The Hand of Fu Manchu (3 page)

So ran my reflections—at random and to no clear end; and, as is often
the case in such circumstances, my steps bore them company; so that
all at once I became aware that instead of having gained the lobby of
the hotel, I had taken some wrong turning and was in a part of the
building entirely unfamiliar to me.

A long corridor of the inevitable white marble extended far behind me.
I had evidently traversed it. Before me was a heavily curtained archway.
Irritably, I pulled the curtain aside, learnt that it masked a
glass-paneled door, opened this door—and found myself in a small
court, dimly lighted and redolent of some pungent, incense-like perfume.

One step forward I took, then pulled up abruptly. A sound had come to
my ears. From a second curtained doorway, close to my right hand, it
came—a sound of muffled
tapping
, together with that of something
which dragged upon the floor.

Within my brain the words seemed audibly to form: "The man with
the limp!"

I sprang to the door; I had my hand upon the drapery ... when a woman
stepped out, barring the way!

No impression, not even a vague one, did I form of her costume, save
that she wore a green silk shawl, embroidered with raised white
figures of birds, thrown over her head and shoulders and draped in
such fashion that part of her face was concealed. I was transfixed
by the vindictive glare of her eyes, of her huge dark eyes.

They were ablaze with anger—but it was not this expression within
them which struck me so forcibly as the fact that they were in some
way familiar.

Motionless, we faced one another. Then—

"You go away," said the woman—at the same time extending her arms
across the doorway as barriers to my progress.

Her voice had a husky intonation; her hands and arms, which were bare
and of old ivory hue, were laden with barbaric jewelry, much of it
tawdry silverware of the bazaars. Clearly she was a half-caste of some
kind, probably a Eurasian.

I hesitated. The sounds of dragging and tapping had ceased. But the
presence of this grotesque Oriental figure only increased my anxiety
to pass the doorway. I looked steadily into the black eyes; they looked
into mine unflinchingly.

"You go away, please," repeated the woman, raising her right hand and
pointing to the door whereby I had entered. "These private rooms. What
you doing here?"

Her words, despite her broken English, served to recall to me the fact
that I was, beyond doubt, a trespasser! By what right did I presume to
force my way into other people's apartments?

"There is some one in there whom I must see," I said, realizing,
however, that my chance of doing so was poor.

"You see nobody," she snapped back uncompromisingly. "You go away!"

She took a step towards me, continuing to point to the door. Where had
I previously encountered the glance of those splendid, savage eyes?

So engaged was I with this taunting, partial memory, and so sure, if
the woman would but uncover her face, of instantly recognizing her,
that still I hesitated. Whereupon, glancing rapidly over her shoulder
into whatever place lay beyond the curtained doorway, she suddenly
stepped back and vanished, drawing the curtains to with an angry jerk.

I heard her retiring footsteps; then came a loud bang. If her object
in intercepting me had been to cover the slow retreat of some one she
had succeeded.

Recognizing that I had cut a truly sorry figure in the encounter, I
retraced my steps.

By what route I ultimately regained the main staircase I have no idea;
for my mind was busy with that taunting memory of the two dark eyes
looking out from the folds of the green embroidered shawl. Where, and
when, had I met their glance before?

To that problem I sought an answer in vain.

The message despatched to New Scotland Yard, I found M. Samarkan, long
famous as a
mâitre d' hôtel
in Cairo, and now host of London's
newest and most palatial
khan
. Portly, and wearing a gray imperial,
M. Samarkan had the manners of a courtier, and the smile of a true Greek.

I told him what was necessary, and no more, desiring him to go to
suite 14a without delay and also without arousing unnecessary
attention. I dropped no hint of foul play, but M. Samarkan expressed
profound (and professional) regret that so distinguished, though
unprofitable, a patron should have selected the New Louvre, thus
early in its history, as the terminus of his career.

"By the way," I said, "have you Oriental guests with you, at the moment?"

"No, monsieur," he assured me.

"Not a certain Oriental lady?" I persisted.

M. Samarkan slowly shook his head.

"Possibly monsieur has seen one of the
ayahs?
There are several
Anglo-Indian families resident in the New Louvre at present."

