The Bride of Fu-Manchu (32 page)

He stood up.

“Thank you,” said Sir Denis.

“Will you be good enough”—Maître Foli bowed to the préfet and to Nayland Smith—“to grant me an interview with my client? I desire that this interview should not be interrupted—a desire which I am entitled to express.”

The French official glanced at Sir Denis, who nodded. Maître Foli took up his bulky portfolio and went out, walking very slowly and much stooped. M. Chamrousse followed him.

I stared at Nayland Smith, who had begun to pace up and down the carpet restlessly.

“This man Foli is going to oppose extradition!” he rapped.

“If he succeeds—and he rarely fails—Fu-Manchu will slip through our fingers!”

Presently, M. Chamrousse returned, shrugging apologetically.

“Such is the law,” he said, “and the eminence of Maître Foli offers me no alternative. This Fu-Manchu is a political prisoner...”

A messenger entered to announce the arrival of the Chinese consul.

“Do you mind, M. Chamrousse,” said Sir Denis, “if I see this gentleman privately for a few minutes?”

“But not at all.”

Sir Denis nodded to the speaker and walked rapidly out of the room. Five to ten minutes elapsed, during which there was little conversation between M. Chamrousse and myself, and then:

“The appearance of the great Foli in this case gives me a heavy sense of responsibility,” M. Chamrousse declared. “I fully understand.”

A further interval of silence; and then, heralded by the sound of a bell and the unlocking of doors, Maître Foli rejoined us, portfolio under his arm.

M. Chamrousse sprang to his feet.

“Gentlemen,” said the famous lawyer, groping for that wide-brimmed hat which he had left upon the floor beside his chair, “I am returning at once in order to get in touch with the Chinese Legation in Paris.”

“The Chinese consul is here, Maître Foli.”

That stooping but dignified figure turned slowly.

“I thank you, M. Chamrousse; but this affair is outside the sphere of minor officialdom.”

M. Chamrousse rang a bell; a clerk appeared, who showed Maître Foli out of the office. At the door he turned.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I know that you look upon me as your enemy; but your enemy is my client. I am merely acting for him.”

He bowed and went out. The door closed. Perhaps half a minute had elapsed when it was flung open again and Nayland Smith hurried in.

“Was that Maître Foli who left a moment ago?” he rapped.

“Yes,” M. Chamrousse replied. “He is anxious to get into immediate touch with the Chinese Legation in Paris.”

Sir Denis stood stock still, then:

“Great heavens!” he said in a low voice—and looked at me almost wildly—“It’s not impossible! It’s not impossible—”

“What do you mean, Sir Denis?”

“The Blessing of the Celestial Vision!”

His words were a verbal thunderbolt; his meaning was all too clear.

“Sterling! Good God! Follow me.”

He rushed from the room, along the passage to the cell occupied by Dr. Fu-Manchu. A guard was on duty at the door. He opened it in response to Sir Denis’s order. We entered. M. Chamrousse was close behind.

A man was seated where Dr. Fu-Manchu had sat; one in figure not unlike whom we had come to seek. But...

“Great heavens!” cried Nayland Smith. “He wasn’t relying on loopholes of the law! He was relying on his genius as an illusionist!”

The man in the yellow robe bowed.

It was Maître Foli!

“Sir Denis,” he said, in his harsh, strident voice, “I have served my purpose for which I have been retained by Dr. Fu-Manchu for a period of more than thirty years. I am honoured; I am happy. I crown a successful career with a glorious deed...”

The light in his eyes—their wild fanaticism—told me the truth.

Maître Foli was a Companion; a victim of those arts which I had so narrowly escaped!

“I shall be committed to a French jail—my sentence may be a long one. I am too old for Devil’s Island; but in any event what does it matter? The Prince is free! The work goes on...”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S
ax Rohmer was born Arthur Henry Ward in 1883, in Birmingham, England, adding “Sarsfield” to his name in 1901. He was four years old when Sherlock Holmes appeared in print, five when the Jack the Ripper murders began, and sixteen when H.G. Wells’ Martians invaded.

Initially pursuing a career as a civil servant, he turned to writing as a journalist, poet, comedy sketch writer, and songwriter in British music halls. At age 20 he submitted the short story “The Mysterious Mummy” to
Pearson’s
magazine and “The Leopard-Couch” to
Chamber’s Journal.
Both were published under the byline “A. Sarsfield Ward.”

Ward’s Bohemian associates Cumper, Bailey, and Dodgson gave him the nickname “Digger,” which he used as his byline on several serialized stories. Then, in 1908, the song “Bang Went the Chance of a Lifetime” appeared under the byline “Sax Rohmer.” Becoming immersed in theosophy, alchemy, and mysticism, Ward decided the name was appropriate to his writing, so when “The Zayat Kiss” first appeared in
The Story-Teller
magazine in October, 1912, it was credited to Sax Rohmer.

