Free The Bride of Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer

littered with papers. Even the bookshelves had not escaped scrutiny. A glance showed me that every book had been taken from its place. They were not in their right order.
    Something, I assumed, had disturbed the searchers.
    What?
    Upon this point there was very little room for doubt. That cry in the garden had given warning of my approach. To whom?
    To someone who must actually be in the villa now!
    My hand on the butt of an automatic, I stood still, listening. I was unlikely ever to forget the face I had glimpsed at the end of the kitchen-garden. It was possible that such a horror was stealthily creeping upon me at the present moment. But I could hear no sound.
    I thought of Petrie—and the thought made me icily and murderously cool. Petrie—struck down by the dread disease he had risked his life to conquer; a victim, not of Fate, but of a man—
    A man? A fiend! A devil incarnate he must be who had conceived a thing so loathsome.
    Dr. Fu-Manchu!
    Who was this Dr. Fu-Manchu of whom even Nayland Smith seemed to stand in awe? A demon—or a myth? Indeed, at the opening stage of my encounter with the most evil and the most wonderful man who, I firmly believe, has ever been incarnated, I sometimes toyed with the idea that the Chinese doctor had no existence outside the imagination of Sir Denis.
    All these reflections, more or less as I have recorded them, flashed through my mind as I stood there listening for evidence of another presence in the villa.
    And although I heard not the faintest sound, I knew, now, that someone was there—someone who was searching for the formula of “654,” and, therefore, not a Burmese bodyguard or other underling, but one cultured enough to recognize the formula if it should be found!
    Possibly... Dr. Fu-Manchu!
    I stepped up to the writing desk, upon which the telephone stood—and in doing so noticed that the shutters outside the window had been closed. First and foremost, I must establish contact with Sir Denis. I thought I should be justified in reporting that the enemy had not yet found the formula.
    The automatic in my right hand, I took up the receiver in the left. Because of the position of the instrument, I was compelled to turn half away from the open door.
    I could get no reply. I depressed the lever. There was no answering ring...
    A slight sound, and a change in the illumination of the room brought me about in a flash.
    The door was closed.
    And the telephone line was dead—cut.
    I leapt to the door, grasped the handle, and turned it fiercely. I remained perfectly cool—which is my way of seeing red. The door was locked.
    At which moment the lights went out.

CHAPTER TWELVE

MIMOSA
    I listened intently, not knowing what to expect. That this was a prelude to an attack on my life, I did not doubt.
    The room was now in complete darkness, for, as I had already noted, the outside shutters had been closed. There were two points from which this attack was to be apprehended: the door or the window. There was no chimney, heat being provided by a stove, the pipe of which was carried out through an aperture in the wall high up near the ceiling.
    At first I could not hear a sound.
    Very cautiously I bent and pressed my ear to the thin panelling of the door. Now, I detected movement—and, furthermore, sibilant whispering. I could hear my own heart beating, too.
    After a lapse of fully a minute, I became certain that someone else was standing on the other side of the door, listening, as I was.
    A murderous rage possessed me.
    It was unnecessary to recall Sir Denis’s instructions: “Don’t hesitate to shoot.” I did not intend to hesitate... I was anxious for an opportunity. Petrie’s haggard face was always before my mind’s eye. And if Nayland Smith were correct, Sir Manston Rorke also had been foully done to death by this callous, foul group surrounding the creature called Fu-Manchu.
    A very slight movement upon the woodwork now enabled me to locate the exact position of the one who