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

CHAPTER V

“Shen-Yan’s is a dope-shop in one of the burrows off the old Ratcliff Highway,”

said Inspector Weymouth.

 

“`Singapore Charlie’s,’ they call it. It’s a center for some of

the Chinese societies, I believe, but all sorts of opium-smokers

use it. There have never been any complaints that I know of.

I don’t understand this.”

 

We stood in his room at New Scotland Yard, bending over a sheet

of foolscap upon which were arranged some burned fragments

from poor Cadby’s grate, for so hurriedly had the girl done

her work that combustion had not been complete.

 

“What do we make of this?” said Smith. “`…Hunchback…lascar

went up…unlike others…not return…till Shen-Yan’

(there is no doubt about the name, I think) `turned me out…

booming sound…lascar in…mortuary I could ident…

not for days, or suspici…Tuesday night in a different make

…snatch…pigtail…’”

 

“The pigtail again!” rapped Weymouth.

 

“She evidently burned the torn-out pages all together,”

continued Smith. “They lay flat, and this was in the middle.

I see the hand of retributive justice in that, Inspector. Now we

have a reference to a hunchback, and what follows amounts to this:

A lascar (amongst several other persons) went up somewhere—

presumably upstairs—at Shen-Yan’s, and did not come down again.

Cadby, who was there disguised, noted a booming sound.

Later, he identified the lascar in some mortuary.

We have no means of fixing the date of this visit to Shen-Yan’s,

but I feel inclined to put down the `lascar’ as the dacoit

who was murdered by Fu-Manchu! It is sheer supposition, however.

But that Cadby meant to pay another visit to the place in a

different `make-up’ or disguise, is evident, and that the Tuesday

night proposed was last night is a reasonable deduction.

The reference to a pigtail is principally interesting because

of what was found on Cadby’s body.”

 

Inspector Weymouth nodded affirmatively, and Smith glanced at his watch.

 

“Exactly ten-twenty-three,” he said. “I will trouble you, Inspector,

for the freedom of your fancy wardrobe. There is time to spend an hour

in the company of Shen-Yan’s opium friends.”

 

Weymouth raised his eyebrows.

 

“It might be risky. What about an official visit?”

 

Nayland Smith laughed.

 

“Worse than useless! By your own showing, the place is open to inspection.

No; guile against guile! We are dealing with a Chinaman, with the incarnate

essence of Eastern subtlety, with the most stupendous genius that the modern

Orient has produced.”

 

“I don’t believe in disguises,” said Weymouth, with a certain truculence.

“It’s mostly played out, that game, and generally leads to failure.

Still, if you’re determined, sir, there’s an end of it. Foster will make

your face up. What disguise do you propose to adopt?”

 

“A sort of Dago seaman, I think; something like poor Cadby.

I can rely on my knowledge of the brutes, if I am sure

of my disguise.”

 

“You are forgetting me, Smith,” I said.

 

He turned to me quickly.

 

“Petrie,” he replied, “it is MY business, unfortunately, but it

is no sort of hobby.”

 

“You mean that you can no longer rely upon me?”

I said angrily.

 

Smith grasped my hand, and met my rather frigid stare with a look

of real concern on his gaunt, bronzed face.

 

“My dear old chap,” he answered, “that was really unkind.

You know that I meant something totally different.”

 

“It’s all right, Smith;” I said, immediately ashamed of my choler, and wrung

his hand heartily. “I can pretend to smoke opium as well as another.

I shall be going, too, Inspector.”

 

As a result of this little passage of words, some twenty minutes

later two dangerous-looking seafaring ruffians entered a waiting cab,

accompanied by Inspector Weymouth, and were driven off into

the wilderness of London’s night. In this theatrical business

there was, to my mind, something ridiculous—almost childish—

and I could have laughed heartily had it not been that grim

tragedy lurked so near to farce.

 

The mere recollection that somewhere at our journey’s end Fu-Manchu

awaited us was sufficient to sober my reflections—Fu-Manchu, who,

with all the powers represented by Nayland Smith pitted against him,

pursued his dark schemes triumphantly, and lurked in hiding within

this very area which was so sedulously patrolled—Fu-Manchu, whom

I had never seen, but whose name stood for horrors indefinable!

