The Mask of Fu Manchu

“HE WILL BE CROWNED IN DAMASCUS”

I have related what really happened on that night in Cairo in the proper order of those events—but in their order as I knew it later. As a matter of fact, quite a long interval elapsed, as will presently appear, before I was able to recall anything whatever from the time when I set out in pursuit of Madame Ingomar to that when I acted as a decoy in the abduction of Rima.

A master player had used me as a pawn. The very seat of reason had been shaken by a drug not to be discovered in any pharmacopoeia. These events and those which immediately followed I was to recover later. I must return now to the conclusion of a phase in my life which I still consider the most remarkable any man has known....

* * *

“Shan dear, I know you are very sleepy, but it’s getting cold, and very late....”

I stirred dreamily, opening my eyes. I was pillowed on a warm ivory shoulder, a bare arm encircled my neck, and the silvery voice which had awakened me was tenderly caressing. I hugged my fragrant pillow and felt no desire to move.

A long jade earring touched me coldly. Soothing fingers stroked my hair, and the silvery voice whispered:

“Truly, Shan, you must wake up! I’m sorry, dear, but you must.”

Reluctantly I raised my head, looking into brilliant green eyes regarding me under half lowered lashes. Their glance was a caress as soothing as that of the slender fingers.

Fah Lo Suee, I mused languidly, conscious of nothing but a dreamy contentment, and thinking what perfect lips she had, when, smiling, she bent and whispered in my ear:

“Love dreams are so bitter-sweet because we know we are dreaming.”

But yet I was reluctant to move. I could see a long reach of the Nile, touched to magic by the moon. Dahabeahs were moored against the left bank, their slender, graceful masts forming harmonious lines against a background of grouped palms and straggling white buildings. Of course! I was in Fah Lo Suee’s car; her arms were about me. I turned my head, looking over a silken shoulder to where a bridge spanned the Nile. It must be very late, I mused, later than I had supposed;

the Kasr el-Nil bridge was deserted.

Memory began to return—or what I thought then to be memory—from the moment when I determined to follow Fah Lo Suee from the garden ofShepheard’s....I had been uncertain of her identity until she had removed the gold mask....

“I think someone has been watching, Shan, and I am positively shivering. I am going to drive you back now.”

I sat bolt upright, one hand raised to my head, as Fah Lo Suee bent slightly and started the car. With never another glance aside, she drove on, presently to turn, right, into the maze of Cairo’s empty streets.

Furtively I watched the clear profile of the driver. It was beautiful, and strangely like that of the mystery queen, Nefertiti, whose cold loveliness has caused so much controversy. The small chin was delicately but firmly modelled, the straight nose from a strictly classical standpoint was perhaps too large, but very characteristic. I exulted in the knowledge that this brilliant and alluring woman had selected me— Shan Greville—from the rest of mankind.

Cairo’s streets were depopulated as the streets of sleeping Thebes; and at the corner of Sharia el-Maghriabi, which I recognized with a start of awakening, Fah Lo Suee pulled up.

I did not know then, but I knew later, the real character of a kind of wave of remorse which swept over me. It was, of course, my true self fighting against this strange abandonment, partly drug-induced and partly hypnotic, which held me voluptuously....

Rima! How could I ever face Rima? What explanation could I offer which she would accept? And Sir Denis! Oddly enough, it was his grim brown face which appeared most vividly before me in that odd moment of clarity: the chief and Dr. Petrie were mere shadows in a mist background....

I had held a link of a deathly conspiracy in my hand. I could have snapped it; my duty was plain. Instead, I had passed the hours in dalliance with Fah Lo Suee! I clutched my head, trying to recall where we had gone. I could not believe that I had spent the night like some callow undergraduate on a petting party; but:

“You must walk from here, Shan,” said Fah Lo Suee. “I dare not drive you any farther.”

She linked her arms about me and crushed her lips against mine, her long, narrow eyes closed. And in the complete surrender of that parting embrace I experienced a mad triumph which no other conquest could have given me. Rima, Nayland Smith, the chief—all were forgotten!

“Good-night, dear! And remember me until we meet again.

»

I stood on the pavement struggling with the most conflicting emotions, as the car swept around in the empty Sharia el-Maghrabi and disappeared in the direction of Ismailia. The perfume of that parting kiss still lingered on my lips. As a man marooned, condemned, forgotten, I stood there—I cannot say for how long. But at last I turned and stared about me.

Cairo was asleep. What did it matter? I laughed aloud— and began to walk back to Shepheard’s.

I met never a soul in the Sharia Kamel, until just before reaching the terrace. At this point, where there are a number of shops lying back from the street, a hideous object, a belated beggar man, suddenly emerged from the shadows.

Ragged, bearded, indescribably filthy, he hobbled upon a crude crutch. As he ranged up beside me, muttering unintelligibly, I thrust my hand into my trouser pocket, found some small coins, and dropped them in his extended palm.

“He will be crowned in Damascus,” said the mendicant, and hobbled away....

I despair of making my meaning clear; but those words formed the termination of what I can only term the second phase of my dream-like experience. Oddly enough, they remained with me: I mean, when all else was forgotten, I remembered the words, “He will be crowned in Damascus.”

For, as they were spoken, and as I listened to the tap-taptap of the mendicant’s crutch receding in the distance, a complete mental black-out came for a third time in that one night!

All that I have related of my experience with Fah Lo Suee, as well as that which went before, I was to recall later, as I shall presently explain; but, so far as I knew at the time, in effect what occurred was this:

I found myself standing, swaying rather dizzily, and with a splitting headache, looking towards the steps of Shepheard’s with the words buzzing in my ears: “He will be crowned in Damascus.”

The sound of the crutch had died away, and I had no idea who had spoken those words! I know now, of course, that they formed part of an amazing sequence of hypnotic suggestions; that they were my cue for final forgetfulness. At the time, I merely knew that, wondering when and where I had heard that sentence spoken, I staggered forward, trying to remember why I was there— and what business had brought me to Cairo.

Then came true memory—I mean memory without interference.

I had reached the foot of the steps when the facts returned to me....That narrow alley behind the Mosque ofMuayyad! From the moment I had entered it until the present, I was conscious of nothing but darkness!

How had I reached the Sharia Kamel? I asked myself. Could I have walked? And where had I heard those words:

“He will be crowned in Damascus”?

Shepheard’s was in darkness, and it suddenly occurred to me to look at my wrist watch.

Three a.m.

Heavy-footed, I mounted the steps. The door was barred, but I pressed the bell. In the interval of waiting for the night porter to open, I cudgeled my brains for an explanation of what had happened.

I had followed Fu Manchu’s daughter (other identity I was all but certain) in a taxicab. I should remember the man. Leaving him at a comer near the Bab ez-Zuwela, I had unwisely run on into a narrow alleyway; and then?

Then....I had found myself a few steps away from the point at which I now stood at three in the morning!

The night porter unbarred the door.