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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“There were passers-by. It would have been dangerous.”
“Well?”
“He opened the door. We seized him.”
The woman shuddered slightly.
“There was—violence?”
“My Lady, he struck Varro insensible. What could we do? It was fortunate that the neighbouring tenants were absent, for Abdul and I had to carry two men down to the car—”
“Be silent. Let me think. You are such coarse blunderers.” She raised a slender white hand and covered her eyes. “Claudette Duquesne is still with the actress woman in Shepherd Market?”
“Yes, My Lady. Mark Donovan is with her.”
“Ah! This is interesting. Remember, no violence with this wayward child. I shall direct you personally with regard to her… Is Dr. Maitland here?”
“He is here, My Lady.”
“In whose charge?”
“Abdul’s, My Lady.”
“Is Dr. Maitland… injured?”
“Dear My Lady, what could we do?”
At which the storm broke.
“Ah! this ugliness! Be silent! Excuses do not heal. They make fresh wounds. Why are your ways so ugly? Is he conscious?”
“Abdul is endeavouring to revive him… Madonna!”
She had sprung upright, fists clenched.
“Abdul!… Abdul! … A man with hands less delicate than the hooves of a mule! Are you mad? Rise up! Up, I say! Bring the physician Ariosto to him. Hurry! Hurry! When he has seen him, let Ariosto report to me.”
Philo had risen from the Egyptian stool upon which he had been seated, had drawn back so that he all but touched the rose tinted curtain.
“My Lady, forgive me if I have failed in this. I am afraid …”
Then, the woman laughed. He laughter was divine music—with a counter melody of hell interwoven.
“There is nothing to be afraid of when a duty has been performed to the best of one’s ability …”
5
In Jackie de Lara’s flat Claudette had dropped down on to the settee and, her hands clasped in her lap, was watching Donovan. As their glances met, that provocative flush swept again over her cheeks.
“Whatever do you think of me?” she asked. “How can I hope to excuse myself for—interfering with you like this?”
Perhaps Donovan’s ardent sincerity carried conviction, for Claudette smiled, although ever so slightly. It was the first time he had seen her smile, and he thought that a man who knew how to win such a smile as Claudette’s should be a very happy man indeed.
“I am Claudette Duquesne. My father is Marcel Duquesne, the Paris journalist.”
Marcel Duquesne! It all came back to Donovan—where he had heard the name—Claudette. “For instance,” Maitland had said, “what became of Claudette, the daughter of Marcel Duquesne, who disappeared on her way home from Algiers?”
“I begin to understand. You speak perfect English?”
“I was educated here, and my mother was English, or rather, Irish. She came from Donegal. I speak French, also, of course.”
Donovan shook hands with himself for his bearing in this particularly awkward interview, for Claudette had attained a composure which was truly remarkable. Alone with him —a stranger—in that oddly decorated bedroom, she seemed so much at ease that she put Donovan at ease too; no simple achievement.
“So you are really Claudette Duquesne, who disappeared on the way home from Algiers? The French newspapers were full of the story. But you father?”
“My poor father! I … I can’t bear to speak about him.”
“I’m sorry. Truly sorry,” Donovan assured her penitently. “Please don’t let me upset you. Just let’s forget that part and thank heaven that your own troubles are over—that you’re safe, now.”
“Oh!” Claudette whispered, “if I could only believe it! If I dared to think that She could never find me! But she is terrible. I am so terrified. That was why I ran away from your flat last night—from you. I’m afraid I fainted, but I must have recovered pretty quickly. I thought you were one of Our Lady’s men.”
“Our Lady’s men?”
“It must sound strange, because I know now that you are not. But you are—well, good looking, and she seems to employ no one who is not good-looking.”
“You flatter me,” Donovan replied, awkwardly. “If you mean a biggish fellow, you probably mean what a friend of mine meant when he said that anybody would take me for a policeman.”
Claudette shook her head.
“It isn’t just that. But I was so distrustful, of everybody, that I was afraid to move, or even to try to get in touch with the police. For one thing, I didn’t think they would believe me. I remembered your name, though, and remembered your saying you were with the Alliance Press Association. This evening, in desperation, I rang them up and asked for you. They said you had been there but had gone. That was when I phoned Jackie to try to find you. I knew you were really—you! But I feel terribly guilty, as though I’m dragging you into something—something awful—something which may ruin your life, too!”
But Donovan was thinking, as he watched her, that he would, very gladly, have crossed two continents just for the happiness of seeing her again. His thoughts, in fact, rather frightened him, and so he said:
“Now that you know that you are safe, try to forget your troubles, and try to explain to me just what happened. There is something more than mere chance in our meeting. I feel that we are going to be very real, firm friends. Steel Maitland spoke to me only last night about your disappearance. Don’t you think that’s odd, when here we are talking together tonight?”
Claudette’s eyes opened widely. “Was that—after I had been at—your flat?”
“Yes. Naturally I had no reason to suspect that you were Claudette Duquesne.”
A cheerful rattle of pans and a smell of coffee came from the next room, where Jackie was humming snatches of songs, possibly from the Colombe d’Or revue.
