President Fu Manchu
by Sax Rohmer
Chapter
1
THE ABBOT OF HOLY THORN
Three cars drew up, the leading car abreast of a great bronze door bearing a design representing the beautiful agonized face of the Saviour, a crown of thorns crushed down upon His brow. A man jumped out and ran to this door. Ten men alighted behind him. The wind howled around the tall tower and a carpet of snow was beginning to form upon the ground. Four guards, appearing as if by magic out of white shadows, lined up before the door.
“Stayton!” came sharply. “Stand aside.”
One of the guards stepped forward—peered. A tall, slightly built man who had been in the leading car was the speaker. He had a mass of black, untidy hair, and his face, though that of one not yet west of thirty, was grim and square jawed. He was immediately recognized.
“All right, Captain.”
The man addressed as captain turned to the party and issued orders in a low tone. The leader, muffled up in a leather, fur-collared topcoat, his face indistinguishable beneath the brim of a soft felt hat already dusted with snow, rang a bell beside the bronze door.
It opened so suddenly that one might have supposed the opener to have been waiting inside for this purpose; a short, elegant young man, almost feminine in the nicety of his attire.
The new arrival stepped in and quickly shut out the storm, closing the bronze door behind him. In a little lobby communicating with a large square room equipped as an up-to-date office, but at this late hour deserted, he stood staring at the person who had admitted him.
A churchlike lamp, hung from a bracket on the wall, now cast its golden light upon the face of the man wearing the leather coat. He had removed his hat, revealing a head of crisp, greying hair. His features were angular to the point of gauntness, and his eyes had the penetrating quality of armoured steel, while his complexion seemed strangely out of keeping with the climate, being sun-baked to a sort of coffee colour.
“Are you James Richet?” he snapped.
The elegant young man inclined his glossy head.
“At your service.”
“Lead me to Abbot Donegal. I am expected.”
Richet perceptibly hesitated; whereupon, plunging his hand with an irritable, nervous movement into some pocket beneath the leather topcoat, the visitor produced a card and handed it to Richet. One glance he gave at it, bowed again in a manner that was almost Oriental and indicated the open gate of an elevator.
A few moments later:
“Federal Agent 56,” Richet announced in his silky tones.
The visitor entered a softly lighted study, the view from its windows indicating that it was situated at the very top of the tall tower. From a chair beside a book-laden desk the sole occupant of the room—who had apparently been staring out at the wintry prospect far below—stood up, turned. Mr. Richet, making his queer bow, retired and closed the door.
Federal Agent 56 unceremoniously cast his wet topcoat upon the floor, dropping his hat on top of it. He was now revealed as a tall, lean man, dressed in a tweed suit which had seen long service. He advanced with outstretched hand to meet the occupant of the study—a slightly built priest, with the keen, ascetic features sometimes met with in men from the south of Ireland and thick, greying hair; a man normally actuated by a healthy sense of humour, but to-night with an oddly haunted expression in his clear eyes.
“Thank God, Father, I see you well.”
“Thank God, indeed.” He glanced at the card which Richet had laid upon his desk even as he grasped the extended hand. “I am naturally prepared for interference with my work, but this thing . . .”
The newcomer, still holding the priest’s hand, stared fixedly, searchingly, into his eyes.
“You don’t know it all,” he said rapidly.
“This imprisonment——”
“A necessity, believe me. I have covered seven hundred miles by air since you broke off in the middle of your radio address this evening.”
He turned abruptly and began to pace up and down that book-lined room with it sacred pictures and ornaments, these seeming strangely at variance with the large and orderly office below. Pulling a very charred briar pipe from the pocket of his tweed jacket he began to load it from a pouch at least as venerable as the pipe. The Abbot Donegal dropped back into his chair, running his fingers through his hair, and:
“There is one favour I would ask,” he said, “before we proceed any further. It is difficult to talk to an anonymous man.”
He stared down at the card upon his desk. This card bore the printed words:
FEDERAL AGENT 56
But across the bottom right-hand corner was the signature of the President of the United States.
Federal Agent 56 smiled, a quick, revealing smile which lifted a burden of years from the man.
“I agree,” he snapped in his rapid, staccato fashion. “Smith is a not uncommon name. Suppose we say Smith.”
