The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer (english novels for students .txt) 📕

very strong swimmer, Doctor,” interrupted Inspector Ryman. “Why, he pulled off the quarter-mile championship at the Crystal Palace last year! Cadby wasn’t a man easy to drown. And as for Mason, he was an R.N.R., and like a fish in the water!”

Smith shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

“Let us hope that one day we shall know how they died,” he said simply.

Weymouth returned from the telephone.

“The address is No. ⸻ Cold Harbor Lane,” he reported. “I shall not be able to come along, but you can’t miss it; it’s close by the Brixton Police Station. There’s no family, fortunately; he was quite alone in the world. His casebook isn’t in the American desk, which you’ll find in his sitting-room; it’s in the cupboard in the corner⁠—top shelf. Here are his keys, all intact. I think this is the cupboard key.”

Smith nodded.

“Come on, Petrie,” he said. “We haven’t a second to waste.”

Our cab was waiting, and in a few seconds we were speeding along Wapping High Street. We had gone no more than a few hundred yards, I think, when Smith suddenly slapped his open hand down on his knee.

“That pigtail!” he cried. “I have left it behind! We must have it, Petrie! Stop! Stop!”

The cab was pulled up, and Smith alighted.

“Don’t wait for me,” he directed hurriedly. “Here, take Weymouth’s card. Remember where he said the book was? It’s all we want. Come straight on to Scotland Yard and meet me there.”

“But Smith,” I protested, “a few minutes can make no difference!”

“Can’t it!” he snapped. “Do you suppose Fu-Manchu is going to leave evidence like that lying about? It’s a thousand to one he has it already, but there is just a bare chance.”

It was a new aspect of the situation and one that afforded no room for comment; and so lost in thought did I become that the cab was outside the house for which I was bound ere I realized that we had quitted the purlieus of Wapping. Yet I had had leisure to review the whole troop of events which had crowded my life since the return of Nayland Smith from Burma. Mentally, I had looked again upon the dead Sir Crichton Davey, and with Smith had waited in the dark for the dreadful thing that had killed him. Now, with those remorseless memories jostling in my mind, I was entering the house of Fu-Manchu’s last victim, and the shadow of that giant evil seemed to be upon it like a palpable cloud.

Cadby’s old landlady greeted me with a queer mixture of fear and embarrassment in her manner.

“I am Dr. Petrie,” I said, “and I regret that I bring bad news respecting Mr. Cadby.”

“Oh, sir!” she cried. “Don’t tell me that anything has happened to him!” And divining something of the mission on which I was come, for such sad duty often falls to the lot of the medical man: “Oh, the poor, brave lad!”

Indeed, I respected the dead man’s memory more than ever from that hour, since the sorrow of the worthy old soul was quite pathetic, and spoke eloquently for the unhappy cause of it.

“There was a terrible wailing at the back of the house last night, Doctor, and I heard it again tonight, a second before you knocked. Poor lad! It was the same when his mother died.”

At the moment I paid little attention to her words, for such beliefs are common, unfortunately; but when she was sufficiently composed I went on to explain what I thought necessary. And now the old lady’s embarrassment took precedence of her sorrow, and presently the truth came out:

“There’s a⁠—young lady⁠—in his rooms, sir.”

I started. This might mean little or might mean much.

“She came and waited for him last night, Doctor⁠—from ten until half-past⁠—and this morning again. She came the third time about an hour ago, and has been upstairs since.”

“Do you know her, Mrs. Dolan?”

Mrs. Dolan grew embarrassed again.

“Well, Doctor,” she said, wiping her eyes the while, “I do. And God knows he was a good lad, and I like a mother to him; but she is not the girl I should have liked a son of mine to take up with.”

At any other time, this would have been amusing; now, it might be serious. Mrs. Dolan’s account of the wailing became suddenly significant, for perhaps it meant that one of Fu-Manchu’s dacoit followers was watching the house, to give warning of any stranger’s approach! Warning to whom? It was unlikely that I should forget the dark eyes of another of Fu-Manchu’s servants. Was that lure of men even now in the house, completing her evil work?

“I should never have allowed her in his rooms⁠—” began Mrs. Dolan again. Then there was an interruption.

A soft rustling reached my ears⁠—intimately feminine. The girl was stealing down!

I leaped out into the hall, and she turned and fled blindly before me⁠—back up the stairs! Taking three steps at a time, I followed her, bounded into the room above almost at her heels, and stood with my back to the door.

She cowered against the desk by the window, a slim figure in a clinging silk gown, which alone explained Mrs. Dolan’s distrust. The gaslight was turned very low, and her hat shadowed her face, but could not hide its startling beauty, could not mar the brilliancy of the skin, nor dim the wonderful eyes of this modern Delilah. For it was she!

“So I came in time,” I said grimly, and turned the key in the lock.

“Oh!” she panted at that, and stood facing me, leaning back with her jewel-laden hands clutching the desk edge.

“Give me whatever you have removed from here,” I said sternly, “and then prepare to accompany me.”

She took a step forward, her eyes wide with fear, her lips parted.

“I have taken nothing,” she said. Her breast was heaving tumultuously. “Oh, let me go! Please, let me go!” And impulsively she threw herself forward, pressing clasped hands against my shoulder and looking up into my face with passionate, pleading eyes.

It is with some shame that I confess how