Nayland Smith leant against the edge of the dressing1-table, attired2 in pyjamas3. The little stateroom was hazy4 with smoke, and my friend gripped the charred5 briar between his teeth and watched the blue-grey clouds arising from the bowl, in an abstracted way. I knew that he was thinking hard, and from the fact that he had exhibited no surprise when I had related to him the particulars of the attack upon Kâramanèh, I judged that he had half anticipated something of the kind. Suddenly he stood up, staring at me fixedly6.
"Your tact7 has saved the situation, Petrie," he snapped. "It failed you momentarily, though, when you proposed to me just now that we should muster8
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the lascars for inspection9. Our game is to pretend that we know nothing—that we believe Kâramanèh to have had a bad dream."
"But, Smith—" I began.
"It would be useless, Petrie," he interrupted me. "You cannot suppose that I overlooked the possibility of some creature of the Doctor's being among the lascars. I can assure you that not one of them answers to the description of the midnight assailant. From the girl's account we have to look (discarding the idea of a revivified mummy) for a man of unusual height—and there's no lascar of unusual height on board; and from the visible evidence, that he entered the stateroom through the port-hole, we have to look for a man more than normally thin. In a word, the servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu who attempted the life of Kâramanèh is either in hiding in the ship, or if visible, is disguised."
With his usual clarity, Nayland Smith had visualized10 the facts of the case; I passed in mental survey each one of the passengers, and those of the crew whose appearances were familiar to me, with the result that I had to admit the justice of my friend's conclusions. Smith began to pace the narrow strip of carpet between the dressing-table and the door. Suddenly he began again.
"From our knowledge of Fu-Manchu—and of the group surrounding him (and, don't forget, surviving him)—we may further assume that the wireless11 message was no gratuitous12 piece of melodrama13, but that it was directed to a definite end. Let us endeavour to link up the chain a little. You occupy an upper-berth; so do I. Experience of the Chinaman has formed a habit in both of us: that of sleeping with closed windows. Your port was fastened and so was my own. Kâramanèh is quartered on the main deck, and her brother's stateroom opens into the same alleyway. Since the ship is in the Straits of Messina, and the glass set fair, the stewards14 have
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not closed the port-holes nightly at present. We know that that of Kâramanèh's stateroom was open. Therefore, in any attempt upon our quarter, Kâramanèh would automatically be selected for the victim, since failing you or myself she may be regarded as being the most obnoxious15 to Dr. Fu-Manchu."
I nodded comprehendingly. Smith's capacity for throwing the white light of reason into the darkest places often amazed me.
"You may have noticed," he continued, "that Kâramanèh's room is directly below your own. In the event of any outcry, you would be sooner upon the scene than I should, for instance, because I sleep on the opposite side of the ship. This circumstance I take to be the explanation of the wireless message, which, because of its hesitancy (a piece of ingenuity16 very characteristic of the group), led to your being awakened17 and invited up to the Marconi deck; in short, it gave the would-be assassin a better chance of escaping before your arrival."
I watched my friend in growing wonder. The strange events, seemingly having no link, took their place in the drama, and became well-ordered episodes in a plot that only a criminal genius could have devised. As I studied the keen, bronzed face, I realized to the full the stupendous mental power of Dr. Fu-Manchu, measuring it by the criterion of Nayland Smith's. For the cunning Chinaman, in a sense, had foiled this brilliant man before me, whereby if by naught18 else I might know him a master of his evil art.
"I regard the episode," continued Smith, "as a posthumous19 attempt of the Doctor's; a legacy20 of hate which may prove more disastrous21 than any attempt made upon us by Fu-Manchu in life. Some fiendish member of the murder group is on board the ship. We must, as always, meet guile22 with guile. There must be no appeal to the Captain, no
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public examination of passengers and crew. One attempt has failed; I do not doubt that others will be made. At present, you will enact23 the rôle of physician-in-attendance upon Kâramanèh, and will put it about for whom it may interest that a slight return of her nervous trouble is causing her to pass uneasy nights. I can safely leave this part of the case to you, I think?"
