The Sins of Sumuru, page 13
“Yes.” Maitland was looking about him alertly. “But I have a reserved compartment... Here you are, porter—”
The porter took a suitcase which Maitland handed to him.
“No heavy baggage, sir?”
“No, that's the lot.”
They followed the porter in to the platform and proceeded along the train to a compartment marked “Reserved.” Evidently, this was Maitland's.
“It's none of my business,” said Donovan. “But doesn't it rather draw attention to your journey to travel in a reserved compartment with the blinds down?”
Maitland, scanning every face within range, laughed and turned.
“I have my reasons, Donovan! Don't worry about me.”
The door was unlocked and Maitland stepped into the darkened interior.
“Shall I put this case on the rack, sir?”
“No, thanks. I'll take it... Here you are, porter.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The guard blew his whistle.
“Take care of yourself, Donovan—”
Maitland closed the door.
“Cut it mighty fine, sir,” said a voice in the shadowy compartment.
“Had to, Lieutenant.”
Whereupon, Maitland threw off his topcoat and hat, stripped the false beard from his face, which was heavily powdered to obscure a sharp frontier of tan broken by lighter skin where the beard had grown. His hair was close-cut and greyish white.
A man who had been seated just inside the door, put on the check travelling coat and Maitland's hat. He was a dark, bearded young man—unmistakably a sailor in mufti—and he bore a really marked resemblance to Maitland.
Maitland, meanwhile, had thrown open the further door of the compartment and was looking out. An empty train stood alongside the Scottish express. The door of the compartment facing him was open. Maitland stepped across and entered the other train.
“Good-bye. Good luck. Don't forget to wave to my friend!”
The express began to pull out.
On the platform, Donovan was standing and wondering what had became of Maitland... Now, a window was lowered—and a bearded face looked out.
“Good-bye, Maitland! Take great care of yourself!”
The man at the window waved ...
3
Sumuru wore a perfectly tailored grey suit. She sat at a large and workmanlike desk in a small but workmanlike Office. For all her elusive but arresting beauty, she might have, been mistaken for a capable secretary. Indeed, later events were to reveal the fact that she was a capable secretary, amongst other things.
Philo, livery discarded, and dressed in tweed, stood before the desk. He resembled a formidable strong-arm-man. No doubt he was.
“My Lady?”
She watched him intently.
“Sit there, Philo... What have you to report?”
Philo seated himself uneasily in a high-backed chair.
“Dr. Maitland has left for Scotland.”
My Lady laughed—gentle, musical laughter.
“He hopes to trace the Ross girls! He never will! Continue, Philo.”
“His American friend, Donovan, who saw him off, has gone to his club.”
She nodded.
“Report to me directly he returns to his apartment in Bruton Street. I must know this immediately.”
“You shall, My Lady.”
“And has Paris reported that all the members of our party have arrived there safely?”
“All, Madonna. Ariosto arrived last. Does My Lady permit me to speak?”
“Speak on, Philo.”
Philo stood up. His strange eyes burned with fanaticism.
“You take too many risks, My Lady. Now—we are alone. I, with no one to assist me, am responsible for your safety. At any hour, at any moment, we shall be visited here by the police, and—”
Sumuru raised her hand.
“Philo—listen to me. I demand services from my people which call for high initiative, great intelligence, and complete rejection of fear. Such devotion can be won only by example. I, myself, must be fearless—and infallible. Nor can I afford to idle in luxury behind the screen which has been thrown about me. I, too, must labour and run supreme risks, if I am to be worthy of the devotion of my followers. And so, in this crisis, I remain—with you—”
“Dear My Lady!”
“Danger is best conquered by rejecting it, Philo. Send a message to Claudette, and order the Embassy car to be ready in ten minutes ...”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1
HAVING spent some hours at the office, Donovan returned, after lunch, to Bruton Street and sat down to bring up-to-date his chronicle of experiences from the time that the woman known as Sumuru had appeared in London. That it would ever achieve publication he doubted: that its contents, should it be printed, would be believed by anyone, he knew to be out of the question.
