Kitabı oku: «THE DEVIL DOCTOR», sayfa 2

THE WIRE JACKET

I suppose we were not more than a dozen paces from the lamp when we

heard the thudding of the motor. The car was backing out!

It was a desperate moment, for it seemed that we could not fail to be

discovered. Nayland Smith began to look about him, feverishly, for a

hiding place, a quest which I seconded with equal anxiety. And Fate

was kind to us--doubly kind as after events revealed. A wooden gate

broke the expanse of wall hard by upon the right, and, as the result

of some recent accident, a ragged gap had been torn in the panels

close to the top.

The chain of the padlock hung loosely; and in a second Smith was up,

with his foot in this as in a stirrup. He threw his arm over the top

and drew himself upright. A second later he was astride the broken

gate.

"Up you come, Petrie!" he said, and reached down his hand to aid me.

I got my foot into the loop of chain, grasped at a projection in the

gate-post, and found myself up.

"There is a crossbar, on this side to stand on," said Smith.

He climbed over and vanished in the darkness. I was still astride the

broken gate when the car turned the corner, slowly, for there was

scanty room; but I was standing upon the bar on the inside and had my

head below the gap ere the driver could possibly have seen me.

"Stay where you are until he passes," hissed my companion, below.

"There is a row of kegs under you."

The sound of the motor passing outside grew loud--louder--then began

to die away. I felt about with my left foot, discerned the top of a

keg, and dropped, panting, beside Smith.

"Phew!" I said--"that was a close thing! Smith--how do we know--?"

"That we have followed the right car?" he interrupted. "Ask yourself

the question: what would any ordinary man be doing motoring in a place

like this at two o'clock in the morning?"

"You are right, Smith," I agreed. "Shall we get out again?"

"Not yet. I have an idea. Look yonder."

He grasped my arm, turning me in the desired direction.

Beyond a great expanse of unbroken darkness a ray of moonlight slanted

into the place wherein we stood, spilling its cold radiance upon rows

of kegs.

"That's another door," continued my friend. I now began dimly to

perceive him beside me. "If my calculations are not entirely wrong, it

opens on a wharf gate--"

A steam siren hooted dismally, apparently from quite close at hand.

"I'm right!" snapped Smith. "That turning leads down to the gate. Come

on, Petrie!"

He directed the light of the electric torch upon a narrow path through

the ranks of casks, and led the way to the farther door. A good two

feet of moonlight showed along the top. I heard Smith straining;

then--

"These kegs are all loaded with grease," he said, "and I want to

reconnoitre over that door."

"I am leaning on a crate which seems easy to move," I reported. "Yes,

it's empty. Lend a hand."

We grasped the empty crate, and, between us, set it up on a solid

pedestal of casks. Then Smith mounted to this observation platform and

I scrambled up beside him, and looked down upon the lane outside.

It terminated as Smith had foreseen at a wharf gate some six feet to

the right of our post. Piled up in the lane beneath us, against the

warehouse door, was a stack of empty casks. Beyond, over the way, was

a kind of ramshackle building that had possibly been a dwelling-house

at some time. Bills were stuck in the ground-floor windows indicating

that the three floors were to let as offices; so much was discernible

in that reflected moonlight.

I could hear the tide lapping upon the wharf, could feel the chill

from the near river and hear the vague noises which, night nor day,

never cease upon the great commercial waterway.

"Down!" whispered Smith. "Make no noise! I suspected it. They heard

the car following!"

I obeyed, clutching at him for support; for I was suddenly dizzy, and

my heart was leaping wildly--furiously.

"You saw her?" he whispered.

Saw her! Yes, I had seen her! And my poor dream-world was toppling

about me, its cities ashes and its fairness dust.

Peering from the window, her great eyes wondrous in the moonlight and

her red lips parted, hair gleaming like burnished foam and her anxious

gaze set upon the corner of the lane--was Kâramanèh ... Kâramanèh

whom once we had rescued from the house of this fiendish Chinese

doctor; Kâramanèh who had been our ally, in fruitless quest of

whom,--when, too late, I realized how empty my life was become--I had

wasted what little of the world's goods I possessed:--Kâramanèh!

"Poor old Petrie," murmured Smith. "I knew, but I hadn't the

heart--_He_ has her again--God knows by what chains he holds her. But

she's only a woman, old boy, and women are very much alike--very much

alike from Charing Cross to Pagoda Road."

He rested his hand on my shoulder for a moment; I am ashamed to

confess that I was trembling; then, clenching my teeth with that

mechanical physical effort which often accompanies a mental one, I

swallowed the bitter draught of Nayland Smith's philosophy. He was

raising himself, to peer, cautiously, over the top of the door. I did

likewise.

