CHAPTER XX
THE CROSSBAR
How long I lay there alone I had no means of computing. My mind was
busy with many matters, but principally concerned with my fate in the
immediate future. That Dr. Fu-Manchu entertained for me a singular
kind of regard, I had had evidence before. He had formed the erroneous
opinion that I was an advanced scientist who could be of use to him in
his experiments, and I was aware that he cherished a project of
transporting me to some place in China where his principal laboratory
was situated. Respecting the means which he proposed to employ, I was
unlikely to forget that this man, who had penetrated further along
certain byways of science than seemed humanly possible, undoubtedly
was master of a process for producing artificial catalepsy. It was my
lot, then, to be packed in a chest (to all intents and purposes a dead
man for the time being) and dispatched to the interior of China!
What a fool I had been. To think that I had learnt nothing from my
long and dreadful experience of the methods of Dr. Fu-Manchu; to think
that I had come alone in quest of him; that, leaving no trace behind
me, I had deliberately penetrated to his secret abode!
I have said that my wrists were manacled behind me, the manacles being
attached to a chain fastened in the wall. I now contrived, with
extreme difficulty, to reverse the position of my hands; that is to
say, I climbed backward through the loop formed by my fettered arms,
so that instead of the gyves being behind me, they now were in front.
Then I began to examine them, learning, as I had anticipated, that
they fastened with a lock. I sat gazing at the steel bracelets in the
light of the lamp which swung over my head, and it became apparent to
me that I had gained little by my contortion.
A slight noise disturbed these unpleasant reveries. It was nothing
less than the rattling of keys!
For a moment I wondered if I had heard aright, or if the sound
portended the coming of some servant of the Doctor who was locking up
the establishment for the night. The jangling sound was repeated, and
in such a way that I could not suppose it to be accidental. Some one
was deliberately rattling a small bunch of keys in an adjoining room.
And now my heart leapt wildly—then seemed to stand still.
With a low whistling cry a little grey shape shot through the doorway
by which Fu-Manchu had retired, and rolled like a ball of fluff blown
by the wind, completely under the table which bore the weird
scientific appliances of the Chinaman; the advent of the grey object
was accompanied by a further rattling of keys.
My fear left me, and a mighty anxiety took its place. This creature
which now crouched chattering at me from beneath the big table was
Fu-Manchu's marmoset, and in the intervals of its chatterings and
grimacing, it nibbled, speculatively, at the keys upon the ring which
it clutched in its tiny hands. Key after key it sampled in this
manner, evincing a growing dissatisfaction with the uncrackable nature
of its find.
One of those keys might be that of the handcuffs!
I could not believe that the tortures of Tantalus were greater than
were mine at this moment. In all my hopes of rescue or release, I had
included nothing so strange, so improbable as this. A sort of awe
possessed me; for if by this means the key which should release me
should come into my possession, how ever again could I doubt a
beneficent Providence?
But they were not yet in my possession; moreover, the key of the
handcuffs might not be amongst the bunch.
Were there no means whereby I could induce the marmoset to approach
me?
Whilst I racked my brains for some scheme, the little animal took the
matter out of my hands. Tossing the ring with its jangling contents a
yard or so across the carpet in my direction, it leapt in pursuit,
picked up the ring, whirled it over its head, and then threw a
complete somersault around it. Now it snatched up the keys again, and
holding them close to its ear, rattled them furiously. Finally, with
an incredible spring, it leapt on to the chain supporting the lamp
above my head, and with the garish shade swinging and spinning wildly,
clung there looking down at me like an acrobat on a trapeze. The tiny,
bluish face, completely framed in grotesque whiskers, enhanced the
illusion of an acrobatic comedian. Never for a moment did it release
its hold upon the key-ring.
My suspense now was almost intolerable. I feared to move, lest,
alarming the marmoset, it should run off again, taking the keys with
it. So as I lay there, looking up at the little creature swinging
above me, the second wonder of the night came to pass.
A voice that I could never forget, strive how I would, a voice that
haunted my dreams by night, and for which by day I was ever listening,
cried out from some adjoining room:
"Ta'ala hina!" it called. "Ta'ala hina, Peko!"
It was Kâramanèh!
The effect upon the marmoset was instantaneous. Down came the bunch of
keys upon one side of the shade, almost falling on my head, and down
leapt the ape upon the other. In two leaps it had traversed the room
and had vanished through the curtained doorway.
