Sax Rohmer - THE DEVIL DOCTOR

greyer than when last I had seen him--greyer and sterner.

"Where is Eltham?" I asked.

Smith started back as though I had struck him.

"Eltham!" he whispered--"_Eltham_! is Eltham here?"

"I left him ten minutes ago on the common."

Smith dashed his right fist into the palm of his left hand, and his

eyes gleamed almost wildly.

"My God, Petrie!" he said, "am I fated _always_ to come too late?"

My dreadful fears in that instant were confirmed. I seemed to feel my

legs totter beneath me.

"Smith, you don't mean--"

"I do, Petrie!" His voice sounded very far away. "Fu-Manchu is here;

and Eltham, God help him ... is his first victim!"

Smith went racing down the stairs like a man possessed. Heavy with

such a foreboding of calamity as I had not known for two years, I

followed him--along the hall and out into the road. The very peace and

beauty of the night in some way increased my mental agitation. The sky

was lighted almost tropically with such a blaze of stars as I could

not recall to have seen since, my futile search concluded, I had left

Egypt. The glory of the moonlight yellowed the lamps speckled across

the expanse of the common. The night was as still as night can ever be

in London. The dimming pulse of a cab or car alone disturbed the

quietude.

With a quick glance to right and left, Smith ran across on to the

common, and, leaving the door wide open behind me, I followed. The

path which Eltham had pursued terminated almost opposite to my house.

One's gaze might follow it, white and empty, for several hundred yards

past the pond, and farther, until it became overshadowed and was lost

amid a clump of trees.

I came up with Smith, and side by side we ran on, whilst pantingly I

told my tale.

"It was a trick to get you away from him!" cried Smith. "They meant no

doubt to make some attempt at your house, but, as he came out with

you, an alternative plan--"

Abreast of the pond, my companion slowed down, and finally stopped.

"Where did you last see Eltham?" he asked, rapidly.

I took his arm, turning him slightly to the right, and pointed across

the moon-bathed common.

"You see that clump of bushes on the other side of the road?" I said.

"There's a path to the left of it. I took that path and he took this.

We parted at the point where they meet--"

Smith walked right down to the edge of the water and peered about over

the surface.

What he hoped to find there I could not imagine. Whatever it had been

he was disappointed, and he turned to me again, frowning perplexedly,

and tugging at the lobe of his left ear, an old trick which reminded

me of gruesome things we had lived through in the past.

"Come on," he jerked. "It may be amongst the trees."

From the tone of his voice I knew that he was tensed up nervously, and

his mood but added to the apprehension of my own.

"_What_ may be amongst the trees, Smith?" I asked.

He walked on.

"God knows, Petrie; but I fear--"

Behind us, along the high-road, a tramcar went rocking by, doubtless

bearing a few belated workers homeward. The stark incongruity of the

thing was appalling. How little those weary toilers, hemmed about with

the commonplace, suspected that almost within sight from the car

windows, amid prosy benches, iron railings, and unromantic, flickering

lamps, two fellow-men moved upon the border of a horror-land!

Beneath the trees a shadow carpet lay, its edges tropically sharp; and

fully ten yards from the first of the group, we two, hatless both, and

sharing a common dread, paused for a moment and listened.

The car had stopped at the farther extremity of the common, and now

with a moan that grew to a shriek was rolling on its way again. We

stood and listened until silence reclaimed the night. Not a footstep

could be heard. Then slowly we walked on. At the edge of the little

coppice we stopped again abruptly.

Smith turned and thrust his pistol into my hand. A white ray of light

pierced the shadows; my companion carried an electric torch. But no

trace of Eltham was discoverable.

There had been a heavy shower of rain during the evening, just before

sunset, and although the open paths were dry again, under the trees

the ground was still moist. Ten yards within the coppice we came upon

tracks--the tracks of one running, as the deep imprints of the toes

indicated.

Abruptly the tracks terminated; others, softer, joined them, two sets

converging from left and right. There was a confused patch, trailing

off to the west; then this became indistinct, and was finally lost,

upon the hard ground outside the group.

For perhaps a minute, or more, we ran about from tree to tree, and

from bush to bush, searching like hounds for a scent, and fearful of

what we might find. We found nothing; and fully in the moonlight we

stood facing one another. The night was profoundly still.

Nayland Smith stepped back into the shadows, and began slowly to turn

his head from left to right, taking in the entire visible expanse of

the common. Towards a point where the road bisected it he stared

intently. Then, with a bound, he set off!

"Come on, Petrie!" he cried. "There they are!"

Vaulting a railing he went away over a field like a madman. Recovering

from the shock of surprise, I followed him, but he was well ahead of

me, and making for some vaguely seen objects moving against the lights

of the roadway.

Another railing was vaulted, and the corner of a second, triangular

grass patch crossed at a hot sprint. We were twenty yards from the

road when the sound of a starting motor broke the silence. We gained

the gravelled footpath only to see the tail-light of the car dwindling

to the north!

Smith leant dizzily against a tree.

"Eltham is in that car!" he gasped. "Just God! are we to stand here

and see him taken away to--?"

He beat his fist upon the tree, in a sort of tragic despair. The

nearest cab-rank was no great distance away, but, excluding the

possibility of no cab being there, it might, for all practicable

purposes, as well have been a mile off.

The beat of the retreating motor was scarcely audible; the lights

might but just be distinguished. Then, coming in an opposite

direction, appeared the headlamp of another car, of a car that raced

nearer and nearer to us, so that, within a few seconds of its first

appearance, we found ourselves bathed in the beam of its headlights.

Smith bounded out into the road, and stood, a weird silhouette, with

upraised arms, fully in its course!

The brakes were applied hurriedly. It was a big limousine, and its

driver swerved perilously in avoiding Smith and nearly ran into me.

But, the breathless moment past, the car was pulled up, head on to the

railings; and a man in evening clothes was demanding excitedly what

had happened. Smith, a hatless, dishevelled figure, stepped up to the

door.

"My name is Nayland Smith," he said rapidly--"Burmese Commissioner."

He snatched a letter from his pocket and thrust it into the hands of

the bewildered man. "Read that. It is signed by another

Commissioner--the Commissioner of Police."

With amazement written all over him, the other obeyed.

"You see," continued my friend tersely, "it is _carte blanche_. I wish

to commandeer your car, sir, on a matter of life and death!"

The other returned the letter.

"Allow me to offer it!" he said, descending. "My man will take your