The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu Read Free Page B

the top.
    The chain of the padlock hung loosely; and in a second Smith was
up, with his foot in this as in a stirrup. He threw his arm over
the top and drew himself upright. A second later he was astride the
broken gate.
    "Up you come, Petrie!" he said, and reached down his hand to aid
me.
    I got my foot into the loop of chain, grasped at a projection in
the gatepost and found myself up.
    "There is a crossbar on this side to stand on," said Smith.
    He climbed over and vanished in the darkness. I was still
astride the broken gate when the car turned the corner, slowly, for
there was scanty room; but I was standing upon the bar on the
inside and had my head below the gap ere the driver could possibly
have seen me.
    "Stay where you are until he passes," hissed my companion,
below. "There is a row of kegs under you."
    The sound of the motor passing outside grew loud—louder—then
began to die away. I felt about with my left foot; discerned the
top of a keg, and dropped, panting, beside Smith.
    "Phew!" I said—"that was a close thing! Smith—how do we
know—"
    "That we have followed the right car?" he interrupted. "Ask
yourself the question: what would any ordinary man be doing
motoring in a place like this at two o'clock in the morning?"
    "You are right, Smith," I agreed. "Shall we get out again?"
    "Not yet. I have an idea. Look yonder."
    He grasped my arm, turning me in the desired direction.
    Beyond a great expanse of unbroken darkness a ray of moonlight
slanted into the place wherein we stood, spilling its cold radiance
upon rows of kegs.
    "That's another door," continued my friend—I now began dimly to
perceive him beside me. "If my calculations are not entirely wrong,
it opens on a wharf gate—"
    A steam siren hooted dismally, apparently from quite close at
hand.
    "I'm right!" snapped Smith. "That turning leads down to the
gate. Come on, Petrie!"
    He directed the light of the electric torch upon a narrow path
through the ranks of casks, and led the way to the further door. A
good two feet of moonlight showed along the top. I heard Smith
straining; then—
    "These kegs are all loaded with grease!" he said, "and I want to
reconnoiter over that door."
    "I am leaning on a crate which seems easy to move," I reported.
"Yes, it's empty. Lend a hand."
    We grasped the empty crate, and between us, set it up on a solid
pedestal of casks. Then Smith mounted to this observation platform
and I scrambled up beside him, and looked down upon the lane
outside.
    It terminated as Smith had foreseen at a wharf gate some six
feet to the right of our post. Piled up in the lane beneath us,
against the warehouse door, was a stack of empty casks. Beyond,
over the way, was a kind of ramshackle building that had possibly
been a dwelling-house at some time. Bills were stuck in the
ground-floor window indicating that the three floors were to let as
offices; so much was discernible in that reflected moonlight.
    I could hear the tide, lapping upon the wharf, could feel the
chill from the river and hear the vague noises which, night nor
day, never cease upon the great commercial waterway.
    "Down!" whispered Smith. "Make no noise! I suspected it. They
heard the car following!"
    I obeyed, clutching at him for support; for I was suddenly
dizzy, and my heart was leaping wildly—furiously.
    "You saw her?" he whispered.
    Saw her! yes, I had seen her! And my poor dream-world was
toppling about me, its cities, ashes and its fairness, dust.
    Peering from the window, her great eyes wondrous in the
moonlight and her red lips parted, hair gleaming like burnished
foam and her anxious gaze set upon the corner of the lane—was
Karamaneh… Karamaneh whom once we had rescued from the house of
this fiendish Chinese doctor; Karamaneh who had been our ally; in
fruitless quest of whom,—when, too late, I realized how empty my
life was become—I had wasted what little of the world's goods I
possessed;—Karamaneh!
    "Poor old Petrie," murmured Smith—"I knew, but I