The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5627]
"It was Fu-Manchu, my kind gentlemen--it was the hakim who is really not a man at all, but an efreet. He found us again less than four days after you had left us, Smith Pasha! . . . He found us in Cairo, and to Karamaneh he made the forgetting of all things--even of me--even of me . . ."
Nayland Smith snapped his teeth together sharply; then:
"What do you mean by that?" he demanded.
For my own part I understood well enough, remembering how the brilliant Chinese doctor once had performed such an operation as this upon poor Inspector Weymouth; how, by means of an injection of some serum prepared (as Karamaneh afterwards told us) from the venom of a swamp adder or similar reptile, he had induced amnesia, or complete loss of memory. I felt every drop of blood recede from my cheeks.
"Smith!" I began . . .
"Let him speak for himself," interrupted my friend sharply.
"They tried to take us both," continued Aziz still speaking in that soft, melodious manner, but with deep seriousness. "I escaped, I, who am swift of foot, hoping to bring help."--He shook his head sadly-- "But, except the All Powerful, who is so powerful as the Hakim Fu-Manchu? I hid, my gentlemen, and watched and waited, one--two-- three weeks. At last I saw her again, my sister, Karamaneh; but ah! she did not know me, did not know me, Aziz her brother! She was in an arabeeyeh, and passed me quickly along the Sharia en-Nahhasin. I ran, and ran, and ran, crying her name, but although she looked back, she did not know me--she did not know me! I felt that I was dying, and presently I fell--upon the steps of the Mosque of Abu."
He dropped the expressive hands wearily to his sides and sank his chin upon his breast.
"And then?" I said, huskily--for my heart was fluttering like a captive bird.
"Alas! from that day to this I see her no more, my gentlemen. I travel, not only in Egypt, but near and far, and still I see her no more until in Rangoon I hear that which brings me to England again"--he extended his palms naively--"and here I am--Smith Pasha."
Smith sprang upright again and turned to me.
"Either I am growing over-credulous," he said, "or Aziz speaks the truth. But"--he held up his hand--"you can tell me all that at some other time, Petrie! We must take no chances. Sergeant Carter is downstairs with the cab; you might ask him to step up. He and Aziz can remain here until our return."
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE SAMURAI'S SWORD
The muffled drumming of sleepless London seemed very remote from us, as side by side we crept up the narrow path to the studio. This was a starry but moonless night, and the little dingy white building with a solitary tree peeping, in silhouette, above the glazed roof, bore an odd resemblance to one of those tombs which form a city of the dead so near to the city of feverish life on the slopes of the Mokattam Hills. This line of reflection proved unpleasant, and I dismissed it sternly from my mind.
The shriek of a train-whistle reached me, a sound which breaks the stillness of the most silent London night, telling of the ceaseless, febrile life of the great world-capital whose activity ceases not with the coming of darkness. Around and about us a very great stillness reigned, however, and the velvet dusk which, with the star-jeweled sky, was strongly suggestive of an Eastern night--gave up no sign to show that it masked the presence of more than twenty men. Some distance away on our right was the Gables, that sinister and deserted mansion which we assumed, and with good reason, to be nothing less than the gateway to the subterranean abode of Dr. Fu-Manchu; before us was the studio, which, if Nayland Smith's deductions were accurate, concealed a second entrance to the same mysterious dwelling.
As my friend, glancing cautiously all about him, inserted the key in the lock, an owl hooted dismally almost immediately above our heads. I caught my breath sharply, for it might be a signal; but,