Number 39B was identical in every way with its neighbours. All the houses stood flush to the pavement; so much I could make out: all were in darkness. In response to my ring Mrs. Mullins presently opened the door. A very dim light showed (I saw that some sort of black-out curtain hung behind her) but it must have enabled her to discern my uniform.
“Oh good God!” she exclaimed. “Have the Germans landed?”
Her words reminded me of the part I had to play.
“No ma’am,” I replied gruffly. “I am a police inspector—”
“Oh, inspector, I haven’t shown a peep of light! Truly I haven’t. When the sirens started howling I put out every light in the house. Even when I heard the all-clear, I only used candles.”
“There’s no complaint. Are you Mrs. Mullins?”
“That’s my name, sir.”
“It’s about your lodger, Jacob Bohm, that I’m here.”
The portly figure, dimly seen, appeared to droop. “Oh!” she whispered, “I always expected it.”
I went in. Mrs. Mullins closed the door, dropped the curtain, which I recognized for an old counterpane, and turned to face me in a little sitting-room, candle lighted, which was clean, tidy, and furnished in a way commemorated by Punch artists of the Edwardian era. She was a stout, grey-haired woman and no toper, but tonight her abode spoke of gin. She extended her hands appealingly.
“Don’t say Little Jake was a spy, sir!” she exclaimed. “He was like a son to me. Don’t tell me—”
“When did you see him last?”
“Ah, that’s it! He didn’t come home last night and I thought to myself, that’s funny. Then tonight, when the young lady from the firm called and explained it was all right—”
“What young lady—someone you know?”
“Oh, no, sir—I’ve never seen her before. But she was sure he’d be back later and went up to wait for him. Then that air-raid warning came, and—“
“Where is this—“
I ceased speaking. A faint sound had reached my ears, coming from beyond a half-opened door. Someone was stealing downstairs!
In one bound I reached the door, threw it open, and looked up. Silhouetted against faint light from above, a woman’s figure turned and dashed back! With springs in my heels I followed, leapt into a room a pace behind her, and stood squarely in the doorway.
She had run towards a curtained window, and I saw her in the light of a fire, sole illumination of the room, and that which had shown down the stair. She wore a dark raincoat and a small close-fitting hat from beneath which the glory of her hair cascaded in iridescent waves. Dancing firelight touched her face, more pale than usual, and struck amethyst glints from her lovely eyes. But my heart had already prepared me to meet “the young lady from the firm.”
“It seems I came just in time, Ardatha,” I said, and succeeded in speaking coolly.
She faced me, standing quite still.
“You!” she whispered. “So you are of the police! I thought so!”
“You are wrong; I am not. But this is no time to explain.” I had formed a theory of my own to account for her apparent ignorance of all that had passed between us, and I spoke gently. “I owe you my life, Ardatha, and it belongs to you with all else I have. You said you would try to understand. You must help me to understand, too. What are you doing here?”
She took a step forward, her eyes half fearful, her lips parted.
“I am obeying orders which I must obey. There are things which you can never understand. I believe you mean all you say, and I want to trust you.” Prompted by some swift impulse, she came up to me and rested her hands upon my shoulders, watching me with eyes in which I read a passionate questioning. “God knows how I want to trust you.”
Almost, I succumbed; her charm intoxicated me. As her accepted lover I had the right to those sweet, tremulous lips. But I had read the riddle in my own way, and clenching my teeth I resisted that maddening temptation.
“You may trust me where you cannot trust yourself, Ardatha,” I said quietly. “I am yours here and hereafter. Shake off this horrible slavery. Come with me now. The laws of England are stronger than the laws of Dr. Fu Manchu. You will be safe, Ardatha, and I will teach you to remember all you have forgotten.”
But I kept my hands tightly clenched at my sides; for, once in my arms, all those sane resolutions regarding her would have been swept away, and I knew it.
“Perhaps I want to do so—very much,” she whispered. Perhaps—“ she glanced swiftly up at me and swiftly down again—”this is remembrance. But if such a thing is ever to be, first I must live. If I came with you now I should die within one month—“
“That is nonsense!” I spoke hotly and regretted my violence in the next breath. “Forgive me! I would see that you were safe—even from him”
Ardatha shook her head. The firelight, which momentarily grew brighter, played wantonly in dancing curls.
“It is only with him that I can be safe,” she replied in a low voice. “He is well served because no one of the Si-Fan dare desert him—“
“Why? Whatever do you mean?”
Her hands clutched me nervously: she hid her face.
“There is an injection. It produces a living death—catalepsy. But there is an antidote too, which must be used once each two weeks. I have enough for one month more of life. Then—I should be buried for dead. Perhaps he would dig up my body: he has done such things before. No one else could save me—only Dr. Fu Manchu. And so, you see, with so many others I am just his helpless slave. Now, do you begin to understand?”
Begin to understand? My blood was boiling; yet my heart was cold. I remembered how I had tried to kill the Chinese ghoul, and realized that had I succeeded Ardatha would have been lost to me forever; that she . . . . But sanity forbade my following that train of thought to its dreadful conclusion.
Such a wild yearning overcame me, so mad a desire to hold and protect her from horrors unnameable, that, unwilled, mechanically, my arm went about her shoulders. She trembled slightly, but did not resist.
“You see”—the words were barely audible—”you must let me go. Forget Ardatha. Except by the will of Dr. Fu Manchu I can be nothing to you or to any man: I can only try to prevent him harming you.” She raised her eyes to me. “Please let me go.”
But I stood there, stricken motionless, gripped by anguish such as I had never known. My very faith in a just God was shaken by this revelation, by recognition of the fact that a fiend could use this perfect casket of a human soul as a laboratory experiment, reduce a beautiful woman, meant for love and happiness, to the level of a beast of burden—and escape the wrath of Heaven. I wondered if any lover since the world began had suffered such a moment.
Yet, Fu Manchu was mortal. There must be a way.
“I shall let you go, my dearest. But don’t accept the idea that it is for good. What has been done by one man can be undone by another.” I continued to speak quietly, and as I would have spoken to a frightened child. “Tell me first, why you came here?”
“For Jacob Bohm’s notes that he was making to give to the police,” she answered simply. “I have burned everything. Look—you can see the ashes on the fire.”
As she spoke, I understood why the fire had burned up so brightly. A glance was sufficient to convince me that not a fragment could be recovered.
“And when you leave here, where are you going?”
“It is impossible for me to tell you that. But there are servants of the Si-Fan watching this house.” (I thought of the yellow-faced man whom we had nearly run down.) “Even if you were cruel enough to try, you could not get me away. I think”—she hesitated, glanced swiftly up—”that tonight or in the early morning we leave for America.”