The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
Dr. Petrie falls in love with Karamenah
By William Wetherall
First posted 13 July 2006
Last updated 13 July 2006
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Original short stories
The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, aka The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, was a collection of ten short stories published under the general title Fu-Manchu in the monthly magazine The Story-Teller between October 1912 and July 1913. The stories, and their corresponding chapters, are as follows.
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The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu From monthly magazine stories to novel Note -- I have arbitrarily assigned three chapters to each story. The correspondence between the original stories and the chapters has not yet been confirmed. |
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| The Story-Teller | The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu | |||
| Nmbr | Date | Title | Chpt | Title |
| 1 | Oct 1912 | The Zayat Kiss | 1 | Mr. Nayland Smith of Burma |
| 2 | The Perfumed Envelopes | |||
| 3 | The Zayat Kiss | |||
| 2 | Nov 1912 | The Clue of the Pigtail | 4 | The Clue of the Pigtail |
| 5 | A Thames-side Nocturne | |||
| 6 | The Opium Den | |||
| 3 | Dec 1912 | Redmoat | 7 | Redmoat |
| 8 | The Thing in the Shrubbery | |||
| 9 | The Third Victim | |||
| 4 | Jan 1913 | The Green Mist | 10 | Secret China |
| 11 | The Green Mist | |||
| 12 | The Slave | |||
| 5 | Feb 1913 | The Call of Siva | 13 | I Dream -- and Awaken |
| 14 | I Awaken -- and Dream | |||
| 15 | The Call of Siva | |||
| 6 | Mar 1913 | Karamaneh | 16 | Karamaneh |
| 17 | The Hulk Off the Flats | |||
| 18 | Andaman -- Second | |||
| 7 | Apr 1913 | Andaman -- Second! | 19 | Norris West's Story |
| 20 | Some Theories and a Fact | |||
| 21 | The Home of Fu-Manchu | |||
| 8 | May 1913 | The Golden Flask | 22 | We Go North |
| 23 | The Vault | |||
| 24 | Aziz | |||
| 9 | Jun 1913 | The Spores of Death | 25 | The Fungi Cellars |
| 26 | We Lose Weymouth | |||
| 27 | Weymouth's Home | |||
| 10 | Jul 1913 | The Knocking on the Door | 28 | The Knocking on the Door |
| 29 | The One Who Knocked | |||
| 30 | Flames | |||
The original stories were published in many periodicals. "The Zayat Kiss" first appeared in Collier's Magazine in February 1913. The stories were run with elaborate illustrations in the Star Sunday, a Washington, D.C. evening newspaper, from October to December in 1913. They also appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sunday Magazine from January to April in 1915. (Lawrence Knapp & R. E. Briney)
In 1918, The Chicago Sunday Tribune ran several of The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu and The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu stories with color illustrations (Lawrence Knapp & R. E. Briney). In 1922, the Boston Daily Advertiser is also reported to have serialized most of The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (July to August), and its sequel The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu (August to Octobere), "in daily installments, with a one week break between the two serials" (Lawrence Knapp & R. E. Briney, as reported by Victor A. Berch).
Yellow peril
The expression yellow peril appears five times in The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. All five appearances are cited below. The page numbers refer to any of the 191-page Pyramid editions.
1 -- Chapter 2, last line (page 17)
Nayland Smith -- "Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."
2 -- Chapter 7, toward end (pages 49-50)
"This is what I had feared and expected," said the clergyman. "This was my reason for not seeking official protection."
"The phantom Yellow Peril," said Nayland Smith, "to-day materializes under the very eyes of the Western world."
"The 'Yellow Peril'!"
"You scoff, sir, and so do others. We take the proffered right hand of friendship nor inquire if the hidden left holds a knife! The peace of the world is at stake, Mr. Eltham. Unknowingly, you tamper with tremendous issues."
3 -- Chapter 10, toward end (page 67)
"Smith" I said, "we are making no headway in this business. With all the forces arrayed against him, Fu-Manchu still eludes us, still pursues his devilish, inscrutable way."
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 someone 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 fact that we are alive is a miracle."
4 -- Chapter 24, near middle (page 157)
Despite the girl's assurance, we knew that proximity to the sinister Chinaman must be fraught with danger. We stood, not in the lion's den, but in the serpent's lair.
