The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hand Of Fu-Manchu, by Sax Rohmer

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Title: The Hand Of Fu-Manchu
Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor

Author: Sax Rohmer

Release Date: March 10, 2006 [eBook #17959]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAND OF FU-MANCHU***

E-text prepared by Lisa Miller

THE HAND OF FU-MANCHU

Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor

by

SAX ROHMER

THE HAND OF FU MANCHU

CHAPTER I

THE TRAVELER FROM TIBET

"Who's there?" I called sharply.

I turned and looked across the room. The window had been widely opened
when I entered, and a faint fog haze hung in the apartment, seeming to
veil the light of the shaded lamp. I watched the closed door intently,
expecting every moment to see the knob turn. But nothing happened.

"Who's there?" I cried again, and, crossing the room, I threw open the
door.

The long corridor without, lighted only by one inhospitable lamp at a
remote end, showed choked and yellowed with this same fog so
characteristic of London in November. But nothing moved to right nor
left of me. The New Louvre Hotel was in some respects yet incomplete,
and the long passage in which I stood, despite its marble facings, had
no air of comfort or good cheer; palatial it was, but inhospitable.

I returned to the room, reclosing the door behind me, then for some
five minutes or more I stood listening for a repetition of that
mysterious sound, as of something that both dragged and tapped, which
already had arrested my attention. My vigilance went unrewarded. I
had closed the window to exclude the yellow mist, but subconsciously I
was aware of its encircling presence, walling me in, and now I found
myself in such a silence as I had known in deserts but could scarce
have deemed possible in fog-bound London, in the heart of the world's
metropolis, with the traffic of the Strand below me upon one side and
the restless life of the river upon the other.

It was easy to conclude that I had been mistaken, that my nervous
system was somewhat overwrought as a resul