My adventure had done nothing to relieve the feeling of unreality which
held me enthralled. Grasping the struggling bird firmly by the body, and
having the long white tail fluttering a yard or so behind me, I returned
to where the taxi waited.
“Open the door!” I said to the man--who greeted me with such a stare of
amazement that I laughed outright, though my mirth was but hollow.
He jumped into the road and did as I directed. Making sure that both
windows were closed, I thrust the peacock into the cab and shut the door
upon it.
“For God’s sake, sir!” began the driver--
“It has probably escaped from some collector’s place on the riverside,”
I explained, “but one never knows. See that it does not escape again,
and if at the end of an hour, as arranged, you do not hear from me, take
it back with you to the River Police Station.”
“Right you are, sir,” said the man, remounting his seat. “It’s the first
time I ever saw a peacock in Limehouse!”
It was the first time I had seen one, and the incident struck me as
being more than odd; it gave me an idea, and a new, faint hope. I
returned to the head of the steps, at the foot of which I had met with
this singular experience, and gazed up at the dark building beneath
which they led. Three windows were visible, but they were broken and
neglected. One, immediately above the arch, had been pasted up with
brown paper, and this was now peeling off in the rain, a little stream
of which trickled down from the detached corner to drop, drearily, upon
the stone stairs beneath.
Where were the detectives? I could only assume that they had directed
their attention elsewhere, for had the place not been utterly deserted,
surely I had been challenged.
In pursuit of my new idea, I again descended the steps. The persuasion
(shortly to be verified) that I was close upon the secret hold of the
Chinaman, grew stronger, unaccountably. I had descended some eight
steps, and was at the darkest part of the archway or tunnel, when
confirmation of my theories came to me.
A noose settled accurately upon my shoulders, was snatched tightly about
my throat, and with a feeling of insupportable agony at the base of
my skull, and a sudden supreme knowledge that I was being
strangled--hanged--I lost consciousness!
How long I remained unconscious, I was unable to determine at the time,
but I learned later, that it was for no more than half an hour; at any
rate, recovery was slow.
The first sensation to return to me was a sort of repetition of
the asphyxia. The blood seemed to be forcing itself into my eyes--I
choked--I felt that my end was come. And, raising my hands to my throat,
I found it to be swollen and inflamed. Then the floor upon which I lay
seemed to be rocking like the deck of a ship, and I glided back again
into a place of darkness and forgetfulness.
My second awakening was heralded by a returning sense of smell; for I
became conscious of a faint, exquisite perfume.
It brought me to my senses as nothing else could have done, and I sat
upright with a hoarse cry. I could have distinguished that perfume amid
a thousand others, could have marked it apart from the rest in a scent
bazaar. For me it had one meaning, and one meaning only--Karamaneh.
She was near to me, or had been near to me!
And in the first moments of my awakening, I groped about in the darkness
blindly seeking her.
Then my swollen throat and throbbing head, together with my utter
inability to move my neck even slightly, reminded me of the facts as
they were. I knew in that bitter moment that Karamaneh was no longer my
friend; but, for all her beauty and charm, was the most heartless, the
most fiendish creature in the service of Dr. Fu-Manchu. I groaned aloud
in my despair and misery.
Something stirred, near to me in the room, and set my nerves creeping
with a new apprehension. I became fully alive to the possibilities of
the darkness.
To my certain knowledge, Dr. Fu-Manchu at this time had been in England
for fully three months, which meant that by now he must be equipped with
all the instruments of destruction, animate and inanimate, which dread
experience had taught me to associate with him.
Now, as I crouched there in that dark apartment listening for a
repetition of the sound, I scarcely dared to conjecture what might have
occasioned it, but my imagination peopled the place with reptiles which
writhed upon the floor, with tarantulas and other deadly insects which
crept upon the walls, which might drop upon me from the ceiling at any
moment.