From the time when Nayland Smith had come from Burma in pursuit of this advance-guard of a cogent Yellow Peril, the face of Dr. Fu-Manchu rarely had been absent from my dreams day or night. The millions might sleep in peace -- the millions in whose cause we labored! -- but we who knew the reality of the danger knew that a veritable octopus had fastened upon England -- a yellow octopus whose head was that of Dr. Fu-Manchu, whose tentacles were dacoity, thuggee, modes of death, secret and swift, which in the darkness plucked men from life and left no clew behind.
5 -- Chapter 26, halfway (page 168)
On we raced, and on, sweeping over growing swells. Once, a black, towering shape dropped down upon us. Far above, lights blazed, bells rang, vague cries pierced the fog. The launch pitched and rolled perilously, but weathered the wash of the liner which so nearly had concluded this episode. It was such a journey as I had taken once before, early in our pursuit of the genius of the Yellow Peril; but this was infinitely more terrible; for now we were utterly in Fu-Manchu's power.
Oriental slave girl Karamaneh
The text of the publisher's advertising, promoting the first American edition of The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, is notable in that it gives more attention to "the lure of the Oriental slave girl" Karamaneh than to either Fu Manchu or Nayland Smith. The following text has been taken directly from an image of the actual ad as shown by Lawrence Knapp and R. E. Briney on their overview of The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu). The purple highlighting is mine.
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An Entralling Detective Story
The Insidious Detective stories are generally compared to the work of Poe, Gaboriau, or Conan Doyle. BUT THIS ONE IS INCOMPARABLE. It won't be long before something "similar to Fu-Manchu" will be written for this novel marks A CRITERION IN DETECTIVE STORIES. "Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan." That's Dr. Fu-Manchu. I had never seen a face so seductively lovely* * * * With a skin of perfect blonde, she had eyes and lashes as black as a Creole's." That's Karamaneh. The cruel machinations of the Chinese genius, the lure of the Oriental slave girl, the workings of the most surprising criminal system ever devised, and the cunning of Nayland Smith, detective, go toward making this the most stirring, gripping, and altogether fascinating adventure tale in years. McBRIDE, NAST & CO., Publishers, NEW YORK CITY |
The following excerpts show how Karamaneh was characterized at different points in The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, from her first appearance in Chapter XXX, to her last in Chapter YYY. The pages refer to any of the 191-page Pyramid editions.
The skin of a perfect blonde,
eyes and lashes as black as a Creole's
Chapter 2 (pages 13-14)
PETRIE IS BESIDE SIR CRICHTON'S BODY, PUZZLING OVER WHAT MIGHT HAVE KILLED HIM.
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.
Fu-Manchu's daughter, his wife, or his slave
Chapter 3 (page 18)
THE WOMAN GIVES PETRIE AN ENVELOPE TO GIVE TO WHOMEVER HE THINKS PROPER AND HURRIES AWAY. HE GIVES IT TO SMITH.
"Smith," I broke in, "who is she?"
"She is either Fu-Manchu's daughter, his wife, or his slave. I am inclined to believe the last, for she has no will but his will, except" -- with a quizzical glance -- "In a certain instance."
That lure of man
Chapter 4 (page 27)
PETRIE CANNOT GET THE WOMAN OUT OF HIS MIND.
Was that lure of men even now in the house, completing her evil work?
Love in the East is like the conjurer's mango-tree
Chapter 4 (pages 27-29)
HE SPOTTED HER SLIPPING OUT OF A ROOM AND LEAPED INTO THE HALL TO CONFRONT HER. SHE PROTESTS THAT SHE HAS TAKEN NOTHING AND INSISTS HE LET HER GO.
"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?
Chapter 4 (pages 29-30)
SHE BEGS PETRIE TO HELP HER, HIDE HER FROM THE POLICE, FROM FU MANCHU, FROM EVERYBODY, AND IN RETURN SHE WILL NO LONGER BE FU MANCHU'S SLAVE. PETRIE TURNS AWAY, IN A QUANDRY, UNCERTAIN WHAT TO DO, AND WHEN HE GLANCES BACK, NOT TEN SECONDS LATER, SHE IS GONE, BUT HE HEARS HER WHISPER THAT SHE WILL COME TO HIM WHENEVER HE IS WILLING TO TAKE HER AND HIDE HER.
A slave has no country
Chapter 16 (pages 108-109)
A BIT OVER HALFWAY THROUGH THE STORY PETRIE LEARNS HER NAME.
"When I was seized and sold for a slave," she answered slowly, "my sister was taken, too, and my brother -- a child." She spoke the word with a tender intonation, and her slight accent rendered it the more soft. "My sister died in the desert. My brother lived. Better, far better, that he had died, too."