If ever I had need of coolness it was now; the slightest mistake would
be fatal! The keys had slipped from the mattress of the divan, and now
lay just beyond reach of my fingers. Rapidly I changed my position,
and sought, without undue noise, to move the keys with my foot.
I had actually succeeded in sliding them back on to the mattress,
when, unheralded by any audible footstep, Kâramanèh came through the
doorway, holding the marmoset in her arms. She wore a dress of fragile
muslin material, and out from its folds protruded one silk-stockinged
foot, resting in a high-heeled red shoe....
For a moment she stood watching me, with a sort of enforced composure;
then her glance strayed to the keys lying upon the floor. Slowly, and
with her eyes fixed again upon my face, she crossed the room, stooped,
and took up the key-ring.
It was one of the poignant moments of my life; for by that simple act
all my hopes had been shattered!
Any poor lingering doubt that I may have had left me now. Had the
slightest spark of friendship animated the bosom of Kâramanèh, most
certainly she would have overlooked the presence of the keys—of the
keys which represented my one hope of escape from the clutches of the
fiendish Chinaman.
There is a silence more eloquent than words. For half a minute or
more, Kâramanèh stood watching me—forcing herself to watch me—and I
looked up at her with a concentrated gaze in which rage and reproach
must have been strangely mingled.
What eyes she had!—of that blackly lustrous sort nearly always
associated with unusually dark complexions; but Kâramanèh's complexion
was peachlike, or rather of an exquisite and delicate fairness which
reminded me of the petal of a rose. By some I have been accused of
romancing about this girl's beauty, but only by those who had not met
her; for indeed she was astonishingly lovely.
At last her eyes fell, the long lashes drooped upon her cheeks. She
turned and walked slowly to the chair wherein Fu-Manchu had sat.
Placing the keys upon the table amid the scientific litter, she rested
one dimpled elbow upon the yellow page of the book, and with her chin
in her palm, again directed upon me that enigmatical gaze.
I dared not think of the past, of the past in which this beautiful,
treacherous girl had played a part; yet, watching her, I could not
believe, even now, that she was false! My state was truly a pitiable
one; I could have cried out in sheer anguish. With her long lashes
partly lowered, she watched me awhile, then spoke; and her voice was
music which seemed to mock me; every inflection of that elusive accent
reopened, lancet-like, the ancient wound.
"Why do you look at me so?" she said, almost in a whisper. "By what
right do you reproach me?—Have you ever offered me friendship, that I
should repay you with friendship? When first you came to the house
where I was, by the river—came to save some one from" (there was the
familiar hesitation which always preceded the name of Fu-Manchu)
"from—him, you treated me as your enemy, although—I would have
been your friend...."
There was appeal in the soft voice, but I laughed mockingly, and threw
myself back upon the divan. Kâramanèh stretched out her hands toward
me, and I shall never forget the expression which flashed into those
glorious eyes; but, seeing me intolerant of her appeal, she drew back
and quickly turned her head aside. Even in this hour of extremity, of
impotent wrath, I could find no contempt in my heart for her feeble
hypocrisy; with all the old wonder I watched that exquisite profile,
and Kâramanèh's very deceitfulness was a salve—for had she not cared
she would not have attempted it!
Suddenly she stood up, taking the keys in her hands, and approached
me.
"Not by word, nor by look," she said quietly, "have you asked for my
friendship, but because I cannot bear you to think of me as you do, I
will prove that I am not the hypocrite and the liar you think me. You
will not trust me, but I will trust you."
I looked up into her eyes, and knew a pagan joy when they faltered
before my searching gaze. She threw herself upon her knees beside me,
and the faint exquisite perfume inseparable from my memories of her,
became perceptible, and seemed as of old to Intoxicate me. The lock
clicked ... and I was free.
Kâramanèh rose swiftly to her feet as I stood up and outstretched my
cramped arms. For one delirious moment her bewitching face was close
to mine, and the dictates of madness almost ruled; but I clenched my
teeth and turned sharply aside. I could not trust myself to speak.
With Fu-Manchu's marmoset again gambolling before us, we walked
through the curtained doorway into the room beyond. It was in
darkness, but I could see the slave-girl in front of me, a slim
silhouette, as she walked to a screened window, and, opening the
screen in the manner of a folding door, also threw up the window.
"Look!" she whispered.
