Re-enter Dr Fu Manchu

more of the world before going home, and I’m really glad you pulled it off.”

“There’s one fly in the ointment,” Brian confessed. “Just as I get to know you I have to be dashed off to Egypt.”

“But you told me the Near East fascinated you, that you’d always wanted to go there.”

“That’s true. And it would be perfect—if you were coming with me.”

Lola took a cigarette from her case. “I never know where I’ll be sent next. But I admit that Egypt’s unlikely. I don’t suppose you’ll be there long. We’re both world-wanderers, now, and certain to get together again somewhere. I must rush, Brian. Six-thirty at the Mirabelle. . . .”

Chapter

2

In an old Cairo house not far from the Mosque of El-Ashraf, a house still untouched by Western “improvements”, a tall, gaunt figure paced slowly up and down a room which once had been the saloon of the harem.

High, and lighted by a lantern in the painted roof, it was brightly paved in the Arab manner, had elaborate panelled walls and two mushrabiyeh windows.

The man pacing the tiled floor wore the same yellow robe which he had worn during his brief interview with Peter Wellingham in London and a similar black cap on his massive skull. Although unmistakably Chinese, his finely lined features were those of a scholar who had never spared himself in the quest of knowledge. It was a wonderful face. It might have belonged to a saint—or to the Fallen Angel in person.

His walk was feline, silent. He seemed to be listening for some expected sound. And, suddenly, it came ... a strange, muffled, animal sound.

He crossed in three strides to a screen set before one of the recessed windows, and drew it aside.

Two glass boxes stood on a narrow table. In one was a rat, in the other a rabbit. It was the rabbit which had made the queer sound. The little creature thrashed around there in convulsions, and even as the screen was moved aside became still. The rat already lay rigid.

The man in the yellow robe walked in his catlike way through an arched opening into an adjoining room equipped as a laboratory. Some of the apparatus in this singular room would have puzzled any living scientist to name its purpose or application. From a wall-safe which he unlocked he took out a small phial. He seated himself at a glass-topped table, removed the stopper from the phial and inserted a dipper. The delicacy of touch in those long-nailed fingers was amazing.

Smearing a spot from the dipper on to a slide, he set the slide in place in a large microscope and, stooping, stared through the lens, which he slightly adjusted.

Presently he stood up and, using a lancet, took a spot of his own blood and dropped it on to the smeared plate, which he immediately replaced and again bent over the microscope. When he stood up a second time his expression was the expression of a demon.

He composed himself and pressed a stud on a panel. A door opened and a young Japanese came in. He wore a white tunic.

“Bring Josef Gorodin here, Matsukata. Then wait in the saloon with two of my Burmese until you hear the gong.”

Matsukata bowed and went out. He returned shortly with a thick-set man, also in white, whose heavy Slavonic features were set in what might have been a permanent scowl. He tried to meet the gaze of emerald- green eyes, but had to look aside. He spoke.

“You wished to see me, Comrade Fu Manchu?”

Dr. Fu Manchu continued to watch him. “You may address me either as Excellency, or as Doctor. Comrade— no! I have offered my services—at my own price—to your masters. This does not mean that I kneel at the shrine of Karl Marx. I have something to say. Sit down.”

It was not an invitation; it was a command. Josef Gorodin sat down.

“On the evening I returned here from London,” Fu Manchu went on, “you were at work here upon some experiments which I wished you to carry out in my absence. They had no practical importance. They were designed to test your ability. Your results convinced me that you were not untalented.”

“Thank you,” Gorodin muttered sarcastically.

“I showed you this phial.” Fu Manchu held it up. “I told you that many years ago I had completed my long experiments— those experiments so vainly attempted by the old alchemists—that I had discovered what they termed the Elixir Vitae, the Elixir of Life. I said, ‘The small quantity of the elixir in this phial contains three additional decades of life for any person who knows how to use it.’ You remember?”

“I remember.”

“I told you that by certain familiar symptoms I had been warned that the time had come for me to renew the treatment; that otherwise death might claim me at any hour. You remember?”

Gorodin bowed his head.

“You returned later, Josef Gorodin, and begged me to give you a drop of the preparation for analysis. I consented—for I knew it would defy your analysis. I told you to return the phial to the safe. You remember?”

Gorodin moistened his heavy lips, glanced up, then down again. “I remember.”

Dr. Fu Manchu reached along the table and struck a small silver gong which stood there. Matsukata, silently as an apparition, appeared in the archway, followed by two stocky Asiatics. Gorodin sprang up, fists clenched, but was instantly seized by the experienced man-handlers of the Chinese doctor’s bodyguard. And when Fu Manchu, watching without expression, spoke again, his voice came as a sibilant whisper.

“I am sure your analysis had no result, Josef Gorodin. But I am about to give you conclusive evidence of the nature of this elixir. Seat him there, Matsukata. Slit his sleeve up to the shoulder.”

Gorodin had turned purple with passion. He was a powerful man, but had quickly given up struggling as every movement resulted in violent pain.

“You misjudge your position, and mine!” he shouted. “I am senior aide to the Minister of Scientific Research!”

Dr. Fu Manchu was charging a hypodermic syringe from the phial.

“This one injection will arrest both mental and physical decline, and give you ten more years at your present robust age to pursue your researches for the Ministry.”

“If you dare to harm me you will sign your own death sentence!”

“Hold his arm still, Matsukata.” Fu Manchu spoke softly, holding the syringe in a steady hand. “Were you attached to my staff merely to watch me—or to destroy me? Answer.”

Gorodin avoided those green eyes, but he began to tremble. He clenched his teeth.

“You daren’t do it!” he muttered.

“You mean Doctor Gorodin, that you fear to have your useful life extended for ten years beyond its normal span?”

The needle point touched Gorodin’s skin.

“Stop!” It was a scream. “What do you want to know?”

The needle point was removed an inch or so. “You heard my question. Answer it.”

Gorodin swallowed noisily. “There are those who believe that to give you control of all our resources was a dangerous price to pay for your services—that the power once held by Stalin would be seized by you.”

“My poor Gorodin! The power I shall possess will exceed his wildest dreams.” The gaunt face became transfigured. Fu Manchu’s brilliant eyes blazed with the light of fanaticism. “But—no matter. And you, no doubt, are one of those who believe this?”

“Yes.”

“And so you attempted to—what do you term it?—liquidate me? Where is the phial of elixir?”

“There beside you.”

“I shall repeat my question—once. Where is the phial of elixir?”

“There beside you.”

“Then you must welcome these ten additional years of life.”

And Dr. Fu Manchu injected the contents of the syringe into Gorodin’s arm.