The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, by Sax Rohmer

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Title: The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu

Author: Sax Rohmer

Posting Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #1183]
Release Date: January, 1998

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU ***

Produced by Alan Johns

THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU

By Sax Rohmer

CHAPTER I. A MIDNIGHT SUMMONS

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

I paused, my hand on the syphon, 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 clergy-man offered no indication of the truculent character of the
man. His scanty fair hair, already gray 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