I crept forward and stood beside her. I found myself looking down into
the Museum Street from a first-floor window! Belated traffic still
passed along New Oxford Street on the left, but not a solitary figure
was visible to the right, as far as I could see, and that was nearly
to the railings of the Museum. Immediately opposite, in one of the
flats which I had noticed earlier in the evening, another window was
opened. I turned, and in the reflected light saw that Kâramanèh held a
cord in her hand. Our glances met in the semi-darkness.
She began to haul the cord into the window, and, looking upward, I
perceived that it was looped in some way over the telegraph cables
which crossed the street at that point. It was a slender cord, and it
appeared to be passed across a joint in the cables almost immediately
above the centre of the roadway. As it was hauled in, a second and
stronger line attached to it was pulled, in turn, over the cables, and
thence in by the window. Kâramanèh twisted a length of it around a
metal bracket fastened in the wall, and placed a light wooden crossbar
in my hand.
"Make sure that there is no one in the street," she said, craning out
and looking to right and left, "then swing across. The length of the
rope is just sufficient to enable you to swing through the open window
opposite, and there is a mattress inside to drop upon. But release the
bar immediately, or you may be dragged back. The door of the room in
which you will find yourself is unlocked, and you have only to walk
down the stairs and out into the street."
I peered at the crossbar in my hand, then looked hard at the girl
beside me. I missed something of the old fire of her nature; she was
very subdued, to-night.
"Thank you, Kâramanèh," I said softly.
She suppressed a little cry as I spoke her name, and drew back into
the shadows.
"I believe you are my friend," I said, "but I cannot understand. Won't
you help me to understand?"
I took her unresisting hand, and drew her toward me. My very soul
seemed to thrill at the contact of her lithe body....
She was trembling wildly and seemed to be trying to speak, but
although her lips framed the words no sound followed. Suddenly
comprehension came to me. I looked down into the street, hitherto
deserted ... and into the upturned face of Fu-Manchu!
Wearing a heavy fur-collared coat, and with his yellow, malignant
countenance grotesquely horrible beneath the shadow of a large tweed
motor cap, he stood motionless, looking up at me. That he had seen me,
I could not doubt; but had he seen my companion?
In a choking whisper Kâramanèh answered my unspoken question.
"He has not seen me! I have done much for you; do in return a small
thing for me! Save my life!"
She dragged me back from the window and fled across the room to the
weird laboratory where I had lain captive. Throwing herself upon the
divan, she held out her white wrists and glanced significantly at the
manacles.
"Lock them upon me!" she said rapidly. "Quick! quick!"
Great as was my mental disturbance, I managed to grasp the purpose of
this device. The very extremity of my danger found me cool. I fastened
the manacles, which so recently had confined my own wrists, upon the
slim wrists of Kâramanèh. A faint and muffled disturbance, doubly
ominous because there was nothing to proclaim its nature, reached me
from some place below, on the ground floor.
"Tie something around my mouth!" directed Kâramanèh with nervous
rapidity. As I began to look about me: "Tear a strip from my dress,"
she said; "do not hesitate—be quick! be quick!"
I seized the flimsy muslin and tore off half a yard or so from the hem
of the skirt. The voice of Dr. Fu-Manchu became audible. He was
speaking rapidly, sibilantly, and evidently was approaching—would be
upon me in a matter of moments. I fastened the strip of fabric over
the girl's mouth and tied it behind, experiencing a pang half
pleasurable and half fearful as I found my hands in contact with the
foamy luxuriance of her hair.
Dr. Fu-Manchu was entering the room immediately beyond.
Snatching up the bunch of keys, I turned and ran, for in another
instant my retreat would be cut off. As I burst once more into the
darkened room I became aware that a door on the farther side of it was
open; and framed in the opening was the tall high-shouldered figure of
the Chinaman, still enveloped in his fur coat and wearing the
grotesque cap. As I saw him, so he perceived me; and as I sprang to
the window, he advanced.
I turned desperately and hurled the bunch of keys with all my force
into the dimly seen face....
Either because they possessed a chatoyant quality of their own (as I
had often suspected), or by reason of the light reflected through the
open window, the green eyes gleamed upon me vividly like those of a
giant cat. One short guttural exclamation paid tribute to the accuracy
of my aim; then I had the crossbar in my hand.
I threw one leg across the sill, and dire as was my extremity,
hesitated for an instant ere trusting myself to the flight....
A vice-like grip fastened upon my left ankle.
Hazily I became aware that the dark room was become flooded with
figures. The whole yellow gang were upon me—the entire murder-group
composed of units recruited from the darkest places of the East!
