s suffused
by Oriental furniture, by Oriental draperies; the indefinable but
unmistakable perfume of the East.

Thus, London has a distinct smell of its own, and so has Paris, whilst
the difference between Marseilles and Suez, for instance, is even more
marked.

Now, the atmosphere surrounding me was Eastern, but not of the East that
I knew; rather it was Far Eastern. Perhaps I do not make myself very
clear, but to me there was a mysterious significance in that perfumed
atmosphere. I opened my eyes.

I lay upon a long low settee, in a fairly large room which was furnished
as I had anticipated in an absolutely Oriental fashion. The two windows
were so screened as to have lost, from the interior point of view, all
resemblance to European windows, and the whole structure of the room had
been altered in conformity, bearing out my idea that the place had been
prepared for Fu-Manchu's reception some time before his actual return. I
doubt if, East or West, a duplicate of that singular apartment could be
found.

The end in which I lay, was, as I have said, typical of an Eastern
house, and a large, ornate lantern hung from the ceiling almost directly
above me. The further end of the room was occupied by tall cases,
some of them containing books, but the majority filled with scientific
paraphernalia; rows of flasks and jars, frames of test-tubes, retorts,
scales, and other objects of the laboratory. At a large and very finely
carved table sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, a yellow and faded volume open before
him, and some dark red fluid, almost like blood, bubbling in a test-tube
which he held over the flame of a Bunsen-burner.

The enormously long nail of his right index finger rested upon the
opened page of the book to which he seemed constantly to refer, dividing
his attention between the volume, the contents of the test-tube, and the
progress of a second experiment, or possibly a part of the same, which
was taking place upon another corner of the littered table.

A huge glass retort (the bulb was fully two feet in diameter), fitted
with a Liebig's Condenser, rested in a metal frame, and within the bulb,
floating in an oily substance, was a fungus some six inches high, shaped
like a toadstool, but of a brilliant and venomous orange color. Three
flat tubes of light were so arranged as to cast violet rays upward into
the retort, and the receiver, wherein condensed the product of this
strange experiment, contained some drops of a red fl