by Sax Rohmer
She was, it appeared, the widow of a physician. But this alone was not enough. And noting the patrician elegance, almost disdain, which characterized the beautiful widow, Sir Bertram had not been surprised to learn later, that on her father’s side there was royal Manchu blood.
An experienced man of the world is the adventuress’s easiest quarry. Sir Bertram, a widower of almost illimitable means, naturally knew much of women; he thought there was no design whose pattern he had not met with at some time. He distrusted Madame Ingomar. But she attracted him in a way that was almost frightening.
They met again on the Riviera a year later.
Discreetly, and as if telling an Oriental fairy tale, she had spoken of the existence of an hereditary secret in her family, smilingly pointing out that the widow of a brilliant, but penniless physician, could not otherwise dress as she dressed.
Other explanations occurred to Sir Bertram at the time, but just when he had been sharpening his wits to deal with this dazzling cocotte, she had disappeared.
It seemed to be a habit of hers.
Now, she was in London. They had met accidentally, or apparently accidentally, and he, anxious to test her, because she was so desirable, had challenged the claims which she had made in France. The challenge, lightly, had been accepted.
The life of Madame Ingomar was a fascinating mystery. Her appointment at a fashionable dance club, made for two o’clock in the morning, was odd. Sir Bertram was in the toils—he knew it; he was prepared to believe that royal blood of China ran in this woman’s veins; prepared to believe that she was really the widow of a distinguished physician; but he had no means of testing these claims. One, however—the hereditary secret—he could test: it came within his special province. And to-night she had offered him an opportunity.
“My dear Madame Ingomar,” he said, and kissed her hand, for his courtly manners were famous throughout Europe. “This is indeed a very great privilege.”
The maitre d’hotel led the way to that table which was always reserved for Sir Bertram whenever he required it. Madame Ingomar declined supper, but drank a glass of wine.
Sir Bertram having draped her white fur wrap across the back other chair, ivory shoulders and perfectly modelled arms were revealed by a gossamer green frock. She smoked almost continuously, not as other women of his acquaintance smoked, but, and it seemed almost a custom of a bygone generation, using a long jade holder.
Her hands were exquisite, her exotic indolence conjured up visions of vanished empires. She talked brilliantly, and Sir Bertram, watching her, decided she was quite the most attractive woman he had ever known. He sighed. He was uncertain other; and he had reached an age, and a position in the world, when the worst thing that could befall him would be to become laughable.
Madame Ingomar caught his glance, smiled, and held it. Her long, narrow eyes, were brilliantly green. He had never seen such eyes. This was their second meeting since her appearance in London and he had noticed as a man who took an interest in women, that whereas most of those upon the dance floor wore dresses which exposed their backs, in some cases to the waist, Madame Ingomar’s frock was of a different pattern.
She had an uncanny trick—it disturbed him—of answering one’s unspoken thoughts; and:
“My frock is not quite the mode,” she murmured smilingly— her voice had the most soothing quality of any voice to which he had ever listened—”you wonder why?”
“Really, my dear Madame Ingomar, you embarrass me. Your dress is completely charming—everything about you is perfect.”
She placed her cigarette-holder in an ash-tray, glancing swiftly about the room.
“I do not live the sheltered life of other women,” she said tensely; “perhaps you would understand me better if you knew something of the things I have suffered.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
She smiled again, and taking a cigarette from Sir Bertram’s open case, fitted it to the jade holder.
“I belong to China,” she murmured, lowering her dark lashes, “and in China, women are treated as ... women.”
This was the kind of conversation which at once intrigued and irritated Sir Bertram. It was her hints at some strange, Oriental background into which from time to time she was absorbed, which first had thrown a noose about his interest. But always ... he doubted.
That she had Chinese blood in her, none could deny. But that she belonged in any other sense to the Far East he was not prepared to admit. These odd references to a mode of life divorced from all ideals of Western culture, were part and parcel with that fabulous story of the hereditary secret.
