Nude in Mink - Sax Rohmer (fun books to read for adults txt) 📗

1" id="calibre_toc_18" class="calibre3">Chapter Seventeen 1

BARONESS RIKTER wore a grey, caped uniform faced with scarlet. In one hand (silk mittened) the baroness carried an ebony cane with a scrutched silver handle. She stooped slightly, leaning on her stick, as she entered. Her small, chiselled features were of an ivory pallor and her beautifully dressed hair, worn short, was silver like the crutch of her cane. Slightly tinted spectacles enhanced the venerable appearance. Cleanness perhaps was the dominant note, and her garments exhaled a faint but not unpleasant odour of antiseptic.

She halted, looking from face to face.

“Mr. Sandford?”

“I am George Sandford… My managing clerk, John Wilkes, madam.”

“Ah!”

The baroness spoke labouredly and with a marked accent. As Maitland placed a chair for her:

“Thank you, Mr Sandford,” she said wearily. “My own labours have not lightened my years. Sit there, Mr. Sandford, and tell me what you want to know.”

But Maitland had grown temporarily distrait. His mind was questing in the past, forcibly striving to hunt down that elusive memory, now suddenly taunting him again.

As he had bent solicitously over the aged lady, this memory—or a part of it—had leapt to life… the baroness’s features, in profile, conjured up the image of a Greek cameo.

Where, in some hazy past, had he glanced aside at a woman and thought that she resembled a Greek cameo?

There was moonlight in the memory—and silence—and some quality recently conjured up by the Arab apartment through which they had come…

He remembered his assumed mission.

“Certainly,” he said. “I don’t wish to waste an unnecessary moment of your time. I realise how hard you work in an admirable cause. The position, however, is quite simple. My distinguished client instructs me to give him a personal report of your intentions regarding the future of the St. Erik’s Ambulance Corps. This should be easy enough?”

Covertly, but eagerly, he studied her, mittened hands resting on the top of the stick.

“It is quite easy. There is more need in desolated Europe today for the aid which we bring to the sick and the hungry than existed during war. My staff will be even more busy than before. But we are giving up our London headquarters.”

Even in repose, this woman radiated tremendous authority…

“I see… No doubt, Baroness, you have prepared a complete statement of accounts to date, and a prospectus of your probable outlay in the future?”

She tapped her stick on the floor peremptorily.

“But certainly, Mr. Sandford. Is my integrity in dispute?”

Her sudden vehemence was startling.

“No, no! Please don’t misunderstand me. I speak simply as a man of business—”

The baroness stood up—a swift, surprisingly lithe movement.

“If I had foreseen that statistics were called for, I should have come provided with them! Be good enough to excuse me for a few minutes. Mr. Sandford, and I will return with my secretary—”

She began to cross the room.

“Really, it is not—”

The baroness glanced back—so that again Maitland had a glimpse of that pure profile.

“I wish you to interview my secretary.”

Locker opening the door, she went out. The tap—tap— tap of her stick recede into silence…

Steel Maitland, his fists clenching, stood staring at that half opened door.

Tap… tap… tap…

His own obtuseness appalled him. Perhaps same hypnotic quality in the eyes had, hitherto, stifled memory. Obscured by lenses, this quality might not assert itself. But something he had tried, long enough, to recall, something which persistently had eluded him, now, amazing to himself, had crashed into recognition…

He walked again from Mena House along the path to the Great Pyramid… moaning of a dance band faded… he heard the rhythmic beating of an Arab drum… Beside him glided a beautiful woman … In the clear moonlight he saw that her profile was of Grecian purity.

The desert reached out to touch them silently. Her golden voice was hypnotic. He remembered how it appeared, at the time, to blend with the music of an Arab pipe someone was playing in the village. Now, every word of that extraordinary conversation repeated itself like a record of the past…

“I suppose you are a naval surgeon?”

He had not replied immediately, but at last:

“I am tempted to suppose that you are a reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes. How did you arrive at your conclusion?”

“Is it correct?”

“Yes.”

She had laughed, that soft, trilling laugh, which possessed a quality akin to the note of a nightingale.

“Your budding beard and your blue socks.”

It was a plausible explanation, but he had hesitated to accept it. He was becoming fascinated, knew it, and resented it. He had wondered at the time if the tradition of the “beautiful spy” had perhaps a solid foundation.

“You are keenly observant. The beard is conspicuous, but I thought I had contrived to conceal the socks. Are you living in Egypt?”

“Only temporarily. I have a certain portion of my job to finish here—and then I shall go.”

“War job?”

“No—like job. You see—the war will never end.”

“Never end?”

“Never—this time. It will simply merge imperceptibly into the next.”

“Cheery outlook!”

“Isn’t it!”

And all the time they were walking on and on towards the frontiers of the desert.

“I hope you are wrong.”

“I fear I am not … If you have walked far enough, Commanders, please say so.”

“Do you mean you want to go back?”

“I am not going back. I was thinking of you.”

“Not going back!” He had been amazed.

She had spoken previously of the spirit of the Pyramid. Perhaps she had meant the legendary Woman of the Pyramid —that ageless siren who lured men to destruction. What did she mean when she said she was not going back? He knew of no house beyond, and she couldn’t possibly be living in the Arab village!

“No. I merely called at the hotel to see a friend.”

“But you can’t go wandering about here, alone, at night!”

Again, that laughter, that tinkling laughter of bells.

