The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, Sax Rohmer [knowledgeable books to read TXT] 📗

my chin in my hands; Smith restlessly paced the floor, relighting his blackened briar a dozen times in as many minutes. In the big armchair the pseudo-gypsy was curled up. A brief toilet had converted the wizened old woman’s face into that of a fascinatingly pretty girl. Wildly picturesque she looked in her ragged Romany garb. She held a cigarette in her fingers and watched us through lowered lashes.

Seemingly, with true Oriental fatalism, she was quite reconciled to her fate, and ever and anon she would bestow upon me a glance from her beautiful eyes which few men, I say with confidence, could have sustained unmoved. Though I could not be blind to the emotions of that passionate Eastern soul, yet I strove not to think of them. Accomplice of an arch-murderer she might be; but she was dangerously lovely.

“That man who was with you,” said Smith, suddenly turning upon her, “was in Burma up till quite recently. He murdered a fisherman thirty miles above Prome only a month before I left. The D.S.P. had placed a thousand rupees on his head. Am I right?”

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

“Suppose⁠—What then?” she asked.

“Suppose I handed you over to the police?” suggested Smith. But he spoke without conviction, for in the recent past we both had owed our lives to this girl.

“As you please,” she replied. “The police would learn nothing.”

“You do not belong to the Far East,” my friend said abruptly. “You may have Eastern blood in your veins, but you are no kin of Fu-Manchu.”

“That is true,” she admitted, and knocked the ash from her cigarette.

“Will you tell me where to find Fu-Manchu?”

She shrugged her shoulders again, glancing eloquently in my direction.

Smith walked to the door.

“I must make out my report, Petrie,” he said. “Look after the prisoner.”

And as the door closed softly behind him I knew what was expected of me; but, honestly, I shirked my responsibility. What attitude should I adopt? How should I go about my delicate task? In a quandary, I stood watching the girl whom singular circumstances saw captive in my rooms.

“You do not think we would harm you?” I began awkwardly. “No harm shall come to you. Why will you not trust us?”

She raised her brilliant eyes.

“Of what avail has your protection been to some of those others,” she said; “those others whom he has sought for?”

Alas! it had been of none, and I knew it well. I thought I grasped the drift of her words.

“You mean that if you speak, Fu-Manchu will find a way of killing you?”

“Of killing me!” she flashed scornfully. “Do I seem one to fear for myself?”

“Then what do you fear?” I asked, in surprise.

She looked at me oddly.

“When I was seized and sold for a slave,” she answered slowly, “my sister was taken, too, and my brother⁠—a child.” She spoke the word with a tender intonation, and her slight accent rendered it the more soft. “My sister died in the desert. My brother lived. Better, far better, that he had died, too.”

Her words impressed me intensely.

“Of what are you speaking?” I questioned. “You speak of slave-raids, of the desert. Where did these things take place? Of what country are you?”

“Does it matter?” she questioned in turn. “Of what country am I? A slave has no country, no name.”

“No name!” I cried.

“You may call me Karamanèh,” she said. “As Karamanèh I was sold to Dr. Fu-Manchu, and my brother also he purchased. We were cheap at the price he paid.” She laughed shortly, wildly.

“But he has spent a lot of money to educate me. My brother is all that is left to me in the world to love, and he is in the power of Dr. Fu-Manchu. You understand? It is upon him the blow will fall. You ask me to fight against Fu-Manchu. You talk of protection. Did your protection save Sir Crichton Davey?”

I shook my head sadly.

“You understand now why I cannot disobey my master’s orders⁠—why, if I would, I dare not betray him.”

I walked to the window and looked out. How could I answer her arguments? What could I say? I heard the rustle of her ragged skirts, and she who called herself Karamanèh stood beside me. She laid her hand upon my arm.

“Let me go,” she pleaded. “He will kill him! He will kill him!”

Her voice shook with emotion.

“He cannot revenge himself upon your brother when you are in no way to blame,” I said angrily. “We arrested you; you are not here of your own free will.”

She drew her breath sharply, clutching at my arm, and in her eyes I could read that she was forcing her mind to some arduous decision.

“Listen.” She was speaking rapidly, nervously. “If I help you to take Dr. Fu-Manchu⁠—tell you where he is to be found alone⁠—will you promise me, solemnly promise me, that you will immediately go to the place where I shall guide you and release my brother; that you will let us both go free?”

“I will,” I said, without hesitation. “You may rest assured of it.”

“But there is a condition,” she added.

“What is it?”

“When I have told you where to capture him you must release me.”

I hesitated. Smith often had accused me of weakness where this girl was concerned. What now was my plain duty? That she would utterly decline to speak under any circumstances unless it suited her to do so I felt assured. If she spoke the truth, in her proposed bargain there was no personal element; her conduct I now viewed in a new light. Humanity, I thought, dictated that I accept her proposal; policy also.

“I agree,” I said, and looked into her eyes, which were aflame now with emotion, an excitement perhaps of anticipation, perhaps of fear.

She laid her hands upon my shoulders.

“You will be careful?” she said pleadingly.

“For your sake,” I replied, “I shall.”

“Not for my sake.”

“Then for your brother’s.”

“No.” Her voice had sunk to a whisper. “For your own.”

XVII

A cool breeze met us, blowing from