The other two heard the nervousness. "More devilment, I suppose," Pallidar said.
"Nothing to worry about, we caught the bugger. Have you seen Mr. Struan this morning?"
"I peeked in but he was asleep, hope he's going to be all right. The op was not so good and..."
Tyrer stopped, hearing an altercation outside.
Pallidar went to the window followed by the others.
Sergeant Towery was shouting at a half-naked Japanese from the far side of the garden, beckoning him. "Hey you, come 'ere!"
The man, apparently a gardener, was well built and young and twenty yards away. He wore only a loincloth and was carrying a bundle of sticks and branches over one shoulder, some half wrapped in a dirty black cloth, while he awkwardly scavenged for others. For a moment he stood erect, then began bobbing up and down, bowing abjectly towards the Sergeant.
"My God, these buggers have no sense of shame," Pallidar said distastefully. "Even the Chinese don't dress like that--nor Indians.
You can see his privates."
"I'm told they dress like that even in winter, some of them," Marlowe said, "they don't seem to feel the cold."
Again Towery shouted and beckoned. The man kept on bowing, nodding vigorously, but instead of going towards him, seemingly he misinterpreted him and obediently turned away, still half-bowing, and scuttled away, heading for the corner of the building. As he passed their window he gazed at them for an instant, then once more bent double in a groveling obeisance and hurried towards the servants' quarters, almost hidden by foliage, and was gone.
"Curious," Marlowe said.
"What?"
"Oh just that all that bowing and scraping seemed put on." Marlowe turned and saw Tyrer's chalky face. "Christ Almighty, what's up?"
"I, I, that man, I think he, I'm not sure but I think he was one of them, one of the murderers at the Tokaido, the one Struan shot. Did you see his shoulder, wasn't it bandaged?"
Pallidar was the first to react. He jumped out of the window, closely followed by Marlowe who had grabbed his sword. Together they hurtled for the trees. But they did not find him though they searched everywhere.
Now it was high noon. Again the soft knock on her bedroom door, again "Mademoiselle?
Mademoiselle?" Babcott called out from the corridor, his voice soft, not wanting to awaken her unnecessarily but she did not reply. She remained standing rock still in the center of the room and stared at the bolted door, hardly breathing, her robe tight around her, her face stark. The trembling began again.
"Mademoiselle?"
She waited. After a moment his footsteps died away and she exhaled, desperately trying to stop shaking, then resumed pacing to the shuttered windows and back to the bed and back to the window once more, pacing as she had been pacing for hours.
I've got to decide, she thought in misery.
When she awoke a second time, not remembering the first awakening, her mind was clear and she lay in the crumpled bed linen without moving, glad to be awake, rested, hungry, and thirsty for the first, glorious cup of coffee of the day served with some crusty fresh French bread that her Legation's chef made in Yokohama. But I'm not in Yokohama, I'm in Kanagawa, and today it will be just a cup of revolting English tea with milk.
Malcolm! Poor Malcolm, I do so hope he's better. We'll return to Yokohama today, I'll board the next steamer for Hong Kong, thence to Paris... but oh what dreams I had, what dreams!
The fantasies of the night were still vivid and mixed up with other pictures of the Tokaido and Canterbury's mutilation and Malcolm acting so strangely presuming that they would marry. The imagined smell of the surgery rose in her nostrils but she fought it away, yawned, and reached for her little timepiece which she had left on the bedside table.
With the slight movement came a small pain in her loins. For a moment she wondered if it presaged an early period for she was not completely regular but dismissed the thought as impossible.
The timepiece read 10:20. It was inset with lapis lazuli and had been her father's gift on her eighteenth birthday, July 8th, a little over two months ago in Hong Kong. So much has happened since then, she thought. I'll be so happy to be back in Paris, in civilization, never to return, never never nev-- Abruptly she realized that she was almost naked under the sheet. To her astonishment she found that her nightdress only clung to her arms and shoulders and was totally split down the front and scrambled up behind her. She lifted the two sides in disbelief. Wanting to see better, she slid out of bed to go to the window but again the slight soreness.
Now in the day's light she noticed the telltale smear of blood on the sheet and found a trace between her legs.
"How can my period..."
She began counting days and recounting them but the addition made no sense. Her last period had stopped two weeks ago. Then she noticed that she was slightly moist and could not understand why--then her heart twisted and she almost fainted as her brain shouted that the dreams had not been dreams but real and that she had been violated while asleep.
"That's not possible! You must be mad--that's not possible," she had gasped, fighting for air, fighting for space. "Oh God, let this be a dream, part of those dreams." She groped for the bed, heart pounding. "You're awake, this isn't a dream, you're awake!"
She examined herself again, frantically, and then again but this time with more care. She had enough knowledge to know that there was no mistake about the moisture, or that her hymen was split. It was true. She had been raped.
The room began to spin. Oh God I'm ruined, life ruined, future ruined for no decent man, eligible man will marry me now that I'm soiled, marriage a girl's only way to better herself, have a happy future, any future, no other way...
When her senses settled and she could see and think, she found herself lying across the bed. Shakily she tried to reconstruct the night. I remember bolting the door.
She peered at it. The bar was still in place.
I remember Malcolm and the foulness of his room and running away from him, Phillip Tyrer sleeping peacefully, Dr. Babcott giving me the drink and go upstair-- The drink! Oh God, I was drugged! If Babcott can operate with these drugs, of course it could happen, of course I would be helpless but that doesn't help me now! It happened! Say I get a child!
Again panic overwhelmed her. Tears gushed down her cheeks and she almost cried out. "Stop it!" she muttered, making a supreme effort for control. "Stop it! Don't make a sound, don't! You're alone, no one else can help, just you, you've got to think. What are you going to do?
Think!" She took deep breaths, her heart hurting, and tried to slam her jumbled mind into order. Who was the man?
The bar's still in place so no one could have come through the door. Wait a minute, I remember vaguely... or was it part of the dream before the...
I seem to remember opening the door to, to Babcott and, and the naval officer Marlowe... then barring it again. Yes, that's right! At least, I think that's right. Didn't he speak French ... yes he did, but badly, then they went away and I barred the door, I'm sure I did. But why did they knock on the door in the night?
She searched and re-searched her mind but could not find an answer, not truly sure this had happened, the night pictures slipping away.
Some of them.
Concentrate!
If not through the door he came through the window.
She squirmed around and saw that the shutter bar was on the floor, below the window, not in its slots.
So whoever it was got in through the window! Who?
Marlowe, that Pallidar or even the good Doctor, I know they all want me. Who knew I was drugged? Babcott. He could have told the others but surely none of them would dare to be so evil, would dare risk the consequences of climbing up from the garden forof course I shall shout from the rooftops...
Her whole being screamed a warning: Be careful. Your future depends on being careful and wise. Be careful.
Are you sure that this really happened in the night?
What about the dreams? Perhaps... I won't think about them now but only a doctor would know for certain and that would have to be Babcott. Wait, you could, you could have ruptured that tiny piece of skin in your sleep, twisting in the nightmare--it was a nightmare, wasn't it? That has happened to some girls. Yes, but they'd still be virgin and that doesn't explain the moisture.