The Bride of Fu-Manchu Read Online Free Page A

paused, then:
    “Except for the fragments I have pointed out,” he added, “there was nothing on the leaves. Possibly a passing lizard had licked them... I spent the following hour searching the neighbourhood for the plant on which they grew. I drew blank.”
    We were silent for some time.
    “Do you think there is some connection,” I asked slowly, “between this plant and the epidemic?”
    Petrie nodded.
    “Of course,” I admitted, “it’s certainly strange. If I could credit the idea—which I can’t—that such a species could grow wild in Europe, I should be the first to agree with you. Your theory is that the thing possesses the properties of a carrier, or host, of these strange germs; so that anyone plucking a piece and smelling it, for instance, immediately becomes infected?”
    “That was not my theory,” Petrie replied thoughtfully. “It isn’t a bad one, nevertheless. But it doesn’t explain the bloodstains.”
    He hesitated.
    “I had a very queer letter from Nayland Smith today,” he added. “I have been thinking about it ever since.”
    Sir Denis Nayland Smith, ex-Assistant Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, was one of Petrie’s oldest friends, I knew, but:
    “This is rather outside his province, isn’t it?” I suggested.
    “You haven’t met him,” Petrie replied, labouring his words as it seemed. “But I think you will. Nayland Smith has one of the few first-class brains in Europe, and nothing is outside his—”
    He ceased speaking, staggered and clutched at the table edge. I saw him shudder violently.
    “Look here, doctor,” I cried, grasping his shoulders, “you are sickening for ’flu or something. You’re overdoing it. Give the thing a rest, and—”
    He shook me off. His manner was wild. He groped his way to a cupboard, prepared a draught with unsteady hands, and drank it. Then from a drawer he took out a tube containing a small quantity of white powder.
    “I have called it ‘654,’” he said, his eyes feverishly bright. “I haven’t the pluck to try it on a human patient. But even if Mother Nature has turned topsy-turvy, I believe this may puzzle her!”
    Watching him anxiously:
    “Strictly speaking, you ought to be in bed,” I said. “Your life is valuable.”
    “Get out,” he replied, summoning up the ghost of a smile. “Get out, Sterling. My life’s my own, and while it lasts I have work to do...”

CHAPTER FOUR

SQUINTING EYES
    I spent the latter part of the afternoon delving in works of reference which I had not consulted for many months, in an endeavour to identify more exactly the leaves so mysteriously found by Petrie.
    To an accompaniment of clattering pans, old Mme Dubonnet was preparing our evening meal in the kitchen and humming some melancholy tune very cheerily.
    Petrie was a source of great anxiety. I had considered ‘phoning for Dr. Cartier, but finally had dismissed the idea. That my friend was ill he had been unable to disguise: but he was a Doctor of Medicine and I was not. Furthermore, he was my host.
    That he was worried about his wife in Cairo, I knew. Only the day before he had said, “I hope she doesn’t take it into her head to come over—much as I should like to see her.” Now, I shared that hope. His present appearance would shock the woman who loved him.
    Fleurette—Fleurette of the dimpled chin—more than once intruded her image between me and the printed page. I tried to push these memories aside.
    Fleurette was the mistress of a wealthy Egyptian. Despite her name, she was not French. She was, perhaps, an actress. Why had I not thought of that before? Her beautifully modulated voice—her composure. “Think of me as Derceto...”
    “In Byblis gigantea, according to Zopf, insect-catching is merely incipient,” I read.
    She could be no older than eighteen—indeed, she might be younger than that...
    And so the afternoon wore on.
    Faint buzzing of the Kohler engine, and a sudden shaft of light across the slopes below,