The Hand of Fu-Manchu | Page 6

I returned to find Nayland Smith standing tugging at the lobe of his left ear in evident
perplexity. He turned to me.
"I find my hands over full," he said. "Will you oblige me by telephoning for Inspector
Weymouth? Also, I should be glad if you would ask M. Samarkan, the manager, to see
me here immediately."
As I was about to quit the room--
"Not a word of our suspicions to M. Samarkan," he added; "not a word about the brass
box."
I was far along the corridor ere I remembered that which, remembered earlier, had saved
me the journey. There was a telephone in every suite. However, I was not indisposed to
avail myself of an opportunity for a few moments' undisturbed reflection, and, avoiding
the lift, I descended by the broad, marble staircase.
To what strange adventure were we committed? What did the brass coffer contain which
Sir Gregory had guarded night and day? Something associated in some way with Tibet,
something which he believed to be "the key of India" and which had brought in its train,
presumably, the sinister "man with a limp."
Who was the "man with the limp"? What was the Si-Fan? Lastly, by what conceivable
means could the flower, which my friend evidently regarded with extreme horror, have
been introduced into Hale's room, and why had I been required to pronounce the words
"Sâkya Mûni"?
So ran my reflections--at random and to no clear end; and, as is often the case in such
circumstances, my steps bore them company; so that all at once I became aware that
instead of having gained the lobby of the hotel, I had taken some wrong turning and was
in a part of the building entirely unfamiliar to me.
A long corridor of the inevitable white marble extended far behind me. I had evidently
traversed it. Before me was a heavily curtained archway. Irritably, I pulled the curtain
aside, learnt that it masked a glass-paneled door, opened this door--and found myself in a
small court, dimly lighted and redolent of some pungent, incense-like perfume.
One step forward I took, then pulled up abruptly. A sound had come to my ears. From a
second curtained doorway, close to my right hand, it came--a sound of muffled tapping,
together with that of something which dragged upon the floor.
Within my brain the words seemed audibly to form: "The man with the limp!"
I sprang to the door; I had my hand upon the drapery ... when a woman stepped out,

barring the way!
No impression, not even a vague one, did I form of her costume, save that she wore a
green silk shawl, embroidered with raised white figures of birds, thrown over her head
and shoulders and draped in such fashion that part of her face was concealed. I was
transfixed by the vindictive glare of her eyes, of her huge dark eyes.
They were ablaze with anger--but it was not this expression within them which struck me
so forcibly as the fact that they were in some way familiar.
Motionless, we faced one another. Then--
"You go away," said the woman--at the same time extending her arms across the
doorway as barriers to my progress.
Her voice had a husky intonation; her hands and arms, which were bare and of old ivory
hue, were laden with barbaric jewelry, much of it tawdry silverware of the bazaars.
Clearly she was a half-caste of some kind, probably a Eurasian.
I hesitated. The sounds of dragging and tapping had ceased. But the presence of this
grotesque Oriental figure only increased my anxiety to pass the doorway. I looked
steadily into the black eyes; they looked into mine unflinchingly.
"You go away, please," repeated the woman, raising her right hand and pointing to the
door whereby I had entered. "These private rooms. What you doing here?"
Her words, despite her broken English, served to recall to me the fact that I was, beyond
doubt, a trespasser! By what right did I presume to force my way into other people's
apartments?
"There is some one in there whom I must see," I said, realizing, however, that my chance
of doing so was poor.
"You see nobody," she snapped back uncompromisingly. "You go away!"
She took a step towards me, continuing to point to the door. Where had I previously
encountered the glance of those splendid, savage eyes?
So engaged was I with this taunting, partial memory, and so sure, if the woman would but
uncover her face, of instantly recognizing her, that still I hesitated. Whereupon, glancing
rapidly over her shoulder into whatever place lay beyond the curtained doorway, she
suddenly stepped back and vanished, drawing the curtains to with an angry jerk.
I heard her retiring footsteps; then came a loud