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Page 98
The throb of Fu-Manchu's car died into faintness and was lost
in the night's silence.
"Only half a triumph," he replied. "But we still have another chance--
the raid on his house. When will the word come from Karamaneh?"
Southery spoke in a weak voice.
"Gentlemen," he said, "it seems I am raised from the dead."
It was the weirdest moment of the night wherein we heard that newly
buried man speak from the mold of his tomb.
"Yes," replied Smith slowly, "and spared from the fate of Heaven
alone knows how many men of genius. The yellow society lacks
a Southery, but that Dr. Fu-Manchu was in Germany three years
ago I have reason to believe; so that, even without visiting
the grave of your great Teutonic rival, who suddenly died at about
that time, I venture to predict that they have a Von Homber.
And the futurist group in China knows how to MAKE men work!"
CHAPTER XXIV
FROM the rescue of Lord Southery my story bears me mercilessly
on to other things. I may not tarry, as more leisurely penmen,
to round my incidents; they were not of my choosing.
I may not pause to make you better acquainted with the figure
of my drama; its scheme is none of mine. Often enough,
in those days, I found a fitness in the lines of Omar:
We are no other than a moving show
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show.
But "the Master of the Show," in this case, was Dr. Fu-Manchu!
I have been asked many times since the days with which these records deal:
Who WAS Dr. Fu-Manchu? Let me confess here that my final answer must
be postponed. I can only indicate, at this place, the trend of my reasoning,
and leave my reader to form whatever conclusion he pleases.
What group can we isolate and label as responsible for the overthrow
of the Manchus? The casual student of modern Chinese history will reply:
"Young China." This is unsatisfactory. What do we mean by Young China?
In my own hearing Fu-Manchu had disclaimed, with scorn, association with the
whole of that movement; and assuming that the name were not an assumed one,
he clearly can have been no anti-Manchu, no Republican.
The Chinese Republican is of the mandarin class, but of a new
generation which veneers its Confucianism with Western polish.
These youthful and unbalanced reformers, in conjunction
with older but no less ill-balanced provincial politicians,
may be said to represent Young China. Amid such turmoils as this
we invariably look for, and invariably find, a Third Party.
In my opinion, Dr. Fu-Manchu was one of the leaders of such a party.
Another question often put to me was: Where did the Doctor
hide during the time that he pursued his operations in London?
This is more susceptible of explanation. For a time Nayland
Smith supposed, as I did myself, that the opium den adjacent
to the old Ratcliff Highway was the Chinaman's base of operations;
later we came to believe that the mansion near Windsor was his
hiding-place, and later still, the hulk lying off the downstream flats.
But I think I can state with confidence that the spot which he had
chosen for his home was neither of these, but the East End riverside
building which I was the first to enter. Of this I am all but sure;
for the reason that it not only was the home of Fu-Manchu, of Karamaneh,
and of her brother, Aziz, but the home of something else--
of something which I shall speak of later.
The dreadful tragedy (or series of tragedies) which attended the raid upon the
place will always mark in my memory the supreme horror of a horrible case.
Let me endeavor to explain what occurred.
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