The Island of Fu-Manchu (33 page)

“When this door opens, see that it stays open,” he ordered. “Pull those rubber things over your shoes. I don’t know what for—but do it.”

The door opened. I became aware of that throbbing sound which I had noted before, and there, before me, wearing his white surgical jacket, was Dr. Marriot Doughty!

“Kerrigan!” he exclaimed: “Kerrigan!”

His naturally sallow face grew deathly white. The short Vandyke beard seemed to bristle.

“My name is Nayland Smith,” said my friend. “I am here to see Dr. Fu-Manchu. Stand aside if you please.”

Entering, out of darkness broken only by gleams of lightning, into that vast and strange laboratory was very startling. One came from night into day. Whereas, when I had seen it before, the place had been but dimly illuminated, now, the Ferris Globe shone as though it were molten and the effect was as that of daylight. Standing behind one of the glass-topped benches at the other end of the laboratory—a bench upon which some experiment seemed to be in progress—and still wearing a long white jacket and black skull-cap as I remembered him, was Dr. Fu-Manchu!

“There’s your man!” Said Smith, aside.

“Hands up!” rasped one of our bodyguard. Both raised their machine-guns. We all moved forward.

At the moment that we did so I saw one of those long slender hands touch a switch, so that to the peculiar throbbing which I have already mentioned was added a new kind of vibration. Otherwise, no perceptible change took place. Standing there, tall, square-shouldered, challengingly. Dr. Fu-Manchu watched us.

“At last,” cried Smith on a note of sudden excitement; “at last I hold the winning card!”

Dr. Fu-Manchu continued to watch but did not speak.

“The entire works are surrounded,” Smith went on. “Every exit covered, high and low, except the air. And you have missed your chance there.”

The green eyes became contemplative. In that unnatural daylight I could see every change of expression upon the evily majestic face. Fu-Manchu nodded his great head thoughtfully.

“You have acted with your accustomed promptness and efficiency,” he replied; but his voice, though even, was pitched on a high strident note. “Exactly what steps you have seen fit to take it is not my purpose to inquire. But I was expecting you, and you are welcome.”

There was something chilling in those words. “I was expecting you”—something which increased the effect which the presence of this man always had upon me. If he spoke the truth—why had he remained?

“Indeed?” said Smith, and I noted a change in his tone. Although I never took my eyes from Dr. Fu-Manchu, I was aware of the fact that other men were crowding in from the lobby.

“Order those men to cross the red line on the floor behind you,” Fu-Manchu said harshly.

And at the very moment that he spoke I knew the worst. I turned and cried shrilly:

“Stand where you are there, for your lives! Don’t cross the line. Smith!” I clutched his arm. “Do you understand what this means?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. The fire had gone from his grey eyes. “I understand.”

“An Ericksen screen,” that guttural voice continued, and now I detected a note of mockery, “has been thrown across the room some fifteen feet in front of me, and another behind you at the point marked by the red line on the floor. You are prisoners, gentlemen, in a cell from which no human power can rescue you, unless
I
choose to do so.”

“We’ll see about that,” growled Finlay, who had evidently just come into the lobby. “I don’t like the looks of you and I’m taking no chances.”

Followed three sharp, ear-splitting explosions. But Dr. Fu-Manchu never stirred.

“Merciful heaven!” said Finlay hoarsely. “God help us! What
is
he—a man or a spirit?”

“Both, my friend,” the guttural voice assured him: “as you are,”

The effect of this seemingly supernatural demonstration upon the two men beside me was amazing. Plainly I saw them blanch, and for the first time they lowered their guns, peering into each other’s eyes. Then one turned to me, and:

“What is it, mister?” he asked. “What is it? You seem to know.”

“Yes, I know, but I can’t possibly explain.”

“In your absence. Sir Denis,” Dr. Fu-Manchu went on, “Which I regretted, I chose Mr. Kerrigan as your deputy and gave him an opportunity of glancing over some of my resources. His unaccountable disappearance threatened to derange my plans. But his return in your company suggest to me that he may have acquainted you with these particulars.”

“He has,” Smith replied, tonelessly.

