Chapter
14
When Brian went into the Paris Bar he found it empty, as he might have expected it to be at that hour. Conscientious by nature, he wasn’t sure that his being there didn’t amount to disobeying the orders of a senior officer.
He was still studying the problem when Lola came in.
“Lola!” There was no one in the place, not even a bartender, and he took her in his arms. “How very glad I am to see you!”
It was an impulse quite irresistible. He held her close and gave her a lingering kiss. Then he recovered himself as she drew back and looked up at him with that quizzical smile.
“So it seems, dear!” But her grey eyes didn’t register resentment; they invited. So did the tempting lips.
Their second kiss was so like one of mutual passion that Brian’s heart leapt. Lingering doubts were dispelled. Lola loved him!
“Let’s get out of here, dearest.” He spoke hoarsely. “I want to talk to you, quietly. Queer things are happening.” His arm was around Lola’s waist. “Where can we be alone—if only for half an hour?”
“Wel!”— Lola hesitated—”I have one of the tiniest apartments in the Babylon-Lido. Madame doesn’t squander dollars. We could go there, but—”
She glanced up at him.
“I promise to behave. I admit I’m mad about you, but I won’t break out again.”
The apartment was on the eighth floor; its windows commanded an excellent view of a brick wall. The living- room wasn’t much larger than either of the bathrooms in the lordly suite reserved for Sir Denis. Lola boiled water in an electric kettle to make tea, which she prepared with the manner of an experienced traveller. . . . “You can imagine you’re back at Oxford, Brian.”
It was all delightfully intimate, and Brian’s mood of depression magically dispersed. When, seated in an easy chair nursing a cup of tea, Lola offered him a cigarette, he felt that this was a foretaste of bliss.
He sparked his lighter; glanced at the cigarette—and paused.
“Please light mine,” Lola said sweetly. “They arrived this morning—enough to last me for two months! Your extravagant tastes need watching, Brian.”
The cigarettes were “Azizas”—those he had ordered in Cairo!
“Did you get my letter, Lola?”
“Yes. I got your letter. Thank you for everything, Brian. And now, what is it you want to talk about? I warned you, dear. I hadn’t much time. On the stroke of five I have to be off.”
“Then I’d better begin. What I want to say is strictly confidential. But I just have to say it to somebody—and there’s nobody else but you I can say it to. I’m worried about Sir Denis.”
“Why, Brian?” Lola drew her brows together in a frown of concentration. “Is he ill?”
“Yes.” Brian nodded, “Mentally ill, I’m afraid. His sufferings have shaken him badly. I think he’s losing his nerve.”
“From your account of Sir Denis, I supposed he had no nerves.”
“So did I. But today he seemed to fold up.”
“Why, Brian? Has something happened?”
Brian began to remember that it was his duty to keep his mouth shut. He must put a curb on his confidences. But he believed in Lola’s worldly wisdom, and desperately needed her advice.
He glanced at her. It had occurred to him almost from the moment of their meeting that she kept up her usual air of easy self-possession only by means of a sustained effort. Perhaps his passionate greeting had shaken her. But certainly, although she masked the fact, she was queerly keyed up;
kept glancing at her watch.
“Sir Denis seems to think some new danger has developed,” he told her.
“Danger? To whom?”
“To all of us, I guess.” He began to grope for words. “My father’s expected tonight, and some other important visitors. If this danger is real, I’m wondering if I should stop them.”
“Surely Sir Denis would have done so, if he couldn’t guarantee their safety.”
“You don’t know,” Brian assured her, “how completely he’s gone to pieces.”
“As your father is involved, surely you could at least discuss it with him.”
Brian shook his head wearily. “He’s asleep up there! And I have his written order. Look at this.” From his pocket he took out the note he had found on the desk. “They’ll be on their way before seven o’clock!”
Lola read the note, but made no comment; passed it back;
glanced at her wrist-watch.
“What would you advise me to do, Lola?”
She stood up. “In the first place, get a move on. I have to go. As for Sir Denis’s order, I advise you to do nothing—except obey it to the letter. . . .”
* * *
Brian watched Lola’s taxi weaving its way into the traffic torrent and finally becoming lost to view, with a sense of desolation. She had her troubles, too, he knew, although they didn’t involve millions of human destinies but only the vanity of a few wealthy women who bought their dresses at Michel’s.
He started away at a brisk pace towards Central Park. An hour’s walk in fresh air might help him to shake off that appalling sense of gloom, which Huckleberry Finn called then fantods.
From the moment that he entered the Park he hardly noticed where he was going, but evening was drawing in when he found himself passing behind the Museum and pulled up to check the time. He decided to turn back, swung around, and saw that the only other pedestrian in sight, a man walking twenty yards behind him, had done the same.
He thought nothing of this at the moment. Returning along the same path, he saw the man ahead turn to the left for a gate on Fifth Avenue. Brian passed on, nervously considering the night’s programme, wondering why the mere approach of Dr. Fu Manchu had so shattered Nayland Smith’s courage and what it could be that Sir Denis feared. . . . Did he seriously believe the President’s life to be in danger? And did he doubt his own ability to protect him?
Something—perhaps a subconscious urge—prompted Brian to pause and look behind. . . .
The man he supposed to have left the Park was following him again!
Anger came first; then, an unpleasant chill.
His follower might be an agent of Dr. Fu Manchu, or he might be one of the F.B.I, men detailed, according to Sir Denis, to keep him under observation. In any case, it was getting dark, the Park seemed deserted, and Brian went out by the 72nd Street gate and hailed a taxi.
In the main entrance to the Babylon-Lido he looked at his watch.
Twenty minutes to seven.
He turned away and walked around the corner. He had noticed a little bar almost directly facing the trade entrance to the hotel and decided that he could pass the time there over a drink and a smoke. It was better than walking about; he was tired of walking, now, and feeling thirsty.
Taking a corner stool just inside the door, he ordered a drink, lighted a cigarette; settled down to wait for seven o’clock.
For what possible reason had Nayland Smith banished him from the Babylon-Lido until that hour? It was incomprehensible. Unless, which seemed probable, he was followed by a Federal agent wherever he went, why was Sir Denis’s warning “never to go out alone” apparently forgotten?
Either he had become a mere cipher in the game, or Nayland Smith had thrown his hand in and didn’t care what happened.
Brian started a fresh cigarette, looked at his watch. Ten minutes to wait.
With some unknown menace, embodied in the name Dr. Fu Manchu, hanging over the party assembling—a party to include the President tonight—this enforced inertia was almost unendurable. Brian found it nearly impossible to remain still. Although he did his best to retain control, he saw the bartender glancing in his direction suspiciously.
