Works of Sax Rohmer, page 627
A chorus of excited exclamations greeted this dramatic point of the story.
“The object of this outrage,” continued the Colonel, “for an outrage I cannot deny it to have been, was not a romantic one. The poor chap wanted money, and he thought he could sell the Key to one of the native jewellers. But he was mistaken. He got back safely, and secretly offered it in various directions. No one would touch the thing; moreover, although of great value, the stones were very far from flawless, and not really worth the risks which he had run to secure them. Don’t misunderstand me; the Key would fetch a big sum, but not a fortune.”
“Yes?” said Madame de Medici, smiling, for the Colonel paused.
“He packed it up and addressed it to me, together with a letter. The price that he asked was quite a moderate one, and when the Key arrived in England I dispatched a check immediately. It never reached him.”
“Why?” cried many whom this strange story had profoundly interested.
“He was found dead at the back of the native cantonments, with a knife in his heart!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Lady Dascot. “How positively ghastly! I don’t think I want to see the dreadful thing!”
“Really!” murmured Madame de Medici, turning languidly to the speaker. “I do.”
The Colonel stooped and reached into the safe. Then he began to take out object after object, box after box. Finally, he straightened himself again, and all saw that his face was oddly blanched.
“It’s gone!” he whispered hoarsely. “The Key of the Temple of Heaven has been stolen!”
VI
MADAME SMILES
Rene entered his bedroom, locked the door, and seated himself on the bed; then he lowered his head into his hands and clutched at his hair distractedly. Since, on his uncle’s own showing, no one knew that the Key of the Temple of Heaven had been in the safe, since, excepting himself (Rene) and the Colonel, no one else knew the lock combination, how the Key had been stolen was a mystery which defied conjecture. No one but the Colonel had approached within several yards of the safe at the time it was opened; so that clearly the theft had been committed prior to that time.
Now Rene sought to recall the details of a strange dream which he had dreamed immediately before awakening on the previous night; but he sought in vain. His memory could supply only blurred images. There had been a safe in his dream, and he — was it he or another? — had unlocked it. Also there had been an enormous ivory Buddha.... Yet, stay! it had not been enormous; it had been...
He groaned at his own impotency to recall the circumstances of that mysterious, perhaps prophetic dream; then in despair he gave it up, and stooping to a little secretaire, unlocked it with the idea of sending a note round to Annesley’s chambers. As he did so he uttered a loud cry.
Lying in one of the pigeon-holes was a long piece of black silk, apparently torn from the lining of an opera hat. In it two holes were cut as if it were intended to be used as a mask. Beside it lay a little leather-covered box. He snatched it out and opened it. It was empty!
“Am I going mad?” he groaned. “Or —— —”
“You are wanted on the ‘phone, sir.”
It was the butler who had interrupted him. Rene descended to the telephone, dazedly, but, recognizing the voice of Annesley, roused himself.
“I’m leaving town to-night, Deacon,” said Annesley, “for — well, many reasons. But before I go I must give you a warning, though I rely on you never to mention my name in the matter. Avoid the woman who calls herself Madame de Medici; she’ll break you. She’s an adventuress, and has a dangerous acquaintance with Eastern cults, and... I can’t explain properly....”
“Annesley! the Key!”
“It’s the theft of the Key that has prompted me to speak, Deacon. Madame has some sort of power — hypnotic power. She employed it on me once, to my cost! Paul Harley, of Chancery Lane, can tell you more about her. The house she’s living in temporarily used to belong to a notorious Eurasian, Zani Chada. To make a clean breast of it I daren’t thwart her openly; but I felt it up to me to tell you that she possesses the secret of post-hypnotic suggestion. I may be wrong, but I think you stole that Key!”
“I!”
“She hypnotized you at some time, and, by means of this uncanny power of hers, ordered you to steal the Key of the Temple of Heaven in such and such a fashion at a certain hour in the night...”
