Sax Rohmer

“ I asked, still leaning out of the window and filled with a great wonderment.
"Never mind," he panted. "Don't! Can I come up?"
Something now in the breathless speech of the man below struck me as oddly familiar. But yet so dense was I that I failed to recognize the truth of the matter, and:
"Certainly," I said. "I will bring a light down to show you the way, if you have business with me."
"No light!" he cried hoarsely. "If you value your life, don't strike a match!" ”

“ I said, laughing in a very forced fashion, "this has been a night of such intense surprises that I think I can survive one more."
"Very well," replied the Inspector; and there was something strange in hearing the familiar voice and dimly discerning in the reflected moonlight, which shone in at a window further along the passage, the unfamiliar figure before me.
"What have we to do?"
"We have to take a chance of sudden death!" he answered, "but we will minimize it as much as possible." ”

“ As I made this discovery the match smoldered out, and at the moment I was about to strike another the sound of footsteps which I had formerly detected grew louder and nearer, so that I could no longer doubt that some one was running along the road towards the Abbey Inn.
A great curiosity respecting this person seized me, and without striking a match as I had intended to do, I walked to the window and looked out into the road. Twenty yards away I saw the figure of a man who seemed to be come almost to the end of his resources; for I could hear him panting as he ran. ”