The Bride of Fu Manchu

“By heavens!” I shouted, “we’re in time!”

The naval air pilot was circling now above the yacht. That submarine was somewhere in the neighbourhood it seemed reasonable to suppose, unless it had been the purpose of the launch’s crew to head back for shore: a possibility. But no indication of an under-water craft disturbed the blue mirror of the Mediterranean.

The commander of the destroyer rang off his engines.

chapter forty-sixth

WE

BOARD THE “LOLA”

we watched the launch return to the ladder of the yacht and saw her crew mount. The launch was already creeping up to her davits when the boat from the destroyer reached the ladder.

A lieutenant led with an armed party, Nayland Smith followed, then came the French police; and I brought up the rear.

A smart-looking officer—Portuguese, I thought—took the lieutenant’s salute as he stepped on deck. Never, I think, in the experiences which had come to me since I had found myself within the zone of the Chinese doctor, had I been conscious of quite that sense of pent-up, overpowering emotion which claimed me at this moment.

Fleurette! Petrie! Were they here?

The sea looked like a vast panel which some Titan craftsman had covered with blue enamel, and the French warship might have been a gaunt grey insect trapped inside the pigment.

“Sir Denis,” I said suddenly, in a low voice—”If the submarine is really in our neighbourhood—”

“I had thought of it,” he rapped. “It was impossible to identify the man in the stem of the launch. But unless it was Dr. Fu Manchu, in which event he’s on board here, our safety is questionable!”

“Take us to the captain,” said the lieutenant sharply.

The yacht’s officer saluted and led the way.

Armed men were left on duty at the ladder-head and at the foot of the stair leading up to the bridge. The bridge proved to be deserted. Two men were posted there, and we followed on into the chart house.

This was small but perfectly equipped, and it had only one occupant: a tall man wearing an astrakhan cap and a fur-trimmed overcoat. His arms folded, he stood there facing us as we entered...

Emotion almost choked me; triumph, with which even yet a dreadful doubt mingled. Nayland Smith’s jaw squared as he stood beside me staring across the room.

No greetings were exchanged.

“Who commands this yacht?” the lieutenant demanded.

And in that cold guttural voice, so rarely touched by any trace of human feeling:

“I do,” Dr. Fu Manchu replied.

“You failed to answer an official call sent out to all shipping in these waters.”

“I did.”

“You are accused of harbouring persons wanted by the police, and I have the authority to search this vessel.”

Dr. Fu Manchu stood quite still; his immobility was mummy-like.

Nayland Smith stepped aside to make way for the senior police officer from Nice. As the man entered, Sir Denis merely pointed to that tall, dignified figure. The detective stepped forward.

“Is your name Dr. Fu Manchu?”

“It is.”

“I hold a warrant for your arrest. You must consider yourself my prisoner.”

chapter forty-seventh

DR.PETRIE

“come in,” said a low voice.

Sir Denis stood stock still for one age-long moment, his hand resting on the door knob. Then he pulled open the white cabin door.

In a bed under an open porthole Petrie lay! His eyes, darkly shadowed, were fixed upon us. But his expression as Nayland Smith sprang forward was one I shall never forget.

“Petrie! Petrie, old man!...Thank God for this!”

Sir Denis’s face I could not see—for he stood with his back to me, grasping Petrie’s upstretched hand. But I could see Petrie; and knew that he was so overwhelmed by emotion as to be incapable of words. Sir Denis’s silence told the same story.

But when at last that long, silent handgrasp was relaxed:

“Sterling!” said the invalid, smiling—”you have done more than merely to save my life. You have brought back a happiness I thought I had lost forever. Smith, old man—” he looked up at Sir Denis—”get a radio off to Kara in Cairo at the earliest possible moment! But break the news gently. She will be mad with joy!”

He looked at me again.

“I understand, Sterling, that what you have found you want to keep?”

At that Nayland Smith turned.

“I trust your financial resources are adequate to the task, Sterling?” he rapped, but with a smile on his tired face—and it was a smile of happiness.

“Does she know?” I asked, and my voice was far from steady.

Petrie nodded.

“Go and find her,” he said. “She will be glad to see you.”

I went out, leaving those lifelong friends together. I returned to the deck.

What must there not be that Petrie had to tell Sir Denis and he to tell Petrie? It was, I suppose, one of the most remarkable reunions in history. For Petrie had died and had been buried, and was restored again to life. And Sir Denis had crowned his remarkable career with the greatest accomplishment in criminal records—the arrest of Dr. Fu Manchu....

The attitude of the members of the crew of the Lola strongly suggested that the vessel was used for none but legitimate purposes. One by one they were being submitted to a close interrogation by the French detective and his assistant in a forward cabin.

I had heard the evidence of the chief navigating officer and of the second officer. The vessel belonged to Santos da Cunha, an Argentine millionaire, but he frequently placed it at the disposal of his friends, of whom Dr. Fu Manchu (known to them as the Marquis Chuan) was one. It was the Marquis’s custom sometimes to take charge, and he, according to these witnesses was a qualified master mariner and a fine seaman!

His personal servants, of whom there were four, had come on board at Monaco; from this dehumanised quartette I anticipated that little would be learned. The ship’s officers and crew denied all knowledge of a submarine. When the engines had been stopped by Dr. Fu Manchu and the launch ordered away, they had obeyed without knowing for what purpose those orders had been given.

Personally, I had no doubt that the under-water craft lay somewhere near, but that the doctor had decided to sacrifice himself alone rather than to order the submarine to surface when the coming of the French airman had warned him that his movements were covered.

Why?

Doubtless because he had recognized his own escape to be impossible....

I reached the cabin in which I knew Fleurette to be, rapped, opened the door, and went in.

She was standing just inside—and I knew that she had been waiting for me....

I forgot what happened immediately afterwards; I lived in another world....

When, at last, and reluctantly, I came to earth again, the first idea which I properly grasped was that of Fleurette’s almost insupportable happiness because she had learned that she really possessed a father—and had met him!

Her eagerness to meet her mother resembled a physical hunger.

It was not easy to see these strange events through her eyes. But, listening to her, watching her