The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu | Page 3

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The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER I
"A GENTLEMAN to see you, Doctor."
From across the common a clock sounded the half-hour.
"Ten-thirty!" I said. "A late visitor. Show him up, if you please."
I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lamp-shade, as footsteps
sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet, for
a tall, lean man, with his square-cut, clean-shaven face sun-baked to the
hue of coffee, entered and extended both hands, with a cry:
"Good old Petrie! Didn't expect me, I'll swear!"
It was Nayland Smith--whom I had thought to be in Burma!
"Smith," I said, and gripped his hands hard, "this is a delightful surprise!
Whatever--however--"
"Excuse me, Petrie!" he broke in. "Don't put it down to the sun!" And
he put out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.
I was too surprised to speak.
"No doubt you will think me mad," he continued, and, dimly, I could
see him at the window, peering out into the road, "but before you are

many hours older you will know that I have good reason to be cautious.
Ah, nothing suspicious! Perhaps I am first this time." And, stepping
back to the writing-table he relighted the lamp.
"Mysterious enough for you?" he laughed, and glanced at my
unfinished MS. "A story, eh? From which I gather that the district is
beastly healthy-- what, Petrie? Well, I can put some material in your
way that, if sheer uncanny mystery is a marketable commodity, ought
to make you independent of influenza and broken legs and shattered
nerves and all the rest."
I surveyed him doubtfully, but there was nothing in his appearance to
justify me in supposing him to suffer from delusions. His eyes were too
bright, certainly, and a hardness now had crept over his face. I got out
the whisky and siphon, saying:
"You have taken your leave early?"
"I am not on leave," he replied, and slowly filled his pipe. "I am on
duty."
"On duty!" I exclaimed. "What, are you moved to London or
something?"
"I have got a roving commission, Petrie, and it doesn't rest with me
where I am to-day nor where I shall be to-morrow."
There was something ominous in the words, and, putting down my
glass, its contents untasted, I faced round and looked him squarely in
the eyes. "Out with it!" I said. "What is it all about?"
Smith suddenly stood up and stripped off his coat. Rolling back his left
shirt-sleeve he revealed a wicked-looking wound in the fleshy part of
the forearm. It was quite healed, but curiously striated for an inch or so
around.
"Ever seen one like it?" he asked.

"Not exactly," I confessed. "It appears to have been deeply cauterized."