“Wasn’t it amazing good luck that I ran into her?” said Claudette. “I felt utterly, hopelessly, lost. She was simply splendid. She’s a darling. She came up to me, you know, and took me home as one would a poor, stray thing. I shall never be able to repay Jackie.”
“And now I’ve found you again, I shall never be able to repay her either, Claudette… May I call you Claudette?”
“But of course! I love your New England courtesy so much—Mr. Donovan! And may I call you—”
“That makes me very happy. I guess, maybe, I am a little shy. My name is Mark. What I can’t understand is how you came to be in the hands of this awful woman. Who is she? What is she? and how did you meet her?”
And this is what Claudette Duquesne told Mark Donovan.
WHEN Marcel Duquesne came from Paris to London to take up work in connection with General de Gaulle’s organisation, Claudette, newly from a convent school in Derbyshire, was staying with her aunt, Lady Orpsley, in Bruton Street. (Lady Orpsley was her late mother’s sister.) Claudette also obtained employment at French headquarters, and later, went out to Algiers with her father.
When she bad been there for some time, Marcel Duquesne was recalled to France, temporarily, but Claudette remained. It was during his absence that she renewed her friendship with a former schoolfellow, Jean Barlow, a newly-arrived co-worker in the propaganda department.
“Jean had always been an odd girl,” Claudette said. “Quite pretty, and terribly brainy. I think she spoke five languages fluently. She had gone to Oxford, and taken houours—that sort of girl. But I was very fond of her and she seemed equally glad to see me. I have wondered, since—”
Claudette had notably beautiful hands, which she used in an elusive, graceful way. This, and a trick of nearly closing her eyes and shrugging slightly, alone betrayed the French strain in her blood. She moved those slender hands, now, and the gesture spoke more eloquently than words.
It seemed that Jean Barlow had become a rabid feminist; not, Claudette was sure, because of a love disappointment, but by way of pure reasoning. She used to talk to Claudette by the hour on the subject of men’s mismanagement of world affairs.
“I began to suffer from constant headaches,” said Claudette. “I have thought, since, that it wasn’t the climate of Algiers, as I supposed, but that Jean was sapping my vitality—trying to impose her will upon me.”
“Do you mean trying to exercise some evil influence?”
“Well, in a way. She would read to me at night from a book called Tears of Our Lady. At first I though it was a religious work of some kind. It was in French with no publisher’s imprint. Then I found that ‘Our Lady’ was the name by which the author was known, and, at first, what she had to write about really shocked me. Yes. I began to be horrified; then, in some way, I became fascinated. It was an evil book. I am quite sure of that, now. But it was dangerously clever.”
“And what was it about?”
She hesitated, as if seeking for words, moving her hands characteristically.
“In a sense, it was about sex; but there was nothing really objectionable in it as far as this was concerned. It was entirely different from any book I had ever read. Even now, I can’t explain in what way. But it conveyed the idea that women, as what Our Lady called ‘the vessels of the soul,’ had been degraded for generations to the place of—oh, mere implements. And, somehow, it made the fact quite clear that men, really, should take that place, if humanity was to become sane, and that women must direct them….”
lean told her that the new world now in the throes of fiery birth, called for women of talent, women of beauty and of character whose horizon was not bounded by marriage to some man or another. Jean had enjoyed the supreme honour of meeting Our Lady—“the greatest woman ever born.”
She promised to present Claudette; but Claudette was unwilling, indeed afraid, to meet the writer of that strange book. So that, when Jean was moved to Paris, no definite arrangement had been made.
“I felt as though a great weight had been lifted from me. I could breathe more freely…”
Then came a cable recalling her to London. Her father had been taken dangerously ill, and he had obtained permission for Claudette to join him. She was granted leave, for she was still in the French service, but told to proceed first to Tunis.
When she arrived—Jean was there to meet her! ‘Duquesne! Duquesne!’ I heard someone shouting.
“‘Here! … here! I am Claudette Duquesne!’
“‘Lady to meet you, please. Some luggage, lady, please?’
“And then, racing along the platform, I saw Jean! She was asking ‘Which coach?… Oh! Claudette, Claudette, dear! I heard you were arriving, and I just had to meet you! I’ve fixed everything! We are both going to England at the same time! Isn’t it tremendous luck? Come on. I’ve got a car waiting—’”
They travelled by land and sea, and finally by air. Claudette was obsessed with the fear that she would not get to her father in time, so that there came a moment when she cried excitedly, “The white cliffs! England!”
“‘We shall be in London in half an hour!’ said Jean. ‘Oh! Isn’t it wonderful—at last! Claudette, dear—cheer up! Don’t make yourself unhappy. You’ll find it won’t be so bad as you fear.”
“Then, when the plane touched down, I found a wonderful car—a Phantom Rolls—waiting there.
“This is our car, Claudette!’ Jean told me. ‘Isn’t it smart? Reserved for lucky girls like us…”
“Well, of course, it seemed like a dream to me. And when, at last, we reached the outskirts, Jean shouted, “London—good old London! I can
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