The window from which the girl had looked was nearly on a level with

our eyes, and as I raised my head above the woodwork, I quite

distinctly saw her go out of the room. The door, as she opened it,

admitted a dull light, against which her figure showed silhouetted for

a moment. Then the door was reclosed.

"We must risk the other windows," rapped Smith.

Before I had grasped the nature of his plan, he was over and had

dropped almost noiselessly upon the casks outside. Again I followed

his lead.

"You are not going to attempt anything, single-handed--against _him_?"

I asked.

"Petrie--Eltham is in that house. He has been brought here to be put

to the question, in the mediæval, and Chinese, sense! Is there time to

summon assistance?"

I shuddered. This had been in my mind, certainly, but so expressed it

was definitely horrible--revolting, yet stimulating.

"You have the pistol," added Smith; "follow closely, and quietly."

He walked across the tops of the casks and leapt down, pointing to

that nearest to the closed door of the house. I helped him place it

under the open window. A second we set beside it, and, not without

some noise, got a third on top.

Smith mounted.

His jaw muscles were very prominent and his eyes shone like steel; but

he was as cool as though he were about to enter a theatre and not the

den of the most stupendous genius who ever worked for evil. I would

forgive any man who, knowing Dr. Fu-Manchu, feared him; I feared him

myself--feared him as one fears a scorpion; but when Nayland Smith

hauled himself up on to the wooden ledge above the door and swung

thence into the darkened room, I followed and was in close upon his

heels. But I admired him, for he had every ampère of his

self-possession in hand; my own case was different.

He spoke close to my ear.

"Is your hand steady? We may have to shoot."

I thought of Kâramanèh, of lovely dark-eyed Kâramanèh, whom this

wonderful, evil product of secret China had stolen from me--for so I

now adjudged it.

"Rely upon me!" I said grimly. "I--"

The words ceased--frozen on my tongue.

There are things that one seeks to forget, but it is my lot often to

remember the sound which at that moment literally struck me rigid with

horror. Yet it was only a groan; but, merciful God! I pray that it may

never be my lot to listen to such a groan again.

Smith drew a sibilant breath.

"It's Eltham!" he whispered hoarsely, "they're torturing--"

"No, no!" screamed a woman's voice--a voice that thrilled me anew,

but with another emotion. "Not that, not--"

I distinctly heard the sound of a blow. Followed a sort of vague

scuffling. A door somewhere at the back of the house opened--and shut

again. Some one was coming along the passage towards us!

"Stand back!" Smith's voice was low, but perfectly steady. "Leave it

to me!"

Nearer came the footsteps and nearer. I could hear suppressed sobs.

The door opened, admitting again the faint light--and Kâramanèh came

in. The place was quite unfurnished, offering no possibility of

hiding; but to hide was unnecessary.

Her slim figure had not crossed the threshold ere Smith had his arm

about the girl's waist and one hand clapped to her mouth. A stifled

gasp she uttered, and he lifted her into the room.

"Shut the door, Petrie," he directed.

I stepped forward and closed the door. A faint perfume stole to my

nostrils--a vague, elusive breath of the East, reminiscent of strange

days that, now, seemed to belong to a remote past. Kâramanèh! that

faint, indefinable perfume was part of her dainty personality; it may

appear absurd--impossible--but many and many a time I had dreamt of

it.

"In my breast pocket," rapped Smith; "the light."

I bent over the girl as he held her. She was quite still, but I could

have wished that I had had more certain mastery of myself. I took the

torch from Smith's pocket and, mechanically, directed it upon the

captive.

She was dressed very plainly, wearing a simple blue skirt, and white

blouse. It was easy to divine that it was she whom Eltham had mistaken

for a French maid. A brooch set with a ruby was pinned at the point

where the blouse opened--gleaming fierily and harshly against the soft

skin. Her face was pale and her eyes wide with fear.

"There is some cord in my right-hand pocket," said Smith. "I came

provided. Tie her wrists."

I obeyed him, silently. The girl offered no resistance, but I think I

never essayed a less congenial task than that of binding her white

wrists. The jewelled fingers lay quite listlessly in my own.

"Make a good job of it!" rapped Smith significantly.

A flush rose to my cheeks, for I knew well enough what he meant.

"She is fastened," I said, and I turned the ray of the torch upon her

again.

Smith removed his hand from her mouth but did not relax his grip of

her. She looked up at me with eyes in which I could have sworn there

was no recognition. But a flush momentarily swept over her face, and

left it pale again.

"We shall have to--gag her--"

"Smith, I can't do it!"

The girl's eyes filled with tears and she looked up at my companion

pitifully.

"Please don't be cruel to me," she whispered, with that soft accent

which always played havoc with my composure. "Every one--every one--is

cruel to me. I will promise--indeed I will swear, to be quiet. Oh,

believe me, if you can save him I will do nothing to hinder you." Her

beautiful head drooped. "Have some pity for me as well."

