“Fling open the door!” The words loosed the leaden muscles of Sydney
Thames. He sprang to obey. The current of air seemed to tear the mist to
shreds instantly. Osmuhn took a half-step forward--stopped. Horror
showed on his face for an instant; then amazement.
On the floor beside the bookcase lay the Hindu. The blood from his wound
was staining the carpet. Beside him was a curious-looking knife, with
the point stained a dull green. But Thornley Colton and the invalid had
vanished utterly!
The line of bookcases was still unbroken. The wheel-chair was where it
had been before, but the occupant and the blind man were gone!
Fascinated, horror-stricken, the two men gazed at the empty chair and
the silent form of the Indian. A soft click sounded like a pistol-shot
in the death stillness of the room. A section of the case swung outward,
and Thornley Colton, his overcoat slashed from shoulder to waist, stood
before them, smiling grimly.
“My God, Thorn!” gasped Sydney, his strictured heart beating once more.
“Is there any blood on that knife-point, Sydney?” asked the blind man
quietly.
Thames picked up the knife to examine it.
“Careful,” warned the problemist. “By the way he slashed at me I think
there is one of the devilish Indian poisons on the point.”
Osmuhn and Sydney looked at the green-stained point, the slashed coat of
the man who stood before them, smiling calmly, as he awaited the verdict
of life or death.
“No,” choked Sydney. He staggered against the wall. “Thank God! Thank
God!” he prayed, eyes on the man who had been the only father he had
ever known.
Thornley Colton dismissed his escape with a nod and spoke to the
white-faced Osmuhn. “I think I told you that eyes would be of very
little use in the _denouement_. I knew the man, and the chances he’d
take. I expected the fog. The game was to spring open the secret door,
wheel the man and the chair inside, and leave us gaping idiotically.
Would you like to see the thief; the cleverest, most daring I have ever
encountered?”
He stepped aside. Dazedly Osmuhn and Sydney followed, only to stop at
the doorway.
Manacled on the floor was the thief. Beside him, in a little heap, was
the white wig and beard.
The thief was Norvel, the diamond expert!
“No,” said Thornley Colton, “it isn’t Norvel. It is the man who has been
impersonating him for months. The man who lay in a French hospital
learning every secret of the real Norvel, as he raved in delirium
following the accident. Where Norvel is----.” He paused significantly.
“His carcass is feeding fishes in the Seine!” snarled the crippled man.
Then he burst into a vicious, sneering laugh. “Find the jewels?” he
taunted.
“Easily.” Colton went through the door that Sydney and Osmuhn now knew
connected Norvel’s house with the one next door. He wrenched off one of
the knobs at the end of the wheel-chair handle. They saw the red flash
of the ruby as he held it up to the light.
“The necklace and the dozen other jewels that haven’t yet been missed
are in the hollow handle,” he said quietly.