But, in my attempts upon the life of Mr. Addison, I had not counted with Nahemah.  I had raised up a monster ... that monster ... has destroyed me....

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE CLAWS OF THE CAT

The hoarse voice ceased.  Neither Gatton nor I moved or spoke.  Then: 

“I have three minutes—­or less,” whispered Damar Greefe.  “Question me.  I am at your service.”

“Where is your villa?” asked Gatton suddenly.

“It is called The Laurels—­”

“The Laurels!” I cried incredulously.

“It is called so,” whispered the Eurasian.  “It is the last house but one in College Road!  From there I conducted my last experiment with L.K.  Vapor, which resulted not in the death of Mr. Addison, but in that of Eric Coverly—­”

Gatton sprang to his feet.

“Come along, Mr. Addison!” he cried.  But: 

“The Laurels is empty,” came, ever more faintly.  “In her Sothic fury, Nahemah fled.  The bloodlust is upon her.  I warn you.  She is more dangerous ... than ... any rabid dog....  Tuberculosis will end her life ... before the snows ... come.  But there is time for her to ...  Ah, God’s mercy!”

He writhed.  He was contorted.  Foam appeared Upon his lips.

“Hlangkuna!" he moaned, “hlangkuna!  She ... touched me with a poisoned needle ... two hours—­ago....”

He rose to his full height, uttered a stifled scream, and crashed down upon the floor—­dead!

In a species of consternation, Gatton and I stood looking at one another—­standing rigidly like men of stone one on either side of that long, thin body stretched upon my study floor.  The hawk face in profile was startlingly like that of Anubis as it lay against the red carpet.

Neither of us, I think, was capable of grasping the fact that the inquiry was all but ended and that the mysteries which had seemed so dark and insoluble were cleared up and the inner workings of this strange conspiracy laid bare before us.  One thought, I believe, was uppermost in both our minds:  that the man who now lay dead upon the floor, a victim of one of his own devilish inventions, was no more than a brilliant madman.

If his great work on the ape-men of Abyssinia and that greater one dealing with what he called “the psycho-hybrids” had ever had existence outside his own strange imagination no one was ever likely to know.  But that Dr. Damar Greefe was a genius whom much learning had made mad, neither of us doubted.

The whole thing seemed the wildest phantasy, and, for a time, in doubting the reality of the Eurasian’s work, I found myself doubting the evidence of my own senses and seriously wondering if this possessed witch-cat whose green eyes had moved like Satanic lanterns throughout the whole phantasmagoria, had any more palpable existence than the other strange things spoken of by the unscrupulous scientist.