Sax Rohmer

“ Latham answered, closing his eyes and speaking musingly. “The Swiss electrician, inventor of the Ernst Trajector, much discussed but never demonstrated.”
“That's the man,” snapped Harley; “he died abroad, and—well, the voice of Káli is a far reaching voice!”
“But, damn it all, Harley!” exclaimed Latham. “The voice of Káli doesn't kill folks in England!”
“It does!” Harley's expression grew more grim than ever. “The man you saw died of the Listening Death!”
“My dear fellow!” Latham's tone was almost incredulous. “What is it? A disease? Hypnotism? Magic?” ”

“ He mentally reviewed his recent interview with Mohammed Khán, the Indian butler, and that, less satisfactory, with Wu Chang, Van Dean's Chinese servant.
The American's eccentricities irritated him. For a man who knew himself to have incurred the enmity of a powerful Eastern group to retain in his household a native of Rajputana, and one of Canton, was not in accordance with common sense. But eccentricity must be excused, he reflected, in a man distinguished alike by his intellect and his millions. Harley stood up, knocked out his pipe in an ash tray and reloaded it thoughtfully. ”

“ No man could have read anything from the expression of that shrivelled, yellow face, nor have improved his knowledge of the psychology of Wu Chang by studying the curious shrug which he presently gave, ere shuffling across to the door beneath the balcony and leaving the library.
Almost at the same moment a car came purring up the drive, and Mohammed Khán, opening the door, admitted a pretty, rather fragile looking girl, curiously unlike, yet in some way oddly like, her gloomy brother Jim. She was accompanied by a man so deeply bronzed as to tell of recent exposure to tropical suns. ”