An
ayah?
It was just possible, of course. Yet ...

"We are dealing now," said Nayland Smith, pacing restlessly up and
down our sitting-room, "not, as of old, with Dr. Fu-Manchu, but with
an entirely unknown quantity—the Si-Fan."

"For Heaven's sake!" I cried, "what is the Si-Fan?"

"The greatest mystery of the mysterious East, Petrie. Think. You know,
as I know, that a malignant being, Dr. Fu-Manchu, was for some time
in England, engaged in 'paving the way' (I believe those words were
my own) for nothing less than a giant Yellow Empire. That dream is
what millions of Europeans and Americans term 'the Yellow Peril! Very
good. Such an empire needs must have—"

"An emperor!"

Nayland Smith stopped his restless pacing immediately in front of me.

"Why not an
empress
, Petrie!" he rapped.

His words were something of a verbal thunderbolt; I found myself at
loss for any suitable reply.

"You will perhaps remind me," he continued rapidly, "of the lowly place
held by women in the East. I can cite notable exceptions, ancient and
modern. In fact, a moment's consideration by a hypothetical body of
Eastern dynast-makers not of an emperor but of an empress. Finally,
there is a persistent tradition throughout the Far East that such a
woman will one day rule over the known peoples. I was assured some
years ago, by a very learned pundit, that a princess of incalculably
ancient lineage, residing in some secret monastery in Tartary or Tibet,
was to be the future empress of the world. I believe this tradition,
or the extensive group who seek to keep it alive and potent, to be
what is called the Si-Fan!"

I was past greater amazement; but—

"This lady can be no longer young, then?" I asked.

"On the contrary, Petrie, she remains always young and beautiful by
means of a continuous series of reincarnations; also she thus
conserves the collated wisdom of many ages. In short, she is the
archetype of Lamaism. The real secret of Lama celibacy is the existence
of this immaculate ruler, of whom the Grand Lama is merely a high
priest. She has, as attendants, maidens of good family, selected for
their personal charms, and rendered dumb in order that they may never
report what they see and hear."

"Smith!" I cried, "this is utterly incredible!"

"Her body slaves are not only mute, but blind; for it is death to look
upon her beauty unveiled."

I stood up impatiently.

"You are amusing yourself," I said.

Nayland Smith clapped his hands upon my shoulders, in his own
impulsive fashion, and looked earnestly into my eyes.

"Forgive me, old man," he said, "if I have related all these fantastic
particulars as though I gave them credence. Much of this is legendary,
I know, some of it mere superstition, but—I am serious now, Petrie—
part of it is true
."

I stared at the square-cut, sun-tanned face; and no trace of a smile
lurked about that grim mouth. "Such a woman may actually exist, Petrie,
only in legend; but, nevertheless, she forms the head center of that
giant conspiracy in which the activities of Dr. Fu-Manchu were merely
a part. Hale blundered on to this stupendous business; and from what I
have gathered from Beeton and what I have seen for myself, it is
evident that in yonder coffer"—he pointed to the brass chest standing
hard by—"Hale got hold of something indispensable to the success of
this vast Yellow conspiracy. That he was followed here, to the very
hotel, by agents of this mystic Unknown is evident. But," he added
grimly, "they have failed in their object!"

A thousand outrageous possibilities fought for precedence in my mind.

"Smith!" I cried, "the half-caste woman whom I saw in the hotel ..."

Nayland Smith shrugged his shoulders.

"Probably, as M. Samarkan suggests, an
ayah!
" he said; but there was
an odd note in his voice and an odd look in his eyes.

"Then again, I am almost certain that Hale's warning concerning 'the
man with the limp' was no empty one. Shall you open the brass chest?"

"At present, decidedly
no
. Hale's fate renders his warning one that
I dare not neglect. For I was with him when he died; and they cannot
know how much
I
know. How did he die? How did he die? How was the
Flower of Silence introduced into his closely guarded room?"

"The Flower of Silence?"

Smith laughed shortly and unmirthfully.

