Re-enter Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer Read Free Book Online Page B

development threw the whole plan out of gear.
    Could he possibly have been wrong all along? Prejudiced by his dislike for Peter Wellingham, he might have jumped to a false conclusion that the girl he had seen with him in Hyde Park was Lola, for he had never actually caught even a glimpse of her face. Still hag-ridden by his suspicions, he might also have assumed wrongly that Zoe and the veiled lady of the bazaar were identical, for no better reason than that both had amber eyes. Amber eyes were not uncommon in the East.
    Zoe’s claim that she knew Nayland Smith couldn’t very well be bogus, or she would have reacted very differently when he told her that he, too, knew Sir Denis.
    Where did he stand? Had he misjudged Mr. Ahmad at well?
    “You are very thoughtful,” Zoe whispered softly. “Don’t you like me tonight?”
    “My dear Zoe!” They sat side by side on a cushioned cane divan. “I was so surprised that I forgot to tell you how lovely you are.”
    He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. She smiled, raising pouting lips. And Brian didn’t even try to resist the sweet temptation…
    * * *
    Dawn was not so far away when Brian finally turned in that night, and he slept late into the morning. He sent for his mail when he ordered coffee but again there was nothing from Lola.
    He was a man who, once his suspicions had been aroused, could never let the matter rest until his doubts were either proved or disproved. If indeed he had become involved in a conspiracy against Nayland Smith, a conspiracy in which Wellingham, Lola, Ahmad, and Zoe were concerned, a love affair with Zoe was the best, and by far the most pleasant, way to find it out.
    He had wasted no time.
    Zoe, who, for all her youth, he suspected to be far from unsophisticated in love and the ways of lovers, had responded to the point of unconditional surrender. And it was then that Brian began to distrust himself. Never once, even while he caressed her, mingling kisses with what he believed to be artful leading questions, had she breathed one word that he wanted to hear. He had been equally reticent.
    She didn’t know if she would see Nayland Smith. She hadn’t seen him since she was a child. He hadn’t told her where he was staying in Cairo. Sir Denis had met her uncle when he was in Egypt with Sir Lionel Barton, the famous archaeologist, many years ago. Sir Lionel had been excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. And Brian remembered that Nayland Smith had spoken of this very expedition when he had visited their home in Washington.
    Brian, being no roué, began to reproach himself. If Zoe was really not a conspirator sent to trap him, he was behaving rather like a cad. He must not pretend to himself that the zeal of the investigator, and not the fact that Zoe was very desirable, inspired his love-making. It wouldn’t be true. If he had known beyond all doubt that she was a spy of the enemy, he might have scrapped his scruples. But he didn’t know.
    He pondered the situation over his morning coffee and smoked a number of Achmed es-Salah’s cigarettes. Then he called Mr. Ahmad’s number, but failed, as usual, to get a reply. He began to feel like a man lost in a maze.
    Two things he made up his mind to do. First, he would call at the address that appeared on top of Ahmad’s letter. Second, he would return to the house hidden away in the native town, ring the bell (if there was one), and ask for Sir Nayland Smith.
    He took a cab to the address in Sharîa Abdîn, which he saw to be a modern office building only a few minutes’ walk from the hotel. This made him feel like a fool, and he asked the man to wait while he went in. He found a list of tenants just inside the door and read all the names carefully.
    Mr. Ahmad’s was not one of them.
    Then it occurred to him that Ahmad might be a member of a firm that didn’t bear his name at all. As there seemed to be no hall porter, he stepped into the nearest office (“The Loofah