The Drums of Fu Manchu f-9 Page 9

  “Forget it,” snapped Nayland Smith. “Men far senior to you have failed in the same way where this particular woman has been concerned.”

  A Modern Vampire

  “There are certain features about this case, Kerrigan,” said Nayland Smith, “which I have so far hesitated to mention to you.”

  Alone in the police car we were returning to London. The night remained mistily gloomy, and I was concerned with my own private thoughts.

  “You mean perhaps in regard to the woman known as Mrs. Milton?”

  “Yes!” He pulled out his pipe and began to load it. “She is a phenomenon.”

  “You referred to her, I remember, as a zombie.”

  “I did. A dead woman moving among the living. Yes, unless I am greatly mistaken, Kerrigan, Mrs. Milton is a modern example of the vampire.”

  “Ghastly idea!”

  “Ghastly, if you like. But there is very little doubt in my mind that Mrs. Milton is the woman who was concerned—although as it seemed at the time, remotely—in the death of General Quinto. Those descriptions which we have had unmistakably tally. Stress this point in your notes, Kerrigan. For there is a bridge here between life and death.”

  Tucked into one comer of the car as it raced through the night, I turned and stared at my companion.

  “You think you know her?”

  “There is little room for error in the matter. The facts we learned from Constable Isles go to confirm my opinion. That so simple a character should fall victim to this woman is not surprising. She is as dangerous to humanity at large as Ardatha is dangerous to you.”

  I did not reply, for he seemed to have divined that indeed I had been thinking about Ardatha. Of one thing I was sure: Ardatha was not the harbinger of death employed by Dr. Fu Manchu in the assassination of General Quinto and in that of Osaki.

  Chief Detective Inspector Gallaho had been left in charge of the inquiry in Suffolk. Among his duties was that of obtaining a statement from Dr Martin Jasper regarding the exact character of the vacuum charger and the identity of the man known as Osaki. That he, with local assistance, would come upon a clue to the mystery of the Green Death was unlikely, since London experts had failed in an earlier case.

  Nayland Smith had worked himself to a standstill in the laboratory. The mystery of why Osaki, locked in there alone, should have died remained a mystery. I began to feel drowsy but became widely awake again when Nayland Smith, striking a match to light his pipe, spoke again.

  “Whoever was watching that laboratory, Kerrigan, must have been prepared with some second means of dealing with Doctor Jasper.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, they could not have known that he would open the door. They must have assumed when he did open the door that he was returning to the house and would come back.”

  “Why should they suppose that he would come back?”

  “Obviously they knew of his appointment with Osaki.”

  “Why not have just removed the model and the plans?”

  “They knew that neither model nor plans were of any avail if their inventor still defied the Si-Fan. Doctor Fu Manchu’s object, Kerrigan, was not to steal the plans of the vacuum charger, but to prevent those plans falling into the hands of the Power represented by Mr. Osaki. I am convinced that Osaki’s death was an accident, but it probably suited the Si-Fan.”

  In the bumping of the car over a badly paved road I seemed to hear the beating of drums.

  The Red Button

  “Sir Denis evidently detained, sir. Expect any moment.”

  It was the evening of the following day and I had called at Smith’s flat iri Whitehall by appointment. I looked at the expressionless face of the speaker.

  “That’s all right. Fey. I’ll come in and wait.”

  As I crossed the lobby and entered the sitting room which contained the big radio and that television set upon which miraculously once Dr Fu Manchu had manifested himself I heard the phone ringing. Staring at the apparatus, I took out a cigarette. I could detect Fey’s monosyllables in the lobby. A few moments later he entered.

  “Going out, sir,” he reported. “Whisky-soda? Buffet at disposal. Sir Denis at Yard with Inspector Gallaho. Will be here inside ten minutes.”

  He prepared a drink for me and went out.