I nodded rapidly.
"I haven't troubled to make inquiries24," added Smith, "but I think it probable that the regulation respecting closed ports will come into operation immediately we have passed the Straits, or at any rate immediately there is any likelihood of bad weather."
"You mean—"
"I mean that no alteration25 should be made in our habits. A second attempt along similar lines is to be apprehended—to-night. After that we may begin to look out for a new danger."
As I entered the saloon for breakfast in the morning, I was subjected to solicitous27 inquiries from Mrs. Prior, the gossip of the ship. Her room adjoined Kâramanèh's, and she had been one of the passengers aroused by the girl's cries in the night. Strictly28 adhering to my rôle, I explained that my patient was threatened with a second nervous breakdown29, and was subject to vivid and disturbing dreams. One or two other inquiries I met in the same way, ere escaping to the corner table reserved to us.
That iron-bound code of conduct which rules the Anglo-Indian, in the first days of the voyage had threatened to ostracise Kâramanèh and Azîz, by reason of the Eastern blood to which their brilliant but peculiar30 type of beauty bore witness. Smith's attitude, however—and, in a Burmese Commissioner31, it constituted something of a law—had done much to break down the barriers; the extraordinary
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beauty of the girl had done the rest. So that now, far from finding themselves shunned32, the society of Kâramanèh and her romantic-looking brother was universally courted. The last inquiry33 that morning, respecting my interesting patient, came from the Bishop34 of Damascus, a benevolent35 old gentleman whose ancestry36 was not wholly innocent of Oriental strains, and who sat at a table immediately behind me. As I settled down to my porridge, he turned his chair slightly and bent37 to my ear.
"Mrs. Prior tells me that your charming friend was disturbed last night," he whispered. "She seems rather pale this morning; I sincerely trust that she is suffering no ill effect."
I swung around, with a smile. Owing to my carelessness, there was a slight collision, and the poor bishop, who had been invalided38 to England after typhoid, in order to undergo special treatment, suppressed an exclamation39 of pain, although his fine dark eyes gleamed kindly40 upon me through the pebbles41 of his gold-rimmed pince-nez.
Indeed, despite his Eastern blood, he might have posed for a Sadler picture, his small and refined features seeming out of place above the bulky body.
"Can you forgive my clumsiness?" I began.
His system was supercharged with typhoid bacilli, and, as sometimes occurs, the superfluous43 "bugs44" had sought exit. He could only walk with the aid of two stout45 sticks, and bent very much at that. His left leg had been surgically46 scraped to the bone, and I appreciated the exquisite47 torture to which my awkwardness had subjected him. But he would entertain no apologies, pressing his inquiry respecting Kâramanèh, in the kindly manner which had made him so deservedly popular on board.
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my professional reputation is at stake, I shall see that she secures it."
In short, we were in pleasant company, and the day passed happily enough and without notable event. Smith spent some considerable time with the chief officer, wandering about unfrequented parts of the ship. I learnt later that he had explored the lascars' quarters, the forecastle, the engine-room, and had even descended49 to the stoke-hold; but this was done so unostentatiously that it occasioned no comment.
With the approach of evening, in place of that physical contentment which usually heralds50 the dinner-hour, at sea, I experienced a fit of the seemingly causeless apprehension51 which too often in the past had harbingered the coming of grim events; which I had learnt to associate with the nearing presence of one of Fu-Manchu's death-agents. In view of the facts, as I afterwards knew them to be, I cannot account for this.
Yet, in an unexpected manner, my forebodings were realized. That night I was destined52 to meet a sorrow surpassing any which my troubled life had known. Even now I experience great difficulty in relating the matters which befell, in speaking of the sense of irrevocable loss which came to me. Briefly53, then, at about ten minutes before the dining hour, whilst all the passengers, myself included, were below, dressing, a faint cry arose from somewhere aft on the upper deck—a cry which was swiftly taken up by other voices, so that presently a deck-steward echoed it immediately outside my own stateroom:
"Man overboard! Man overboard!"
