'Smith!' I cried—'have you found anything?'
He stood there in the gray light of the hallway, tugging at the lobe of his left ear, an old trick of his.
The bronzed face looked very gaunt, I thought, and his eyes were bright with that febrile glitter which once I had disliked, but which I had learned from experience were due to tremendous nervous excitement. At such times he could act with icy coolness and his mental faculties seemed temporarily to acquire an abnormal keenness. He made no direct reply; but—
'Have you any milk?' he jerked abruptly.
So wholly unexpected was the question, that for a moment I failed to grasp it. Then—
'Milk!' I began.
'Exactly, Petrie! If you can find me some milk, I shall be obliged.'
I turned to descend to the kitchen, when—
'The remains of the turbot from dinner, Petrie, would also be welcome, and I think I should like a trowel.'
I stopped at the stairhead and faced him.
'I cannot suppose that you are joking, Smith,' I said, 'but—'
He laughed dryly.
'Forgive me, old man,' he replied. 'I was so preoccupied with my own train of thought that it never occurred to me how absurd my request must have sounded. I will explain my singular tastes later; at the moment, hustle is the watchword.'
Evidently he was in earnest, and I ran downstairs accordingly, returning with a garden trowel, a plate of cold fish and a glass of milk.
'Thanks, Petrie,' said Smith—'If you would put the milk in a jug—'
I was past wondering, so I simply went and fetched a jug, into which he poured the milk. Then, with the trowel in his pocket, the plate of cold turbot in one hand and the milk jug in the other, he made for the door. He had it open when another idea evidently occurred to him.
'I'll trouble you for the pistol, Petrie.'
I handed him the pistol without a word.
'Don't assume that I want to mystify you,' he added, 'but the presence of any one else might jeopardize my plan. I don't expect to be long.'
The cold light of dawn flooded the hallway momentarily; then the door closed again and I went upstairs to my study, watching Nayland Smith as he strode across the common in the early morning mist. He was making for the Nine Elms, but I lost sight of him before he reached them.
I sat there for some time, watching for the first glow of sunrise. A policeman tramped past the house, and, a while later, a belated reveler in evening clothes. That sense of unreality assailed me again. Out there in the gray mists a man who was vested with powers which rendered him a law unto himself, who had the British Government behind him in all that he might choose to do, who had been summoned from Rangoon to London on singular and dangerous business, was employing himself with a plate of cold turbot, a jug of milk, and a trowel!
Away to the right, and just barely visible, a tramcar stopped by the common; then proceeded on its way, coming in a westerly direction. Its lights twinkled yellowly through the grayness, but I was less concerned with the approaching car than with the solitary traveler who had descended from it.
As the car went rocking by below me, I strained my eyes in an endeavor more clearly to discern the figure, which, leaving the highroad, had struck out across the common. It was that of a woman, who seemingly carried a bulky bag or parcel.
One must be a gross materialist to doubt that there are latent powers in man which man, in modern times, neglects, or knows not how to develop. I became suddenly conscious of a burning curiosity respecting this lonely traveler who traveled at an hour so strange. With no definite plan in mind, I went downstairs, took a cap from the rack, and walked briskly out of the house and across the common in a direction which I thought would enable me to head off the woman.
I had slightly miscalculated the distance, as Fate would have it, and with a patch of gorse effectually screening my approach, I came upon her, kneeling on the damp grass and unfastening the bundle which had attracted my attention. I stopped and watched her.
She was dressed in bedraggled fashion in rusty black, wore a common black straw hat and a thick veil; but it seemed to me that the dexterous hands at work untying the bundle were slim and white; and I perceived a pair of hideous cotton gloves lying on the turf beside her. As she threw open the wrappings and lifted out something that looked like a small shrimping net, I stepped around the bush, crossed silently the intervening patch of grass, and stood beside her.
A faint breath of perfume reached me—of a perfume which, like the secret incense of Ancient Egypt, seemed to assail my soul. The glamour of the Orient was in that subtle essence; and I only knew one woman who used it. I bent over the kneeling figure.
'Good morning,' I said; 'can I assist you in any way?'
She came to her feet like a startled deer, and flung away from me with the lithe movement of some Eastern dancing girl.
Now came the sun, and its heralding rays struck sparks from the jewels upon the white fingers of this woman who wore the garments of a mendicant. My heart gave a great leap. It was with difficulty that I controlled my voice.
'There is no cause for alarm,' I added.
She stood watching me; even through the coarse veil I could see how her eyes glittered. I stooped and picked up the net.
'Oh!' The whispered word was scarcely audible, but it was enough; I doubted no longer.
'This is a net for bird snaring,' I said. 'What strange bird are you seeking—Karamaneh?'
With a passionate gesture Karamaneh snatched off the veil, and with it the ugly black hat. The cloud of wonderful, intractable hair came rumpling about her face, and her glorious eyes blazed out upon me. How beautiful they were, with the dark beauty of an Egyptian night; how often had they looked into mine in dreams!
To labor against a ceaseless yearning for a woman whom one knows, upon evidence that none but a fool might reject, to be worthless—evil; is there any torture to which the soul of man is subject, more pitiless? Yet this was my lot, for what past sins assigned to me I was unable to conjecture; and this was the woman, this lovely slave of a monster, this creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu.
'I suppose you will declare that you do not know me!' I said harshly.
Her lips trembled, but she made no reply.
'It is very convenient to forget, sometimes,' I ran on bitterly, then checked myself; for I knew that my words were prompted by a feckless desire to hear her defense, by a fool's hope that it might be an acceptable one.
I looked again at the net contrivance in my hand; it had a strong spring fitted to it and a line attached. Quite obviously it was intended for snaring.
'What were you about to do?' I demanded sharply—but in my heart, poor fool that I was, I found admiration for the exquisite arch of Karamaneh's lips, and reproach because they were so tremulous.
She spoke then.
'Dr. Petrie—'
'Well?'
'You seem to be—angry with me, not so much because of what I do, as because I do not remember you. Yet—'
'Kindly do not revert to the matter,' I interrupted. 'You have chosen, very conveniently, to forget that once we were friends. Please yourself. But answer my question.'
She clasped her hands with a sort of wild abandon.
'Why do you treat me so!' she cried; she had the most fascinating accent imaginable. 'Throw me into prison, kill me if you like, for what I have done!' She stamped her foot. 'For what I have done! But do not torture me, try to drive me mad with your reproaches—that I forget you! I tell you—again I tell you—that until you came one night, last week, to rescue some one from—' There was the old trick of hesitating before the name of Fu-Manchu—'from him, I had never, never seen you!'
The dark eyes looked into mine, afire with a positive hunger for belief—or so I was sorely tempted to
