"Oh, my God!" he groaned.
Terror claimed him--the terror which he had with difficulty been
fending off throughout that nightmare interview with Fo-Hi. Madness
threatened him, and he was seized by an almost incontrollable desire
to shout execrations--prayers--he knew not what. He clenched his teeth
grimly and tried to think, to plan.
He had two chances:
The statement left with Inspector Dunbar, in which he had mentioned
the existence of a house "near Hampton Court," and ... Miska.
That she was one of the two exceptions mentioned by Fo-Hi he felt
assured. But was she in this house, and did she know of his presence
there? Even so, had she access to that room of mysteries--of horrors?
And who was the other who remained? Almost certainly it was the
fanatical Hindu, Chunda Lal, of whom she had spoken with such palpable
terror and who watched her unceasingly, untiringly. _He_ would prevent
her intervening even if she had power to intervene.
His great hope, then, was in Dunbar ... for Gaston Max was dead.
At the coming of that thought, the foul doing to death of the fearless
Frenchman, he gnashed his teeth savagely and strained at the gyves
until the pain in his ankles brought out beads of perspiration upon
his forehead.
He dropped his head into his hands and frenziedly clutched at his
hair with twitching fingers.
The faint sound occasioned by the opening of one of the sliding doors
brought him sharply upright.
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