President Fu-Manchu Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise for President Fu-Manchu

  Also by Sax Rohmer

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One: The Abbot of Holy Thorn

  Chapter Two: A Chinese Head

  Chapter Three: Above the Blizzard

  Chapter Four: Mrs. Adair

  Chapter Five: The Special Train

  Chapter Six: At Weaver’s Farm

  Chapter Seven: Sleepless Underworld

  Chapter Eight: The Black Hat

  Chapter Nine: The Seven-Eyed Goddess

  Chapter Ten: James Richet

  Chapter Eleven: Red Spots

  Chapter Twelve: Number 81

  Chapter Thirteen: Tangled Clues

  Chapter Fourteen: The Scarlet Brides

  Chapter Fifteen: The Scarlet Brides (Concluded)

  Chapter Sixteen: “Bluebeard”

  Chapter Seventeen: The Abbot’s Move

  Chapter Eighteen: Mrs. Adair Reappears

  Chapter Nineteen: The Chinese Catacombs

  Chapter Twenty: The Chinese Catacombs (Concluded)

  Chapter Twenty-One: Carnegie Hall

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Moya Adair’s Secret

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Fu-Manchu’s Water-Gate

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Siege of Chinatown

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Siege of Chinatown (Concluded)

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Silver Box

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Stratton Building

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Paul Salvaletti

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Green Mirage

  Chapter Thirty: Plan of Attack

  Chapter Thirty-One: Professor Morgenstahl

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Below Wu King’s

  Chapter Thirty-Three: The Balcony

  Chapter Thirty-Four: “The Seven”

  Chapter Thirty-Five: The League of Good Americans

  Chapter Thirty-Six: The Human Equation

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Great Physician

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Westward

  Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Voice from the Tower

  Chapter Forty: “Thunder of Waters”

  Appreciating Dr. Fu-Manchu by Leslie S. Klinger

  Introduction to “The Blue Monkey” by William Patrick Maynard

  Free Sample of The Blue Monkey by Sax Rohmer

  “Insidious fun from out of the past. Evil as always, Fu-Manchu reviles as well as thrills us.”

  Joe R. Lansdale, recipient of the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award

  “Without Fu-Manchu we wouldn’t have Dr. No, Doctor Doom or Dr. Evil. Sax Rohmer created the first truly great evil mastermind. Devious, inventive, complex, and fascinating. These novels inspired a century of great thrillers!”

  Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Assassin’s Code and Patient Zero

  “The true king of the pulp mystery is Sax Rohmer—and the shining ruby in his crown is without a doubt his Fu-Manchu stories.”

  James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Colony

  “Fu-Manchu remains the definitive diabolical mastermind of the 20th century. Though the arch-villain is ‘the Yellow Peril incarnate,’ Rohmer shows an interest in other cultures and allows his protagonist a complex set of motivations and a code of honor which often make him seem a better man than his Western antagonists. At their best, these books are very superior pulp fiction… at their worst, they’re still gruesomely readable.”

  Kim Newman, award-winning author of Anno Dracula

  “Sax Rohmer is one of the great thriller writers of all time! Rohmer created in Fu-Manchu the model for the super-villains of James Bond, and his hero Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie are worthy stand-ins for Holmes and Watson… though Fu-Manchu makes Professor Moriarty seem an under-achiever.”

  Max Allan Collins, New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Perdition

  “I grew up reading Sax Rohmer’s Fu-Manchu novels, in cheap paperback editions with appropriately lurid covers. They completely entranced me with their vision of a world constantly simmering with intrigue and wildly overheated ambitions. Even without all the exotic detail supplied by Rohmer’s imagination, I knew full well that world wasn’t the same as the one I lived in… For that alone, I’m grateful for all the hours I spent chasing around with Nayland Smith and his stalwart associates, though really my heart was always on their intimidating opponent’s side.”

  K. W. Jeter, acclaimed author of Infernal Devices

  “A sterling example of the classic adventure story, full of excitement and intrigue. Fu-Manchu is up there with Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and Zorro—or more precisely with Professor Moriarty, Captain Nemo, Darth Vader, and Lex Luthor—in the imaginations of generations of readers and moviegoers.”

  Charles Ardai, award-winning novelist and founder of Hard Case Crime

  “I love Fu-Manchu, the way you can only love the really GREAT villains. Though I read these books years ago he is still with me, living somewhere deep down in my guts, between Professor Moriarty and Dracula, plotting some wonderfully hideous revenge against an unsuspecting mankind.”

  Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy

  “Fu-Manchu is one of the great villains in pop culture history, insidious and brilliant. Discover him if you dare!”

  Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling co-author of Baltimore: The Plague Ships

  “Exquisitely detailed… [Sax Rohmer] is a colorful storyteller. It was quite easy to be reading away and suddenly realize that I’d been reading for an hour or more without even noticing. It’s like being taken back to the cold and fog of London streets.”