As Sir Bertram lighted her cigarette. Madame Ingomar glanced up.
Those wonderful eyes held him.
‘You have always mistaken me for an adventuress,” she said. And the music of her voice, because it was pitched in so curious a key, reached him over the strains of the dance band. “In one way you are right, in another you are very wrong. Tonight, I hope to convert you.”
Believe me, I require no conversion; I am your most devoted friend.”
She touched his hand lightly; her long, slender fingers, with extravagantly varnished nails, communicated to Sir Bertram a current of secret understanding which seemed to pulse through his veins, his nerves, and to reach his brain.
He was in love with this Eurasian witch. Every line and curve of her body, every wave of her dark hair, her voice, the perfume of her personality, intoxicated him.
Silently, he mocked himself:—There is no fool like an old fool.
“You are neither old nor a fool,” she said, and slipped slen der fingers into his grasp. ‘You are a clever man whom I admire, very, very much.”
He squeezed those patrician fingers almost cruelly, carried away by the magnetism of this woman’s intense femininity; so that for fully half a minute the uncanny character of those words did not dawn upon him.
Then, it came crashingly. He drew his hand away—and stared at her.
“Why did you say that?” he asked. He was more than startled; he was frightened. “I did not speak.”
‘You spoke to me,” she said, softly. ‘You understand me a little bit, and so I can hear you—sometimes.”
“Good God!”
Madame Ingomar laughed. Her laughter, Sir Bertram thought, was the most deliciously musical which had ever fallen upon his ears.
“In the East,” she said, “when we are interested, we know how to get in touch.”
He watched her in silence. She had turned her glance away, lolling back in her chair, so that she seemed to emerge like an ivory goddess from the mass of white fur, for she had drawn her wrap about her shoulders. She was watching the dancers, and Sir Bertram saw her as an Oriental empress, watching, almost superciliously, a performance organized for her personal entertainment.
Suddenly, she glanced aside at him.
“I promised that to-night I would prove my words,” she said, slowly. “If you wish it, we will go.”
Sir Bertram started. She had called him back from a reverie in which he had been a guest at a strange Eastern banquet.
“I am very happy, here, with you,” he replied. “But what you wish is what I desire to do.”
“Let us go, then. My father has consented to see you.”
For anyone to “consent” to see the great Sir Bertram Morgan was a novelty in that gentleman’s life. Yet, oddly enough, the phrase did not strike him as insolent, or even curious. One of the greatest powers in the world of finance, he accepted this mysterious summons.
CHAPTER
19
ROWAN HOUSE
Sir Bertram’s fawn and silver Rolls, familiar in many of the capitals of Europe, was brought up to the door of the club, and the courtly financier handed his beautiful companion to her seat.
“I warn you, Sir Bertram, we have some distance to go.”
“How far?”
“Fourteen or fifteen miles into Surrey.”
“The journey will pass very qui
ckly with you.”
“If you will tell your man to go to Sutton By-pass I will direct him when we get there how to find Rowan House.”
“Rowan House? Is that where you are going?”
“It’s a very old house—a sort of survival. It came on the market some years ago. It was once the property of Sir Lionel Barton, the famous explorer.”
“Barton?” Sir Bertram got in beside Madame Ingomar, having given rapid instructions to the chauffeur. “I have met Barton—a madman, but brilliant. He nearly brought about a rising a year or two ago, in Afghanistan, or somewhere, by stealing the ornaments from a prophet’s tomb. Is that the man you mean?”
The car started smoothly on its way.
“Yes,” said Madame Ingomar, leaning back upon the cushions and glancing in the speaker’s direction. “It is the same man. The house was very cheap, but in many ways suitable.”
Madame Ingomar turned her head again, staring straight before her, and Sir Bertram, studying that cameo-like profile, groped for some dim memory which it conjured up. Bending forward he pulled down the front blind.
“The lights of approaching cars are so dazzling,” he said. “That is more restful.”
“Thank you, yes,” she murmured. . . .
