The Bride of Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer Page B

restaurant. Tables were laid under the awning, and already there were many diners.
    This was Quinto’s, where, without running up a ruinous bill, one may enjoy a perfect dinner and the really choice wines of France.
    The genial Maître d’hôtel met me at the top of the steps, extending that cosmopolitan welcome which lends a good meal an additional savour. Your true restaurateur is not only an epicure; he is also a polished man of the world.
    Yes, there was a small table in the corner. But I was alone tonight! Was Dr. Petrie busy?
    I shook my head.
    “I am afraid he is very ill,” I replied cautiously.
    Hitherto the authorities had succeeded in suppressing the truth of this ghastly outbreak so near to two great pleasure resorts. I had to guard my tongue, for an indiscreet word might undo all their plans of secrecy.
    “Something serious?” he asked, with what I thought was real concern: everybody loved Petrie.
    “A serious chill. The doctors are afraid of pneumonia.”
    Quinto raised his hands in an eloquent southern gesture.
    “Oh, these chilly nights!” he exclaimed. “They will ruin us! So many people forget to wrap themselves up warmly in the Riviera evenings. And then”—he shrugged—“they say it is a treacherous climate!”
    He conducted me to a table in an angle of the wall, and pointed out, as was his custom, notabilities present that evening.
    These included an ex-Crown Prince, Fritz Kreisler, and an internationally popular English novelist residing on the Côte d’Azur. The question of what I should eat and what I should drink was discussed as between artists; for the hallmark of a great Maître d’hôtel is the insidious compliment which he conveys to his patron in conceding the latter’s opinions to be worthy of the master’s consideration.
    When the matter was arranged and the wine-waiter had brought me a cocktail, I settled down to survey my fellow guests.
    My survey stopped short at a table in the opposite corner.
    A man who evidently distrusted the chill of the southern evenings sat there, his back towards me. He wore a heavy coat, having an astrakhan collar; and, what was more peculiar at dinner, he wore an astrakhan cap. From my present point of view he resembled pictures I had seen of Russian noblemen of the old regime.
    Facing him across the small square table was Fleurette! Over one astrakhan-covered shoulder of her companion our glances met. Dim light may have created the illusion, but I thought that the flower-like face turned pale, that the blue eyes opened very wide for a moment.
    I was about to stand up, when a slight, almost imperceptible movement of Fleurette’s head warned me unmistakably not to claim the acquaintance.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FAIRY TRUMPET
    I asked myself the question: had the gesture been real, or had I merely imagined it?
    Fleurette wore a light wrap over a very plain black evening frock. Her hair smouldered under the shaded lights so that it seemed to contain sparks of fire. She had instantly glanced aside. I could not be wrong.
    At first I had experienced intense humiliation, but now my courage returned. True, she had conveyed the message: “Don’t speak to me.” But it had been in the nature of a warning, an admission of a mutual secret understanding, and in no sense a snub.
    She was not, then, inaccessible. She was hedged around, guarded, by the jealous suspicions of her Oriental master.
    I could doubt no longer.
    The man seated with his back to me was the same I had seen in the car driven by the Negro chauffeur. Despite his nonconformity to type, this was Mahdi Bey. And Fleurette, for all her glorious, virginlike beauty, must be his mistress.
    She deliberately avoided looking in my direction again.
    Her companion never moved: his immobility was extraordinary. And presently, through the leaves of the shrubs growing in wooden boxes, I saw the black-and-silver Rolls, almost directly opposite the restaurant.
    My glance moved upward to the parapet guarding a