The chime being completed: ONE! boomed the clock; TWO!... THREE! ...
FOUR!...
The light in the entrance-hall went out!
FIVE! boomed Big Ben;--SIX!... SEVEN!...
A hand, of old ivory hue, a long, yellow, clawish hand, with part of a
sinewy forearm, crept in from the black lobby through the study doorway
and touched the electric switch!
EIGHT!...
The study was plunged in darkness!
Uttering a sob--a cry of agony and horror that came from her very
soul--the woman stood upright and turned to face toward the door,
clutching the sheet of paper in one rigid hand.
Through the leaded panes of the window above the writing-table swept
a silvern beam of moonlight. It poured, searchingly, upon the fur-clad
figure swaying by the table; cutting through the darkness of the room
like some huge scimitar, to end in a pallid pool about the woman's
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