As the panel opened, two thick-set brown hands came into view, one on each side of Chatham’s chair.
“You will forget your fears, Chatham,” came Palermo’s dulcet voice. “In an instant they will vanish — and they will never return. I can promise you that—”
The physician spoke on, gazing intently at the gem in his hand. But Horace Chatham never heard the words that followed. For while Palermo talked, the brown hands slipped suddenly forward, and, coming together, gripped Chatham’s throat.
A slight gurgle escaped Chatham’s lips. He clutched and clawed at the strangling hands, but his efforts were without avail. The grim talons were victorious. The pressure never yielded while Chatham gasped away his life.
When the man in the chair became motionless, the brown hands slipped back into the darkness, and the panel closed in the wall.
Doctor Palermo was still speaking, and his voice was gloating. He was talking to a dead man in the chair.
He stopped suddenly, and looked at Chatham’s body while he smiled. Then he turned away, and opened the drawer of a table. Replacing the purple sapphire in its case, he tossed the gem and its carrier into the drawer.
He walked forward to Chatham’s limp form. He removed various articles from the dead man’s pockets and inspected them.
A smile flickered on his face as he discovered a theater ticket. Doctor Palermo placed the bit of cardboard in his own vest pocket. He also transferred Chatham’s wallet and several cards to his own clothing.
From a table drawer, Palermo brought out a long, flat metal box, which he laid on a stand, close by the chair in which Chatham had died.