The Devil Doctor   By: Sax Rohmer (1883-1959)

HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED ADVENTURES IN THE CAREER OF THE MYSTERIOUS DR. FU MANCHU

BY

SAX ROHMER

SIXTH EDITION

METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON

First Published (Crown 8vo) March 2nd, 1916

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I A MIDNIGHT SUMMONS

II ELTHAM VANISHES

III THE WIRE JACKET

IV THE CRY OF A NIGHTHAWK

V THE NET

VI UNDER THE ELMS

VII ENTER MR. ABEL SLATTIN

VIII DR. FU MANCHU STRIKES

IX THE CLIMBER

X THE CLIMBER RETURNS

XI THE WHITE PEACOCK

XII DARK EYES LOOK INTO MINE

XIII THE SACRED ORDER

XIV THE COUGHING HORROR

XV BEWITCHMENT

XVI THE QUESTING HANDS

XVII ONE DAY IN RANGOON

XVIII THE SILVER BUDDHA

XIX DR. FU MANCHU'S LABORATORY

XX THE CROSSBAR

XXI CRAGMIRE TOWER

XXII THE MULATTO

XXIII A CRY ON THE MOOR

XXIV STORY OF THE GABLES

XXV THE BELLS

XXVI THE FIERY HAND

XXVII THE NIGHT OF THE RAID

XXVIII THE SAMURAI'S SWORD

XXIX THE SIX GATES

XXX THE CALL OF THE EAST

XXXI "MY SHADOW LIES UPON YOU"

XXXII THE TRAGEDY

XXXIII THE MUMMY

THE DEVIL DOCTOR

CHAPTER I

A MIDNIGHT SUMMONS

"When did you last hear from Nayland Smith?" asked my visitor.

I paused, my hand on the siphon, reflecting for a moment.

"Two months ago," I said: "he's a poor correspondent and rather soured, I fancy."

"What a woman or something?"

"Some affair of that sort. He's such a reticent beggar, I really know very little about it."

I placed a whisky and soda before the Rev. J. D. Eltham, also sliding the tobacco jar nearer to his hand. The refined and sensitive face of the clergyman offered no indication to the truculent character of the man. His scanty fair hair, already grey over the temples, was silken and soft looking: in appearance he was indeed a typical English churchman; but in China he had been known as "the fighting missionary," and had fully deserved the title. In fact, this peaceful looking gentleman had directly brought about the Boxer Risings!

"You know," he said in his clerical voice, but meanwhile stuffing tobacco into an old pipe with fierce energy, "I have often wondered, Petrie I have never left off wondering "

"What?"

"That accursed Chinaman! Since the cellar place beneath the site of the burnt out cottage in Dulwich Village I have wondered more than ever."

He lighted his pipe and walked to the hearth to throw the match in the grate.

"You see," he continued, peering across at me in his oddly nervous way "one never knows, does one? If I thought that Dr. Fu Manchu lived; if I seriously suspected that that stupendous intellect, that wonderful genius, Petrie, er" he hesitated characteristically "survived, I should feel it my duty "

"Well?" I said, leaning my elbows on the table and smiling slightly.

"If that Satanic genius were not indeed destroyed, then the peace of the world might be threatened anew at any moment!"

He was becoming excited, shooting out his jaw in the truculent manner I knew, and snapping his fingers to emphasize his words; a man composed of the oddest complexities that ever dwelt beneath a clerical frock.

"He may have got back to China, doctor!" he cried, and his eyes had the fighting glint in them. "Could you rest in peace if you thought that he lived? Should you not fear for your life every time that a night call took you out alone? Why, man alive, it is only two years since he was here amongst us, since we were searching every shadow for those awful green eyes! What became of his band of assassins his stranglers, his dacoits, his damnable poisons and insects and what not the army of creatures "