Then, since nothing stirred about me, I ventured to move, turning my
shoulders, for I was unable to move my aching head; and I looked in the
direction from which a faint, very faint, light proceeded.
A regular tapping sound now began to attract my attention, and, having
turned about, I perceived that behind me was a broken window, in places
patched with brown paper; the corner of one sheet of paper was detached,
and the rain trickled down upon it with a rhythmical sound.
In a flash I realized that I lay in the room immediately above the
archway; and listening intently, I perceived above the other faint
sounds of the night, or thought that I perceived, the hissing of the gas
from the extinguished lamp-burner.
Unsteadily I rose to my feet, but found myself swaying like a drunken
man. I reached out for support, stumbling in the direction of the wall.
My foot came in contact with something that lay there, and I pitched
forward and fell....
I anticipated a crash which would put an end to my hopes of escape, but
my fall was comparatively noiseless--for I fell upon the body of a man
who lay bound up with rope close against the wall!
A moment I stayed as I fell, the chest of my fellow captive rising and
falling beneath me as he breathed. Knowing that my life depended
upon retaining a firm hold upon myself, I succeeded in overcoming the
dizziness and nausea which threatened to drown my senses, and, moving
back so that I knelt upon the floor, I fumbled in my pocket for the
electric lamp which I had placed there. My raincoat had been removed
whilst I was unconscious, and with it my pistol, but the lamp was
untouched.
I took it out, pressed the button, and directed the ray upon the face of
the man beside me.
It was Nayland Smith!
Trussed up and fastened to a ring in the wall he lay, having a cork gag
strapped so tightly between his teeth that I wondered how he had escaped
suffocation.
But, although a grayish pallor showed through the tan of his skin, his
eyes were feverishly bright, and there, as I knelt beside him, I thanked
heaven, silently but fervently.
Then, in furious haste, I set to work to remove the gag. It was most
ingeniously secured by means of leather straps buckled at the back of
his head, but I unfastened these without much difficulty, and he spat
out the gag, uttering an exclamation of disgust.
“Thank God, old man!” he said, huskily. “Thank God that you are alive! I
saw them drag you in, and I thought...”
“I have been thinking the same about you for more than twenty-four
hours,” I said, reproachfully. “Why did you start without--”
“I did not want you to come, Petrie,” he replied. “I had a sort of
premonition. You see it was realized; and instead of being as helpless
as I, Fate has made you the instrument of my release. Quick! You have a
knife? Good!” The old, feverish energy was by no means extinguished
in him. “Cut the ropes about my wrists and ankles, but don’t otherwise
disturb them--”
I set to work eagerly.
“Now,” Smith continued, “put that filthy gag in place again--but you
need not strap it so tightly! Directly they find that you are alive,
they will treat you the same--you understand? She has been here three
times--”
“Karamaneh?”...
“Ssh!”
I heard a sound like the opening of a distant door.
“Quick! the straps of the gag!” whispered Smith, “and pretend to recover
consciousness just as they enter--”
Clumsily I followed his directions, for my fingers were none too steady,
replaced the lamp in my pocket, and threw myself upon the floor.
Through half-shut eyes, I saw the door open and obtained a glimpse of
a desolate, empty passage beyond. On the threshold stood Karamaneh. She
held in her hand a common tin oil lamp which smoked and flickered with
every movement, filling the already none too cleanly air with an odor of
burning paraffin. She personified the outre; nothing so incongruous as
her presence in that place could well be imagined. She was dressed as I
remembered once to have seen her two years before, in the gauzy silks of
the harem. There were pearls glittering like great tears amid the cloud
of her wonderful hair. She wore broad gold bangles upon her bare arms,
and her fingers were laden with jewelry. A heavy girdle swung from her
hips, defining the lines of her slim shape, and about one white ankle
was a gold band.
As she appeared in the doorway I almost entirely closed my eyes, but my
gaze rested fascinatedly upon the little red slippers which she wore.