But he assembled his notes and went to work.
All this took place on one of those misty, gloomy afternoons which it seemed to Donovan might be expected at any season in England. He had wondered more than once, reading of plans afoot to attract tourists, what steps the responsible parties had in mind to correct (a) the liquor licensing laws; (b) the climate.
He got well going on the chapter dealing with that midnight chase to Marble Arch, and soon, as is the way of a professional writer who loves his job, forgot everything but the narrative of those crazy events. So deeply was he immersed in his story, so continuous the rattle of his typewriter, that it is at least possible he may have become for a time immune to outside interference.
Donovan welcomed immersion in work. By no other means could he forget Claudette, forget that he stayed inert while she struggled hopelessly against the inexorable power which held her...
He paused once, thinking that he had heard someone at the door, but could detect nothing, and went on typing...
Again he paused, vaguely puzzled, and turned.
Sumuru stood behind his chair!
Donovan sprang up as if propelled from a catapult. He was dumbfounded. He stood there staring at her as a man might stare at an apparition.
Sumuru was smilingly composed.
She presented a model of all that an exquisitely groomed woman should be, in her plain tailored suit and a waist-length fur cape. Her suit was grey; her shoes, gloves and hat were black, and to the hat was attached a diaphanous veil through which Sumuru's wonderful eyes watched him as through a mist.
She spoke first.
“Still reluctant to meet me. Am I so repulsive?”
The note of light raillery, a smile on her lips, completed Donovan's stupification.
Here stood a dangerous criminal for whom, at this very moment, police were combing London. Here stood a murderess, self-confessed—and a new type of white slave trafficker as well.
He confronted her—still wordless.
“I took the liberty of letting myself in, you see,” she murmured.
Donovan swallowed audibly.
“During the time that Dr. Maitland was my guest, I had a duplicate made of the key which he carried.”
Donovan clenched his hands, strove to remain control. Then, he moved.
“Where are you going?”
And, at last, words came—hot, angry words.
“Can you doubt where I'm going? Straight to the phone! You walked into my apartment like a burglar. You'll walk out a prisoner. This will be better than a month's vacation for Inspector Ives!”
“You are grotesquely uncouth. But perhaps this foggy morning has upset your liver. Am I not a model of all that a well-groomed woman should be? Surely you admit that I am attractive?”
“I admit that you are a dangerous criminal, a murderess, a slave-trafficker.”
She laughed gently.
“You are a rough fellow, Mark Donovan.”
He stood, fists clenched, watching her.
“Maybe I am a rough fellow. But I don't fight with women o—as a rule. In your case. I have often asked myself if you are really a woman at all—or a female demon!”
“I have heard that some female demons are uncommonly alluring.”
“Demon or woman, you go from here to gaol! We know you murdered Sir Miles Tristram, and we know you murdered Ian Forrester!”
“Another of poor Dr. Maitland's theories, I suppose? Do you mind if I sit down?”
“Sit down by all means—while I call Scotland Yard!”
Sumuru seated herself in Maitland's favourite chair.
“I see that you are determined to be unsociable. But, before you hand me over to the police, surely you want to know if Claudette is well?”
Donovan groaned.
Those few words had turned his world upside down, made right of wrong, and wrong of right. Sumuru, and Sumuru alone, could restore Claudette to him. He clenched his teeth —ground them together.
“My God!... Why do you say that? Why do you tie my hands?”
Sumuru shook her head reprovingly.
“Because I am—what did you call me?—a female demon, I suppose. Really, I begin to despair of you. A beautiful spirit in a beautiful body is so rare—and so many physically fine men are such fools.”
“Where is Claudette?” Donovan spoke threateningly. “Answer me!”
