Sax Rohmer

“ Nayland Smith nodded.
"And we don't know all," he said. "We mark such and such a man as one alive to the yellow peril, and we warn him—if we have time. Perhaps he escapes, perhaps he does not. But what do we know, Petrie, of those others who may die every week by his murderous agency? We cannot know everyone who has read the riddle of China. I never see a report of some one found drowned, of an apparent suicide, of a sudden though seemingly natural death, without wondering! I tell you, Fu-Manchu is omnipresent; his tentacles embrace everything! I said that Sir Lionel must bear a charmed life. ”

“ The breeze was growing higher, and pungent odor waves from the damp shrubbery, bearing, too, the oppressive sweetness of the creeping plant, swept constantly through the open window. Inspector Weymouth carefully relighted his cigar.
"I'm with you thus far, Mr. Smith," he said. "Strozza, knowing Sir Lionel to be absent, locked himself in here to rifle the mummy case, for Croxted, entering by way of the window, found the key on the inside. ”

“ No! there is no slavery! So! Then what am I?"
She threw open her cloak, and it is a literal fact that I rubbed my eyes, half believing that I dreamed. For beneath, she was arrayed in gossamer silk which more than indicated the perfect lines of her slim shape, wore a jeweled girdle and barbaric ornaments; was a figure fit for the walled gardens of Stamboul—a figure amazing, incomprehensible, in the prosaic setting of my rooms!
"To-night I had no time to make myself an English miss!" she said, wrapping her cloak quickly about her. "You see me as I am!" ”

“ I said hoarsely. "Inhalation is deadly. It is the fumes of chlorine that kill the men in the bleaching-powder works! We have been blind!—I, particularly! Don't you see? There was no one in the sarcophagus, Smith, but there was enough of that fearful stuff to have suffocated a regiment!"
Smith clenched his fists convulsively.
"My God!" he said, "how can I hope to deal with the author of such a scheme! I see the whole plan. He did not reckon on the mummy case being overturned, and Kwee's part was to remove the plug with the aid of the string—after Sir Lionel had been suffocated! ”

“ Nayland Smith laughed dryly.
"It has vanished in the form of a green vapor apparently," he said. "Look at Strozza's face!"
He turned the body over, and used as I was to such spectacles, the contorted features of the Italian filled me with horror, so suggestive were they of a death more than ordinarily violent. I pulled aside the dressing gown and searched the body for marks, but failed to find any. Nayland Smith crossed the room, and, assisted by the detective, carried Kwee, the Chinaman, into the study and laid him fully in the light. ”

“ Croxted's breaking the window created sufficient draft to disperse what little remained. It will have settled on the floor, now. I will go and open both windows."
Nayland Smith raised his haggard face.
"He evidently made more than was necessary to dispatch Sir Lionel Barton," he said, "and contemptuously—you note the attitude, Petrie?—contemptuously devoted the surplus to me. His contempt is justified. I am a child striving to cope with a mental giant. It is by no wit of mine that Dr. Fu-Manchu scores a double failure." ”

“ My friend looked at me in evident perplexity.
"You mean that its arrival at the time when a creature of the doctor's—Kwee—was concealed here may have been a coincidence?"
I nodded, and Smith bent over the sarcophagus, curiously examining the garish paintings with which it was decorated inside and out. It lay sideways upon the floor, and seizing it by its edge, he turned it over.
"Heavy," he muttered, "but Strozza must have capsized it as he fell. He would not have laid it on its side to remove the lid. Hullo!" ”

“ I said. "If you are correct, his power indeed is more than human!"
SOMETHING in my voice, I suppose, brought Smith right about. He surveyed me curiously.
"Can you doubt it? The presence of a concealed Chinaman surely is sufficient. Kwee. I feel assured, was one of the murder group, though probably he had only recently entered that mysterious service. He is unarmed, or I should feel disposed to think that his part was to assassinate Sir Lionel while, unsuspecting the presence of a hidden enemy, he was at work here. Strozza's opening the sarcophagus clearly spoiled the scheme." ”

“ Smith was pacing the room now in tense excitement.
"Describe what he saw when came in."
"He saw a negro footman—there isn't an Englishman in the house—trying to pacify the girl out in the hall yonder, and a Malay and another colored man beating their foreheads and howling! There was no sense to be got out of any of them, so he started to investigate for himself. He had taken the bearings of the place earlier in the evening, and from the light in a window on the ground floor had located the study, so he started to look for the door. When he found it, it was locked from the inside." ”

“ Slavery is put down, you imagine, perhaps? You do not believe that to-day—to-day—twenty-five English sovereigns will buy a Calla girl, who is brown, and—whisper, two hundred and fifty—a Circassian, who is white! ”

“ In addition to the Yucatan book and the work on Tibet, he has to read a paper at the Institute next week about some tomb he has unearthed in Egypt. As I came away, a van drove up from the docks and a couple of fellows delivered a sarcophagus as big as a boat. It is unique, according to Sir Lionel, and will go to the British Museum after he has examined it. The man crams six months' work into six weeks, then he is off again. ”

“ It has a close, exotic perfume that is quite in the picture. I tell you the place was made for murder!"
"Have you taken any precautions?"
"I called in at Scotland Yard and sent a man down to watch the house, but—"
HE SHRUGGED his shoulders helplessly.
"What is Sir Lionel like?"
"A madman, Petrie! A tall, massive man, wearing a dirty dressing gown of neutral color; a man with untidy gray hair and a bristling mustache, keen blue eyes and a brown skin, who wears a short beard, or rarely shaves—I don't know which! ”

“ Sir Lionel," he said, "for whatever the Priest Mekara has to do with the matter, by means of his sarcophagus, Dr. Fu-Manchu has made his first attempt upon your life! He has failed, but I hope you will accompany me from here to a hotel. He will not fail twice!"
IT WAS the night following that of the double tragedy at Rowan House. Nayland Smith, with Inspector Weymouth, was engaged in some mysterious inquiry at the docks, and I had remained at home to bring up to date that strange chronicle, which I hoped to live to publish, of our dealings with the satanic genius, Dr. ”