Read The Mask of Sumi for Free Online

certainly is,” said Mannering.
    â€œAny minute now you’re going to say ‘off the record’, you naughty man!”
    â€œOff the record only for a short while,” Mannering assured her. “I know I can rely on you.”
    â€œI should be utterly desolated if I thought you thought you couldn’t!” Dottie drew nearer, fluttered her fingers at Lorna, to draw her closer, and asked conspiratorially: “ Was it the blonde? ”
    â€œBlonde?” ejaculated Mannering.
    â€œThe blonde beauty who came on board late.”
    â€œWas there one?”
    â€œ Are you after a blonde, Mr. Mannering?”
    â€œI thought she would have dyed her hair before coming aboard.”
    â€œOh, my dear man!” Dottie glanced at Lorna as if to ask: “How naïve can the male sex be?” She leaned even closer and he could feel her breath on his cheek. “She was dyed.”
    â€œOh,” said Mannering.
    â€œAbout five feet seven, beautifully sexed, so vitally statisticated to coin a word, and so very anxious to find out whether she had been followed. Is that the woman you’re after, Mr. Mannering?”
    â€œIt sounds very much like her,” Mannering felt excitement racing.
    â€œFrom the moment dear Chitty told me you were interested I found myself thinking of Melody Yesling,” declared Dottie. She thrust two bony fingers down the V of her dress and drew out several folded sheets of paper. As she unrolled these she went on conspiratorially: “Here is the passenger list. Melody Yesling booked only yesterday, and she was very lucky to get a single cabin. Isn’t that interesting? Above everything else she had to have a cabin to herself, and by great and good fortune the Maharajah of Somewhere cancelled at the last moment, some marital problem or other, and so she took his, at great expense.
    â€œCould she possibly be a kind of Mata Hari of the smuggling world, Mr. Mannering? Do say she could.”
    Â 
    Dottie Mills had gone, gushing to the last, outwardly convinced that she was on the inside of a story of diamond smuggling, and outwardly completely assured that in due time Mannering would make sure she had a scoop. Mannering and Lorna were thoughtful over dinner, while Mannering filled in the details. They had coffee in the drawing-room, where Lorna took up her favourite position on the pouffe, and sat close to Mannering’s side.
    â€œThere isn’t any certainty that the blonde took the mask on board, is there?” Lorna asked.
    â€œNone at all. But presumably she would want it out of the country as soon as possible.”
    â€œYes, I suppose so. Where does the East Africa Star call?”
    â€œFirst stop, Gibraltar,” Mannering answered. “After that Port Said, Aden, Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, and places south.”
    â€œSo she could take the mask off at any one of those ports.”
    â€œYes,” agreed Mannering, grimly.
    Lorna said: “Darling, why has this come to mean so much to you?”
    â€œAre you sure it has?”
    â€œI know the look in your eyes,” Lorna said. “Is it because of Nikko Toji?”
    â€œIt’s because Toji believed the blonde was my messenger, and he died because of his trust in me.” That was the simple truth and his depth of feeling robbed the words of any pomposity.
    Lorna was looking straight up into his eyes.
    â€œIt’s a waste of time telling you that it isn’t your fault by any stretch of the imagination,” she said. “Oh, how I love you!”
    The passion in her voice took him completely by surprise. Suddenly, they were hugging each other, the years rolling back to the early days of their life together. Mannering knew exactly what had passed through Lorna’s mind; a flash of the past, when an incident like that of Toji’s death would lead him, Mannering, out of a happy and secure daily life into a danger which could bring death.
    Lorna freed