The eclat of this singular case beckoned. He seemed to brace himself morally and physically as he leaned back in his chair and again looked at his desperate companion. At once the Sepoy, upon whom no vestige of this mental tumult was lost, again restored the ebbing temptation to its flood by exclaiming: "Here is a more convincing reason still," and raising his hands to his breast, in order to give the detective easier access to the point designated beneath his arms, he said: "Reach into the pocket on the left." For a moment Gratz hesitated. If he had found the first subsidy difficult to refuse, how might he resist the second, or, he added to himself, with a sort of usurious exaltation, the depravity of the two combined? Curiosity, too, without which no detective is truly fit for his calling, moved him, so with the impatient impulse we so often witness when rectitude is about to subject itself to the persuasions of the evil one for the ostensible purpose of combating them and the private determination to yield, Gratz extended a trembling hand toward the Sepoy, who had drawn himself to the extreme limit of his sinewy height, the better to accommodate his figure to the intent search of the detective, and then---- Just as Gratz managed to insert his trembling fingers over the edge of the pocket rim, a pair of tense, sinewy hands shot upward and with incredible dexterity encircled the throat of the detective. The surprise was complete. The hands of the unfortunate man flew out wildly, grasping at nothing, and the next instant closed upon the wrists of the Sepoy. But the recoil was too late. The frightful grasp concentrated its deadly pressure. The livid face of the detective grew purple. His eyes seemed about to bulge from their sockets. His grip relaxed from the wrists of his antagonist, and then all vigor seemed to vanish from his body, and he sank inertly to the floor. 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.