The Yellow Claw Part 3

XXVIII

The Opium Agent

INTO the Palm Court of the Hotel Astoria, Mr. Gianapolis came, radiant and bowing. M. Gaston rose to greet his visitor. M. Gaston was arrayed in a light gray suit and wore a violet tie of very chaste design; his complexion had assumed a quality of sallowness, and the pupils of his eyes had acquired (as on the occasion of his visit to the chambers of Sir Brian Malpas) a chatoyant quality; they alternately dilated and contracted in a most remarkable manner—in a manner which attracted the immediate attention of Mr. Gianapolis.

“My dear sir,” he said, speaking in French, “you suffer. I perceive how grievously you suffer; and you have been denied that panacea which beneficent nature designed for the service of mankind. A certain gentleman known to both of us (we brethren of the poppy are all nameless) has advised me of your requirements—and here I am.”

“You are welcome,” declared M. Gaston.

He rose and grasped eagerly the hand of the Greek, at the same time looking about the Palm Court suspiciously. “You can relieve my sufferings?”

​Mr. Gianapolis seated himself beside the Frenchman.

“I perceive,” he said, “that you are of those who abjure the heresies of De Quincey. How little he knew, that De Quincey, of the true ritual of the poppy! He regarded it as the German regards his lager, whereas we know—you and I—that it is an Eleusinian mystery; that true communicants must retreat to the temple of the goddess if they would partake of Paradise with her.”

“It is perhaps a question of temperament,” said M. Gaston, speaking in a singularly tremulous voice. “De Quincey apparently possessed the type of constitution which is cerebrally stimulated by opium. To such a being the golden gates are closed; and the Easterners, whom he despised for what he termed their beastly lethargies, have taught me the real secret of the poppy. I do not employ opium as an aid to my social activities; I regard it as nepenthe from them and as a key to a brighter realm. It has been my custom, M. Gianapolis, for many years, periodically to visit that fairyland. In Paris I regularly arranged my affairs in such a manner that I found myself occasionally at liberty to spend two or three days, as the case might be, in the company of my bright friends who haunted the Boulevard Beaumarchais.”

“Ah! Our acquaintance has mentioned something of this to me, Monsieur. You knew Madame Jean?”

​“The dear Madame Jean! Name of a name! She was the hierophant of my Paris Temple”…

“And Sen?”

“Our excellent Sen! Splendid man! It was from the hands of the worthy Sen, the incomparable Sen, that I received the key to the gate! Ah! how I have suffered since the accursed business has exiled me from the”…

“I feel for you,” declared Gianapolis, warmly; “I, too, have worshiped at the shrine; and although I cannot promise that the London establishment to which I shall introduce you is comparable with that over which Madame Jean formerly presided” . . .

“Formerly?” exclaimed M. Gaston, with lifted eyebrows. “You do not tell me”…

“My friend,” said Gianapolis, “in Europe we are less enlightened upon certain matters than in Smyrna, in Constantinople—in Cairo. The impertinent police have closed the establishment in the Rue St. Claude!”

“Ah!” exclaimed M. Gaston, striking his brow, “misery! I shall return to Paris, then, only to die?”

“I would suggest, monsieur,” said Gianapolis, tapping him confidentially upon the breast, “that you periodically visit London in future. The journey is a short one, and already, I am happy to say, the London establishment (conducted by Mr. Ho-Pin of Canton—a most accomplished gentleman, and a graduate of London)—enjoys the patronage ​of several distinguished citizens of Paris, of Brussels, of Vienna, and elsewhere.”

“You offer me life!” declared M. Gaston, gratefully. “The commoner establishments, for the convenience of sailors and others of that class, at Dieppe, Calais,”—he shrugged his shoulders, comprehensively—“are impossible as resorts. In catering for the true devotees—for those who, unlike De Quincey, plunge and do not dabble—for those who seek to explore the ultimate regions of poppyland, for those who have learnt the mystery from the real masters in Asia and not in Europe—the enterprise conducted by Madame Jean supplied a want long and bitterly experienced. I rejoice to know that London has not been neglected.” . . .

“My dear friend!” cried Gianapolis enthusiastically, “no important city has been neglected! A high priest of the cult has arisen, and from a parent lodge in Pekin he has extended his offices to kindred lodges in most of the capitals of Europe and Asia; he has not neglected the Near East, and America owes him a national debt of gratitude.”

“Ah! the great man!” murmured M. Gaston, with closed eyes. “As an old habitué of the Rue St. Claude, I divine that you refer to Mr. King?”

“Beyond doubt,” whispered Gianapolis, imparting a quality of awe to his voice. “From you, my friend, I will have no secrets; but”—he glanced about him crookedly, and lowered his voice to an ​impressive whisper—“the police, as you are aware”…

“Curse their interference!” said M. Gaston.

“Curse it indeed; but the police persist in believing, or in pretending to believe, that any establishment patronized by lovers of the magic resin must necessarily be a resort of criminals.”

“Pah!”

“Whilst this absurd state of affairs prevails, it is advisable, it is more than advisable, it is imperative, that all of us should be secret. The…raid—unpleasant word!—upon the establishment in Paris—was so unexpected that there was no time to advise patrons; but the admirable tact of the French authorities ensured the suppression of all names. Since—always as a protective measure—no business relationship exists between any two of Mr. King’s establishments (each one being entirely self-governed) some difficulty is being experienced, I believe, in obtaining the names of those who patronized Madame Jean. But I am doubly glad to have met you, M. Gaston, for not only can I put you in touch with the London establishment, but I can impress upon you the necessity of preserving absolute silence”…

M. Gaston extended his palms eloquently.

“To me,” he declared, “the name of Mr. King is a sacred symbol.”

“It is to all of us!” responded the Greek, devoutly.

​M. Gaston in turn became confidential, bending toward Gianapolis so that, as the shadow of the Greek fell upon his face, his pupils contracted catlike.

“How often have I prayed,” he whispered, “for a sight of that remarkable man!”

A look of horror, real or simulated, appeared upon the countenance of Gianapolis.

“To see—Mr. King!” he breathed. “My dear friend, I declare to you by all that I hold sacred that I—though one of the earliest patrons of the first establishment, that in Pekin—have never seen Mr. King!”

“He is so cautious and so clever as that?”

“Even as cautious and even as clever—yes! Though every branch of the enterprise in the world were destroyed, no man would ever see Mr. King; he would remain but a name!”

“You will arrange for me to visit the house of—Ho-Pin, did you say?—immediately?”

“To-day, if you wish,” said Gianapolis, brightly.

“My funds,” continued M. Gaston, shrugging his shoulders, “are not limitless at the moment; and until I receive a remittance from Paris”…

The brow of Mr. Gianapolis darkened slightly.

“Our clientele here,” he replied, “is a very wealthy one, and the fees are slightly higher than in Paris. An entrance fee of fifty guineas is charged, and an annual subscription of the same amount”…

​“But,” exclaimed M. Gaston, “I shall not be in London for so long as a year! In a week or a fortnight from now, I shall be on my way to America!”

“You will receive an introduction to the New York representative, and your membership will be available for any of the United States establishments.”

“But I am going to South America.”

“At Buenos Aires is one of the largest branches.”

“But I am not going to Buenos Aires! I am going with a prospecting party to Yucatan.”

“You must be well aware, monsieur, that to go to Yucatan is to exile yourself from all that life holds for you.”

“I can take a supply”…

“You will die, monsieur! Already you suffer abominably”…

“I do not suffer because of any lack of the specific,” said M. Gaston wearily; “for if I were entirely unable to obtain possession of it, I should most certainly die. But I suffer because, living as I do at present in a public hotel, I am unable to embark upon a protracted voyage into those realms which hold so much for me”…

“I offer you the means”…

“But to charge me one hundred guineas, since I cannot possibly avail myself of the full privileges, is to rob me—is to trade upon my condition!” M. Gaston was feebly indignant.

