Free The Shadow of Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer Page A

of the interval between then and Morris telling her she seemed tired and insisting that she go home.
    But over two hours had elapsed—two lost hours!
    Sleep was going to be difficult. She had an urge for coffee but knew that it was the wrong thing in the circumstances. She went into the kitchenette and cut herself two sandwiches. She ate them standing there while she warmed some milk. This, and a little fruit, made up her supper.
    When she had prepared the bed, and undressed, she still felt wide awake but had no inclination to read. Switching the lights off, she stood at the window looking down into the street. A number of darkened cars were parked on both sides, and while she stood there several taxis passed. There were few pedestrians.
    All these things she noted in a subconscious way. They had no particular interest for her. She was trying all the time to recapture those lost hours. Never in her life before had such a thing happened to her. It was appalling…
    At last, something taking place in the street below dragged her wandering mind back to the present, the actual.
    A big man—abnormally big—stood almost opposite. He appeared to be looking up at her window. Something to his appearance, his hulking, apelike pose, struck a chord of memory, sharp, terrifying, but shapeless, unresolved.
    Camille watched him. His presence might have nothing to do with her. He could be looking at some other window. But she felt sure he was looking at hers.
    When, as she watched, he moved away, loose-armed and shambling, she stepped to the end of the bay and followed his ungainly figure with her eyes. From here, she could just see Central Park, and at the corner the man paused—seemed to be looking back.
    Camille stole across her darkened room to the lobby, and bolted and chained the door.
    A wave of unaccountable terror had swept over her.
    Why?
    She had never, to her knowledge, seen the man before. He was a dangerous-looking type, but her scanty possessions were unlikely to interest a housebreaker. Nevertheless, she dreaded the dark hours ahead and knew that hope of sleep had become even more remote.
    Lowering the Venetian blinds, she switched up her bedside lamp and toyed with a phial of sleeping tablets. She had known many restless nights of late, but dreaded becoming a drug addict. Finally, shrugging her shoulders, she swallowed one, got into bed, and sipped the rest of the warm milk.
    She did not recall turning the light out. But, just as she was dozing off, a sound of heavy, but curiously furtive, footsteps on the stair aroused her. There was no elevator.
    The sound died away—if she had really heard and not imagined it.
    Sleep crept upon her unnoticed…
    She dreamed that she stood in a dimly lighted, thickly carpeted room. It was peculiarly silent, and there was a sickly-sweet smell in the air, a smell which she seemed to recognize yet couldn’t identify. She was conscious of one impulse only. To escape from this silent room.
    But a man wearing a yellow robe sat behind a long, narrow table, watching her. And the regard of his glittering green eyes held her as if chained to the spot upon which she stood. He seemed to be draining her of all vitality, all power of resistance. She thought of the shell of a fly upon which a spider has feasted.
    She knew in her dream, but couldn’t remember a word that had passed, that this state of inertia was due to a pitiless cross-examination to which she had been subjected.
    The examination was over, and now she was repeating orders already given. She knew herself powerless to disobey them.
    “On the stroke of ten. Repeat the time.”
    “On the stroke of ten.”
    “Repeat what you have to write.”
    “The safe combination used by Dr. Craig.”
    “When are you to await a call in your apartment?”
    “At eleven o’clock.”
    “Who will call you?”
    “
You
will call me…”
    She was exhausted, at the end of endurance. The dim, Oriental room swam about her. The green eyes grew