I cannot conceive that any ordinary mortal ever attained to anything
like an intimacy with Dr. Fu-Manchu; I cannot believe that any man could
ever grow used to his presence, could ever cease to fear him. I suppose
I had set eyes upon Fu-Manchu some five or six times prior to this
occasion, and now he was dressed in the manner which I always associated
with him, probably because it was thus I first saw him. He wore a plain
yellow robe, and, with his pointed chin resting upon his bosom, he
looked down at me, revealing a great expanse of the marvelous brow with
its sparse, neutral-colored hair.
Never in my experience have I known such force to dwell in the glance
of any human eye as dwelt in that of this uncanny being. His singular
affliction (if affliction it were), the film or slight membrane which
sometimes obscured the oblique eyes, was particularly evident at the
moment that I crossed the threshold, but now, as I looked up at Dr.
Fu-Manchu, it lifted--revealing the eyes in all their emerald greenness.
The idea of physical attack upon this incredible being seemed
childish--inadequate. But, following that first instant of stupefaction,
I forced myself to advance upon him.
A dull, crushing blow descended on the top of my skull, and I became
oblivious of all things.
My return to consciousness was accompanied by tremendous pains in my
head, whereby, from previous experience, I knew that a sandbag had been
used against me by some one in the shop, presumably by the immobile
shopman. This awakening was accompanied by none of those hazy doubts
respecting previous events and present surroundings which are the usual
symptoms of revival from sudden unconsciousness; even before I opened
my eyes, before I had more than a partial command of my senses, I knew
that, with my wrists handcuffed behind me, I lay in a room which
was also occupied by Dr. Fu-Manchu. This absolute certainty of the
Chinaman’s presence was evidenced, not by my senses, but only by an
inner consciousness, and the same that always awoke into life at the
approach not only of Fu-Manchu in person but of certain of his uncanny
servants.
A faint perfume hung in the air about me; I do not mean that of any
essence or of any incense, but rather the smell which is suffused
by Oriental furniture, by Oriental draperies; the indefinable but
unmistakable perfume of the East.
Thus, London has a distinct smell of its own, and so has Paris, whilst
the difference between Marseilles and Suez, for instance, is even more
marked.
Now, the atmosphere surrounding me was Eastern, but not of the East that
I knew; rather it was Far Eastern. Perhaps I do not make myself very
clear, but to me there was a mysterious significance in that perfumed
atmosphere. I opened my eyes.
I lay upon a long low settee, in a fairly large room which was furnished
as I had anticipated in an absolutely Oriental fashion. The two windows
were so screened as to have lost, from the interior point of view, all
resemblance to European windows, and the whole structure of the room had
been altered in conformity, bearing out my idea that the place had been
prepared for Fu-Manchu’s reception some time before his actual return. I
doubt if, East or West, a duplicate of that singular apartment could be
found.
The end in which I lay, was, as I have said, typical of an Eastern
house, and a large, ornate lantern hung from the ceiling almost directly
above me. The further end of the room was occupied by tall cases,
some of them containing books, but the majority filled with scientific
paraphernalia; rows of flasks and jars, frames of test-tubes, retorts,
scales, and other objects of the laboratory. At a large and very finely
carved table sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, a yellow and faded volume open before
him, and some dark red fluid, almost like blood, bubbling in a test-tube
which he held over the flame of a Bunsen-burner.
The enormously long nail of his right index finger rested upon the
opened page of the book to which he seemed constantly to refer, dividing
his attention between the volume, the contents of the test-tube, and the
progress of a second experiment, or possibly a part of the same, which
was taking place upon another corner of the littered table.
A huge glass retort (the bulb was fully two feet in diameter), fitted
with a Liebig’s Condenser, rested in a metal frame, and within the bulb,
floating in an oily substance, was a fungus some six inches high, shaped
like a toadstool, but of a brilliant and venomous orange color. Three
flat tubes of light were so arranged as to cast violet rays upward into
the retort, and the receiver, wherein condensed the product of this
strange experiment, contained some drops of a red fluid which may have
been identical with that boiling in the test-tube.
These things I perceived at a glance: then the filmy eyes of Dr.
Fu-Manchu were raised from the book, turned in my direction, and all
else was forgotten.
“I regret,” came the sibilant voice, “that unpleasant measures were
necessary, but hesitation would have been fatal. I trust, Dr. Petrie,
that you suffer no inconvenience?”
To this speech no reply was possible, and I attempted none.