“Let it be twenty-five guineas, monsieur,” said ​the Greek, reflectively, “entitling you to two visits.”

“Good! good!” cried M. Gaston. “Shall I write you a check?”

“You mistake me,” said Gianapolis. “I am in no way connected with the management of the establishment. You will settle this business matter with Mr. Ho-Pin”…

“Yes, yes!”

“To whom I will introduce you this evening. Checks, as you must be aware, are unacceptable. I will meet you at Piccadilly Circus, outside the entrance to the London Pavilion, at nine o’clock this evening, and you will bring with you the twenty-five guineas in cash. You will arrange to absent yourself during the following day?”

“Of course, of course! At nine o’clock at Piccadilly Circus?”

“Exactly.”

M. Gaston, this business satisfactorily completed, made his way to his own room by a somewhat devious route, not wishing to encounter anyone of his numerous acquaintances whilst in an apparent state of ill-health so calculated to excite compassion. He avoided the lift and ascended the many stairs to his small apartment.

Here he rectified the sallowness of his complexion, which was due, not to outraged nature, but to the arts of make-up. His dilated pupils (a phenomenon traceable to drops of belladonna) he was ​compelled to suffer for the present; but since their condition tended temporarily to impair his sight, he determined to remain in his room until the time for the appointment with Gianapolis.

“So!” he muttered—“we have branches in Europe, Asia, Africa and America! Eh, bien! to find all those would occupy five hundred detectives for a whole year. I have a better plan: crush the spider and the winds of heaven will disperse his web!”

XXIX

M. Max of London and M. Max of Paris

HE seated himself in a cane armchair and, whilst the facts were fresh in his memory, made elaborate notes upon the recent conversation with the Greek. He had achieved almost more than he could have hoped for; but, knowing something of the elaborate organization of the opium group, he recognized that he owed some part of his information to the sense of security which this admirably conducted machine inspired in its mechanics. The introduction from Sir Brian Malpas had worked wonders, without doubt; and his own intimate knowledge of the establishment adjoining the Boulevard Beaumarchais, far from arousing the suspicions of Gianapolis, had evidently strengthened the latter’s conviction that he had to deal with a confirmed opium slave.

The French detective congratulated himself upon the completeness of his Paris operation. It was evident that the French police had succeeded in suppressing all communication between the detained members of the Rue St. Claude den and the head office—which he shrewdly suspected to be situated in London. So confident were the group in the ​self-contained properties of each of their branches that the raid of any one establishment meant for them nothing more than a temporary financial loss. Failing the clue supplied by the draft on Paris, the case, so far as he was concerned, indeed, must have terminated with the raiding of the opium house. He reflected that he owed that precious discovery primarily to the promptness with which he had conducted the raid—to the finding of the letter (the one incriminating letter) from Mr. King.

Evidently the group remained in ignorance of the fact that the little arrangement at the Crédit Lyonnais had been discovered. He surveyed—and his eyes twinkled humorously—a small photograph which was contained in his writing-case.

It represented a very typical Parisian gentleman, with a carefully trimmed square beard and well brushed mustache, wearing pince-nez and a white silk knot at his neck. The photograph was cut from a French magazine, and beneath it appeared the legend:

“M. Gaston Max, Service de Sûrète.”

There was marked genius in the conspicuous dressing of M. Gaston Max, who, as M. Gaston, was now patronizing the Hotel Astoria. For whilst there was nothing furtive, nothing secret, about this gentleman, the closest scrutiny (and because he invited it, he was never subjected to it) must have ​failed to detect any resemblance between M. Gaston of the Hotel Astoria and M. Gaston Max of the Service de Sûrète.

And which was the original M. Gaston Max? Was the M. Max of the magazine photograph a disguised M. Max? or was that the veritable M. Max, and was the patron of the Astoria a disguised M. Max? It is quite possible that M. Gaston Max, himself, could not have answered that question, so true an artist was he; and it is quite certain that had the occasion arisen he would have refused to do so.

He partook of a light dinner in his own room, and having changed into evening dress, went out to meet Mr. Gianapolis. The latter was on the spot punctually at nine o’clock, and taking the Frenchman familiarly by the arm, he hailed a taxi-cab, giving the man the directions, “To Victoria-Suburban.” Then, turning to his companion, he whispered: “Evening dress? And you must return in daylight.”

M. Max felt himself to be flushing like a girl. It was an error of artistry that he had committed; a heinous crime! “So silly of me!” he muttered.

“No matter,” replied the Greek, genially.

The cab started. M. Max, though silently reproaching himself, made mental notes of the destination. He had not renewed his sallow complexion, for reasons of his own, and his dilated pupils were beginning to contract again, facts which were not very evident, however, in the poor light. He was ​very twitchy, nevertheless, and the face of the man beside him was that of a sympathetic vulture, if such a creature can be imagined. He inquired casually if the new patron had brought his money with him, but for the most part his conversation turned upon China, with which country he seemed to be well acquainted. Arrived at Victoria, Mr. Gianapolis discharged the cab, and again taking the Frenchman by the arm, walked with him some twenty paces away from the station. A car suddenly pulled up almost beside them.

Ere M. Max had time to note those details in which he was most interested, Gianapolis had opened the door of the limousine, and the Frenchman found himself within, beside Gianapolis, and behind drawn blinds, speeding he knew not in what direction!

“I suppose I should apologize, my dear M. Gaston,” said the Greek; and, although unable to see him, for there was little light in the car, M. Max seemed to feel him smiling—“but this little device has proved so useful hitherto. In the event of any of those troubles—wretched police interferences—arising, and of officious people obtaining possession of a patron’s name, he is spared the necessity of perjuring himself in any way”…

“Perhaps I do not entirely understand you, monsieur?” said M. Max.

“It is so simple. The police are determined to raid one of our establishments: they adopt the course ​of tracking an habitué. This is not impossible. They question him; they ask, ‘Do you know a Mr. King?’ He replies that he knows no such person, has never seen, has never spoken with him! I assure you that official inquiries have gone thus far already, in New York, for example; but to what end? They say, ‘Where is the establishment of a Mr. King to which you have gone on such and such an occasion?’ He replies with perfect truth, ‘I do not know.’ Believe me this little device is quite in your own interest, M. Gaston.”

“But when again I feel myself compelled to resort to the solace of the pipe, how then?”

“So simple! You will step to the telephone and ask for this number: East 18642. You will then ask for Mr. King, and an appointment will be made; I will meet you as I met you this evening—and all will be well.”

M. Max began to perceive that he had to deal with a scheme even more elaborate than hitherto he had conjectured. These were very clever pople, and through the whole complicated network, as through the petal of a poppy one may trace the veins, he traced the guiding will—the power of a tortuous Eastern mind. The system was truly Chinese in its elaborate, uncanny mystifications.

In some covered place that was very dark, the car stopped, and Gianapolis, leaping out with agility, assisted M. Max to descend.

​This was a covered courtyard, only lighted by the head-lamps of the limousine.

“Take my hand,” directed the Greek.

M. Max complied, and was conducted through a low doorway and on to descending steps.

Dimly, he heard the gear of the car reversed, and knew that the limousine was backing out from the courtyard. The door behind him was closed, and he heard no more. A dim light shone out below.

He descended, walking more confidently now that the way was visible. A moment later he stood upon the threshold of an apartment which calls for no further description at this place; he stood in the doorway of the incredible, unforgettable cave of the golden dragon; he looked into the beetle eyes of Ho-Pin!

Ho-Pin bowed before him, smiling his mirthless smile. In his left hand he held an amber cigarette tube in which a cigarette smoldered gently, sending up a gray pencil of smoke into the breathless, perfumed air.

“Mr. Ho-Pin,” said Gianapolis, indicating the Chinaman, “who will attend to your requirements. This is our new friend from Paris, introduced by Sir B. M———, M. Gaston.”

“You are vewry welcome,” said the Chinaman in his monotonous, metallic voice. “I understand that a fee of twenty-five guineas”—he bowed again, still smiling.

