“I do not trust you—no woman is to be trusted in a world of men. Yet because I am a man too, and very lonely in this my last battle to crush what the West calls civilization . . . I will admit you one step further into my plans—I have means of watching those who profess to serve me. I know where I can place my trust. . . .”
Mrs. Adair experienced a sensation as though the speaker’s eyes had usurped the whole of the small room. She was submerged in a green lake, magnetic, thrilling, absorbing. The strange voice reached her from far away: she was resigned to the thraldom.
“There is no crime except the crime of disobedience to my will. My conception of life transcends the laws of all men living to-day. When I achieve my ambition, those who stand beside me will share my mastery of the world. Of the demagogues battling for power in this troubled country I have selected one as my own. . . .”
Moya Adair emerged from the green lake. Dr. Fu Manchu had closed his eyes. He sat like a craven image of a dead god behind the lacquered table.
“I am sending you,” the guttural, imperious voice continued, “to Harvey Bragg.” You will act in accordance with instructions.”
In the large Park Avenue apartment of Emmanuel Dumas, Harvey Bragg was holding one of those receptions which at once scandalized and fascinated his millions of followers when they read about them in the daily newspapers. These orgiastic entertainments which sometimes resembled a burlesque of a Neronian banquet and sometimes a parody of a Hollywood cabaret scene, had marked his triumphal progress from the state which he represented right up to New York.
“Bluebeard of the Backwoods”—as some political writer had dubbed him—Bragg had interested, amused, scandalized and horrified the inhabitants of the South and of the Middle West, and now was preparing to show himself a second Cyrus, master of modern Babylon. New York was the bright orange upon which the greedy eyes were set. New York he would squeeze dry.
Lola Dumas’ somewhat equivocal place in his affairs merely served to add glamour to the man’s strange reputation. Now, entertaining in her father’s home, he demonstrated himself to be that which he believed himself to be—an up-to-date emperor whose wishes transcended all laws.
Lola had been twice married and twice divorced. After each of these divorces she had reverted to her family name, of which she was inordinately proud. Emmanuel Dumas, who had made a colossal fortune in the boom and lost most of it in the slump, claimed, without warranty which any man could recognize, to be descended from the brilliant quadroon who created the Three Musketeers. If a picturesque personality and a shock of frizzy white hair had been acceptable as evidence, then any jury must have granted his claim.
A moral laxity, notable even during the regime of Prohibition, had characterized his scandalous life. In later years, when most of his Wall Street contemporaries had been washed up, the continued prosperity of Emmanuel Dumas became a mystery insoluble. The prurient ascribed it to the association between his beautiful daughter and the flamboyant but eccentric politician who threatened to become the Mussolini of the United States.
The room in which the reception was being held was decorated with a valuable collection of original drawings by Maurice Leioir, representing episodes in the novels of Alexandre Dumas. Rapiers, pistols, muskets adorned the walls. Here was a suit of armour which had once belonged to Louis XIII; there a red hat in a glass case, which, according to an inscription, had been worn by that king’s subtle minister, the Cardinal de Richelieu. There were powder boxes, mirrors and jewels, once the property of Anne of Austria. These his torical objects, and many others, arrested the glance in every direction.
Lola Dumas wore an emerald-green robe, or rest gown, its gauzy texture scarcely more than veiling her slender body. She was surrounded by a group of enthusiastic journalists. Her father was attired in a sort of velvet smock tied with a loose black bow at his neck. He, also, held court.
As a prominent supporter, and frequently the host, of Harvey Bragg, he had entered upon a new term of notoriety. These two, father and daughter, by virtue of their beauty alone—for Emmanuel Dumas was a strikingly handsome man—must have focussed interest in almost any gathering.
The room was packed from end to end. Prominent society people, who once would have shunned the Dumas’ apartment, might be seen in groups admiring the strange ornaments, studying the paintings; eager to attract the attention of this singular man once taboo, but now bathed in a blaze of limelight.
Politicians of all shades of opinion were represented.
The air was heavy with tobacco smoke; the buzz of chatter simian; champagne flowed almost as freely as water from the fountains of Versailles. Many notable people came and went unnoticed from this omnium-gatherum, for the dazzling personalities of the hostess and her father outshone them all. One would have thought that no man and few women could have diverted attention from the glittering pair; yet when, unheralded, Harvey Bragg came striding into the room, instantly the Dumas were forgotten.
All eyes turned in Bragg’s direction. Sascha lamps appeared from leather cases in which they had lain ready; a platoon of cameras came into action; notebooks were hastily opened.
Bluebeard Bragg was certainly an arresting figure. His nick-name was double-edged, Bragg’s marital record alone would have explained it; the man’s intense swarthiness equally might have accounted for the “bluebeard”. Slightly above medium height, he was built like an acrobat. The span of his shoulders was enormous: his waist measurement would have pleased many women. Withal, he had that enormous development of thigh and the muscular shapely calves seen in male members of the Russian Ballet. He had , too, the light, springy walk of a boxer; and his truculent, black-brown face, lighted by clear hazel eyes that danced with humour, was crowned by a profusion of straight, gleaming, black hair. Closely though he was shaved—for Harvey Bragg was meticulous in his person—his jaw and chin showed blue through the powder.
“Folks!” he cried—his voice resembled that of a ship’s officer bellowing orders through a gale—”I’m real sorry to be late, but Mr. and Miss Dumas will have been taking good care of you, I guess. To tell you the truth, folks, I had a bad hangover . . .”
This admission was greeted by laughter from his followers.
“I’ve just got up, that’s the truth. Knew I was expected to see people; jumped in the bath, shaved and here I am!”
There came a dazzling flash of light. The cameras had secured a record, in characteristic pose and costume, of this ex-lord of the backwoods who aimed at the White House.
He wore a sky-blue bathrobe, and apart from a pair of red slippers, apparently nothing else. But he was Harvey Bragg— Bluebeard; the man who threatened the Constitution, the coming Hitler of the United States. His ugliness— for despite his power and the athletic lines of his figure the man was ugly—dominated that gathering. His circus
