For having limned in the colors at my command the fiendish Chinese doctor, I am unable to conclude my task as I should desire, unable, with any consciousness of finality, to write Finis to the end of my narrative.
It seems to me sometimes that my pen is but temporarily idle—that I have but dealt with a single phase of a movement having a hundred phases.
One sequel I hope for, and against all the promptings of logic and Western bias.
If my hope shall be realized I cannot, at this time, pretend to state.
The future, 'mid its many secrets, holds this precious one from me.
I ask you then, to absolve me from the charge of ill completing my work; for any curiosity with which this narrative may leave the reader burdened is shared by the writer.
With intent, I have rushed you from the chambers of Professor Jenner Monde to that closing episode at the deserted cottage; I have made the pace hot in order to impart to these last pages of my account something of the breathless scurry which characterized those happenings.
My canvas may seem sketchy: it is my impression of the reality.
No hard details remain in my mind of the dealings of that night.
Fu-Manchu arrested—Fu-Manchu, manacled, entering the cottage on his mission of healing; Weymouth, miraculously rendered sane, coming forth; the place in flames.
And then?
To a shell the cottage burned, with an incredible rapidity which pointed to some hidden agency; to a shell about ashes which held NO TRACE OF HUMAN BONES!
It has been asked of me: Was there no possibility of Fu-Manchu's having eluded us in the ensuing confusion?
Was there no loophole of escape?
I reply, that so far as I was able to judge, a rat could scarce have quitted the building undetected.
Yet that Fu-Manchu had, in some incomprehensible manner and by some mysterious agency, produced those abnormal flames, I cannot doubt.
Did he voluntarily ignite his own funeral pyre?
As I write, there lies before me a soiled and creased sheet of vellum. It bears some lines traced in a cramped, peculiar, and all but illegible hand.
This fragment was found by Inspector Weymouth (to this day a man mentally sound) in a pocket of his ragged garments.
When it was written I leave you to judge.
How it came to be where Weymouth found it calls for no explanation:
"To Mr. Commissioner NAYLAND SMITH and Dr. PETRIE—
"Greeting!
I am recalled home by One who may not be denied.
In much that I came to do I have failed.
Much that I have done I would undo; some little I have undone.
Out of fire I came—the smoldering fire of a thing one day to be a consuming flame; in fire I go.
Seek not my ashes.
I am the lord of the fires!
Farewell.
"FU-MANCHU."
Who has been with me in my several meetings with the man who penned that message I leave to adjudge if it be the letter of a madman bent upon self-destruction by strange means, or the gibe of a preternaturally clever scientist and the most elusive being ever born of the land of mystery—China.
For the present, I can aid you no more in the forming of your verdict.
A day may come though I pray it do not—when I shall be able to throw new light upon much that is dark in this matter.
That day, so far as I can judge, could only dawn in the event of the Chinaman's survival; therefore I pray that the veil be never lifted.
But, as I have said, there is another sequel to this story which I can contemplate with a different countenance.
How, then, shall I conclude this very unsatisfactory account?
Shall I tell you, finally, of my parting with lovely, dark-eyed Karamaneh, on board the liner which was to bear her to Egypt?
No, let me, instead, conclude with the words of Nayland Smith:
"I sail for Burma in a fortnight, Petrie.
I have leave to break my journey at the Ditch.
How would a run up the Nile fit your programme?
Bit early for the season, but you might find something to amuse you!"