Our man is a second-class passenger.
I am wiring to delay her departure, and the special should get us to the docks inside of forty minutes."
Very vividly I can reconstruct in my mind that dash to the docks through the early autumn morning.
My friend being invested with extraordinary powers from the highest authorities, by Inspector Weymouth's instructions the line had been cleared all the way.
Something of the tremendous importance of Nayland Smith's mission came home to me as we hurried on to the platform, escorted by the station-master, and the five of us—for Weymouth had two other C.I.D. men with him—took our seats in the special.
Off we went on top speed, roaring through stations, where a glimpse might be had of wondering officials upon the platforms, for a special train was a novelty on the line.
All ordinary traffic arrangements were held up until we had passed through, and we reached Tilbury in time which I doubt not constituted a record.
There at the docks was the great liner, delayed in her passage to the Far East by the will of my royally empowered companion.
It was novel, and infinitely exciting.
"Mr. Commissioner Nayland Smith?" said the captain interrogatively, when we were shown into his room, and looked from one to another and back to the telegraph form which he held in his hand.
"The same, Captain," said my friend briskly.
"I shall not detain you a moment.
I am instructing the authorities at all ports east of Suez to apprehend one of your second-class passengers, should he leave the ship.
He is in possession of plans which practically belong to the British Government!"
"Why not arrest him now?" asked the seaman bluntly.
"Because I don't know him.
All second-class passengers' baggage will be searched as they land.
I am hoping something from that, if all else fails.
But I want you privately to instruct your stewards to watch any passenger of Oriental nationality, and to cooperate with the two Scotland Yard men who are joining you for the voyage.
I look to you to recover these plans, Captain."
"I will do my best," the captain assured him.
Then, from amid the heterogeneous group on the dockside, we were watching the liner depart, and Nayland Smith's expression was a very singular one.
Inspector Weymouth stood with us, a badly puzzled man.
Then occurred the extraordinary incident which to this day remains inexplicable, for, clearly heard by all three of us, a guttural voice said:
"Another victory for China, Mr. Nayland Smith!"
I turned as though I had been stung.
Smith turned also.
My eyes passed from face to face of the group about us.
None was familiar.
No one apparently had moved away.
But the voice was the voice of DOCTOR FU-MANCHU.
As I write of it, now, I can appreciate the difference between that happening, as it appealed to us, and as it must appeal to you who merely read of it.
It is beyond my powers to convey the sense of the uncanny which the episode created.
Yet, even as I think of it, I feel again, though in lesser degree, the chill which seemed to creep through my veins that day.
From my brief history of the wonderful and evil man who once walked, by the way unsuspected, in the midst of the people of England—near whom you, personally, may at some time unwittingly, have been—I am aware that much must be omitted.
I have no space for lengthy examinations of the many points but ill illuminated with which it is dotted.
This incident at the docks is but one such point.
Another is the singular vision which appeared to me whilst I lay in the cellar of the house near Windsor.
It has since struck me that it possessed peculiarities akin to those of a hashish hallucination.
Can it be that we were drugged on that occasion with Indian hemp?
Cannabis indica is a treacherous narcotic, as every medical man knows full well; but Fu-Manchu's knowledge of the drug was far in advance of our slow science.
West's experience proved so much.
I may have neglected opportunities—later, you shall judge if I did so—opportunities to glean for the West some of the strange knowledge of the secret East.
Perhaps, at a future time, I may rectify my errors.
Perhaps that wisdom—the wisdom stored up by Fu-Manchu—is lost forever.
There is, however, at least a bare possibility of its survival, in part; and I do not wholly despair of one day publishing a scientific sequel to this record of our dealings with the Chinese doctor.
CHAPTER XXI
TIME wore on and seemingly brought us no nearer, or very little nearer, to our goal.
So carefully had my friend Nayland Smith excluded the matter from the press that, whilst public interest was much engaged with some of the events in the skein of mystery which he had come from Burma to unravel, outside the Secret Service and the special department of Scotland Yard few people recognized that the several murders, robberies and disappearances formed each a link in a chain; fewer still were aware that a baneful presence was in our midst, that a past master of the evil arts lay concealed somewhere in the metropolis; searched for by the keenest wits which the authorities could direct to the task, but eluding all—triumphant, contemptuous.
One link in that chain Smith himself for long failed to recognize. Yet it was a big and important link.