Four magnificent wrought-iron candelabra, each supporting six red candles, gave light, and a fine Persian carpet was spread before a sort of dais upon which was set a carven ebony chair resembling a throne. Dr Fu Manchu, yellow robed, the mandarin’s cap upon his head, sat there—his long ivory hands gripping the arms of the chair, his face immobile, his eyes like polished jade.
Standing before him, one foot resting on the dais, was a defiant figure: a man wearing evening dress, a man whose straight black hair and black moustache, his pose, must have revealed his identity to almost anyone in the civilized world.
It was Rudolf Adion!
* * *
There had been silence as we had crept along the felt-padded floor behind the tapestry; a false step would have betrayed us. This silence remained unbroken, but the clash of those two imperious characters stirred my spirit as no rhetoric could have stirred me—and my conception of the destiny of the world became changed . . .
Then Adion spoke. He spoke in German. Although my Italian is negligible I have a fair knowledge of German. Therefore, I could follow the conversation.
“I have been tricked, trapped, drugged!” The suppressed violence in the orator’s voice startled me. “I find myself here—I realize now that I am not dreaming—and I have listened (patiently, I think) to perhaps the most preposterous statements which any man has ever made. I have one thing to say, and one only: Instantly77—he beat a clenched fist into his palm—”I demand to be set free! Instantly! And I warn you—I will not temporize—that for this outrage you shall suffer!”
He glanced about him swiftly, and as his face which I had always thought to lack natural beauty was turned in my direction, something in those blazing eyes, in the defiant set of his chin, won an admiration which I believed I could never have felt for him.
But Dr Fu Manchu did not move. He might have been not a man, but a graven image. Then he spoke in German. I had not heard that language spoken so perfectly otherwise than by a native of Germany.
“Excellency is naturally annoyed. I have sought a personal interview for one reason only. I could have removed you from office and from life without so much formality. I wished to see you, to talk to you. I believe that as one used to giving but not to receiving orders, the instructions of the Council of Seven of the Si-Fan might have seemed to be unacceptable.”
“Inacceptable?” Rudolf Adion bent forward threateningly. “Inacceptable! You fool! The Si-Fan! I have had more than enough of this nonsense! My time is too valuable to be wasted upon Chinese conjurers. Let this farce end or I shall be reduced to the extremity of a personal attack.”
Fists clenched, nostrils dilated, he seemed about to spring upon that impassive figure enthroned in the ebony chair. Knowing from my own experience what he must be suffering at this moment, of humiliation, ignorance of his whereabouts, a bewilderment complete as that which belongs to an evil dream, I thought that Rudolf Adion was a very splendid figure.
And in that moment I understood why a great, intellectual nation had accepted him as its leader. Whatever his failings, this man was fearless.
But Dr Fu Manchu never stirred. The twenty-four red candles burned steadily. There was no breath of air in that decaying, deadly room. And the gaze of those still eyes checked the chancellor.
“Dictators”—the guttural voice compassed that Germanic word perfectly—”hitherto have served their appointed purpose. Their schemes of expansion I have been called upon to check. The Si-Fan has intervened in Abyssinia. We are now turning our attention to Morocco and Syria. China, my China, can take care of herself. She will always absorb the fools who intrude upon her surface as the pitcher plant absorbs flies. To some small extent I have forwarded this process.”
And Rudolf Adion remained silent.
“I opened the floodgates of the Yellow River”—that note of exultation, of fanaticism, came now into the strange voice. “I called upon those elemental spirits in whom you do not believe to aid me. The children of China do not desire war. They are content to live on their peaceful rivers, in their rice fields, in those white valleys where the opium poppy grows. They are content to die . . . The people of your country do not desire war. “
And Adion still remained silent, enthralled against his will . . .
“My agents inform me that a great majority desires peace. There are no more than twelve men living today who can cause war. You are one of them. Your ideals cross mine. You would dispense with Christ, with Mohammed, with Buddha, with Moses. But not one of these ancient trees shall be destroyed. They have a purpose: they are of use—to me. You have been ordered by the Council of Seven not to meet Pietro Monaghani—yet you are here!”
Some spiritual battle the dictator was fighting—a battle which I had fought and lost against the power in those wonderful, evil eyes . . .
“I forbid this meeting. I speak for the Council of which I am the president. A European conflict would be inimical to my plans. If any radical change take place in the world’s map, my own draughtsmen will make it.”
Adion had won that inner conflict. In one bound he was upon the dais, looking down quiveringly upon the seated figure.
“I give you the time in which I can count ten! We are man to man. You are mad and I am sane. But I warn you—I am the stronger.”
I was so tensed up, so fired to action, that I suppose some movement on my part warned Nayland Smith, for he set a sudden grip upon my wrist which made me wince: it brought me to my senses. I think I had contemplated tearing a way through the tapestry to take my place beside Rudolf Adion.
“From several loopholes,” Dr Fu Manchu continued, his voice now soft and sibilant, “you are covered by my servants. I have explained to you patiently and at some length that I could have brought about your assassination twenty times within the past three months. Because I recognize in your character much which is admirable I have adopted those means which have brought us face to face. You have received the final notice of the Council; you have one hour in which to choose. Leave Venice tonight within that hour and I guarantee your safety. Refuse, and the world will know you no more . . .
The Lotus Floor
Nayland Smith was urging me back in the direction we had come. Having passed the door which we softly opened and closed:
“Why this way?” I whispered.
“You heard Fu Manchu’s words. He was covered by his servants from several loopholes—”
“Probably a lie—he has nerves of steel”
“That he has nerves of steel, I agree, Kerrigan, but I have never known him to lie. No, this is our way.”
We groped back along those dimly lighted passages until we came to the point at which of two ways we had selected that to the right. We now tried the left. And dimly in the darkness, for there was no light here, I saw a flight of wooden steps. Smith leading, we mounted to the top. Another door was there on the landing and it was ajar. Light shone through the opening.
“I expect this is the way my jailer came,” whispered Smith.
Beyond, as we gently pushed the door open, was a narrow lobby. Complete silence reigned . . . But at the very moment of our entrance this silence was interrupted.
Unmistakable sounds of approaching footsteps came from beyond a curtained opening. The footsteps ceased. There came a faint shuffling, and then—unmistakably again—the sound of someone retreating.
“Run for it!” Smith snapped, “or we are trapped!”