Part 7 (2/2)
With a heathen curse Conan leaped back, whipping out his sith a viciousness that -lives!” he snarled, his blue eyes blazing ”Because you dare to torture shop-keepers and strip and beat harlots to make them talk, don't think you can lay your fat paws on a hillman! I'll take some of you to hell with uts with ht's work is over!”
”Wait!” interposed Des off, Dionus I'm not convinced that he is the murderer You fool,” he added in a whisper, ”wait until we can su down his sword” Dee of his civilized e to a physical basis, where the wild beast ferocity of the barbarian runted Dionus grudgingly ”Fall back, men, but keep an eye on him”
”Give me your sword,” said Demetrio
”Take it if you can,” snarled Conan Deed his shoulders
”Very well But don't try to escape Four men with crossboatch the house on the outside
We always throw a cordon about a house before we enter it”
The barbarian lowered his blade, though he only slightly relaxed the tense watchfulness of his attitude Deled,” he le him when a sword-stroke is so much quicker and surer? These Cimmerians are a bloody race, born with a sword in their hand, as it were; I never heard of the a man in this manner”
”Perhaps to divert suspicion,” muttered Dionus52
”Possibly” He felt the body with experienced hands ”Dead possibly half an hour,” he muttered ”If Conan tells the truth about when he entered the Temple he would hardly have had time to co he ht have broken in earlier”
”I clirowled
”So you say” Demetrio brooded for a space over the dead man's throat, which had been literally crushed to a pulp of purplish flesh The head sagged awry on splintered vertebrae
Demetrio shook his head in doubt
”Why should a murderer use a pliant cable apparently thicker than a man's arm?” he muttered
”And what terrible constriction was applied to so crush the man's heavy neck”
He rose and walked to the nearest door opening into the corridor
”Here is a bust knocked from a stand near the door,” he said, ”and here the polished floor is scratched, and the hangings in the doorway are pulled awry as if a clutching hand had grasped them perhaps for support Kallian Publico must have been attacked in that rooed the felloith hily out into the corridor where the murderer must have followed and finished him”
”And if this heathen isn't the murderer, where is he?” demanded the prefect
”I haven't exonerated the Ciate that roo From the street had sounded a sudden rattle of chariot- wheels, which approached rapidly, then ceased abruptly
”Dionus!” snapped the Inquisitor ”Send twothe driver here”
”From the sound,” said Arus, as familiar with all the noises of the street, ”I'd say that it stopped in front of Promero's house, just on the other side of the silk-merchant's shop”