“You shall see her ... if you wish. But please refrain from hurling stupid charges at my head. There can be no evidence to associate me with Miles Tristram, for I never entered his house. I interviewed him elsewhere. He was foolish enough to defy me. I entrusted the matter to Dolores. A pretty girl, and highly accomplished. Ariosto is devoted to her, and she to him. She is Spanish.”
“Are you felling me that this girl poisoned Tristram in cold blood?”
“Spanish blood is never cold, Mr. Donovan. She carried out her orders with natural enthusiasm. Sir Miles, an ugly character, had a steel dispatch box locked in his desk. He was awaiting Dr. Maitland's visits in order to show him its contents. Dolores brought this box away with her—”
“Leaving a dead man and a valuable sapphire behind!”
Sumuru extended her gloved hands.
“Money means little to me, personally ... As for the actor, Forrester, well—your statement is ludicrous. One of my servants called upon him. He was a nuisance. No, I am not interested in money. Yet, one can do so little without a sound financial background. I managed this while still quite young. An attractive girl can, you know, if she keeps her eyes fixed inflexibly upon that objective.”
“Is that so?” Donovan growled.
Sumuru nodded.
“Many men have desired me. But the only men to whom, temporarily, I have given myself, have been unusually wealthy. Love I have never encouraged. Today, I am quite unusually wealthy, too—and free.” She opened her handbag and took out a small onyx case studded with diamonds. “Will you try one of my cigarettes?”
“Thank you: I prefer my own. What brand are yours—Lucrezia Borgia's?”
Sumuru's laughter rippled like a peal of silver bells.
“How absurd you are! I assure you I am entirely harmless, if no one interferes with me. I merely set a different valuation on human life—that's all. Surely the late war must have taught you that to think otherwise than lightly of one brief span of physical existence is mere sentiment?”
She lighted her cigarette with a curious gold lighter which produced no visible flame.
“Is nothing sacred in your eyes?” Donovan asked harshly.
“Many things. Beauty especially. But we live so many lives. Don't you know that? I fear your American education has left you lamentably ignorant. All the things that really matter seem to have been omitted from the curriculum. Am I slandering Harvard or Yale?”
“Neither. You are merely talking rubbish.”
“Sturdy Yankee common sense. Common is the operative word. Not in its implication of vulgarity, for, if gauche, you are never vulgar, but in the sense of superficial knowledge common to all. Plato would have put you in the infants' class—if he had had one!”
“I should have guessed Pluto, rather than Plato, to be your guardian spirit!”
Sumuru laughed again—and her laughter rang with the careless gaiety of that of a young girl.
Donovan knew, in this moment, that Sumuru was ageless. Even as she laughed, he felt his courage oozing away. He grew terribly afraid of her. Her very beauty appalled him. It was the beauty of a poised cobra.
“I begin to despair of you,” she said. “Yet I worship beauty—and you have physical beauty.”
“Do you count assassination beautiful?”
Sumuru sighed.
“It may well be. You see, American and English morality, although they differ so widely in sex matters, are alike in what you call the sanctity of human life. Your police will comb continents for someone who has killed a possibly worthless man or woman. But your airmen will blanket a town with explosives.”
“That's in war!”
“How irrational! You are sentimentalists—but not for the many; only for the few. You allow a Duce to shower death on innocent natives; a Fuehrer to rape his sleeping neighbours; a Comrade to drive thousands into labour camps. The sanctity of human life, I suppose, prohibits your destroying these reptiles? Armies, bombs, wholesale destruction, could be avoided. A sum, less than a war costs daily, would be sufficient to ensure the removal of any such as these.”
A sort of crazy logic in this woman's views, and perhaps the magic of her voice and the witchery which was Sumuru, began to get hold of Donovan. He found himself considering her arguments, seriously; found himself wondering, if perhaps, men's ideas of international amity were all cross-eyed.
He tried to recapture his just anger, to shake off the spell of Sumuru.
