The Wrath of Fu Manchu and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

with gentle, hazel eyes and the manner of a family doctor.
    “Have you made all arrangements?” Smith rapped.
    “Yes.” Harkness spoke softly. “Poor old Orson. Our star man, Sir Denis.”
    “He didn’t sacrifice himself for nothing,” said Nayland Smith grimly. “Thanks to him, we hold most of the threads in our hands. We owe this to Mr Thurston here. He became unavoidably mixed up in the thing.”
    Harkness turned his quiet regard on Thurston.
    “Take my advice,” he said. “Step out of this affair just as soon as you can—and stay out. Also keep your mouth shut as tightly as if the air was poisoned.”
    Thurston was not one of those “great adventurers who put self last” referred to by Mrs van Roorden. He was a plain man of business. Fate had made him an unconscious messenger, had plunged him into deep, dark mysteries. He sighed, for sometimes he had longed for such adventure. But he decided that Raymond Harkness’ advice was good…
    * * *
    Mrs van Roorden stepped out of the shower and critically considered her gleaming ivory body in a long pier glass. She could detect no sign of age’s encroachments. Her cool flesh was firm; the contours remained perfect.
    She wrapped herself in a woolly robe and returned to the bedroom.
    A contrast to other rooms in the apartment, this was equipped in the Parisian manner; a fragrant nest for loveliness. She lingered over creams and perfumes in crystal bottles ranged on a cedarwood dressing-table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, took up a hand mirror, the back delicately enamelled on gold, and studied her profile.
    She was satisfied; she was still beautiful.
    But she was ill at ease.
    The frock which she had decided to wear lay draped over a chair, with appropriate shoes and stockings beside it. Mai Cha was perfect in her attentions, as should be expected from the daughter of a Chinese aristocrat. But Mrs van Roorden had never met this youngest child of the aged but prolific Mandarin Huan Tsung before. She had been received as a princess, but all the members of the household were strangers.
    If only Huan Tsung had been there! Old Huan Tsung who used to smuggle sweetmeats to her in baby days, who had given her that pet name of Fah Lo Suee, because, he said, she was like a budding lily blossom.
    She stood up restlessly and went out into an adjoining room equipped in purely Chinese fashion. There were panels of ivory and jade, rare and beautiful rugs, rose porcelain. The furniture might have, and possibly had, come from an Emperor’s palace. There was a faint perfume, blended of musk and sandalwood, and the lamps were hidden in frames of painted silk.
    Mrs van Roorden crossed to windows screened by ebony fretwork, and opened a screen. A warm breeze met her as she stepped out on to the balcony and stood there looking down at Fifth Avenue far below and then across the Park to where tall buildings on Central Park West loomed up, monstrous, against the evening sky.
    What, she asked herself for the hundredth time, had become of Sha Mu?
    Had he failed altogether—been arrested? She was not prepared to believe this. His stealthy cunning had never failed before. It was barely possible that he might still be waiting for an opportunity. Even the uncanny skill with which he could make himself almost invisible would not have enabled him to hide in the hotel so long without being challenged.
    Who was the man who called himself Fordwich?
    Only by a fleeting glance in a mirror had Sha Mu been able to identify his attacker. And it had proved hopeless to attempt anything on the ship. Something was seriously wrong. But she dare not call the hotel.
    Mrs van Roorden returned to the softly lighted room. A Chinese girl stood there. She wore native dress, and her eyes were modestly downcast. She had a shy grace of movement which remained one of a gazelle.
    “My lady lacks something?”
    Mrs van Roorden smiled.
    “Nothing that
you
can find for me, Mai Cha! Tell me, dear, when did you see your