​The visitor took out his pocket-book and laid five notes, one sovereign, and two half-crowns upon a little ebony table beside him. Ho-Pin bowed again and waved his hand toward the lemon-colored door on the left.

“Good night, M. Gaston!” said Gianapolis, in radiant benediction.

“Au revoir, monsieur!”

M. Max followed Ho-Pin to Block A and was conducted to a room at the extreme right of the matting-lined corridor. He glanced about it curiously.

“If you will pwrepare for your flight into the subliminal,” said Ho-Pin, bowing in the doorway, “I shall pwresently wreturn with your wings.”

In the cave of the golden dragon, Gianapolis sat smoking upon one of the divans. The silence of the place was extraordinary; unnatural, in the very heart of busy commercial London. Ho-Pin reappeared and standing in the open doorway of Block A sharply clapped his hands three times.

Said, the Egyptian, came out of the door at the further end of the place, bearing a brass tray upon which were a little brass lamp of Oriental manufacture wherein burned a blue spirituous flame, a Japanese, lacquered box not much larger than a snuff-box, and a long and most curiously carved pipe of wood inlaid with metal and having a metal bowl. Bearing this, he crossed the room, passed Ho-Pin, and entered the corridor beyond.

​“You have, of course, put him in the observation room?” said Gianapolis.

Ho-Pin regarded the speaker unemotionally.

“Assuwredly,” he replied; “for since he visits us for the first time, Mr. King will wish to see him”…

A faint shadow momentarily crossed the swarthy face of the Greek at mention of that name—Mr. King. The servants of Mr. King, from the highest to the lowest, served him for gain…and from fear.

XXX

Mahara

UTTER silence had claimed again the cave of the golden dragon. Gianapolis sat alone in the place, smoking a cigarette, and gazing crookedly at the image on the ivory pedestal. Then, glancing at his wrist-watch, he stood up, and, stepping to the entrance door, was about to open it…

“Ah, so! You go—already?”—

Gianapolis started back as though he had put his foot upon a viper, and turned.

The Eurasian, wearing her yellow, Chinese dress, and with a red poppy in her hair, stood watching him through half-shut eyes, slowly waving her little fan before her face. Gianapolis attempted the radiant smile, but its brilliancy was somewhat forced tonight.

“Yes, I must be off,” he said hurriedly; “I have to see someone—a future client, I think!”

“A future client—yes!”—the long black eyes were closed almost entirely now. “Who is it—this future client, that you have to see?”

“My dear Mahâra! How odd of you to ask that”…

“It is odd of me?—so!…It is odd of me ​that I thinking to wonder why you alway running away from me now?”

“Run away from you! My dear little Mahâra!”—He approached the dusky beauty with a certain timidity as one might seek to caress a tiger-cat—“Surely you know”…

She struck down his hand with a sharp blow of her closed fan, darting at him a look from the brilliant eyes which was a living flame.

Resting one hand upon her hip, she stood with her right foot thrust forward from beneath the yellow robe and pivoting upon the heel of its little slipper. Her head tilted, she watched him through lowered lashes.

“It was not so with you in Moulmein,” she said, her silvery voice lowered caressingly. “Do you remember with me a night beside the Irawaddi?—where was that I wonder? Was it in Prome?—Perhaps, yes?…you threatened me to leap in, if…and I think to believe you!—I believing you!”

“Mahâra!” cried Gianapolis, and sought to seize her in his arms.

Again she struck down his hand with the little fan, watching him continuously and with no change of expression. But the smoldering fire in those eyes told of a greater flame which consumed her slender body and was potent enough to consume many a victim upon its altar. Gianapolis’ yellow skin assumed a faintly mottled appearance.

​“Whatever is the matter?” he inquired plaintively.

“So you must be off—yes? I hear you say it; I asking you who to meet?”

“Why do you speak in English?” said Gianapolis with a faint irritation. “Let us talk…”

She struck him lightly on the face with her fan; but he clenched his teeth and suppressed an ugly exclamation.

“Who was it?” she asked, musically, “that say to me, ‘to hear you speaking English—like rippling water’?”

“You are mad!” muttered Gianapolis, beginning to drill the points of his mustache as was his manner in moments of agitation. His crooked eyes were fixed upon the face of the girl. “You go too far.”

“Be watching, my friend, that you also go not too far.”

The tones were silvery as ever, but the menace unmistakable. Gianapolis forced a harsh laugh and brushed up his mustache furiously.

“What are you driving at?” he demanded, with some return of self-confidence. “Am I to be treated to another exhibition of your insane jealousies?”…

“Ah!” The girl’s eyes opened widely; she darted another venomous glance at him. “I am sure now, I am sure!”

“My dear Mahâra, you talk nonsense!”

“Ah!”

​She glided sinuously toward him, still with one hand resting upon her hip, stood almost touching his shoulder and raised her beautiful wicked face to his, peering at him through half-closed eyes, and resting the hand which grasped the fan lightly upon his arm.

“You think I do not see? You think I do not watch?”—softer and softer grew the silvery voice—“at Olaf van Noord’s studio you think I do not hear? Perhaps you not thinking to care if I see and hear—for it seem you not seeing nor hearing me. I watch and I see. Is it her so soft brown hair? That color of hair is so more prettier than ugly black! Is it her English eyes? Eyes that born in the dark forests of Burma so hideous and so like the eyes of the apes! Is it her white skin and her red cheeks? A brown skin—though someone, there was, that say it is satin of heaven—is so tiresome; when no more it is a new toy it does not interest”…

“Really,” muttered Gianapolis, uneasily, “I think you must be mad! I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Liar!”

One lithe step forward the Eurasian sprang, and, at the word, brought down the fan with all her strength across Gianapolis’ eyes!

He staggered away from her, uttering a hoarse cry and instinctively raising his arms to guard himself from further attack; but the girl stood poised again, her hand upon her hip; and swinging her right ​toe to and fro. Gianapolis, applying his handkerchief to his eyes, squinted at her furiously.

“Liar!” she repeated, and her voice had something of a soothing whisper. “I say to you, be so careful that you go not too far—with me! I do what I do, not because I am a poor fool”…

“It’s funny,” declared Gianapolis, an emotional catch in his voice—“it’s damn funny for you—for you—to adopt these airs with me! Why, you went to Olaf van”…

“Stop!” cried the girl furiously, and sprang at him panther-like, so that he fell back again in confusion, stumbled and collapsed upon a divan, with upraised, warding arms. “You Greek rat! you skinny Greek rat! Be careful what you think to say to me—to me! to me! Olaf van Noord—the poor, white-faced corpse-man! He is only one of Said’s mummies! Be careful what you think to say to me…Oh! be careful—be very careful! It is dangerous of any friend of—Mr. King”…

Gianapolis glanced at her furtively.

“It is dangerous of anyone in a house of—Mr. King to think to make attachments,”—she hissed the words beneath her breath—“outside of ourselves. Mr. King would not be glad to hear of it…I do not like to tell it to Mr. King”…

Gianapolis rose to his feet, unsteadily, and stretched out his arms in supplication.

“Mahâra!” he said, “don’t treat me like this! ​dear little Mahâra! what have I done to you? Tell me!—only tell me!”

“Shall I tell it in English?” asked the Eurasian softly. Her eyes now were nearly closed; “or does it worry you that I speak so ugly”…

“Mahâra!”…

“I only say, be so very careful.”

He made a final, bold attempt to throw his arms about her, but she slipped from his grasp and ran lightly across the room.

“Go! hurry off!” she said, bending forward and pointing at him with her fan, her eyes widely opened and blazing—“but remember—there is danger! There is Said, who creeps silently, like the jackal”…

She opened the ebony door and darted into the corridor beyond, closing the door behind her.

