The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu Read Free

detected a note of
triumph in his voice. "But stay! Take us through to the back of the
house."
    The man bowed and led the way, so 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 to 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