AN ANTI-CLIMAX
One hour later I stood in the entrance hall of our chambers in the
court adjoining Fleet Street. Some one who had come racing up the
stairs, now had inserted a key in the lock. Open swung the door--and
Nayland Smith entered, in a perfect whirl of excitement.
"Petrie! Petrie!" he cried, and seized both my hands--"you have missed
a night of nights! Man alive! we have the whole gang--the great Ki-Ming
included!" His eyes were blazing. "Weymouth has made no fewer than
twenty-five arrests, some of the prisoners being well-known Orientals.
It will be the devil's own work to keep it all quiet, but Scotland
Yard has already advised the Press."
"Congratulations, old man," I said, and looked him squarely in the eyes.
Something there must have been in my glance at variance with the
spoken words. His expression changed; he grasped my shoulder.
"_She_ was not there," he said, "but please God, we'll find her now.
It's only a question of time."
But, even as he spoke, the old, haunted look was creeping back into the
lean face. He gave me a rapid glance; then:--
"I might as well make a clean breast of it," he rapped. "Fu-Manchu
escaped! Furthermore, when we got lights, the woman had vanished, too."
"The woman!"
"There was a woman at this strange gathering, Petrie. Heaven only
knows who she really is. According to Fu-Manchu she is that woman of
mystery concerning whose existence strange stories are current in the
East; the future Empress of a universal empire! But of course I
decline to accept the story, Petrie! if ever the Yellow races overran
Europe, I am in no doubt respecting the identity of the person who
would ascend the throne of the world!"
"Nor I, Smith!" I cried excitedly. "Good God! he holds them all in the
palm of his hand! He has welded together the fanatics of every creed
of the East into a giant weapon for his personal use! Small wonder
that he is so formidable. But, Smith--_who_ is that woman?"
"Petrie!" he said slowly, and I knew that I had betrayed my secret,
"Petrie--where did you learn all this?"
I returned his steady gaze.
"I was present at the meeting of the Si-Fan," I replied steadily.
"What? What? _You_ were present?"
"I was present! Listen, and I will explain."
Standing there in the hallway I related, as briefly as possible, the
astounding events of the night. As I told of the woman in the train--
"That confirms my impression that Fu-Manchu was imposing upon the
others!" he snapped. "I cannot conceive of a woman recluse from some
Lamaserie, surrounded by silent attendants and trained for her exalted
destiny in the way that the legendary veiled woman of Tibet is said to
be trained, traveling alone in an English railway carriage! Did you
observe, Petrie, if her eyes were _oblique_ at all?"
"They did not strike me as being oblique. Why do you ask?"
"Because I strongly suspect that we have to do with none other than
Fu-Manchu's daughter! But go on."
"By heavens, Smith! You may be right! I had no idea that a Chinese
woman could possess such features."
"She may not have a Chinese mother; furthermore, there are pretty women
in China as well as in other countries; also, there are hair dyes and
cosmetics. But for Heaven's sake go on!"
I continued my all but incredible narrative; came to the point where I
discovered the straying marmoset and entered the empty house, without
provoking any comment from my listener. He stared at me with something
very like surprised admiration when I related how I had become an
unseen spectator of that singular meeting.
"And I though I had achieved the triumph of my life in gaining
admission and smuggling Weymouth and Carter into the roof, armed with
hooks and rope-ladders!" he murmured.
Now I came to the moment when, having withdrawn into the empty house,
I had heard the police whistle and had heard Smith's voice; I came to
the moment when I had found myself face to face with Dr. Fu-Manchu.
Nayland Smith's eyes were on fire now; he literally quivered with
excitement, when--
"_Ssh!_ what's that?" he whispered, and grasped my arm. "I heard
something move in the sitting-room, Petrie!"
"It was a coal dropping from the grate, perhaps," I said--and rapidly
continued my story, telling how, with my pistol to his head, I had
forced the Chinese doctor to descend into the hallway of the empty
house.
"Yes, yes," snapped Smith. "For God's sake go on, man! What have you
done with him? Where is he?"
I clearly detected a movement myself immediately behind the half-open
door of the sitting-room. Smith started and stared intently across my
shoulder at the doorway; then his gaze shifted and became fixed upon
my face.
"He bought his life from me, Smith."
Never can I forget the change that came over my friend's tanned
features at those words; never can I forget the pang that I suffered
to see it. The fire died out of his eyes and he seemed to grow old and
weary in a moment. None too steadily I went on:--
"He offered a price that I could not resist, Smith. Try to forgive me,
if you can. I know that I have done a dastardly thing, but--perhaps a
day may come in your own life when you will understand. He descended
with me to a cellar under the empty house, in which some one was
locked. Had I arrested Fu-Manchu this poor captive must have died there
of starvation; for no one would ever have suspected that the place had
an occupant...."
The door of the sitting-room was thrown open, and, wearing my
great-coat over the bizarre costume in which I had found her, with her
bare ankles and little red slippers peeping grotesquely from below,
and her wonderful cloud of hair rippling over the turned-up collar,
Kâramaneh came out!
Her great dark eyes were raised to Nayland Smith's with such an appeal
in them--an appeal for _me_--that emotion took me by the throat and
had me speechless. I could not look at either of them; I turned aside
and stared into the lighted sitting-room.
How long I stood so God knows, and I never shall; but suddenly I found
my hand seized in a vice-like grip, I looked around ... and Smith,
holding my fingers fast in that iron grasp, had his left arm about
Kâramaneh's shoulders, and his gray eyes were strangely soft, whilst
hers were hidden behind her upraised hands.
"Good old Petrie!" said Smith hoarsely. "Wake up, man; we have to get
her to a hotel before they all close, remember. _I_ understand, old
man. That day came in my life long years ago!"