  Entertainment Affairs

  “Acknowledged classics of pulp fiction… the bottom line is Fu-Manchu, despite all the huffing and puffing about sinister Oriental wiles and so on, always comes off as the coolest, baddest dude on the block.”

  Comic Book Resources

  “Undeniably entertaining and fun to read… It’s pure pulp entertainment—awesome, and hilarious and wrong. Read it.”

  Shadowlocked

  “The perfect read to get your adrenalin going and root for the good guys to conquer a menace that is almost supremely evil. This is a wild ride read and I recommend it highly.”

  Vic’s Media Room

  THE COMPLETE FU-MANCHU SERIES

  BY SAX ROHMER

  Available now from Titan Books:

  THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU

  THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU

  THE HAND OF FU-MANCHU

  DAUGHTER OF FU-MANCHU

  THE MASK OF FU-MANCHU

  THE BRIDE OF FU-MANCHU

  THE TRAIL OF FU-MANCHU

  Coming soon from Titan Books:

  THE DRUMS OF FU-MANCHU

  THE ISLAND OF FU-MANCHU

  THE SHADOW OF FU-MANCHU

  RE-ENTER FU-MANCHU

  EMPEROR FU-MANCHU

  THE WRATH OF FU-MANCHU

  PRESIDENT FU-MANCHU

  Print edition ISBN: 9780857686107

  E-book edition ISBN: 9780857686763

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First published as a novel in the UK by William Collins & Co. Ltd, 1936

  First published as a novel in the US by Doubleday, Doran, 1936

  First Titan Books edition: March 2014

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publi
sher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  The Authors Guild and the Society of Authors assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Copyright © 2014 The Authors Guild and the Society of Authors

  Visit our website: www.titanbooks.com

  Did you enjoy this book? We love to hear from our readers. Please email us at [email protected] or write to us at Reader Feedback at the above address.

  To receive advance information, news, competitions, and exclusive offers online, please sign up for the Titan newsletter on our website: www.titanbooks.com

  Frontispiece illustration by C. C. Beall, first appearing in Collier’s Weekly, March 7 1936. Special thanks to Dr. Lawrence Knapp for the illustrations as they appeared on “The Page of Fu-Manchu,” http://www.njedge.net/~knapp/FuFrames.htm

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  The Invisible President

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE ABBOT OF HOLY THORN

  Three cars drew up, the leading car abreast of a great bronze door bearing a design representing the beautiful agonized face of the Savior, a crown of thorns crushed down upon His brow. A man jumped out and ran to this door. Ten men alighted behind him. The wind howled around the tall tower and a carpet of snow was beginning to form upon the ground. Four guards, appearing as if by magic out of white shadows, lined up before the door.

  “Stayton!” came sharply. “Stand aside.”

  One of the guards stepped forward—peered. A tall, slightly built man who had been in the leading car was the speaker. He had a mass of black, untidy hair, and his face, though that of one not yet west of thirty, was grim and square-jawed. He was immediately recognized.

  “All right, Captain.”

  The man addressed as captain turned to the party and issued rapid orders in a low tone. The leader, muffled up in a leather, fur-collared topcoat, his face indistinguishable beneath the brim of a soft felt hat already dusted with snow, rang a bell beside the bronze door.

  It opened so suddenly that one might have supposed the opener to have been waiting inside for this purpose; a short, elegant young man, almost feminine in the nicety of his attire.

  The new arrival stepped in and quickly shut out the storm, closing the bronze door behind him. In a little lobby communicating with a large square room equipped as an up-to-date office, but at this late hour deserted, he stood staring at the person who had admitted him.

  A churchlike lamp, hung from a bracket on the wall, now cast its golden light upon the face of the man wearing the leather coat. He had removed his hat, revealing a head of crisp, graying hair. His features were angular to the point of gauntness, and his eyes had the penetrating quality of armored steel, while his complexion seemed strangely out of keeping with the climate, being sun-baked to a sort of coffee color.

  “Are you James Richet?” he snapped.

  The elegant young man inclined his glossy head.

  “At your service.”

  “Lead me to Abbot Donegal. I am expected.”

  Richet perceptibly hesitated; whereupon, plunging his hand with an irritable, nervous movement into some pocket beneath the leather topcoat, the visitor produced a card and handed it to Richet. One glance he gave at it, bowed again in a manner that was almost Oriental and indicated the open gate of an elevator.

  A few moments later:

  “Federal Agent 56,” Richet announced in his silky tones.

  The visitor entered a softly lighted study, the view from its windows indicating that it was situated at the very top of the tall tower. From a chair beside a book-laden desk the sole occupant of the room—who had apparently been staring out at the wintry prospect far below—stood up, turned. Mr. Richet, making his queer bow, retired and closed the door.

  Federal Agent 56 unceremoniously cast his wet topcoat upon the floor, dropping his hat on top of it. He was now revealed as a tall, lean man, dressed in a tweed suit which had seen long service. He advanced with outstretched hand to meet the occupant of the study—a slightly built priest, with the keen, ascetic features sometimes met with in men from the south of Ireland and thick, graying hair; a man normally actuated by a healthy sense of humor, but tonight with an oddly haunted expression in his clear eyes.

