"Max and Dunbar are in!" said Kelly. "Come on, sir! Follow closely,
boys!"
He ran up the stairs and along the corridor to the door at the end.
A muffled shot sounded from somewhere in the depths of the house.
"That's Harvey!" said one of the men who followed--"Our man must have
tried to escape by the tunnel to the river bank!"
Inspector Kelly placed the key in the lock of the door.
It was at this moment that Gaston Max, climbing up to the front
balcony by means of the natural ladder afforded by the ancient ivy,
grasped the iron railing and drew himself up to the level of the
room. By this same stairway Chunda Lal had ascended to death and
Miska had climbed down to life.
"Mind the ironwork doesn't give way, sir!" called Dunbar from below.
"It is strong," replied Max. "Join me here, my friend."
Max, taking a magazine pistol from his pocket, stepped warily over
the ledge into the mysterious half-light behind the great screen. As
he did so, one of the lacquer doors was unlocked from the outside,
and across the extraordinary, smoke-laden room he saw Inspector Kelly
enter. He saw something else.
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.
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