“You would not wish to see the purposeless slaughter in Spain, in China, carried into England? Think of that bloody farce called the Great War!” A vibrating guttural note had entered into the unforgettable voice. “I, who have had some opportunities of seeing you in action, Sir Denis, know that you understand the rules of boxing. Your objectives are the heart and the point of the jaw: you strike to paralyze brain and blood supply. That is how I fight. I strike at those who cause, at those who direct, at those who aid war—at the brain and at the heart, not at the arms, the shoulders—the deluded masses who suffer and die in order that arrogant fools may be gratified, that profiteers may grow fat. Consider my words . . .”
Dr Fu Manchu’s eyes now were opened widely. They beckoned, they called to me . . .
“Steady, Kerrigan.”
Darkness. The screen was blank.
A long time seemed to elapse before Nayland Smith spoke, before he stirred, then:
“I have seen that man being swept to the verge of Niagara Falls!” he said, speaking hoarsely out of the darkness. “I prayed that he had met a just fate. The body of his companion—a maddened slave of his will—was found.”
“But not Fu Manchu! How could he have escaped?”
Smith moved—switched up the light. I saw how the incident had affected him, and it gave me courage; for the magnetism of those eyes, of that voice, had made me feel a weakling.
“One day, Kerrigan, perhaps I shall know.”
He pressed a bell. Fey came in.
“This television apparatus is not to be used, not to be touched by anyone. Fey.”
Fey went out.
I took up my glass, which remained half filled.
“This has staggered me,” I confessed. “The man is more than human. But one thing I must know: what did he mean when he spoke of someone—I can guess to whom he referred—who died recently but who, since his death, has been at work in Fu Manchu’s laboratories?”
Smith turned on his way to the buffet; his eyes glittered like steel.
“Were you ever in Haiti?”
“No.”
“Then possibly you have never come across the ghastly tradition of the zombie?”
“Never.”
“A human corpse, Kerrigan, taken from the grave and by means of sorcery set to work in the cane fields. Perhaps a Negro superstition, but Doctor Fu Manchu has put it into practice.”
“What!”
“I have seen men long dead and buried laboring in his workshops!”
He squirted soda water into a tumbler.
“You were moved, naturally, by the words and by the manner of, intellectually, the greatest man alive. But forget his sophistry, forget his voice—above all, forget his eyes. Doctor Fu Manchu is Satan incarnate.”
* * *
“Inspector Gallaho Reports In the days that followed I thought many times about those words, and one night I dreamed of beating drums and woke in a nameless panic. The morning that followed was lowering and gloomy. A fine drizzling rain made London wretched.
When I stood up and looked out of the window across Hyde Park I found the prospect in keeping with my reflections. I had been working on the extraordinary facts in connection with the death of General Quinto and trying to make credible reading of the occurrence in Nayland Smith’s apartment later the same night. All that I had ever heard or imagined about Dr Fu Manchu had been brought into sharp focus. I had sometimes laughed at the Germanic idea of a superman, now I knew that such a demigod, and a demigod of evil, actually lived.
I read over what I had written. It appeared to me as a critic that I had laid undue stress upon the haunting figure of the girl with the amethyst eyes. But whenever my thoughts turned, and they turned often enough, to the episodes of that night those wonderful eyes somehow came to the front of the picture.
London and the Home Counties were being combed by the police for the mysterious broadcasting station controlled by Dr Fu Manchu. A post-mortem examination of the general’s body had added little to our knowledge of the cause of death. Inquiries had failed also to establish the identity of the general’s woman friend who had called upon him on the preceding day.
The figure of this unknown woman tortured my imagination. Could it be, could it possibly be the girl to whom I had spoken out in the square?
I ordered coffee, and when it came I was too restless to sit down. I walked about the room carrying the cup in my hand. Then I heard the doorbell and heard Mrs. Merton, my daily help, going down. Two minutes later Nayland Smith came in, his lean features wearing that expression of eagerness which characterized him when he was hot on a trail, his grey eyes very bright. He nodded, and before I could speak:
“Thanks! A cup of coffee would be just the thing,” he said.
Peeling off his damp raincoat and dropping it on the floor, he threw his hat on top of it, stepped to my desk and began to read through my manuscript. Mrs. Merton bringing another cup, I poured his coffee out and set it on the desk. He looked up.
“Perhaps a little undue emphasis on amethyst eyes,” he said slyly.
I felt myself flushing.
“You may be right, Smith,” I admitted. “In fact I thought the same myself. But you see, you haven’t met her—I have. I may as well be honest. Yes! She did make a deep impression upon me.”
“I am only joking, Kerrigan. I have even known the symptoms.” He spoke those words rather wistfully. “But this is very sudden!”
“I agree!” and I laughed. “I know what you think, but truly, there was some irresistible appeal about her.”
“If, as I suspect, she is a servant of Doctor Fu Manchu, there would be. He rarely makes mistakes.”
I crossed to the window.
“Somehow I can’t believe it.”
“You mean you don’t want to?” As I turned he dropped the manuscript on the desk. “Well, Kerrigan, one thing life has taught me—never to interfere in such matters. You must deal with it in your own way.”
“Is there any news?”
He snapped his fingers irritably.
“None. The man who came to Sir Malcolm Locke’s house to adjust the telephone did not come from the post office, but unfortunately he can’t be traced. The fellow who came to my flat to fix the television set did not come from the firm who supplied it—but he also cannot be traced! And so, you see—”
He paused suddenly as my phone bell began to ring. I took up the receiver.
“Hello—yes? . . . He is here.” I turned to Smith. “Inspector Gallaho wants you.”
He stepped eagerly forward.
“Hello! Gallaho? Yes—I told Fey to tell you I was coming on here.
What’s that!—What?” His voice rose on a high note of excitement. “Good God! What do you say? Yes—details when I see you. What time does the train leave? Good! Coming now.”
He replaced the receiver and turned. His face had grown very stem. Here was a sudden change of mood.
“What is it?”
“Fu Manchu has struck again. We have just twenty minutes to catch the train. Come on!”
“But where are we going?”
“To a remote corner of the Essex marshes.”
In The Essex Marshes
A depressing drizzle was still falling when amid semi-gloom I found myself stepping out of a train at a station on one of those branch lines which intersect the map of Essex. A densely wooded slope arose on the north. It seemed in some way to bear down oppressively on the little station, as though at any moment it might slip forward and crush it.
“Gallaho is a good man to have in charge,” said Nayland Smith. “A stoat on a scent and every whit as tenacious.”
The chief detective inspector was there awaiting us—a thickset, clean-shaven man of florid coloring and truculent expression, buttoned up in a blue overcoat and having a rather wide-brimmed bowler hat, very wet, jammed tightly upon his head. With him was a uniformed officer who was introduced as Inspector Derbyshire of the Essex Constabulary. Greetings over: “This is an ugly business,” said Gallaho, speaking through clenched teeth.