Nude in Mink by Sax Rohmer (classic literature books txt) 📖

SOME uneasy idea that he had failed in a plain duty, that he had bungled, and bungled badly, a job which Fate had tossed into his hands, held him there in the darkness…

Someone bumped into him.

“Hi! look out!”

“In you go, Donovan. No need to wait out here. Quick as you like. Dodged ‘em this time!”

A tall, hatless figure, arrayed in a blue waterproof, materialised at Donovan’s elbow. Unceremoniously, his arm was grasped and he was swept in.

“Maitland!”

“What’s left of him. First try to our side. Lead the way.”

Followed so swiftly that he felt himself pursued, Donovan hurried upstairs. As he entered the lobby, Steel Maitland kicked aside the cushion which lay there.

“What’s the idea? Put there for visitors to fall over?”

“As a matter of fact—”

But before Donovan had time to say more, Maitland was in the living room, his glance resting on a tray which stood beside the red armchair.

“Whisky and soda? Good idea, Donovan. Gad! What a night I’ve had!”

Dropping the raincoat on the carpet, he revealed himself in a notably shabby suit, and wearing a muffler in lieu of a tie. His appearance had undergone another startling change; for the incipient whiskers which Donovan remembered in Cairo had developed into a formidable black beard. When Maitland smiled, and he had a gay, quick smile, his teeth gleamed brilliantly in that hirsute frame.

“You look that way,” Donovan commented, pouring out a drink as he dropped into the armchair. “When I last saw you in Cairo—was it really three years ago?—you were Lieutenant Commander Steel Maitland, a respected medical officer. What are you supposed to be now?”

Maitland’s clear blue eyes were raised as he took the tumbler from Donovan’s hand.

“Hunted man!” he replied. “It has taken me more than an hour since I left my hotel to get as far as this.”

“As far as this? Then where are you going?”

“Charles Street.”

“But Charles Street is only just across the Square.”

Having taken a long drink, Maitland set his glass down.

“Very likely. But, many places that are just across the Square may be damned hard to get to all the same.”

“Suppose,” Donovan suggested, carrying his own glass over to the couch, “you lift the veil slightly. Are you fired? Wanted for debt? Spy hunting? Are the police after you?”

Maitland shook his head rather grimly, extracting from a case one of those abominable cheroots resembling dried twigs which come from Burma. This thing alight, he spoke again.

“No. I am trying to save a man’s life. But as a matter of fact I was nearly arrested half an hour ago. It might have taken me some time to establish my identity at a local police station. I’m no longer in the Navy. I was seconded more or less indefinitely just after you left Egypt, and what used to be a hobby is now a full-time job …”

“Amateur theatricals?”

“Something rather like it.” He removed his cheroot and stared meditatively at its narrow, smouldering cone. “We fondly imagined, once, that when we had stamped out Hitler & Co., we should be in clover. Now, what about Stalin & Co.? And has it ever occurred to you that the beastly cauldron of war may have brewed even fouler things—as corruption breeds fungus? We have seen some of the horrors that lay hidden behind the mists of the East, for instance, but we haven’t seen all—yet.”

Donovan stared at him intently. So deeply had his strange manner, and the stranger manner of his arrival, impressed him, that even his own remarkable experience was set aside as of small consequence.

“Perhaps I don’t quite follow.”

“No.” Suddenly Maitland stood up. “Nor have we a moment to waste. My chance sight of you in misty Bond Street (by the light of a passing flashlamp) may have saved the situation. I have been trying, as I said just now, to beat into Charles Street for more than an hour—and I have had some narrow shaves.”

“Narrow shaves?”

“Very. In fact the conclusion was forced upon me that if I persisted, alone, I should in all probability be liquidated. Quite a number of people get run over in the fog, you know. Therefore, Donovan, I am going to ask you to come along. It’s harder to garrote two than one. In return I will give you a story (but not for release until I say ‘shoot’) which will make your reputation with the Alliance for good and all.”

At that, Donovan, also, stood up.

“Are you serious?”

Maitland nodded shortly. “Tell me, Donovan, in your many wanderings have you ever heard of a woman known to some by the title of My Lady, and to others as Sumuru?”

“Sumuru?”

2

At about the time that Mark Donovan echoed that peculiar name, a strange scene was taking place in a room even more strange. On entering it one might have supposed that he had journeyed by time-machine from democratic London back to Imperial Rome. There were pillars of varied characters, pillars from Egypt, Syria and Greece, supporting a painted ceiling. Oriental rugs and skins of animals were strewn about the marble floor. Beside a square pool guarded by a figure of Pan, banks of mimosa flowered and filled the air with their heavy swooning perfume.

There was a semi-circular recess, like a shrine, approached by three marble steps and veiled by silk curtains of rosy pink.

The existence of this singular apartment was destined to arouse keen curiosity in certain quarters (and before long) and to provoke equally keen incredulity in others.

