Sax Rohmer - The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu

"So I came in time," I said grimly, and turned the key in the lock.

"Oh!" she panted at that, and stood facing me, leaning back with her

jewel-laden hands clutching the desk edge.

"Give me whatever you have removed from here," I said sternly, "and

then prepare to accompany me."

She took a step forward, her eyes wide with fear, her lips parted.

"I have taken nothing," she said. Her breast was heaving tumultuously.

"Oh, let me go! Please, let me go!" And impulsively she threw herself

forward, pressing clasped hands against my shoulder and looking up into

my face with passionate, pleading eyes.

It is with some shame that I confess how her charm enveloped me like a

magic cloud. Unfamiliar with the complex Oriental temperament, I had

laughed at Nayland Smith when he had spoken of this girl's infatuation.

"Love in the East," he had said, "is like the conjurer's mango-tree; it

is born, grows and flowers at the touch of a hand." Now, in those

pleading eyes I read confirmation of his words. Her clothes or her

hair exhaled a faint perfume. Like all Fu-Manchu's servants, she was

perfectly chosen for her peculiar duties. Her beauty was wholly

intoxicating.

But I thrust her away.

"You have no claim to mercy," I said. "Do not count upon any. What

have you taken from here?"

She grasped the lapels of my coat.

"I will tell you all I can--all I dare," she panted eagerly, fearfully.

"I should know how to deal with your friend, but with you I am lost!

If you could only understand you would not be so cruel." Her slight

accent added charm to the musical voice. "I am not free, as your

English women are. What I do I must do, for it is the will of my

master, and I am only a slave. Ah, you are not a man if you can give

me to the police. You have no heart if you can forget that I tried to

save you once."

I had feared that plea, for, in her own Oriental fashion, she certainly

had tried to save me from a deadly peril once--at the expense of my

friend. But I had feared the plea, for I did not know how to meet it.

How could I give her up, perhaps to stand her trial for murder? And

now I fell silent, and she saw why I was silent.

"I may deserve no mercy; I may be even as bad as you think; but what

have YOU to do with the police? It is not your work to hound a woman

to death. Could you ever look another woman in the eyes--one that you

loved, and know that she trusted you--if you had done such a thing?

Ah, I have no friend in all the world, or I should not be here. Do not

be my enemy, my judge, and make me worse than I am; be my friend, and

save me--from HIM." The tremulous lips were close to mine, her breath

fanned my cheek. "Have mercy on me."

At that moment I honestly would have given half of my worldly

possessions to have been spared the decision which I knew I must come

to. After all, what proof had I that she was a willing accomplice of

Dr. Fu-Manchu? Furthermore, she was an Oriental, and her code must

necessarily be different from mine. Irreconcilable as the thing may be

with Western ideas, Nayland Smith had really told me that he believed

the girl to be a slave. Then there remained that other reason why I

loathed the idea of becoming her captor. It was almost tantamount to

betrayal! Must I soil my hands with such work?

Thus--I suppose--her seductive beauty argued against my sense of right.

The jeweled fingers grasped my shoulders nervously, and her slim body

quivered against mine as she watched me, with all her soul in her eyes,

in an abandonment of pleading despair. Then I remembered the fate of

the man in whose room we stood.

"You lured Cadby to his death," I said, and shook her off.

"No, no!" she cried wildly, clutching at me. "No, I swear by the holy

name I did not! I did not! I watched him, spied upon him--yes! But,

listen: it was because he would not be warned that he met his death. I

could not save him! Ah, I am not so bad as that. I will tell you. I

have taken his notebook and torn out the last pages and burnt them.

Look! in the grate. The book was too big to steal away. I came twice

and could not find it. There, will you let me go?"

"If you will tell me where and how to seize Dr. Fu-Manchu--yes."

Her hands dropped and she took a backward step. A new terror was to be

read in her face.

"I dare not! I dare not!"

"Then you would--if you dared?"

She was watching me intently.

"Not if YOU would go to find him," she said.

And, with all that I thought her to be, the stern servant of justice

that I would have had myself, I felt the hot blood leap to my cheek at

all which the words implied. She grasped my arm.

"Could you hide me from him if I came to you, and told you all I know?"

"The authorities--"

"Ah!" Her expression changed. "They can put me on the rack if they

choose, but never one word would I speak--never one little word."

She threw up her head scornfully. Then the proud glance softened again.

"But I will speak for you."

Closer she came, and closer, until she could whisper in my ear.

"Hide me from your police, from HIM, from everybody, and I will no

longer be his slave."

My heart was beating with painful rapidity. I had not counted on this

warring with a woman; moreover, it was harder than I could have dreamt

of. For some time I had been aware that by the charm of her

personality and the art of her pleading she had brought me down from my

judgment seat--had made it all but impossible for me to give her up to

justice. Now, I was disarmed--but in a quandary. What should I do?

What COULD I do? I turned away from her and walked to the hearth, in

which some paper ash lay and yet emitted a faint smell.

Not more than ten seconds elapsed, I am confident, from the time that I

stepped across the room until I glanced back. But she had gone!

As I leapt to the door the key turned gently from the outside.

"Ma 'alesh!" came her soft whisper; "but I am afraid to trust you--yet.

Be comforted, for there is one near who would have killed you had I

wished it. Remember, I will come to you whenever you will take me and

hide me."

Light footsteps pattered down the stairs. I heard a stifled cry from

Mrs. Dolan as the mysterious visitor ran past her. The front door

opened and closed.

"Shen-Yan's is a dope-shop in one of the burrows off the old Ratcliff

Highway," said Inspector Weymouth.

"'Singapore Charlie's,' they call it. It's a center for some of the

Chinese societies, I believe, but all sorts of opium-smokers use it.

There have never been any complaints that I know of. I don't

understand this."

We stood in his room at New Scotland Yard, bending over a sheet of

foolscap upon which were arranged some burned fragments from poor

Cadby's grate, for so hurriedly had the girl done her work that

combustion had not been complete.

"What do we make of this?" said Smith. "'. . . Hunchback . . . lascar

went up . . . unlike others . . . not return . . . till Shen-Yan'

(there is no doubt about the name, I think) 'turned me out . . . booming

sound . . . lascar in . . . mortuary I could ident . . . not for days,

or suspici . . . Tuesday night in a different make . . . snatch

. . . pigtail . . .'"

"The pigtail again!" rapped Weymouth.

"She evidently burned the torn-out pages all together," continued

Smith. "They lay flat, and this was in the middle. I see the hand of