  I sipped my whisky and soda and inspected some of the pictures and photographs which the room contained. The pictures were landscapes, almost exclusively Oriental. A fine photograph of a handsome grey-haired man I was able to identify as that of Dr Petrie, Nayland Smith’s old friend who had been associated with him in those early phases of his battle with Fu Manchu, of which I knew so little. Another, a grimly humorous, square-jawed, mustached face, I was unable to place, but I learned later that it represented Superintendent Weymouth, once of the Criminal Investigation Department, but now attached to the Cairo police.

  There were others, not so characteristic. And on a small easel on top of a bookcase I came across a water color of an ethereally beautiful woman. Upon it was written:

  “To our best and dearest friend from Karamaneh.” I stared out of a window across the embankment to where old Father Thames moved tunelessly on. A reluctant moon, veiled from moment to moment, sometimes gleamed upon the water. For many years, as Nayland Smith had told me, the Thames had been Dr Fu Manchu’s highway. His earliest base had been at Limehouse in the Chinese quarter. London River had served his purpose well.

  Nothing passed along the stream as I watched and my thoughts wandered to that Essex creek on the banks of which stood the Monks’ Arms. How hopelessly they wandered there!

  Ardatha!—a strange name and a strange character. To me, lover of freedom, it was appalling to think that in those enigmatical amethyst eyes I had lost myself—had seen my philosophy crumble, had read the doom of many a cherished principle. Almost certainly she was evil; for how, otherwise, could she be a member of so evil a thing as the Si-Fan?

  I tried to cease contemplating that bewitching image. Crossing to an armchair, I was about to sit down when I heard the phone bell in the lobby. I set my glass on a table and went out to answer the call.

  “Hello,” said a voice, “can I speak to Sir Denis Nayland Smith?”

  “Sir Denis is out. But can I take a message?”

  The speaker was a man who used good but not perfect English—a foreigner of some kind.

  “Thank you. I will call again.”

  I returned to the armchair and lighted a cigarette.

  What was the mystery of the Green Death? Where medical analysis had failed, where Nayland Smith had failed, what hope had I of solving it? It was an appalling exhibition of that power possessed by the awful man I had met out on the Essex marshes. A monster had been reborn—and I had stood face to face with him.

  Closing my eyes I lay back in the chair . . .

  “If you will be good enough to lower the light, Mr. Kerrigan”—the voice was unmistakable—”and sit closer to the screen. There is something important to yourself and to Sir Denis which I have to communicate.”

  I sprang up—I could not have sprung up more suddenly if a bomb had exploded at my feet. The screen was illuminated, as once before I had seen it illuminated . . . And there looking out at me was Dr Fu Manchu!

  Perhaps for a decimal moment I doubted what course to take; and then (I think almost anyone would have done the same) I extinguished the light.

  The switches were remote from the television screen; and I confess, as I turned and stood in darkness before that wonderful evil face which apparently regarded me, I was touched by swift fear. In fact I had to tell myself that this was not the real Dr Fu Manchu but merely his image before I summoned up courage enough to approach and to watch.

  “Will you please touch the red button on the right of the screen, 7 the sibilant voice went on, “merely to indicate that you have observed my wishes.”

  I touched the red button. My heart was beating much too rapidly; but sitting down on an ottoman, I compelled myself to study
that wonderful face.

  It might have been the face of an emperor. I found myself thinking of Zenghis Khan. Intellectually the brow was phenomenal, the dignity of the lined features might have belonged to a Pharaoh, but the soul of the great Chinese doctor lay in his eyes. Never had I seen before, and never have I seen since, such power in a man’s eyes as lay in those of Dr Fu Manchu.

  Then he spoke, and his voice, too, was unforgettable. One hearing its alternate sibilants and gutturals must have remembered every intonation to the end of his days.

  “I regret, Mr. Kerrigan,” he said, “that you are still alive. Your rescue meant that an old and useful base is now destroyed. I suspect that some member of the Si-Fan has failed me in this matter. If so, there will be retribution.”

  His words chilled me coldly.

