Page:The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1916).djvu/344

the hall. In an inside pocket, as near to my body as I could put them, I had the two candles. How I should use them both I had already decided. The valet ushered me into Kara's room and once more I stood in the presence of the man who had killed my girl and blotted out all that was beautiful in life for me."

There was a breathless silence when he paused. T. X. leaned back in his chair, his head upon his breast, his arms folded, his eyes watching the other intently.

The Chief Commissioner, with a heavy frown and pursed lips, sat stroking his moustache and looking under his shaggy eyebrows at the speaker. The French police officer, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his head on one side, was taking in every word eagerly. The sallow-faced Russian, impassive of face, might have been a carved ivory mask. O'Grady, the American, the stump of a dead cigar between his teeth, shifted impatiently with every pause as though he would hurry forward the dénouement.