The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu

CHAPTER I


"A GENTLEMAN to see you, Doctor."

From across the common a clock sounded the half-hour.

"Ten-thirty!" I said. "A late visitor. Show him up, if you please."

I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lamp-shade, as footsteps
sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet, for a
tall, lean man, with his square-cut, clean-shaven face sun-baked to the
hue of coffee, entered and extended both hands, with a cry:

"Good old Petrie! Didn't expect me, I'll swear!"

It was Nayland Smith--whom I had thought to be in Burma!

"Smith," I said, and gripped his hands hard, "this is a delightful
surprise! Whatever--however--"

"Excuse me, Petrie!" he broke in. "Don't put it down to the sun!" And
he put out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

I was too surprised to speak.

"No doubt you will think me mad," he continued, and, dimly, I could see
him at the window, peering out into the road, "but before you are many
hours older you will know that I have good reason to be cautious. Ah,
nothing suspicious! Perhaps I am first this time." And, stepping back
to the writing-table he relighted the lamp.

"Mysterious enough for you?" he laughed, and glanced at my unfinished
MS. "A story, eh? From which I gather that the district is beastly
healthy--what, Petrie? Well, I can put some material in your way that,
if sheer uncanny mystery is a marketable commodity, ought to make you
independent of influenza and broken legs and shattered nerves and all
the rest."

I surveyed him doubtfully, but there was nothing in his appearance to
justify me in supposing him to suffer from delusions. His eyes were
too bright, certainly, and a hardness now had crept over his face. I
got out the whisky and siphon, saying:

"You have taken your leave early?"