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Authors: Sax Rohmer
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collar I had certainly seen: a keen wind from the Alps made the night bitingly cold. The man wore a fur cap pulled down nearly to his brows, creating a curious mediaeval effect. But this face had a placid, almost god-like immobility, gaunt, dreadful, yet sealed with power like the features of a dead Pharoah.
Some chance trick of the lighting might have produced the illusion (its reality I could not admit); but about the second traveller I had no doubts whatever.
Her charming head framed—as that other skull-like head was framed—in the upturned collar of a fur coat... I saw Fleurette!
And I thought of a moss-rose...
I turned to the wheel again.
Fleurette!
She had not seen me, had not suspected that I was there.
Probably, I reflected, it would not have interested her to know.
But her companion? I tested the starter, wondering if it would function after the shock. I was relieved to find that it did. The Rolls was miles away, now, unless the furious driving of the African chauffeur had led to disaster... That yellow face and those glittering green eyes—I asked myself the question: Could this be Mahdi Bey?
Somehow I could not believe the man with Fleurette to be an Egyptian. Yet, I reflected, driving on, there had been that about him which had conjured an image to my mind... the image of Seti the First—that King of Egypt whose majesty had survived three thousand years...
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AT THE VILLA JASMIN
T he car in which Nayland Smith had come from Cannes was standing just where the steep descent to the little garage made a hairpin bend. I supposed that the man had decided to park there for the night. But I was compelled to pull in behind, as it was impossible to pass.
I walked on beyond the bend to the back of the bungalow. A path to the left led around the building to the little verandah; one to the right fell away in stepped terraces, skirting the garden and terminating at the laboratory.
My mind, from the time of that near crash with the Rolls up to this present moment, had been preoccupied. The mystery of Fleurette had usurped my thoughts. Fleurette—her charming little bronzed face enveloped in fur; a wave of her hair gleaming like polished mahogany. Now, as I started down the slope, a warning instinct spoke to me. I found myself snatched back to dangerous reality.
I pulled up, listening; but I could not detect the Kohler engine.
Some nocturnal flying thing hovered near me; I could hear the humming of its wings. Vividly, horribly, I visualized that hairy insect with its glossy back, and almost involuntarily, victim of a swift, overmastering and sickly terror, I began striking out right and left in the darkness...
Self-contempt came to my aid. I stood still again.
The insect, probably some sort of small beetle, was no longer audible. I thought of the fly-haunted swamps I had known, and grew hot with embarrassment. The Purple Shadow was a ghastly death; but Petrie had faced it unflinchingly...
Natural courage returned. A too vivid imagination had betrayed me.
I reached the laboratory and found it dark and silent. This was not unexpected. I supposed that the man had turned in on the couch. He was a tough type who had served in the French mercantile marine; I doubted if he were ever troubled by imagination. He had been given to understand, since this was the story we had told to Mme Dubonnet, that Petrie was suffering from influenza. He had accepted without demur Dr. Cartier’s assurance that there was no danger of infection.
Walking around to the door, I rapped sharply.
There was no reply.
Far below I could see red roofs peeping out of purplish shadow, and, beyond, the sea gleaming under the moon; but by reason of its position the laboratory lay in darkness.
Having rapped several times without result, I began to wish that I had brought a torch, for I thought that then I could have looked in at the window. But even as the idea crossed my mind, I remembered that the iron shutters were
Some chance trick of the lighting might have produced the illusion (its reality I could not admit); but about the second traveller I had no doubts whatever.
Her charming head framed—as that other skull-like head was framed—in the upturned collar of a fur coat... I saw Fleurette!
And I thought of a moss-rose...
I turned to the wheel again.
Fleurette!
She had not seen me, had not suspected that I was there.
Probably, I reflected, it would not have interested her to know.
But her companion? I tested the starter, wondering if it would function after the shock. I was relieved to find that it did. The Rolls was miles away, now, unless the furious driving of the African chauffeur had led to disaster... That yellow face and those glittering green eyes—I asked myself the question: Could this be Mahdi Bey?
Somehow I could not believe the man with Fleurette to be an Egyptian. Yet, I reflected, driving on, there had been that about him which had conjured an image to my mind... the image of Seti the First—that King of Egypt whose majesty had survived three thousand years...
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AT THE VILLA JASMIN
T he car in which Nayland Smith had come from Cannes was standing just where the steep descent to the little garage made a hairpin bend. I supposed that the man had decided to park there for the night. But I was compelled to pull in behind, as it was impossible to pass.
I walked on beyond the bend to the back of the bungalow. A path to the left led around the building to the little verandah; one to the right fell away in stepped terraces, skirting the garden and terminating at the laboratory.
My mind, from the time of that near crash with the Rolls up to this present moment, had been preoccupied. The mystery of Fleurette had usurped my thoughts. Fleurette—her charming little bronzed face enveloped in fur; a wave of her hair gleaming like polished mahogany. Now, as I started down the slope, a warning instinct spoke to me. I found myself snatched back to dangerous reality.
I pulled up, listening; but I could not detect the Kohler engine.
Some nocturnal flying thing hovered near me; I could hear the humming of its wings. Vividly, horribly, I visualized that hairy insect with its glossy back, and almost involuntarily, victim of a swift, overmastering and sickly terror, I began striking out right and left in the darkness...
Self-contempt came to my aid. I stood still again.
The insect, probably some sort of small beetle, was no longer audible. I thought of the fly-haunted swamps I had known, and grew hot with embarrassment. The Purple Shadow was a ghastly death; but Petrie had faced it unflinchingly...
Natural courage returned. A too vivid imagination had betrayed me.
I reached the laboratory and found it dark and silent. This was not unexpected. I supposed that the man had turned in on the couch. He was a tough type who had served in the French mercantile marine; I doubted if he were ever troubled by imagination. He had been given to understand, since this was the story we had told to Mme Dubonnet, that Petrie was suffering from influenza. He had accepted without demur Dr. Cartier’s assurance that there was no danger of infection.
Walking around to the door, I rapped sharply.
There was no reply.
Far below I could see red roofs peeping out of purplish shadow, and, beyond, the sea gleaming under the moon; but by reason of its position the laboratory lay in darkness.
Having rapped several times without result, I began to wish that I had brought a torch, for I thought that then I could have looked in at the window. But even as the idea crossed my mind, I remembered that the iron shutters were
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