Full Moon by Talbot Mundy Read Free Book Online Page B

breath. In a tiger’s fangs a man
might feel the same sensation of numbed dreaminess; but the Chinese girl’s
fingers kept stroking his eyes, and he wondered whether she knew she was
keeping time to the pulse of his headache. She was undoing all the effect of
Wu Tu’s efforts. He lay still, breathing steadily, until at last she pinched
the lobe of his ear—he supposed, to find out whether he was conscious.
Getting no response, she pressed the bruise on the back of his head. He was
not sure whether he winced at that or not; however, he thought not, because
she stood by after that and did nothing, while Wu Tu spoke:
    “Blair! You are asleep—asleep—asleep. You hear me
speaking—Wu Tu speaking, whom you know as Marie. You obey Marie because
you trust her, and because she knows how to promote you to money and high
position. You know the police are fools. You know the police will waste time
following some unimportant people who are using Chetusingh’s and your passes.
But you will say nothing about that. You will let them do it, while you do
real work. You know how to find where David Frensham is. You will go to
Henrietta— straight from here to Henrietta. You love Henrietta and she
loves you. You will make her tell you what she knows.
    “Blair, you are a man! You impose your will. You will have your own way
with your woman. You are strong. You love with the strength of a savage. She
shall tell you her secrets. Henrietta shall tell you her secrets—all
her secrets. You will make her tell them. Henrietta is your woman.”
    Nothing could be better calculated to make him shy of Henrietta. Blair’s
instincts were savagely decent. If he loathed one insolence more than
another, it was to be told how to govern his private thoughts. Left to
himself, he might have fallen utterly in love with Henrietta; he knew that.
But her father had tactlessly tried to encourage him; he had almost never
even to himself confessed that reason for shying off, but it was true, and he
knew it was true.
    As a police officer he was perfectly willing to die blindly obeying
official orders; as a private individual he would much rather die than have
his private judgment interfered with, uninvited. That Henrietta’s father and
even Henrietta herself should have talked it over with the commissioner was
their privilege, no doubt. Blair had his privilege too; he could go his own
way.
    But what the devil did all this mean? How had Henrietta become involved
with Wu Tu? They had Held some conversations, said the commissioner, to his
certain knowledge; but one thing, at least, was unthinkable; he was no such
cad as to imagine that Henrietta even guessed what Wu Tu was trying to do to
him. To be told whom he should love, by a notorious quarter-caste, and to be
instructed by her how to behave toward the object of his directed emotions,
was only less abominable than Wu Tu’s gall in daring even to mention
Henrietta’s name. He was enraged to the depths of his savage obstinacy. But
he lay still.
    Wu Tu spoke to the Chinese girl. He cursed himself for not knowing more
than ten words of the Chinese language. He heard the bead-curtain jingle as
the girl left the room.
    “Sleep—sleep—you are asleep!” said Wu Tu.
    Shortly after that he heard a man’s footsteps in the corridor, barefooted,
rutching along the carpet with irregular
steps—thump-shuffle-thump-thump-shuffle-thump-thump. He knew that
signal—listened. It was repeated. It was in his and Chetusingh’s code,
known to nobody else and devised for emergencies. Twice repeated, it could
hardly be coincidence. It meant:
    “Carry on independently of me for the time being.”
    The stair-head door opened and shut, and the Chinese girl returned into
the room. She resumed manipulations with her hands on Blair’s temples and
presently—he supposed, to find out whether he was
conscious—pressed the bruise on his head. He winced perceptibly, but
she appeared