Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/26

 obstacle which lay in his path, to help himself to a match. As he stooped to do so, he perceived that in the closed right hand of the dead woman was a torn scrap of paper.

“Leroux! Cumberly!” he exclaimed; “come here!”

He pointed with the match as Cumberly hurriedly crossed to his side. Leroux, inert, remained where he sat, but watched with haggard eyes. Dr. Cumberly bent down and sought to detach the paper from the grip of the poor cold fingers, without tearing it. Finally he contrived to release the fragment, and, perceiving it to bear some written words, he spread it out beneath the lamp, on the table, and eagerly scanned it, lowering his massive gray head close to the writing.

He inhaled, sibilantly.

“Do you see, Exel?” he jerked—for Exel was bending over his shoulder.

“I do—but I don’t understand.”

“What is it?” came hollowly from Leroux.

“It is the bottom part of an unfinished note,” said Cumberly, slowly. “It is written shakily in a woman’s hand, and it reads:—‘Your wife’”…

Leroux sprang to his feet and crossed the room in three strides.

“Wife!” he muttered. His voice seemed to be choked in his throat; “my wife! It says something about my wife?”

“It says,” resumed the doctor, quietly, “‘your