The millions might sleep in peace—the millions in whose cause we labored!—but we who knew the reality of the danger knew that a veritable octopus had fastened upon England—a yellow octopus whose head was that of Dr. Fu-Manchu, whose tentacles were dacoity, thuggee, modes of death, secret and swift, which in the darkness plucked men from life and left no clew behind.
"Karamaneh!" I called softly.
The muffled form beneath the lamp turned so that the soft light fell upon the lovely face of the slave girl.
She who had been a pliant instrument in the hands of Fu-Manchu now was to be the means whereby society should be rid of him.
She raised her finger warningly; then beckoned me to approach.
My feet sinking in the rich pile of the carpet, I came through the gloom of the great apartment in to the patch of light, and, Karamaneh beside me, stood looking down upon the boy.
It was Aziz, her brother; dead so far as Western lore had power to judge, but kept alive in that deathlike trance by the uncanny power of the Chinese doctor.
"Be quick," she said; "be quick!
Awaken him!
I am afraid."
From the case which I carried I took out a needle-syringe and a phial containing a small quantity of amber-hued liquid.
It was a drug not to be found in the British Pharmacopoeia.
Of its constitution I knew nothing.
Although I had had the phial in my possession for some days I had not dared to devote any of its precious contents to analytical purposes.
The amber drops spelled life for the boy Aziz, spelled success for the mission of Nayland Smith, spelled ruin for the fiendish Chinaman.
I raised the white coverlet.
The boy, fully dressed, lay with his arms crossed upon his breast.
I discerned the mark of previous injections as, charging the syringe from the phial, I made what I hoped would be the last of such experiments upon him.
I would have given half of my small worldly possessions to have known the real nature of the drug which was now coursing through the veins of Aziz—which was tinting the grayed face with the olive tone of life; which, so far as my medical training bore me, was restoring the dead to life.
But such was not the purpose of my visit.
I was come to remove from the house of Dr. Fu-Manchu the living chain which bound Karamaneh to him.
The boy alive and free, the Doctor's hold upon the slave girl would be broken.
My lovely companion, her hands convulsively clasped, knelt and devoured with her eyes the face of the boy who was passing through the most amazing physiological change in the history of therapeutics.
The peculiar perfume which she wore—which seemed to be a part of her—which always I associated with her—was faintly perceptible. Karamaneh was breathing rapidly.
"You have nothing to fear," I whispered; "see, he is reviving.
In a few moments all will be well with him."
The hanging lamp with its garishly colored shade swung gently above us, wafted, it seemed, by some draught which passed through the apartment.
The boy's heavy lids began to quiver, and Karamaneh nervously clutched my arm, and held me so whilst we watched for the long-lashed eyes to open.
The stillness of the place was positively unnatural; it seemed inconceivable that all about us was the discordant activity of the commercial East End.
Indeed, this eerie silence was becoming oppressive; it began positively to appall me.
Inspector Weymouth's wondering face peeped over my shoulder.
"Where is Dr. Fu-Manchu?" I whispered, as Nayland Smith in turn appeared beside me.
"I cannot understand the silence of the house—"
"Look about," replied Karamaneh, never taking her eyes from the face of Aziz.
I peered around the shadowy walls.
Tall glass cases there were, shelves and niches: where once, from the gallery above, I had seen the tubes and retorts, the jars of unfamiliar organisms, the books of unfamiliar lore, the impedimenta of the occult student and man of science—the visible evidences of Fu-Manchu's presence.
Shelves—cases—niches—were bare.
Of the complicated appliances unknown to civilized laboratories, wherewith he pursued his strange experiments, of the tubes wherein he isolated the bacilli of unclassified diseases, of the yellow-bound volumes for a glimpse at which (had they known of their contents) the great men of Harley Street would have given a fortune—no trace remained.
The silken cushions; the inlaid tables; all were gone.
The room was stripped, dismantled.
Had Fu-Manchu fled?
The silence assumed a new significance.
His dacoits and kindred ministers of death all must have fled, too.
"You have let him escape us!" I said rapidly.
"You promised to aid us to capture him—to send us a message—and you have delayed until—"
"No," she said; "no!" and clutched at my arm again.
"Oh! is he not reviving slowly?
Are you sure you have made no mistake?"
Her thoughts were all for the boy; and her solicitude touched me.
I again examined Aziz, the most remarkable patient of my busy professional career.