  “Thank God, Father, I see you well.”

  “Thank God, indeed.” He glanced at the card which Richet had laid upon his desk even as he grasped the extended hand. “I am naturally prepared for interference with my work, but this thing…”

  The newcomer, still holding the priest’s hand, stared fixedly, searchingly, into his eyes.

  “You don’t know it all,” he said rapidly.

  “This imprisonment—”

  “A necessity, believe me. I have covered seven hundred miles by air since you broke off in the middle of your radio address this evening.”

  He turned abruptly and began to pace up and down that book-lined room with its sacred pictures and ornaments, these seeming strangely at variance with the large and orderly office below. Pulling a very charred briar pipe from the pocket of his tweed jacket he began to load it from a pouch at least as venerable as the pipe. The Abbot Donegal dropped back into his chair, running his fingers through his hair, and:

  “There is one favor I would ask,” he said, “before we proceed any further. It is difficult to talk to an anonymous man.”

  He stared down at the card upon his desk. This card bore the printed words:

  FEDERAL AGENT 56

  but across the bottom right-hand corner was the signature of the President of the United States.

  Federal Agent 56 smiled, a quick, revealing smile which lifted a burden of years from the man.

  “I agree,” he snapped in his rapid, staccato fashion. “Smith is a not uncommon name. Suppose we say Smith.”

  The rising blizzard began to howl round the tower as though many wailing demons clamored for admittance. A veil of snow swept across uncurtained windows, dimming distant lights. Dom Patrick Donegal lighted a cigarette; his hands were not entirely steady.

  “If you know what really happened to me tonight, Mr. Smith,” he said, his rich, orator’s voice lowered almost to a murmur, “for heaven’s sake tell me. I have been deluged with telephone messages and telegrams, but in accordance with your instructions—or” (he glanced at the restlessly promenading figure) “should I say orders—I have answered none of them.”

  Smith, pipe alight, paused, staring down at the priest.

  “You were brought straight back after your collapse?”

  “I was. They would have taken me home, but mysterious instructions from Washington resulted in my being brought here. I came to my senses in the small bedroom which adjoins this study.”

  “Your last memory being?”

  “Of standing before the microphone, my notes in my hand.”

  “Quite,” said Smith, beginning to walk up and down again. “Your words, as I recollect them, were: ‘But if the Constitution is to be preserved, if even a hollow shell of Liberty is to remain to us, there is one evil in this country which must be eradicated, torn up by its evil roots, utterly destroyed…’ Then came silence, a confusion of voices, and an announcement that you had been seized with sudden illness. Does your memory, Father, go as far as these words?”

  “Not quite,” the priest answered wearily, resting his head upon his hand and making a palpable effort to concentrate. “I began to lose my grip of the situation some time earlier in the address. I experienced most singular sensations. I could not co-ordinate my ideas, and the studio in
which I was speaking alternately contracted and enlarged. At one moment the ceiling appeared to become black and to be descending upon me. At another, I thought that I stood in the base of an immeasurably lofty tower.” His voice grew in power as he spoke, his Irish brogue became more pronounced. “Following these dreadful sensations came an overpowering numbness of mind and body. I remember no more.”

  “Who attended you?” snapped Smith.

  “My own physician, Dr. Reilly.”

  “No one but Dr. Reilly, your secretary, Mr. Richet, and I suppose the driver of the car in which you returned, came up here?”

  “No one, Mr. Smith. Such, I am given to understand, were the explicit and authoritative orders given a few minutes after the occurrence.”

  Smith stopped on the other side of the desk, staring down at the abbot.

  “Your manuscript has not been recovered?” he asked slowly.

  “I regret to say, no. Definitely, it was left behind in the studio.”

  “On the contrary,” snapped Smith angrily, “definitely it was not! The place has been searched from wall to wall by those who know their business. No, Father Abbot, your manuscript is not there. I must know what it contained—and from what source this missing information came to you.”

  The ever-rising wind in its fury shook the Tower of the Holy Thorn, shrieking angrily round that lofty room in which two men faced a problem destined in its outcome to affect the whole nation. The priest, a rapid, heavy smoker, lighted another cigarette.

  “I cannot make it out,” he said—and now a natural habit of authority began to assert itself in his voice—“I cannot make out why you attach such importance to my notes for this speech, nor why my sudden illness, naturally disturbing to myself, should result in this sensational Federal action. Really, my friend”—he leaned back in his chair, staring up at the tanned, eager face of his visitor—“in effect, I am a prisoner here. This, I may say, is intolerable. I await your explanation, Mr. Smith.”

  Smith bent forward, resting nervous brown hands on the priest’s desk and staring intently into those upturned, observant eyes.

  “What was the nature of the warning you were about to give to the nation?” he demanded. “What is this evil growth which must be uprooted and destroyed?”