Nude in Mink, Sax Rohmer [free children's ebooks pdf TXT] 📗
- Author: Sax Rohmer
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“But what devil…”
“We haven’t far to look, Donovan! A she-devil. The agent who performed the conjuring trick with the snuffbox was that glamorous damsel (‘uncommonly handsome shoulders’ you may recall) who came to sell Sir Miles the green sapphire.”
“Good God, Maitland! You mean that this girl committed a cold-blooded and loathsome murder?”
“No doubt about it. He must have known, even before my message, that he was in danger; but Tristram, even if he stood on the scaffold, would never have denied himself the visit of a pretty woman. His second interest in life was sapphires, his collection of which is famed throughout Europe. A neat scheme.”
“I suppose she took it away?”
“Unless that’s what he holds clasped in his hand.”
“But, Maitland—” Donovan moved forward, and none too steadily—“why was this horror perpetrated? And why had you some of the vaccine with you?”
Maitland tapped a slender grey cone into a tray and turned, looking up at Donovan.
“As well ask why I’m here, when where I want to be is at sea. You know how I always managed to keep a small sailing craft? Well, the war gave me a chance I had waited for: a chance to go to sea in earnest. Why do you suppose I retired? Needn’t have done so. There’s no one dependent upon me. And why would nothing short of physical force induce me to budge outside your door tonight?”
“I can answer the last point, but not the others.”
“Then I’ll tell you. Two cases of rigor Kubus occurred in North Africa, just before our last meeting in Cairo, and one of them came into my hands. Knowing, as I did, that the rare fungus which produces it cannot grow there, I decided that these deaths (both victims died, having become practically fossilized) had been brought about by human agency. I obtained special leave in order to make inquiries. One of the victims was a distinguished diplomat. These inquiries, Donovan, led me to a horrible, but quite unavoidable conclusion. A new and deathly menace was in being. The Marquise Sumuru was loosed upon the world!”
“But I cannot imagine how she contrives to move about. Surely, with all the present restrictions …”
“It is just these restrictions which have made it possible! The aftermath of war has given her this opportunity. Women of all classes, from the highest to the displaced persons class, are constantly travelling.”
“And where do you think she is at present?”
Steel Maitland’s reply reduced Donovan to temporary, numbed silence:
“Here in London! Sir Miles Tristram was sufficiently important to warrant her personal attention. In fact, it would not surprise me to learn that the visitor who tampered with his snuffbox, the Medusa who turned Tristram to stone, was Sumuru in person!”
“Maitland—Maitland—Good God!”
“Have I surprised you?” Maitland looked up; then he stood up. “Donovan, what’s the matter?”
“Maitland—heaven forgive me—in the pandemonium I had no chance to tell you. But I believe Sumuru has been right here, in this apartment—tonight!”
4
That portion of Steel Maitland’s face which was not bearded, perceptibly paled as Donovan told the story of his mysterious caller. He spoke disconnectedly, and once raised his glass to his lips.
Maitland sprang forward, and took it from Donovan’s hand: his eyes gleamed in a fierce way.
“Are you mad!” he said quietly. “We were seen, and heard, speaking together in Bond Street. She followed you.”
And his words added a new terror—one, perhaps unaccountably, which Donovan had overlooked. Maitland had said that the ghastly thing called rigor Kubus could be produced by swallowing the spores—when the onset was deferred, “sometimes for hours”… The visitor had been alone whilst Donovan had searched for the missing key. The whisky decanter had stood on a buffet just inside the living-room… and both he and Maitland had drunk from it since!
“Try to recall even the most trivial details, Donovan. Both our lives may depend upon it.”
“I am doing my best. And the more I think about her the more I believe that she was not Sumuru—nor any agent of Sumuru’s. No woman could have simulated such fear, such despair. She convinced me, absolutely.”
Steel Maitland, who was swaying from foot to foot, and whose features had grown grimly set, forced a smile.
“Sumuru could convince the Archbishop of Canterbury that she was St. Cecilia! However, tell me—what was the colour of her hair?”
But that simple question was one which Donovan found himself unable to answer. He recalled, with some astonishment, that owing to the placing of the light he had never, from first to last, succeeded in making up his mind on that point!
“There are you! You may remember that Harper’s evidence was equally useless, in this connection, regarding Sir Miles’s visitor. Ravillac’s ‘woven sunshine’ and the Russian’s ‘dark, sombre’ all over again! Did you notice her ankles?”
That singular question—the question which Maitland had put to Harper and which now he fired, catapult fashion, at Donovan, produced a return of that embarrassment to which the American journalist was subject.
“I could not well avoid doing so, Maitland. They were—shapely.”
“Anything else?”
Donovan shook his head.
“You will remember that she wore rather high legged slippers trimmed with fur. But our suspicions are groundless. She was too young—”
“I have no idea of Sumuru’s age. Whilst you continue, Donovan, permit me to check your pulse. My own is normal. But we may have to take swift action.”
Moving forward, Donovan extended his wrist.
“Her pallor,” we went on, “which at the end had become alarming, could not possibly have been induced by any acting. Finally…’
Maitland raised his eyes from his watch and dropped Donovan’s wrist. “Well—finally!”
