He had revealed the message which he had intended for his nephew.
It could not have been Coffran. Even at the point of death, Uncle Harvey would have recognized his enemy. It could not have been the ape-faced man. It must have been a third person — an agent of Coffran's. It did not matter who it had been. The vital fact was that the secret had been learned.
While he, Bruce Duncan, had been ignorant of his uncle's enmity toward Isaac Coffran, there had been no need for murder. But now, since Bruce had admitted that he intended to detect the thief, he had become a menace.
He seized the letter and turned to the second page. He followed the denunciation that his uncle had written from the point where he had left off.
—the man who will continue to keep my trust. When your name is mentioned, he will be warned against another — your companion in crime, Bernardo Chefano — whose twisted lips will reveal his identity, no matter what disguise or alias he may employ. Chefano is clever, but you are cunning. Yet I defy you both and I—"
Dizziness was seizing Duncan. He had taken the chair again. He rose to his feet and gasped. The letter fluttered to the floor. Bending slowly forward, Duncan lowered his head inch by inch. Gradually he felt the sensation of weakness returning.
He rushed to the door. It was locked. Then he stood motionless, his mind alternating between fear and anger.
The room was a death trap! Locked in this small compartment, he was to be the victim of Isaac Coffran's fiendish methods. That was cruelly plain.
From somewhere — from hidden spots about the room, a slow, deadly poison gas was entering the compartment. It must be akin to carbon monoxide — a vapor that could not be sensed by smell. Heavier than air, it was creeping upward from the floor, gradually overcoming him.
The last letter that revealed the true Isaac Coffran would never have been reached by Bruce Duncan.