“I had a strange seizure while I was at her house....”
“Exactly! During that time you were receiving your hypnotic orders. You would remember nothing of them until the time to execute them — which would probably be during sleep. In a state of artificial somnambulism, and under the direction of Madame’s will, you became a burglar!”
As Madame de Medici’s car drove off from the house of Colonel Deacon, and Madame seated herself in the cushioned corner, up from amid the furs upon the floor, where, dog-like, he had lain concealed, rose the little yellow man from the Temple of Heaven. He extended eager hands toward her, kneeling there, and spoke:
“Quick! quick!” he breathed. “You have it? The Key of the Temple.”
Madame held in her hand an ivory Buddha. Inverting it she unscrewed the pedestal, and out from the hollow inside the image dropped a gleaming Key.
“Ah!” breathed the yellow man, and would have clutched it; but Madame disdainfully raised her right hand which held the treasure, and with her left hand thrust down the clutching yellow fingers.
She dropped the Key between her white skin and the bodice of her gown, tossing the ivory figure contemptuously amid the fur.
“Ah!” repeated the yellow man in a different tone, and his eyes gleamed with the flame of fanaticism. He slowly uprose, a sinister figure, and with distended fingers prepared to seize Madame by the throat. His eyes were bloodshot, his nostrils were dilated, and his teeth were exposed like the fangs of a wolf.
But she pulled off her glove and stretched out her bare white hand to him as a queen to a subject; she raised the long curved lashes, and the great amber eyes looked into the angry bloodshot eyes.
The little yellow man began to breathe more and more rapidly; soon he was panting like one in a fight to the death who is all but conquered. At last he dropped on his knees amid the fur... and the curling lashes were lowered again over the blazing amber eyes that had conquered.
Madame de Medici lowered her beautiful white hand, and the little yellow man seized it in both his own and showered rapturous kisses upon it.
Madame smiled slightly.
“Poor little yellow man!” she murmured in sibilant Chinese, “you shall never return to the Temple of Heaven!”
FU MANCHU STORIES
CONTENTS
THE WRATH OF FU-MANCHU
THE EYES OF FU-MANCHU
THE WORD OF FU-MANCHU
THE MIND OF FU-MANCHU
THE WRATH OF FU-MANCHU
“By your leave, sir!”
Thurston stepped quickly to the side of the carpeted alleyway, as a steward pushing a trolley stocked with baggage went past. His traveller’s eye noted Dutch Airlines labels on some of the pieces. But he was more interested in a man who followed the trolley.
He was of thickset, shortish figure and wore a chauffeur’s uniform. His yellow, pock-pitted face and sunken eyes were vaguely menacing and his walk more nearly resembled a lope, catlike and agile.
“What a dangerous looking brute,” was the thought which crossed Thurston’s mind. He asked himself by which of the passengers now joining the Lauretania at Cherbourg this forbidding servant could be employed.
He hadn’t long to wait for an answer.
A Chinese cook (or Thurston thought he was Chinese) hurried along just ahead of him in the direction of the square before the purser’s office. He carried something on a tray, wrapped in a white napkin. There was no one else in the alleyway until a woman turned into it and began to saunter in Thurston’s direction.
The cook, seeing her, behaved in so incredible a manner that Thurston felt tempted to close his eyes, count ten and then look again. He set the tray down, dropped to his knees and touched the carpet with his forehead!
The woman showed no surprise, never even glanced at the crouching white figure, but continued calmly on her way. As she passed by, the man gathered up his tray, and without once looking back, hurried on. The mysterious passenger had now drawn near enough for Thurston to get a clear impression. She carried a small handbag to which was tied another of the KLM tags.
It was alligator leather, similar to several piled on the trolley.
Thurston tried not to stare, tried to pretend that he hadn’t noticed the singular behaviour of the Chinese cook. But this chivalrous effort was wasted.
