As the malignant Sepoy bestowed the stiffening body upon the carpet, he released his horrible clutch upon the detective’s throat, and, despite his manacles, began with desperate agility to search the silent man’s waistcoat pockets.
From one futile quest his implacable hands leaped to another, the length of chain which held the two handcuffs together rattling an eerie accompaniment to his eagerness.
At last he withdrew a tiny key.
Grasping the precious bit of steel in his right hand the Sepoy inserted it in the latch-hole of the left manacle; a quick turn, and the steel clasp relaxed its obnoxious embrace.
It was but the work of a second to repeat these operations on his right arm, and the Sepoy was free.
“Ha!” The breath seemed to whistle from his lungs with one sharp, exulting impulse.
He stretched his superb figure to its utmost, and with the smile of a re-embodied Lucifer restored the sapphire to its case.
For a brief space he gazed upon the man extended upon the floor, and then, urged by some devilish impulse, if one might judge from the expression of his countenance, he knelt by the prostrate body and placed his ear to the pulseless breast.
The next instant, stimulated, apparently, by some unexpected endorsement of a vague possibility, he was upon his feet and had darted to a small cabinet near-by.
His hasty foray among its drawers was rewarded with a small bottle, the stopper of which he removed.