The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5693]
"_B:_ the name of the missing cabman--Gaston Max!
"_C:_ the name of the man who rang me up at Dr. Stuart's and told me that Gaston Max was dead--Gaston Max!"
I returned the slip to Inspector Dunbar. I bowed.
"It is a pleasure and a privilege to work with you, Inspector," I said ....
This statement is nearly concluded. The whole of the evening I spent in the room of the Assistant Commissioner discussing the matters herein set forth and comparing notes with Inspector Dunbar. One important thing I learned: that I had abandoned my nightly watches too early. For one morning just before dawn someone who was _not_ Zara had paid a visit to the house of Dr. Stuart! I determined to call upon the doctor.
As it chanced I was delayed and did not actually arrive until so late an hour that I had almost decided not to present myself ... when a big yellow car flashed past the taxicab in which I was driving!
_Nom d'un nom!_ I could not mistake it! This was within a few hundred yards of the house of Dr. Stuart, you understand, and I instantly dismissed my cabman and proceeded to advance cautiously on foot. I could no longer hear the engine of the car which had passed ahead of me, but then I knew that it could run almost noiselessly. As I crept along in that friendly shadow cast by a high hedge which had served me so well before, I saw the yellow car. It was standing on the opposite side of the road. I reached the tradesman's entrance.
From my left, in the direction of the back lawn of the house, came a sudden singular crackling noise and I discerned a flash of blue flame resembling faint "summer lightning." A series of muffled explosions followed ... and in the darkness I tripped over something which lay along the ground at my feet--a length of cable it seemed to be.
Stumbling, I uttered a slight exclamation ... and instantly received a blow on the head that knocked me flat upon the ground! Everything was swimming around me, but I realized that someone--Chunda Lal probably--had been hiding in the very passage which I had entered! I heard again that uncanny wailing, close beside me.
Vaguely I discerned an incredible figure--like that of a tall cowled monk, towering over me. I struggled to retain consciousness--there was a rush of feet ... the throb of a motor. It stimulated me--that sound! I must get to the telephone and cause the yellow car to be intercepted.
I staggered to my feet and groped my way along the hedge to where I had observed a tree by means of which one might climb over. I was dizzy as a drunken man; but I half climbed and half fell on to the lawn. The windows were open. I rushed into the study of Dr. Stuart.
Pah! it was full of fumes. I looked around me. _Mon Dieu!_ I staggered. For I knew that in this fume-laden room a thing more horrible and more strange than any within my experience had taken place that night.
Part III
AT THE HOUSE OF AH-FANG-FU
CHAPTER I
THE BRAIN-THIEVES
The Assistant Commissioner lighted a cigarette. "It would appear, then," he said, "that whilst some minor difficulties have been smoothed away, we remain face to face with the major problem: who is 'The Scorpion' and to what end are his activities directed?"
Gaston Max shrugged his shoulders and smiled at Dr. Stuart.
"Let us see," he suggested, "what we really know about this 'Scorpion'. Let us make a brief survey of our position in the matter. Let us take first what we have learned of him--if it is a 'him' with whom we have to deal--from the strange experiences of Dr. Stuart. Without attaching too much importance to that episode five years ago on the Wu-Men Bridge; perhaps he is not. We will talk about this one again presently.
"We come to the arrival on the scene of Zara el-Khala, also called Mlle. Dorian. She comes because of what _I_ have told to the scarred man from Paris, she comes to obtain that dangerous information which is to be sent to Scotland Yard, she comes, in a word, from 'The Scorpion.' We have two links binding the poor one 'Le Balafre' to 'The Scorpion': (1) his intimacy