THE QUESTING HANDS
Within my view, from the corner of the room where I sat in deepest
shadow, through the partly opened window (it was screwed, like our
own) were rows of glass-houses gleaming in the moonlight, and, beyond
them, orderly ranks of flower-beds extending into a blue haze of
distance. By reason of the moon's position, no light entered the room,
but my eyes, from long watching, were grown familiar with the
darkness, and I could see Burke quite clearly as he lay in the bed
between my post and the window. I seemed to be back again in those
days of the troubled past when first Nayland Smith and I had come to
grips with the servants of Dr. Fu-Manchu. A more peaceful scene than
this flower-planted corner of Essex it would be difficult to imagine;
but, either because of my knowledge that its peace was chimerical, or
because of that outflung consciousness of danger which actually, or in
my imagination, preceded the coming of the Chinaman's agents, to my
seeming the silence throbbed electrically and the night was laden with
stilly omens.
Already cramped by my journey in the market-cart, I found it difficult
to remain very long in any one position. What information had Burke to
sell? He had refused, for some reason, to discuss the matter that
evening, and now, enacting the part allotted him by Nayland Smith, he
feigned sleep consistently, although at intervals he would whisper to
me his doubts and fears.
All the chances were in our favour to-night; for whilst I could not
doubt that Dr. Fu-Manchu was set upon the removal of the ex-officer of
New York police, neither could I doubt that our presence in the farm
was unknown to the agents of the Chinaman. According to Burke,
constant attempts had been made to achieve Fu-Manchu's purpose, and
had only been frustrated by his (Burke's) wakefulness. There was every
probability that another attempt would be made to-night.
Any one who has been forced by circumstance to undertake such a vigil
as this will be familiar with the marked changes (corresponding with
phases of the earth's movement) which take place in the atmosphere, at
midnight, at two o'clock, and again at four o'clock. During those four
hours falls a period wherein all life is at its lowest ebb, and every
physician is aware that there is a greater likelihood of a patient's
passing between midnight and 4 a.m., than at any other period during
the cycle of the hours.
To-night I became specially aware of this lowering of vitality, and
now, with the night at that darkest phase which precedes the dawn, an
indescribable dread, such as I had known before in my dealings with
the Chinaman, assailed me, when I was least prepared to combat it. The
stillness was intense Then:
"_Here it is!_" whispered Burke from the bed.
The chill at the very centre of my being, which but corresponded with
the chill of all surrounding nature at that hour, became intensified,
keener, at the whispered words.
I rose stealthily out of my chair, and from my nest of shadows
watched--watched intently, the bright oblong of the window....
Without the slightest heralding sound--a black silhouette crept up
against the pane ... the silhouette of a small, malformed head, a
dog-like head, deep-set in square shoulders. Malignant eyes peered
intently in. Higher it rose--that wicked head--against the window,
then crouched down on the sill and became less sharply defined as the
creature stooped to the opening below. There was a faint sound of
sniffing.
Judging from the stark horror which I experienced myself, I doubted,
now, if Burke could sustain the rôle allotted him. In beneath the
slightly raised window came a hand, perceptible to me despite the
darkness of the room. It seemed to project from the black silhouette
outside the pane, to be thrust forward--and forward--and forward ...
that small hand with the outstretched fingers.
The unknown possesses unique terrors; and since I was unable to
conceive what manner of thing this could be, which, extending its
incredibly long arms, now sought the throat of the man upon the bed, I
tasted of that sort of terror which ordinarily one knows only in
dreams.
"Quick, sir--_quick_!" screamed Burke, starting up from the pillow.
The questing hands had reached his throat!
Choking down an urgent dread that I had of touching the thing which
had reached through the window to kill the sleeper, I sprang across
the room and grasped the rigid, hairy forearms.
Heavens! Never have I felt such muscles, such tendons, as those
beneath the hirsute skin! They seemed to be of steel wire, and with a
sudden frightful sense of impotence, I realized that I was as
powerless as a child to relax that strangle-hold. Burke was making the
most frightful sounds and quite obviously was being asphyxiated before
my eyes!
"Smith!" I cried, "Smith! Help! _help_! for God's sake!"
Despite the confusion of my mind I became aware of sounds outside and
below me. Twice the thing at the window coughed; there was an
incessant, lash-like cracking, then some shouted words which I was
unable to make out; and finally the sharp report of a pistol.
Snarling like that of a wild beast came from the creature with the
hairy arms, together with renewed coughing. But the steel grip relaxed
not one iota. I realized two things: the first, that in my terror at
the suddenness of the attack I had omitted to act as prearranged: the
second, that I had discredited the strength of the visitant, whilst
Smith had foreseen it.
Desisting in my vain endeavour to pit my strength against that of the
nameless thing, I sprang back across the room and took up the weapon
which had been left in my charge earlier in the night, but which I had
been unable to believe it would be necessary to employ. This was a
sharp and heavy axe which Nayland Smith, when I had met him in Covent
Garden, had brought with him, to the great amazement of Weymouth and
myself.