Her words impressed me intensely.
"Of what are you speaking?" I questioned. "You speak of slave-raids, of the desert. Where did these things take place? Of what country are you?"
"Does it matter?" she questioned in turn. "Of what country am I? A slave has no country, no name."
"No name!" I cried.
"You may call me Karamaneh," she said. "As Karamaneh I was sold to Dr. Fu-Manchu, and my brother also he purchased. We were cheap at the price he paid." She laughed shortly, wildly.
"But he has spent a lot of money to educate me. My brother is all that is left to me in the world to love, and he is in the power of Dr. Fu-Manchu. You understand? It is upon him the blow will fall. You ask me to fight against Fu-Manchu. You talk of protection. Did your protection save Sir Crichton Davey?"
Creature of the Chinaman's
Chapter 24 (page 156)
DESPITE THE FACT THAT SMITH HAS ACCUSED PETRIE OF HIS WEAKNESS FOR THE GIRL, HE DECIDES TO TRUST HER. SHE LEADS BOTH MEN TO HER BROTHER, WHO IS BEING KEPT AT THE QUARTERS OF FU MANCHU IN LONDON.
WEYMOUTH, A SCOTLAND YARD MAN IN THEIR COMPANY, WONDERS IF IT MIGHT BE A TRAP. PETRIE NARRATES THIS CONCERN LIKE THIS.
The Scotland Yard man did not entirely share my confidence in the integrity of this Eastern girl whom he knew to have been a creature of the Chinaman's.
The peculiar perfume which she wore
-- which seemed to be a part of her --
was faintly perceptible
Chapter 24 (page 158)
THEY FIND KARAMANEH'S BROTHER AZIZ.
I raised the white coverlet. The boy, fully dressed, lay with his arms crossed upon his breast. I discerned the mark of previous injections as, charging the syringe from the phial, I made what I hoped would be the last of such experiments upon him. I would have given half of my small worldly possessions to have known the real nature of the drug which was now coursing through the veins of Aziz -- which was tinting the grayed face with the olive tone of life; which, so far as my medical training bore me, was restoring the dead to life.
But such was not the purpose of my visit. I was come to remove from the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu the living chain which bound Karamaneh to him. The boy alive and free, the Doctor's hold upon the slave girl would be broken.
My lovely companion, her hands convulsively clasped, knelt and devoured with her eyes the face of the boy who was passing through the most amazing physiological change in the history of therapeutics. The peculiar perfume which she wore -- which seemed to be a part of her -- which always I associated with her -- was faintly perceptible. Karamaneh was breathing rapidly.
An Eastern jewel which any man of flesh and blood
must have coveted had he known it to lie within his reach
Chapter 24 (page 159-160)
PETRIE HELPS REVIVE THE BOY.
As I counted the strengthening pulse, he opened his dark eyes -- which were so like the eyes of Karamaneh -- and, with the girl's eager arms tightly about him, sat up, looking wonderingly around.
Karamaneh pressed her cheek to his, whispering loving words in that softly spoken Arabic which had first betrayed her nationality to Nayland Smith. I handed her my flask, which I had filled with wine.
"My promise is fulfilled!" I said. "You are free! Now for Fu-Manchu! But first let us admit the police to this house; there is something uncanny in its stillness."
"No," she replied. "First let my brother be taken out and placed in safety. Will you carry him?"
She raised her face to that of Inspector Weymouth, upon which was written awe and wonder.
The burly detective lifted the boy as tenderly as a woman, passed through the shadows to the stairway, ascended, and was swallowed up in the gloom. Nayland Smith's eyes gleamed feverishly. He turned to Karamaneh.
"You are not playing with us?" he said harshly. "We have done our part; it remains for you to do yours."
"Do not speak so loudly," the girl begged. "He is near us -- and, oh, God, I fear him so!"
"Where is he?" persisted my friend.
Karamaneh's eyes were glassy with fear now.
"You must not touch him until the police are here," she said -- but from the direction of her quick, agitated glances I knew that, her brother safe now, she feared for me, and for me alone. Those glances sent my blood dancing; for Karamaneh was an Eastern jewel which any man of flesh and blood must have coveted had he known it to lie within his reach. Her eyes were twin lakes of mystery which, more than once, I had known the desire to explore.
"Look -- beyond that curtain" -- her voice was barely audible -- "but do not enter. Even as he is, I fear him."