A high, sweet note, that of a bell or of a silver gong, split the hushed silence, hitherto unbroken except for faint stirrings of lily leaves in the pool when one of several large golden orfe swimming there disturbed them.

Almost noiselessly, a bronze door was opened at the head of a short flight of marble steps. The handrail also was bronze, terminating in a newel post representing a sphinx. A man came down, slowly. He was a man of slight and graceful build. His leisurely movements were those of an Arab, and he wore a sort of Arab dress, a black robe, resembling a djibbeh, a skull cap, and red slippers. But his face, a smiling mask of old ivory, was not the face of an Arab.

His red slippers made a faint shuffling sound on the pavement as he crossed to the recess and mounted the three steps. He drew the pink curtain aside, and the rings on which it hung emitted a musical tinkling like that of tiny bells. He saluted with both hands, and stood there, head lowered.

“Madonna?”

The woman addressed lay curled up comfortably on a low divan, propped amongst many cushions. She wore a sort of Eastern indoor dress, and sandals. Her hair was entirely concealed by a close fitting turban. On a table beside her were books, writing materials and an ivory box half full of cigarettes. But no normal man would have noticed any of these things which surrounded the woman on the divan, or, noting them, must have noted them subconsciously. His attention would have been arrested, and held, by her eyes. Her eyes were superb, except that they seemed to be too large for that small, delicate, vital face; but when she spoke, the magic of her voice almost rivalled their witchery. It contained those delicate tones which the harp, alone amongst musical instruments, can breathe.

“Well, Caspar—has she been brought back?”

Caspar, of the set smile, answered without raising his head. “No, Madonna. The men could find no trace of her in the fog.” His unctuous, caressing voice afforded a marked contrast to the golden tones of the woman. He spoke as one who speaks in his sleep. “Abdul is searching, now.”

There was silence for a few moments. Only that faint lapping of leaves disturbed in the pool intruded upon it.

“I am informed that Dr. Steel Maitland is endeavouring to reach the house in Charles Street before our own agent. Are his movements covered?”

“Closely, My Lady.”

“You may go, Caspar. Send Sister Jean to me.”

“I hear you, my Lady.”

Caspar repeated the deep obeisance, stepped back and closed the curtain so that the rings tinkled again sweetly. He glided, smiling, to a draped archway, drew the drapery aside and called: “Sister Jean is wanted by Our Lady.”

From somewhere beyond, another voice cried, “Sister Jean…”

A third, further off, took, up the call: “Sister Jean…”

And presently, heralded by hesitant footsteps, a girl came out, as Caspar, holding the curtain aside until she entered, dropped it behind her. She was an exceptionally pretty girl, her hair almost Titian red, but her grey-green eyes were frightened eyes, and her hands opened and closed nervously.

Caspar, in silence, led the way to the curtained dais, went up the steps and opened the pink curtains. His oily calm voice mingled with their musical tinkling.

“My Lady—Sister Jean is here.”

He saluted and withdrew, the sibilance of his slippers dying away as he crossed the marble floor.

Long before he had reached the bronze door, Sister Jean threw herself on her knees and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, My Lady—My Lady! What can I say? What can I do?”

Unmoved, the reclining woman watched her. “Kneel there.”

“Madonna!”

“Kneel, child—but look at me.”

One might have thought of a rabbit and a serpent as the frightened girl raised her eyes to that lovely, expressionless face. “Yes, Madonna.”

“You brought Claudette to me. It was well done. I accepted her. She has beauty and intelligence, and birth. Tonight, I left her in your charge. She has gone. Her clothes are found in your room. A further cape of mine is missing. Be good enough to explain this matter.”

In a voice stifled by sobs the girl replied.

“Madonna, forgive me! I had only just returned to England, and I wanted so desperately, so desperately, to see— someone. Claudette was asleep—I thought for hours. To make more sure, I removed her clothes from her room, and—went out.”

Sobs checked her words entirely.

“Well, continue, Jean. I have not spoken.”

“My Lady, My Lady! I was gone only ten minutes, and when I returned…”

“The length of your absence is of no consequence. You were absent without my leave. For the women of our Order there are no someones. They live the lives of cloistered nuns until I choose a someone for them. My wishes must be obeyed. I do not mar my penitents with whips. I have other methods. Claudette must be found—and we must meet this interfering someone, Jean, His name, child?”

“My Lady! Dear My Lady! I swear he—”

“His name, child?”

“Please, Madonna—please, I beg of you!—don’t punish him for–-”

3

And in Donovan’s apartment in Bruton Street, Steel Maitland was saying, “Yes, Donovan—Sumuru. A woman who sets no more value on human life than that.” He crushed a cone of ash in the tray beside him. “There’s a lot to be said for her system. After all, certain governments we know have got a long way with similar methods.”

But Donovan, his habitually good-humoured face a mask of perplexity, asked, ‘Then what are her methods?”

“Well”—Maitland smoked reflectively—“women are her chief victims.