That was the first story featuring Fu-Manchu, and the first portion of the novel
The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
Novels such as
The Yellow Claw
,
Tales of Secret Egypt
,
Dope
,
The Dream Detective
,
The Green Eyes of Bast
, and
Tales of Chinatown
made Rohmer one of the most successful novelists of the 1920s and 1930s.

There are fourteen Fu-Manchu novels, and the character has been featured in radio, television, comic strips, and comic books. He first appeared in film in 1923, and has been portrayed by such actors as Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, John Carradine, Peter Sellers, and Nicolas Cage.

Rohmer died in 1959, a victim of an outbreak of the type A influenza known as the Asian flu.

APPRECIATING DOCTOR FU-MANCHU

BY LESLIE S. KLINGER

T
he “yellow peril”—that stereotypical threat of Asian conquest— seized the public imagination in the late nineteenth century, in political diatribes and in fiction. While several authors exploited this fear, the work of Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward, better known as Sax Rohmer, stood out.

Dr. Fu-Manchu was born in Rohmer’s short story “The Zayat Kiss,” which first appeared in a British magazine in 1912. Nine more stories quickly appeared and, in 1913, the tales were collected as
The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu
in America). The Doctor appeared in two more series before the end of the Great War, collected as
The Devil Doctor (The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu
) and
The Si-Fan Mysteries (The Hand of Fu-Manchu).

After a fourteen-year absence, the Doctor reappeared in 1931, in
The Daughter of Fu-Manchu
. There were nine more novels, continuing until Rohmer’s death in 1959, when
Emperor Fu-Manchu
was published. Four stories, which had previously appeared only in magazines, were published in 1973 as
The Wrath of Fu-Manchu.

The Fu-Manchu stories also have been the basis of numerous motion pictures, most famously the 1932 MGM film
The Mask of Fu Manchu
, featuring Boris Karloff as the Doctor.

In the early stories, Fu-Manchu and his cohorts are the “yellow menace,” whose aim is to establish domination of the Asian races. In the 1930s Fu-Manchu foments political dissension among the working classes. By the 1940s, as the wars in Europe and Asia threaten terrible destruction, Fu-Manchu works to depose other world leaders and defeat the Communists in Russia and China.

Rohmer undoubtedly read the works of Conan Doyle, and there is a strong resemblance between Nayland Smith and Holmes. There are also marked parallels between the four doctors, Petrie and Watson as the narrator-comrades, and Dr. Fu-Manchu and Professor Moriarty as the arch-villains.

The emphasis is on fast-paced action set in exotic locations, evocatively described in luxuriant detail, with countless thrills occurring to the unrelenting ticking of a tightly wound clock. Strong romantic elements and sensually described, sexually attractive women appear throughout the tales, but ultimately it is the
fantastic
nature of the adventures that appeal.

This is the continuing appeal of Dr. Fu-Manchu, for despite his occasional tactic of alliance with the West, he unrelentingly pursued his own agenda of world domination. In the long run, Rohmer’s depiction of Fu-Manchu rose above the fears and prejudices that may have created him to become a picture of a timeless and implacable creature of menace.

A complete version of this essay can be found in
The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu,
also available from Titan Books

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS:

THE COMPLETE FU-MANCHU SERIES

Sax Rohmer

Available now:

THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU

THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU

THE HAND OF DR. FU-MANCHU

DAUGHTER OF FU-MANCHU

THE MASK OF FU-MANCHU

Coming soon:

THE TRAIL OF FU-MANCHU

PRESIDENT FU-MANCHU

THE DRUMS OF FU-MANCHU

THE ISLAND OF FU-MANCHU

THE SHADOW OF FU-MANCHU

RE-ENTER FU-MANCHU

EMPEROR FU-MANCHU

THE WRATH OF FU-MANCHU AND OTHER STORIES

WWW.TITANBOOKS.COM

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The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
encapsulate the most varied and thrilling cases of the world’s greatest detective.

THE ECTOPLASMIC MAN

by Daniel Stashower

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

by Manly Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman

THE SCROLL OF THE DEAD

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THE STALWART COMPANIONS

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THE VEILED DETECTIVE

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SÉANCE FOR A VAMPIRE

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THE SEVENTH BULLET

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THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS

by Edward B. Hanna

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HOLMES

by Loren D. Estleman

THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA

by Sam Siciliano

THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA

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THE PEERLESS PEER

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THE STAR OF INDIA

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