Her voice, her palpable agitation, prepared us for something extraordinary. Tragedy and Fu-Manchu were never far apart. Though we were two, and help was so near, we were in the abode of the most cunning murderer who ever came out of the East.
How would he avenge himself upon the girl?
Chapter 26 (page 167)
THINGS GO A BIT WRONG AS THEY CLOSE IN ON FU MANCHU. SOON ALL FOUR -- SMITH, PETRIE, WEYMOUTH, AND KARAMANEH ARE HIS CAPTIVES. PETRIE, THE NARRATOR, WONDERS WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM ALL.
What fate was in store for us? How would he avenge himself upon the girl who had betrayed him to his enemies? What portion awaited those enemies? He seemed to have formed the singular determination to smuggle me into China -- but what did he purpose in the case of Weymouth, and in the case of Nayland Smith?
"You have seemed to display an undue interest in
the peach and pearl which render my Karamaneh so delightful,
in the supple grace of her movements and the sparkle of her eyes."
Chapter 26 (pages 168-169)
Chapter 26 (pages 168-169)
HE SOON FINDS OUT AS THEY PLY THROUGH THE FOG IN A LAUNCH.
"Dr. Petrie," he said, "you shall be my honored guest at my home in China. You shall assist me to revolutionize chemistry. Mr. Smith, I fear you know more of my plans than I had deemed it possible for you to have learned, and I am anxious to know if you have a confidant. Where your memory fails you, and my files and wire jackets prove ineffectual, Inspector Weymouth's recollections may prove more accurate."
He turned to the cowering girl -- who shrank away from him in pitiful, abject terror.
"In my hands, Doctor," he continued, "I hold a needle charged with a rare culture. It is the link between the bacilli and the fungi. You have seemed to display an undue interest in the peach and pearl which render my Karamaneh so delightful, In the supple grace of her movements and the sparkle of her eyes. You can never devote your whole mind to those studies which I have planned for you whilst such distractions exist. A touch of this keen point, and the laughing Karamaneh becomes the shrieking hag -- the maniacal, mowing --"
Then, with an ox-like rush, Weymouth was upon him!
The Thames had been his highway
Chapter 27 (pages 171-172)
THE STRUGGLE UPSETS THE LAUNCH THEY HAD BEEN IN AND EVERYONE IS PITCHED INTO THE THAMES. WEIMOUTH AND FU MANCHU DISSAPEAR INTO THE THAMES. SMITH, PETRIE, KARAMANEH, AND AZIZ MAKE IT ASHORE.
There was Karamaneh to be considered -- Karamaneh and her brother. A brief counsel was held, whereat it was decided that for the present they should be lodged at a hotel.
"I shall arrange," Smith whispered to me, for the girl was watching us, "to have the place patrolled night and day."
"You cannot suppose --"
"Petrie! I cannot and dare not suppose Fu-Manchu dead until with my own eyes I have seen him so!"
Accordingly we conveyed the beautiful Oriental girl and her brother away from that luxurious abode in its sordid setting. I will not dwell upon the final scene in the poison cellars lest I be accused of accumulating horror for horror's sake. Members of the fire brigade, helmed against contagion, brought out the bodies of the victims wrapped in their living shrouds. . . .
From Karamaneh we learned much of Fu-Manchu, little of herself.
"What am I? Does my poor history matter -- to anyone?" was her answer to questions respecting herself.
And she would droop her lashes over her dark eyes.
The dacoits whom the Chinaman had brought to England originally numbered seven, we learned. As you, having followed me thus far, will be aware, we had thinned the ranks of the Burmans. Probably only one now remained in England. They had lived in a camp in the grounds of the house near Windsor (which, as we had learned at the time of its destruction, the Doctor had bought outright). The Thames had been his highway.
Other members of the group had occupied quarters in various parts of the East End, where sailormen of all nationalities congregate. Shen-Yan's had been the East End headquarters. He had employed the hulk from the time of his arrival, as a laboratory for a certain class of experiments undesirable in proximity to a place of residence.
Nayland Smith asked the girl on one occasion if the Chinaman had had a private sea-going vessel, and she replied in the affirmative. She had never been on board, however, had never even set eyes upon it, and could give us no information respecting its character. It had sailed for China.
"You are sure," asked Smith keenly, "that it has actually left?"
"I understood so, and that we were to follow by another route."
"It would have been difficult for Fu-Manchu to travel by a passenger boat?"