I have never counted myself a man of resource, and have always envied
Nayland Smith his possession of that quality, in him extraordinarily
developed; but on this occasion the gods were kind to me, and I
resorted to the only device, perhaps, which could have saved me.
Without releasing my hold upon the crossbar, I clutched at the ledge
with the fingers of both hands and swung back, into the room, my
right leg, which was already across the sill. With all my strength I
kicked out. My heel came in contact, in sickening contact, with a
human head; beyond doubt I had split the skull of the man who held me.
The grip upon my ankle was released automatically; and now consigning
all my weight to the rope, I slipped forward, as a diver, across the
broad ledge and found myself sweeping through the night like a winged
thing....
The line, as Kâramanèh had assured me, was of well-judged length. Down
I swept to within six or seven feet of the street level, then up, up,
at ever-decreasing speed, toward the vague oblong of the open window
beyond.
I hope I have been successful, in some measure, in portraying the
varied emotions which it was my lot to experience that night, and it
may well seem that nothing more exquisite could remain for me. Yet it
was written otherwise; for as I swept up to my goal, describing the
inevitable arc which I had no power to check, I saw that one awaited
me.
Crouching forward half out of the open window was a Burmese dacoit, a
cross-eyed, leering being whom I well remembered to have encountered
two years before in my dealings with Dr. Fu-Manchu. One bare, sinewy
arm held rigidly at right angles before his breast, he clutched a long
curved knife and waited—waited—for the critical moment when my
throat should be at his mercy!
I have said that a strange coolness had come to my aid; even now it
did not fail me, and so incalculably rapid are the workings of the
human mind that I remembered complimenting myself upon an achievement
which Smith himself could not have bettered, and this in the
immeasurable interval which intervened between the commencement of my
upward swing and my arrival on a level with the window.
I threw my body back and thrust my feet forward. As my legs went
through the opening, an acute pain in one calf told me that I was not
to escape scathless from the night's mêlée. But the dacoit went
rolling over in the darkness of the room, as helpless in face of that
ramrod stroke as the veriest infant....
Back I swept upon my trapeze, a sight to have induced any passing
citizen to question his sanity. With might and main I sought to check
the swing of the pendulum, for if I should come within reach of the
window behind I doubted not that other knives awaited me. It was no
difficult feat, and I succeeded in checking my flight. Swinging there
above Museum Street I could even appreciate, so lucid was my mind, the
ludicrous element of the situation.
I dropped. My wounded leg almost failed me; and greatly shaken, but
with no other serious damage, I picked myself up from the dust of the
roadway—to see the bar vanishing into the darkness above. It was a
mockery of Fate that the problem which Nayland Smith had set me to
solve should have been solved thus: for I could not doubt that by
means of the branch of a tall tree or some other suitable object
situated opposite to Smith's house in Rangoon, Kâramanèh had made her
escape as to-night I had made mine.
Apart from the acute pain in my calf I knew that the dacoit's knife
had bitten deeply by reason of the fact that a warm liquid was
trickling down into my boot. Like any drunkard I stood there in the
middle of the road looking up at the vacant window where the dacoit
had been, and up at the window above the shop of J. Salaman where I
knew Fu-Manchu to be. But for some reason the latter window had been
closed or almost closed, and as I stood there this reason became
apparent to me.
The sound of running footsteps came from the direction of New Oxford
Street. I turned—to see two policemen bearing down upon me!
This was a time for quick decisions and prompt action. I weighed all
the circumstances in the balance, and made the last vital choice of
the night; I turned and ran toward the British Museum as though the
worst of Fu-Manchu's creatures, and not my allies the police, were at
my heels!
No one else was in sight, but, as I whirled into the Square, the red
lamp of a slowly retreating taxi became visible some hundred yards to
the left. My leg was paining me greatly, but the nature of the wound
did not interfere with my progress; therefore I continued my headlong
career, and ere the police had reached the end of Museum Street I had
my hand upon the door handle of the cab—for, the Fates being
persistently kind to me, the vehicle was for hire.
"Dr. Cleeve's, Harley Street!" I shouted at the man. "Drive like hell!
It's an urgent case."
I leapt into the cab.
Within five seconds from the time that I slammed the door and dropped
back panting upon the cushions, we were speeding westward toward the
house of the famous pathologist, thereby throwing the police
hopelessly off the track.
Faintly to my ears came the purr of a police whistle. The taxi-man
evidently did not hear the significant sound. Merciful Providence had
rung down the curtain; for to-night my rôle in the yellow drama was
finished.