The Wrath of Fu Manchu and Other Stories (19 page)

And then she turned her face to him. Aubrey cried out, but he did not release her from his supporting embrace. And in that moment I decided that he loved her, well and true.

“Don’t you want to kiss those lips?” screamed Drurock. “By the way, where
are
those lips—those sweet honeysuckle lips?”

His breath rasped in his throat; his chest rose and fell visibly with the effort of his breathing. Suddenly he tore the handkerchief from his face and stumbled toward the column of vapour which still coiled upward from the hole in the floor. I may have cried out. For, before I could move to intercept him, Henry Drurock thrust his face into that noisome emanation, and inhaled!

He drew back, and slowly turned to face us. He seemed to have grown taller, and a light of mocking triumph shone in his eyes. Then, in an instant, it was supplanted by a look of surprise and horror. His mouth fell open and his hands pawed ineffectually at his throat. I saw his face begin to change.

“Wales!” I called over my shoulder. “Get Margery out of here! Now! Out of the house!”

He did not stop to protest. Drawing upon some unsuspected source of strength, he gathered Margery Drurock’s slight form in his arms and staggered from the room.

I turned again to Drurock, just in time to see him fall against a small table and topple it as he crashed to the floor.

Back and forth he writhed, clawing at the air, his hideous face upraised toward the grey cloud which seemed to stoop above him.

I could watch no longer. I turned and fled from that room above the ghastly pit, that room where now the line of the Duroques was coming to an end…

* * *

I was with my London friend, a medical research man. He had accepted my specimens from the ditches of Low Fennel with curt thanks, and was proving more interested in my tale of the humans of the locality than my report on its other fauna.

“Moreover,” I went on, “that old Norman pillager, the first mad Drurock, was your precursor in the matter of volatilised arsenic as a preventative against the fits, by a longish bit—nine generations.”

“Yes,” mused my medical friend, the nerve and brain research specialist. “We do have to go back to some of that old lore of the medieval healers.”

“I guess the whole history of the Drurocks, victims of the inherited taint, one after the other, all along the line, proves the case of arsenic,” I said.

“Provided you can get it in that particular gaseous form, and at the proper degree of temperature, I suppose,” nodded my medical friend, then shook his head regretfully. “Too bad I can’t dump a thousand dying men into a vat lined with the natural ore and get the Drurock prescription duplicated. What a lot of drudgery I’m going to have to go through before I duplicate it.”

“Have you accounted for the failure of the Drurock prescription in the recent years?” he asked me. “It’s fairly obvious that the force of the emanations was either diminished or the source polluted. Else why the emergence of Major Drurock’s convulsive symptoms toward the end?”

“Pollution is the answer,” I stated, sure of my ground. “You mustn’t forget that the tetanic convulsions attacked three normal persons that we know of—Seager, the contractor, Ord, the handyman, and lastly, Margery.”

“How is Mrs Wales?” asked my friend. “No recurrence of the trouble?”

“Oh,” I laughed, “they’re honeymooning in Sweden, and Aubrey writes me she’s put on five pounds and is taking a reducing diet.”

“Then,” my friend went back to the discussion, “you account for the outbreak of these epileptiform attacks by something known?”

“Rather by something guessed,” I countered. “We didn’t linger long in Low Fennel after Drurock’s death, I can tell you—not long enough for research. But I assume that those corroding waters down in the mine finally ate down to a hitherto sealed stratum, probably one of barium. That busy, underground chemical plant tried an experiment in barium compounds, and you know what some of those do to the central nervous system!”

“Crawled like reptiles!” mused my friend. “Now, I should have liked to see that. Poor old Drurock. You’ve got to pity the tortured soul. His old reliable remedy played out on him; worse—reversed itself. He must have suffered damnably. Quite ready for you or any one to find him out. Why don’t you write up a paper on all this?”

I shook my head. “I don’t pretend to have worked the whole thing out and I rather think I never shall.”

“Too bad,” deplored my medical friend, the research specialist. “An autopsy might be rarely instructive.”

“Don’t be scientifically obscene,” I protested.

“Don’t be unscientifically romantic,” he retorted.

My name first became associated with that of Dr Maurice Bode upon the publication of a small treatise dealing with a certain phase of the complex religion of ancient Egypt. In the preparation of
The Worship of Apis at Memphis
he was good enough to collaborate with me; and although this little work was designed solely for the use of students, it nevertheless had a fairly large sale, undoubtedly owing to its containing accounts of many unique investigations conducted by Bode in Egypt.

Since its appearance in 1895 we have regularly worked in concert; and it is my intention to here set forth the broad facts connected with a very remarkable experiment which took place at my own rooms during the autumn of last year, and to give some account of the circumstances that led up to it. Occult students who were in London at the time will already be familiar with the matter, which formed the subject of a paper read by Maurice Bode before one of the leading research societies. As the affair seemed to open up an entirely new field, it has been suggested to Bode that a more popular account thereof might serve to promote inquiry into a subject which has but latterly begun to arouse anything approaching general interest. It is, therefore, at his request that the following is penned.

Early in August I received a note from a well-known dealer in antiques to the effect that an ancient couch of Egyptian workmanship had come into his possession. As I have myself a small collection of Egyptian curios—though insignificant beside that of Maurice Bode—and, as such antiquities are always of interest to me, I called at the shop to examine the specimen. I must confess that I was anticipating comparatively modern workmanship, probably evincing indications of the Roman influence; it was, therefore, a welcome surprise to find that the couch alluded to was of much earlier design. It was constructed to grotesquely resemble a leopard, the feet and claws being of copper. The body of the couch and a part of the legs were of acacia-wood, heavily gilded. The head and shoulders of the leopard were so contrived as to furnish a hollow, presumably for the reception of a large cushion, and along the framework of this singular piece ran a line of partially defaced hieroglyphics. The execution throughout was magnificent, and, though fantastic, betrayed considerable artistic taste. The wood had in many places decayed, and of the hieroglyphics I could make neither head nor tail. Nevertheless, I would have given much to possess it; but the figure mentioned by the dealer placed it beyond the reach of my somewhat slender purse.