The big Rolls, all but silently, quite effortlessly, was devouring mile after mile of London highway. The Flying Squad car, close behind, at times was fully extended by the driver to keep track of the quarry. Chief detective-inspector Gallaho had twice removed his hat since they had left Bond Street, on each occasion replacing it at a slightly different angle, which betokened intense excitement, Sterling was silent, as was Nayland Smith. . . .
Madame Ingomar touched Sir Bertram’s hand. He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them rapturously.
“Please, please,” she pleaded. “I will not allow you to make love to me, while you doubt me so much. If I did, I should feel like a courtesan.”
Sir Bertram drew back, watching her. She dropped her wrap and turned away from him, glancing back over her right shoulder.
“You are a man of honour,” she said, the gaze of those magnetic eyes fixed upon him suddenly, overpoweringly. “I need your assistance; but you will never understand me until you know something of the dangers of my life.”
She slipped her shoulders free of the green frock. Sir Bertram suppressed an exclamation.
That ivory back was wealed with the marks of a lash!
He stared fascinatedly, fists clenched. With a graceful, almost indolent movement of her slender arms Madame Ingomar readjusted her dress, pulled her fur wrap about her, and lay back in the corner, watching him under lowered lashes.
“What fiend did that to you?” he muttered. “What devil incarnate could deface that ivory skin?”
He was bending over her, one knee upon the floor of the car, a supplicant, literally at her feet. But she stared straight before her. When he seized her hands, they lay listless in his grasp.
“Tell me!”—the hoarseness of his own voice surprised him:
“I want to know—I must know.”
“It would be useless,” she replied, her tones so low that he could only just catch the words. “In this you cannot assist me. But—” she looked down at him, twining her fingers in his—”I wanted you to know that what I have told you of my life is not a lie.”
Sir Bertram kissed her hands, kissed her arms, and quite intoxicated by the beauty of this maddening, incomprehensible woman, would have kissed her lips, but a slender hand, two of the fingers jewelled, intervened between his lips and hers.
Gently, she thwarted him, for her half-closed eyes were not unkind.
“Please . . . not yet,” she said. “I have told you that you make me feel like a wanton.”
Sir Bertram recovered himself. Seated, staring straight ahead, his teeth very tightly clenched, he tried to analyse his emotions.
Was he in the toils of the most talented adventuress who had ever crossed his path? Did these waves of insane passion which from time to time swept him away, mean that where Madame Ingomar was concerned, self-control had gone? If she was what she claimed to be, what were his intentions about her?
He taxed himself—was he prepared to marry her?
Beside him, she remained silent. He was conscious of the strangest urges. Not since his Oxford days had he experienced anything resembling these. Undeterred by that gentle rebuff, he wanted to grasp Madame Ingomar in his arms and silence her protests with kisses. He wanted to demand, as a lover’s right, the real explanation of those marks upon her shoulders. He wanted to kill the man who had caused them, and it was his recognition of this homicidal desire which checked, in a measure, the tumult of his brain.
Was it possible, that he, at his age, holding his place in the world, could be driven quite mad by a woman? He wrenched his head aside and looked at her.
She lay back against the cushions. Through half-closed eyes she stared before her abstractedly, and Sir Bertram captured that fugitive memory.
It was the profile of Queen Nefertiti, that exquisite mystery whose portrait by an unknown artist has been the subject of so much dispute.
Deserted streets offered no obstacles to the chauffeur. The outskirts of London reached, the police car behind had greater difficulty in keeping Sir Bertram’s Rolls in sight.
“I can’t make this out at all,” growled Gallaho. “Where the devil is she going?”
“I haven’t been in this neighbourhood for some time,”
snapped Nayland Smith. “But it brings back curious memories. It was in an ancient house in a sort of back-water near Sutton, that I first met Sir Lionel Barton.”
“The explorer?”
“Yes. He inherited a queer old place somewhere in this neighbourhood. It was the scene of very strange happenings at the beginning of the Fu Manchu case. And ... by heaven, as I live, that is just the direction we are heading now!”
