“I may deserve no mercy; I may be even as bad as you think; but what have you to do with the police?  It is not your work to hound a woman to death.  Could you ever look another woman in the eyes—­one that you loved, and know that she trusted you—­if you had done such a thing?  Ah, I have no friend in all the world, or I should not be here.  Do not be my enemy, my judge, and make me worse than I am; be my friend, and save me—­from him.”  The tremulous lips were close to mine, her breath fanned my cheek.  “Have mercy on me.”

At that moment I honestly would have given half of my worldly possessions to have been spared the decision which I knew I must come to.  After all, what proof had I that she was a willing accomplice of Dr. Fu-Manchu?  Furthermore, she was an Oriental, and her code must necessarily be different from mine.  Irreconcilable as the thing may be with Western ideas, Nayland Smith had really told me that he believed the girl to be a slave.  Then there remained that other reason why I loathed the idea of becoming her captor.  It was almost tantamount to betrayal!  Must I soil my hands with such work?

Thus—­I suppose—­her seductive beauty argued against my sense of right.  The jeweled fingers grasped my shoulders nervously, and her slim body quivered against mine as she watched me, with all her soul in her eyes, in an abandonment of pleading despair.  Then I remembered the fate of the man in whose room we stood.

“You lured Cadby to his death,” I said, and shook her off.

“No, no!” she cried wildly, clutching at me.  “No, I swear by the holy name I did not!  I did not!  I watched him, spied upon him—­yes!  But, listen:  it was because he would not be warned that he met his death.  I could not save him!  Ah, I am not so bad as that.  I will tell you.  I have taken his notebook and torn out the last pages and burnt them.  Look! in the grate.  The book was too big to steal away.  I came twice and could not find it.  There, will you let me go?”

“If you will tell me where and how to seize Dr. Fu-Manchu—­yes.”

Her hands dropped and she took a backward step.  A new terror was to be read in her face.

“I dare not!  I dare not!”

“Then you would—­if you dared?”

She was watching me intently.

“Not if you would go to find him,” she said.

And, with all that I thought her to be, the stern servant of justice that I would have had myself, I felt the hot blood leap to my cheek at all which the words implied.  She grasped my arm.

“Could you hide me from him if I came to you, and told you all I know?”

“The authorities—­”

“Ah!” Her expression changed.  “They can put me on the rack if they choose, but never one word would I speak—­never one little word.”

She threw up her head scornfully.  Then the proud glance softened again.

“But I will speak for you.”