“I belong to China,” she murmured, lowering her dark lashes, “and in China, women are treated as ... women.”
This was the kind of conversation which at once intrigued and irritated Sir Bertram. It was her hints at some strange, Oriental background into which from time to time she was absorbed, which first had thrown a noose about his interest. But always ... he doubted.
That she had Chinese blood in her, none could deny. But that she belonged in any other sense to the Far East he was not prepared to admit. These odd references to a mode of life divorced from all ideals of Western culture, were part and parcel with that fabulous story of the hereditary secret.
As Sir Bertram lighted her cigarette. Madame Ingomar glanced up.
Those wonderful eyes held him.
‘You have always mistaken me for an adventuress,” she said. And the music of her voice, because it was pitched in so curious a key, reached him over the strains of the dance band. “In one way you are right, in another you are very wrong. Tonight, I hope to convert you.”
Believe me, I require no conversion; I am your most devoted friend.”
She touched his hand lightly; her long, slender fingers, with extravagantly varnished nails, communicated to Sir Bertram a current of secret understanding which seemed to pulse through his veins, his nerves, and to reach his brain.
He was in love with this Eurasian witch. Every line and curve of her body, every wave of her dark hair, her voice, the perfume of her personality, intoxicated him.
Silently, he mocked himself:—There is no fool like an old fool.
“You are neither old nor a fool,” she said, and slipped slen der fingers into his grasp. ‘You are a clever man whom I admire, very, very much.”
He squeezed those patrician fingers almost cruelly, carried away by the magnetism of this woman’s intense femininity; so that for fully half a minute the uncanny character of those words did not dawn upon him.
Then, it came crashingly. He drew his hand away—and stared at her.
“Why did you say that?” he asked. He was more than startled; he was frightened. “I did not speak.”
‘You spoke to
“Good God!”
Madame Ingomar laughed. Her laughter, Sir Bertram thought, was the most deliciously musical which had ever fallen upon his ears.
“In the East,” she said, “when we are interested, we know how to get in touch.”
He watched her in silence. She had turned her glance away, lolling back in her chair, so that she seemed to emerge like an ivory goddess from the mass of white fur, for she had drawn her wrap about her shoulders. She was watching the dancers, and Sir Bertram saw her as an Oriental empress, watching, almost superciliously, a performance organized for her personal entertainment.
Suddenly, she glanced aside at him.
“I promised that to-night I would prove my words,” she said, slowly. “If you wish it, we will go.”
Sir Bertram started. She had called him back from a reverie in which he had been a guest at a strange Eastern banquet.
“I am very happy, here, with you,” he replied. “But what you wish is what I desire to do.”
“Let us go, then. My father has consented to see you.”
For anyone to “consent” to see the great Sir Bertram Morgan was a novelty in that gentleman’s life. Yet, oddly enough, the phrase did not strike him as insolent, or even curious. One of the greatest powers in the world of finance, he accepted this mysterious summons.
CHAPTER
19
ROWAN HOUSE
Sir Bertram’s fawn and silver Rolls, familiar in many of the capitals of Europe, was brought up to the door of the club, and the courtly financier handed his beautiful companion to her seat.
“I warn you, Sir Bertram, we have some distance to go.”
“How far?”
“Fourteen or fifteen miles into Surrey.”
“The journey will pass very quickly with you.”
“If you will tell your man to go to Sutton By-pass I will direct him when we get there how to find Rowan House.”
“Rowan House? Is that where you are going?”
“It’s a very old house—a sort of survival. It came on the market some years ago. It was once the property of Sir Lionel Barton, the famous explorer.”
“Barton?” Sir Bertram got in beside Madame Ingomar, having given rapid instructions to the chauffeur. “I have met Barton—a madman, but brilliant. He nearly brought about a rising a year or two ago, in Afghanistan, or somewhere, by stealing the ornaments from a prophet’s tomb. Is that the man you mean?”
The car started smoothly on its way.
“Yes,” said Madame Ingomar, leaning back upon the cushions and glancing in the speaker’s direction. “It is the same man. The house was very cheap, but in many ways suitable.”
Madame Ingomar turned her head again, staring straight before her, and Sir Bertram, studying that cameo- like profile, groped for some dim memory which it conjured up. Bending forward he pulled down the front blind.
“The lights of approaching cars are so dazzling,” he said. “That is more restful.”
“Thank you, yes,” she murmured. . . .
The big Rolls, all but silently, quite effortlessly, was devouring mile after mile of London highway. The Flying Squad car, close behind, at times was fully extended by the driver to keep track of the quarry. Chief detective- inspector Gallaho had twice removed his hat since they had left Bond Street, on each occasion replacing it at a slightly different angle, which betokened intense excitement, Sterling was silent, as was Nayland Smith. . . .
Madame Ingomar touched Sir Bertram’s hand. He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them rapturously.
“Please, please,” she pleaded. “I will not allow you to make love to me, while you doubt me so much. If I did, I should feel like a courtesan.”
Sir Bertram drew back, watching her. She dropped her wrap and turned away from him, glancing back over her right shoulder.
“You are a man of honour,” she said, the gaze of those magnetic eyes fixed upon him suddenly, overpoweringly. “I need your assistance; but you will never understand me until you know something of the dangers of my life.”
She slipped her shoulders free of the green frock. Sir Bertram suppressed an exclamation.
That ivory back was wealed with the marks of a lash!
He stared fascinatedly, fists clenched. With a graceful, almost indolent movement of her slender arms Madame Ingomar readjusted her dress, pulled her fur wrap about her, and lay back in the corner, watching him under lowered lashes.
“What fiend did that to you?” he muttered. “What devil incarnate could deface that ivory skin?”
He was bending over her, one knee upon the floor of the car, a supplicant, literally at her feet. But she stared straight before her. When he seized her hands, they lay listless in his grasp.
“Tell me!”—the hoarseness of his own voice surprised him:
“I want to know—I must know.”
“It would be useless,” she replied, her tones so low that he could only just catch the words. “In this you
Sir Bertram kissed her hands, kissed her arms, and quite intoxicated by the beauty of this maddening, incomprehensible woman, would have kissed her lips, but a slender hand, two of the fingers jewelled, intervened between his lips and hers.
