“D’you know,” he said, glancing aside at her, “I think it might be a good idea if you did.”
She detached the top copy of the note and walked across to the laboratory steps.
“Will you open the door for me?”
Craig pulled out the bunch of keys and went to join her where she stood—one foot on the first step, her frock defining the lines of her slim body, reflected light touching rich waves of her hair to an incredible glory. Over her shoulder she watched him.
The keys rattled as he dropped the chain . . .
“Morris—please!”
He took the paper from her hand and tore it up.
“Never mind. Work is out of the question, now.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“You adorable little witch, you’re not sorry at all! I thought I was a hard-boiled scientific egg until I met you.”
“I’m afraid,” said Camille, demurely, and her soft voice reminded him again of the notes of a harp, “I have spoiled your plans for the evening.”
“To the devil with plans! This is a night of nights. Let’s follow it through.”
He put his arm around her waist and dragged her from the steps.
“Very well, Morris. Whatever you say.”
“I say we’re young only once.” He pulled her close. “At least, so far as we know. So I say let’s be young together.”
He gave her a kiss which lasted almost too long . . .
“Morris!”
“I could positively eat you alive!”
“But—your work—”
“Work is for slaves. Love is for free men. Where shall we go?”
“Anywhere you like, if you really mean it. But—”
“It doesn’t matter. There are lots of spots. I feel that I want somewhere different, some place where I can get used to the idea that you—that there is a you, and that I have found you . . . I’m talkin’ rot! Better let Regan know he’s in sole charge again.”
His keys still hung down on the chain as he had dropped them. He swung the bunch into his hand and crossed toward the steel door. At the foot of the steps, he hesitated. No need to go in. It would be difficult to prevent Regan from drawing inferences. Shrewd fellow, Regan. Craig returned to his desk and called the laboratory.
As if from far away a reply came:
“Regan here.”
Craig cleared his throat guiltily.
“Listen, Regan. I shan’t be staying late tonight after all.” (He felt like a criminal.) “Pushing off. Anything I should attend to before Shaw comes on duty?”
There was a silent interval. Camille was standing behind Craig, clutching her head, staring at him in a dazed way . . .
“Can you hear, Regan? I say, do you want to see me before I leave?”
Then came the halting words. “No . . . Doctor . . . there’s nothing. . . to see you about . . .”
Craig thought the sentence was punctured by a stifled cough.
A moment later he had Camille in his arms again.
“Camille—I realize that I have never been really alive before.”
But she was pressing her hands frantically against him, straining back, wild-eyed, trying to break away from his caresses. He released her. She stared up at the clock then back to Craig.
“My God! Morris! . . . Dr. Craig—”
“What is it, Camille? What is it?”
He stepped forward, but she shrank away.
“I don’t know. I’m frightened. When—when did I come in? What have I been doing?”
His deep concern, the intense sincerity of his manner, seemed to reach her. When, gently, he held her and looked into her eyes, she lowered her head until it lay upon his shoulder, intoxicating him with the fragrance of her hair.
“Camille,” he whispered, tenderly. (He could feel her heart beating.) “Tell me—what is it?”
“I don’t know—I don’t know what has happened. Please— please take care of me.”
“Do you mean you have made a mistake? It was an impulse? You are sorry for it?”
“Sorry for what?” she murmured against his shoulder.
“For letting me make love to you.”
“No—I’m not sorry if—if I did that.”
He kissed her hair, very lightly, just brushing it with his lips.
“Darling! Whatever came over you? What frightened you?”
Camille looked up at him under her long lashes.
“I don’t know.” She lowered her eyes. “How long have I been here?”
“How long? What in heaven’s name d’you mean, Camille? Are you terribly unhappy? I don’t understand at all.”
“No. I am not unhappy—but—everything is so strange.”
“Strange? In what way?”
The phone rang in Camille’s office. She started—stepped back, a sudden, alert look in her eyes.
“Don’t trouble, Camille. I’ll answer.”
“No, no. It’s quite all right.”
Camille crossed to her room, and took up the phone. She knew it to be unavoidable that she should do this, but had no idea why. Some ten seconds later she had returned to the half-world controlled by the voice of Dr. Fu Manchu . . .
When she came out of her room again, she was smiling radiantly.
“It is the message I have waited for so long—to tell me that my
mother, who was desperately ill, is no longer in danger.”
Even as he took her in his arms, Craig was thinking that there seemed to be an epidemic of sick mothers, but he dismissed the thought as cynical and unworthy. And when she gave him her lips he forgot everything else. Her distrait manner was explained. The world was full of roses.
They were ready to set out before he fully came to his senses. Camille had combed her hair in a way which did justice to its beauty. She looked, as she was, an extremely attractive woman.
He stood in the lobby, his arm around her waist, preparing to open the elevator door, when sanity returned. Perhaps it was the sight of his keys which brought this about.
“By gad!” he exclaimed. “I have got it badly! Can you imagine—I was pushing off, and leaving the detail of the transmuter valve pinned to the board on my desk!”
He turned and ran back.
Chapter XIV
Somewhere in Chinatown a girl was singing.
Chinese vocalism is not everybody’s box of candy, but the singer had at least one enthusiastic listener. She sang in an apartment adjoining the shop of Huan Tsung, and the good looking shopman, who called himself Lao Tai, wrote at speed, in a kind of shorthand, all that she sang. From time to time he put a page of this writing into the little cupboard behind him and pressed a button.
The F.B.I, man on duty in a room across the street caught fragments of this wailing as they were carried to him on a slight breeze, and wondered how anyone who had ever heard Bing Crosby could endure such stuff.
But upstairs, in the quiet, silk-lined room, old Huan Tsung scanned page after page, destroying each one in the charcoal fire, and presently the globe beside his couch awoke to life and the face of Dr. Fu Manchu challenged him from its mysterious depths.
“The latest report to hand. Excellency.”
“Repeat it.”
Huan Tsung leaned back against cushions and closed his wrinkled eyelids.
“I have installed the ‘bazaar’ system. My house is watched and my telephone is tapped. Therefore, news is brought to Mat Cha and she sings the news to Lao Tai.”
“Spare me these details. The report.”