The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu - Sax Rohmer (best finance books of all time .TXT) 📗

could reach; but no swimmer showed above it. Then it was that I concluded he had dived too deeply, become entangled in the weeds and was drowned. With a final glance to right and left and some feeling of awe at this sudden tragedy⁠—this grim going out of a life at glorious noonday⁠—I turned away. Smith had the woman securely; but I had not taken five steps towards him when a faint splash behind warned me. Instinctively I ducked. From whence that saving instinct arose I cannot surmise, but to it I owed my life. For as I rapidly lowered my head, something hummed past me, something that flew out over the grass bank, and fell with a jangle upon the dusty roadside. A knife!

I turned and bounded back to the river’s brink. I heard a faint cry behind me, which could only have come from the gypsy woman. Nothing disturbed the calm surface of the water. The reach was lonely of rowers. Out by the farther bank a girl was poling a punt along, and her white-clad figure was the only living thing that moved upon the river within the range of the most expert knife-thrower.

To say that I was nonplussed is to say less than the truth; I was amazed. That it was the dacoit who had shown me this murderous attention I could not doubt. But where in Heaven’s name was he? He could not humanly have remained below water for so long; yet he certainly was not above, was not upon the surface, concealed amongst the reeds, nor hidden upon the bank.

There, in the bright sunshine, a consciousness of the eerie possessed me. It was with an uncomfortable feeling that my phantom foe might be aiming a second knife at my back that I turned away and hastened towards Smith. My fearful expectations were not realized, and I picked up the little weapon which had so narrowly missed me, and with it in my hand rejoined my friend.

He was standing with one arm closely clasped about the apparently exhausted woman, and her dark eyes were fixed upon him with an extraordinary expression.

“What does it mean, Smith?” I began.

But he interrupted me.

“Where is the dacoit?” he demanded rapidly.

“Since he seemingly possesses the attributes of a fish,” I replied, “I cannot pretend to say.”

The gypsy woman lifted her eyes to mine and laughed. Her laughter was musical, not that of such an old hag as Smith held captive; it was familiar, too.

I started and looked closely into the wizened face.

“He’s tricked you,” said Smith, an angry note in his voice. “What is that you have in your hand?”

I showed him the knife, and told him how it had come into my possession.

“I know,” he rapped. “I saw it. He was in the water not three yards from where you stood. You must have seen him. Was there nothing visible?”

“Nothing.”

The woman laughed again, and again I wondered.

“A wildfowl,” I added; “nothing else.”

“A wildfowl,” snapped Smith. “If you will consult your recollections of the habits of wildfowl you will see that this particular specimen was a rara avis. It’s an old trick, Petrie, but a good one, for it is used in decoying. A dacoit’s head was concealed in that wildfowl! It’s useless. He has certainly made good his escape by now.”

“Smith,” I said, somewhat crestfallen, “why are you detaining this gypsy woman?”

“Gypsy woman!” he laughed, hugging her tightly as she made an impatient movement. “Use your eyes, old man.”

He jerked the frowsy wig from her head, and beneath was a cloud of disordered hair that shimmered in the sunlight.

“A wet sponge will do the rest,” he said.

Into my eyes, widely opened in wonder, looked the dark eyes of the captive; and beneath the disguise I picked out the charming features of the slave girl. There were tears on the whitened lashes, and she was submissive now.

“This time,” said my friend hardly, “we have fairly captured her⁠—and we will hold her.”

From somewhere upstream came a faint call.

“The dacoit!”

Nayland Smith’s lean body straightened; he stood alert, strung up.

Another call answered, and a third responded. Then followed the flatly shrill note of a police whistle, and I noted a column of black vapor rising beyond the wall, mounting straight to heaven as the smoke of a welcome offering.

The surrounded mansion was in flames!

“Curse it!” rapped Smith. “So this time we were right. But, of course, he has had ample opportunity to remove his effects. I knew that. The man’s daring is incredible. He has given himself till the very last moment⁠—and we blundered upon two of the outposts.”

“I lost one.”

“No matter. We have the other. I expect no further arrests, and the house will have been so well fired by the Doctor’s servants that nothing can save it. I fear its ashes will afford us no clue, Petrie; but we have secured a lever which should serve to disturb Fu-Manchu’s world.”

He glanced at the queer figure which hung submissively in his arms. She looked up proudly.

“You need not hold me so tight,” she said, in her soft voice. “I will come with you.”

That I moved amid singular happenings, you, who have borne with me thus far, have learned, and that I witnessed many curious scenes; but of the many such scenes in that race-drama wherein Nayland Smith and Dr. Fu-Manchu played the leading parts, I remember none more bizarre than the one at my rooms that afternoon.

Without delay, and without taking the Scotland Yard men into our confidence, we had hurried our prisoner back to London, for my friend’s authority was supreme. A strange trio we were, and one which excited no little comment; but the journey came to an end at last. Now we were in my unpretentious sitting-room⁠—the room wherein Smith first had unfolded to me the story of Dr. Fu-Manchu and of the great secret society which sought to upset the balance of the world⁠—to place Europe and America beneath the scepter of Cathay.

I sat with my elbows upon the writing-table,