"I cannot say what were his plans."
In a state of singular uncertainty, then, readily to be understood, we passed the days following the tragedy which had deprived us of our fellow-worker.
Vividly I recall the scene at poor Weymouth's home, on the day that we visited it. I then made the acquaintance of the Inspector's brother. Nayland Smith gave him a detailed account of the last scene.
"Out there in the mist," he concluded wearily, "it all seemed very unreal."
"I wish to God it had been!"
"Amen to that, Mr. Weymouth. But your brother made a gallant finish. If ridding the world of Fu-Manchu were the only good deed to his credit, his life had been well spent."
James Weymouth smoked awhile in thoughtful silence. Though but four and a half miles S.S.E. of St. Paul's the quaint little cottage, with its rustic garden, shadowed by the tall trees which had so lined the village street before motor 'buses were, was a spot as peaceful and secluded as any in broad England. But another shadow lay upon it to-day -- chilling, fearful. An incarnate evil had come out of the dim East and in its dying malevolence had touched this home.
"There are two things I don't understand about it, sir," continued Weymouth. "What was the meaning of the horrible laughter which the river police heard in the fog? And where are the bodies?"
Karamaneh, seated beside me, shuddered at the words. Smith, whose restless spirit granted him little repose, paused in his aimless wanderings about the room and looked at her.
In these latter days of his Augean labors to purge England of the unclean thing which had fastened upon her, my friend was more lean and nervous-looking than I had ever known him. His long residence in Burma had rendered him spare and had burned his naturally dark skin to a coppery hue; but now his gray eyes had grown feverishly bright and his face so lean as at times to appear positively emaciated. But I knew that he was as fit as ever.
"This lady may be able to answer your first question," he said. "She and her brother were for some time in the household of Dr. Fu-Manchu. In fact, Mr. Weymouth, Karamaneh, as her name implies, was a slave."
Weymouth glanced at the beautiful, troubled face with scarcely veiled distrust. "You don't look as though you had come from China, miss," he said, with a sort of unwilling admiration.
"I do not come from China," replied Karamaneh. "My father was a pure Bedawee. But my history does not matter." (At times there was something imperious in her manner; and to this her musical accent added force.) "When your brave brother, Inspector Weymouth, and Dr. Fu-Manchu, were swallowed up by the river, Fu-Manchu held a poisoned needle in his hand. The laughter meant that the needle had done its work. Your brother had become mad!"
Weymouth turned aside to hide his emotion. "What was on the needle?" he asked huskily.
"It was something which he prepared from the venom of a kind of swamp adder," she answered. "It produces madness, but not always death."
"He would have had a poor chance," said Smith, "even had he been in complete possession of his senses. At the time of the encounter we must have been some considerable distance from shore, and the fog was impenetrable."
"But how do you account for the fact that neither of the bodies have been recovered?"
"Ryman of the river police tells me that persons lost at that point are not always recovered -- or not until a considerable time later."
There was a faint sound from the room above. The news of that tragic happening out in the mist upon the Thames had prostrated poor Mrs. Weymouth.
"She hasn't been told half the truth," said her brother-in-law. "She doesn't know about -- the poisoned needle. What kind of fiend was this Dr. Fu-Manchu?" He burst out into a sudden blaze of furious resentment. "John never told me much, and you have let mighty little leak into the papers. What was he? Who was he?"
Half he addressed the words to Smith, half to Karamaneh.
"Dr. Fu-Manchu," replied the former, "was the ultimate expression of Chinese cunning; a phenomenon such as occurs but once in many generations. He was a superman of incredible genius, who, had he willed, could have revolutionized science. There is a superstition in some parts of China according to which, under certain peculiar conditions (one of which is proximity to a deserted burial-ground) an evil spirit of incredible age may enter unto the body of a new-born infant. All my efforts thus far have not availed me to trace the genealogy of the man called Dr. Fu-Manchu. Even Karamaneh cannot help me in this. But I have sometimes thought that he was a member of a certain very old Kiangsu family -- and that the peculiar conditions I have mentioned prevailed at his birth!"
Smith, observing our looks of amazement, laughed shortly, and quite mirthlessly.
"Poor old Weymouth!" he jerked. "I suppose my labors are finished; but I am far from triumphant. Is there any improvement in Mrs. Weymouth's condition?"
"Very little," was the reply; "she has lain in a semi-conscious state since the news came. No one had any idea she would take it so. At one time we were afraid her brain was going. She seemed to have delusions."