“The price I’m asking leaves me very little profit, sir,” he assured me. “It was one of the lots put up at Northbie’s last Friday, and there were buyers from three big museums to bid against.”

“Who was the previous owner?” I inquired.

“Professor Bayton, who died at the beginning of the year. It was the last item he ever added to his collection.”

“How did they describe it at Northbie’s?”

“Antique Egyptian couch—later Theban.”

“No further particulars?”

“No, sir,” said the dealer, with a smile.

I determined to draw the attention of Bode to this very peculiar piece of furniture, and, mentioning my intention, I left the shop. It so happened, however, that the doctor was out of town at the time, and nearly a week elapsed before I saw him. At the earliest opportunity I called at his place, and proceeded to describe what I had seen, intending to ask him to accompany me upon a second visit. There was no need for me to make the request: I saw from the first that he was interested; and when I endeavoured to explain the unusual formation of the leopard’s head he sprang up excitedly.

Seizing a sheet of paper and a pencil, he executed a rapid sketch. “Like that?” he said eagerly.

“Exactly!” I replied, in astonishment.

“We’ll go now,” was his next remark; and clapping his hat on his head, he clutched me by the arm and hurried from the house.

On the way I endeavoured to elicit from him some explanation of his sudden enthusiasm; but he declined to gratify my curiosity, promising to explain more fully later. Upon our arrival at the dealer’s a disappointment awaited us. The couch had been sold two days before to a wealthy amateur collector, and was only that morning removed from the shop.

I have rarely seen Bode so keenly annoyed. “I’d have willingly given twice the price,” he declared. “The thing is of no earthly use to M’Quown; to me it is of vital importance.”

We were both acquainted with the purchaser, and I suggested that we should call upon him and examine the antique. My friend, however, opposed this. “M’Quown has wanted a certain uraeus from my collection for a long time,” he said. “I shall endeavour to arrange an exchange.”

As I knew that Maurice Bode numbered this uraeus to which he alluded—the earliest example extant—among the three most valuable items of his museum, I wondered more and more why he was so eager to gain possession of the leopard-couch. I was about to press him for an explanation, when he began abruptly:

“You are no doubt wondering what peculiar attraction this object has for me? Well, then, let me explain. I need not point out to you that I regard Egyptology from a different standpoint to that of previous and most contemporary inquirers, principally in that I look upon the period between the reign of Mena (once termed the first historic Pharaoh) and the Christian era merely as the latter end of Egyptian history. You are familiar with the results of my investigations upon the site of Heliopolis, and you know that I have definitely established the existence of dynasties earlier than the Theban. The secret of that synonym for mystery, the Sphinx of Gizeh, seemed almost within my grasp when an essential datum eluded me.”

“You refer, of course, to the nature of the creed professed by the leopard-worshippers?”

“Precisely! At that point my investigations failed utterly. We both know that a mystic cult, the emblem of whose doctrine was some extinct or mythical species of white leopard, actually existed up to the reign of Tehutimes III; but subsequently, as you are aware, this ancient and mysterious priesthood, probably founded before the carving of the great sphinx, totally disappears. I take it that this leopard-couch which has fallen into the hands of M’Quown was used in their temple—probably about the time of Hatshepsu.”

Bode had no immediate opportunity to further pursue the matter, for on the following day he again left London in response to an urgent appeal from the Continent, where he was engaged in some matter connected with one of the principal museums. He was still absent at the end of August, and it was upon the last day of the month that I observed the following paragraph in a well-known scientific journal:

“The extensive collection of antiquities made by the late Mr Edward M’Quown, who died suddenly this month, will be sold by auction tomorrow by Messrs. Northbie, at their house in Wellington Street. The sale will commence at 11 a.m. when a large attendance may be expected.”

I had known M’Quown slightly, and, as he was barely forty, was shocked to learn of his death. I saw, however, that I must act with promptitude, and without a moment’s delay I sent off a wire to Bode:

“M’Quown dead. Auction tomorrow. Am I to secure the couch?”

The reply was brief but definite:

“At all costs
—
Bode.”

Accordingly, at the hour of eleven on the following morning, I duly presented myself at the auction-rooms. I found the couch to be catalogued as Lot 13, and a mournful man who stood immediately beside me commented upon this circumstance.

“Between ourselves, I am inclined to think that the bidding for Lot 13 will be rather slow,” he confided. “An unlucky number to an unlucky article.”

“I am afraid I don’t quite follow,” said I.

“Well, does any one know where Professor Bayton got the thing? No, nobody does. Did he or did he not die three weeks after it came into his possession? He died. How long did M’Quown have the couch?
Four days!
Then
he
died. Now it’s up as Lot 13; and if you’re thinking of bidding, it’s my personal opinion that you’ll get it cheap.”

Whatever the reason, it was an undoubted fact that the bids for Lot 13 were few and cautious. It was ultimately knocked down to me at one-third of the price that poor M’Quown had paid for it. There were no other lots in which I was interested, so, having made arrangements for the conveying of the couch to my rooms, I wired Bode of my success, and spent the remainder of the day delving among Babylonian records in the British Museum. I returned home about half-past six, to find that the purchase had just arrived; and hastening through my dinner, I lit a cigarette and began a methodical examination of this latest acquisition.