Gianapolis looked about him in a dazed manner, and yet again applied his handkerchief to his stinging eyes. Whoever could have seen him now must have failed to recognize the radiant Gianapolis so well-known in Bohemian society, the Gianapolis about whom floated a halo of mystery, but who at all times was such a good fellow and so debonair. He took up his hat and gloves, turned, and resolutely strode to the door. Once he glanced back over his shoulder, but shrugged with a sort of self-contempt, and ascended to the top of the steps.

With a key which he selected from a large bunch ​in his pocket, he opened the door, and stepped out into the garage, carefully closing the door behind him. An electric pocket-lamp served him with sufficient light to find his way out into the lane, and very shortly he was proceeding along Limehouse Causeway. At the moment, indignation was the major emotion ruling his mind; he resented the form which his anger assumed, for it was a passion of rebellion, and rebellion is only possible in servants. It is the part of a slave resenting the lash. He was an unscrupulous, unmoral man, not lacking in courage of a sort; and upon the conquest of Mahâra, the visible mouthpiece of Mr. King, he had entered in much the same spirit as that actuating a Kanaka who dives for pearls in a shark-infested lagoon. He had sought a slave, and lo! the slave was become the master! Otherwise whence this spirit of rebellion…this fear?

He occupied himself with such profitless reflections up to the time that he came to the electric trams; but, from thence onward, his mind became otherwise engaged. On his way to Piccadilly Circus that same evening, he had chanced to find himself upon a crowded pavement walking immediately behind Denise Ryland and Helen Cumberly. His esthetic, Greek soul had been fired at first sight of the beauty of the latter; and now, his heart had leaped ecstatically. His first impulse, of course, had been to join the two ladies; but Gianapolis had trained himself to suspect all impulses.

​Therefore he had drawn near—near enough to overhear their conversation without proclaiming himself. What he had learned by this eavesdropping he counted of peculiar value.

Helen Cumberly was arranging to dine with her friend at the latter’s hotel that evening. “But I want to be home early,” he had heard the girl say, “so if I leave you at about ten o’clock I can walk to Palace Mansions. No! you need not come with me; I enjoy a lonely walk through the streets of London in the evening”…

Gianapolis registered a mental vow that Helen’s walk should not be a lonely one. He did not flatter himself upon the possession of a pleasing exterior, but, from experience, he knew that with women he had a winning way.

Now, his mind aglow with roseate possibilities, he stepped from the tram in the neighborhood of Shoreditch, and chartered a taxi-cab. From this he descended at the corner of Arundel Street and strolled along westward in the direction of the hotel patronized by Miss Ryland. At a corner from which he could command a view of the entrance, he paused and consulted his watch.

It was nearly twenty minutes past ten. Mentally, he cursed Mahâra, who perhaps had caused him to let slip this golden opportunity. But his was not a character easily discouraged; he lighted a cigarette and prepared himself to wait, in the hope that the girl had not yet left her friend.

​Gianapolis was a man capable of the uttermost sacrifices upon either of two shrines; that of Mammon, or that of Eros. His was a temperament (truly characteristic of his race) which can build up a structure painfully, year by year, suffering unutterable privations in the cause of its growth, only to shatter it at a blow for a woman’s smile. He was a true member of that brotherhood, represented throughout the bazaars of the East, of those singular shopkeepers who live by commercial rapine, who, demanding a hundred piastres for an embroidered shawl from a plain woman, will exchange it with a pretty one for a perfumed handkerchief. Externally of London, he was internally of the Levant.

His vigil lasted but a quarter of an hour. At twenty-five minutes to eleven, Helen Cumberly came running down the steps of the hotel and hurried toward the Strand. Like a shadow, Gianapolis, throwing away a half-smoked cigarette, glided around the corner, paused and so timed his return that he literally ran into the girl as she entered the main thoroughfare.

He started back.

“Why!” he cried, “Miss Cumberly!”

Helen checked a frown, and hastily substituted a smile.

“How odd that I should meet you here, Mr. Gianapolis,” she said.

“Most extraordinary! I was on my way to visit a friend in Victoria Street upon a rather urgent ​matter. May I venture to hope that your path lies in a similar direction?”

Helen Cumberly, deceived by his suave manner (for how was she to know that the Greek had learnt her address from Crockett, the reporter?), found herself at a loss for an excuse. Her remarkably pretty mouth was drawn down to one corner, inducing a dimple of perplexity in her left cheek. She had that breadth between the eyes which, whilst not an attribute of perfect beauty, indicates an active mind, and is often found in Scotch women; now, by the slight raising of her eyebrows, this space was accentuated. But Helen’s rapid thinking availed her not at all.

“Had you proposed to walk?” inquired Gianapolis, bending deferentially and taking his place beside her with a confidence which showed that her opportunity for repelling his attentions was past.

“Yes,” she said, hesitatingly; “but—I fear I am detaining you”…

Of two evils she was choosing the lesser; the idea of being confined in a cab with this ever-smiling Greek was unthinkable.

“Oh, my dear Miss Cumberly!” cried Gianapolis, beaming radiantly, “it is a greater pleasure than I can express to you, and then for two friends who are proceeding in the same direction to walk apart would be quite absurd, would it not?”

The term “friend” was not pleasing to Helen’s ears; Mr. Gianapolis went far too fast. But she ​recognized her helplessness, and accepted this cavalier with as good a grace as possible.

He immediately began to talk of Olaf van Noord and his pictures, whilst Helen hurried along as though her life depended upon her speed. Sometimes, on the pretense of piloting her at crossings, Gianapolis would take her arm; and this contact she found most disagreeable; but on the whole his conduct was respectful to the point of servility.

A pretty woman who is not wholly obsessed by her personal charms, learns more of the ways of mankind than it is vouchsafed to her plainer sister ever to know; and in the crooked eyes of Gianapolis, Helen Cumberly read a world of unuttered things, and drew her own conclusions. These several conclusions dictated a single course; avoidance of Gianapolis in future.

Fortunately, Helen Cumberly’s self-chosen path in life had taught her how to handle the nascent and undesirable lover. She chatted upon the subject of art, and fenced adroitly whenever the Greek sought to introduce the slightest personal element into the conversation. Nevertheless, she was relieved when at last she found herself in the familiar Square with her foot upon the steps of Palace Mansions.

“Good night, Mr. Gianapolis!” she said, and frankly offered her hand.

The Greek raised it to his lips with exaggerated courtesy, and retained it, looking into her eyes in his crooked fashion.

​“We both move in the world of art and letters; may I hope that this meeting will not be our last?”

“I am always wandering about between Fleet Street and Soho,” laughed Helen. “It is quite certain we shall run into each other again before long. Good night, and thank you so much!”

She darted into the hallway, and ran lightly up the stairs. Opening the flat door with her key, she entered and closed it behind her, sighing with relief to be free of the over-attentive Greek. Some impulse prompted her to enter her own room, and, without turning up the light, to peer down into the Square.

Gianapolis was descending the steps. On the pavement he stood and looked up at the windows, lingeringly; then he turned and walked away.

Helen Cumberly stifled an exclamation.

As the Greek gained the corner of the Square and was lost from view, a lithe figure—kin of the shadows which had masked it—became detached from the other shadows beneath the trees of the central garden and stood, a vague silhouette seemingly looking up at her window as Gianapolis had looked.

Helen leaned her hands upon the ledge and peered intently down. The figure was a vague blur in the darkness, but it was moving away along by the rails…following Gianapolis. No clear glimpse she had of it, for bat-like, it avoided the light, this sinister shape—and was gone.

XXXI

Musk and Roses

IT is time to rejoin M. Gaston Max in the catacombs of Ho-Pin. Having prepared himself for drugged repose in the small but luxurious apartment to which he had been conducted by the Chinaman, he awaited with interest the next development. This took the form of the arrival of an Egyptian attendant, white-robed, red-slippered, and wearing the inevitable tarboosh. Upon the brass tray which he carried were arranged the necessities of the opium smoker. Placing the tray upon a little table beside the bed, he extracted from the lacquered box a piece of gummy substance upon the end of a long needle. This he twisted around, skilfully, in the lamp flame until it acquired a blue spirituous flame of its own. He dropped it into the bowl of the carven pipe and silently placed the pipe in M. Max’s hand.