Apparently, the woman remained unaware of his presence as she had been unaware of the prostrate Chinese. Her gait was leisurely, almost languid. She wore a cream shantung suit which displayed her graceful figure to perfection. A green scarf wound turban fashion (perhaps because of the high wind in the harbour) lent her features some of the quality of a delicate ivory mask. Except for superciliously curved lips, her face could not be said to bear any expression whatever.
She was beautiful, but unapproachable.
Like a vision she appeared, and was gone. He was left with a picture of half-closed, jade-green eyes, of slender white hands, hands nurtured in indolence.
Thurston was too experienced a voyager to bother his friend, Burns, the purser, until the Lauretania had cleared Cherbourg. But he meant to find out all that Burns knew about this imperious beauty attended by an Oriental manservant and whom a Chinese member of the crew treated as a goddess.
Having time on his hands, for he travelled light and had already unpacked, he roamed the ship, drawing room, smoking room, lounges, decks, but never had a glimpse of the jade-eyed woman of mystery.
When he took his seat at the purser’s table for dinner, Thurston read a signal from Burns and lingered until the others had gone;
“Come along to my room,” the purser invited. “Haven’t had a moment to spare until now.”
When they were in Burns’ room, the door closed and drinks set out, Burns unburdened himself.
“Glad to have someone like you to talk to. I mean someone not officially concerned. We often have difficult passengers, but this time we’ve got a woman who is a number one headache. Good looker, too. Jenkins, the chief steward, is raising hell. She won’t have a steward or stewardess in her room. She’s got a yellow faced manservant on board, and he’s to take care of everything. Bit irregular?”
Thurston put his glass down.
“Woman with green eyes? Ivory skin? Wonderful figure?”
Burns’ eyes, which were not green, but blue, twinkled.
“Powers of observation good! That’s the dame. Her papers show that she’s from the Dutch East Indies.”
“Ah! That may explain it. A yellow streak?”
“Could be. She’s Mrs van Roorden, widow of a Javanese planter. But her pock-marked attendant, who’s in the servant’s quarters, of course, is Burmese! Add that up.”
“I can’t,” Thurston confessed. “Is she travelling alone — I mean, except for the manservant?”
Burns nodded and began to light his pipe.
“More or less, yes. She came on board with a Mr Fordwich, whom I don’t know anything about, except that I’m told he’s a member of a big Chicago concern with overseas interests. He came from Java to England and then flew over to France. That is, according to his passport.”
Thurston, accepting a nod from Burns, passed his glass for a refill and smiled.
“I can add to your information about the mysterious Mrs van Roorden. Listen to this.”
He told the purser what he had seen in the alleyway. Burns’ eyes opened even more widely than usual.
“Damn funny! I’ll get Jenkins to check on the cook’s staff. We have some Chinese boys down there, I know. Sure he was Chinese?”
Thurston considered. He was not well up on Far Eastern types.
“Almost sure,” he said at last. “You see, I had only a glimpse of the man. But I’m certain he was an Asiatic.”
Burns nodded thoughtfully.
“Now, on our last run, we had a mutual friend on board who could have settled the point out of hand! Sir Denis Nayland Smith.”
“What! He may be in New York when I get there. I’ll look him up. Amazing man, isn’t he? I knew him very well when he was head of the CID at Scotland Yard. Member of my club. Smith’s a fellow who has crowded more adventure into his life than any ten ordinary men. He must be out on a job. Wonder what it is?”
“Communists, I expect,” Burns murmured.
But Burns happened to be wrong, as Thurston was to find out.
* * * *
In fact, at about the time that he sat talking to the purser of the Lauretania, the centre of a stormcloud the existence of which had brought Nayland Smith to New York was actually located in Cairo.
In an old Arab house not far from the Mosque of El Ashraf, a house still undisturbed by Western “improvements,” a tall, gaunt man paced slowly up and down a room which once had been the Na’ah or saloon of the harêm.
