Sax Rohmer - THE YELLOW CLAW

shadow on the center of the Persian carpet.

Coincident with her sobbing cry--NINE! boomed Big Ben; TEN!...

Two hands--with outstretched, crooked, clutching fingers--leapt from the

darkness into the light of the moonbeam.

“God! Oh, God!” came a frenzied, rasping shriek--“MR. KING!”

Straight at the bare throat leapt the yellow hands; a gurgling cry

rose--fell--and died away.

Gently, noiselessly, the lady of the civet fur sank upon the carpet by

the table; as she fell, a dim black figure bent over her. The tearing

of paper told of the note being snatched from her frozen grip; but never

for a moment did the face or the form of her assailant encroach upon the

moonbeam.

Batlike, this second and terrible visitant avoided the light.

The deed had occupied so brief a time that but one note of the great

bell had accompanied it.

TWELVE! rang out the final stroke from the clock-tower. A low, eerie

whistle, minor, rising in three irregular notes and falling in weird,

unusual cadence to silence again, came from somewhere outside the room.

Then darkness--stillness--with the moon a witness of one more ghastly

crime.

Presently, confused and intermingled voices from above proclaimed the

return of Leroux with the doctor. They were talking in an excited

key, the voice of Leroux, especially, sounding almost hysterical. They

created such a disturbance that they attracted the attention of Mr. John

Exel, M. P., occupant of the flat below, who at that very moment had

returned from the House and was about to insert the key in the lock of

his door. He looked up the stairway, but, all being in darkness, was

unable to detect anything. Therefore he called out:--

“Is that you, Leroux? Is anything the matter?”

“Matter, Exel!” cried Leroux; “there's a devil of a business! For

mercy's sake, come up!”

His curiosity greatly excited, Mr. Exel mounted the stairs, entering

the lobby of Leroux's flat immediately behind the owner and Dr.

Cumberly--who, like Leroux, was arrayed in a dressing-gown; for he had

been in bed when summoned by his friend.

“You are all in the dark, here,” muttered Dr. Cumberly, fumbling for the

switch.

“Some one has turned the light out!” whispered Leroux, nervously; “I

left it on.”

Dr. Cumberly pressed the switch, turning up the lobby light as Exel

entered from the landing. Then Leroux, entering the study first of the

three, switched on the light there, also.

One glance he threw about the room, then started back like a man

physically stricken.

“Cumberly!” he gasped, “Cumberly”--and he pointed to the furry heap by

the writing-table.

“You said she lay on the chesterfield,” muttered Cumberly.

“I left her there.”...

Dr. Cumberly crossed the room and dropped upon his knees. He turned the

white face toward the light, gently parted the civet fur, and pressed

his ear to the silken covering of the breast. He started slightly and

looked into the glazing eyes.

Replacing the fur which he had disarranged, the physician stood up and

fixed a keen gaze upon the face of Henry Leroux. The latter swallowed

noisily, moistening his parched lips.

“Is she”... he muttered; “is she”...

“God's mercy, Leroux!” whispered Mr. Exel--“what does this mean?”

“The woman is dead,” said Dr. Cumberly.

In common with all medical men, Dr. Cumberly was a physiognomist; he was

a great physician and a proportionately great physiognomist. Therefore,

when he looked into Henry Leroux's eyes, he saw there, and recognized,

horror and consternation. With no further evidence than that furnished

by his own powers of perception, he knew that the mystery of this

woman's death was as inexplicable to Henry Leroux as it was inexplicable

to himself.

He was a masterful man, with the gray eyes of a diplomat, and he knew

Leroux as did few men. He laid both hands upon the novelist's shoulders.

“Brace up, old chap!” he said; “you will want all your wits about you.”

“I left her,” began Leroux, hesitatingly--“I left”...

“We know all about where you left her, Leroux,” interrupted Cumberly;

“but what we want to get at is this: what occurred between the time you

left her, and the time of our return?”

Exel, who had walked across to the table, and with a horror-stricken

face was gingerly examining the victim, now exclaimed:--

“Why! Leroux! she is--she is... UNDRESSED!”

Leroux clutched at his dishevelled hair with both hands.

“My dear Exel!” he cried--“my dear, good man! Why do you use that tone?

You say 'she is undressed!' as though I were responsible for the poor

soul's condition!”

“On the contrary, Leroux!” retorted Exel, standing very upright, and

staring through his monocle; “on the contrary, YOU misconstrue ME! I did

not intend to imply--to insinuate--”

“My dear Exel!” broke in Dr. Cumberly--“Leroux is perfectly well aware

that you intended nothing unkindly. But the poor chap, quite naturally,

is distraught at the moment. You MUST understand that, man!”

“I understand; and I am sorry,” said Exel, casting a sidelong glance

at the body. “Of course, it is a delicate subject. No doubt Leroux can

explain.”...

“Damn your explanation!” shrieked Leroux hysterically. “I CANNOT

explain! If I could explain, I”...

“Leroux!” said Cumberly, placing his arm paternally about the shaking

man--“you are such a nervous subject. DO make an effort, old fellow.

Pull yourself together. Exel does not know the circumstances--”

“I am curious to learn them,” said the M. P. icily.

Leroux was about to launch some angry retort, but Cumberly forced him

into the chesterfield, and crossing to a bureau, poured out a stiff

peg of brandy from a decanter which stood there. Leroux sank upon the

chesterfield, rubbing his fingers up and down his palms with a

curious nervous movement and glancing at the dead woman, and at Exel,

alternately, in a mechanical, regular fashion, pathetic to behold.

Mr. Exel, tapping his boot with the head of his inverted cane, was

staring fixedly at the doctor.

“Here you are, Leroux,” said Cumberly; “drink this up, and let us

arrange our facts in decent order before we--”

“Phone for the police?” concluded Exel, his gaze upon the last speaker.

Leroux drank the brandy at a gulp and put down the glass upon a little

persian coffee table with a hand which he had somehow contrived to

steady.

“You are keen on the official forms, Exel?” he said, with a wry smile.

“Please accept my apology for my recent--er--outburst, but picture this

thing happening in your place!”

“I cannot,” declared Exel, bluntly.

“You lack imagination,” said Cumberly. “Take a whisky and soda, and help

me to search the flat.”

“Search the flat!”

The physician raised a forefinger, forensically.

“Since you, Exel, if not actually in the building, must certainly have

been within sight of the street entrance at the moment of the crime, and

since Leroux and I descended the stair and met you on the landing, it is

reasonable to suppose that the assassin can only be in one place: HERE!”

“HERE!” cried Exel and Leroux, together.

“Did you see anyone leave the lower hall as you entered?”

“No one; emphatically, there was no one there!”

“Then I am right.”

“Good God!” whispered Exel, glancing about him, with a new, and keen