In the leading car, the blind having been raised again, Madame Ingomar was giving instructions to the chauffeur. And presently, so guided, the Rolls turned into a darkly shadowed avenue which in summer must have been a veritable tunnel. At the end of it, through the temporary clearness of the night, one saw Rowan House, a long, squat building, hemmed in by trees and shrubs.
When presently Sir Bertram found himself in the entrance hall, he recognized the hand of the brilliant, but eccentric explorer and archeologist who had been the former owner of Rowan House. The place was a miniature Assyrian hall, and the present occupier had not disturbed this scheme. Animal skins and one or two exotic rugs alone disturbed the expanse of polished floor; and in the opening hung curtains of some queerly figured material which resembled that represented in ancient wall paintings.
The exterior of the house, Sir Bertram had noted, presented an unpleasantly damp and clammy appearance. And now as he stood looking about him, but glancing from time to time at the Oriental servant who had opened the door, he became aware at once of a curious perfume, almost like that of incense, yet having an overpowering quality about it which gave him the impression that Rowan House was not exactly a healthy abode.
Madame Ingomar was speaking rapidly to the butler who had admitted them, a squat Burman, dressed in white, and possessing an incredible width of shoulder. They spoke in a language which Sir Bertram did not understand.
CHAPTER
20
GOLD
The room to which Madame Ingomar presently conducted Sir Bertram was astonishing in many respects.
“I will tell my father you are here,” she said—and he found himself alone.
From the lacquer armchair in which he sat, Sir Bertram surveyed his surroundings. He saw a room Orientally elegant, having entrances closed with sliding doors. Two shaded lanterns swung from the ceiling, illuminating the room warmly, and a number of brightly coloured cushions were strewn about the floor. There were tapestries in which red and gold ran riot, so that one lost the head of a dragon and failed to recover it again in endeavouring to trace his t
ail. Rich carpets and cushioned divans; a number of handsome cabinets containing fine pottery, a battalion of books in unfamiliar bindings arranged upon shelves which, conforming to the scheme of the room, were of dull red lacquer.
At the end remote from that where Sir Bertram sat, in a deep tiled hearth, a small chemical furnace threw its red glow into the room. On a shelf just above this furnace there was a row of jars which contained preserved lizards, snakes and other small reptiles; there was a large table, apparently of Italian workmanship, magnificently inlaid, upon which were some open faded volumes and a number of scientific instruments.
One of the lacquer doors slid noiselessly open and a man came in. Sir Bertram hesitated for a moment and then stood up.
The newcomer was a singularly tall Chinaman who wore a plain yellow robe which accentuated the gaunt lines of his figure. A black cap surmounted by a bead crowned his massive skull. Introductions were superfluous: Sir Bertram Morgan knew that he stood in the presence of the Marquis Chang Hu.
The man radiated authority. He was impressive to a degree exceeding Sir Bertram’s experience. Perhaps the similarity of the profile of Madame Ingomar to that of the long-dead, beautiful Egyptian queen subconsciously prompted the image, but Sir Bertram thought, as others had thought before him, that the aged, ageless, majestic face of the man in the yellow robe resembled the face of the Pharaoh Seti I whose power, unex-ercised for four thousand years, may still be felt by anyone who bends over the glass case in Cairo which contains the mummy of that mighty king.
“You are welcome, Sir Bertram.” The tall Chinaman advanced, bowing formally. “Please be seated. I honour my daughter for arranging this interview.
“It is a pleasure to me, too, sir.”
Sir Bertram spoke sincerely. He was used to nobilities and to the off-shoots of imperial trees, but this survivor of the royal Manchus was a Prince indeed.
He wondered what he was doing in England. Knowing something of the situation in China, he wondered if the charming and promising adventure with Madame Ingomar had been no more than a lead-up to this; an attempt to enlist him in some hopeless campaign, financially to readjust the hopeless muddle which had taken the place of the once great Chinese Empire.
