Fleurette began to read at random.
“. . . But I didn’t care much. I am peaceable and don’t get up no rows with people that ain’t doing nothing to me. I allowed if the paynims was satisfied I was. We would let it stand at that. . .”
She read other passages, wondering why her education had not included Mark Twain; recognizing by virtue of her training that the great humorist had also been one of the world’s great philosophers.
“Your sandwiches, miss.”
Fleurette started.
Fey was placing a tray upon a small table set beside the armchair. Removing the silver cover he revealed some delicately cut sandwiches. With a spoon and fork he adroitly placed two upon a plate, removed a half-bottle of wine from an ice-bucket, uncorked it and poured out a glassful.
He set down the glass beside the plate, adjusted the armchair in relation to the fire with careful consideration, bowed slightly, and went out.
The man was so efficient, so completely sane, that no better antidote could have been prescribed in Fleurette’s present mood. Mark Twain had begun the cure; Fey had completed it.
She began to eat egg sandwiches with great relish. She knew instinctively that the expedition upon which her father had gone to-night, with Sir Denis and that strange character, Inspector Gallaho, would result in the discovery of the fact that Dr. Fu Manchu had survived the catastrophe in the East End, of which she knew very little, for they had withheld details. She was disposed to believe that Gallaho, alone, had faith in the Prince’s death; her father’s manner betrayed doubt; Sir Denis had said nothing, but she divined the fact that until he saw Dr. Fu Manchu dead before him he would never believe that that great intellect had ceased to function.
Fleurette ate three sandwiches, drank a glass of wine, and, in a mood of contemplation, found herself staring again into the fire.
“Little Flower, I am calling you.”
His voice again!
She sprang up. She knew, for she had been trained to know, that no voice really had sounded in the room. It was her subconscious brain. But . . . this she knew also—it was real—it was urgent.
Already she began to see again that glamorous but meaningless life out of which she had climbed, assisted by Alan, as a swimmer clambers out of a tropical sea. She could see it in the fire. There were snow-capped mountains there, melting into palm groves, temples and crowded bazaar streets; a hot smell of decay and perfume—and now, all merged into two long, gleaming eyes.
She watched those eyes fascinatedly; bent closer, falling under their thraldom.
“Little Flower, I am calling. ...”
Her lips parted. She was about to speak in response to that imperious call, when a sound in the lobby snatched her back to the world of reality.
It was the ringing of the door bell.
Fleurette stood up again and walked towards the book case. She pulled out Tom Sawyer Abroad, which she had replaced, and opened it at random. She read, but the words did not register. She could hear Fey crossing the lobby and opening the front door of the apartment. She did not hear any word spoken.
She thought she detected a vague scuffling sound.
Fleurette replaced the book, and stood still, very near to the door communicating with the lobby, listening. The scuffling continued; then came a dull thud.
Silence.
A wave of apprehension swept over her, turning her cold.
“Fey!” she called, and again more urgently, “Fey!”
There was no reply.
She ran to the bell beside the mantlepiece, pushed it and actually heard it ringing. She stood still, hands clenched, watching the door.
No one came.
“Fey!” she called again, and heard with surprise the high note upon which she called.
The door opened. The lobby beyond was in darkness.
A tall man was coming in.
But it was not Fey. . . .
CHAPTER 53
POWERS OF DR. FU MANCHU
“I can’t make this out!” said Nayland Smith.
He, Dr. Petrie and Inspector Gallaho stood before the door of the apartment. Smith had rung twice and there had been no reply.
Smith stared hard at Petrie.
“You’ve got the key, sir, no doubt?” Gallaho growled.
“Yes.” Nayland Smith drew a bunch of keys from his trouser pocket. “I have the key, but I am wondering where Fey can have gone.”
They had called on Sterling, the invalid, in his room at the hotel near by, and they had broken the unpleasant news that unless Mr. Samuel Grimes (such was the night watchman’s name) suffered from a singular hallucination, it was almost certain that Dr. Fu Manchu was still alive.
Petrie had attended to his patient, who was of a type difficult to handle; and with a final drink upon which the doctor had frowned severely, they had come away .....
“Dinner for four at eight-thirty was my last order if I remember rightly,” said Nayland Smith. “It’s just possible, of course——” he placed the key in the lock—”that he may have gone down to the kitchen. But why doesn’t Fleurette answer?”
He turned the key and swung the door open.
“Hello!” Gallaho exclaimed, “what’s this?”
“My God!” groaned Petrie.
A heavy smell resembling that of mimosa swept out from the lobby to greet them, and . . . the lobby was in darkness!
Nayland Smith sprang forward, groped for the light, stumbled, and fell.
“Smith!”
Petrie rushed in behind him.
“All right!” came in the staccato fashion which characterized Nayland Smith in moments of tension. “I’ve fallen over . . . somebody.”
Inspector Gallaho switched on the light.
Sir Denis had jumped up. He was staring down, jaws clenched, at an insensible man who lay upon the carpet.
It was Fey.
Petrie raised his hand to his brow and groaned.
“Smith,” he said, in a strangled voice, “Smith! He has got her again!”
“Lend me a hand, Gallaho,” cried Nayland Smith, savagely. “We’ll get him on to the settee in the sitting-room.”
The door being thrown open by Petrie, it was warmly lighted. There was no one there.
Out from that lobby which reeked of mimosa, they carried the insensible man, and laid him upon the settee. He was breathing regularly, but heavily; otherwise, there was complete silence in Nayland Smith’s apartment.
“Can you do anything, Petrie? You know something about this damnable drug of the Doctor’s.”
“I can try,” said Petrie, quietly, and went out to the room which he occupied.
Sir Denis had accommodation for two guests, or, at a pinch, three. Dr. Petrie and his daughter were his guests now; and Fleurette . . . ?
Inspector Gallaho, who had forgotten to remove his bowler, removed it, not without difficulty, showing a red mark where it had been crushed down upon his bullet head.
“This is a hell of a go,” he growled, tossing his hat into an armchair. “It’s easy enough to see what’s happened, sir. This queer smell is one, I take it, you have met with before?”
“I have,” said Sir Denis, grimly.
A powerful anaesthetic?”
“Exactly.”
“Very well. Someone rang the bell, and the moment Fey opened the door, sprang on him with a pad saturated in this stuff—and the rest of the story tells itself.” He began to chew phantom gum. “She’s a lovely girl,” he added. “It’s enough to make a man burst!”
Dr. Petrie came in carrying a medicine case, and kneeling down, began to examine Fey. Gallaho went out into the lobby.
“The smell of this stuff makes my head swim,” he growled.
He was looking for something which might give a clue to the identity ofFey’s assailant. Nayland Smith, tugging at the lobe of his ear, was walking up and down before the open fire, watching Petrie at work; afraid to say what he thought, but suffering much of the agony of mind which he knew his old friend to be experiencing at this moment.