“In that case you are aware that as the result of many years of labour I am at last in a position to dictate to any and every government in the world. The hordes now overrunning Europe could not deter me for a week from any objective I might decide to seize. Their vaunted air force, or, if you prefer it, that of the Allies, I could destroy as readily as I could destroy a wasp’s nest. The methods pursued by the Nazis are a clumsy imitation of my own. I too have my Fifth Column, and it is composed exclusively of men who understand their business. Those, for I am not infallible, who seek to betray me are disposed of.”

He took up the jade snuff-box and delicately raised a pinch of snuff to his nostrils. He was not looking at us now but seemed to be thinking aloud.

“There is a peril threatening the United States which, although it might be defeated, would nevertheless create a maximum of disorder and shake the national unity. I charge you. Sir Denis, to dismiss from your mind your picture of myself as a common criminal. I am no more a criminal than was Napoleon, no more a criminal than Caesar.”

His voice was rising, quivering, and now his eyes were widely open. He was an imposing but an evil figure.

“Transmit the order to the agents and to the troops who have entered these premises to return to their posts outside, until further instructions reach them. Washington has sent you here and I wish you to put before Washington a proposal which I have drawn up, which I shall place in your hands whenever you ask me to do so. Knowing something of your prejudices, of your misconceptions, of your ignorance, I give you time to adjust your outlook. I can grant you one hour. Sir Denis. Word has reached me of a shipwreck which threatens to block my sea-gate. I shall go down to investigate the matter. When I return, no doubt you will have made up your mind. I leave Companion Doughty in your company. As it would be unwise to remove the Ericksen screen at present, you would be well advised to remain nearer the centre of the laboratory. Proximity to the screen is dangerous.”

“
B
arton has done it!”

Smith spoke in a hoarse whisper. The two men of our bodyguard sat on a long bench, mopping their perspiring foreheads and glancing about them with profound apprehension. Dr. Marriot Doughty was seated on the other side of the room, and Finlay alone remained in the lobby beyond the red line. Smith had ordered the others to withdraw. The heat in the windowless laboratory was indescribable, and that “consciousness of cerebral pressure” created by Ericksen waves was all that I could endure.

“Yes, Barton has succeeded; but we are trapped.”

Although no reflection of lightning penetrated, apparently the great storm had not passed but had gathered again overhead. A crash of thunder came which rattled the glass instruments in their racks: the sound of it boomed and rolled and echoed weirdly above and about us. Marriot Doughty stood up and approached.

“If you will permit me to prescribe,” he said, “there are several masks of a kind we wear during Ericksen experiments. I can reach them without leaving the free zone.”

He crossed to a tall cabinet, opened a drawer and took out a number of headpieces resembling those used by radio operators.

“Can we trust him?” whispered Smith.

“Yes. He is thinking primarily of himself, I believe.” Marriot Doughty distributed the headpieces.

“There are six,” he said, “but I fear that the gentleman in the lobby will have to go without one. The lobby, however, is partially insulated.”

We adjusted the thing; and that unendurable sense of inward pressure was immediately relieved.

“Anything like an hour’s exposure,” the physician explained, “might result in cerebral haemorrhage.”

Smith turned to him. With the headpiece framing his lean features, he suddenly reminded me of Horus, the hawk god.

“Dr. Doughty,” he said, “knowing nothing of the circumstances I am not entitled to question your principles; but may I ask some questions?”

“Certainly, and I shall be prepared to answer them.”

“Is there any means of disconnecting the Ericksen apparatus?”

“From our point of view, none. The controls are out of reach.”

“Is there any exit from this room other than that beyond the lobby or that at the other end used by Fu-Manchu?”

“None.”

Smith nodded grimly and attempted to pull at the lobe of his ear; but part of the headpiece foiled him. Marriot Doughty seemed to hesitate, and then:

“There is one feature of our present situation,” he said, “which contains elements of great danger.”

“What is that?” asked Smith.

“Expressed simply, it is a certain affinity which exists between Ericksen waves and lightning. You cannot have failed to notice that the electric storm, which had passed to the east, is now concentrated directly above us. One of the Doctor’s own precepts—which he would seem to have overlooked…”

The sentence was never finished.