  Ardatha!

  She had defied me, jeered at me, fought with me, but in the end she had saved me. It was a strange romance but I knew that on my side it was real. Ardatha was my woman, and if I lost her I should have lost all that made life worth-while. I think, except for that unreadable expression which seemed to tell me that her words did not mean all they conveyed, I had had but little hope, in spite of my masculine vanity, until I had realized that she had risked everything to rescue me from the cellars of the Monks’ Arms.

  I was watching the image of those strange eyes as this thought flashed through my mind.

  Good Good! Did he suspect Ardatha?

  “In the absence of Sir Denis”—the words seemed to reach me indistinctly—”I must request you, Mr. Kerrigan, to take my message. It is very simple. It is this: Sir Denis has fought with me for many years. I have come to respect him as one respects an honorable enemy, but forces difficult to control now demand that I should act swiftly. Listen, and I will explain what I mean to do.”

  That forceful voice died away unaccountably. My brain suggested that the instrument, operated by an unknown principle, had failed. But then conscious thought petered out altogether, I suppose. The eyes regarding me from the screen, although the image was colorless, seemed, aided by memory, to become green . . . Then they merged together and became one contemplative eye. That eye grew enormous—it dominated the picture—it became a green lake—and a remorseless urge impelled me to plunge into its depths . . .

  I stood up, or so I thought, from the ottoman on which I had been seated and walked forward into the lake.

  Miraculously I did not sink. Stepping across a glittering green expanse, I found myself upon solid land. Here I paused, and the voice of Dr Fu Manchu spoke:

  “Look!—this is China.”

  I saw a swamp, a vast morass wherein no human thing could dwell, a limitless and vile corruption . . . I saw guns buried in the mud; in pools I saw floating corpses: the fetid air was full of carrion, and all about me I heard wailing and lamentations. So desolate was the scene that I turned my head aside until the Voice spoke again:

  “Look! It is Spain.”

  I saw a waste which once had been a beautiful village: the shell of an old church; ruins of a house upon whose scarred walls bougainvillea bloomed gaily. People, among them women and children, were searching in the ruins. I wondered for what they were searching. But out of the darkness the Voice came again:

  “Look! This is London.”

  From my magic carpet I looked down upon Whitehall. Almost that spectacle conquered the magic of the Voice. I fought against mirage, but the mood of rebellion passed . . . I saw the cenotaph partly demolished. I heard crashes all around me, muted but awful. Where I thought familiar buildings should be there were gaping caverns. Strange figures, antlike as I looked down upon them, ran in all directions.

  “Your world!” said the Voice. “Come, now, into mine . . ,”

  And Ardatha was beside me!

  It was a rose garden, the scent of the flowers intoxicating. Below where the roses grew I saw steps leading down to a marble pool upon the cool surface of which lotus blossoms floated. Bees droned amid the roses, and gaily plumaged birds darted from tree to tree. An exquisite sense of well being overcame me. I turned to Ardatha—and her lips were irresistible.

  “Why did you ever doubt what I told you?” she whispered.

  “Only because I was a fool.”

  I lost myself in a kiss which realized all the raptures of which I had ever dreamed . . .

  Ardatha melted from my arms . . . I sought her, called her name—”Ardatha! Ardatha!” But the rose garden had vanished: I was in darkness—alone, helpless, though none constrained me . . .

  Flat on the carpet of Nayland Smith’s apartment, as I had fallen back from the ottoman, I lay!—fully alive to my environment, but unable to speak—to move!

  Living Death

  The screen, the magical screen, was black. Faint light came through the windows. Something—some damnable thing—had happened. I had gone mad—or been bewitched. That power, suspected but now experienced, of the dreadful Chinese doctor had swept me up.

  With what purpose?

  There seemed to be nothing different about the room—but how long had I been unaware of what was going on? Most accursed thing of all, I could think, but I couldn’t move! I lay there flat on my back, helpless as one dead. My keen mental activity in this condition was a double agony.

