responded, and bathed in that dim violet light I saw the great laboratory ahead of me.
It was empty.
I stepped forward—and the door closed behind me. I began to cross the rubber-covered floor, heading for Dr. Fu Manchu’s study.
This was the supreme moment.
I was disposed to think that it was he, awakening, who had summoned me. I lost count of time as I stood before that blank wall, charging myself with cowardice, flogging my failing courage.
At last I took the plunge...and the door opened.
He sat there like the mummy of Seti the First, upright on his throne. Opium still held him in its grasp. A jungle smell was mingling now with the poppy fumes, for the doors leading into the great palm house remained open. The marmoset was crouching on that yellow shoulder, not did he stir as I went tiptoe across the carpet.
So far, I was safe.
I closed the first door, hurried to the second, and closed that also. I hadn’t the courage to pause to adjust the gauge. I ran through the place, ducking to avoid overhanging branches, many of them flower-laden. And coming to the next door I pulled up and listened.
There was no pursuit.
From thence onward, I adjusted all the gauges, until, opening the final door, I stepped into the botanical research room, from which I had set out upon that memorable pilgrimage....
Stock still I pulled up on the threshold.
Fleurette stood there watching me!
chapter thirty-fourth
DERCETO
“fleurette!” I exclaimed.
She wore a silk wrap over night attire; sandals on her slim brown feet. She watched me gravely.
“Fleurette! Who called me?”
“7 called you.”
“But”—I was astounded—how did you know—?”
“I know most of the things that go on here,” she returned calmly.
I moved nearer to her and looked at the dial close to which she was standing. My number—103—was registered upon it;
and:
“How often did you call me?” I asked.
“Twice.”
Her unmoving regard, in which there was an unpleasant question, began to disturb me.
My conception of her as a victim of the powerful and evil man who sought to destroy white civilisation was entirely self-created. I remembered that she had been reared in this atmosphere from birth; and conscious of an unpleasant chill I realised that she, whom I had regarded as a partner in misfortune, an ally, might prove to be the means of my unmasking. I decided to be diplomatic.
“Yes—of course you called me twice,” I replied.
The second call would have been taken by Nayland Smith! How would he have read it?
“Why didn’t you come?” she asked. “Where were you?”
Her beautiful eyes were fixed upon me with a regard which I found almost terrifying. An hour before, an instant before, I would have met her gaze gladly, happily; but now—I wondered.
After all, the romance between this girl and myself existed only in my own imagination. It was built upon nothing but a stairs of sand—her remarkable beauty. She was, as Dr. Fu Manchu had said, that most rare jewel—a perfect woman.
But I—I was far removed from a perfect man. Vanity had blinded me. She belonged body and soul to the group surrounding the Chinese doctor. And perhaps it was no more than poetic justice that she and none of the others should expose me.
“I was in the palm house. I had never seen such trees. And, as you know, I am a botanist.”
“But you were a long time coming” she insisted. “You are sure you were alone?”
As if a black cloud had lifted, I saw—or dared to hope that I saw—the truth in the regard of those sunset violet eyes. Or was it vanity, self-delusion, again? But, moving nearer to her:
“Alone!” I echoed. “Who could be with me at this hour of the night?”
And now at last, unfalteringly, I looked into her eyes.
“The Princess is very beautiful,” she said, in a low voice.
“The Princess?”
I had no idea at the moment to whom she referred; but chaotically, delightfully, it was as I had dared to hope!
My sudden wild passion for this exquisite, unattainable girl had not failed utterly of its objective. She was sufficiently interested to be jealous! And now, watching her, it dawned upon me to whom she referred.
“Do you mean Fah Lo Suee?”
She made a little grimace and turned aside.
“I wondered why you had joined us,” she murmured. “If she is Fah Lo Suee to you—I know. I was merely curious. Goodnight.”
“Fleurette!” I cried. “Fleurette!”
She turned and walked away.
She did not look back.
I sprang forward, threw my arms around her and held her. Even so, she did not look back; she merely stood still. But my doubts, my diffidence, were gone: my heart was singing....
She had given me that age-old sign which is woman’s prerogative. The next move was mine. Revelation was so sudden, so wholly unexpected, that it swept me out of myself. To my shame I confess that, although vast issues hung in the balance, establishment of an understanding with Fleurette was the only thing in life at which at that moment I aimed.
I had fallen irrevocably in love with her at first sight.
Recognition of the fact that she was interested produced a state of mind little short of delirium.
“Fleurette!” I said, holding her tightly and bending close to her averted head, “that woman you call the Princess I call Fah Lo Suee because I was told that that was her name: I know her by no other. She means nothing more to me than I thought I meant to you. I had seen her once only in my life before I came here....”
I checked my words: I had been on the point of saying too much. Fah Lo Suee had told me, “She has Eastern blood in her, and to Eastern women love comes suddenly.” Of all that Fu Manchu’s daughter had revealed, this alone I was disposed to believe.
Fleurette turned quickly and looked up at me.
Nothing, I think, short of sudden death could have checked me then.
Raising my left hand to her shoulder, I twisted her about, so that I had her clasped in my arms. And stooping to those delicious, tremulous lips, I kissed her until we both were breathless.
One instantaneous moment there was of rebellion, and then such exquisite surrender that when presently she buried her lovely little head in my shoulder, so that I could feel her heart beating, I think there was in the whole world no happier man than I.
There was an old tradition in my family of which my mother had told me—that we were slow to hate but quick to love. Fleurette and I were well met. I doubted if mutual love had ever been unmasked under circumstances more peculiar....
What she told me did not fully register at the time, nor, perhaps, were my questions those which Nayland Smith would have selected. Nevertheless, I learned much respecting this queer household of Dr. Fu Manchu.
I began to realise the greatness of the menace which he represented; because, through Fleurette, the knowledge came to me that many who served him loved him.
Perhaps, among the lower orders of his strange entourage, fear was his sceptre. But, as I gathered—and I dared not speak a word to shatter that ideal—Fleurette’s sentiments were those of profound respect.
