The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu Read Free Page B

noticed
nothing. Pull up the window on your side, Petrie, and look out
behind. Good! We've started."
    The cab moved off with a metallic jerk, and I turned and looked
back through the little window in the rear.
    "Someone has got into another cab. It is following ours, I
think."
    Nayland Smith lay back and laughed unmirthfully.
    "Petrie," he said, "if I escape alive from this business I shall
know that I bear a charmed life."
    I made no reply, as he pulled out the dilapidated pouch and
filled his pipe.
    "You have asked me to explain matters," he continued, "and I
will do so to the best of my ability. You no doubt wonder why a
servant of the British Government, lately stationed in Burma,
suddenly appears in London, in the character of a detective. I am
here, Petrie-and I bear credentials from the very highest
sources-because, quite by accident, I came upon a clew. Following
it up, in the ordinary course of routine, I obtained evidence of
the existence and malignant activity of a certain man. At the
present stage of the case I should not be justified in terming him
the emissary of an Eastern Power, but I may say that
representations are shortly to be made to that Power's ambassador
in London."
    He paused and glanced back towards the pursuing cab.
    "There is little to fear until we arrive home," he said calmly.
"Afterwards there is much. To continue: This man, whether a fanatic
or a duly appointed agent, is, unquestionably, the most malign and
formidable personality existing in the known world today. He is a
linguist who speaks with almost equal facility in any of the
civilized languages, and in most of the barbaric. He is an adept in
all the arts and sciences which a great university could teach him.
He also is an adept in certain obscure arts and sciences which no
university of to-day can teach. He has the brains of any three men
of genius. Petrie, he is a mental giant."
    "You amaze me!" I said.
    "As to his mission among men. Why did M. Jules Furneaux fall
dead in a Paris opera house? Because of heart failure? No! Because
his last speech had shown that he held the key to the secret of
Tongking. What became of the Grand Duke Stanislaus? Elopement?
Suicide? Nothing of the kind. He alone was fully alive to Russia's
growing peril. He alone knew the truth about Mongolia. Why was Sir
Crichton Davey murdered? Because, had the work he was engaged upon
ever seen the light it would have shown him to be the only living
Englishman who understood the importance of the Tibetan frontiers.
I say to you solemnly, Petrie, that these are but a few. Is there a
man who would arouse the West to a sense of the awakening of the
East, who would teach the deaf to hear, the blind to see, that the
millions only await their leader? He will die. And this is only one
phase of the devilish campaign. The others I can merely
surmise."
    "But, Smith, this is almost incredible! What perverted genius
controls this awful secret movement?"
    "Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with
a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven
skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him
with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated
in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and
present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy
government-which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his
existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture
of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."
     

Chapter 3
     
    I sank into an arm-chair in my rooms and gulped down a strong
peg of brandy.
    "We have been followed here," I said. "Why did you make no
attempt to throw the pursuers off the track, to have them
intercepted?"
    Smith laughed.
    "Useless, in the first place. Wherever we went, HE would find
us. And of what use to arrest his creatures? We could prove nothing
against them. Further, it is evident that an attempt is to be made
upon my life to-night-and by