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Page 116
The patient was sleeping soundly. Some whispered instructions I gave to
the faithful nurse and descended to the sitting-room. It was a warm night,
and Weymouth sat by the open window, smoking. The dim light from the lamp
on the table lent him an almost startling likeness to his brother; and for
a moment I stood at the foot of the stairs scarce able to trust my reason.
Then he turned his face fully towards me, and the illusion was lost.
"Do you think she is likely to wake, Doctor?" he asked.
"I think not," I replied.
Nayland Smith stood upon the rug before the hearth, swinging from one
foot to the other, in his nervously restless way. The room was foggy
with the fumes of tobacco, for he, too, was smoking.
At intervals of some five to ten minutes, his blackened briar
(which I never knew him to clean or scrape) would go out.
I think Smith used more matches than any other smoker I have
ever met, and he invariably carried three boxes in various
pockets of his garments.
The tobacco habit is infectious, and, seating myself in an arm-chair,
I lighted a cigarette. For this dreary vigil I had come prepared
with a bunch of rough notes, a writing-block, and a fountain pen.
I settled down to work upon my record of the Fu-Manchu case.
Silence fell upon Maple Cottage. Save for the shuddering sigh
which whispered through the over-hanging cedars and Smith's eternal
match-striking, nothing was there to disturb me in my task.
Yet I could make little progress. Between my mind and the chapter upon
which I was at work a certain sentence persistently intruded itself.
It was as though an unseen hand held the written page closely before my eyes.
This was the sentence:
"Imagine a person, tall, lean, and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow
like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long,
magnetic eyes of the true cat-green: invest him with all the cruel cunning
of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect. . ."
Dr. Fu-Manchu! Fu-Manchu as Smith had described him to me on that night
which now seemed so remotely distant--the night upon which I had learned
of the existence of the wonderful and evil being born of that secret
quickening which stirred in the womb of the yellow races.
As Smith, for the ninth or tenth time, knocked out his pipe on a bar
of the grate, the cuckoo clock in the kitchen proclaimed the hour.
"Two," said James Weymouth.
I abandoned my task, replacing notes and writing-block in the bag that I
had with me. Weymouth adjusted the lamp which had begun to smoke.
I tiptoed to the stairs and, stepping softly, ascended to the sick room.
All was quiet, and Mrs. Weymouth whispered to me that the patient still
slept soundly. I returned to find Nayland Smith pacing about the room
in that state of suppressed excitement habitual with him in the approach
of any crisis. At a quarter past two the breeze dropped entirely,
and such a stillness reigned all about us as I could not have supposed
possible so near to the ever-throbbing heart of the great metropolis.
Plainly I could hear Weymouth's heavy breathing. He sat at the window
and looked out into the black shadows under the cedars. Smith ceased
his pacing and stood again on the rug very still. He was listening!
I doubt not we were all listening.
Some faint sound broke the impressive stillness, coming from the direction
of the village street. It was a vague, indefinite disturbance,
brief, and upon it ensued a silence more marked than ever.
Some minutes before, Smith had extinguished the lamp.
In the darkness I heard his teeth snap sharply together.
The call of an owl sounded very clearly three times.
I knew that to mean that a messenger had come; but from whence or bearing
what tidings I knew not. My friend's plans were incomprehensible to me,
nor had I pressed him for any explanation of their nature, knowing him
to be in that high-strung and somewhat irritable mood which claimed him
at times of uncertainty--when he doubted the wisdom of his actions,
the accuracy of his surmises. He gave no sign.
Very faintly I heard a clock strike the half-hour. A soft breeze
stole again through the branches above. The wind I thought must
be in a new quarter since I had not heard the clock before.
In so lonely a spot it was difficult to believe that the bell
was that of St. Paul's. Yet such was the fact.
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