“A simple operation, Mr. Kerrigan. The drug used—a discovery of my own—is known as 973.”
But I went on, fist clenched, speaking at the top of my voice: “They live in a dream world, labouring day and night to achieve some damnable ambition of yours!”
Dr. Fu Manchu stood up, and I prepared for the worst.
“Must my ambitions necessarily be damnable?” he asked, in that low, even tone. ‘In order that any radical change be brought about, it is inevitable that thousands shall suffer. Where is the ethical difference between poisoning an enemy in his sleep and bombing his house by night? You have not angered me. I admire your spirit, although it is so correctly English; as correct as the attitude of your Foreign Office which compelled you to alter your account of certain facts in my previous encounter with Sir Denis Nayland Smith—”
This touched me professionally: it was true.
“In order that his identity might be hidden, they demanded that you should describe the funeral of ‘Rudolph Adion’. Actually, he was at his usual post at the time. Nevertheless, you have not only disturbed a molar which has served me for a period of years longer than you might credit, but also defied me in my own fortress. Come, I have plans for you.”
He pressed a bell, a door opened, and one of those short, thick-set Burmans of whom I had had experience in the past, entered. He wore a sort of blue uniform: his yellow face was expressionless.
“Follow,” Fu Manchu commanded in English.
The Burman saluted and stood aside.Dr. Fu Manchu, with an imperious gesture of the hand to me, walked along that passage where earlier I had set out with Allington. Fu Manchu led, however, in a different direction, walking quite silently in thick-soled slippers. I discovered that he was fully an inch taller than myself, but the difference might have—been due to the padded slippers: his catlike tread was deceptively swift.
Opening a door set in the wall of a large building which possessed no windows: “Here you change your shoes,” he said.
I saw a row of what looked like goloshes ranged along a shelf, but on inspection they proved to have unusually thick soles. I unlaced and discarded my shoes,, and as the Burman knelt to assist me, I was transported in spirit to an Eastern mosque.
A metal door being opened, I found myself in a vast laboratory. The floor was covered with some substance which might have been rubber; the walls and ceiling were apparently opaque glass. Numerous pieces of mechanism, some in motion, were set about the place; and suspended from the centre of the ceiling was a copper globe some twelve feet in diameter.On one wall was a huge switchboard. There were glass-topped benches supporting chemical appliances of a kind I had never seen—vessels of all sorts containing brightly coloured fluids. There was a perceptible, although not an audible, throbbing. Some powerful plant was working. But there was no one on duty.
“My private laboratory, Mr. Kerrigan. As your knowledge of Science is slight, I will not burden you with details concerning the Ferris Globe—which, nevertheless, has revolutionized all earlier systems of lighting. Sir John Ferris is with us. This is a Stendl radio transmitter—no larger than a typewriter. A receiver, as you are aware, could be contained in this snuff-box and operated without electrical power.”
He tapped the jade snuff-box which he carried. I glanced at him, striving to retain the fighting spirit; but my challenge faltered before those glittering green eyes.
“My purpose in bringing you here,” he continued in the manner of a professor addressing a class, “was to relieve your mind regarding certain recent occurrences. Follow.”
I obeyed, and the Burmese bodyguard was a pace behind me.
“This—is the Vortland infra-azure lamp.”
And standing on a long, narrow, glass-topped table, I saw Just such a lamp as that which I had seen in the Thames-side workshop!
“Johann Vortland died before he completed the lamp—a martyr to Science. Sir William Crooks was pursuing almost parallel inquiries. I acquired all his material and began a series of experiments which I carried out uninterruptedly for three years. You may recall that I was at work on this subject in London. Many other martyrs (I narrowly escaped canonization myself) went the way of the inventor. Vortland, the physicist, had triumphed: I, the chemist, failed. The lamp did its appointed work, but he who used it either died or suffered serious injury. You may remember some characteristic specimens I had collected, and the unusual appearance of the late Dr. Ostler.”
An added sibilance on the last four words chilled me uncomfortably.
“Hassan, the Nubian who came to me with Ardatha, in many respects advanced my inquiries. Exposure to the lamp had no deleterious effects. He was born blind. But complete leucodermia supervened. From coal black he became snow white. The texture and glands of the skin remained normal. There was no organic reaction. From this point I began to make headway.”
My blood seemed to be turning cold. This monster, this Satanic genius, spoke of human suffering as a bacteriologist Speaks of germs.
“If,” he continued, “during any of my visits to the Regal Athenian in New York, a trained observer had been present, he could not well have failed to notice a small, lucent object, no larger than a grain of mustard seed, moving at a uniform height above the floor.”
As he spoke he was enveloping his gaunt body in just such a green garment as that which he had worn in the room beside the Thames. Gloves and a mask were added. He presented a terrifying appearance. Muffled, his strident tones came through the mask.
“I will now ignite the infra-azure lamp.” He bent and touched a switch. Again that strange amethyst light appeared.
“You will observe that above the lamp there is a smaller lamp, and above that a third, smaller still. I shall now ignite the smaller lamp.”
He did so . . . and the larger one disappeared! “Finally, the third—” The entire apparatus vanished!
“Look closely,” the imperious voice directed. “The top of the third lamp remains faintly visible, you see it?”
“Yes—I see it.”
“The reflector is adjusted in a particular manner: the lamp can be attached to the headdress—in this way.”
Raising the lamp, he fitted it to the top of me mask . . . and disappeared!
My heart leapt madly. This man was not a scientist; he was a wizard.
“I have not become transparent,” his voice said out of space; “the effect is on the vision of the beholder. Movement is constrained of course. I was clumsy when I came to recover Peko in Colon. Observe.”
A green-gloved hand appeared—and disappeared. This it was that Barton had seen in Colon—that I had seen on Mome la Selle!
“One must remain wholly within focus. By the use of this lamp I obtained a view of Christophers chart during that meeting in New York—and took appropriate steps . . . . ”
I found myself in half light surrounded by glass cases the fronts of which were flush with the wall. These cases had interior illumination as in an aquarium.
“A good collection,” saidDr. Fu Manchu, “was destroyed in France some years ago but in certain respects this is better.”
He paused before one of the glass windows. The case had a thick floor of moist sand and over it ran some kind of spiny weed. Silent, he stood there looking in. The Burman remained a pace away. I looked also—and presently I saw one of the inhabitants. It was a monstrous centipede, a thing incredibly swift in its movements; and its colour was brilliant red.
“Owing to a number of mysterious deaths along a certain caravan route in Burma,” the harsh voice explained, “I personally visited the neighbourhood. It was then that Police Commissioner Nayland Smith (now Sir Denis) first crossed my path. The incidence was particularly marked in the zayats, or rest houses, along this route. It was near one of them that I found my first specimen. These were the creatures responsible.”