The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu - Sax Rohmer (best finance books of all time .TXT) 📗

her charm enveloped me like a magic cloud. Unfamiliar with the complex Oriental temperament, I had laughed at Nayland Smith when he had spoken of this girl’s infatuation. “Love in the East,” he had said, “is like the conjurer’s mango-tree; it is born, grows and flowers at the touch of a hand.” Now, in those pleading eyes I read confirmation of his words. Her clothes or her hair exhaled a faint perfume. Like all Fu-Manchu’s servants, she was perfectly chosen for her peculiar duties. Her beauty was wholly intoxicating.

But I thrust her away.

“You have no claim to mercy,” I said. “Do not count upon any. What have you taken from here?”

She grasped the lapels of my coat.

“I will tell you all I can⁠—all I dare,” she panted eagerly, fearfully. “I should know how to deal with your friend, but with you I am lost! If you could only understand you would not be so cruel.” Her slight accent added charm to the musical voice. “I am not free, as your English women are. What I do I must do, for it is the will of my master, and I am only a slave. Ah, you are not a man if you can give me to the police. You have no heart if you can forget that I tried to save you once.”

I had feared that plea, for, in her own Oriental fashion, she certainly had tried to save me from a deadly peril once⁠—at the expense of my friend. But I had feared the plea, for I did not know how to meet it. How could I give her up, perhaps to stand her trial for murder? And now I fell silent, and she saw why I was silent.

“I may deserve no mercy; I may be even as bad as you think; but what have you to do with the police? It is not your work to hound a woman to death. Could you ever look another woman in the eyes⁠—one that you loved, and know that she trusted you⁠—if you had done such a thing? Ah, I have no friend in all the world, or I should not be here. Do not be my enemy, my judge, and make me worse than I am; be my friend, and save me⁠—from him.” The tremulous lips were close to mine, her breath fanned my cheek. “Have mercy on me.”

At that moment I honestly would have given half of my worldly possessions to have been spared the decision which I knew I must come to. After all, what proof had I that she was a willing accomplice of Dr. Fu-Manchu? Furthermore, she was an Oriental, and her code must necessarily be different from mine. Irreconcilable as the thing may be with Western ideas, Nayland Smith had really told me that he believed the girl to be a slave. Then there remained that other reason why I loathed the idea of becoming her captor. It was almost tantamount to betrayal! Must I soil my hands with such work?

Thus⁠—I suppose⁠—her seductive beauty argued against my sense of right. The jeweled fingers grasped my shoulders nervously, and her slim body quivered against mine as she watched me, with all her soul in her eyes, in an abandonment of pleading despair. Then I remembered the fate of the man in whose room we stood.

“You lured Cadby to his death,” I said, and shook her off.

“No, no!” she cried wildly, clutching at me. “No, I swear by the holy name I did not! I did not! I watched him, spied upon him⁠—yes! But, listen: it was because he would not be warned that he met his death. I could not save him! Ah, I am not so bad as that. I will tell you. I have taken his notebook and torn out the last pages and burnt them. Look! in the grate. The book was too big to steal away. I came twice and could not find it. There, will you let me go?”

“If you will tell me where and how to seize Dr. Fu-Manchu⁠—yes.”

Her hands dropped and she took a backward step. A new terror was to be read in her face.

“I dare not! I dare not!”

“Then you would⁠—if you dared?”

She was watching me intently.

“Not if you would go to find him,” she said.

And, with all that I thought her to be, the stern servant of justice that I would have had myself, I felt the hot blood leap to my cheek at all which the words implied. She grasped my arm.

“Could you hide me from him if I came to you, and told you all I know?”

“The authorities⁠—”

“Ah!” Her expression changed. “They can put me on the rack if they choose, but never one word would I speak⁠—never one little word.”

She threw up her head scornfully. Then the proud glance softened again.

“But I will speak for you.”

Closer she came, and closer, until she could whisper in my ear.

“Hide me from your police, from him, from everybody, and I will no longer be his slave.”

My heart was beating with painful rapidity. I had not counted on this warring with a woman; moreover, it was harder than I could have dreamt of. For some time I had been aware that by the charm of her personality and the art of her pleading she had brought me down from my judgment seat⁠—had made it all but impossible for me to give her up to justice. Now, I was disarmed⁠—but in a quandary. What should I do? What could I do? I turned away from her and walked to the hearth, in which some paper ash lay and yet emitted a faint smell.

Not more than ten seconds elapsed, I am confident, from the time that I stepped across the room until I glanced back. But she had gone!

As I leapt to the door the key turned gently from the outside.

“Ma ’alesh!” came her soft whisper; “but I am afraid to trust you⁠—yet. Be comforted, for there is one near