Sax Rohmer - The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu

friend did so. It contained a blank sheet of paper!

"Smell!" he directed, handing the letter to me. I raised it to my

nostrils. It was scented with some pungent perfume.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It is a rather rare essential oil," was the reply, "which I have met

with before, though never in Europe. I begin to understand, Petrie."

He tilted the lamp-shade and made a close examination of the scraps of

paper, matches, and other debris that lay in the grate and on the

hearth. I took up a copper vase from the mantelpiece, and was

examining it curiously, when he turned, a strange expression upon his

face.

"Put that back, old man," he said quietly.

Much surprised, I did as he directed.

"Don't touch anything in the room. It may be dangerous."

Something in the tone of his voice chilled me, and I hastily replaced

the vase, and stood by the door of the study, watching him search,

methodically, every inch of the room--behind the books, in all the

ornaments, in table drawers, in cupboards, on shelves.

"That will do," he said at last. "There is nothing here and I have no

time to search farther."

We returned to the library.

"Inspector Weymouth," said my friend, "I have a particular reason for

asking that Sir Crichton's body be removed from this room at once and

the library locked. Let no one be admitted on any pretense whatever

until you hear from me." It spoke volumes for the mysterious

credentials borne by my friend that the man from Scotland Yard accepted

his orders without demur, and, after a brief chat with Mr. Burboyne,

Smith passed briskly downstairs. In the hall a man who looked like a

groom out of livery was waiting.

"Are you Wills?" asked Smith.

"Yes, sir."

"It was you who heard a cry of some kind at the rear of the house about

the time of Sir Crichton's death?"

"Yes, sir. I was locking the garage door, and, happening to look up at

the window of Sir Crichton's study, I saw him jump out of his chair.

Where he used to sit at his writing, sir, you could see his shadow on

the blind. Next minute I heard a call out in the lane."

"What kind of call?"

The man, whom the uncanny happening clearly had frightened, seemed

puzzled for a suitable description.

"A sort of wail, sir," he said at last. "I never heard anything like

it before, and don't want to again."

"Like this?" inquired Smith, and he uttered a low, wailing cry,

impossible to describe. Wills perceptibly shuddered; and, indeed, it

was an eerie sound.

"The same, sir, I think," he said, "but much louder."

"That will do," said Smith, and I thought I detected a note of triumph

in his voice. "But stay! Take us through to the back of the house."

The man bowed and led the way, so that shortly we found ourselves in a

small, paved courtyard. It was a perfect summer's night, and the deep

blue vault above was jeweled with myriads of starry points. How

impossible it seemed to reconcile that vast, eternal calm with the

hideous passions and fiendish agencies which that night had loosed a

soul upon the infinite.

"Up yonder are the study windows, sir. Over that wall on your left is

the back lane from which the cry came, and beyond is Regent's Park."

"Are the study windows visible from there?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Who occupies the adjoining house?"

"Major-General Platt-Houston, sir; but the family is out of town."

"Those iron stairs are a means of communication between the domestic

offices and the servants' quarters, I take it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then send someone to make my business known to the Major-General's

housekeeper; I want to examine those stairs."

Singular though my friend's proceedings appeared to me, I had ceased to

wonder at anything. Since Nayland Smith's arrival at my rooms I seemed

to have been moving through the fitful phases of a nightmare. My

friend's account of how he came by the wound in his arm; the scene on

our arrival at the house of Sir Crichton Davey; the secretary's story

of the dying man's cry, "The red hand!"; the hidden perils of the

study; the wail in the lane--all were fitter incidents of delirium than

of sane reality. So, when a white-faced butler made us known to a

nervous old lady who proved to be the housekeeper of the next-door

residence, I was not surprised at Smith's saying:

"Lounge up and down outside, Petrie. Everyone has cleared off now. It

is getting late. Keep your eyes open and be on your guard. I thought

I had the start, but he is here before me, and, what is worse, he

probably knows by now that I am here, too."

With which he entered the house and left me out in the square, with

leisure to think, to try to understand.

The crowd which usually haunts the scene of a sensational crime had

been cleared away, and it had been circulated that Sir Crichton had

died from natural causes. The intense heat having driven most of the

residents out of town, practically I had the square to myself, and I

gave myself up to a brief consideration of the mystery in which I so

suddenly had found myself involved.

By what agency had Sir Crichton met his death? Did Nayland Smith know?

I rather suspected that he did. What was the hidden significance of

the perfumed envelope? Who was that mysterious personage whom Smith so

evidently dreaded, who had attempted his life, who, presumably, had

murdered Sir Crichton? Sir Crichton Davey, during the time that he had

held office in India, and during his long term of service at home, had

earned the good will of all, British and native alike. Who was his

secret enemy?

Something touched me lightly on the shoulder.

I turned, with my heart fluttering like a child's. This night's work

had imposed a severe strain even upon my callous nerves.

A girl wrapped in a hooded opera-cloak stood at my elbow, and, as she

glanced up at me, I thought that I never had seen a face so seductively

lovely nor of so unusual a type. With the skin of a perfect blonde,

she had eyes and lashes as black as a Creole's, which, together with

her full red lips, told me that this beautiful stranger, whose touch

had so startled me, was not a child of our northern shores.

"Forgive me," she said, speaking with an odd, pretty accent, and laying

a slim hand, with jeweled fingers, confidingly upon my arm, "if I

startled you. But--is it true that Sir Crichton Davey has

been--murdered?"

I looked into her big, questioning eyes, a harsh suspicion laboring in

my mind, but could read nothing in their mysterious depths--only I

wondered anew at my questioner's beauty. The grotesque idea

momentarily possessed me that, were the bloom of her red lips due to

art and not to nature, their kiss would leave--though not

indelibly--just such a mark as I had seen upon the dead man's hand.

But I dismissed the fantastic notion as bred of the night's horrors,

and worthy only of a mediaeval legend. No doubt she was some friend or

acquaintance of Sir Crichton who lived close by.

"I cannot say that he has been murdered," I replied, acting upon the

latter supposition, and seeking to tell her what she asked as gently as

possible.

"But he is--Dead?"

I nodded.

She closed her eyes and uttered a low, moaning sound, swaying dizzily.

Thinking she was about to swoon, I threw my arm round her shoulder to

support her, but she smiled sadly, and pushed me gently away.

"I am quite well, thank you," she said.

"You are certain? Let me walk with you until you feel quite sure of