Choking down a cry of horror, I opened my eyes—heedless of the promise given but a few moments earlier—and looked into the face of my guide.
It was Dr. Fu-Manchu!…
Never, dreaming or waking, have I known a sensation identical with that which now clutched my heart; I thought that it must be death. For ages, untold ages—aeons longer than the world has known—I looked into that still, awful face, into those unnatural green eyes. I jerked my hand free from the Chinaman's clutch and sprang back.
As I did so, I became miraculously translated from the threshold of the room with the golden door to our chambers in the court adjoining Fleet Street; I came into full possession of my faculties (or believed so at the time); I realized that I had nodded at my post, that I had dreamed a strange dream … but I realized something else. A ghoulish presence was in the room.
Snatching up my pistol from the table I turned. Like some evil jinn of Arabian lore, Dr. Fu-Manchu, surrounded by a slight mist, stood looking at me!
Instantly I raised the pistol, leveled it steadily at the high, dome-like brow—and fired! There could be no possibility of missing at such short range, no possibility whatever … and in the very instant of pulling the trigger the mist cleared, the lineaments of Dr. Fu-Manchu melted magically. This was not the Chinese doctor who stood before me, at whose skull I still was pointing the deadly little weapon, into whose brain I had fired the bullet; _it was Nayland Smith!_
Ki-Ming, by means of the unholy arts of the Lamas of Rache-Churân, had caused my to murder my best friend!
"Smith!" I whispered huskily—"God forgive me, what have I done? What have I done?"
I stepped forward to support him ere he fell; but utter oblivion closed down upon me, and I knew no more.
"He will do quite well now." said a voice that seemed to come from a vast distance. "The effects of the drug will have entirely worn off when he wakes, except that there may be nausea, and possibly muscular pain for a time."
I opened my eyes; they were throbbing agonizingly. I lay in bed, and beside me stood Murdoch McCabe, the famous toxicological expert from Charing Cross Hospital—and Nayland Smith!
"Ah, that's better!" cried McCabe cheerily. "Here—drink this."
I drank from the glass which he raised to my lips. I was too weak for speech, too weak for wonder. Nayland Smith, his face gray and drawn in the cold light of early morning, watched me anxiously. McCabe in a matter of fact way that acted upon me like a welcome tonic, put several purely medical questions, which at first by dint of a great effort, but, with ever-increasing ease, I answered.
"Yes," he said musingly at last. "Of course it is all but impossible to speak with certainty, but I am disposed to think that you have been drugged with some preparation of hashish. The most likely is that known in Eastern countries as maagûn or barsh, composed of equal parts of cannabis indica and opium, with hellebore and two other constituents, which vary according to the purpose which the maagûn is intended to serve. This renders the subject particularly open to subjective hallucination, and a pliable instrument in the hands of a hypnotic operator, for instance."
"You see, old man?" cried Smith eagerly. "You see?"
But I shook my head weakly.
"I shot you," I said. "It is impossible that I could have missed."
"Mr. Smith has placed me in possession of the facts," interrupted McCabe, "and I can outline with reasonable certainty what took place. Of course, it's all very amazing, utterly fantastic in fact, but I have met with almost parallel cases in Egypt, in India, and elsewhere in the East: never in London, I'll confess. You see, Dr. Petrie, you were taken into the presence of a very accomplished hypnotist, having been previously prepared by a stiff administration of maagûn. You are doubtless familiar with the remarkable experiments in psycho-therapeutics conducted at the Salpêtrier in Paris, and you will readily understand me when I say that, prior to your recovering consciousness in the presence of the mandarin Ki-Ming, you had received your hypnotic instructions.
"These were to be put into execution either at a certain time (duly impressed upon your drugged mind) or at a given signal… ."
"It was a signal," snapped Smith. "Ki-Ming stood in the court below and looked up at the window," I objected.
"In that event," snapped Smith, "he would have spoken softly, through the letter-box of the door!"
"You immediately resumed your interrupted trance," continued McCabe, "and by hypnotic suggestion impressed upon you earlier in the evening, you were ingeniously led up to a point at which, under what delusion I know not, you fired at Mr. Smith. I had the privilege of studying an almost parallel case in Simla, where an officer was fatally stabbed by his khitmatgar (a most faithful servant) acting under the hypnotic prompting of a certain fakîr whom the officer had been unwise enough to chastise. The fakîr paid for the crime with his life, I may add. The khitmatgar shot him, ten minutes later."
"I had no chance at Ki-Ming," snapped Smith. "He vanished like a shadow. But has has played his big card and lost! Henceforth he is a hunted man; and he knows it! Oh!" he cried, seeing me watching him in bewilderment, "I suspected some Lama trickery, old man, and I stuck closely to the arrangements proposed by the mandarin, but kept you under careful observation!"
"But, Smith—I shot you! It was impossible to miss!"
"I agree. But do you recall the report?"
"The report? I was too dazed, too horrified, by the discovery of what I had done… ."
"There was no report, Petrie. I am not entirely a stranger to Indo-Chinese jugglery, and you had a very strange look in your eyes. Therefore I took the precaution of unloading your Browning!"
Chapter 30 MEDUSA
Legal business, connected with the estate of a distant relative, deceased, necessitated my sudden departure from London, within twenty-four hours of the events just narrated; and at a time when London was for me the center of the universe. The business being terminated—and in a manner financially satisfactory to myself—I discovered that with luck I could just catch the fast train back. Amid a perfect whirl of hotel porters and taxi-drivers worthy of Nayland Smith I departed for the station … to arrive at the entrance to the platform at the exact moment that the guard raised his green flag!
"Too late, sir! Stand back, if you please!"
The ticket-collector at the barrier thrust out his arm to stay me. The London express was moving from the platform. But my determination to travel by that train and by no other over-rode all obstacles; If I missed it, I should be forced to wait until the following morning.
I leapt past the barrier, completely taking the man by surprise, and went racing up the platform. Many arms were outstretched to detain me, and the gray-bearded guard stood fully in my path; but I dodged them all, collided with and upset a gigantic negro who wore a chauffeur's uniform—and found myself level with a first-class compartment; the window was open.
Amid a chorus of excited voices, I tossed my bag in at the window, leapt upon the footboard and turned the handle. Although the entrance to the tunnel was perilously near now, I managed to wrench the door open and to swing myself into the carriage. Then, by means of the strap, I reclosed the door in the nick of time, and sank, panting, upon the seat. I had a vague impression that the black chauffeur, having recovered himself, had raced after me to the uttermost point of the platform, but, my end achieved, I was callously indifferent to the outrageous means thereto which I seen fit to employ. The express dashed into the tunnel. I uttered a great sigh of relief.