  As I lay I could see right into the lobby—and now I became aware of the fact that I was not alone!

  A small, dark man had opened the outer door quietly, glanced in my direction, and then set down a small handbag which he had seemed to carry with great care. He wore thick-rimmed glasses. He opened the bag, and I saw him doing something to the telephone.

  I tried to command nerve and muscle—I tried to move. It was futile.

  My body was dead: my brain alone lived . . .

  I saw the man go. Even in that moment of mental torment I must watch passively, for I could not close my eyes!

  Here I lay at the point from which my journeys to China to Spain, to an enchanted rose garden had begun, and so lying, unable to move a muscle, again I heard a key inserted in the door . . . The door opened and Nayland Smith dashed into the room. He looked down at me.

  “Good God!” he exclaimed, and bent over me.

  My eyes remained fixed: they continued to stare towards the lobby.

  “Kerrigan! Kerrigan! Speak, old man! What happened?”

  Speak! I could not stir . . .

  He placed his ear to my chest, tested my pulse, stood up and seemed to hesitate for a moment. I heard and partly saw him going from room to room, searching. Then he came back and again fully into view. He stared down at me critically. He had switched up all the lights as he had entered. He walked across to the lobby, and I knew that he was about to take up the telephone!

  His intentions were obvious. He was going to call a doctor.

  A scream of the spirit implored me to awake, to warn him not to touch that telephone. This was the supreme moment of torture . . .

  I heard the faint tinkling of the bell as Nayland Smith raised the receiver.

  * * *

  I became obsessed with the horrible idea that Dr Fu Manchu had in some way induced a state of catalepsy! I should be buried alive! But not even the terror caused by this ghastly possibility would make me forget that small, sinister figure engaged in doing something to the telephone.

  That it was something which meant death, every instinct told me.

  Yet I lay there, myself already in a state of living death!

  Smith stood, the receiver in his hand, and I could see and hear him dialing a number.

  But it was not to be . . .

  A crashing explosion shook the entire building! It shattered several panes of glass in one window, and it accomplished that which my own brain had failed to accomplish. It provided a shock against which the will of Dr Fu Manchu was powerless.

  I experienced a sensation exactly as that of some tiny but tough thread which had held the cells of my brain immured in inertia being snapped. It was a terrifying sensation—but its terrors we
re forgotten in the instant when I realized that I was my own master again!

  “Smith!” I cried and my voice had a queer, hysterical ring—”Smith! Don’t touch that telephone!”

  Perhaps the warning was unnecessary. He had replaced the receiver on the hook and was staring blankly across the apartment in the direction of the shattered window.

  “Kerrigan!”

  He sprang forward as I scrambled to my feet.

  “I can’t explain yet,” I muttered (the back of my head began to ache madly) “except that you must not touch that telephone.”

  He grabbed me by the shoulders, stared into my eyes.

  “Thank God you’re all right, Kerrigan! I can’t tell you what I feared—but will tell you later. Somewhere down the river there has been a catastrophe.”

  “It has saved us from a catastrophe far greater.”

  Smith turned, threw a window open (I saw now that he had been deeply moved) and craned out. Away downstream black smoke was rising over a sullen red glow.

  Police whistles shrieked and I heard the distant clangor of a fire engine . . . Later we learned—and the tragedy was front-page news in the morning—of that disastrous explosion on a munition barge in which twelve lives were lost. At the moment, I remember, we were less concerned with the cause of the explosion than with its effect.

  Smith turned from the window and stared at me fixedly.

  “How did you get in, Kerrigan? Where is Fey?”

  “Fey let me in, then he was called up by Inspector Gallaho from Scotland Yard to meet you there.”

  “I have not been there—and I have reason to know that Gallaho is not in London. However, go on.”

  “Fey evidently had no doubt that Gallaho was the speaker. He gave me a drink, told me that you would return directly he, Fey, reached Scotland Yard, and went out.”