Max, with simulated eagerness, rested the mouthpiece between his lips and exhaled rapturously.

Said stood watching him, without the slightest expression of interest being perceptible upon his immobile face. For some time the Frenchman made pretense of inhaling, gently, the potent vapor, lying propped upon one elbow; then, allowing his head ​gradually to droop, he closed his eyes and lay back upon the silken pillow.

Once more he exhaled feebly ere permitting the pipe to drop from his listless grasp. The mouthpiece yet rested between his lips, but the lower lip was beginning to drop. Finally, the pipe slipped through his fingers on to the rich carpet, and he lay inert, head thrown back, and revealing his lower teeth. The nauseating fumes of opium loaded the atmosphere.

Said silently picked up the pipe, placed it upon the tray and retired, closing the door in the same noiseless manner that characterized all his movements.

For a time, M. Max lay inert, glancing about the place through the veil of his lashes. He perceived no evidence of surveillance, therefore he ventured fully to open his eyes; but he did not move his head.

With the skill in summarizing detail at a glance which contributed largely to make him the great criminal investigator that he was, he noted those particulars which at an earlier time had occasioned the astonishment of Soames.

M. Max was too deeply versed in his art to attempt any further investigations, yet; he contented himself with learning as much as was possible without moving in any way; and whilst he lay there awaiting whatever might come, the door opened noiselessly—to admit Ho-Pin.

​He was about to be submitted to a supreme test, for which, however, he was not unprepared. He lay with closed eyes, breathing nasally.

Ho-Pin, his face a smiling, mirthless mask, bent over the bed. Adeptly, he seized the right eyelid of M. Max, and rolled it back over his forefinger, disclosing the eyeball. M. Max, anticipating this test of the genuineness of his coma, had rolled up his eyes at the moment of Ho-Pin’s approach, so that now only the white of the sclerotic showed. His trained nerves did not betray him. He lay like a dead man, never flinching.

Ho-Pin, releasing the eyelid, muttered something gutturally, and stole away from the bed as silently as he had approached it. Very methodically he commenced to search through M. Max’s effects, commencing with the discarded garments. He examined the maker’s marks upon these, and scrutinized the buttons closely. He turned out all the pockets, counted the contents of the purse, and of the notecase, examined the name inside M. Max’s hat, and explored the lining in a manner which aroused the detective’s professional admiration. Watch and pocket-knife, Ho-Pin inspected with interest. The little hand-bag which M. Max had brought with him, containing a few toilet necessaries, was overhauled religiously. So much the detective observed through his lowered lashes.

Then Ho-Pin again approached the bed and M. Max became again a dead man.

​The silken pyjamas which the detective wore were subjected to gentle examination by the sensitive fingers of the Chinaman, and those same fingers crept beetle-like beneath the pillow.

Silently, Ho-Pin stole from the room and silently closed the door.

M. Max permitted himself a long breath of relief. It was an ordeal through which few men could have passed triumphant.

The silence of the place next attracted the inquirer’s attention. He had noted this silence at the moment that he entered the cave of the golden dragon, but here it was even more marked; so that he divined, even before he had examined the walls, that the apartment was rendered sound-proof in the manner of a public telephone cabinet. It was a significant circumstance to which he allotted its full value.

But the question uppermost in his mind at the moment was this: Was the time come yet to commence his explorations?

Patience was included in his complement, and, knowing that he had the night before him, he preferred to wait. In this he did well. Considerable time elapsed, possibly half-an-hour…and again the door opened.

M. Max was conscious of a momentary nervous tremor; for now a woman stood regarding him. She wore a Chinese costume; a huge red poppy was in her hair. Her beauty was magnificently evil; she ​had the grace of a gazelle and the eyes of a sorceress. He had deceived Ho-Pin, but could he deceive this Eurasian with the witch-eyes wherein burnt ancient wisdom?

He felt rather than saw her approach; for now he ventured to peep no more. She touched him lightly upon the mouth with her fingers and laughed a little low, rippling laugh, the sound of which seemed to trickle along his sensory nerves, icily. She bent over him—lower—lower—and lower yet; until, above the nauseating odor of the place he could smell the musk perfume of her hair. Yet lower she bent; with every nerve in his body he could feel her nearing presence.…

She kissed him on the lips.

Again she laughed, in that wicked, eerie glee.

M. Max was conscious of the most singular, the maddest impulses; it was one of the supreme moments of his life. He knew that all depended upon his absolute immobility; yet something in his brain was prompting him—prompting him—to gather the witch to his breast; to return that poisonous, that vampirish kiss, and then to crush out life from the small lithe body.

Sternly he fought down these strange promptings, which he knew to emanate hypnotically from the brain of the creature bending over him.

“Oh, my beautiful dead-baby,” she said, softly, and her voice was low, and weirdly sweet. “Oh, my new baby, how I love you, my dead one!” ​Again she laughed, a musical peal. “I will creep to you in the poppyland where you go…and you shall twine your fingers in my hair and pull my red mouth down to you, kissing me…kissing me, until you stifle and you die of my love.…Oh! my beautiful mummy-baby…my baby.”…

The witch-crooning died away into a murmur; and the Frenchman became conscious of the withdrawal of that presence from the room. No sound came to tell of the reclosing of the door; but the obsession was removed, the spell raised.

Again he inhaled deeply the tainted air, and again he opened his eyes.

He had no warranty to suppose that he should remain unmolested during the remainder of the night. The strange words of the Eurasian he did not construe literally; yet could he be certain that he was secure?…Nay! he could be certain that he was not!

The shaded lamp was swung in such a position that most of the light was directed upon him where he lay, whilst the walls of the room were bathed in a purple shadow. Behind him and above him, directly over the head of the bunk, a faint sound—a sound inaudible except in such a dead silence as that prevailing—told of some shutter being raised or opened. He had trained himself to watch beneath lowered lids without betraying that he was doing so by the slightest nervous twitching. Now, as he watched the purple shaded lamp above ​him, he observed that it was swaying and moving very gently, whereas hitherto it had floated motionless in the still air.

No other sound came to guide him, and to have glanced upward would have been to betray all.

For the second time that night he became aware of one who watched him, became conscious of observation without the guaranty of his physical senses. And beneath this new surveillance, there grew up such a revulsion of his inner being as he had rarely experienced. The perfume of roses became perceptible; and for some occult reason, its fragrance disgusted.

It was as though a faint draught from the opened shutter poured into the apartment an impalpable cloud of evil; the very soul of the Eurasian, had it taken vapory form and enveloped him, could not have created a greater turmoil of his senses than this!

Some sinister and definitely malignant intelligence was focussed upon him; or was this a chimera of his imagination? Could it be that now he was become en rapport with the thought-forms created in that chamber by its successive occupants?

Scores, perhaps hundreds of brains had there partaken of the unholy sacrament of opium; thousands, millions of evil carnivals had trailed in impish procession about that bed. He knew enough of the creative power of thought to be aware that a sensitive mind coming into contact with such an ​atmosphere could not fail to respond in some degree to the suggestions, to the elemental hypnosis, of the place.

Was he, owing to his self-induced receptivity of mind, redreaming the evil dreams of those who had occupied that bed before him?

It might be so, but, whatever the explanation, he found himself unable to shake off that uncanny sensation of being watched, studied, by a powerful and inimical intelligence.

Mr. King!…Mr. King was watching him!

The director of that group, whose structure was founded upon the wreckage of human souls, was watching him! Because of a certain sympathy which existed between his present emotions and those which had threatened to obsess him whilst the Eurasian was in the room, he half believed that it was she who peered down at him, now…or she, and another.

