THE YELLOW CLAW




I

THE LADY OF THE CIVET FURS


Henry Leroux wrote busily on. The light of the table-lamp, softened and
enriched by its mosaic shade, gave an appearance of added opulence to
the already handsome appointments of the room. The little table-clock
ticked merrily from half-past eleven to a quarter to twelve.

Into the cozy, bookish atmosphere of the novelist's study penetrated the
muffled chime of Big Ben; it chimed the three-quarters. But, with his
mind centered upon his work, Leroux wrote on ceaselessly.

An odd figure of a man was this popular novelist, with patchy and
untidy hair which lessened the otherwise striking contour of his brow.
A neglected and unpicturesque figure, in a baggy, neutral-colored
dressing-gown; a figure more fitted to a garret than to this spacious,
luxurious workroom, with the soft light playing upon rank after rank
of rare and costly editions, deepening the tones in the Persian carpet,
making red morocco more red, purifying the vellum and regilding the