“The most amazing thing of all. Except for her fur cape, which I have tried to describe, and the blue slippers… she was completely nude!”
DONOVAN glanced at the clock, then out of a window into darkness. Useless to ignore facts. It was growing late and Maitland had not turned up.
“Don’t leave the street door open tonight,” he had advised. “You may have another queer visitor. I’ll be all right now that I have a spare key. If I’m detained after dark, I shall pick up a convoy.”
The fact that they had come to no harm, had led Maitland reluctantly to accept Donovan’s view that the girl who had appeared and disappeared so mysteriously was neither Sumuru nor one of her agents. “But,” said Maitland, “she may be one of her victims. Her singular behaviour certainly points in that direction. We have a promising clue to work upon there—Lady Orpsley—your landlady. Do you know where she has gone?”
All Donovan knew was that she had gone to Switzerland, but he gave Maitland an introduction to the mutual friend who had leased the apartment for him during his absence, and Maitland had set out.
His baggage had been transferred, by a roundabout route, to Donovan’s apartment, which Maitland had proposed to make his base of operations against this formidable enemy. His parting words had been:
“Look out for yourself, Donovan. Get in early. She may have you on her list. And—oh, look out for your naked friend!”
How grotesque it seemed, this frame of mind, this fear for a man in the heart of London, when Donovan thought of perils survived—bullets and bombs! Yet, he had seen enough of the methods of Sumuru, whoever Sumuru might be, to convince him that London offered no sanctuary to those who stood in her path.
Death by rigor Kubus was not a pleasant death.
“Whilst certain scientists have been exploring the properties of penicillin,” Maitland had remarked, “others have been employed, you see, on almost parallel experiments aimed at a different target.”
What should he do? Was it his duty to wait for Maitland? On the whole, he thought it was. On the other hand, with imagination on fire, to induce feverish restlessness, the prospect of such a lonely vigil appalled him. He yearned for human contacts. Of that all but incredible menace which overhung their lives he was bound in honour not to speak, but a fellow newspaper man whom he had met at the office that morning had suggested a drink at his club around this time and Donovan was inclined to walk across.
In the end inclination won.
He met the porter-handyman downstairs, and:
“Oh,” he said, “if Dr. Steel Maitland comes in, tell him I shall be back in half an hour.”’
“Well—I’m just going off duty, Mr. Donovan. But I’ll tell him if I see him. Good night.”
“Good night.”
It was fairly dark, for although yesterday’s fog had dispersed, the sky was cloudy when he opened the door and stepped out into Bruton Street, so that he almost bumped into a woman who stood there.
“Oh, is it Mr. Donovan?” she asked.
Her voice possessed an ingratiating quality, and, bad as was the lighting, Donovan could see by the faint glow of a lamp in the hallway behind him, that her face was heavily made up. Now, during the time that London had accommodated so many overseas troops, it was a fact that Bond Street and Conduit Street, both less than a hundred yards from his door, had earned an unenviable after-dark reputation. This they had maintained. And although he could not imagine how this girl had learned his name, he drew the not unnatural conclusion that she was a lady of the town.
“Why do you ask?” he replied, perhaps somewhat stiffly.
“Oh, I’m not trying to get off with you,” she snapped. “Don’t be afraid of that. I may look at bit suspicious, but it’s because I didn’t stop to take off my make-up. I’ve run all the way.”
“I’m sorry.” Her manner, indeed, had gone far to change Donovan’s mind. “You have run all the way from where?”
“From the Colombe d’Or Theatre. I’m in the new show there. I was just going to ring the bell when you came out.”
Her story hung together well, for he had noted that she seemed to be somewhat breathless. The Colombe d’Or presented revue featuring strip and innuendo, and the evening performance, Donovan estimated, would already have ended. The theatre was well patronised by London’s floating population.
“I’m sorry if I seemed abrupt. As a matter of fact you rather startled me. Yes, I am Mark Donovan! Can I be of any service?”
“Well—I hope so. I’m Jackie de Lara. Maybe you’ve seen me at the Colombe d’Or?”
“I have only just got back to London, Miss de Lara. I have been nowhere yet.”
“Let’s hurry,” she urged, and taking Donovan’s arm began to walk swiftly along Bruton Street towards Berkeley Square.
He had observed, now, that Jackie de Lara (who had a marked North Country accent) wore no hat, although her fair hair, dressed in the modish manner, was rather badly groomed. She was wrapped in a fur coat of a not notably prosperous appearance.
“But where are we going?”
“To my place in Shepherd Market. It’s no distance. You’re an American, aren’t you?”
“I certainly come from the United States, Miss de Lara.”
“Oh, everybody calls me Jackie. Listen Mark: This is urgent. Your girl friend is hiding in my flat.”
Now, this simple statement, confidently made, had a remarkable effect upon Mark Donovan. He was uneasily conscious of the fact that his mysterious visitor of the night before had left upon his mind an impression which he feared would be a lasting one. She was, by far, the loveliest girl he had ever set eyes upon; and in her voice, her manner, her helpless appeal in acute distress, Donovan had found something quite irresistible. His heart gave a jump.
“Why do you say that—er—Jackie? Did she tell you so?”
“Tell me!” Jackie
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