“You have long been aware of my esteem for your acquirements,” continued
the Chinaman, his voice occasionally touching deep guttural notes, “and
you will appreciate the pleasure which this visit affords me. I kneel
at the feet of my silver Buddha. I look to you, when you shall have
overcome your prejudices--due to ignorance of my true motives--to assist
me in establishing that intellectual control which is destined to be the
new World Force. I bear you no malice for your ancient enmity, and even
now”--he waved one yellow hand toward the retort--“I am conducting an
experiment designed to convert you from your misunderstanding, and to
adjust your perspective.”
Quite unemotionally he spoke, then turned again to his book, his
test-tube and retort, in the most matter-of-fact way imaginable. I do
not think the most frenzied outburst on his part, the most fiendish
threats, could have produced such effect upon me as those cold and
carefully calculated words, spoken in that unique voice which rang about
the room sibilantly. In its tones, in the glance of the green eyes,
in the very pose of the gaunt, high-shouldered body, there was
power--force.
I counted myself lost, and in view of the doctor’s words, studied the
progress of the experiment with frightful interest. But a few moments
sufficed in which to realize that, for all my training, I knew as little
of chemistry--of chemistry as understood by this man’s genius--as a
junior student in surgery knows of trephining. The process in
operation was a complete mystery to me; the means and the end alike
incomprehensible.
Thus, in the heavy silence of that room, a silence only broken by the
regular bubbling from the test tube, I found my attention straying from
the table to the other objects surrounding it; and at one of them my
gaze stopped and remained chained with horror.
It was a glass jar, some five feet in height and filled with viscous
fluid of a light amber color. Out from this peered a hideous, dog-like
face, low browed, with pointed ears and a nose almost hoggishly flat.
By the death-grin of the face the gleaming fangs were revealed; and the
body, the long yellow-gray body, rested, or seemed to rest, upon
short, malformed legs, whilst one long limp arm, the right, hung down
straightly in the preservative. The left arm had been severed above the
elbow.
Fu-Manchu, finding his experiment to be proceeding favorably, lifted his
eyes to me again.
“You are interested in my poor Cynocephalyte?” he said; and his eyes
were filmed like the eyes of one afflicted with cataract. “He was a
devoted servant, Dr. Petrie, but the lower influences in his genealogy,
sometimes conquered. Then he got out of hand; and at last he was so
ungrateful toward those who had educated him, that, in one of those
paroxysms of his, he attacked and killed a most faithful Burman, one of
my oldest followers.”
Fu-Manchu returned to his experiment.
Not the slightest emotion had he exhibited thus far, but had chatted
with me as any other scientist might chat with a friend who casually
visits his laboratory. The horror of the thing was playing havoc with
my own composure, however. There I lay, fettered, in the same room with
this man whose existence was a menace to the entire white race, whilst
placidly he pursued an experiment designed, if his own words were
believable, to cut me off from my kind--to wreak some change,
psychological or physiological I knew not; to place me, it might
be, upon a level with such brute-things as that which now hung, half
floating, in the glass jar!
Something I knew of the history of that ghastly specimen, that thing
neither man nor ape; for within my own knowledge had it not attempted
the life of Nayland Smith, and was it not I who, with an ax, had maimed
it in the instant of one of its last slayings?
Of these things Dr. Fu-Manchu was well aware, so that his placid speech
was doubly, trebly horrible to my ears. I sought, furtively, to move
my arms, only to realize that, as I had anticipated, the handcuffs
were chained to a ring in the wall behind me. The establishments of Dr.
Fu-Manchu were always well provided with such contrivances as these.
I uttered a short, harsh laugh. Fu-Manchu stood up slowly from the
table, and, placing the test-tube in a rack, stood the latter carefully
upon a shelf at his side.
“I am happy to find you in such good humor,” he said softly. “Other
affairs call me; and, in my absence, that profound knowledge of
chemistry, of which I have had evidence in the past, will enable you to
follow with intelligent interest the action of these violet rays upon
this exceptionally fine specimen of Siberian amanita muscaria. At some
future time, possibly when you are my guest in China--which country I am
now making arrangements for you to visit--I shall discuss with you some
lesser-known properties of this species; and I may say that one of your
first tasks when you commence your duties as assistant in my laboratory
in Kiang-su, will be to conduct a series of twelve experiments, which I
have outlined, into other potentialities of this unique fungus.”
He walked quietly to a curtained doorway, with his cat-like yet awkward
gait, lifted the drapery, and, with a slight nod in my direction, went
out of the room.