“You will do the same again,” she went on, dreamily puffing her cigarette. “You will watch ugliness preparing scientific weapons which, this time, will quite destroy the present phase of European and American civilisation. You will do nothing until it is too late. Your leaders, who may have virtue, will not understand the difference between beauty and ugliness. So, you will be obliterated, together with the ignorant fools who will plan, are planning now, this holocaust. But if I, or anyone else, stepped in and removed the cause before the menace had time to mature, do you know what you would do to me—if you could catch me? Put me on trial for murder!”
She flicked ash into a tray.
“Murder, my dear Mark Donovan—when your soldiers and diplomats would be planning organised slaughter of the entire population dominated by these insane scoundrels! No, my friend: the rulers of the future must be trained from childhood to rule. They must know. They must see. They must be immune from your sloppy sentimentalism, from your common greed, from your snobbish fear of stamping out an evil thing simply because it wears decorations and calls itself a Premier or a Marshal.”
“Stop! I'll listen to no more poisonous nonsense! Where is Claudette?”
Sumuru dropped her half smoked cigarette in the tray, and stood up.
“Shall we go and see her? ... Or would you prefer to send for a policeman?”
2
In Chief Inspector Ives' office at Scotland Yard, a transfigured Maitland faced the inspector across his neat desk.
“I think that was managed very neatly, Ives! My departure for the North was made so spectacular that I don't think it can possibly have been overlooked by Sumuru.”
“I agree,” said Ives. “Although nobody was spotted who might have been on the look-out.”
They grey, clean-shaven, and now bespectacled Maitland, shook his head.
“The gang is too clever for that. But I believe someone was there all the same. Do you think it safe for me to take up my new role, Inspector? Could I possibly be recognised?”
Ives surveyed him critically.
“I doubt it. Clean-shaven, near-white hair, and those spectacles—I should hardly know you, myself, Doctor.”
“Don't call me 'doctor'.” snapped Maitland. “I am plain Mr. Sandford—”
He paused as Ives' telephone buzzed. The inspector bent to the instrument...
“Inspector Ives here... What's that?... Yes! I see... Hold on... Listen, Doctor—sorry!—there's something afoot, I think! Mr. Donovan has just driven away from Bruton street with a lady—in a Rolls sedanca de ville!”
“Good God! Is he being covered?”
“Yes. Motor cyclist... Wait a minute... Are you there, Thomson? Did this lady arrive in the car? Oh, I see. It drove up when she and Mr. Donovan came out... Very smart woman, you say, and wearing a hat with a veil... H'm.”
Maitland was standing at Ives's elbow.
“They are on no account to be stopped, Ives! But we must know...”
Ives raised his hand...
“What's that, Thomson? They have driven over to the former Embassy?... We've got 'em this time, Doctor! We've got 'em! Mr. Donovan and the woman have gone into the house we've been watching for days past—and I got the O.K. from the Foreign Office an hour ago to inspect the premises! If the woman is Sumuru! What do you want us to do now?”
“Nothing—until I get there! Come on! Ives—the trick has worked!”
3
A graceful Rolls sedan stood at the door in charge of a dark-skinned chauffeur. His manner to Sumuru was obsequious. As Donovan followed her in:
“Don't bother to memorise the registration number,” she said. “It isn't mine.”
He became aware, as the car glided smoothly off, of a faint, peculiar perfume which he knew he should never forget. Sumuru seemed to read his thoughts.
“You have noticed that my fur is perfumed with spikenard? The secret of its preparation is supposed to be lost, you know, although it was highly prized in, the days of the Caliphs.”
Donovan did not reply. He was wrestling with his conscience.
The drive was a short one; yet, throughout it, he was keenly conscious of the intense vibrations which emanated from his companion. Her personality was electrical and infinitely disturbing .
He found himself standing before a tall building. A flag hung limply above the door.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I thought you might like to see the house for which your industrious friend, Inspector Ives, has been searching the neighbourhood. It was occupied, until recently, by members of the embassy staff of what, I suppose, you would call a friendly nation. Officially, it remains theirs, although the occupants actually left a week ago.”
