It was not until the following evening that I found leisure to examine
my strange acquisition, for affairs of more immediate importance
engrossed my attention. But at about ten o'clock I seated myself at
my table, lighted the lamp, and taking out the pigtail from the table
drawer, placed it on the blotting-pad and began to examine it with the
greatest curiosity, for few Chinese affect the pigtail nowadays.
I had scarcely commenced my examination, however, when it was
dramatically interrupted. The door bell commenced to ring jerkily. I
stood up, and as I did so the ringing ceased and in its place came a
muffled beating on the door. I hurried into the passage as the bell
commenced ringing again, and I had almost reached the door when once
more the ringing ceased; but now I could hear a woman's voice, low but
agitated:
“Open the door! Oh, for God's sake be quick!”
Completely mystified, and not a little alarmed, I threw open the door,
and in there staggered a woman heavily veiled, so that I could see
little of her features, but by the lines of her figure I judged her to
be young.
Uttering a sort of moan of terror she herself closed the door, and
stood with her back to it, watching me through the thick veil, while her
breast rose and fell tumultuously.
“Thank God there was someone at home!” she gasped.
I think I may say with justice that I had never been so surprised in my
life; every particular of the incident marked it as unique--set it apart
from the episodes of everyday life.
“Madam,” I began doubtfully, “you seem to be much alarmed at something,
and if I can be of any assistance to you------”
“You have saved my life!” she whispered, and pressed one hand to her
bosom. “In a moment I will explain.”
“Won't you rest a little after your evidently alarming experience?” I
suggested.
My strange visitor nodded, without speaking, and I conducted her to the
study which I had just left, and placed the most comfortable arm-chair
close beside the table so that as I sat I might study this woman who
so strangely had burst in upon me. I even tilted the shaded lamp,
artlessly, a trick I had learned from Harley, in order that the light
might fall upon her face.
She may have detected this device; I know not; but as if in answer to
its challenge, she raised her gloved hands and unfastened the heavy veil
which had concealed her features.
Thereupon I found myself looking into a pair of lustrous black eyes
whose almond shape was that of the Orient; I found myself looking at a
woman who, since she was evidently a Jewess, was probably no older than
eighteen or nineteen, but whose beauty was ripely voluptuous, who might
fittingly have posed for Salome, who, despite her modern fashionable
garments, at once suggested to my mind the wanton beauty of the daughter
of Herodias.
I stared at her silently for a time, and presently her full lips parted
in a slow smile. My ideas were diverted into another channel.
“You have yet to tell me what alarmed you,” I said in a low voice, but
as courteously as possible, “and if I can be of any assistance in the
matter.”
My visitor seemed to recollect her fright--or the necessity for
simulation. The pupils of her fine eyes seemed to grow larger and
darker; she pressed her white teeth into her lower lips, and resting her
hands upon the table leaned toward me.
“I am a stranger to London,” she began, now exhibiting a certain
diffidence, “and to-night I was looking for the chambers of Mr. Raphael
Philips of Figtree Court.”
“This is Figtree Court,” I said, “but I know of no Mr. Raphael Philips
who has chambers here.”
The black eyes met mine despairingly.
“But I am positive of the address!” protested my beautiful but strange
caller--from her left glove she drew out a scrap of paper, “here it is.”
I glanced at the fragment, upon which, in a woman's hand the words were
pencilled: “Mr. Raphael Philips, 36-b Figtree Court, London.”