heat of the room
was almost insufferable. He dropped with a sigh upon a silk ottoman
close beside him....

A short, staccato, muffled report split the heavy silence... and a
little round hole appeared in the woodwork of the book-shelf before
which, an instant earlier, M. Max had been standing--in the woodwork of
that shelf, which had been upon a level with his head.

In one giant leap he hurled himself across the room--... as a second
bullet pierced the yellow silk of the ottoman.

Close under the trap he crouched, staring up, fearful-eyed....

A yellow hand and arm--a hand and arm of great nervous strength and of
the hue of old ivory, directed a pistol through the opening above him.
As he leaped, the hand was depressed with a lightning movement, but,
lunging suddenly upward, Max seized the barrel of the pistol, and with
a powerful wrench, twisted it from the grasp of the yellow hand. It was
his own Browning!

At the time--in that moment of intense nervous excitement--he ascribed
his sensations to his swift bout with Death--with Death who almost
had conquered; but later, even now, as he wrenched the weapon into
his grasp, he wondered if physical fear could wholly account for the
sickening revulsion which held him back from that rectangular opening in
the bookcase. He thought that he recognized in this a kindred horror--as
distinct from terror--to that which had come to him with the odor of
roses through this very trap, upon the night of his first visit to the
catacombs of Ho-Pin.

It was not as the fear which one has of a dangerous wild beast, but
as the loathing which is inspired by a thing diseased, leprous,
contagious....

A mighty effort of will was called for, but he managed to achieve it.
He drew himself upright, breathing very rapidly, and looked through into
the room--the room which he had occupied, and from which a moment ago
the murderous yellow hand had protruded.

That room was empty... empty as he had left it!

"Mille tonnerres! he has escaped me!" he cried aloud, and the words did
not seem of his own choosing.

WHO had escaped? Someone--man or woman; rather some THING, which, yellow
handed, had sought to murder him!

Max ran across to the second trap and looked down at the woman whom he
knew, beyond doubt, to be Mrs. Leroux. She lay in her death-like trance,
unmoved.

Strung up to uttermost tension, he looked down at her and
listened--listened, intently.

Above the fumes of the apartment