CHAPTER XIV. THE COUGHING HORROR
I leaped up in bed with a great start.
My sleep was troubled often enough in these days, which immediatelyfollowed our almost miraculous escape, from the den of Fu-Manchu; andnow as I crouched there, nerves aquiver--listening--listening--I couldnot be sure if this dank panic which possessed me had its origin innightmare or in something else.
Surely a scream, a choking cry for help, had reached my ears; but now,almost holding my breath in that sort of nervous tensity peculiar to onearoused thus, I listened, and the silence seemed complete. Perhaps I hadbeen dreaming...
"Help! Petrie! Help!..."
It was Nayland Smith in the room above me!
My doubts were dissolved; this was no trick of an imaginationdisordered. Some dreadful menace threatened my friend. Not delayingeven to snatch my dressing-gown, I rushed out on to the landing, up thestairs, bare-footed as I was, threw open the door of Smith's room andliterally hurled myself in.
Those cries had been the cries of one assailed, had been uttered, Ijudged, in the brief interval of a life and death struggle; had beenchoked off...
A certain amount of moonlight found access to the room, withoutspreading so far as the bed in which my friend lay. But at the momentof my headlong entrance, and before I had switched on the light, my gazeautomatically was directed to the pale moonbeam streaming through thewindow and down on to one corner of the sheep-skin rug beside the bed.
There came a sound of faint and muffled coughing.
What with my recent awakening and the panic at my heart, I could notclaim that my vision was true; but across this moonbeam passed a sort ofgray streak, for all the world as though some long thin shape had beenwithdrawn, snakelike, from the room, through the open window... Fromsomewhere outside the house, and below, I heard the cough again,followed by a sharp cracking sound like the lashing of a whip.
I depressed the switch, flooding the room with light, and as I leapedforward to the bed a word picture of what I had seen formed in my mind;and I found that I was thinking of a gray feather boa.
"Smith!" I cried (my voice seemed to pitch itself, unwilled, in a veryhigh key), "Smith, old man!"
He made no reply, and a sudden, sorrowful fear clutched at myheart-strings. He was lying half out of bed flat upon his back, his headat a dreadful angle with his body. As I bent over him and seized him bythe shoulders, I could see the whites of his eyes. His arms hung limply,and his fingers touched the carpet.
"My God!" I whispered--"what has happened?"
I heaved him back onto the pillow, and looked anxiously into his face.Habitually gaunt, the flesh so refined away by the consuming nervousenergy of the man as to reveal the cheekbones in sharp prominence, henow looked truly ghastly. His skin was so sunbaked as to have changedconstitutionally; nothing could ever eradicate that tan. But to-night afearful grayness was mingled with the brown, his lips were purple... andthere were marks of strangulation upon the lean throat--ever darkeningweals made by clutching fingers.
He began to breathe stentoriously and convulsively, inhalation beingaccompanied by a significant gurgling in the throat. But now my calm wasrestored in face of a situation which called for professional attention.
I aided my friend's labored respirations by the usual means, setting towork vigorously; so that presently he began to clutch at his inflamedthroat which that murderous pressure had threatened to close.
I could hear sounds of movement about the house, showing that not Ialone had been awakened by those hoarse screams.
"It's all right, old man," I said, bending over him; "brace up!"
He opened his eyes--they looked bleared and bloodshot--and gave me aquick glance of recognition.
"It's all right, Smith!" I said--"no! don't sit up; lie there for amoment."
I ran across to the dressing-table, whereon I perceived his flask tolie, and mixed him a weak stimulant with which I returned to the bed.
As I bent over him again, my housekeeper appeared in the doorway, paleand wide-eyed.
"There is no occasion for alarm," I said over my shoulder; "Mr. Smith'snerves are overwrought and he was awakened by some disturbing dream. Youcan return to bed, Mrs. Newsome."
Nayland Smith seemed to experience much difficulty in swallowing thecontents of the tumbler which I held to his lips; and, from the way inwhich he fingered the swollen glands, I could see that his throat,which I had vigorously massaged, was occasioning him great pain. But thedanger was past, and already that glassy look was disappearing from hiseyes, nor did they protrude so unnaturally.
"God, Petrie!" he whispered, "that was a near shave! I haven't thestrength of a kitten!"
"The weakness will pass off," I replied; "there will be no collapse,now. A little more fresh air..."