“I shall not be alone. Look—here are two of my servants to take care of me.”

He lived it all over again—how he had turned, sharply… Was it a trap?

Two white-robed, muffled figures—apparently a pair of Bedawi—stood immediately behind him!

“What’s this? Where have they come from?”

“They have been following us all the time, Commander. I have greatly enjoyed our chat. I hope you weren’t bored? Thank you so much… Good night.”

She nodded, smiling—or so Maitland thought—and resumed her leisurely, graceful walk. The Arabs, never glancing in his direction, followed a few paces behind.

She never once glanced back .

Now, he knew! He saw the same woman stretched on a cushioned divan, fanning herself… Her tones, when she spoke, were those of a magic lute…

“What is it, sir?” Locker spoke anxiously. “What’s happened? Have I missed something?”

Maitland laughed, unmirthfully.

“Good God, Locker! You don’t understand! You don’t understand! Missed something? We have been missing everything!… The Baroness Rikter is—Sumuru!”

2

Tap… tap… tap…

Philo came, with those panther steps, down the marble stairs, to stand at their foot, one large, hairy hand resting on the bronze sphinx which ornamented the newel post. The beautiful apartment had been almost completely dismantled.

Baroness Rikter entered through an arched opening formerly closed by heavy draperies. She stood there, watching him. Her spectacles she had discarded.

Philo bowed his head.

“Look down, Philo. Look down! For that is wise!”

“My Lady! You return! What is it?”

“What is it, Philo? What is it, you ask me? It is that the ‘Mr. Sandford’ who sits down there is—Steel Maitland!… Steel Maitland, who, you tell me, is in Scotland!”

“My Lady!”

She held the ebony stick between her mittened hands, a grotesque parody of age—and, suddenly, it snapped.

“How well I am served, Philo! How wonderful is my information! The arch-enemy—the one opponent I fear;—is allowed openly to enter my doors! How much does he suspect? How much does he know? Can the man delude himself to believe that bleached hair, removing his beard, wearing a pair of spectacles, could deceive me? Pah!”

She cast aside the broken ebony fragments. Philo stood mute.

“But can I delude myself to believe that similar devices will fool him? No! At first, he doubted. He never once betrayed himself… But, now, he knows!”

“My Lady! My Lady! What shall we do?”

Philo’s voice conveyed deep emotion—fear for one venerated, adored.

“‘My Lady, My Lady!’ Would to heaven Ariosto were here—Abdul—any of them—but you! … Be silent. Let me think.”

Philo bowed his head, humbly.

“There is no one now in Lorimer House, except Claudette and Sister Clair who attends her, who knows me other than as Baroness Rikter?”

“None, My Lady—no one who has ever been in your private apartments.”

Sumuru, sinking down into an ornate Arab chair which almost alone remained, began to laugh. That exquisite laughter echoed weirdly around the denuded room.

“My private apartment! Yes—I have lived in the midst of my enemies and watched them combing London for me! I have received them in this room as an empress receiving subjects. Yet they have never suspected! Had I been well served, they would never have known… Let me think.”

She rested her chin in one delicate hand, closing her eyes. It was an oddly masculine pose…

“I must hold them here—if only for a few precious minutes. I must have time to get well upon my road before the hue and cry is raised… With all to be won, or lost, something must b? sacrificed… Dr. Arlington!… Telephone Dr. “Arlington at once. He will be at the hospital in Kensington near-by. Put him through to me, here. Dr. Arlington is a man of keen wit—and my good friend…”

3

In the small and orderly office below, Steel Maitland paced to and fro, to and fro, constantly watching the half open door. Suddenly, he pulled up.

Sergeant Locker came in, ostentatiously carrying a large brief-case.

Maitland spoke in low, eager tones.

“You got through to the inspector?”

“Yes, sir,” was the equally guarded reply. “Three cars are on the way… S’sh!”

Crisp footsteps heralded the return of the nurse who had received them.

“The baroness asks me to apologise for this delay, Mr. Sandford. She will not detain you long, though.”

“That is quite all right, thank you, nurse,” Maitland assured her—and the girl retired, closing the door. Allowing a moment to elapse!

“The Division has been notified, Locker? No one will be allowed to leave?” Maitland asked.

Locker nodded.

“Chief Inspector Ives is arranging that, sir. Unless she’s gone already, she won’t go, now.”

“H’m!” Maitland resumed his promenade. “I’m not so sure! You don’t know Sumuru! If only I had foreseen it—if only I had provided for such a thing! But the sheer daring of the woman took me completely by surprise. Good God! how she has been laughing at us all!”

“Do you think she suspects, then?”

Maitland stopped—stared.

“Suspects? She knew me at the very moment she entered this room! My disguise was not intended to stand up to the X-ray eyes of Sumuru!”

“Then,” Locker exclaimed excitedly, “we may be too late already!”

“Even so—what can we do? We have not warrant to arrest the Baroness Rikter! We can only wait and question her in the usual way. Invite her to remove that wonderful silver wig, for instance… What’s going on?”

Upon the strange, pregnant silence of the great house had intruded a murmur of voices and shuffle of hurried footsteps.

“Perhaps the Chief Inspector has arrived!” said Locker, and threw the door open… “No—someone going upstairs… Looks like a doctor…” He stepped out, calling, “Oh, nurse, is anything wrong?”

Maitland stood by the open door. The nursing sister paused on her way upstairs, looking back.

“Unfortunately, yes.