The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer (best novels for teenagers TXT) 📖

again.

 

“Where did you find him—exactly?” he asked.

 

“Limehouse Reach—under Commercial Dock Pier—exactly an hour ago.”

 

“And you last saw him at eight o’clock last night?”—to Weymouth.

 

“Eight to a quarter past.”

 

“You think he has been dead nearly twenty-four hours, Petrie?”

 

“Roughly, twenty-four hours,” I replied.

 

“Then, we know that he was on the track of the Fu-Manchu group,

that he followed up some clew which led him to the neighborhood

of old Ratcliff Highway, and that he died the same night.

You are sure that is where he was going?”

 

“Yes,” said Weymouth; “He was jealous of giving anything away,

poor chap; it meant a big lift for him if he pulled the case off.

But he gave me to understand that he expected to spend last night

in that district. He left the Yard about eight, as I’ve said,

to go to his rooms, and dress for the job.”

 

“Did he keep any record of his cases?”

 

“Of course! He was most particular. Cadby was a man

with ambitions, sir! You’ll want to see his book.

Wait while I get his address; it’s somewhere in Brixton.”

 

He went to the telephone, and Inspector Ryman covered up the dead man’s face.

 

Nayland Smith was palpably excited.

 

“He almost succeeded where we have failed, Petrie,” he said.

“There is no doubt in my mind that he was hot on the track

of Fu-Manchu! Poor Mason had probably blundered on the scent,

too, and he met with a similar fate. Without other evidence,

the fact that they both died in the same way as the dacoit would

be conclusive, for we know that Fu-Manchu killed the dacoit!”

 

“What is the meaning of the mutilated hands, Smith?”

 

“God knows! Cadby’s death was from drowning, you say?”

 

“There are no other marks of violence.”

 

“But he was a 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 case-book 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 retched 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 her charm enveloped me like a

magic cloud. Unfamiliar with the complex Oriental temperament, I had

laughed at Nayland Smith when he had spoken of this girl’s infatuation.

“Love in the East,” he had said, “is like the conjurer’s mango-tree;

it is born, grows and flowers at the touch of a hand.”

Now, in those pleading eyes I read confirmation of his words.

Her clothes or her hair exhaled a faint perfume. Like all

Fu-Manchu’s servants, she was perfectly chosen for her peculiar duties.

Her beauty was wholly intoxicating.

 

But I thrust her away.

 

“You have no claim to mercy,” I said. “Do not count upon any.

What have you taken from here?”

 

She grasped the lapels of my coat.

 

“I will tell you all I can—all I dare,” she panted eagerly, fearfully.

“I should know how to deal with your friend, but with you I am lost!

If you could only understand you would not be so cruel.” Her slight accent

added charm to the musical voice. “I am not free, as your English women are.

What I do I must do, for it is the will of my master, and I am only

a slave. Ah, you are not a man if you can give me to the police.

You have no heart if you can forget that I tried to save you once.”

 

I had feared that plea, for, in her own Oriental fashion, she certainly

had tried to save me from a deadly peril once—at the expense of my friend.

But I had feared the plea, for I did not know how to meet it.

How could I give her up, perhaps to stand her trial for murder?

And now I fell silent, and she saw why I was silent.

 

“I may deserve no mercy; I may be even as bad as you think;

but what have YOU to do with the police?

It is not your work to hound a woman to death. Could you

ever look another woman in the eyes—one that you loved,

and know that she trusted you—if you had done such a thing?

Ah, I have no friend in all the world, or I should not be here.

Do not be my enemy, my judge, and make me worse than I am;

be my friend, and save me—from HIM.” The tremulous

lips were close to mine, her breath fanned my cheek.

“Have mercy on me.”

 

At that moment I honestly would have given half of my worldly

possessions to have been spared the decision which I knew I must

come to. After all, what proof had I that she was a willing

accomplice of Dr. Fu-Manchu? Furthermore, she was an Oriental,

and her code must necessarily be different from mine.

Irreconcilable as the thing may be with Western ideas, Nayland Smith

had really told me that he believed the girl to be a slave.

Then there remained that other reason why I loathed the idea

of becoming her captor. It was almost tantamount to betrayal!

Must I soil my hands with such work?

 

Thus—I suppose—her seductive beauty argued against my sense of right.

The jeweled fingers grasped my shoulders nervously, and her slim body

quivered against mine as she watched me, with all her soul in her eyes,

in an abandonment of pleading despair. Then I remembered the fate

of the man in whose room we stood.

 

“You lured Cadby to his death,” I said, and shook her off.

 

“No, no!” she cried wildly, clutching at me. “No, I