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.
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