A Most Immoral Woman Read Free

habit of counting pennies.) He then quickly sponged off the dust of the journey and changed into fresh clothes. Collecting Dumas from his room, he strolled with him down to the modest dining room.
    As the maître d’ busied himself accommodating a large and fussy party of German engineers, Morrison looked around with mild curiosity and low expectations. The room hummed with polyglot conversation punctuated by the clink of silver on porcelain. A warm fug of wood fire with notes of roast meat and port filled his nostrils. At linen-covered tables set in the Western manner were seated missionaries, military attachés, railway men, traders in arms and supplies, dull men and their bony wives—the usual crowd, with one heart-stopping exception. Now here, Morrison thought, is excitement!
    Seated at one of the tables was a young woman of exceptional allure, whose eyes flashed with both mischief and promise, andwhose style suggested that she had just stepped off Fifth Avenue or the Champs-Elysées, not some dusty street in north China. Morrison did not know enough of couture to recognise that her outfit was a confection of Worth’s of Paris. But it did not take a student of the fashion plate to observe how stylish were the lines of her dress, how rich were its fabrics and how eloquently they hugged her curvaceous body. Similarly, Morrison was mesmerised by the glitter and grace of her lively hands despite it being lost on him that her rings were fabricated by Lalique. She radiated sex and money. He was drawn, sailor to siren, moth to flame.
    Tearing his eyes off her, he turned to Dumas. ‘Who is this?’ he whispered, each syllable a compendium of wonder.
    Dumas stroked his moustache and bit his lip. ‘This,’ he stated, ‘is Trouble.’
    ‘I fear I am much drawn to Trouble.’
    ‘I think Trouble has noticed. She was just looking at you. Ah, she has looked away again. Perhaps Trouble is not drawn to you, after all.’
    ‘Trouble is always drawn to me. Women are another thing. Do you know her?’
    ‘Actually I do.’ Dumas’s answer was slow, cautious. ‘She stays in Tientsin.’
    ‘Tell me all.’
    ‘Her name is Miss Mae Ruth Perkins. She’s had all of Tientsin aflutter since her arrival some weeks ago. She is the daughter of the self-made millionaire, shipping magnate and US senator from California, George Clement Perkins, previously governor of that Wild Western State.’
    Millionaire? Senator? Be still my beating heart! ‘Pray tell, what is such a precious gem doing so far from its setting?’
    ‘One rumour is that she has come to China to escape scandal. Others say she has come to create it. The missionaries are hiding their daughters. Young Faith Biddle has reportedly already thrown over the Kingdom of God for the worship of Miss Perkins, causing her parents no end of consternation.’
    ‘Where does she stay?’
    ‘With the American consul.’
    ‘Ragsdale?’ Morrison made a face. ‘That’s like a brass mount for a diamond.’
    ‘Indeed. But I’m sure you’ve heard that as the publisher of the Sonoma County Daily Republican , Ragsdale obtained his post, and his escape from a howling pack of creditors stretching from Iowa to the west coast, thanks to a Party connection. That connection was apparently Miss Perkins’s father. And so Mrs Ragsdale has the interesting duty of acting as the young lady’s chaperone. That is her now at Miss Perkins’s table.’
    ‘So it is.’ Morrison had not registered Mrs Ragsdale’s presence. Although not quite fifty, Mrs Ragsdale had the unsexed appearance of a woman who had been married and thence neglected for a span of centuries. Whilst some women would have struggled against such a fate, Effie Ragsdale appeared to embrace it as Destiny.
    ‘Will you introduce me?’
    ‘To Mrs Ragsdale? With pleasure,’ Dumas replied dryly.
    At their approach, Miss Perkins looked up. ‘The famous Dr Morrison. We meet at last.’

In Which Is Noted the Difficulty of Overheating
a