I stood up, glancing at the windows, then back at Smith, who forced awry smile in answer to my look.
"Couldn't be done, Petrie," he said, huskily.
His words referred to the state of the windows. Although the night wasoppressively hot, these were only opened some four inches at top andbottom. Further opening was impossible because of iron brackets screwedfirmly into the casements which prevented the windows being raised orlowered further.
It was a precaution adopted after long experience of the servants of Dr.Fu-Manchu.
Now, as I stood looking from the half-strangled man upon the bed tothose screwed-up windows, the fact came home to my mind that thisprecaution had proved futile. I thought of the thing which I had likenedto a feather boa; and I looked at the swollen weals made by clutchingfingers upon the throat of Nayland Smith.
The bed stood fully four feet from the nearest window.
I suppose the question was written in my face; for, as I turned againto Smith, who, having struggled upright, was still fingering his injuredthroat ruefully:
"God only knows, Petrie!" he said; "no human arm could have reachedme..."
For us, the night was ended so far as sleep was concerned. Arrayed inhis dressing-gown, Smith sat in the white cane chair in my study witha glass of brandy-and-water beside him, and (despite my officialprohibition) with the cracked briar which had sent up its incense inmany strange and dark places of the East and which yet survived toperfume these prosy rooms in suburban London, steaming between histeeth. I stood with my elbow resting upon the mantelpiece looking downat him where he sat.
"By God! Petrie," he said, yet again, with his fingers straying gentlyover the surface of his throat, "that was a narrow shave--a damnednarrow shave!"
"Narrower than perhaps you appreciate, old man," I replied. "You were amost unusual shade of blue when I found you..."
"I managed," said Smith evenly, "to tear those clutching fingers awayfor a moment and to give a cry for help. It was only for a moment,though. Petrie! they were fingers of steel--of steel!"
"The bed," I began...
"I know that," rapped Smith. "I shouldn't have been sleeping in it, hadit been within reach of the window; but, knowing that the doctor avoidsnoisy methods, I had thought myself fairly safe so long as I made itimpossible for any one actually to enter the room..."
"I have always insisted, Smith," I cried, "that there was danger! Whatof poisoned darts? What of the damnable reptiles and insects which formpart of the armory of Fu-Manchu?"
"Familiarity breeds contempt, I suppose," he replied. "But as ithappened none of those agents was employed. The very menace that Isought to avoid reached me somehow. It would almost seem that Dr.Fu-Manchu deliberately accepted the challenge of those screwed-upwindows! Hang it all, Petrie! one cannot sleep in a room hermeticallysealed, in weather like this! It's positively Burmese; and although Ican stand tropical heat, curiously enough the heat of London gets medown almost immediately."
"The humidity; that's easily understood. But you'll have to put up withit in the future. After nightfall our windows must be closed entirely,Smith."
Nayland Smith knocked out his pipe upon the side of the fireplace. Thebowl sizzled furiously, but wit
hout delay he stuffed broad-cut mixtureinto the hot pipe, dropping a liberal quantity upon the carpet duringthe process. He raised his eyes to me, and his face was very grim.
"Petrie," he said, striking a match on the heel of his slipper, "theresources of Dr. Fu-Manchu are by no means exhausted. Before we quitthis room it is up to us to come to a decision upon a certain point." Hegot his pipe well alight. "What kind of thing, what unnatural, distortedcreature, laid hands upon my throat to-night? I owe my life, primarily,to you, old man, but, secondarily, to the fact that I was awakened, justbefore the attack--by the creature's coughing--by its vile, high-pitchedcoughing..."
I glanced around at the books upon my shelves. Often enough, followingsome outrage by the brilliant Chinese doctor whose genius was directedto the discovery of new and unique death agents, we had obtained a cluein those works of a scientific nature which bulk largely in thelibrary of a medical man. There are creatures, there are drugs, which,ordinarily innocuous, may be so employed as to become inimical to humanlife; and in the distorting of nature, in the disturbing of balances andthe diverting of beneficent forces into strange and dangerous channels,Dr. Fu-Manchu excelled. I had known him to enlarge, by artificialculture, a minute species of fungus so as to render it a powerful agentcapable of attacking man; his knowledge of venomous insects has probablynever been paralleled in the history of the world; whilst, in the sphereof pure toxicology, he had, and has, no rival; the Borgias were childrenby comparison. But, look where I would, think how I might, no adequateexplanation of this latest outrage seemed possible along normal lines.