Again I detected the exquisite, elusive perfume, which, like a breath
of musk, spoke of the Orient; and, as always, it played havoc with my
reason, seeming to intoxicate me as though it were the very essence of
her loveliness.
But I had a part to play, and throwing out one clenched hand so that my
fist struck upon the floor, I uttered a loud groan, and made as if to
rise upon my knees.
One quick glimpse I had of her wonderful eyes, widely opened and turned
upon me with such an enigmatical expression as set my heart leaping
wildly--then, stepping back, Karamaneh placed the lamp upon the boards
of the passage and clapped her hands.
As I sank upon the floor in assumed exhaustion, a Chinaman with
a perfectly impassive face, and a Burman, whose pock-marked, evil
countenance was set in an apparently habitual leer, came running into
the room past the girl.
With a hand which trembled violently, she held the lamp whilst the two
yellow ruffians tied me. I groaned and struggled feebly, fixing my gaze
upon the lamp-bearer in a silent reproach which was by no means without
its effect.
She lowered her eyes, and I could see her biting her lip, whilst the
color gradually faded from her cheeks. Then, glancing up again quickly,
and still meeting that reproachful stare, she turned her head aside
altogether, and rested one hand upon the wall, swaying slightly as she
did so.
It was a singular ordeal for more than one of that incongruous group;
but in order that I may not be charged with hypocrisy or with seeking
to hide my own folly, I confess, here, that when again I found myself
in darkness, my heart was leaping not because of the success of my
strategy, but because of the success of that reproachful glance which
I had directed toward the lovely, dark-eyed Karamaneh, toward the
faithless, evil Karamaneh! So much for myself.
The door had not been closed ten seconds, ere Smith again was spitting
out the gag, swearing under his breath, and stretching his cramped limbs
free from their binding. Within a minute from the time of my trussing,
I was a free man again; save that look where I would--to right, to left,
or inward, to my own conscience--two dark eyes met mine, enigmatically.
“What now?” I whispered.
“Let me think,” replied Smith. “A false move would destroy us.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Since last night.”
“Is Fu-Manchu--”
“Fu-Manchu is here!” replied Smith, grimly--“and not only Fu-Manchu,
but--another.”
“Another!”
“A higher than Fu-Manchu, apparently. I have an idea of the identity of
this person, but no more than an idea. Something unusual is going on,
Petrie; otherwise I should have been a dead man twenty-four hours
ago. Something even more important than my death engages Fu-Manchu’s
attention--and this can only be the presence of the mysterious visitor.
Your seductive friend, Karamaneh, is arrayed in her very becoming
national costume in his honor, I presume.” He stopped abruptly; then
added: “I would give five hundred pounds for a glimpse of that visitor’s
face!”
“Is Burke--”
“God knows what has become of Burke, Petrie! We were both caught napping
in the establishment of the amiable Shen-Yan, where, amid a very mixed
company of poker players, we were losing our money like gentlemen.”
“But Weymouth--”
“Burke and I had both been neatly sand-bagged, my dear Petrie, and
removed elsewhere, some hours before Weymouth raided the gaming-house.
Oh! I don’t know how they smuggled us away with the police watching the
place; but my presence here is sufficient evidence of the fact. Are you
armed?”
“No; my pistol was in my raincoat, which is missing.”
In the dim light from the broken window, I could see Smith tugging
reflectively at the lobe of his left ear.
“I am without arms, too,” he mused. “We might escape from the window--”
“It’s a long drop!”
“Ah! I imagined so. If only I had a pistol, or a revolver--”
“What should you do?”
“I should present myself before the important meeting, which, I am
assured, is being held somewhere in this building; and to-night would
see the end of my struggle with the Fu-Manchu group--the end of the
whole Yellow menace! For not only is Fu-Manchu here, Petrie, with all
his gang of assassins, but he whom I believe to be the real head of the
group--a certain mandarin--is here also!”