about her slim body: “Good-bye, Shan dear,” she said, brokenly, but with a determination which I knew I had no power to weaken. “Please go back to bed—and go to sleep.”
Hot tears burned behind my eyes. I felt that life had nothing left for me. But—I obeyed.
Passing out onto the landing where suits of Saracen armour stood on guard, I watched Fah Lo Suee descend the broad staircase. A light burned in the lobby, as was customary, and, reaching the foot of the stairs, she turned.
With one slender, unforgettable, indolent hand, she beckoned to me imperiously.
I obeyed her order—I moved towards the staircase leading to the floor above. I had begun to go up when I heard the street door close....
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHTH
I REALLY AWAKEN
“Nine o’clock, sir. Are you ready for your tea?”
I opened my eyes and stared into the face of Betts. Upon a salver he carried the morning papers and a pile of correspondence. Placing them upon the table, he crossed and drew back the curtains before the windows.
“A beautiful morning again, sir,” he went on; I hope this will continue until the happy day.”
I sat up.
“Shall I bring your tea, sir?”
“Yes, please do.”
As that venerable old scoundrel, whose job was one of those which every butler is looking for, went out of the room, I stared about me in search of my dressing gown.
There it was, thrown over the back of an armchair—upon which also I saw my dress clothes. I jumped out of bed, put on the old Arab slippers, and then the dressing gown.
Never in my life had I been visited by so singular, so vivid a dream...a dream? Where had dreaming left off? I must make notes while the facts were clear in my memory.
I went out and down to the library; grabbed a writing pad and a pencil. I was on the point of returning upstairs when that query, “Where had dreaming left oft?” presented itself in a new aspect.
Dropping pad and pencil, I hurried along the gallery and into the Museum Room....
I could not forget that Petrie, that man of scientific mind, had once endeavoured to shoot his oldest friend, Sir Denis, under some damnable influence controlled by Dr. Fu Manchu. And had I not myself seen Rima, actuated by the same unholy power, obeying the deathly orders of Fah Lo Suee?
The Museum Room looked exactly as I had left it—except that Betts, or one of the maids, had cleaned the ash tray in which I remembered having placed the stub of a cigarette. The table prepared for my eleven o’clock appointment was in order. Everything was in order.
And—that which above all engaged my particular attention—the small case containing the relics ofMokanna showed no signs of disturbance. There were the mask, the plates, and the sword.
I returned to the library for pencil and writing pad. If I had dreamed, it had been a clairvoyant dream, vivid as an actual experience. It had given me certain knowledge which might prove invaluable to Nayland Smith.
Perhaps analysis of that piece of slender twine which I knew was in Sir Denis’s possession would show it to be indeed composed of spider web. I wondered if the mystery of the forcing of the safe on the
Strangest fact of all, I loathed the memory of Fah Lo Suee!
I was ashamed, humiliated, utterly overcome by those dream recollections. I had desired her, adored her, covered her with kisses. While now—my true, waking self—I knew that there was only one woman in all the world for me...and that woman was Rima!
CHAPTER FORTY-NINTH
A COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS
Professor Eisner was the first of the experts to arrive. I knew his name, of course, but he himself proved something of a surprise. He had iron-grey hair cut close to a very fine skull, and wore a small monocle. He was otherwise clean-shaven, presenting in his walk, his build, his manner, an Englishman’s conception of the typical Prussian cavalry officer.
He was shown into the big Syrian room on the ground floor, where suitable refreshments had been prepared by Betts, and proved on acquaintance to be a charming as well as a clever man.
Then came the Frenchman, Dr. Brieux, a very different type. He wore a caped overcoat and a large black soft hat. I saw him approaching from the window, as a matter of fact, and predicted to myself that he would stop at the door and ring the bell. I was right. Here was the traditional scholar— stooping, with high, bald brow, scanty white hair and beard, and large, hom-rimmed glasses.
He greeted Professor Eisner very coldly. I didn’t know it at the time, but they held directly Opposite views regarding the date when the Khuld Palace in Old Baghdad was deserted in favour of the Palace of the Golden Gate. A heated controversy had raged in the learned journals between these two distinguished Orientalists. I fear I had overlooked this.
I know and love the Near East and its peoples; their arts and crafts, and the details of their domestic life. But this hairsplitting on a matter of dates is something quite outside my province.
The learned Englishmen were late: they arrived together;
and I was glad of their arrival. Professor Eisner was sipping a glass of the chiefs magnificent old sherry and nibbling some sort of savoury provided by Betts; Dr. Brieux, hands behind him, was staring out of the window, his back ostentatiously turned to his German confrere.
When Mr. Hall-Ramsden of the British Museum and Sir Wallace Syms of the Royal Society had chatted for a time with the distinguished visitors, I led the way upstairs to the Museum Room.
As I have mentioned I had prepared everything early the night before. My notes, a map of our route, a diary covering the period we had spent in the Place of the Great Magician, and one or two minor objects discovered in the tomb of the prophet, were ready upon the table.
At all costs (such were the chief’s instructions) I had to avoid giving away any of the dramatic points—he had made a list of them—which he proposed to spring upon the Royal Society.
This was not in the remotest degree my kind of job. I hated it from the word Go! The dream or vision which had disturbed my sleep during the night continued to haunt me. I was uncertain of myself—uncertain that the whole episode was not some damnable aftermath to that drug which had taken toll of several hours of my life in Cairo.
At the best of times I should have been ill at ease, but on this occasion I was doubly so. However, I attacked the business. Removing the mask, the plates, and the sword from the cabinet in which they rested, I placed them upon the big table.
Professor Eisner claimed the gold plates with a motion resembling that of a hawk swooping upon its prey. Dr.
