The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu | Page 7

that shortly we found ourselves in

a small, paved courtyard. It was a perfect summer's night, and the deep
blue vault above was jeweled with myriads of starry points. How
impossible it seemed to reconcile that vast, eternal calm with the
hideous passions and fiendish agencies which that night had loosed a
soul upon the infinite.
"Up yonder are the study windows, sir. Over that wall on your left is
the back lane from which the cry came, and beyond is Regent's Park."
"Are the study windows visible from there?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Who occupies the adjoining house?"
"Major-General Platt-Houston, sir; but the family is out of town."
"Those iron stairs are a means of communication between the domestic
offices and the servants' quarters, I take it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then send someone to make my business known the Major-General's
housekeeper; I want to examine those stairs."
Singular though my friend's proceedings appeared to me, I had ceased
to wonder at anything. Since Nayland Smith's arrival at my rooms I
seemed to have been moving through the fitful phases of a nightmare.
My friend's account of how he came by the wound in his arm; the scene
on our arrival at the house of Sir Crichton Davey; the secretary's story
of the dying man's cry, "The red hand!"; the hidden perils of the study;
the wail in the lane-- all were fitter incidents of delirium than of sane
reality. So, when a white-faced butler made us known to a nervous old
lady who proved to be the housekeeper of the next-door residence, I
was not surprised at Smith's saying:
"Lounge up and down outside, Petrie. Everyone has cleared off now. It
is getting late. Keep your eyes open and be on your guard. I thought I

had the start, but he is here before me, and, what is worse, he probably
knows by now that I am here, too."
With which he entered the house and left me out in the square, with
leisure to think, to try to understand.
The crowd which usually haunts the scene of a sensational crime had
been cleared away, and it had been circulated that Sir Crichton had died
from natural causes. The intense heat having driven most of the
residents out of town, practically I had the square to myself, and I gave
myself up to a brief consideration of the mystery in which I so
suddenly had found myself involved.
By what agency had Sir Crichton met his death? Did Nayland Smith
know? I rather suspected that he did. What was the hidden significance
of the perfumed envelope? Who was that mysterious personage whom
Smith so evidently dreaded, who had attempted his life, who,
presumably, had murdered Sir Crichton? Sir Crichton Davey, during
the time that he had held office in India, and during his long term of
service at home, had earned the good will of all, British and native
alike. Who was his secret enemy?
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.
"I cannot say that he has been murdered," I replied, acting upon the
latter supposition, and seeking to tell her what she asked as gently as
possible.
"But he is--Dead?"
I nodded.
She closed her eyes and uttered a low, moaning sound, swaying dizzily.
Thinking she was about to swoon, I threw my arm round her shoulder
to support her, but