Perhaps
I attached too great a value to what may have been a delusion; perhaps
my theory rested upon no more solid foundation than the belief that I
had seen Karamaneh in the shop of the curio dealer. If her appearance
there should prove to have been imaginary, the structure of my theory
would be shattered at its base. To-night I should test my premises,
and upon the result of my investigations determine my future action.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SILVER BUDDHA
Museum Street certainly did not seem a likely spot for Dr. Fu-Manchu
to establish himself, yet, unless my imagination had strangely
deceived me, from the window of the antique dealer who traded under
the name of J. Salaman, those wonderful eyes of Karamaneh, like the
velvet midnight of the Orient, had looked out at me.
As I paced slowly along the pavement toward that lighted window, my
heart was beating far from normally, and I cursed the folly which,
despite all, refused to die, but lingered on, poisoning my life.
Comparative quiet reigned in Museum Street, at no time a busy
thoroughfare, and, excepting another shop at the Museum end,
commercial activities had ceased there. The door of a block of
residential chambers almost immediately opposite to the shop which was
my objective, threw out a beam of light across the pavement; not more
than two or three people were visible upon either side of the street.
I turned the knob of the door and entered the shop.
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