The Bride of Fu-Manchu Read Online Free Page B

first drew my attention to approaching dusk. Petrie had turned up the laboratory lamps.
    I was deep in a German work which promised information, and now, mechanically, I switched on the table lamp. Hundreds of grasshoppers were chirping in the garden; I could hear the purr of a speedboat. Mme Dubonnet continued to sing. It was a typical Riviera evening.
    The shadow of that great crag which almost overhung the Villa Jasmin lay across part of the kitchen-garden visible from my window, and soon would claim all our tiny domain. I continued my studies, jumping from reference to reference and constantly consulting the index. I believed I was at last on the right track.
    How long a time elapsed between the moment when I saw the light turned up in the laboratory and the interruption, I found great difficulty in determining afterwards. But the interruption was uncanny.
    Mme Dubonnet, working in the kitchen, French fashion, with windows hermetically sealed, noticed nothing.
    Already, on this momentous day, I had heard a sound baffling description; and it was written—for the day was one never to be forgotten—that I should hear another.
    As I paused to light a fresh cigarette, from somewhere outside—I thought from the Corniche road above—came a cry, very low, but penetrating.
    It possessed a quality of fear which chilled me like a sudden menace. It was a sort of mournful wail on three minor notes. But a shot at close quarters could not have been more electrical in its effect.
    I dropped my cigarette and jumped up.
    What was it?
    It was unlike anything I had ever heard. But there was danger in it, creeping peril. I leaned upon the table, staring from the window upward, in the direction from which the cry seemed to have come.
    And as I did so, I saw something.
    I have explained that a beam of light from the laboratory window cut across the shadow below. On the edge of this light something moved for a moment—for no more than a moment—but instantly drew my glance downward.
    I looked...
    A pair of sunken, squinting eyes, set in a yellow face so evilly hideous that I was tempted then, and for some time later, to doubt the evidence of my senses, watched me!
    Of the body belonging to this head I could see nothing; it was enveloped in shadow. I saw just that evil mask watching me; then— it was gone!
    As I stood staring from the window, stupid with a kind of horrified amazement, I heard footsteps racing down the path from the road which led to the door of Villa Jasmin. Turning, I ran out onto the verandah. I reached it at the same moment as the new arrival—a tall, lean man with iron-grey, crisply virile hair, and keen, eager eyes. He had the sort of skin which tells of years spent in the tropics. He wore no hat, but a heavy topcoat was thrown across his shoulders, cloakwise. Above all, he radiated a kind of vital energy which was intensely stimulating.
    “Quick,” he said—his mode of address reminded me of a machine gun—“where is Dr. Petrie? My name is Nayland Smith.”
    “I’m glad you have come, Sir Denis,” I replied; and indeed I spoke sincerely. “The doctor referred to you only today. My name is Alan Sterling.”
    “I know it is,” he said, and shook hands briskly; then:
    “Where is Petrie?” he repeated. “Is he with you?”
    “He is in the laboratory, Sir Denis. I’ll show you the way.” Sir Denis nodded, and we stepped off the verandah. “Did you hear that awful cry?” I added. He stopped. We had just begun to descend the slope.
    “You heard it?” he rapped in his staccato fashion.
    “I did. I have never heard anything like it in my life!”
    “I have! Let’s hurry.”
    There was something very strange in his manner, something which I ascribed to that wailing sound which had electrified me. Definitely, Sir Denis Nayland Smith was not a man susceptible to panic, but some fearful urgency drove him tonight.
    I was about to speak of that malignant yellow face when, as we came in sight of the lighted