The Yellow Claw by Sax Rohmer (i like reading books TXT) 📕

night, of course, and because of the big names, we hushed it up. We can do these things in Paris so much more easily than is possible here in London.” He illustrated, delivering a kick upon the person of an imaginary malefactor. “Cochon! Va!” he shrugged. “It is finished!

“The place was arranged with Oriental magnificence. The reception-room—if I can so term that apartment—was like the scene of Rimsky Korsakov's Sheherezade; I could see that very heavy charges were made at this establishment. I will not bore you with further particulars, but I will tell you of my disappointment.”

“Your disappointment?”

“Yes, I was disappointed. True, I had brought about the closing of that house, but of the huge sums of money fraudulently obtained from victims, I could find no trace in the accounts of Madame Jean. She defied me with silence, simply declining to give any account of herself beyond admitting that she conducted an hotel at which opium might be smoked if desired. Blagueur! Sen, the Chinaman, who professed to speak nothing but Chinese—ah! cochon!—was equally a difficult case, Nom d'un nom! I was in despair, for apart from frauds connected with the concern, I had more than small suspicions that at least one death—that of a wealthy banker—could be laid at the doors of the establishment in Rue St. Claude.”...

Dr. Cumberly bent yet lower, watching the speaker's face.

“A murder!” he whispered.

“I do not say so,” replied Max, “but it certainly might have been. The case then must, indeed, have ended miserably, as far as I was concerned, if I had not chanced upon a letter which the otherwise prudent Madame Jean had forgotten to destroy. Triomphe! It was a letter of instruction, and definitely it proved that she was no more than a kind of glorified concierge, and that the chief of the opium group was in London.”

“Undoubtedly in London. There was no address on the letter, and no date, and it was curiously signed: Mr. King.”

“Mr. King!”

Dr. Cumberly rose slowly from his chair, and took a step toward M. Max.

“You are interested?” said the detective, and shrugged his shoulders, whilst his mobile mouth shaped itself in a grim smile. “Pardieu! I knew you would be! Acting upon another clue which the letter—priceless letter—contained, I visited the Credit Lyonnais. I discovered that an account had been opened there by Mr. Henry Leroux of London on behalf of his wife, Mira Leroux, to the amount of a thousand pounds.”

“A thousand pounds—really!” cried Dr. Cumberly, drawing his heavy brows together—“as much as that?”

“Certainly. It was for a thousand pounds,” repeated Max, “and the whole of that amount had been drawn out.”

“The whole thousand?”

“The whole thousand; nom d'un p'tit bonhomme! The whole thousand! Acting, as I have said, upon the information in this always priceless letter, I confronted Madame Jean and the manager of the bank with each other. Morbleu! 'This,' he said, 'is Mira Leroux of London!'”...

“What!” cried Cumberly, seemingly quite stupefied by this last revelation.

Max spread wide his palms, and the flexible lips expressed sympathy with the doctor's stupefaction.

“It is as I tell you,” he continued. “This Madame Jean had been posing as Mrs. Leroux, and in some way, which I was unable to understand, her signature had been accepted by the Credit Lyonnais. I examined the specimen signature which had been forwarded to them by the London County and Suburban Bank, and I perceived, at once, that it was not a case of common forgery. The signatures were identical”...

“Therefore,” said Cumberly, and he was thinking of Henry Leroux, whom Fate delighted in buffeting—“therefore, the Credit Lyonnais is not responsible?”

“Most decidedly not responsible,” agreed Max. “So you see I now have two reasons for coming to London: one, to visit the London County and Suburban Bank, and the other to find... Mr. King. The first part of my mission I have performed successfully; but the second”... again he shrugged, and the lines of his mouth were humorous.

Dr. Cumberly began to walk up and down the carpet.

“Poor Leroux!” he muttered—“poor Leroux.”

“Ah! poor Leroux, indeed,” said Max. “He is so typical a victim of this most infernal group!”

“What!” Dr. Cumberly turned in his promenade and stared at the detective—“he's not the only one?”

“My dear sir,” said Max, gently, “the victims of Mr. King are truly as the sands of Arabia.”

“Good heavens!” muttered Dr. Cumberly; “good heavens!”

“I came immediately to London,” continued Max, “and presented myself at New Scotland Yard. There I discovered that my inquiry was complicated by a ghastly crime which had been committed in the flat of Mr. Leroux; but I learned, also, that Mr. King was concerned in this crime—his name had been found upon a scrap of paper clenched in the murdered woman's hand!”

“I was present when it was found,” said Dr. Cumberly.

“I know you were,” replied Max. “In short, I discovered that the Palace Mansions murder case was my case, and that my case was the Palace Mansions case. Eh bien! the mystery of the Paris draft did not detain me long. A call upon the manager of the London County and Suburban Bank at Charing Cross revealed to me the whole plot. The real Mrs. Leroux had never visited that bank; it was Madame Jean, posing as Mrs. Leroux, who went there and wrote the specimen signature, accompanied by a certain Soames, a butler”...

“I know him!” said Dr. Cumberly, grimly, “the blackguard!”

“Truly a blackguard, truly a big, dirty blackguard! But it is such canaille as this that Mr. King discovers and uses for his own ends. Paris society, I know for a fact; has many such a cankerworm in its heart. Oh! it is a big case, a very big case. Poor Mr. Leroux being confined to his bed—ah! I pity him—I took the opportunity to visit his flat in Palace Mansions with Inspector Dunbar, and I obtained further evidence showing how the conspiracy had been conducted; yes. For instance, Dunbar's notebook showed me that Mr. Leroux was accustomed to receive letters from Mrs. Leroux whilst she was supposed to be in Paris. I actually discovered some of those letters, and they bore no dates. This, if they came from a woman, was not remarkable, but, upon one of them I found something that WAS remarkable. It was still in its envelope, you must understand, this letter, its envelope bearing the Paris post-mark. But impressed upon the paper I discovered a second post-mark, which, by means of a simple process, and the use of a magnifying glass, I made out to be Bow, East!”

“What!”

“Do you understand? This letter, and others doubtless, had been enclosed in an envelope and despatched to Paris from Bow, East? In short, Mrs. Leroux wrote those letters before she left London; Soames never posted them, but handed them over to some representative of Mr. King; this other, in turn, posted them to Madame Jean in Paris!