Free The Perils of Sherlock Holmes by Loren D. Estleman Page A

“You might first have sought the opinion of the imitated, to determine whether the honour would be welcome.”
    He nodded, as if he were considering the matter. “I might have, and I should. I can only state in my defence that I thought you existed on far too lofty a plane to be approached by one of my youth and inexperience. Pray accept my apology, and I shall post the circumstances of my debt to you upon the front page of the
Times
.”
    This sentiment, and the obvious sincerity with which it was delivered, unmasted me thoroughly. For all his seeming repose, young Rohmer was clearly flummoxed by the celebrated company in which he found himself. This was evident both by his attitude and by his dress; his Norfolk and whipcords, although quite correct to his surroundings, were new almost to the point of gaucherie. He had dressed to please, and his efforts to ingratiate himself touched that which remained of the youth inside me. I told him no public abasement was necessary, and in so doing informed him he was forgiven.
    Moments later we were sharing the divan, enjoying the whiskies-and-soda which Holmes had prepared as carefully as his chemical experiments of old, and with considerably greater success than some. My friend—showing subtle signs of discomfort born of rheumatism—had assumed his Indian pose of listening, with legs folded and hands steepled beneath his chin.
    Rohmer began without further preamble.
    “Dr. Fu-Manchu, who is the antagonist of my little midnight-crawler, is not entirely a creature of fiction. He is based upon a Chinese master criminal known only as ‘Mr. King,’ who was the principal supplier of opium to the Limehouse district of London at the time I was researching an article on the subject for a magazine. He was a shadowy figure, and though I heard his name whispered everywhere in Chinatown, I never laid eyes upon him until long after I had filed the story, when I chanced to glimpse him crossing the pavement from an automobile into a house.
    “I had not even heard him so much as described, yet I knew on the instant it was he. He was as tall and dignified a celestial as you are ever likely to meet, attired in a fur cap and a long overcoat with a fur collar, followed closely by a stunningly beautiful Arab girl wrapped in a grey fur cloak. The girl was a dusky angel, in the company of a man whose face I can only describe as the living embodiment of Satan.
    “That, gentlemen,” he concluded quietly, “is Dr. Fu-Manchu, as I have come to present him in writing and to picture him in my nightmares.”
    “Who was the girl?” I heard myself asking; and inwardly jeered at myself for harbouring the interests of a young rake in the body of a sixty-one-year-old professional man.
    Rohmer, who like Holmes was a pipe smoker, shrugged in the midst of scooping tobacco from an old leather pouch into a crusty brier. “His mistress, perhaps, or merely a transient. In any case I never saw her again.”
    Holmes intervened. “I take it by that statement that you did see Mr. King subsequent to that occasion.”
    “Not according to the information I gave to my publicist, or for that matter anyone else, including my wife.” He struck a match off his bootheel and puffed the pipe into an orange glow, meeting Holmes’s gaze. “But, yes.”
    “And has he anything to do with the parcel which you have brought?”
    “Again, the answer is yes.” His eyes did not stray to the bundle he had placed atop the deal table where our host had once conducted his chemical researches, now a repository for the daily post. My own gaze, connected as it was to a curious mind, was drawn there directly. The item was roughly the size of a teacake, wrapped in burlap and tied with a cord. My fingers itched for my old notebook.
    “Mr. King is no slouch,” said Rohmer, “and like Dr. Watson, recognised himself immediately when he read my description of Fu-Manchu. Beyond this fact, the opium lord and the good doctor have nothing in