The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer (ebook reader below 3000 .TXT) 📕
"Good man!" he cried, wringing my hand in his impetuous way. "We start now."
"What, to-night?
"To-night! I had thought of turning in, I must admit. I have not dared to sleep for forty-eight hours, except in fifteen-minute stretches. But there is one move that must be made to-night and immediately. I must warn Sir Crichton Davey."
"Sir Crichton Davey--of the India--"
"Petrie, he is a doomed man! Unless he follows my instructions without question, without hesitation--before Heaven, nothing can save him! I do not know when the blow will fall, how it will fall, nor from whence, but I know that my first duty is to warn him. Let us walk down to the corner of the common and get a taxi."
How strangely does the adventurous intrude upon the humdrum; for, when it intrudes at all, more often than not its intrusion is sudden and unlooked for. To-day, we may seek for romance and fail to find it: unsought, it
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hideously swollen—climbing from the floor up the slimy walls—
climbing like horrid parasites to such part of the arched roof
as was visible to me.
Fu-Manchu picked his way through the fungi ranks as daintily
as though the distorted, tumid things had been viper-headed.
The resounding blows which I had noted before, and which had never ceased,
culminated in a splintering crash. Dr. Fu-Manchu and his servant,
who carried the apparently insensible detective, passed in under
the arch, Fu-Manchu glancing back once along the passages.
The lantern he extinguished, or concealed; and whilst I waited,
my mind dully surveying, memories of all the threats which this
uncanny being had uttered, a distant clamor came to my ears.
Then, abruptly, it ceased. Dr. Fu-Manchu had closed a heavy door;
and to my surprise I perceived that the greater part of it was of glass.
The will-o’-the-wisp glow which played around the fungi rendered the vista
of the cellars faintly luminous, and visible to me from where I lay.
Fu-Manchu spoke softly. His voice, its guttural note alternating
with a sibilance on certain words, betrayed no traces of agitation.
The man’s unbroken calm had in it something inhuman. For he had just
perpetrated an act of daring unparalleled in my experience, and,
in the clamor now shut out by the glass door I tardily recognized
the entrance of the police into some barricaded part of the house—
the coming of those who would save us—who would hold the Chinese
doctor for the hangman!
“I have decided,” he said deliberately, “that you are more worthy
of my attention than I had formerly supposed. A man who can solve
the secret of the Golden Elixir (I had not solved it; I had merely
stolen some) should be a valuable acquisition to my Council.
The extent of the plans of Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith and
of the English Scotland Yard it is incumbent upon me to learn.
Therefore, gentlemen, you live—for the present!”
“And you’ll swing,” came Weymouth’s hoarse voice, “in the near future!
You and all your yellow gang!”
“I trust not,” was the placid reply. “Most of my people are safe:
some are shipped as lascars upon the liners; others have departed
by different means. Ah!”
That last word was the only one indicative of excitement
which had yet escaped him. A disk of light danced among
the brilliant poison hues of the passages—but no sound reached us;
by which I knew that the glass door must fit almost hermetically.
It was much cooler here than in the place through which we had passed,
and the nausea began to leave me, my brain to grow more clear.
Had I known what was to follow I should have cursed the lucidity
of mind which now came to me; I should have prayed for oblivion—
to be spared the sight of that which ensued.
“It’s Logan!” cried Inspector Weymouth; and I could tell
that he was struggling to free himself of his bonds.
From his voice it was evident that he, too, was recovering
from the effects of the narcotic which had been administered
to us all.
“Logan!” he cried. “Logan! This way—HELP!”
But the cry beat back upon us in that enclosed space and seemed
to carry no farther than the invisible walls of our prison.
“The door fits well,” came Fu-Manchu’s mocking voice.
“It is fortunate for us all that it is so. This is my
observation window, Dr. Petrie, and you are about to enjoy
an unique opportunity of studying fungology. I have already
drawn your attention to the anaesthetic properties of the
lycoperdon, or common puff-ball. You may have recognized the fumes?
The chamber into which you rashly precipitated yourselves
was charged with them. By a process of my own I have greatly
enhanced the value of the puff-ball in this respect.
Your friend, Mr. Weymouth, proved the most obstinate subject;
but he succumbed in fifteen seconds.”
“Logan! Help! HELP! This way, man!”
Something very like fear sounded in Weymouth’s voice now.
Indeed, the situation was so uncanny that it almost seemed unreal.
A group of men had entered the farthermost cellars, led by one who bore
an electric pocket-lamp. The hard, white ray danced from bloated gray
fungi to others of nightmare shape, of dazzling, venomous brilliance.
The mocking, lecture-room voice continued:
“Note the snowy growth upon the roof, Doctor. Do not be deceived by
its size. It is a giant variety of my own culture and is of the order
empusa. You, in England, are familiar with the death of the common house-fly—
which is found attached to the window-pane by a coating of white mold.
I have developed the spores of this mold and have produced a giant species.
Observe the interesting effect of the strong light upon my orange and blue
amanita fungus!”
Hard beside me I heard Nayland Smith groan, Weymouth had become
suddenly silent. For my own part, I could have shrieked in pure horror.
FOR I KNEW WHAT WAS COMING. I realized in one agonized instant
the significance of the dim lantern, of the careful progress
through the subterranean fungi grove, of the care with which
Fu-Manchu and his servant had avoided touching any of the growths.
I knew, now, that Dr. Fu-Manchu was the greatest fungologist
the world had ever known; was a poisoner to whom the Borgias were
as children—and I knew that the detectives blindly were walking
into a valley of death.
