Sax Rohmer - THE YELLOW CLAW

“Chinese?” inquired Dunbar, producing the bulky notebook.

“Yes. Oh! poor, poor soul!”

“You know nothing further about her, Miss Cumberly?”

“Nothing, Inspector. She was merely pointed out to me as one of the

strangest figures in the hall. Her husband, I understand, is an art

expert--”

“He WAS!” said Dunbar, closing the book sharply. “He died this

afternoon; and a paragraph announcing his death appears in the newspaper

which we found in the victim's fur coat!”

“But how--”

“It was the only paragraph on the half-page folded outwards which was in

any sense PERSONAL. I am greatly indebted to you, Miss Cumberly; every

hour wasted on a case like this means a fresh plait in the rope around

the neck of the wrong man!”

Helen Cumberly grew slowly quite pallid.

“Good night,” she said; and bowing to the detective and to the surgeon,

she prepared to depart.

Mr. Hilton touched Dr. Cumberly's arm, as he, too, was about to retire.

“May I hope,” he whispered, “that you will return and give me the

benefit of your opinion in making out my report?”

Dr. Cumberly glanced at his daughter; and seeing her to be perfectly

composed:--“For the moment, I have formed no opinion, Mr. Hilton,”

he said, quietly, “not having had an opportunity to conduct a proper

examination.”

Hilton bent and whispered, confidentially, in the other's ear:--

“She was drugged!”

The innuendo underlying the words struck Dr. Cumberly forcibly, and he

started back with his brows drawn together in a frown.

“Do you mean that she was addicted to the use of drugs?” he asked,

sharply; “or that the drugging took place to-night.”

“The drugging DID take place to-night!” whispered the other. “An

injection was made in the left shoulder with a hypodermic syringe; the

mark is quite fresh.”

Dr. Cumberly glared at his fellow practitioner, angrily.

“Are there no other marks of injection?” he asked.

“On the left forearm, yes. Obviously self-administered. Oh, I don't deny

the habit! But my point is this: the injection in the shoulder was NOT

self-administered.”

“Come, Helen,” said Cumberly, taking his daughter's arm; for she had

drawn near, during the colloquy--“you must get to bed.”

His face was very stern when he turned again to Mr. Hilton.

“I shall return in a few minutes,” he said, and escorted his daughter

from the room.

Matters of vital importance to some people whom already we have met, and

to others whom thus far we have not met, were transacted in a lofty and

rather bleak looking room at Scotland Yard between the hours of nine and

ten A. M.; that is, later in the morning of the fateful day whose advent

we have heard acclaimed from the Tower of Westminster.

The room, which was lighted by a large French window opening upon a

balcony, commanded an excellent view of the Thames Embankment. The floor

was polished to a degree of brightness, almost painful. The distempered

walls, save for a severe and solitary etching of a former Commissioner,

were nude in all their unloveliness. A heavy deal table (upon which

rested a blotting-pad, a pewter ink-pot, several newspapers and two

pens) together with three deal chairs, built rather as monuments of

durability than as examples of art, constituted the only furniture, if

we except an electric lamp with a green glass shade, above the table.

This was the room of Detective-Inspector Dunbar; and Detective-Inspector

Dunbar, at the hour of our entrance, will be found seated in the chair,

placed behind the table, his elbows resting upon the blotting-pad.

At ten minutes past nine, exactly, the door opened, and a thick-set,

florid man, buttoned up in a fawn colored raincoat and wearing a bowler

hat of obsolete build, entered. He possessed a black mustache, a breezy,

bustling manner, and humorous blue eyes; furthermore, when he took

off his hat, he revealed the possession of a head of very bristly,

upstanding, black hair. This was Detective-Sergeant Sowerby, and the

same who was engaged in examining a newspaper in the study of Henry

Leroux when Dr. Cumberly and his daughter had paid their second visit to

that scene of an unhappy soul's dismissal.

“Well?” said Dunbar, glancing up at his subordinate, inquiringly.

“I have done all the cab depots,” reported Sergeant Sowerby, “and a good

many of the private owners; but so far the man seen by Mr. Exel has not

turned up.”

“The word will be passed round now, though,” said Dunbar, “and we shall

probably have him here during the day.”

“I hope so,” said the other good-humoredly, seating himself upon one of

the two chairs ranged beside the wall. “If he doesn't show up.”...

“Well?” jerked Dunbar--“if he doesn't?”

“It will look very black against Leroux.”

Dunbar drummed upon the blotting-pad with the fingers of his left hand.

“It beats anything of the kind that has ever come my way,” he confessed.

“You get pretty cautious at weighing people up, in this business; but I

certainly don't think--mind you, I go no further--but I certainly

don't think Mr. Henry Leroux would willingly kill a fly; yet there is

circumstantial evidence enough to hang him.”

Sergeant Sowerby nodded, gazing speculatively at the floor.

“I wonder,” he said, slowly, “why the girl--Miss Cumberly--hesitated

about telling us the woman's name?”

“I am not wondering about that at all,” replied Dunbar, bluntly. “She

must meet thousands in the same way. The wonder to me is that she

remembered at all. I am open to bet half-a-crown that YOU couldn't

remember the name of every woman you happened to have pointed out to you

at an Arts Ball?”

“Maybe not,” agreed Sowerby; “she's a smart girl, I'll allow. I see you

have last night's papers there?”

“I have,” replied Dunbar; “and I'm wondering”...

“If there's any connection?”

“Well,” continued the inspector, “it looks on the face of it as though

the news of her husband's death had something to do with Mrs. Vernon's

presence at Leroux's flat. It's not a natural thing for a woman, on the

evening of her husband's death, to rush straight away to another man's

place”...

“It's strange we couldn't find her clothes”...

“It's not strange at all! You're simply obsessed with the idea that this

was a love intrigue! Think, man! the most abandoned woman wouldn't run

to keep an appointment with a lover at a time like that! And remember

she had the news in her pocket! She came to that flat dressed--or

undressed--just as we found her; I'm sure of it. And a point like that

sometimes means the difference between hanging and acquittal.”

Sergeant Sowerby digested these words, composing his jovial countenance

in an expression of unnatural profundity. Then:--

“THE point to my mind,” he said, “is the one raised by Mr. Hilton. By

gum! didn't Dr. Cumberly tell him off!”

“Dr. Cumberly,” replied Dunbar, “is entitled to his opinion, that the

injection in the woman's shoulder was at least eight hours old; whilst

Mr. Hilton is equally entitled to maintain that it was less than ONE

hour old. Neither of them can hope to prove his case.”

“If either of them could?”...

“It might make a difference to the evidence--but I'm not sure.”

“What time is your appointment?”