There were still a few tricks in his science, and these, he knew, were about his last cards.

He backed into a corner, and Jean followed, his eyes flashing a steely light, his body growing more and more tense.
"Now, M'seur, I am going to kill you," he said in the same low voice.

"I am going to break your neck." Howland backed against the wall, partly turned as if fearing the other's attack, and yet without strength to repel it.

There was a contemptuous smile on Croisset's lips as he poised himself for an instant.

Then he leaped in, and as his fingers gripped at the other's throat Howland's right arm shot upward in a deadly short-arm punch that caught his antagonist under the jaw.