Sax Rohmer
THE YELLOW CLAW
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Titel Sax Rohmer THE YELLOW CLAW Dieses ebook wurde erstellt bei
THE LADY OF THE CIVET FURS
MIDNIGHT AND MR. KING
INSPECTOR DUNBAR TAKES CHARGE
A WINDOW IS OPENED
DOCTORS DIFFER
AT SCOTLAND YARD
THE MAN IN THE LIMOUSINE
CABMAN TWO
THE MAN IN BLACK
THE GREAT UNDERSTANDING
PRESENTING M. GASTON MAX
MR. GIANAPOLIS
THE DRAFT ON PARIS
EAST 18642
CAVE OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON
HO-PIN'S CATACOMBS
KAN-SUH CONCESSIONS
THE WORLD ABOVE
THE LIVING DEAD
ABRAHAM LEVINSKY BUTTS IN
THE STUDIO IN SOHO
M. MAX MOUNTS CAGLIOSTRO'S STAIRCASE
RAID IN THE RUE ST. CLAUDE
OPIUM
FATE'S SHUTTLECOCK
“OUR LADY OF THE POPPIES”
GROVE OF A MILLION APES
THE OPIUM AGENT
M. MAX OF LONDON AND M. MAX OF PARIS
MAHARA
MUSK AND ROSES
BLUE BLINDS
LOGIC VS. INTUITION
M. MAX REPORTS PROGRESS
TRACKER TRACKED
IN DUNBAR'S ROOM
THE WHISTLE
THE SECRET TRAPS
THE LABYRINTH
DAWN AT THE NORE
WESTMINSTER--MIDNIGHT
Impressum neobooks
THE LADY OF THE CIVET FURS
The Yellow Claw
Author: Sax Rohmer
Henry Leroux wrote busily on. The light of the table-lamp, softened and
enriched by its mosaic shade, gave an appearance of added opulence to
the already handsome appointments of the room. The little table-clock
ticked merrily from half-past eleven to a quarter to twelve.
Into the cozy, bookish atmosphere of the novelist's study penetrated the
muffled chime of Big Ben; it chimed the three-quarters. But, with his
mind centered upon his work, Leroux wrote on ceaselessly.
An odd figure of a man was this popular novelist, with patchy and
untidy hair which lessened the otherwise striking contour of his brow.
A neglected and unpicturesque figure, in a baggy, neutral-colored
dressing-gown; a figure more fitted to a garret than to this spacious,
luxurious workroom, with the soft light playing upon rank after rank
of rare and costly editions, deepening the tones in the Persian carpet,
making red morocco more red, purifying the vellum and regilding the
gold of the choice bindings, caressing lovingly the busts and statuettes
surmounting the book-shelves, and twinkling upon the scantily-covered
crown of Henry Leroux. The door bell rang.
Leroux, heedless of external matters, pursued his work. But the door
bell rang again and continued to ring.
“Soames! Soames!” Leroux raised his voice irascibly, continuing to write
the while. “Where the devil are you! Can't you hear the door bell?”
Soames did not reveal himself; and to the ringing of the bell was added
the unmistakable rattling of a letter-box.
“Soames!” Leroux put down his pen and stood up. “Damn it! he's out! I
have no memory!”
He retied the girdle of his dressing-gown, which had become unfastened,
and opened the study door. Opposite, across the entrance lobby, was
the outer door; and in the light from the lobby lamp he perceived two
laughing eyes peering in under the upraised flap of the letter-box. The
ringing ceased.
“Are you VERY angry with me for interrupting you?” cried a girl's voice.
“My dear Miss Cumberly!” said Leroux without irritation; “on the
contrary--er--I am delighted to see you--or rather to hear you. There is
nobody at home, you know.”...
“I DO know,” replied the girl firmly, “and I know something else, also.
Father assures me that you simply STARVE yourself when Mrs. Leroux is
away! So I have brought down an omelette!”
“Omelette!” muttered Leroux, advancing toward the door; “you
have--er--brought an omelette! I understand--yes; you have brought an
omelette? Er--that is very good of you.”
He hesitated when about to open the outer door, raising his hands to his
dishevelled hair and unshaven chin. The flap of the letter-box dropped;
and the girl outside could be heard stifling her laughter.
“You must think me--er--very rude,” began Leroux; “I mean--not to open
the door. But”...
“I quite understand,” concluded the voice of the unseen one. “You are a
most untidy object! And I shall tell Mira DIRECTLY she returns that she
has no right to leave you alone like this! Now I am going to hurry back
upstairs; so you may appear safely. Don't let the omelette get cold.
Good night!”
“No, certainly I shall not!” cried Leroux. “So good of you--I--er--do
like omelette.... Good night!”
Calmly he returned to his writing-table, where, in the pursuit of the
elusive character whose exploits he was chronicling and who had brought
him fame and wealth, he forgot in the same moment Helen Cumberly and the
omelette.
The table-clock ticked merrily on;
SCRATCH--SCRATCH--SPLUTTER--SCRATCH--went Henry Leroux's pen; for this
up-to-date litterateur, essayist by inclination, creator of “Martin
Zeda, Criminal Scientist” by popular clamor, was yet old-fashioned
enough, and sufficient of an enthusiast, to pen his work, while lesser
men dictated.
So, amidst that classic company, smiling or frowning upon him from the
oaken shelves, where Petronius Arbiter, exquisite, rubbed shoulders
with Balzac, plebeian; where Omar Khayyam leaned confidentially toward
Philostratus; where Mark Twain, standing squarely beside Thomas Carlyle,
glared across the room at George Meredith, Henry Leroux pursued the
amazing career of “Martin Zeda.”
It wanted but five minutes to the hour of midnight, when again the door
bell clamored in the silence.
Leroux wrote steadily on. The bell continued to ring, and, furthermore,
the ringer could be heard beating upon the outer door.
“Soames!” cried Leroux irritably, “Soames! Why the hell don't you go to
the door!”
Leroux stood up, dashing his pen upon the table.
“I shall have to sack that damned man!” he cried; “he takes too many
liberties--stopping out until this hour of the night!”
He pulled open the study door, crossed the hallway, and opened the door
beyond.
In, out of the darkness--for the stair lights had been
extinguished--staggered a woman; a woman whose pale face exhibited,
despite the ravages of sorrow or illness, signs of quite unusual beauty.
Her eyes were wide opened, and terror-stricken, the pupils contracted
almost to vanishing point. She wore a magnificent cloak of civet fur
wrapped tightly about her, and, as Leroux opened the door, she tottered
past him into the lobby, glancing back over her shoulder.
With his upraised hands plunged pathetically into the mop of his hair,
Leroux turned and stared at the intruder. She groped as if a darkness
had descended, clutched at the sides of the study doorway, and then,
unsteadily, entered--and sank down upon the big chesterfield in utter
exhaustion.
Leroux, rubbing his chin, perplexedly, walked in after her. He
scarcely had his foot upon the study carpet, ere the woman started up,
tremulously, and shot out from the enveloping furs a bare arm and a
pointing, quivering finger.
“Close the door!” she cried hoarsely--“close the door!... He has...
followed me!”...
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