Fleurette was dead!
“I have joined you,” I replied.
My words carried no conviction even to myself.
“What?”
Her expression changed; she watched me with a new, keen interest.
“I have joined you.”
Fleurette moved towards me and laid one hand almost timidly upon my shoulder.
“Is that true?” she asked, in a low voice.
I had thought that her eyes were blue, but now I saw that they were violet. The life beyond, then was a parody of that which we had lived on earth. I had seen travesties of my own studies in those monstrous houses; I had met with the fabulous Dr. Fu Manchu; I had watched men still pursuing the secrets they had sought in life— amid surroundings which were a caricature of those they had known during their earthly incarnation.
Horror there was, in this strange borderland, but, as I looked into those violet eyes, I told myself that death had its recompenses.
“I am glad you are here,” said Fleurette.
“So am I.”
She glanced aside and went on rapidly:
“You see, I have been trained not to feel fear, but whenever I hear the alarm signal and know that the section doors are being closed—I feel something very like it! I don’t suppose you know about all this yet?” she added.
Already normal colour was returning to those rose-petal cheeks, and she dropped into a little armchair, forcing a smile.
“No,” I replied, watching her; “it’s unpleasantly strange.”
“It must be!” She nodded. “I have lived among this sort of thing on and off as long as I can remember.
“Do you mean
“No; I have never been here before. But at the old place in Ho Nan the same system is in use, and I have been there many times.”
“You must travel a lot,” I said, studying her fascinatedly, and thinking that she had the most musical voice in the world.
“Yes I do.”
“With Mahdi Bey?”
“He nearly always comes with me: he is my guardian, you see.”
“Your guardian?”
“Yes.” She looked up, a puzzled frown appearing upon her smooth forehead. “Mahdi Bey is an old Arab doctor, you know, who adopted me when I was quite tiny—long before I can remember. He is very, very clever; and no one in the world has ever been so kind to me.”
“But, my dear Fleurette, how did you come to be adopted by an Arab doctor?”
She laughed: she had exquisite little teeth.
“Because,” she said, and at last that for which I had been waiting, the adorable dimple, appeared in her chin, “because I am half an Arab myself.”
“What!”
“Don’t I look like one? I am sunburned now, I know; but my skin is naturally not so many shades lighter.”
“But an Arab, with violet eyes and hair like...like an Egyptian sunset.”
“Egyptian, yes!” She laughed again. “Evidently you detect the East even in my hair!”
“But,” I said in amazement, “You have no trace of accent.”
“Why should I have?” She looked at me mockingly. “I am a most perfect little prig. I speak French also without any foreign accent; Italian, Spanish, German, Arabic, and Chinese.”
“You are pulling my leg.”
That maddening dimple reappeared, and she shook her head so that glittering curls danced and seemed to throw out sparks of light.
“I know such accomplishments are simply horrible for a girl—but I can’t help it. This learning has been thrust upon me. You see, I have been trained for a purpose.”
And as she spoke the words, dancing, vital youth dropped from her like a cloak. Those long-lashed eyes, which I had an insane desire to kiss, ceased to laugh. Again that rapt, mystical expression claimed her face. She was looking through me at some very distant object. I had ceased to exist.
“But, Fleurette,” I said desperately,
In a faraway voice:
“There is no such thing as love,” Fleurette murmured. “A woman can only
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You are new to it all. You will know tomorrow or perhaps even to-night.”
I had taken a step in her direction when something arrested me—drew me up sharply.
Like a fairy trumpet it sounded, again, that unaccountable call which I had heard twice before—coming from nowhere;
from everywhere; from inside my brain!
Fleurette stood up, giving me never another glance, and moved to that end of the room opposite to the door by which I had entered. She touched some control hidden in the wall. A section slid open. As she crossed the threshold, she turned: I could see a lighted corridor beyond.
“The danger is over now,” she said. “Goodbye.”
I stood staring stupidly at the blank expanse of wall where only a moment before Fleurette had been, when I heard a sound behind me. I turned sharply.
The white door was open! The woman whom Nayland Smith had called Fah Lo Suee stood there, looking at me.
With the opening of the door a faint vibration reached my ears. The “section doors” (so Fleurette had described them) were being raised. Fah Lo Suee wore what I took to be a Chinese dress, by virtue of its style, only; for it was of a pat-temless, shimmering gold material. Her unveiled eyes were green as emeralds; their resemblance to those of the terrible doctor was unmistakable.
“Please come,” she said; “my father is waiting for you.”
chapter twenty-third
THE JADE PIPE
As I followed that slim, languorous figure, mentally I put myself in the witness box. And this was the question to which I demanded an answer:
Am I alive or dead?
On the whole, I was disposed now to believe that I was alive. Therefore, I put this second question:
Am I sane?
To which query I could find no answer.
If the occurrences of the last few hours were real, then I had stepped into a world presumably under the aegis of Dr. Fu Manchu, and presumably in China, where natural laws were flouted; their place taken by laws created by the Chinese physician.
At the foot of the stairs, Fah Lo Suee turned sharply left and opened one of the sliding doors which seemed to be common in the establishment. She beckoned me to follow, and I found myself in a carpeted, warmly lighted corridor. She bent across me to reclose the door.
“You must forget all that is past and all that is puzzling you,” she whispered urgently, speaking close to my ear. “My father knows that you and the little Rose-petal are acquainted. Don’t speak—listen. He will question you,
