The Island of Fu-Manchu (35 page)

“Nothing much, sir,” Yale replied. “Keys, cigarettes, a few odds and ends in his billfold, but no money.”

“No money?”

“No paper money. He had a little silver in his trousers pocket.”

“H’m! Here’s a burned match on the carpet. How did you come to miss it? A fastidious character of Anderman’s type doesn’t drop matches on his own carpets—unless under stress.”

Yale took the match from Nayland Smith’s extended hand and made a wry grimace at me.

Having examined the hands, clothing and hair of the dead man, Nayland Smith stared critically at the soles of his shoes; then:

“Have you been smoking?” he asked abruptly, addressing Hill.

“Smoking? No, sir! Why do you ask?”

“Use your nose, Hill. Someone has been smoking Balkan cigarettes in this room.” He turned to Yale. “What kind of cigarettes were in Anderman’s case?”

“Some kind of foreign things. All the exhibits are in the next room.”

Nayland Smith stood up and walked into the adjoining room. I followed him. It was a sort of small smoking-room. There were a number of framed photographs on the walls, all of women, and some indiscreet. The contents of the dead man’s pockets lay upon a side table. Nayland Smith laughed over his shoulder, as I entered behind him.

“There are two points to be decided,” he declared.

“What are they?” I asked eagerly.

“First, where Anderman dropped the cigarette which he lighted and partly smoked in the ‘office’; and, second, which, if any, of these fair but frail ladies”—he indicated the mural decorations—”was here tonight.”

“Good Lord!” came Yale’s voice—“what makes you think a woman was here?”

From a coffee table placed beside a cushioned settee, Nayland Smith took up a porcelain ash tray and held it out towards the speaker. It contained the stump of a cigarette.

“Balkan Yenadi,” he said. “And Anderman didn’t smoke this one. Examine it closely.”

Yale and I bent forward, staring curiously, until:

“Faint red stains,” said the assistant commissioner. “Lipstick!”

* * *

We sat in a bleak room in Limehouse police station, and our unhappy friend the fireman of the Starry North entered, escorted by two constables.

“The cops ‘ave got me after all, gov’nor,” he announced, addressing the commissioner. “‘Ere I am, ‘igh an’ dry—partic’ly
dry.
What I’ve done—Gawd knows! But ‘ere I am!”

“Listen, my man,” Yale began; but:

“One moment. Inspector,” said Nayland Smith. “Allow me to interrogate the prisoner.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Where is the dagger which you offered to my friend and myself outside the Blue Lamp?”

“I sold it.”

“To whom did you sell it, and where?”

“A bloke I met in the Three Castles. I cut in there for a beer after you tellin’ me to go to Scotland Yard. I needed one, see? An’ I shows the knife to the landlord, over the counter. ‘E’s got a bit of a collection o’ these sort o’ things hisself. ‘E says, ‘It’s out o’ my line,’ ‘e says. At which moment a bloke wot was ‘avin’ a double Scotch started to go out, an’ the landlord, ‘e says to me: ‘There’s your man,’ ‘e says;’ ‘e’s a buyer,’ ‘e says.

“‘Ho!’ I says, an’ ‘ops after this bloke, finishin’ me drink quick—see? I grabs ‘im just outside the Three Castles an’ I shows ‘im wot I got to sell. ‘E seems interested, an’ ‘as a good look at it under a street lamp. ‘E says—’I’ll give you two quid.’ I says, ‘I want five.’ We argues the point—see what I mean?—walkin’ along, me ‘avin’ ‘old of ‘is arm. An’ at last we comes to a door in a wall.

“‘E opens it, an’ says, ‘Come inside an’ shut your bloody row. I only got four on me. Wait a minute an’ I’ll get a quid—an’ you can ‘ave your five.’

“I says, ‘Right-o!’ ‘E goes up to the ‘ouse, me keepin’ pretty close alongside, an’ wonderin’ if ‘e’s goin’ to phone for the cops—see wot I mean? But presently ‘e comes out, gives me me five an’ says, ‘Beat it! Beat it!’ ‘e says. ‘An to ‘ell with yer.’ ‘To flamin’ ‘ell with
you
!’ I says—’with brass knobs on!’ Then I goes out.

“I’m ‘avin’ a final at the Dock Gates, which is a favorite pub o’ mine, when the cops nobbles me. That’s all I bloody well know about it!”