The lamp swung gently to and fro, turning slowly to the right and then revolving again to the left, giving life in its gyrations to the intermingled figures on the walls. The atmosphere of the room was nauseating; it was beginning to overpower him.…

Creative power of thought…what startling possibilities it opened up. Almost it seemed, if Sir Brian Malpas were to be credited, that the collective mind-force of a group of opium smokers had created the “glamor” of a woman—an Oriental woman—who visited them regularly in their ​trances. Or had that vision a prototype in the flesh—whom he had seen?…

Creative power of thought…Mr. King! He was pursuing Mr. King; whilst Mr. King might be nothing more than a thought-form—a creation of cumulative thought—an elemental spirit which became visible to his subjects, his victims, which had power over them; which could slay them as the “shell” slew Frankenstein, his creator; which could materialize:…Mr. King might be the Spirit of Opium.…

The faint clicking sound was repeated.

Beads of perspiration stood upon M. Max’s forehead; his imagination had been running away with him. God! this was a house of fear! He controlled himself, but only by dint of a tremendous effort of will.

Stealthily watching the lamp, he saw that the arc described by its gyrations was diminishing with each successive swing, and, as he watched, its movements grew slighter and slighter, until finally it became quite stationary again, floating, purple and motionless, upon the stagnant air.

Very slowly, he ventured to change his position, for his long ordeal was beginning to induce cramp. The faint creaking of the metal bunk seemed, in the dead stillness and to his highly-tensed senses, like the rattling of castanets.

For ten minutes he lay in his new position; then moved slightly again and waited for fully ​three-quarters of an hour. Nothing happened, and he now determined to proceed with his inquiries.

Sitting upon the edge of the bunk, he looked about him, first directing his attention to that portion of the wall immediately above. So cunningly was the trap contrived that he could find no trace of its existence. Carefully balancing himself upon the rails on either side of the bunk, he stood up and peered closely about that part of the wall from which the sound had seemed to come. He even ran his fingers lightly over the paper, up as high as he could reach; but not the slightest crevice was perceptible. He began to doubt the evidence of his own senses.

Unless his accursed imagination had been playing him tricks, a trap of some kind had been opened above his head and someone had looked in at him; yet—and his fingers were trained to such work—he was prepared to swear that the surface of the Chinese paper covering the wall was perfectly continuous. He drummed upon it lightly with his finger-tips, here and there over the surface above the bed. And in this fashion he became enlightened.

A portion, roughly a foot in height and two feet long, yielded a slightly different note to his drumming; whereby he knew that that part of the paper was not attached to the wall. He perceived the truth. The trap, when closed, fitted flush with the back of the wall-paper, and this paper (although when pasted upon the walls it showed no evidence of the fact) must be transparent.

​From some dark place beyond, it was possible to peer in through the rectangular patch of paper as through a window, at the occupant of the bunk below, upon whom the shaded lamp directly poured its rays!

He examined more closely a lower part of the wall, which did not fall within the shadow of the purple lamp-shade; for he was thinking of the draught which had followed the opening of the trap. By this examination he learnt two things: The explanation of the draught, and that of a peculiar property possessed by the mural decorations. These (as Soames had observed before him) assumed a new form if one stared at them closely; other figures, figures human and animal, seemed to take shape and to peer out from behind the more obvious designs which were perceptible at a glance. The longer and the closer one studied these singular walls, the more evident the under design became, until it usurped the field of vision entirely. It was a bewildering delusion; but M. Max had solved the mystery.

There were two designs; the first, an intricate Chinese pattern, was painted or printed upon material like the finest gauze. This was attached over a second and vividly colored pattern upon thick parchment-like paper—as he learnt by the application of the point of his pocket-knife.

The observation trap was covered with this paper, and fitted so nicely in the opening that his fingers ​had failed to detect, through the superimposed gauze, the slightest irregularity there. But, the trap opened, a perfectly clear view of the room could be obtained through the gauze, which, by reason of its texture, also admitted a current of air.

This matter settled, M. Max proceeded carefully to examine the entire room foot by foot. Opening the door in one corner, he entered the bathroom, in which, as in the outer apartment, an electric light was burning. No window was discoverable, and not even an opening for ventilation purposes. The latter fact he might have deduced from the stagnation of the atmosphere.

Half an hour or more he spent in this fashion, without having discovered anything beyond the secret of the observation trap. Again he took out his pocket-knife, which was a large one with a handsome mother-o’-pearl handle. Although Mr. Ho-Pin had examined this carefully, he had solved only half of its secrets. M. Max extracted a little pair of tweezers from the slot in which they were lodged—as Ho-Pin had not neglected to do; but Ho-Pin, having looked at the tweezers, had returned them to their place: M. Max did not do so. He opened the entire knife as though it had been a box, and revealed within it a tiny set of appliances designed principally for the desecration of locks!

Selecting one of these, he took up his watch from the table upon which it lay, and approached the door. It possessed a lever handle of the ​Continental pattern, and M. Max silently prayed that this might not be a snare and a delusion, but that the lock below might be of the same manufacture.

In order to settle the point, he held the face of his watch close to the keyhole, wound its knob in the wrong direction, and lo! it became an electric lamp!

One glance he cast into the tiny cavity, then dropped back upon the bunk, twisting his mobile mouth in that half smile at once humorous and despairful.

“Nom d’un p’tit bonhomme!—a Yale!” he muttered. “To open that without noise is impossible! Damn!”

M. Max threw himself back upon the pillow, and for an hour afterward lay deep in silent reflection.

He had cigarettes in his case and should have liked to smoke, but feared to take the risk of scenting the air with a perfume so unorthodox.

He had gained something by his exploit, but not all that he had hoped for; clearly his part now was to await what the morning should bring.

XXXII

Blue Blinds

MORNING brought the silent opening of the door, and the entrance of Said, the Egyptian, bearing a tiny Chinese tea service upon a lacquered tray.

But M. Max lay in a seemingly deathly stupor, and from this the impassive Oriental had great difficulty in arousing him. Said, having shaken some symptoms of life into the limp form of M. Max, filled the little cup with fragrant China tea, and, supporting the dazed man, held the beverage to his lips. With his eyes but slightly opened, and with all his weight resting upon the arm of the Egyptian, he gulped the hot tea, and noted that it was of exquisite quality.

Theine is an antidote to opium, and M. Max accordingly became somewhat restored, and lay staring at the Oriental, and blinking his eyes foolishly.

Said, leaving the tea service upon the little table, glided from the room. Something else the Egyptian had left upon the tray in addition to the dainty vessels of porcelain; it was a steel ring containing a dozen or more keys. Most of these keys lay fanwise and bunched together, but one lay isolated ​and pointing in an opposite direction. It was a Yale key—the key of the door!

Silently as a shadow, M. Max glided into the bathroom, and silently, swiftly, returned, carrying a cake of soap. Three clear, sharp impressions, he secured of the Yale, the soap leaving no trace of the operation upon the metal. He dropped the precious soap tablet into his open bag.

In a state of semi-torpor, M. Max sprawled upon the bed for ten minutes or more, during which time, as he noted, the door remained ajar. Then there entered a figure which seemed wildly out of place in the establishment of Ho-Pin. It was that of a butler, most accurately dressed and most deferential in all his highly-trained movements. His dark hair was neatly brushed, and his face, which had a pinched appearance, was composed in that “if-it-is-entirely-agreeable-to-you-Sir” expression, typical of his class.

The unhealthy, yellow skin of the new arrival, which harmonized so ill with the clear whites of his little furtive eyes, interested M. Max extraordinarily. M. Max was blinking like a week-old kitten, and one could have sworn that he was but hazily conscious of his surroundings; whereas in reality he was memorizing the cranial peculiarities of the new arrival, the shape of his nose, the disposition of his ears; the exact hue of his eyes; the presence of a discolored tooth in his lower jaw, which a fish-like, ​nervous trick of opening and closing the mouth periodically revealed.

“Good morning, sir!” said the valet, gently rubbing his palms together and bending over the bed.

M. Max inhaled deeply, stared in glassy fashion, but in no way indicated that he had heard the words.

The valet shook him gently by the shoulder.

