Nude in Mink by Sax Rohmer (top reads .TXT) 📕
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 move
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Thomson had interviewed this chauffeur quite recently. He was shortly rejoining his employers abroad. They had returned to the Continent at short notice, apparently, and a butler (his name was Currie) who had been engaged by the minister’s wife, had stayed behind to supervise removal of personal belongings and so on.
This man, an Englishman of good character and accustomed to high class service, had also received a visit from Thomson. And it was largely owing to what Thomson learned from Currie that the long awaited authority to search the house had been obtained.
Currie said that after the family left, he had attended to the requirements of a lady known to him as Mrs. Windsor, a guest of Madame Druse, who had arranged to stay on until her own flat should be ready for occupation. Mrs. Windsor had a lady companion, Miss St. Claude. Sometimes, servants of Mrs. Windsor came in if there were visitors and also on Currie’s evenings out, but invariably left at night. They were foreigners. Madame Druse’s car was put at Mrs. Windsor’s disposal.
The butler’s duties were finished, however, and he was living in temporary retirement in rooms in Chelsea—where, in fact, Thomson had called upon him…. Now, it was reported, only a few minutes before, a white-haired lady had come out of Maison Rubaix, accompanied by a nurse, was saluted by the chauffeur, and driven off to Victoria. A detective who followed on a motor cycle phoned to say that the old lady and her companion booked first-class tickets to Reigate and joined the train. The chauffeur then returned the car to its garage…
“I’ll step round and have a look at this Rubaix woman,” said Ives.
“7 must keep out of sight,” Maitland remarked. “So, go easy. Don’t alarm these people. I am chiefly worried about Donovan. He may have been drugged and given some sort of ‘instructions’…”
Madame Rubaix was interrogated tactfully by the soldierly-looking Ives.
Monsieur was mistaken in thinking that the client was his sister. She was Lady Donelly, and being in poor health, always travelled with a trained nurse…
It may be noted here that later that day it was learned that a Lady Donelly actually lived in the Reigate area. She was called by phone—and she confirmed Madame Rubaix’s statement! Was she a friend of Madame Druse, Scotland Yard inquired. Yes, by arrangement with “dear Mrs. Windsor” she had borrowed Madame Druse’s car that afternoon.
Interviewed by the Surrey police, Lady Donelly and her resident nurse stuck to their story. Further inquiries concerning “Mrs. Windsor” led nowhere. The chauffeur, a Rumanian, declared that he had never driven that lady to the flat spoken of by Currie…
Maitland was given this information by Ives over the phone, towards evening. He had retired to a quiet hotel at which rooms had been engaged for him as “Mr. Sandford,” undoubtedly members of this damnable order,” said Maitland on a note of desperation. “Madame Rubaix is another of them. I should be disposed to hazard a guess that the missing Madame Druse is a fourth.” He paused, muttering what sounded like smothered curses. “Don’t you agree?”
“Yes—you are probably right,” Ives replied. “Any further news of Donovan? Still fighting mad?”
“No. But I’m going along there, now. I don’t think there’s any doubt he knows something. But he has sworn secrecy or some such rot. Probably the girl was hidden there. So far, Doctor, our net has caught no fish!”
4
What, then, had happened to Donovan when he was conducted into Hyde Park Police Station, to make him fighting mad?
After being kept waiting for some time, he was invited to enter a dim office, where he found an inspector seated behind a high desk. As Donovan came in, a constable beside him, the inspector waved to the man to withdraw. He did so, closing the door behind him. Donovan noted, though, that there was another door beside the desk, half open, and throughout he had an impression that someone stood behind it, listening.
The inspector looked up.
“Mr. Mark Donovan?”
“I am Mark Donovan. What can I do for you?”
“Well—” the inspector tapped his desk with a pencil—
“you were recently seen to leave a certain house. We have been watching this house. So we should be glad if you would answer a few questions concerning the people who live there.”
It had come! Here were the crossroads. Just what Donovan had hoped to avoid had happened. If only he could have discussed his position with Steel Maitland before being called upon to give evidence to the police!
However, he answered, quietly enough.
“Certainly. What do you want to know?”
“Well—” the inspector glanced down at some note—“I should like to know if you went there alone, or with someone else.”
“With someone else.”
“May I ask his name?”
“I went with a woman. I have never learned her real name. I know her as Sumuru.”
Donovan was sure that the inspector glanced rapidly aside —through the doorway.
“Sumuru. Unusual Is it a professional name?”
“In a sense, I suppose it is. She is probably the most dangerous criminal at present at large in Great Britain.”
“Indeed. Then this is where you are in a position to help us. Tell me, Mr. Donovan, was this woman in the house when you left?”
“To the best of my knowledge. That is, I didn’t see her leave.”
“Anyone else?”
Now, he was squarely up against it! What Claudette had told him about the organisation he was bound in honour not to divulge. That he had met her at the house he was at liberty to report if he chose. But the result, if he did so, would almost certainly be that which Claudette had foreseen. He made a quick decision.
“There are reasons. Inspector, why I don’t want to answer that question.”