Smith spun round upon Weymouth.
"Of what nature?" he asked rapidly.
The other pulled nervously at his mustache.
"My wife has been staying with her," he explained, "since -- it happened; and for the last three nights poor John's widow has cried out at the same time -- half-past two -- that someone was knocking on the door."
"What door?"
"That door yonder -- the street door."
All our eyes turned in the direction indicated.
"John often came home at half-past two from the Yard," continued Weymouth; "so we naturally thought poor Mary was wandering in her mind. But last night -- and it's not to be wondered at -- my wife couldn't sleep, and she was wide awake at half-past two."
"Well?"
Nayland Smith was standing before him, alert, bright-eyed.
"She heard it, too!"
The sun was streaming into the cozy little sitting-room; but I will confess that Weymouth's words chilled me uncannily. Karamaneh laid her hand upon mine, in a quaint, childish fashion peculiarly her own. Her hand was cold, but its touch thrilled me. For Karamaneh was not a child, but a rarely beautiful girl -- a pearl of the East such as many a monarch has fought for.
"What then?" asked Smith.
"She was afraid to move -- afraid to look from the window!"
My friend turned and stared hard at me.
"A subjective hallucination, Petrie?"
"In all probability," I replied. "You should arrange that your wife be relieved in her trying duties, Mr. Weymouth. It is too great a strain for an inexperienced nurse." [END OF CHAPTER 27]
Victims, not creatures
Chapter 28 (pages 175-177)
THE NARRATIVE GOES OUT OF THE WAY TO POINT OUT THAT KARAMANEH AND HER BROTHER WERE VICTIMS.
[START OF CHAPTER 28] Of all that we had hoped for in our pursuit of Fu-Manchu how little had we accomplished. Excepting Karamaneh and her brother (who were victims and not creatures of the Chinese doctor's) not one of the formidable group had fallen alive into our hands. Dreadful crimes had marked Fu-Manchu's passage through the land. Not one-half of the truth (and nothing of the later developments) had been made public. Nayland Smith's authority was sufficient to control the press.
In the absence of such a veto a veritable panic must have seized upon the entire country; for a monster -- a thing more than humanly evil -- existed in our midst.
Always Fu-Manchu's secret activities had centered about the great waterway. There was much of poetic justice in his end; for the Thames had claimed him, who so long had used the stream as a highway for the passage to and fro for his secret forces. Gone now were the yellow men who had been the instruments of his evil will; gone was the giant intellect which had controlled the complex murder machine. Karamaneh, whose beauty he had used as a lure, at last was free, and no more with her smile would tempt men to death -- that her brother might live.
Many there are, I doubt not, who will regard the Eastern girl with horror. I ask their forgiveness in that I regarded her quite differently. No man having seen her could have condemned her unheard. Many, having looked into her lovely eyes, had they found there what I found, must have forgiven her almost any crime.
That she valued human life but little was no matter for wonder. Her nationality -- her history -- furnished adequate excuse for an attitude not condonable in a European equally cultured.
But indeed let me confess that hers was a nature incomprehensible to me in some respects. The soul of Karamaneh was a closed book to my short-sighted Western eyes. But the body of Karamaneh was exquisite; her beauty of a kind that was a key to the most extravagant rhapsodies of Eastern poets. Her eyes held a challenge wholly Oriental in its appeal; her lips, even in repose, were a taunt. And, herein, East is West and West is East.
Finally, despite her lurid history, despite the scornful self-possession of which I knew her capable, she was an unprotected girl -- in years, I believe, a mere child -- whom Fate had cast in my way. At her request, we had booked passages for her brother and herself to Egypt. The boat sailed in three days. But Karamaneh's beautiful eyes were sad; often I detected tears on the black lashes. Shall I endeavor to describe my own tumultuous, conflicting emotions? It would be useless, since I know it to be impossible. For in those dark eyes burned a fire I might not see; those silken lashes veiled a message I dared not read.
Nayland Smith was not blind to the facts of the complicated situation. I can truthfully assert that he was the only man of my acquaintance who, having come in contact with Karamaneh, had kept his head.
We endeavored to divert her mind from the recent tragedies by a round of amusements, though with poor Weymouth's body still at the mercy of unknown waters Smith and I made but a poor show of gayety; and I took a gloomy pride in the admiration which our lovely companion everywhere excited. I learned, in those days, how rare a thing in nature is a really beautiful woman.