As I leapt back to the window and uplifted this primitive weapon, a
second shot sounded from below, and more fierce snarling, coughing,
and guttural mutterings assailed my ears from beyond the pane.
Lifting the heavy blade, I brought it down with all my strength upon
the nearer of those hairy arms where it crossed the window-ledge,
severing muscle, tendon and bone as easily as a knife might cut
cheese....
A shriek--a shriek neither human nor animal, but gruesomely compound
of both--followed ... and merged into a choking cough. Like a flash
the other shaggy arm was withdrawn, and some vaguely seen body went
rolling down the sloping red tiles and crashed on to the ground
beneath.
With a second piercing shriek, louder than that recently uttered by
Burke, wailing through the night from somewhere below, I turned
desperately to the man on the bed, who now was become significantly
silent. A candle with matches, stood upon a table hard by, and, my
fingers far from steady, I set about obtaining a light. This
accomplished, I stood the candle upon the little chest-of-drawers and
returned to Burke's side.
"Merciful God!" I cried.
Of all the pictures which remain in my memory, some of them dark
enough, I can find none more horrible than that which now confronted
me in the dim candle-light. Burke lay crosswise on the bed, his head
thrown back and sagging; one rigid hand he held in the air, and with
the other grasped the hairy forearm which I had severed with the axe;
for, in a death-like grip, the dead fingers were still fastened,
vice-like, at his throat.
His face was nearly black, and his eyes projected from their sockets
horribly. Mastering my repugnance, I seized the hideous piece of
bleeding anatomy and strove to release it. It defied all my efforts;
in death it was as implacable as in life. I took a knife from my
pocket, and, tendon by tendon, cut away that uncanny grip from Burke's
throat....
But my labour was in vain. Burke was dead!
I think I failed to realize this for some time. My clothes were
sticking clammily to my body; I was bathed in perspiration, and,
shaking furiously, I clutched at the edge of the window, avoiding the
bloody patch upon the ledge, and looked out over the roofs to where,
in the more distant plantations, I could hear excited voices. What had
been the meaning of that scream which I had heard but to which in my
frantic state of mind I had paid comparatively little attention?
There was a great stirring all about me.
"Smith!" I cried from the window; "Smith, for mercy's sake where are
you?"
Footsteps came racing up the stairs. Behind me the door burst open and
Nayland Smith stumbled into the room.
"God!" he said, and started back in the doorway.
"Have you got it, Smith?" I demanded hoarsely. "In sanity's name what
is it--_what is it?_"
"Come downstairs," replied Smith quietly, "and see for yourself." He
turned his head aside from the bed.
Very unsteadily I followed him down the stairs and through the
rambling old house out into the stone-paved courtyard. There were
figures moving at the end of a long alleyway between the glass houses,
and one, carrying a lantern, stooped over something which lay upon the
ground.
"That's Burke's cousin with the lantern," whispered Smith, in my ear;
"don't tell him yet."
I nodded, and we hurried up to join the group. I found myself looking
down at one of those thickset Burmans whom I always associated with
Fu-Manchu's activities. He lay quite flat, face downward; but the back
of his head was a shapeless blood-clotted mass, and a heavy
stock-whip, the butt end ghastly because of the blood and hair which
clung to it, lay beside him. I started back appalled as Smith caught
my arm.
"_It_ turned on its keeper!" he hissed in my ear. "I wounded it twice
from below, and you severed one arm; in its insensate fury, its
unreasoning malignity, it returned--and there lies its second
victim...."
"Then...."
"It's gone, Petrie! It has the strength of four men even now. Look!"
He stooped, and from the clenched left hand of the dead Burman,
extracted a piece of paper and opened it.
"Hold the lantern a moment," he said.
In the yellow light he glanced at the scrap of paper.
"As I expected--a leaf of Burke's notebook; it worked by _scent_." He
turned to me with an odd expression in his grey eyes. "I wonder what
piece of _my_ personal property Fu-Manchu has pilfered," he said, "in
order to enable it to sleuth _me_?"
He met the gaze of the man holding the lantern.
"Perhaps you had better return to the house," he said, looking him
squarely in the eyes.
The other's face blanched.
"You don't mean, sir--you don't mean...."
"Brace up!" said Smith, laying his hand upon his shoulder.
"Remember--he chose to play with fire!"
One wild look the man cast from Smith to me, then went off,
staggering, toward the farm.
"Smith--" I began.
He turned to me with an impatient gesture.
"Weymouth has driven into Upminster," he snapped; "and the whole
district will be scoured before morning. They probably motored here,
but the sounds of the shots will have enabled whoever was with the car
to make good his escape. And--exhausted from loss of blood, its
capture is only a matter of time, Petrie."