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 favor 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 fours
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 four 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 center 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 arose--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 role 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
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 staccato 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 pre-arranged: the second, that I had
discredited the strength of the visitant, whilst Smith had foreseen it.
Desisting in my vain endeavor 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 leaped 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 compounded
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 ax; for, in a
death-grip, the dead fingers were still fastened, vise-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 labor 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 thick-set 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-dotted 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 gray 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.”