Moon of Madness
By SAX ROHMER
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1927
[COPYRIGHT]
COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &
COMPANY. COPYRIGHT, 1926, 1927, BY LIBERTY
WEEKLY, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
FIRST EDITION
CONTENTS
I. The German Liner
II. Rescue
III. The Man from the River Plate
IV. At the Casino
V. “In Five Minutes”
VI. The Bungalow in the Hills
VII. A Short Note
VIII. The Call
IX. Moon of Madness
X. The “Arundel Castle” Sails
XI. The Photographs
XII. The Motor Cruiser
XIII. The Grass Orphan
XIV. The Portfolio
XV. Terms with the Enemy
XVI. The House on the Cliff
XVII. Nanette Is Confidential
XVIII. Suspects
XIX. Dr. Zimmermann Calls
XX. Fog in the Channel
XXI. A Missing Picture
XXII. Portrait of a Girl Diving
XXIII. Fiasco
XXIV. Peter Pan
XXV. The Second Message
XXVI. The Cryptogram
XXVII. The Comrades Gather
XXVIII. The Raid
XXIX. Adolf Zara
XXX. Memories Can Save
XXXI. Hiatus
XXXII. The Heart of Nanette
MOON OF MADNESS
CHAPTER I.
THE GERMAN LINER
“I should _love_ a long glass of iced German lager,” said Nanette.
“Besides, I refuse to be deserted for a whole morning.”
Her Japanese parasol lay along the rail of the veranda, her round bare
elbows rested upon it and she cuddled her obstinate little chin in
upturned palms. I turned to her with a glance in which I had meant to
convey rebuke. But the blue eyes danced with mischief and pouting lips
smiled impudently, a smile half childish and half elfin.
“Young ladies of eighteen do not drink beer,” I answered paternally.
“It isn’t done.”
Jack Kelton came out as I spoke, saw Nanette, and flushed like a girl.
When I say “like a girl” I mean like a girl of Victorian literature.
To-day one should say “like a boy.” I never saw Nanette blush during
all the time I knew her. I saw her grow deathly pale; but this was
later.
Jack was good to see in the Madeira sunlight; one of those lean-limbed
young Oxonians who strip so well and who always look amazingly clean.
Nanette turned a slim shoulder in his direction, and stared out
pensively across the bay. I thought that she had the most perfect arms
imaginable. So did Nanette.
“I want to go out with you two and Mr. Ensleigh to that ship,” she
said, peering aside at the enraptured Jack. “Please ask Mumsy. She
likes you--and I love beer.”
Jack and I exchanged glances. We both looked at Nanette; and then
beyond to where the subject of controversy lay anchored--a big German
out of Bremen, in from the River Plate.
“I _have_ asked her,” Jack declared. “She’s adamant.”
“So have I,” came a cheery voice--and Ensleigh joined the party. “She
says that Mr. Kirby is coming to lunch.”
“But I _loathe_ Mr. Kirby!” cried Nanette, turning upon the speaker
scornfully. “He’s one of the reasons why I want to go!”
“Is that so, Nan?”
From a long, awning-covered chair near the corner of the veranda
Nanette’s mother arose--a gracefully pretty woman who solved the
mystery of Nanette’s beauty for those who had met only her father.
“Mumsy! Have you been sitting there all the time?”
“All the time, dear--and I have heard every word! So don’t attempt to
take one back!”
Ensleigh, the well-groomed, became all attention. He became attentive
from the crown of his perfectly brushed hair to the soles of his
spruce white shoes. He placed a chair for Nanette’s pretty mother. He
focussed his Zeiss glasses to enable her to view the German liner. She
thanked him with a smile that was very like Nanette’s.
“So you loathe poor Mr. Kirby?” she murmured, raising the glasses.
“Hate him poisonously!”
“And you love beer?”
“Simply worship it, Mum! Lager is my vice!”
Her mother lowered the glasses and fought with rising laughter, for
Nanette was looking straight at her. Then:
“You little devil!” she said. “I don’t believe a word of it! But your
father simply won’t hear of you going on board a German ship. Don’t
ask me why. You know him as well as anybody.”
