CHAPTER III
I SANK into an arm-chair in my rooms and gulped down a strong peg ofbrandy.
"We have been followed here," I said. "Why did you make no attempt tothrow the pursuers off the track, to have them intercepted?"
Smith laughed.
"Useless, in the first place. Wherever we went, HE would find us. Andof what use to arrest his creatures? We could prove nothing againstthem. Further, it is evident that an attempt is to be made upon mylife to-night--and by the same means that proved so successful in thecase of poor Sir Crichton."
His square jaw grew truculently prominent, and he leapt stormily to hisfeet, shaking his clenched fists towards the window.
"The villain!" he cried. "The fiendishly clever villain! I suspectedthat Sir Crichton was next, and I was right. But I came too late,Petrie! That hits me hard, old man. To think that I knew and yetfailed to save him!"
He resumed his seat, smoking hard.
"Fu-Manchu has made the blunder common to all men of unusual genius,"he said. "He has underrated his adversary. He has not given me creditfor perceiving the meaning of the scented messages. He has thrown awayone powerful weapon--to get such a message into my hands--and he thinksthat once safe within doors, I shall sleep, unsuspecting, and die asSir Crichton died. But without the indiscretion of your charmingfriend, I should have known what to expect when I receive her'information'--which by the way, consists of a blank sheet of paper."
"Smith," I broke in, "who is she?"
"She is either Fu-Manchu's daughter, his wife, or his slave. I aminclined to believe the last, for she has no will but his will,except"--with a quizzical glance--"in a certain instance."
"How can you jest with some awful thing--Heaven knows what--hangingover your head? What is the meaning of these perfumed envelopes? Howdid Sir Crichton die?"
"He died of the Zayat Kiss. Ask me what that is and I reply 'I do notknow.' The zayats are the Burmese caravanserais, or rest-houses. Alonga certain route--upon which I set eyes, for the first and only time,upon Dr. Fu-Manchu--travelers who use them sometimes die as SirCrichton died, with nothing to show the cause of death but a littlemark upon the neck, face, or limb, which has earned, in those parts,the title of the 'Zayat Kiss.' The rest-houses along that route areshunned now. I have my theory and I hope to prove it to-night, if Ilive. It will be one more broken weapon in his fiendish armory, and itis thus, and thus only, that I can hope to crush him. This was myprincipal reason for not enlightening Dr. Cleeve. Even walls have earswhere Fu-Manchu is concerned, so I feigned ignorance of the meaning ofthe mark, knowing that he would be almost certain to employ the samemethods upon some other victim. I wanted an opportunity to study theZayat Kiss in operation, and I shall have one."
"But the scented envelopes?"
"In the swampy forests of the district I have referred to a rarespecies of orchid, almost green, and with a peculiar scent, issometimes met with. I recognized the heavy perfume at once. I take itthat the thing which kills the traveler is attracted by this orchid.You will notice that the perfume clings to whatever it touches. Idoubt if it can be washed off in the ordinary way. After at least oneunsuccessful attempt to kill Sir Crichton--you recall that he thoughtthere was something concealed in his study on a previousoccasion?--Fu-Manchu hit upon the perfumed envelopes. He may have asupply of these green orchids in his possession--possibly to feed thecreature."
"What creature? How could any kind of creature have got into SirCrichton's room tonight?"
"You no doubt observed that I examined the grate of the study. I founda fair quantity of fallen soot. I at once assumed, since it appearedto be the only means of entrance, that something has been dropped down;and I took it for granted that the thing, whatever it was, must stillbe concealed either in the study or in the library. But when I hadobtained the evidence of the groom, Wills, I perceived that the cryfrom the lane or from the park was a signal. I noted that themovements of anyone seated at the study table were visible, in shadow,on the blind, and that the study occupied the corner of a two-storiedwing and, therefore, had a short chimney. What did the signal mean?That Sir Crichton had leaped up from his chair, and either had receivedthe Zayat Kiss or had seen the thing which someone on the roof hadlowered down the straight chimney. It was the signal to withdraw thatdeadly thing. By means of the iron stairway at the rear ofMajor-General Platt-Houston's, I quite easily, gained access to theroof above Sir Crichton's study--and I found this."
Out from his pocket Nayland Smith drew a tangled piece of silk, mixedup with which were a brass ring and a number of unusually large-sizedsplit-shot, nipped on in the manner usual on a fishing-line.
"My theory proven," he resumed. "Not anticipating a search on theroof, they had been careless. This was to weight the line and toprevent the creature clinging to the walls of the chimney. Directly ithad dropped in the grate, however, by means of this ring I assume thatthe weighted line was withdrawn, and the thing was only held by oneslender thread, which sufficed, though, to draw it back again when ithad done its work. It might have got tangled, of course, but theyreckoned on its making straight up the carved leg of the writing-tablefor the prepared envelope. From there to the hand of SirCrichton--which, from having touched the envelope, would also bescented with the perfume--was a certain move."
