The Drums of Fu-Manchu Read Online Free PDF

stared at him—“that although you don’t know
how
you do know
why
General Quinto was murdered?”
    He nodded, dropping the match in an ash tray.
    “You know of course, Kerrigan, that Quinto was the right-hand man of Pietro Monaghani. His counsels might have meant an international war.”
    “It hangs on a hair I agree, and I suppose that Quinto, as Monaghani’s chief adviser, might have precipitated a war—”
    “Yes—undoubtedly. But what you don’t know (nor did I until tonight) is this: General Quinto had left Africa on a mission to Spain. If he had gone I doubt if any power on earth could have preserved international peace! One man intervened.”
    “What man?”
    “If you can imagine Satan incarnate—a deathless spirit of evil dwelling in an ageless body—a cold intelligence armed with knowledge so far undreamed of by science—you have a slight picture of Doctor Fu-Manchu.”
    In my ignorance I think I laughed.
    “A name to me—a bogey to scare children. I had never supposed such a person to exist.”
    “Scotland Yard held the same opinion at one time, Kerrigan. But you will remember the recent suicide of a distinguished Japanese diplomat. The sudden death of Germany’s foremost chemist, Erich Schaffer, was frontpage news a week ago. Now—General Quinto.”
    “Surely you don’t mean—”
    “Yes, Kerrigan, the work of one man! Others thought him dead, but I have evidence to show that he is still alive. If I had lacked such evidence—I should have it now. I forced the general’s dispatch box, we failed to find the key. It contained three sheets of note paper—nothing else. Here they are.” He handed them to me. “Read them in the order in which I have given them to you.”
    I looked at the top sheet. It was embossed with a hieroglyphic which I took to be Chinese. The letter, which was undated, was not typed, but written in a squat, square hand. This was the letter:
    FIRST NOTICE
    The Council of Seven of the Si-Fan has decided that at all costs another international war must be averted. There are only fifteen men in the world who could bring it about. You are one of them. Therefore, these are the Council’s instructions: You will not enter Spain but will resign your commission immediately, and retire to your villa in Capri.
    President of the Seven
    I looked up.
    “What ever does this mean?”
    “I take it to mean,” Smith replied, “that the first notice which you have read was received by General Quinto in Africa. I knew him, and he knew—as every man called upon to administer African or Asiaticpeople knows—that the Si-Fan cannot be ignored. The Chinese Tongs are powerful, and there is a widespread belief in the influence of the Jesuits; but the Si-Fan is the most formidable secret society in the world: fully twenty-five per cent of the coloured races belong to it. However, he did not resign his commission. He secured leave of absence and proceeded to London to consult
me
. Somewhere on the way he received the second notice. Read it, Kerrigan.”
    I turned to the second page which bore the same hieroglyphic and a message in that heavy, definite handwriting. This was the message:
    SECOND NOTICE
    The Council of Seven of the Si-Fan would draw your attention to the fact that you have not resigned your commission. Failing your doing so, a third and final notice will be sent to you.
    President of the Seven
    I turned to the last page; it was headed
Third Notice
and read as follows:
    You have twenty-four hours.
    President of the Seven
    “You see, Kerrigan,” said Nayland Smith, “it was this third notice”—which must have reached him by district messenger at Sir Malcolm’s house—“which produced that state of panic to which Bascombe referred. The Council of Seven have determined to avert war. Their aim must enlist the sympathy of any sane man. But there are fourteen other men now living, perhaps misguided, whose lives are in danger. I have made a list of some of those whose removal inmy