“I’ll ask him myself!” Nanette said, flashing blue eyes rebelliously.
“Where is the funny old thing?”
“Nan, dear!”
“Oh, he’s a darling! But he _is_ funny! He’s never forgotten that I
was once a baby.”
“You are still a baby, Nan--a mere infant.”
Nanette threw back her shapely bobbed head and laughed scornfully.
Wild canaries were love-making in the palm grove below the balcony,
and, being poetically inclined, I suppose, I thought that Nanette’s
soft rippling laughter was music sweet as theirs.
She turned swiftly. She had all her mother’s grace as well as the
divine abandon of youth. With never another glance at any of us, she
walked in through the open French window. Jack Kelton’s glance
followed the slim, straight figure. Her mother looked up at Ensleigh.
“Have you a daughter?” she asked.
“No,” he replied. “I regret----”
“Don’t regret,” she interrupted; but her smile belied the Chinese
solecism to come: “Pray that you may never have a daughter!”
“Really,” Jack began, in his youthful, diffident way, “I don’t think
there’s any harm in----”
He was interrupted. Nanette returned, dragging by the hand a very
bored, gray-haired gentleman who carried a copy of the _Times_ that
was ten days old. The gentleman, blinking through his glasses, was
being forced out into the sunshine.
“Now, Pop,” said Nanette firmly, “is there really any reason why I
shouldn’t go with Mr. Ensleigh, Mr. Decies, and Mr. Kelton to see that
German liner?”
“Well, dear,” her father replied, in his laboured manner, “I am afraid
you would be late for lunch, and----”
His glance sought his wife’s. I distinctly detected a negative shake
of the head from Nanette’s mother.
“And,” he went on, “your mother thinks that this would be rude, as Mr.
Kirby is expected.”
He smiled almost apologetically, patted Nanette on the head, and,
_Times_ in hand, returned to his shady lair in the smoke-room. Nanette
stared reproachfully at her mother.
“Don’t be huffy about it, darling,” said the latter. “Really, you will
only have time for a swim and a sun bath, if you are to make yourself
presentable by one o’clock.”
Nanette looked swiftly from face to face. A number of people had now
begun to come out from late breakfast. She checked speech, withered
poor Jack with a final, comprehensive look of scorn, and walked
quickly into the hotel. The last few steps that were visible, as she
crossed the threshold, almost consisted of stamping her little feet.
Following a moment of silence:
“Look here, you chaps,” said Jack, “it looks rather mean for us all to
desert Nanette. I know we’ve engaged the launch and all that, but it’s
beastly tame swimming alone----”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Kelton,” Nanette’s mother broke in. She was smiling.
“Nanette will not be swimming alone!”
Poor Jack smiled in return, flushed, and then frowned darkly. His
glance constantly sought the entrance to the hotel. But Ensleigh
tactfully made the conversation general, and we were discussing the
feminine modes of Paris as opposed to those of Buenos Aires when a
slight figure arrayed in a pink bathrobe and shaded by a Japanese
parasol passed slowly down the path below the terrace; whereupon:
“There goes Nanette!” said Jack, jumping up. “Excuse me. I’ll just run
and ask her if she would rather I stayed.”
He hurled himself in the direction of the steps and disappeared. A
moment later he reappeared, running after the girl. We watched.
“Nanette!” he called.
Nanette paused, turned, waved her hand, and went on. She walked under
a veritable awning of hibiscus, sweeping some of the blossoms off with
her parasol. Rounding the corner, she came into view again on a lower
path. Her mother leaned over the balcony rail.
“Go after her, Jack!” she called. “Don’t be afraid of her!”
The words reached Nanette. She looked up through flower-laden
branches. Her voice came faintly.
“I don’t want him to come after me. I want to be alone.”
Jack Kelton turned and began to walk back up the sloping path. He kept
his curly head lowered, taking out a briar from his pocket and
fumbling for his pouch. Nanette’s mother glanced at Ensleigh.
“Poor Jack,” she said. “He is very young!”