The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5736]
Seated in a strangely-shaped canopied chair was a figure wearing a rich mandarin robe, but having its face covered with a green veil.
_"Mon Deiu!_ at last!" he cried, and leapt into the room. "'The Scorpion'!"
Even as he leapt, and as the Scotland Yard men closed in upon the chair also, all of them armed and all half fearful, a thing happened which struck awe to every heart--for it seemed to be supernatural.
Raising a metal hammer which he held in his hand, Fo-Hi struck the bronze bell hung beside the chair. It emitted a deep, loud note....
There came a flash of blinding light, and intense crackling sound, the crash of broken glass, and a dense cloud of pungent fumes rose in the heated air.
Dunbar had just climbed in behind Gaston Max. Bother were all but hurled from their feet by the force of the explosion. Then:
"Oh, my God!" cried Dunbar, staggering, half blinded, _"look--look!"_
A deathly silence claimed them all. Just within the doorway Stuart appeared, having his arm about the shoulders of Miska.
The Throne of the Gods was empty! A thin coating of grey dust was settling upon it and upon the dais which supported it.
They had witnessed a scientific miracle ... the complete and instantaneous disintegration of a human body. Gaston Max was the first to recover speech.
"We are defeated," he said. "'The Scorpion,' surrounded, destroys himself. It is the way of a scorpion."
________
Go to Start
The Darrow Enigma
by Melvin L. Severy
THE EPISODE OF THE DARKENED ROOM -I- | -II- | -III- | -IV-
THE EPISODE OF THE SEALED DOCUMENT -I-
THE EPISODE OF RAMA RAGOBAH -I- | -II-
THE EPISODE OF THE PARALLEL READERS -I- | -II- | -III-
THE EPISODE OF THE TELLTALE THUMB -I- | -II- | -III- | -IV- | -V-
THE EPISODE OF THE DARKENED ROOM
CHAPTER I
What shall we say when Dream-Pictures leave their frames of night and push us from the waking world?
As the part I played in the events I am about to narrate was rather that of a passive observer than of an active participant, I need say little of myself. I am a graduate of a Western university and, by profession, a physician. My practice is now extensive, owing to my blundering into fame in a somewhat singular manner, but a year ago I had, I assure you, little enough to do. Inasmuch as my practice is now secure, I feel perfectly free to confess that the cure I effected in the now celebrated case of Mrs. P-- was altogether the result of chance, and not, as I was then only too glad to have people believe, due to an almost supernatural power of diagnosis.
Mrs. P-- was not more surprised at the happy result than was I; the only difference being that she showed her astonishment, while I endeavoured to conceal mine, and affected to look upon the whole thing as a matter of course.
My fame spread; the case got into the medical journals, where my skill was much lauded, and my practice became enormous. There is but one thing further I need mention regarding myself: that is, that I am possessed of a memory which my friends are pleased to consider phenomenal. I can repeat a lecture, sermon, or conversation almost word for word after once hearing it, provided always, that the subject commands my interest. My humble abilities in this direction have never ceased to be a source of wonderment to my acquaintance, though I confess, for my own part, when I compare them with those of Blind Tom, or of the man who, after a single reading, could correctly repeat the London Times, advertisements and all, they seem modest indeed.
It was about the time when, owing to the blessed Mrs. P--, my creditors were beginning to receive some attention, that I first met George Maitland. He had need, he said, of my professional services; he felt much under the weather; could I give him something which would brace him up a bit; he had some important chemical work on hand which he could not afford to put by; in fact, he didn't mind saying that he was at work upon a table of atomical