“Good morning, sir. Shall I prepare your bath?”

“She is a serpent!” muttered M. Max, tossing one arm weakly above his head…“all yellow.…But roses are growing in the mud…of the river!”

“If you will take your bath, sir,” insisted the man in black, “I shall be ready to shave you when you return.”

“Bath…shave me!”

M. Max began to rub his eyes and to stare uncomprehendingly at the speaker.

“Yes, sir; good morning, sir,”—there was another bow and more rubbing of palms.

“Ah!—of course! Morbleu! This is Paris.…”

“No, sir, excuse me, sir, London. Bath hot or cold, sir?”

“Cold,” replied M. Max, struggling upright with apparent difficulty; “yes,—cold.”

“Very good, sir. Have you brought your own razor, sir?”

​“Yes, yes,” muttered Max—“in the bag—in that bag.”

“I will fill the bath, sir.”

The bath being duly filled, M. Max, throwing about his shoulders a magnificent silk kimono which he found upon the armchair, steered a zigzag course to the bathroom. His tooth-brush had been put in place by the attentive valet; there was an abundance of clean towels, soaps, bath salts, with other necessities and luxuries of the toilet. M. Max, following his bath, saw fit to evidence a return to mental clarity; and whilst he was being shaved he sought to enter into conversation with the valet. But the latter was singularly reticent, and again M. Max changed his tactics. He perceived here a golden opportunity which he must not allow to slip through his fingers.

“Would you like to earn a hundred pounds?” he demanded abruptly, gazing into the beady eyes of the man bending over him.

Soames almost dropped the razor. His state of alarm was truly pitiable; he glanced to the right, he glanced to the left, he glanced over his shoulder, up at the ceiling and down at the floor.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, nervously; “I don’t think I quite understand you, sir?”

“It is quite simple,” replied M. Max. “I asked you if you had some use for a hundred pounds. Because if you have, I will meet you at any place you ​like to mention and bring with me cash to that amount!”

“Hush, sir!—for God’s sake, hush, sir!” whispered Soames.

A dew of perspiration was glistening upon his forehead, and it was fortunate that he had finished shaving M. Max, for his hand was trembling furiously. He made a pretense of hurrying with towels, bay rum, and powder spray, but the beady eyes were ever glancing to right and left and all about.

M. Max, who throughout this time had been reflecting, made a second move.

“Another fifty, or possibly another hundred, could be earned as easily,” he said, with assumed carelessness. “I may add that this will not be offered again, and…that you will shortly be out of employment, with worse to follow.”

Soames began to exhibit signs of collapse.

“Oh, my God!” he muttered, “what shall I do? I can’t promise—I can’t promise; but I might—I might look in at the ‘Three Nuns’ on Friday evening about nine o’clock.”…

He hastily scooped up M. Max’s belongings, thrust them into the handbag and closed it. M. Max was now fully dressed and ready to depart. He placed a sovereign in the valet’s ready palm.

“That’s an appointment,” he said softly.

Said entered and stood bowing in the doorway.

“Good morning, sir, good morning,” muttered ​Soames, and covertly he wiped the perspiration from his brow with the corner of a towel—“good morning, and thank you very much.”

M. Max, buttoning his light overcoat in order to conceal the fact that he wore evening dress, entered the corridor, and followed the Egyptian into the cave of the golden dragon. Ho-Pin, sleek and smiling, received him there. Ho-Pin was smoking the inevitable cigarette in the long tube, and, opening the door, he silently led the way up the steps into the covered courtyard, Said following with the hand-bag. The limousine stood there, dimly visible in the darkness. Said placed the handbag upon the seat inside, and Ho-Pin assisted M. Max to enter, closing the door upon him, but leaning through the open window to shake his hand. The Chinaman’s hand was icily cold and limp.

“Au wrevoir, my dear fwriend,” he said in his metallic voice. “I hope to have the pleasure of gwreeting you again vewry shortly.”

With that he pulled up the window from the outside, and the occupant of the limousine found himself in impenetrable darkness; for dark blue blinds covered all the windows. He lay back, endeavoring to determine what should be his next move. The car started with a perfect action, and without the slightest jolt or jar. By reason of the light which suddenly shone in through the chinks of the blinds, he knew that he was outside the covered courtyard; then he became aware that a sharp turning had ​been taken to the left, followed almost immediately, by one to the right.

He directed his attention to the blinds.

“Ah! nom d’un nom! they are clever—these!”

The blinds worked in little vertical grooves and had each a tiny lock. The blinds covering the glass doors on either side were attached to the adjustable windows; so that when Ho-Pin had raised the window, he had also closed the blind! And these windows operated automatically, and defied all M. Max’s efforts to open them!

He was effectively boxed in and unable to form the slightest impression of his surroundings. He threw himself back upon the soft cushions with a muttered curse of vexation; but the mobile mouth was twisted into that wryly humorous smile. Always, M. Max was a philosopher.

At the end of a drive of some twenty-five minutes or less, the car stopped—the door was opened, and the radiant Gianapolis extended both hands to the occupant.

“My dear M. Gaston!” he cried, “how glad I am to see you looking so well! Hand me your bag, I beg of you!”

M. Max placed the bag in the extended hand of Gianapolis, and leapt out upon the pavement.

“This way, my dear friend!” cried the Greek, grasping him warmly by the arm.

The Frenchman found himself being led along toward the head of the car; and, at the same ​moment, Said reversed the gear and backed away. M. Max was foiled in his hopes of learning the number of the limousine.

He glanced about him wonderingly.

“You are in Temple Gardens, M. Gaston,” explained the Greek, “and here, unless I am greatly mistaken, comes a disengaged taxi-cab. You will drive to your hotel?”

“Yes, to my hotel,” replied M. Max.

“And whenever you wish to avail yourself of your privilege, and pay a second visit to the establishment presided over by Mr. Ho-Pin, you remember the number?”

“I remember the number,” replied M. Max.

The cab hailed by Gianapolis drew up beside the two, and M. Max entered it.

“Good morning, M. Gaston.”

“Good morning, Mr. Gianapolis.”

XXXIII

Logic vs. Intuition

AND now, Henry Leroux, Denise Ryland and Helen Cumberly were speeding along the Richmond Road beneath a sky which smiled upon Leroux’s convalescence; for this was a perfect autumn morning which ordinarily had gladdened him, but which saddened him to-day.

The sun shone and the sky was blue; a pleasant breeze played upon his cheeks; whilst Mira, his wife, was…

He knew that he had come perilously near to the borderland beyond which are gibbering, mowing things: that he had stood upon the frontier of insanity; and realizing the futility of such reflections, he struggled to banish them from his mind, for his mind was not yet healed—and he must be whole, be sane, if he would take part in the work, which, now, strangers were doing, whilst he—whilst he was a useless hulk.

Denise Ryland had been very voluble at the commencement of the drive, but, as it progressed, had grown gradually silent, and now sat with her brows working up and down and with a little network of wrinkles alternately appearing and disappearing ​above the bridge of her nose. A self-reliant woman, it was irksome to her to know herself outside the circle of activity revolving around the mysterious Mr. King. She had had one interview with Inspector Dunbar, merely in order that she might give personal testimony to the fact that Mira Leroux had not visited her that year in Paris. Of the shrewd Scotsman she had formed the poorest opinion; and indeed she never had been known to express admiration for, or even the slightest confidence in, any man breathing. The amiable M. Gaston possessed virtues which appealed to her, but whilst she admitted that his conversation was entertaining and his general behavior good, she always spoke with the utmost contempt of his sartorial splendor.

Now, with the days and the weeks slipping by, and with the spectacle before her of poor Leroux, a mere shadow of his former self, with the case, so far as she could perceive, at a standstill, and with the police (she firmly believed) doing “absolutely…nothing…whatever”—Denise Ryland recognized that what was lacking in the investigation was that intuition and wit which only a clever woman could bring to bear upon it, and of which she, in particular, possessed an unlimited reserve.

