I spoke to her.

“S-sh!” She laid her hand upon my arm, enjoining me to silence.

The high, drab brick wall of what looked like some part of a dock building loomed above us in the darkness, and the indescribable stenches of the lower Thames were borne to my nostrils through a gloomy, tunnel-like opening, beyond which whispered the river.  The muffled clangor of waterside activity was about us.  I heard a key grate in a lock, and Karamaneh drew me into the shadow of an open door, entered, and closed it behind her.

For the first time I perceived, in contrast to the odors of the court without, the fragrance of the peculiar perfume which now I had come to associate with her.  Absolute darkness was about us, and by this perfume alone I knew that she was near to me, until her hand touched mine, and I was led along an uncarpeted passage and up an uncarpeted stair.  A second door was unlocked, and I found myself in an exquisitely furnished room, illuminated by the soft light of a shaded lamp which stood upon a low, inlaid table amidst a perfect ocean of silken cushions, strewn upon a Persian carpet, whose yellow richness was lost in the shadows beyond the circle of light.

Karamaneh raised a curtain draped before a doorway, and stood listening intently for a moment.

The silence was unbroken.

Then something stirred amid the wilderness of cushions, and two tiny bright eyes looked up at me.  Peering closely, I succeeded in distinguishing, crouched in that soft luxuriance, a little ape.  It was Dr. Fu-Manchu’s marmoset.  “This way,” whispered Karamaneh.

Never, I thought, was a staid medical man committed to a more unwise enterprise, but so far I had gone, and no consideration of prudence could now be of avail.

The corridor beyond was thickly carpeted.  Following the direction of a faint light which gleamed ahead, it proved to extend as a balcony across one end of a spacious apartment.  Together we stood high up there in the shadows, and looked down upon such a scene as I never could have imagined to exist within many a mile of that district.

The place below was even more richly appointed than the room into which first we had come.  Here, as there, piles of cushions formed splashes of gaudy color about the floor.  Three lamps hung by chains from the ceiling, their light softened by rich silk shades.  One wall was almost entirely occupied by glass cases containing chemical apparatus, tubes, retorts and other less orthodox indications of Dr. Fu-Manchu’s pursuits, whilst close against another lay the most extraordinary object of a sufficiently extraordinary room—­ a low couch, upon which was extended the motionless form of a boy.  In the light of a lamp which hung directly above him, his olive face showed an almost startling resemblance to that of Karamaneh—­ save that the girl’s coloring was more delicate.  He had black, curly hair, which stood out prominently against the white covering upon which he lay, his hands crossed upon his breast.