“Say just one reason, Mr. Donovan,” came a loud voice… and Ives stepped into the office! “Call it Miss Claudette Duquesne—and we shall all understand one another!”
“Good God!” The words were jerked out of Donovan explosively. “What’s the meaning of this?”
He was furiously angry. Ives shook his head, watching him.
“Sorry, Mr. Donovan. But you have been carefully shepherded all day, I assure you. I’m responsible to Dr. Maitland, you see. When a report came in that you had a beautiful visitor, we took prompt action. To arrest her was out of the question. We haven’t a case. But we have good grounds to suspect those premises. I quite expected you to come away in a peculiar frame of mind. You know what I mean?”
Donovan nodded, but continued to stare angrily.
“So you were watched—and your behaviour rather suggested that you were hardly yourself. We had you carefully rounded up. I wanted to judge for myself if you had been tampered with. As soon as I was sure you hadn’t, I dropped the play acting.”
“I am deeply obliged!” said Donovan—for it certainly appeared to him that he had been used as a stooge. “If this is Maitland’s idea, send him my thanks and best wishes.”
And this time it was Ives who glanced aside through the doorway…
MORE than a week elapsed, and nothing happened. It was a period of mental agony for Mark Donovan. He kept in constant touch with Scotland Yard, and sometimes saw inspector Ives; but for all that he could learn to the contrary, the case might have been at a standstill. Those crimes ascribable to Sumuru which had been given publicity—and the public did not even suspect the whole truth—were already half forgotten.
A world inured to mass violence no longer dwelled upon one or two mysterious murders. It was true that successive deaths from rigor Kubus had stirred up a spate of newspaper correspondence, and at one time there was a threat of panic. Some people feared that this thing might be a form of plague .
Of Sumuru he had heard no more. Of Claudette it was torture to think.
Maitland’s silence he found unaccountable. But Ives assured him that Maitland was safe.
Zest for life had left Donovan. He spent his spare hours adding to the account he was preparing of Sumuru’s activities. To this task he bent his troubled mind.
That he was covered, tirelessly, by Scotland Yard day and night, he knew quite well. But, rather than deriving assurance from this, he was disposed to resent it. His mood was a black one, and he cherished a grievance against Maitland for keeping him thus in the dark.
Seated at his typewriter one day plunged in a depression deeper than usual (he was writing about Claudette), he heard the phone bell and crossed to take the call.
“Hullo… Mark Donovan here.”
“Hullo, Donovan!”
The voice was Maitland’s!
“Maitland! By God! I’m glad to hear from you at last!” All Donovan’s resentment left him. “It’s been the very devil not knowing what had became of you—and Scotland Yard either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give me any information… Where are you? What’s happened?”
He heard Maitland laugh.
“Lots. I’m at the Hotel Morgan—not to be confused with the pirate of that name. A reasonable and peaceful abode, where I am known as Mr. Sandford, a solicitor from the North.”
“But I thought you were in the North! What’s the idea?”
Resentment began to return.
“The idea is to save my life, Donovan! Sumuru also thinks I’m in the North, so that there hasn’t been an attempt to murder me for nearly twenty-four hours—that I can recall. I want to see you—”
“And I want to see you!”
“As a decoy-duck you have proved a failure, Donovan—”
Donovan’s resentment returned in full force.
“I did my best for you,” he said bitterly. “Mismanagement on your side balled the thing up.”
“Oh!” said Maitland. “Perhaps you’re right. Well, anyway, I’m most anxious to see you. Listen. Take a taxi to, say, Paddington. Then make sure—if you can—that you’re not followed. Take a bus back to Charing Cross—and then walk. Do you know where this hotel is?”
“Yes—I think I know.”
“Ask for Mr. Sandford, and give your name as Marks. Come as soon as you can… Good-bye.”
When Donovan set out a few minutes later, he found that he was in a mood happier than he had known for a long time. Above all, he welcomed a chance of action. He hailed a taxi.
“Savoy,” he said, and got in.
As the man started off, Donovan looked out of the rear window, and grinned delightedly. This was good fun again!
A motor cyclist—appearing from nowhere—was threading a sinuous route through the traffic, behind.
Scotland Yard!
When they came to the big hotel in the Strand, Donovan knew that the cyclist was hot on his track. But of any other tracker there was no evidence.
Donovan’s next appearance was at a service door on the Embankment side. He walked a few paces, and then boarded a tramcar. He was taking a boyish delight in defeating the agents of law and order. As he paid his fare, a motor-cycle spurted past the tram.
Scotland Yard had won, so far!
“Now, how did he figure that out?” Donovan muttered.
However it was ‘figured out,’ when, at last, Donovan entered the lobby of the Hotel Morgan, he congratulated himself on having thrown the shadower off his track. There was no sign of the motor-cyclist.
This was one of those discreet, family hotels, of which few outside the limited and select clientele had ever heard. The receptionist, a capable looking woman, smiled at Donovan interrogatively.
“Is Mr. Sandford in, do you know?”
“I will find out, sir. What name?”
Donovan hesitated for a moment.
“Er—Marks.”
Donovan waited, feeling awkward.
“… Oh,
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