"There's the clue," said Nayland Smith, pointing to a little ash-trayupon the table near by. "Follow it if you can."
But I could not.
"As I have explained," continued my friend, "I was awakened by a soundof coughing; then came a death grip on my throat, and instinctively myhands shot out in search of my attacker. I could not reach him; myhands came in contact with nothing palpable. Therefore I clutched at thefingers which were dug into my windpipe, and found them to be small--asthe marks show--and hairy. I managed to give that first cry forhelp, then with all my strength I tried to unfasten the grip that wasthrottling the life out of me. At last I contrived to move one of thehands, and I called out again, though not so loudly. Then both the handswere back again; I was weakening; but I clawed like a madman at thethin, hairy arms of the strangling thing, and with a blood-red mistdancing before my eyes, I seemed to be whirling madly round and rounduntil all became a blank. Evidently I used my nails pretty freely--andthere's the trophy."
For the twentieth time, I should think, I carried the ash-tray in myhand and laid it immediately under the table-lamp in order to examineits contents. In the little brass bowl lay a blood-stained fragment ofgrayish hair attached to a tatter of skin. This fragment of epidermishad an odd bluish tinge, and the attached hair was much darker at theroots than elsewhere. Saving its singular color, it might have beentorn from the forearm of a very hirsute human; but although my thoughtswandered unfettered, north, south, east and west; although, knowing theresources of Fu-Manchu, I considered all the recognized Mongoliantypes, and, in quest of hirsute mankind, even roamed far north amongthe blubbering Esquimo; although I glanced at Australasia, at CentralAfrica, and passed in mental review the dark places of the Congo,nowhere in the known world, nowhere in the history of the human species,could I come upon a type of man answering to the description suggestedby our strange clue.
Nayland Smith was watching me curiously as I bent over the little brassash-tray.
"You are puzzled," he rapped in his short way.
"So am I--utterly puzzled. Fu-Manchu's gallery of monstrosities clearlyhas become reinforced; for even if we identified the type, we should notbe in sight of our explanation."
"You mean," I began...
"Fully four feet from the window, Petrie, and that window but a fewinches open! Look"--he bent forward, resting his chest against thetable, and stretched out his hand toward me. "You have a rule there;just measure."
Setting down the ash-tray, I opened out the rule and measured thedistance from the further edge of the table to the tips of Smith'sfingers.
"Twenty-eight inches--and I have a long reach!" snapped Smith,withdrawing his arm and striking a match to relight his pipe. "There'sone thing, Petrie, often proposed before, which now we must do withoutdelay. The ivy must be stripped from the walls at the back. It's apity, but we can not afford to sacrifice our lives to our sense of theaesthetic. What do you make of the sound like the cracking of a whip?"
"I make nothing of it, Smith," I replied, wearily. "It might have been athick branch of ivy breaking beneath the weight of a climber."
"Did it sound like it?"
"I must confess that the explanation does not convince me, but I have nobetter one."
Smith, permitting his pipe to go out, sat staring straight before him,and tugging at the lobe of his left ear.
"The old bewilderment is seizing me," I continued. "At first, when Irealized that Dr. Fu-Manchu was back in England, when I realized thatan elaborate murder-machine was set up somewhere in London, it seemedunreal, fantastical. Then I met--Karamaneh! She, whom we thought to behis victim, showed herself again to be his slave. Now, with Weymouth andScotland Yard at work, the old secret evil is established again in ourmidst, unaccountably--our lives are menaced--sleep is a danger--everyshadow threatens death... oh! it is awful."
Smith remained silent; he did not seem to have heard my words. I knewthese moods and had learnt that it was useless to seek to interruptthem. With his brows drawn down, and his deep-set eyes staring intospace, he sat there gripping his cold pipe so tightly that my own jawmuscles ached sympathetically. No man was better equipped than thisgaunt British Commissioner to stand between society and the menace ofthe Yellow Doctor; I respected his meditations, for, unlike my own, theywere informed by an intimate knowledge of the dark and secret things ofthe East, of that mysterious East out of which Fu-Manchu came, of thatjungle of noxious things whose miasma had been wafted Westward with theimplacable Chinaman.
I walked quietly from the room, occupied with my own bitter reflections.