Museum Street certainly did not seem a likely spot for Dr. Fu-Manchu to
establish himself, yet, unless my imagination had strangely deceived me,
from the window of the antique dealer who traded under the name of J.
Salaman, those wonderful eyes of Karamaneh like the velvet midnight of
the Orient, had looked out at me.
As I paced slowly along the pavement toward that lighted window, my
heart was beating far from normally, and I cursed the folly which,
in spite of all, refused to die, but lingered on, poisoning my
life. Comparative quiet reigned in Museum Street, at no time a busy
thoroughfare, and, excepting another shop at the Museum end, commercial
activities had ceased there. The door of a block of residential chambers
almost immediately opposite to the shop which was my objective, threw
out a beam of light across the pavement, but not more than two or three
people were visible upon either side of the street.
I turned the knob of the door and entered the shop.
The same dark and immobile individual whom I had seen before, and whose
nationality defied conjecture, came out from the curtained doorway at
the back to greet me.
“Good evening, sir,” he said monotonously, with a slight inclination of
the head; “is there anything which you desire to inspect?”
“I merely wish to take a look around,” I replied. “I have no particular
item in view.”
The shop man inclined his head again, swept a yellow hand
comprehensively about, as if to include the entire stock, and seated
himself on a chair behind the counter.
I lighted a cigarette with such an air of nonchalance as I could summon
to the operation, and began casually to inspect the varied objects of
interest loading the shelves and tables about me. I am bound to confess
that I retain no one definite impression of this tour. Vases I handled,
statuettes, Egyptian scarabs, bead necklaces, illuminated missals,
portfolios of old prints, jade ornaments, bronzes, fragments of rare
lace, early printed books, Assyrian tablets, daggers, Roman rings, and
a hundred other curiosities, leisurely, and I trust with apparent
interest, yet without forming the slightest impression respecting any
one of them.
Probably I employed myself in this way for half an hour or more, and
whilst my hands busied themselves among the stock of J. Salaman, my mind
was occupied entirely elsewhere. Furtively I was studying the shopman
himself, a human presentment of a Chinese idol; I was listening and
watching; especially I was watching the curtained doorway at the back of
the shop.
“We close at about this time, sir,” the man interrupted me, speaking in
the emotionless, monotonous voice which I had noted before.
I replaced upon the glass counter a little Sekhet boat, carved in wood
and highly colored, and glanced up with a start. Truly my methods were
amateurish; I had learnt nothing; I was unlikely to learn anything. I
wondered how Nayland Smith would have conducted such an inquiry, and I
racked my brains for some means of penetrating into the recesses of the
establishment. Indeed, I had been seeking such a plan for the past half
an hour, but my mind had proved incapable of suggesting one.
Why I did not admit failure I cannot imagine, but, instead, I began to
tax my brains anew for some means of gaining further time; and, as
I looked about the place, the shopman very patiently awaiting my
departure, I observed an open case at the back of the counter. The three
lower shelves were empty, but upon the fourth shelf squatted a silver
Buddha.
“I should like to examine the silver image yonder,” I said; “what price
are you asking for it?”
“It is not for sale, sir,” replied the man, with a greater show of
animation than he had yet exhibited.
“Not for sale!” I said, my eyes ever seeking the curtained doorway;
“how’s that?”
“It is sold.”
“Well, even so, there can be no objection to my examining it?”
“It is not for sale, sir.”
Such a rebuff from a tradesman would have been more than sufficient
to call for a sharp retort at any other time, but now it excited the
strangest suspicions. The street outside looked comparatively deserted,
and prompted, primarily, by an emotion which I did not pause to analyze,
I adopted a singular measure; without doubt I relied upon the unusual
powers vested in Nayland Smith to absolve me in the event of error.
I made as if to go out into the street, then turned, leaped past the
shopman, ran behind the counter, and grasped at the silver Buddha!
That I was likely to be arrested for attempted larceny I cared not;
the idea that Karamaneh was concealed somewhere in the building
ruled absolutely, and a theory respecting this silver image had taken
possession of my mind. Exactly what I expected to happen at that moment
I cannot say, but what actually happened was far more startling than
anything I could have imagined.
At the instant that I grasped the figure I realized that it was attached
to the woodwork; in the next I knew that it was a handle ... as I tried
to pull it toward me I became aware that this handle was the handle of a
door. For that door swung open before me, and I found myself at the foot
of a flight of heavily carpeted stairs.
Anxious as I had been to proceed a moment before, I was now trebly
anxious to retire, and for this reason: on the bottom step of the stair,
facing me, stood Dr. Fu-Manchu!