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Rohmer, Sax, 1883-1959

"The Yellow Claw"


Shivering slightly, Soames picked up the bag and began to walk back.
Less than half-way along, an icy chill entered into his veins, and his
nerves quivered like piano wires, for a soft crying of his name came,
eerie, through the silence, and terrified the hearer.
"SOAMES!... SOAMES!"...
Soames stopped dead, breathing very rapidly, and looking about him right
and left. He could hear the muted pulse of sleeping London. Then, in the
dark doorway of the house before which he stood, he perceived, dimly, a
motionless figure. His first sensation was not of relief, but of fear.
The figure raised a beckoning hand. Soames, conscious that his course
was set and that he must navigate it accordingly, opened the iron gate,
passed up the path and entered the house to which he thus had been
summoned....
He found himself surrounded by absolute darkness, and the door was
closed behind him.
"Straight ahead, Soames!" said the familiar voice of Gianapolis out of
the darkness.
Soames, with a gasp of relief, staggered on. A hand rested upon his
shoulder, and he was guided into a room on the right of the passage.
Then an electric lamp was lighted, and he found himself confronting the
Greek.
But Gianapolis was no longer radiant; all the innate evil of the man
shone out through the smirking mask.


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