Page:Yellow Claw 1920.djvu/400

 wild beast, but as the loathing which is inspired by a thing diseased, leprous, contagious.…

A mighty effort of will was called for, but he managed to achieve it. He drew himself upright, breathing very rapidly, and looked through into the room—the room which he had occupied, and from which a moment ago the murderous yellow hand had protruded.

That room was empty…empty as he had left it!

“Mille tonneres! he has escaped me!” he cried aloud, and the words did not seem of his own choosing.

Who had escaped? Someone—man or woman; rather some thing, which, yellow handed, had sought to murder him!

Max ran across to the second trap and looked down at the woman whom he knew, beyond doubt, to be Mrs. Leroux. She lay in her death-like trance, unmoved.

Strung up to uttermost tension, he looked down at her and listened—listened, intently.

Above the fumes of the apartment in which the woman lay, a stifling odor of roses was clearly perceptible. The whole place was tropically hot. Not a sound, save the creaking of the shelf beneath him, broke the heavy stillness.