“Anything further to ask him, sir?” said Yale.

“Yes. Answer this question carefully, my man: Was he smoking?”

“Smokin’? No—’e wasn’t.”

“Sure?”

“Dead sure.”

“Good.” Nayland Smith nodded. “Take him back.”

As a constable hustled the prisoner from the room he turned, and:

“A bloody good night to all of yer!” said he.

* * *

Inspector Yale drove back with us from the garage where we had placed the car; and as we left the dockland behind us an threaded the dreary highways of the East End:

“I must admit I’m not satisfied, sir” the detective said. “Although the case against Hawkes, the ship’s fireman, is a strong one.”

“Unsatisfactory,” Nayland Smith murmured. “There is the extraordinary circumstance that the knife, admittedly once the property of Hawkes, shows no trace of blood.”

“He may have cleaned it.”

“Why, having done so, leave it behind? Then, you must remember our discovery of the cigarette just inside the gate, the cigarette for which I was looking.”

Yale was silent. He had, himself, picked up the partially smoked Balkan Yenadi—free from any trace of lipstick—from the gravel path as we were leaving Peter Anderman’s house.

“Hawkes is perfectly clear on the point that Anderman was not smoking when he parted from him.”

“He might have lied.”

“Not knowing the purpose of the question—why should he have lied?”

There was a further silence, and then:

“I take it your idea is, sir,” said Yale, “that Anderman walked down the path with someone who came after Hawkes had gone, stood there for a while, smoking, then dropped the cigarette end, and—what? That he was followed back to the house?”

“Well, suggest an alternative.”

“He may have been expecting someone. You think it was a woman, sir?”

“I do.”

“And that she murdered him?”

“Not at all. No woman’s hand struck that blow.” A long silence fell. The car ate up mile after mile of deserted Commercial Road East. Then Nayland Smith, who had been sitting tugging at the lobe of his left ear, which I knew of old to betoken intense reflection, suddenly grabbed the speaking-tube.

“Pull up, Blake!” he shouted, whilst Yale and I stared in amazement. “Turn around and drive back as fast as you can go. Never mind regulations. I’ll tell you where to pull up!”

He glanced at the inspector, and:

“In my preoccupation with the identity of the woman who visited Peter Anderman tonight,” he said, “I had quite overlooked the character of the murderer. Let’s hope we’re not too late.”

* * *

No glimmering of Nayland Smith’s purpose dawned upon my mind until, tumbling out of the car, he set off at a tremendous pace along a narrow street. He plunged into an alley on the right…

He had led us back to the Blue Lamp!

In response to continuous banging, the door was cautiously opened a few inches, and:

“All shut—all shut!” came the sing-song voice of Jo Chang. “No more tonight!”

“Sorry to trouble you,” said Nayland Smith, forcing his way into the passage. “But I must speak to your waitress, Matâri.”

“Matâri? She finish—go home.”

At which moment, as Yale and I entered in turn, I saw the half-caste girl cross the café beyond.

“One moment!” Nayland Smith cried.

Chang fell back into shadow and allowed us to pass. Smith whispered something rapidly to the inspector. Then, as he and I entered the room—from which most of the tables had been cleared and stacked at the farther end—I saw the face of the girl Matâri. It was deathly white, and her eyes were terror-stricken.

“Now, Matâri,” said Nayland Smith, “will you please go and find Mrs. Chang and request her to come and speak to me?”

“She is…” the girl began in a trembling voice—”she is…”

“Asleep,” said Jo Chang. “If someone go, I go. But I don’t know why.”

“If anyone goes…it must be Matâri,” Nayland Smith returned, grimly.

“But …” the girl began again—

“Lock her door,” said the Chinaman sullenly.

“Indeed? From which side?”

“Lock her door,” the Chinaman repeated. “Then, if you will give Matâri the key, her door can be
un
locked.”

* * *

Jo Chang darted a lightning glance from the speaker to myself, to Yale. He was calculating his chances. Evidently he assessed them as poor, for, with a slight shrug, he plunged his hand into his trousers pocket, closely watched by the detective, and pulled out a ring of keys. He indicated one and handed the bunch to the girl. Matâri, avoiding our eyes, darted off through a doorway left of the little counter.

A moment later, from some place above, came a weird, muffled cry.