Then it began—the unnatural scene—the saturnalia of murder.
Like so many bombs the brilliantly colored caps of the huge toadstool-like
things alluded to by the Chinaman exploded, as the white ray sought
them out in the darkness which alone preserved their existence.
A brownish cloud—I could not determine whether liquid or powdery—
arose in the cellar.
I tried to close my eyes—or to turn them away from the reeling forms
of the men who were trapped in that poison-hole. It was useless:
I must look.
The bearer of the lamp had dropped it, but the dim,
eerily illuminated gloom endured scarce a second.
A bright light sprang up—doubtless at the touch of the fiendish
being who now resumed speech:
“Observe the symptoms of delirium, Doctor!” Out there,
beyond the glass door, the unhappy victims were laughing—
tearing their garments from their bodies—leaping—waving their arms—
were become MANIACS!
“We will now release the ripe spores of giant entpusa,”
continued the wicked voice. “The air of the second cellar
being super-charged with oxygen, they immediately germinate.
Ah! it is a triumph! That process is the scientific triumph
of my life!”
Like powdered snow the white spores fell from the roof,
frosting the writhing shapes of the already poisoned men.
Before my horrified gaze, THE FUNGUS GREW; it spread
from the head to the, feet of those it touched; it enveloped
them as in glittering shrouds… .
“They die like flies!” screamed Fu-Manchu, with a sudden febrile excitement;
and I felt assured of something I had long suspected: that that magnificent,
perverted brain was the brain of a homicidal maniac—though Smith would
never accept the theory.
“It is my fly-trap!” shrieked the Chinaman. “And I am
the god of destruction!”
THE clammy touch of the mist revived me. The culmination of the scene
in the poison cellars, together with the effects of the fumes
which I had inhaled again, had deprived me of consciousness.
Now I knew that I was afloat on the river. I still was bound:
furthermore, a cloth was wrapped tightly about my mouth,
and I was secured to a ring in the deck.
By moving my aching head to the left I could look down into the oily water;
by moving it to the right I could catch a glimpse of the empurpled
face of Inspector Weymouth, who, similarly bound and gagged,
lay beside me, but only of the feet and legs of Nayland Smith.
For I could not turn my head sufficiently far to see more.
We were aboard an electric launch. I heard the hated guttural
voice of Fu-Manchu, subdued now to its habitual calm,
and my heart leaped to hear the voice that answered him.
It was that of Karamaneh. His triumph was complete.
Clearly his plans for departure were complete; his slaughter
of the police in the underground passages had been a final
reckless demonstration of which the Chinaman’s subtle cunning
would have been incapable had he not known his escape from
the country to be assured.
What fate was in store for us? How would he avenge himself upon the girl
who had betrayed him to his enemies? What portion awaited those enemies?
He seemed to have formed the singular determination to smuggle me into China—
but what did he purpose in the case of Weymouth, and in the case
of Nayland Smith?
All but silently we were feeling our way through the mist.
Astern died the clangor of dock and wharf into a remote discord.
Ahead hung the foggy curtain veiling the traffic of the great waterway;
but through it broke the calling of sirens, the tinkling of bells.
The gentle movement of the screw ceased altogether.
The launch lay heaving slightly upon the swells.
A distant throbbing grew louder—and something advanced upon
us through the haze.
A bell rang and muffled by the fog a voice proclaimed itself—
a voice which I knew. I felt Weymouth writhing impotently
beside me; heard him mumbling incoherently; and I knew
that he, too, had recognized the voice.
It was that of Inspector Ryman of the river police and their launch
was within biscuit-throw of that upon which we lay!
“‘Hoy! ‘Hoy!”
I trembled. A feverish excitement claimed me. They were hailing us.
We carried no lights; but now—and ignoring the pain which shot from
my spine to my skull I craned my neck to the left—the port light
of the police launch glowed angrily through the mist.
I was unable to utter any save mumbling sounds, and my
companions were equally helpless. It was a desperate position.
Had the police seen us or had they hailed at random?
The light drew nearer.
“Launch, ‘hoy!”
They had seen us! Fu-Manchu’s guttural voice spoke shortly—
and our screw began to revolve again; we leaped ahead into the bank
of darkness. Faint grew the light of the police launch—and was gone.
But I heard Ryman’s voice shouting.
“Full speed!” came faintly through the darkness. “Port! Port!”
Then the murk closed down, and with our friends far astern of us
we were racing deeper into the fog banks—speeding seaward;
though of this I was unable to judge at the time.
On we raced, and on, sweeping over growing swells.
Once, a black, towering shape dropped down upon us.
Far above, lights blazed, bells rang, vague cries pierced the fog.
The launch pitched and rolled perilously, but weathered the wash
of the liner which so nearly had concluded this episode.
It was such a journey as I had taken once before,
early in our pursuit of the genius of the Yellow Peril;
but this was infinitely more terrible; for now we were utterly
in Fu-Manchu’s power.
A voice mumbled in my ear. I turned my bound-up face;
and Inspector Weymouth raised his hands in the dimness and partly
slipped the bandage from his mouth.
“I’ve been working at the cords since we left those filthy cellars,”
he whispered. “My wrists are all cut, but when I’ve got out a knife
and freed my ankles—”
Smith had kicked him with his bound feet. The detective slipped
the bandage back to position and placed his hands behind him again.
Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a heavy overcoat but no hat, came
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