"Kâramanèh," I said, "we would have believed you once. We cannot now."

She started violently.

"You know my name!" Her voice was barely audible. "Yet I have never

seen you in my life--"

"See if the door locks," interrupted Smith harshly.

Dazed by the apparent sincerity in the voice of our lovely

captive--vacant from wonder of it all--I opened the door, felt for,

and found, a key.

We left Kâramanèh crouching against the wall; her great eyes were

turned towards me fascinatedly. Smith locked the door with much care.

We began a tip-toed progress along the dimly-lighted passage.

From beneath a door on the left, and near the end, a brighter light

shone. Beyond that again was another door. A voice was speaking in the

lighted room; yet I could have sworn that Kâramanèh had come, not from

there but from the room beyond--from the far end of the passage.

But the voice!--who, having once heard it, could ever mistake that

singular voice, alternately guttural and sibilant.

Dr. Fu-Manchu was speaking!

"I have asked you," came with ever-increasing clearness (Smith had

begun to turn the knob), "to reveal to me the name of your

correspondent in Nan-Yang. I have suggested that he may be the

Mandarin Yen-Sun-Yat, but you have declined to confirm me. Yet I know"

(Smith had the door open a good three inches and was peering in) "that

some official, some high official, is a traitor. Am I to resort again

to _the question_ to learn his name?"

Ice seemed to enter my veins at the unseen inquisitor's intonation of

the words "_the question_." This was the twentieth century; yet there,

in that damnable room....

Smith threw the door open.

Through a sort of haze, born mostly of horror, but not entirely, I saw

Eltham, stripped to the waist and tied, with his arms upstretched, to

a rafter in the ancient ceiling. A Chinaman, who wore a slop-shop blue

suit and who held an open knife in his hand, stood beside him. Eltham

was ghastly white. The appearance of his chest puzzled me momentarily,

then I realized that a sort of _tourniquet_ of wire-netting was

screwed so tightly about him that the flesh swelled out in knobs

through the mesh. There was blood--

"God in heaven!" screamed Smith frenziedly, "_they have the

wire-jacket on him!_ Shoot down that damned Chinaman, Petrie! Shoot!

Shoot!"

Lithely as a cat the man with the knife leapt around--but I raised the

Browning, and deliberately--with a cool deliberation that came to me

suddenly--shot him through the head. I saw his oblique eyes turn up to

the whites; I saw the mark squarely between his brows; and with no word

nor cry he sank to his knees and toppled forward with one yellow hand

beneath him and one outstretched, clutching--clutching--convulsively.

His pigtail came unfastened and began to uncoil, slowly, like a snake.

I handed the pistol to Smith; I was perfectly cool, now; and I leapt

forward, took up the bloody knife from the floor and cut Eltham's

lashings. He sank into my arms.

"Praise God," he murmured weakly. "He is more merciful to me than

perhaps I deserve. Unscrew ... the jacket, Petrie ... I think ... I was

very near to ... weakening. Praise the good God, who ... gave me ...

fortitude...."

I got the screw of the accursed thing loosened, but the act of

removing the jacket was too agonizing for Eltham--man of iron though

he was. I laid him swooning on the floor.

"Where is Fu-Manchu?"

Nayland Smith, from just within the door, threw out the query in a

tone of stark amaze. I stood up--I could do nothing more for the poor

victim at the moment--and looked about me.

The room was innocent of furniture, save for heaps of rubbish on the

floor, and a tin oil-lamp hung on the wall. The dead Chinaman lay

close beside Smith. There was no second door, the one window was

barred and from this room we had heard the voice, the unmistakable,

unforgettable voice, of Fu-Manchu.

_But Dr. Fu-Manchu was not there!_

Neither of us could accept the fact for a moment; we stood there,

looking from the dead man to the tortured man who had only swooned,

in a state of helpless incredulity.

Then the explanation flashed upon us both, simultaneously, and with a

cry of baffled rage Smith leapt along the passage to the second door.

It was wide open. I stood at his elbow when he swept its emptiness

with the ray of his pocket-lamp.

There was a speaking-tube fixed between the two rooms!

Smith literally ground his teeth.

"Yet, Petrie," he said, "we have learnt something. Fu-Manchu had

evidently promised Eltham his life if he would divulge the name of his

correspondent. He meant to keep his word; it is a sidelight on his

character."

"How so?"

"Eltham has never seen Dr. Fu-Manchu, but Eltham knows certain parts

of China better than you know the Strand. Probably, if he saw

Fu-Manchu, he would recognize him for whom he really is, and this, it

seems, the Doctor is anxious to avoid."

We ran back to where we had left Kâramanèh.

The room was empty!

"Defeated, Petrie!" said Smith bitterly. "The Yellow Devil is loosed

on London again!"

He leant from the window and the skirl of a police whistle split the

stillness of the night.