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

cannot help me in this. But I have sometimes thought that he was a member of a certain very old Kiangsu family⁠—and that the peculiar conditions I have mentioned prevailed at his birth!”

Smith, observing our looks of amazement, laughed shortly, and quite mirthlessly.

“Poor old Weymouth!” he jerked. “I suppose my labors are finished; but I am far from triumphant. Is there any improvement in Mrs. Weymouth’s condition?”

“Very little,” was the reply; “she has lain in a semiconscious state since the news came. No one had any idea she would take it so. At one time we were afraid her brain was going. She seemed to have delusions.”

Smith spun round upon Weymouth.

“Of what nature?” he asked rapidly.

The other pulled nervously at his mustache.

“My wife has been staying with her,” he explained, “since⁠—it happened; and for the last three nights poor John’s widow has cried out at the same time⁠—half-past two⁠—that someone was knocking on the door.”

“What door?”

“That door yonder⁠—the street door.”

All our eyes turned in the direction indicated.

“John often came home at half-past two from the Yard,” continued Weymouth; “so we naturally thought poor Mary was wandering in her mind. But last night⁠—and it’s not to be wondered at⁠—my wife couldn’t sleep, and she was wide awake at half-past two.”

“Well?”

Nayland Smith was standing before him, alert, bright-eyed.

“She heard it, too!”

The sun was streaming into the cozy little sitting-room; but I will confess that Weymouth’s words chilled me uncannily. Karamanèh laid her hand upon mine, in a quaint, childish fashion peculiarly her own. Her hand was cold, but its touch thrilled me. For Karamanèh was not a child, but a rarely beautiful girl⁠—a pearl of the East such as many a monarch has fought for.

“What then?” asked Smith.

“She was afraid to move⁠—afraid to look from the window!”

My friend turned and stared hard at me.

“A subjective hallucination, Petrie?”

“In all probability,” I replied. “You should arrange that your wife be relieved in her trying duties, Mr. Weymouth. It is too great a strain for an inexperienced nurse.”

XXVIII

Of all that we had hoped for in our pursuit of Fu-Manchu how little had we accomplished. Excepting Karamanèh and her brother (who were victims and not creatures of the Chinese doctor’s) not one of the formidable group had fallen alive into our hands. Dreadful crimes had marked Fu-Manchu’s passage through the land. Not one-half of the truth (and nothing of the later developments) had been made public. Nayland Smith’s authority was sufficient to control the press.

In the absence of such a veto a veritable panic must have seized upon the entire country; for a monster⁠—a thing more than humanly evil⁠—existed in our midst.

Always Fu-Manchu’s secret activities had centered about the great waterway. There was much of poetic justice in his end; for the Thames had claimed him, who so long had used the stream as a highway for the passage to and fro for his secret forces. Gone now were the yellow men who had been the instruments of his evil will; gone was the giant intellect which had controlled the complex murder machine. Karamanèh, whose beauty he had used as a lure, at last was free, and no more with her smile would tempt men to death⁠—that her brother might live.

Many there are, I doubt not, who will regard the Eastern girl with horror. I ask their forgiveness in that I regarded her quite differently. No man having seen her could have condemned her unheard. Many, having looked into her lovely eyes, had they found there what I found, must have forgiven her almost any crime.

That she valued human life but little was no matter for wonder. Her nationality⁠—her history⁠—furnished adequate excuse for an attitude not condonable in a European equally cultured.

But indeed let me confess that hers was a nature incomprehensible to me in some respects. The soul of Karamanèh was a closed book to my shortsighted Western eyes. But the body of Karamanèh was exquisite; her beauty of a kind that was a key to the most extravagant rhapsodies of Eastern poets. Her eyes held a challenge wholly Oriental in its appeal; her lips, even in repose, were a taunt. And, herein, East is West and West is East.

Finally, despite her lurid history, despite the scornful self-possession of which I knew her capable, she was an unprotected girl⁠—in years, I believe, a mere child⁠—whom Fate had cast in my way. At her request, we had booked passages for her brother and herself to Egypt. The boat sailed in three days. But Karamanèh’s beautiful eyes were sad; often I detected tears on the black lashes. Shall I endeavor to describe my own tumultuous, conflicting emotions? It would be useless, since I know it to be impossible. For in those dark eyes burned a fire I might not see; those silken lashes veiled a message I dared not read.

Nayland Smith was not blind to the facts of the complicated situation. I can truthfully assert that he was the only man of my acquaintance who, having come in contact with Karamanèh, had kept his head.

We endeavored to divert her mind from the recent tragedies by a round of amusements, though with poor Weymouth’s body still at the mercy of unknown waters Smith and I made but a poor show of gayety; and I took a gloomy pride in the admiration which our lovely companion everywhere excited. I learned, in those days, how rare a thing in nature is a really beautiful woman.

One afternoon we found ourselves at an exhibition of water colors in Bond Street. Karamanèh was intensely interested in the subjects of the drawings⁠—which were entirely Egyptian. As usual, she furnished matter for comment amongst the other visitors, as did the boy, Aziz, her brother, anew upon the world from his living grave in the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

Suddenly Aziz clutched at his sister’s arm, whispering rapidly in Arabic. I saw her peachlike color fade; saw her become pale and wild-eyed⁠—the haunted Karamanèh of the old days.

She turned to me.

“Dr. Petrie⁠—he says that Fu-Manchu