Gently, she thwarted him, for her half-closed eyes were not unkind.
“Please . . . not yet,” she said. “I have told you that you make me feel like a wanton.”
Sir Bertram recovered himself. Seated, staring straight ahead, his teeth very tightly clenched, he tried to analyse his emotions.
Was he in the toils of the most talented adventuress who had ever crossed his path? Did these waves of insane passion which from time to time swept him away, mean that where Madame Ingomar was concerned, self- control had gone? If she was what she claimed to be, what were his intentions about her?
He taxed himself—was he prepared to marry her?
Beside him, she remained silent. He was conscious of the strangest urges. Not since his Oxford days had he experienced anything resembling these. Undeterred by that gentle rebuff, he wanted to grasp Madame Ingomar in his arms and silence her protests with kisses. He wanted to demand, as a lover’s right, the real explanation of those marks upon her shoulders. He wanted to kill the man who had caused them, and it was his recognition of this homicidal desire which checked, in a measure, the tumult of his brain.
Was it possible, that he, at his age, holding his place in the world, could be driven quite mad by a woman? He wrenched his head aside and looked at her.
She lay back against the cushions. Through half-closed eyes she stared before her abstractedly, and Sir Bertram captured that fugitive memory.
It was the profile of Queen Nefertiti, that exquisite mystery whose portrait by an unknown artist has been the subject of so much dispute.
Deserted streets offered no obstacles to the chauffeur. The outskirts of London reached, the police car behind had greater difficulty in keeping Sir Bertram’s Rolls in sight.
“I can’t make this out at all,” growled Gallaho. “Where the devil is she going?”
“I haven’t been in this neighbourhood for some time,”
snapped Nayland Smith. “But it brings back curious memories. It was in an ancient house in a sort of back- water near Sutton, that I first met Sir Lionel Barton.”
“The explorer?”
“Yes. He inherited a queer old place somewhere in this neighbourhood. It was the scene of very strange happenings at the beginning of the Fu Manchu case. And ... by heaven, as I live, that is just the direction we are heading now!”
In the leading car, the blind having been raised again, Madame Ingomar was giving instructions to the chauffeur. And presently, so guided, the Rolls turned into a darkly shadowed avenue which in summer must have been a veritable tunnel. At the end of it, through the temporary clearness of the night, one saw Rowan House, a long, squat building, hemmed in by trees and shrubs.
When presently Sir Bertram found himself in the entrance hall, he recognized the hand of the brilliant, but eccentric explorer and archeologist who had been the former owner of Rowan House. The place was a miniature Assyrian hall, and the present occupier had not disturbed this scheme. Animal skins and one or two exotic rugs alone disturbed the expanse of polished floor; and in the opening hung curtains of some queerly figured material which resembled that represented in ancient wall paintings.
The exterior of the house, Sir Bertram had noted, presented an unpleasantly damp and clammy appearance. And now as he stood looking about him, but glancing from time to time at the Oriental servant who had opened the door, he became aware at once of a curious perfume, almost like that of incense, yet having an overpowering quality about it which gave him the impression that Rowan House was not exactly a healthy abode.
Madame Ingomar was speaking rapidly to the butler who had admitted them, a squat Burman, dressed in white, and possessing an incredible width of shoulder. They spoke in a language which Sir Bertram did not understand.
CHAPTER
20
GOLD
The room to which Madame Ingomar presently conducted Sir Bertram was astonishing in many respects.
“I will tell my father you are here,” she said—and he found himself alone.
From the lacquer armchair in which he sat, Sir Bertram surveyed his surroundings. He saw a room Orientally elegant, having entrances closed with sliding doors. Two shaded lanterns swung from the ceiling, illuminating the room warmly, and a number of brightly coloured cushions were strewn about the floor. There were tapestries in which red and gold ran riot, so that one lost the head of a dragon and failed to recover it again in endeavouring to trace his tail. Rich carpets and cushioned divans; a number of handsome cabinets containing fine pottery, a battalion of books in unfamiliar bindings arranged upon shelves which, conforming to the scheme of the room, were of dull red lacquer.
At the end remote from that where Sir Bertram sat, in a deep tiled hearth, a small chemical furnace threw its red glow into the room. On a shelf just above this furnace there was a row of jars which contained preserved lizards, snakes and other small reptiles; there was a large table, apparently of Italian workmanship, magnificently inlaid, upon which were some open faded volumes and a number of scientific instruments.
One of the lacquer doors slid noiselessly open and a man came in. Sir Bertram hesitated for a moment and then stood up.
The newcomer was a singularly tall Chinaman who wore a plain yellow robe which accentuated the gaunt lines of his figure. A black cap surmounted by a bead crowned his massive skull. Introductions were superfluous: Sir Bertram Morgan knew that he stood in the presence of the Marquis Chang Hu.
The man radiated authority. He was impressive to a degree exceeding Sir Bertram’s experience. Perhaps the similarity of the profile of Madame Ingomar to that of the long-dead, beautiful Egyptian queen subconsciously prompted the image, but Sir Bertram thought, as others had thought before him, that the aged, ageless, majestic face of the man in the yellow robe resembled the face of the Pharaoh Seti I whose power, unex-ercised for four thousand years, may still be felt by anyone who bends over the glass case in Cairo which contains the mummy of that mighty king.
“You are welcome, Sir Bertram.” The tall Chinaman advanced, bowing formally. “Please be seated. I honour my daughter for arranging this interview.
“It is a pleasure to me, too, sir.”
Sir Bertram spoke sincerely. He was used to nobilities and to the off-shoots of imperial trees, but this survivor of the royal Manchus was a Prince indeed.
He wondered what he was doing in England. Knowing something of the situation in China, he wondered if the charming and promising adventure with Madame Ingomar had been no more than a lead-up to this; an attempt to enlist him in some hopeless campaign, financially to readjust the hopeless muddle which had taken the place of the once great Chinese Empire.
The Marquis Chang Hu seated himself behind the Italian table and Sir Betram dropped back into his armchair. He had never heard a voice quite like that of Chang Hu. It was harsh, but imperious. He spoke perfect English. Long after this strange interview, Sir Bertram recognized that the impres-siveness of the Marquis’s lightest words was due to one peculiarity:— Sir Bertram was old enough to have heard John Henry Newman speak; and in the diction of this majestic Chinaman he recognized later, the unalloyed beauty of our language as the poet-cardinal had spoken it.
“It is not my wish, Sir Bertram,” said his strange host, “to detain you any longer than is necessary.”
Sir Bertram’s chair was set very near to the big table, and Chang Hu, bending courteously across that glittering expanse, placed an ingot of metal in his visitor’s hand.
“You will have observed that I have some small facilities here. If you wish to make any tests, I shall be happy to assist you.”
Sir Bertram glanced at the ingot and then looked up. He closed his eyes swiftly. He had met a glance unlike any he had ever known. The eyes of Madame Ingomar were fascinating, hypnotic; the eyes of the Marquis, her father, held a power which was shattering.
Looking down again at the ingot in his hand:
“In the case of a man of my experience,” he replied, “tests are unnecessary. This is pure gold.”