“You go, Greville,” said Nayland Smith rapidly. “Yale and I… will stay here.”

I nodded, and set off. There was a short passage beyond the door, a stairway opening to the left. Up this I ran on to an uncarpeted landing. One of two doors was open; the room beyond dimly lighted. I stepped in, not knowing what to expect. What I saw was this:

The girl Matâri, hands raised to her pale face, was swaying beside the bed, upon which Mrs. Chang, gagged and bound—her eyes blazing like those of a terror-stricken animal—lay motionless! Silent with amazement, I set to work, and found it no easy task to loose the cunning knots with which she was fastened. First, I unlashed the towel tied over her mouth, and spoke words meant to be reassuring.

She half sat up, moaned, and fell back, closing her eyes. I could see no evidence of injury, but she was clearly incapable of answering questions; and leaving Matâri in the room, I ran down to report.

Jo Chang was standing where I had left him. Nayland Smith fixed his piercing gaze upon me.

“Alive?” he snapped.

“Just,” I replied. “She was tied up and gagged.”

“Ah!” He turned to the Chinaman. “There was
one
question I wanted to ask your wife,” he said: “Where she obtained those choice Balkan cigarettes which she smokes.”

“I tell you,” Chang replied, without emotion, “because, tonight, I find out myself.”

Most of the lights in the café had been extinguished; but even so I saw a gleam of sudden understanding dawn upon the countenance of Detective-Inspector Yale. He rested his hand upon the Chinaman’s shoulder, and:

“Jo Chang,” he said, “I arrest you for the murder of Peter Anderman at his house tonight. I warn you that anything you say may be used as evidence against you.”

Chang listened to the formal words, unmoved.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied calmly. “What is to be, always will be. Dishonor in wife deserve death. But for her this was not to be. I see that my wife has fine dress and silk stocking, and sometimes jewels. I think she cheating me in my business. I tell her too that she paint her case too much. And always she smoke, smoke, those little cigarettes which she tell me sister send from Cardiff. She go out too much and business keep me here. But tonight, I creep out to follow.

“She go to house of Peter Anderman. A sailor who is drunk come out and my wife stand close by wall until he go by. Then she ring bell by door. When she has go in, I try door. It is not close. I too go in. There is light in big room, shine out through window. But they are in little room far in, and I cannot see them. They quarrel.

“For long time they there, and then come out. She angry, but he smile, and light cigarette. But his hand shake and match fall.

“I hide as they walk to door… When Peter Anderman go to go in, I appear. He hear my foot, turn, drop cigarette—run… but too late. I…”

A sound of stumbling footsteps interrupted the unemotional story and, looking across the room, I saw Mrs. Chang stagger in, supported by Matâri. She leaned against the doorpost, staring wild-eyed across at us. Jo Chang appeared neither to have heard nor to have seen her. He continued:

“I throw my arm around him, but one hand he wrench free, to get into one pocket. And I see the shining of long blade. I throw him off and fall back. He spring and strike. I catch his wrist—twist—and dagger fall on carpet—all jewel. So! it is
my
turn—and something must settle.”

Mrs. Chang came, dazedly, farther into the room.

* * *

Suddenly, Jo Chang resorted to illustration. From somewhere (his sleeve I think; it was like a conjuring trick) he produced a knife having a long, wooden handle and a very slender, needle-like blade.

“
I
spring also.”

The unemotional voice was raised to a high key. It became sibilant. Eluding the vigilance of Yale, Jo Chang sprang like a leopard upon his wife!

Nothing, I believe, could have saved her, except that “what is to be, will be.”

In sheer terror she dropped limply to the floor—no more than one second before that death leap. The blade of Chang’s knife was buried halfway to the hilt in a panel of the door! Chang ran to retrieve it.

Uttering a sound which I can only describe as a roar, Detective-Inspector Yale hurled himself upon the Chinaman’s back, seized his thick neck, and thrust a knee against his spine. Chang’s iron grip on the haft of the knife, never relaxing, drew the blade from the woodwork as he was jerked backward.

“My God!”

Nayland Smith’s words sounded like a groan.

Reversing the blade with incredible speed, Jo Chang grasped the hilt of his knife with both hands and plunged it into his broad chest!

Matâri began to utter choking, wailing sounds, as Yale lowered the heavy body to the floor.

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
).