How little I appreciated at that moment the monumental horror which lay behind these opening episodes in a drama destined to divert the whole course of my life!
I came out of the laboratory. Some kind of human contact— sympathy—assistance was what I most desired. Leaving the lights on and the door and window open, I began to make my way up the steep path bordering the kitchen garden, towards the villa. I had slipped my own automatic into my pocket and so was now doubly armed.
In my own defence I think I may say that blackwater fever leaves one very low, and, as Petrie had warned me, I had been rather overdoing it for a convalescent. This is my apologia for the fact that as I climbed up that narrow path to the Villa Jasmin I was conscious of the darkest apprehension. I became convinced, suddenly but quite definitely, that I was being watched.
I had just stepped onto the verandah and was fumbling with the door key when I heard a sound which confirmed my intuition....
From somewhere behind me, near the laboratory which I had just left, came the call, soft but unmistakable, on three minor notes, of a dacoit!
I flung the door open and turned up the light in the small, square lobby. Then I reclosed the door. What to do was the problem. I thought of the man lying down there helpless—at the mercy of unguessed dangers. But he was too heavy to carry, and at all costs I must get to the phone—which was here in the villa.
I threw open the sitting-room door and entered the room in which, that evening, I had quested through the works in several languages for a clue to the strange plant discovered by Petrie. I switched on the lamps.
What I saw brought me up sharply with a muttered exclamation.
The room had been turned upside down!
Two cabinets and the drawers of a writing table had been emptied of their contents. The floor was littered with papers. Even the bookshelves had not escaped scrutiny. A glance showed me that every book had been taken from its place. They were not in their right order.
Something, I assumed, had disturbed the searchers....
What?
Upon this point there was very little room for doubt. That cry in the garden had given warning of my approach. To whom?
To someone who must actually be in the villa now!
My hand on the butt of an automatic, I stood still, listening. I was unlikely ever to forget the face I had glimpsed at the end of the kitchen garden. It was possible that such a horror was stealthily creeping upon me at the present moment. But I could hear no sound.
I thought of Petrie—and the thought made me icily and murderously cool. Petrie—struck down by the dread disease he had risked his life to conquer; a victim, not of Fate, but of a man—
A man? A fiend! a devil incarnate he must be who had conceived a thing so loathsome.
Dr. Fu Manchu!
Who was this Dr. Fu Manchu of whom even Nayland Smith seemed to stand in awe? A demon—or a myth? Indeed, at the opening stage of my encounter with the most evil and the most wonderful man who, I firmly believe, has ever been incarnated, I sometimes toyed with the idea that the Chinese doctor had no existence outside the imagination of Sir Denis.
All these reflections, more or less as I have recorded them, flashed through my mind as I stood there listening for evidence of another presence in the villa.
And although I heard not the faintest sound, I knew, now, that someone was there—someone who was searching for the formula of”654,” and, therefore, not a Burmese bodyguard or other underling, but one cultured enough to recognize the formula if it should be found!
Possibly...Dr. Fu Manchu!
I stepped up to the writing desk, upon which the telephone stood—and in doing so noticed that the shutters outside the window had been closed. First and foremost, I must establish contact with Sir Denis. I thought I should by justified in reporting that the enemy had not yet found the formula.
The automatic in my right hand, I took up the receiver in the left. Because of the position of the instrument, I was compelled to turn half away from the open door.
I could get no reply. I depressed the lever; there was no answering ring....
Alight sound, and a change in the illumination of the room, brought me about in a flash.
The door was closed.
And the telephone line was dead—cut....
I leapt to the door, grasped the handle, and turned it fiercely. I remained perfectly cool—which is my way of seeing red. The door was locked.
At which moment the lights went out.
chapter twelfth
MIMOSA
I listened intently, not knowing what to expect. That this was a prelude to an attack on my life, I did not doubt.
The room was now in complete darkness, for, as I had already noted, the outside shutters had been closed. There were two points from which this attack was to be apprehended: the door or the window. There was no chimney, heat being provided by a stove the pipe of which was carried out through an aperture in the wall high up near the ceiling.
At first I could not hear a sound.
Very cautiously I bent and pressed my ear to the thin panelling of the door. Now, I detected movement—and, furthermore, sibilant whispering. I could hear my own heart beating, too.
After a lapse of fully a minute, I became certain that someone else was standing on the other side of the door, listening, as I was listening.
A murderous rage possessed me.
It was unnecessary to recall Sir Denis’s instructions: “Don’t hesitate to shoot.” I did not intend to hesitate...I was anxious for an opportunity. Petrie’s haggard face was always before my mind’s eye. And ifNayland Smith were correct, Sir Manston Rorke also had been foully done to death by this callous, foul group surrounding the creature called Fu Manchu.
A very slight movement upon the woodwork now enabled me to locate the exact position of the one who listened.
I hesitated no longer.
Standing upright, I clapped the nose of my automatic against the panel at a point about waist high and fired through the door....
The report in that tiny enclosed space was deafening, but the accuracy of my judgment was immediately confirmed. A smothered, choking cry and a groan followed by the sound of a heavy fall immediately outside told me that my shot had not gone astray.
Braced tensely, I stood awaiting what would follow. I anticipated an attempt to rush the room, and I meant to give an account of myself.
What actually happened was utterly unexpected.
Someone was opening the outer door of the villa; then I heard a low voice—and it was a woman’s voice!
I had stepped aside, anticipating that my own method might be imitated, but now headless of risk, I bent and listened again. A faint smell of burning was perceptible where I had fired through the woodwork.
That low, musical voice was speaking rapidly—but not in English, nor in any language with which I was familiar. It was some tongue containing strange gutturals. But even these could not disguise the haunting music of the speaker’s tone.
The woman called Fah Lo Suee was outside in the lobby....
Then I heard a man’s voice, a snarling, hideous voice, replying to her; and, I thought, a second. But of this I could not be sure....
They were dragging a heavy body out onto the verandah. There came a choking cough. Such was my mood that I could have cheered aloud. One of the skulking rats had had his medicine!
As those movements proceeded in accordance with rapidly spoken orders in that unforgettable voice, I turned to considerations of my own safety. Tiptoeing across the room and endeavouring to avoid those obstacles the position of which I could remember, I mounted on to the writing table.
Slipping the automatic into my pocket I felt for the catch of the window, found it, and threw the window open: the shutters, I knew, I could burst with a blow, for they were old, and the fastener was insecure.