THE DEVIL DOCTOR. Sax Rohmer
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not infrequently made me thoroughly ashamed of myself.
Needless to say, Smith had made such other arrangements as were
necessary to safeguard the injured man, and these proved so successful
that the malignant being whose plans they thwarted abandoned his
designs upon the heroic clergyman and directed his attention
elsewhere, as I must now proceed to relate.
Dusk always brought with it a cloud of apprehension, for darkness must
ever be the ally of crime; and it was one night, long after the clocks
had struck the mystic hour, "when churchyards yawn," that the hand of
Dr. Fu-Manchu again stretched out to grasp a victim. I was dismissing
a chance patient.
"Good night, Dr. Petrie," he said.
"Good night, Mr. Forsyth," I replied; and having conducted my late
visitor to the door, I closed and bolted it, switched off the light,
and went upstairs.
My patient was chief officer of one of the P. and O. boats. He had cut
his hand rather badly on the homeward run, and signs of poisoning
having developed, had called to have the wound treated, apologizing
for troubling me at so late an hour, but explaining that he had only
just come from the docks. The hall clock announced the hour of one as
I ascended the stairs. I found myself wondering what there was in Mr.
Forsyth's appearance which excited some vague and elusive memory.
Coming to the top floor, I opened the door of a front bedroom and was
surprised to find the interior in darkness.
"Smith!" I called.
"Come here and watch!" was the terse response.
Nayland Smith was sitting in the dark at the open window and peering
out across the common. Even as I saw him, a dim silhouette, I could
detect that tensity in his attitude which told of high-strung nerves.
I joined him.
"What is it?" I asked curiously.
"I don't know. Watch that clump of elms."
His masterful voice had the dry tone in it betokening excitement. I
leaned on the ledge beside him and looked out. The blaze of stars
almost compensated for the absence of the moon, and the night had a
quality of stillness that made for awe. This was a tropical summer,
and the common, with its dancing lights dotted irregularly about it,
had an unfamiliar look to-night. The clump of nine elms showed as a
dense and irregular mass, lacking detail.
Such moods as that which now claimed my friend are magnetic. I had no
thought of the night's beauty, for it only served to remind me that
somewhere amid London's millions was lurking an uncanny being, whose
life was a mystery, whose very existence was a scientific miracle.
"Where's your patient?" rapped Smith.
His abrupt query diverted my thoughts into a new channel. No footstep
disturbed the silence of the high-road. Where _was_ my patient?
I craned from the window. Smith grabbed my arm.
"Don't lean out," he said.
I drew back, glancing at him surprisedly.
"For Heaven's sake, why not?"
"I'll tell you presently, Petrie. Did you see him?"
"I did, and I can't make out what he is doing. He seems to have
remained standing at the gate for some reason."
"He has seen it!" snapped Smith. "Watch those elms."
His hand remained upon my arm, gripping it nervously. Shall I say that
I was surprised? I can say it with truth. But I shall add that I was
thrilled, eerily; for this subdued excitement and alert watching of
Smith's could only mean one thing:
Fu-Manchu!
And that was enough to set me watching as keenly as he; to set me
listening, not only for sounds outside the house but for sounds
within. Doubts, suspicions, dreads heaped themselves up in my mind.
Why was Forsyth standing there at the gate? I had never seen him
before, to my knowledge, yet there was something oddly reminiscent
about the man. Could it be that his visit formed part of a plot? Yet
his wound had been genuine enough. Thus my mind worked, feverishly;
such was the effect of an unspoken thought--Fu-Manchu.
Nayland Smith's grip tightened on my arm.
"There it is again, Petrie!" he whispered. "Look, look!"
His words were wholly unnecessary. I, too, had seen it; a wonderful
and uncanny sight. Out of the darkness under the elms, low down upon
the ground, grew a vaporous blue light. It flared up, elfinish, then
began to ascend. Like an igneous phantom, a witch flame, it rose,
higher, higher, higher, to what I adjudged to be some twelve feet or
more from the ground. Then, high in the air, it died away again as it
had come!
"For God's sake, Smith, what was it?"
"Don't ask me, Petrie. I have seen it twice. We--"
He paused. Rapid footsteps sounded below. Over Smith's shoulder I saw
Forsyth cross the road, climb the low rail, and set out across the
common.
Smith sprang impetuously to his feet.
"We must stop him!" he said hoarsely; then, clapping a hand to my
mouth as I was about to call out--"Not a sound, Petrie!"
He ran out of the room and went blundering downstairs in the dark,
crying:
"Out through the garden--the side entrance!"
I overtook him as he threw wide the door of my dispensing room.
Through he ran and opened the door at the other end. I followed him
out, closing it behind me. The smell from some tobacco plants in a
neighbouring flower-bed was faintly perceptible; no breeze stirred;
and in the great silence I could hear Smith, in front of me, tugging
at the bolt of the gate.
Then he had it open, and I stepped out, close on his heels, and left
the door ajar.
"We