"I was once sent for," he said, "during the time that I was stationed
in Upper Burma, to see a stranger—a sort of itinerant Buddhist priest,
so I understood, who had desired to communicate some message to me
personally. He was dying—in a dirty hut on the outskirts of Manipur,
up in the hills. When I arrived I say at a glance that the man was a
Tibetan monk. He must have crossed the river and come down through
Assam; but the nature of his message I never knew. He had lost the
power of speech! He was gurgling, inarticulate, just like poor Hale.
A few moments after my arrival he breathed his last. The fellow who
had guided me to the place bent over him—I shall always remember the
scene—then fell back as though he had stepped upon an adder.

"'He holds the Flower Silence in his hand!' he cried—'the Si-Fan! the
Si-Fan!'—and bolted from the hut."

"When I went to examine the dead man, sure enough he held in one hand
a little crumpled spray of flowers. I did not touch it with my fingers
naturally, but I managed to loop a piece of twine around the stem,
and by that means I gingerly removed the flowers and carried them to
an orchid-hunter of my acquaintance who chanced to be visiting Manipur.

"Grahame—that was my orchid man's name—pronounced the specimen to be
an unclassified species of
jatropha;
belonging to the
Curcas
family. He discovered a sort of hollow thorn, almost like a fang,
amongst the blooms, but was unable to surmise the nature of its
functions. He extracted enough of a certain fixed oil from the flowers,
however, to have poisoned the pair of us!"

"Probably the breaking of a bloom ..."

"Ejects some of this acrid oil through the thorn? Practically the
uncanny thing stings when it is hurt? That is my own idea, Petrie. And
I can understand how these Eastern fanatics accept their sentence—
silence and death—when they have deserved it, at the hands of their
mysterious organization, and commit this novel form of
hara-kiri
.
But I shall not sleep soundly with that brass coffer in my possession
until I know by what means Sir Gregory was induced to touch a Flower
of Silence, and by what means it was placed in his room!"

"But, Smith, why did you direct me to-night to repeat the words,
'Sâkya Mûni'?"

Smith smiled in a very grim fashion.

"It was after the episode I have just related that I made the
acquaintance of that pundit, some of whose statements I have already
quoted for your enlightenment. He admitted that the Flower of Silence
was an instrument frequently employed by a certain group, adding that,
according to some authorities, one who had touched the flower might
escape death by immediately pronouncing the sacred name of Buddha. He
was no fanatic himself, however, and, marking my incredulity, he
explained that the truth was this;—

"No one whose powers of speech were imperfect could possibly pronounce
correctly the words 'Sâkya Mûni.' Therefore, since the first
effects of this damnable thing is instantly to tie the tongue, the
uttering of the sacred name of Buddha becomes practically a test
whereby the victim my learn whether the venom has entered his system
or not!"

I repressed a shudder. An atmosphere of horror seemed to be enveloping
us, foglike.

"Smith," I said slowly, "we must be on our guard," for at last I had
run to earth that elusive memory. "Unless I am strangely mistaken,
the 'man' who so mysteriously entered Hale's room and the supposed
ayah
whom I met downstairs are one and the same. Two, at least, of
the Yellow group are actually here in the New Louvre!"

The light of the shaded lamp shone down upon the brass coffer on the
table beside me. The fog seemed to have cleared from the room somewhat,
but since in the midnight stillness I could detect the muffled sounds
of sirens from the river and the reports of fog signals from the
railways, I concluded that the night was not yet wholly clear of the
choking mist. In accordance with a pre-arranged scheme we had decided
to guard "the key of India" (whatever it might be) turn and turn about
through the night. In a word—we feared to sleep unguarded. Now my
watch informed me that four o'clock approached, at which hour I was
to arouse Smith and retire to sleep to my own bedroom.

Nothing had disturbed my vigil—that is, nothing definite. True once,
about half an hour earlier, I had thought I heard the dragging and
tapping sound from somewhere up above me; but since the corridor
overhead was unfinished and none of the rooms opening upon it yet
habitable, I concluded that I had been mistaken. The stairway at the
end of our corridor, which communicated with that above, was still
blocked with bags of cement and slabs of marble, in fact.