Perhaps I was destined to meet the terrible Chinese doctor tonight.

 

I ceased to pursue a train of thought which promised to lead to morbid depths,

and directed my attention to what Smith was saying.

 

“We will drop down from Wapping and reconnoiter, as you say the place

is close to the riverside. Then you can put us ashore somewhere below.

Ryman can keep the launch close to the back of the premises, and your fellows

will be hanging about near the front, near enough to hear the whistle.”

 

“Yes,” assented Weymouth; “I’ve arranged for that.

If you are suspected, you shall give the alarm?”

 

“I don’t know,” said Smith thoughtfully. “Even in that event

I might wait awhile.”

 

“Don’t wait too long,” advised the Inspector. “We shouldn’t be

much wiser if your next appearance was on the end of a grapnel,

somewhere down Greenwich Reach, with half your fingers missing.”

 

The cab pulled up outside the river police depot, and Smith and I

entered without delay, four shabby-looking fellows who had been

seated in the office springing up to salute the Inspector,

who followed us in.

 

“Guthrie and Lisle,” he said briskly, “get along and find a dark corner

which commands the door of Singapore Charlie’s off the old Highway.

You look the dirtiest of the troupe, Guthrie; you might drop asleep

on the pavement, and Lisle can argue with you about getting home.

Don’t move till you hear the whistle inside or have my orders,

and note everybody that goes in and comes out. You other two belong

to this division?”

 

The C.I.D. men having departed, the remaining pair saluted again.

 

“Well, you’re on special duty tonight. You’ve been prompt,

but don’t stick your chests out so much. Do you know of a back

way to Shen-Yan’s?”

 

The men looked at one another, and both shook their heads.

 

“There’s an empty shop nearly opposite, sir,” replied one of them.

“I know a broken window at the back where we could climb in.

Then we could get through to the front and watch from there.”

 

“Good!” cried the Inspector. “See you are not spotted, though; and if you

hear the whistle, don’t mind doing a bit of damage, but be inside Shen-Yan’s

like lightning. Otherwise, wait for orders.”

 

Inspector Ryman came in, glancing at the clock.

 

“Launch is waiting,” he said.

 

“Right,” replied Smith thoughtfully. “I am half afraid, though, that the

recent alarms may have scared our quarry—your man, Mason, and then Cadby.

Against which we have that, so far as he is likely to know, there has

been no clew pointing to this opium den. Remember, he thinks Cadby’s

notes are destroyed.”

 

“The whole business is an utter mystery to me,” confessed Ryman.

“I’m told that there’s some dangerous Chinese devil hiding

somewhere in London, and that you expect to find him at

Shen-Yan’s. Supposing he uses that place, which is possible,

how do you know he’s there tonight?”

 

“I don’t,” said Smith; “but it is the first clew we have had

pointing to one of his haunts, and time means precious lives

where Dr. Fu-Manchu is concerned.”

 

“Who is he, sir, exactly, this Dr. Fu-Manchu?”

 

“I have only the vaguest idea, Inspector; but he is no ordinary criminal.

He is the greatest genius which the powers of evil have put on earth

for centuries. He has the backing of a political group whose wealth is

enormous, and his mission in Europe is to PAVE THE WAY! Do you follow me?

He is the advance-agent of a movement so epoch-making that not one Britisher,

and not one American, in fifty thousand has ever dreamed of it.”

 

Ryman stared, but made no reply, and we went out,

passing down to the breakwater and boarding the waiting launch.

With her crew of three, the party numbered seven that swung

out into the Pool, and, clearing the pier, drew in again

and hugged the murky shore.

 

The night had been clear enough hitherto, but now came scudding rainbanks

to curtain the crescent moon, and anon to unveil her again and show

the muddy swirls about us. The view was not extensive from the launch.

Sometimes a deepening of the near shadows would tell of a moored barge,

or lights high above our heads mark the deck of a large vessel.

In the floods of moonlight gaunt shapes towered above; in the ensuing

darkness