The Bride of Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer Page A

looking very unhappy. The telephone had been repaired that morning, she told me, but it was all so mysterious. The house had been disturbed, and there were many things missing. And the poor dear doctor! They had told her, only two hours before, that there was no change in his condition.
    I turned on the bath taps and then went to the telephone. Dr. Brisson was at the hospital. In answer to my anxious inquiry, he said in a strained, tired voice that there was nothing to report. He could not conceal his anxiety, however.
    Something told me that dear old Petrie’s hours were numbered. Sir Denis Nayland Smith had not been in touch.
    “I trust that he arrived safely,” he concluded, “and succeeded in finding Dr. Emil Krus.”
    “I shall be along in about an hour.”
    “Nothing of the kind, my dear Mr. Sterling, I beg of you. It would only add to our embarrassment. You can do nothing. If you would consent to take my advice again, it would be this: drive out somewhere to dinner. Try to forget this shadow, which unfortunately you can do nothing to dispel. Tell the housekeeper where you intend to go, so that we can trace you, should there be news—good or bad.”
    “It’s impossible,” I replied; “I feel I must stand by.”
    But the tired, soothing voice at the other end of the line persisted. A man would relieve Mme Dubonnet at the villa just before dusk. “And,” Brisson concluded, “it is far better that you should seek a change of scene, if only for a few hours. Dr. Petrie would wish it. In a sense, you know, you are his patient.”
    In my bath, I considered his words. Yes, I suppose he was right. Petrie had been insistent that I should not overdo things—mentally or physically. I would dine in Monte Carlo, amid the stimulating gaiety of the strangest capital in the world.
    I wanted to be at my best in this battle with an invisible army. I owed it to Petrie—and I owed it to Nayland Smith.
    In spite of my determination, it was late before I started out. The orderly from the hospital had arrived. He had nothing to report. Sir Denis was of the opinion, I learned, that there was just a possibility of a further raid upon the Villa Jasmin being attempted, and the man showed me that he was armed.
    He seemed to welcome this strange break in his normal duties. I told him that I proposed to dine at Quinto’s Restaurant. I was known there, and he could get in touch, or leave a message, at any time.
    Then, heavy-hearted, but glad in a way to escape, if only for a few hours, from the spot where Petrie had been stricken down by his remorseless, hidden enemy, I set out for Monaco.
    Some new and strange elements had crashed into my life. It was good to get away to a place dissociated from these things and endeavour to see them in their true perspective.
    The route was pathetically familiar.
    It had been Petrie’s custom on two or three evenings in the week to drive into Monte Carlo, dine and spend an hour or so in the Casino. He was no gambler—nor am I—but he was a very keen mathematician, and he got quite a kick out of pitting his wits against the invulnerable bank.
    I could never follow the principle of his system. But while, admittedly, we had never lost anything, on the other hand, we had not gained.
    My somewhat morbid reflections seemed to curtail the journey. I observed little of the route, until I found myself on the long curve above Monte Carlo. Dusk had fallen, and that theatrical illumination which is a feature of the place had sprung into life.
    I pulled up for a moment, looking down at the unique spectacle— wonderful, for all its theatricality. The blazing colour of the flower beds, floodlighted from palm tops; the emerald green of terraced lawns falling away to that ornate frontage of the great Casino.
    It is Monte Carlo’s one and only “view”, but in its garish way it is unforgettable.
    I pushed on down the sharp descent to the town, presently halting before the little terrace of an unpretentious