THE YELLOW CLAW. Sax Rohmer
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shall willingly give you any assistance in my power,” he said;
“but my daughter has voluntarily committed herself to a rather painful
ordeal, and I am anxious to get it over.”
He stooped and raised the fur from the ghastly face.
Helen, her hand resting upon her father's shoulder, ventured one rapid
glance and then looked away, shuddering slightly. Dr. Cumberly replaced
the coat and gazed anxiously at his daughter. But Helen, with admirable
courage, having closed her eyes for a moment, reopened them, and smiled
at her father's anxiety. She was pale, but perfectly composed.
“Well, Miss Cumberly?” inquired the inspector, eagerly; whilst all in
the room watched this slim girl in her charming deshabille, this dainty
figure so utterly out of place in that scene of morbid crime.
She raised her gray eyes to the detective.
“I still believe that I have seen the face, somewhere, before. But I
shall have to reflect a while--I meet so many folks, you know, in a
casual way--before I can commit myself to any statement.”
In the leonine eyes looking into hers gleamed the light of admiration
and approval. The canny Scotsman admired this girl for her beauty, as
a matter of course, for her courage, because courage was a quality
standing high in his estimation, but, above all, for her admirable
discretion.
“Very proper, Miss Cumberly,” he said; “very proper and wise on your
part. I don't wish to hurry you in any way, but”--he hesitated, glancing
at the man in plain clothes, who had now resumed a careful perusal of a
newspaper--“but her name doesn't happen to be Vernon--”
“Vernon!” cried the girl, her eyes lighting up at sound of the name.
“Mrs. Vernon! it is! it is! She was pointed out to me at the last Arts
Ball--where she appeared in a most monstrous Chinese costume--”
“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.
AT SCOTLAND YARD
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