Lofty, and lighted by a lantern in the painted roof, it was tastefully paved in the Arabian manner, had elaborate panelled walls and two mushrabiyeh windows. Before one of these recessed windows a screen had been placed.
The man pacing the tiled floor wore a loose yellow robe, a black cap on his massive skull. Although unmistakably Chinese, his finely lined features were those of a scholar who had never spared himself in his quest of knowledge. It was a wonderful face. It might have belonged to a saint — or to the Fallen Angel in person.
His walk was feline, silent. He seemed to be listening for some expected sound. Suddenly he paused, turned.
A door opened at the end of the saloon and a man entered quietly, an old white-bearded man who wore Arab dress. He was met and challenged by a glance from emerald green eyes. Momentarily, an expression of eagerness crept across the impassive Chinese face.
“You have it, hakîm?”
The words were spoken in Arabic, sibilantly. They were answered by a deep bow.
“I have it, Excellency.”
From under his black robe, the old physician took out a small phial, half filled with a nearly colourless liquid.
“You guarantee its absolute purity?”
“I swear to it. Am I a fool to dream of deceiving Dr Fu-Manchu?”
Dr Fu-Manchu’s nearly unendurable gaze remained focussed on the bearded face a while longer, and then:
“Follow,” he directed.
He walked under a decorated arch into a neighbouring room equipped as a laboratory. Much of the apparatus in this singular apartment would have puzzled any living man of science to define its purpose or application. On a long, glass-topped table a number of test tubes was ranged in a rack.
Dr Fu-Manchu seated himself at the table and held out his hand for the phial. Watched by the Arab physician, he removed the stopper and inserted a glass dipper. The unerring delicacy of touch displayed by those long-nailed fingers was miraculous. He replaced the stopper and smeared a spot from the dipper on to a slide, putting the slide into place in a large microscope. Stooping, he stared through the lens, which he slightly adjusted. Without looking up:
“You are sure of hormone B?” he challenged harshly.
“Positive, Excellency. I extracted it myself.”
Then Fu-Manchu raised his head and pressed one of several studs on a switchboard. A door opened and a young Japanese came in. He wore a chemist’s white tunic. Fu-Manchu indicated the phial.
“The missing elements, at last, Matsukata. Use sparingly.” He spoke in Japanese. “Above all, watch the temperature. Inoculate a rat, a guinea pig and two rabbits. Report to me at ten minute intervals. Proceed.”
Matsukata took the phial, three of the test tubes, bowed, and went out. Dr Fu-Manchu turned to the Arab physician.
“How long have you known me, hakîm?”
He spoke softly.
The old Arab stroked his beard as if in meditation.
“Since I was twenty years of age, Excellency.”
“And what age was I then?”
“I could not say.”
“What age did I appear to be?”
“As you appear now, Excellency.”
Fu-Manchu stood up.
“Follow.”
They returned to the long saloon. Fu-Manchu crossed to the screen set before a mushrabiyeh window and moved it aside. In the recess, motionless in a silk-padded basket, lay a tiny grey marmoset!
“My little friend, Peko.” Dr Fu-Manchu spoke in a sibilant whisper. “The companion of my wanderings.”
The old physician conquered his astonishment. Unmistakably, Dr Fu-Manchu was deeply moved.
“He is asleep?”
“No. He is dying.”
“Of tuberculosis? These creatures are subject to it.”
“No. Of senility.”
“What, then, is his age, Excellency?”
“The same as my own.”
“What do you say?… Pardon me, Excellency. I was startled. Such a thing seems impossible.”
Dr Fu-Manchu replaced the screen. They stepped down again into the saloon; and the Arab physician found himself called upon to sustain the fixed regard of those hypnotic eyes.
“Peko had already reached his normal, allotted span of years at the time that I completed my long experiments so vainly attempted by the old alchemists. Yes — I had discovered what they termed the Elixir Vitae: The Elixir of Life! Upon Peko I made the first injection; upon myself, the second.”
