The Mystery Megapack

expected to return. The devilish mechanism was set ready to receive him. But the artist within him demanded that he should unmask the mystery with his own hands.
    Moreover, he doubted that an official visit, even now, would yield any results. Old Huang Chow was too cunning for that. If he was to learn how the man Cohen had died, he must follow the same path to the bitter end. But there were men on duty round the house, and he believed that he had placed them so secretly as to deceive even this master of cunning with whom he was dealing.
    He repeated his exploit, dropping with a dull thud upon the cushioned divan. Then, having lain there listening awhile, he pressed the button of his torch, and, standing up, crept across the room in the direction of the stairway.
    Here he paused awhile, listening intently. The image of Lala Huang arose before his mind’s eye reproachfully, but he crushed the reproach, and advanced until he stood beside the lacquered coffin.
    He remembered where the key was hidden, and, stooping, he fumbled for a while and then found it. He was acutely conscious of an unnamable fear. He felt that he was watched, and yet was unwilling to believe it. The musty and unpleasant smell which he had noticed before became extremely perceptible.
    He quietly sought for the hidden lock, and, presently finding it, inserted the key, then paused awhile. He rested his torch upon the cushions of the divan where the light shone directly upon the coffin. Then, having his automatic in his left hand, he turned the key.
    He had expected now to be able to raise the lid as he had seen Huang Chow do; but the result was far more surprising.
    The lid, together with a second framework of fine netting, flew open with a resounding bang; and from the interior of the coffin came a most abominable stench.
    Durham started back a step, and as he did so witnessed a sight which turned him sick with horror.
    Out on to the edge of the coffin leapt the most gigantic spider which he had ever seen in his life! It had a body as big as a man’s fist, jet black, with hairy legs like the legs of a crab and a span of a foot or more!
    A moment it poised there, while he swayed, sick with horror. Then, unhesitatingly, it leapt for his face!
    He groaned and fired, missed the horror, but diverted its leap, so that it fell with a sickening thud a yard behind him. He turned, staggering back towards the stair, and aware that a light had shone out from somewhere.
    A door had been opened only a few yards from where he stood, and there, framed in the opening, was Lala Huang, her eyes wide with terror and her gaze set upon him across the room.
    “You!” she whispered. “You!”
    “Go back!” he cried hoarsely. “Go back! Close the door. You don’t understand—close the door!”
    Her gaze set wildly upon him, Lala staggered forward; stopped dead; looked down at her bare ankle, and then, seeing the thing which had fastened upon her, uttered a piercing shriek which rang throughout the place.
    At which moment the floor slid away beneath Durham, and he found himself falling—falling—and then battling for life in evil-smelling water, amidst absolute darkness.
    Police whistles were skirling around the house of Huang Chow. As the hidden men came running into the court:
    “You heard the shot?” cried the sergeant in charge. “I warned him not to go alone. Don’t waste time on the door. One man stay on duty there; the rest of you follow me.”
    In a few moments, led by the sergeant, the party came dropping heavily through the skylight into the treasure-house of Huang Chow, in which every lamp was now alight. A trap was open near the foot of the stairs, and from beneath it muffled cries proceeded. In this direction the sergeant headed. Craning over the trap:
    “Hallo, Mr. Durham!” he called. “Mr. Durham!”
    “Get a rope and a ladder,” came a faint cry from below. “I can just touch bottom with my feet and keep my head above water, but the tide’s coming in. Look to the girl, though, first. Look to the girl!”
    The sergeant turned to where, stretched upon a tiger skin before a half-open door, Lala Huang lay, scantily clothed and white as death.
    Upon one of her bare ankles was a discoloured mark.
    As the sergeant and another of the men stooped over her a moaning sound drew their attention to the stair, and there, bent and tottering slowly down, was old Huang Chow, his eyes peering through the owl-like glasses vacantly across the room to where