here—” began the other, staring.
“Don’t waste time!” snapped my friend, in that tone of authority
which he knew so well how to assume. “It’s a matter of life and death.
Lead the way, I say!”
“Police, sir?” asked the man civilly.
“Yes,” said Smith; “hurry!”
Off went our guide without further demur. Skirting sculleries, kitchens,
laundries and engine-rooms, he led us through those mysterious labyrinths
which have no existence for the guest above, but which contain the machinery
that renders these modern khans the Aladdin’s palaces they are.
On a second-floor landing we met a man in a tweed suit, to whom our
cicerone presented us.
“Glad I met you, sir. Two gentlemen from the police.”
The man regarded us haughtily with a suspicious smile.
“Who are you?” he asked. “You’re not from Scotland Yard,
at any rate!”
Smith pulled out a card and thrust it into the speaker’s hand.
“If you are the hotel detective,” he said, “take us without delay
to Mr. Graham Guthrie.”
A marked change took place in the other’s demeanor on glancing
at the card in his hand.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said deferentially, “but, of course,
I didn’t know who I was speaking to. We all have instructions
to give you every assistance.”
“Is Mr. Guthrie in his room?”
“He’s been in his room for some time, sir. You will want to get there
without being seen? This way. We can join the lift on the third floor.”
Off we went again, with our new guide. In the lift:
“Have you noticed anything suspicious about the place tonight?” asked Smith.
“I have!” was the startling reply. “That accounts for your
finding me where you did. My usual post is in the lobby.
But about eleven o’clock, when the theater people began to come
in I had a hazy sort of impression that someone or something
slipped past in the crowd—something that had no business
in the hotel.”
We got out of the lift.
“I don’t quite follow you,” said Smith. “If you thought you saw
something entering, you must have formed a more or less definite
impression regarding it.”
“That’s the funny part of the business,” answered the man doggedly.
“I didn’t! But as I stood at the top of the stairs I could
have sworn that there was something crawling up behind a party—
two ladies and two gentlemen.”
“A dog, for instance?”
“It didn’t strike me as being a dog, sir. Anyway, when the party passed me,
there was nothing there. Mind you, whatever it was, it hadn’t come
in by the front. I have made inquiries everywhere, but without result.”
He stopped abruptly. “No. 189—Mr. Guthrie’s door, sir.”
Smith knocked.
“Hallo!” came a muffled voice; “what do you want?”
“Open the door! Don’t delay; it is important.”
He turned to the hotel detective.
“Stay right there where you can watch the stairs and the lift,”
he instructed; “and note everyone and everything that passes this door.
But whatever you see or hear, do nothing without my orders.”
The man moved off, and the door was opened. Smith whispered
in my ear:
“Some creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu is in the hotel!”
Mr. Graham Guthrie, British resident in North Bhutan, was a big,
thick-set man—gray-haired and florid, with widely opened eyes of the true
fighting blue, a bristling mustache and prominent shaggy brows.
Nayland Smith introduced himself tersely, proffering his card
and an open letter.
“Those are my credentials, Mr. Guthrie,” he said; “so no doubt
you will realize that the business which brings me and my friend,
Dr. Petrie, here at such an hour is of the first importance.”
He switched off the light.
“There is no time for ceremony,” he explained. “It is now twenty-five minutes
past twelve. At half-past an attempt will be made upon your life!”
“Mr. Smith,” said the other, who, arrayed in his pajamas,
was seated on the edge of the bed, “you alarm me very greatly.
I may mention that I was advised of your presence in
England this morning.”
“Do you know anything respecting the person called Fu-Manchu—Dr. Fu-Manchu?”
“Only what I was told to-day—that he is the agent of an
advanced political group.”
“It is opposed to his interests that you should return to Bhutan.
A more gullible agent would be preferable. Therefore, unless you
implicitly obey my instructions, you will never leave England!”
Graham Guthrie breathed quickly. I was growing more used to the gloom,
and I could dimly discern him, his face turned towards Nayland Smith,
whilst with his hand he clutched the bedrail. Such a
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