All my premonitions rallying in that one sickening moment, I sprang out on the deck, half dressed as I was, and leaping past the boat which swung nearly opposite my door, craned over the rail, looking astern.
For a long time I could detect nothing unusual.
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The engine-room telegraph was ringing—and the motion of the screws momentarily ceased; then, in response to further ringing, recommenced, but so as to jar the whole structure of the vessel54; whereby I knew that the engines were reversed. Peering intently into the wake of the ship, I was but dimly aware of the ever-growing turmoil55 around me, of the swift mustering56 of a boat's crew, of the shouted orders of the third officer. Suddenly I saw it—the sight which was to haunt me for succeeding days and nights.
Half in the streak57 of the wake and half out of it, I perceived the sleeve of a white jacket, and, near to it, a soft felt hat. The sleeve rose up once into clear view, seemed to describe a half-circle in the air, then sank back again into the glassy swell58 of the water. Only the hat remained floating upon the surface.
By the evidence of the white sleeve alone I might have remained unconvinced, although upon the voyage I had become familiar enough with the drill shooting-jacket, but the presence of the grey felt hat was almost conclusive59.
The man overboard was Nayland Smith!
I cannot hope, writing now, to convey in any words at my command, a sense, even remote, of the utter loneliness which in that dreadful moment closed coldly down upon me.
To spring overboard to the rescue was a natural impulse, but to have obeyed it would have been worse than quixotic. In the first place, the drowning man was close upon half a mile astern; in the second place, others had seen the hat and the white coat as clearly as I; among them the third officer, standing60 upright in the stern of the boat—which, with commendable61 promptitude, had already been swung into the water. The steamer was being put about, describing a wide arc around the little boat dancing on the deep blue rollers....
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Of the next hour, I cannot bear to write at all. Long as I had known him, I was ignorant of my friend's powers as a swimmer, but I judged that he must have been a poor one from the fact that he had sunk so rapidly in a calm sea. Except the hat, no trace of Nayland Smith remained when the boat got to the spot.
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1
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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3
pyjamas
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| n.（宽大的）睡衣裤 | |
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4
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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7
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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8
muster
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| v.集合，收集，鼓起，激起；n.集合，检阅，集合人员，点名册 | |
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9
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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10
visualized
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| 直观的，直视的 | |
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wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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12
gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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13
melodrama
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| n.音乐剧；情节剧 | |
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14
stewards
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| （轮船、飞机等的）乘务员( steward的名词复数 )； （俱乐部、旅馆、工会等的）管理员； （大型活动的）组织者； （私人家中的）管家 | |
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15
obnoxious
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| adj.极恼人的，讨人厌的，可憎的 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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17
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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18
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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19
posthumous
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| adj.遗腹的；父亡后出生的；死后的，身后的 | |
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legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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21
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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22
guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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23
enact
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| vt.制定(法律)；上演，扮演 | |
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24
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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25
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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26
fervently
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| adv.热烈地，热情地，强烈地 | |
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27
solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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28
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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29
breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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30
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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31
commissioner
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| n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员 | |
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32
shunned
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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33
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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34
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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35
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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36
ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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37
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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38
invalided
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| 使伤残（invalid的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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39
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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40
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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41
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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42
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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43
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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44
bugs
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| adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误 | |
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46
surgically
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| adv. 外科手术上, 外科手术一般地 | |
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47
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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48
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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49
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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50
heralds
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| n.使者( herald的名词复数 )；预报者；预兆；传令官v.预示( herald的第三人称单数 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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51
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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52
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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53
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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54
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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55
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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56
mustering
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的现在分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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57
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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58
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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59
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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60
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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61
commendable
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| adj.值得称赞的 | |
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