A veil of blinding light—I cannot otherwise describe it—descended between me and the farther end of the laboratory. The rubber-covered floor heaved like the deck of a ship; fragments of masonry fell all about! The Ferris Globe crashed from the roof into a cavity which suddenly yawned in the centre of the long room. The whole of one glass wall fell in!

Somewhere, a loud voice was shouting:

“This way! This way! All the floor’s going!”

I remember joining in a panic rush. Who ran beside me I cannot say—nor where we ran. The earth heaved beneath my feet; the night was torn by spears of lightning which seemed to strike down directly upon us. Through a hell beyond my powers to depict I ran—and ran—and ran…

* * *

“That’s better, Mr. Kerrigan!”

I stared up into the speaker’s face, a sunbrowned, bearded face, not comprehending. Then, aware of an unpleasant nausea, I looked about me. I was in bed; the speaker was a doctor. A dreadful suspicion came—and I sat up.

“Where am I?”

“You are in my house in Cap Haitien. My name is Dr. Ralph—”

“You are not—”

“I am a United States citizen, Mr. Kerrigan,” he said cheerily. “But there is no English physician here, so Mr. Finlay ran you in to me.”

I dropped back, with a long sigh of relief.

“Smith—”

“Sir Denis Nayland Smith is here. His recovery was a quicker business than yours.”

“His recovery?” I sat up again. “What happened to us? Was I struck by something?”

“No, no—fumes. The earth tremor which partially destroyed the San Damien Sisal Works released fumes to which you both succumbed. What were you doing there last night with so large a body of men is none of my business. But, you see”—he tapped me on the chest—“there had been passive congestion in the left lung, and you were more seriously affected than the others. However”—he stood up—“you will be all right now, and I know you would wish to see your friend.”

Dr. Ralph went out; and a moment later Nayland Smith came in.

“Thank God we’re alive Kerrigan!” he said. “We lose the triumph, but we were the instruments of retribution!”

“Smith! What happened? What hellish thing happened?” He began to walk up and down the small room.

“So far as I can make out—I have been over there, all this morning—lightning struck the laboratory and was conducted (possibly down the lift cable) into the great cavern! At any rate, a new gorge has appeared, a gorge of extraordinary depth. It has swallowed up part of the sisal works and the whole of one plantation; in fact, the side of a mountain has moved!”

“Good God!”

“The first blast split the laboratory in half. That was when Doughty went—”

“Then he—”

“Fell into the pit which yawned not five feet from where
you
were standing! I hauled you back and we all ran out through the gap in the wall. We were half way across the quadrangle when the second blast—which seemed to come from underground—threw us off our feet. The
fumes
were appalling; but we all managed to struggle on for another hundred yards or so. I don’t remember much more.”

“Good God!” I said again. “Can you picture what happened below-ground!”

“Yes!” he snapped. “I can… and Fu-Manchu was below ground!”

“What news of Barton?”

“Did the job. But they had to put out to sea and make for Port au Prince. All’s well with Barton; and I think, Kerrigan, my long fight is won. Now—I am going to send your nurse to see you.” Before I could utter any word of protest, he went out, but left the door open.

Ardatha came in…

T
he short story “The Turkish Yataghan” first appeared in
Collier’s
magazine in January 1932, where it was headlined on the cover of the issue, and was included in both the UK and US editions of Sax Rohmer’s anthology of short fiction,
Tales of East and West
.

The last of three stories the author wrote about Nayland Smith without his customary nemesis, the tale replaces Dr. Petrie with Shan Greville, narrator of
Daughter of Fu-Manchu
and
The Mask of Fu-Manchu
. Smith and Greville find themselves in London’s Chinatown, and become embroiled in a Limehouse murder where suspicion once more falls on a foreign adjutant. It is interesting to note that all three stories written over the course of a dozen years end in the perpetrator committing, suicide rather than being brought to justice.

These three “orphaned” adventures have only been collected as part of the Fu-Manchu canon once before, in a set of seven omnibus editions published in France and Belgium in the 1970s. The US edition of
Tales of East and West
has been out of print for forty years making “The Turkish Yataghan” a true rarity.