With the skill in summarizing detail at a glance which contributed
largely to make him the great criminal investigator that he was, he
noted those particulars which at an earlier time had occasioned the
astonishment of Soames.
M. Max was too deeply versed in his art to attempt any further
investigations, yet; he contented himself with learning as much as was
possible without moving in any way; and whilst he lay there awaiting
whatever might come, the door opened noiselessly--to admit Ho-Pin.
He was about to be submitted to a supreme test, for which, however, he
was not unprepared. He lay with closed eyes, breathing nasally.
Ho-Pin, his face a smiling, mirthless mask, bent over the bed. Adeptly,
he seized the right eyelid of M. Max, and rolled it back over his
forefinger, disclosing the eyeball. M. Max, anticipating this test of
the genuineness of his coma, had rolled up his eyes at the moment of
Ho-Pin's approach, so that now only the white of the sclerotic showed.
His trained nerves did not betray him. He lay like a dead man, never
flinching.
Ho-Pin, releasing the eyelid, muttered something gutturally, and stole
away from the bed as silently as he had approached it. Very methodically
he commenced to search through M. Max's effects, commencing with the
discarded garments.
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