"My God! How horrible!" I exclaimed, and glanced apprehensively intothe dusky shadows of the room. "What is your theory respecting thiscreature--what shape, what color--?"
"It is something that moves rapidly and silently. I will venture nomore at present, but I think it works in the dark. The study was dark,remember, save for the bright patch beneath the reading-lamp. I haveobserved that the rear of this house is ivy-covered right up to andabove your bedroom. Let us make ostentatious preparations to retire,and I think we may rely upon Fu-Manchu's servants to attempt myremoval, at any rate--if not yours."
"But, my dear fellow, it is a climb of thirty-five feet at the veryleast."
"You remember the cry in the back lane? It suggested something to me,and I tested my idea--successfully. It was the cry of a dacoit. Oh,dacoity, though quiescent, is by no means extinct. Fu-Manchu hasdacoits in his train, and probably it is one who operates the ZayatKiss, since it was a dacoit who watched the window of the study thisevening. To such a man an ivy-covered wall is a grand staircase."
The horrible events that followed are punctuated, in my mind, by thestriking of a distant clock. It is singular how trivialities thusassert themselves in moments of high tension. I will proceed, then, bythese punctuations, to the coming of the horror that it was written weshould encounter.
The clock across the common struck two.
Having removed all traces of the scent of the orchid from our handswith a solution of ammonia Smith and I had followed the programme laiddown. It was an easy matter to reach the rear of the house, by simplyclimbing a fence, and we did not doubt that seeing the light go out inthe front, our unseen watcher would proceed to the back.
The room was a large one, and we had made up my camp-bed at one end,stuffing odds and ends under the clothes to lend the appearance of asleeper, which device we also had adopted in the case of the largerbed. The perfumed envelope lay upon a little coffee table in thecenter of the floor, and Smith, with an electric pocket lamp, arevolver, and a brassey beside him, sat on cushions in the shadow ofthe wardrobe. I occupied a post between the windows.
No unusual sound, so far, had disturbed the stillness of the night.Save for the muffled throb of the rare all-night cars passing the frontof the house, our vigil had been a silent one. The full moon hadpainted about the floor weird shadows of the clustering ivy, spreadingthe design gradually from the door, across the room, past the littletable where the envelope lay, and finally to the foot of the bed.
The distant clock struck a quarter-past two.
A slight breeze stirred the ivy, and a new shadow added itself to theextreme edge of the moon's design.
Something
rose, inch by inch, above the sill of the westerly window. Icould see only its shadow, but a sharp, sibilant breath from Smith toldme that he, from his post, could see the cause of the shadow.
Every nerve in my body seemed to be strung tensely. I was icy cold,expectant, and prepared for whatever horror was upon us.
The shadow became stationary. The dacoit was studying the interior ofthe room.
Then it suddenly lengthened, and, craning my head to the left, I saw alithe, black-clad form, surmounted by a Yellow face, sketchy in themoonlight, pressed against the window-panes!
One thin, brown hand appeared over the edge of the lowered sash, whichit grasped--and then another. The man made absolutely no soundwhatever. The second hand disappeared--and reappeared. It held asmall, square box. There was a very faint CLICK.
The dacoit swung himself below the window with the agility of an ape,as, with a dull, muffled thud, SOMETHING dropped upon the carpet!
"Stand still, for your life!" came Smith's voice, high-pitched.
A beam of white leaped out across the room and played full upon thecoffee-table in the center.
Prepared as I was for something horrible, I know that I paled at sightof the thing that was running round the edge of the envelope.
It was an insect, full six inches long, and of a vivid, venomous, redcolor! It had something of the appearance of a great ant, with itslong, quivering antennae and its febrile, horrible vitality; but it wasproportionately longer of body and smaller of head, and had numberlessrapidly moving legs. In short, it was a giant centipede, apparently ofthe scolopendra group, but of a form quite new to me.
These things I realized in one breathless instant; in the next--Smithhad dashed the thing's poisonous life out with one straight, true blowof the golf club!
I leaped to the window and threw it widely open, feeling a silk threadbrush my hand as I did so. A black shape was dropping, with incredibleagility from branch to branch of the ivy, and, without once offering amark for a revolver-shot, it merged into the shadows beneath the treesof the garden. As I turned and switched on the light Nayland Smithdropped limply into a chair, leaning his head upon his hands. Eventhat grim courage had been tried sorely.
"Never mind the dacoit, Petrie," he said. "Nemesis will know where tofind him. We know now what causes the mark of the Zayat Kiss.Therefore science is richer for our first brush with the enemy, and theenemy is poorer--unless he has any more unclassified centipedes. Iunderstand now something that has been puzzling me since I heard ofit--Sir Crichton's stifled cry. When we remember that he was almostpast speech, it is reasonable to suppose that his cry was not 'The redhand!' but 'The red ANT!' Petrie, to think that I failed, by less thanan hour, to save him from such an end!"