The car sped on toward the purer atmosphere of the riverside, and even the clouds of dust, which periodically enveloped them, with the passing of each motor-’bus, and which at the commencement of the ​drive had inspired her to several notable and syncopated outbursts, now left her unmoved.

She thought that at last she perceived the secret working of that Providence which ever dances attendance at the elbow of accomplished womankind. Following the lead set by “H. C.” in the Planet (“H. C.” was Helen Cumberly’s nom de plume) and by Crocket in the Daily Monitor, the London Press had taken Olaf van Noord to its bosom; and his exhibition in the Little Gallery was an established financial success, whilst “Our Lady of the Poppies” (which had, of course, been rejected by the Royal Academy) promised to be the picture of the year.

Mentally, Denise Ryland was again surveying that remarkable composition; mentally she was surveying Olaf van Noord’s model, also. Into the scheme slowly forming in her brain, the yellow-wrapped cigarette containing “a small percentage of opium” fitted likewise. Finally, but not last in importance, the Greek gentleman, Mr. Gianapolis, formed a unit of the whole.

Denise Ryland had always despised those detective creations which abound in French literature; perceiving in their marvelous deductions a tortured logic incompatible with the classic models. She prided herself upon her logic, possibly because it was a quality which she lacked, and probably because she confused it with intuition, of which, to do her justice, she possessed an unusual share. Now, ​this intuition was at work, at work well and truly; and the result which this mental contortionist ascribed to pure reason was nearer to the truth than a real logician could well have hoped to attain by confining himself to legitimate data. In short, she had determined to her own satisfaction that Mr. Gianapolis was the clue to the mystery; that Mr. Gianapolis was not (as she had once supposed) enacting the part of an amiable liar when he declared that there were, in London, such apartments as that represented by Olaf van Noord; that Mr. Gianapolis was acquainted with the present whereabouts of Mrs. Leroux; that Mr. Gianapolis knew who murdered Iris Vernon; and that Scotland Yard was a benevolent institution for the support of those of enfeebled intellect.

These results achieved, she broke her long silence at the moment that the car was turning into Richmond High Street.

“My dear!” she exclaimed, clutching Helen’s arm, “I see it all!”

“Oh!” cried the girl, “how you startled me! I thought you were ill or that you had seen something frightful.”…

“I have…seen something…frightful,” declared Denise Ryland. She glared across at the haggard Leroux. “Harry…Leroux,” she continued, “it is very fortunate…that I came to London…very fortunate.”

​“I am sincerely glad that you did,” answered the novelist, with one of his kindly, weary smiles.

“My dear,” said Denise Ryland, turning again to Helen Cumberly, “you say you met that…cross-eyed…being…Gianapolis, again?”

“Good Heavens!” cried Helen; “I thought I should never get rid of him; a most loathsome man!”

“My dear…child”—Denise squeezed her tightly by the arm, and peered into her face, intently—“cul-tivate…deliberately cul-tivate that man’s acquaintance!”

Helen stared at her friend as though she suspected the latter’s sanity.

“I am afraid I do not understand at all,” she said, breathlessly.

“I am positive that I do not,” declared Leroux, who was as much surprised as Helen. “In the first place I am not acquainted with this cross-eyed being.”

“You are…out of this!” cried Denise Ryland with a sweeping movement of the left hand; “entirely…out of it! This is no man’s…business.”…

“But my dear Denise!” exclaimed Helen.…

“I beseech you; I entreat you;…I order…you to cul-tivate…that…execrable…being.”

“Perhaps,” said Helen, with eyes widely opened, ​“you will condescend to give me some slight reason why I should do anything so extraordinary and undesirable?”

“Undesirable!” cried Denise. “On the contrary;…it is most…desirable! It is essential. The wretched…cross-eyed…creature has presumed to fall in love…with you.”…

“Oh!” cried Helen, flushing, and glancing rapidly at Leroux, who now was thoroughly interested, “please do not talk nonsense!”

“It is no…nonsense. It is the finger…of Providence. Do you know where you can find…him?”

“Not exactly; but I have a shrewd suspicion,” again she glanced in an embarrassed way at Leroux, “that he will know where to find me.”

“Who is this presumptuous person?” inquired the novelist, leaning forward, his dark blue eyes aglow with interest.

“Never mind,” replied Denise Ryland, “you will know…soon enough. In the meantime…as I am simply…starving, suppose we see about…lunch?”

Moved by some unaccountable impulse, Helen extended her hand to Leroux, who took it quietly in his own and held it, looking down at the slim fingers as though he derived strength and healing from their touch.

“Poor boy,” she said softly.

XXXIV

M. Max Reports Progress

DETECTIVE-SERGEANT SOWERBY was seated in Dunbar’s room at New Scotland Yard. Some days had elapsed since that critical moment when, all unaware of the fact, they had stood within three yards of the much-wanted Soames, in the fauteuils of the east-end music-hall. Every clue thus far investigated had proved a cul-de-sac. Dunbar, who had literally been working night and day, now began to show evidence of his giant toils. The tawny eyes were as keen as ever, and the whole man as forceful as of old, but in the intervals of conversation, his lids would droop wearily; he would only arouse himself by a perceptible effort.

Sowerby, whose bowler hat lay upon Dunbar’s table, was clad in the familiar raincoat, and his ruddy cheerfulness had abated not one whit.

“Have you ever read ‘The Adventures of Martin Zeda’?” he asked suddenly, breaking a silence of some minutes’ duration.

Dunbar looked up with a start, as…

“Never!” he replied; “I’m not wasting my time with magazine trash.”

​“It’s not trash,” said Sowerby, assuming that unnatural air of reflection which sat upon him so ill. “I’ve looked up the volumes of the Ludgate Magazine in our local library, and I’ve read all the series with much interest.”

Dunbar leaned forward, watching him frowningly.

“I should have thought,” he replied, “that you had enough to do without wasting your time in that way!”

“Is it a waste of time?” inquired Sowerby, raising his eyebrows in a manner which lent him a marked resemblance to a famous comedian. “I tell you that the man who can work out plots like those might be a second Jack-the-Ripper and not a soul the wiser!”…

“Ah!”

“I’ve never met a more innocent looking man, I’ll allow; but if you’ll read the ‘Adventures of Martin Zeda,’ you’ll know that”…

“Tosh!” snapped Dunbar, irritably; “your ideas of psychology would make a Manx cat laugh! I suppose, on the same analogy, you think the leader-writers of the dailies could run the Government better than the Cabinet does it?”

“I think it very likely”…

“Tosh! Is there anybody in London knows more about the inside workings of crime than the Commissioner? You will admit there isn’t; very good. Accordingly to your ideas, the Commissioner must be the biggest blackguard in the ​Metropolis! I have said it twice before, and I’ll be saying it again, Sowerby: tosh!”

“Well,” said Sowerby with an offended air, “has anybody ever seen Mr. King?”

“What are you driving at?”

“I am driving at this: somebody known in certain circles as Mr. King is at the bottom of this mystery. It is highly probable that Mr. King himself murdered Mrs. Vernon. On the evidence of your own notes, nobody left Palace Mansions between the time of the crime and the arrival of witnesses. Therefore, one of your witnesses must be a liar; and the liar is Mr. King!”

Inspector Dunbar glared at his subordinate. But the latter continued undaunted:—

“You won’t believe it’s Leroux; therefore it must be either Mr. Exel, Dr. Cumberly, or Miss Cumberly.”…

Inspector Dunbar stood up very suddenly, thrusting his chair from him with much violence.

“Do you recollect the matter of Soames leaving Palace Mansions?” he snapped.

Sowerby’s air of serio-comic defiance began to leave him. He scratched his head reflectively.

“Soames got away like that because no one was expecting him to do it. In the same way, neither Leroux, Exel, nor Dr. Cumberly knew that there was any one else in the flat at the very time when the murderer was making his escape. The cases are identical. They were not looking for a fugitive. ​He had gone before the search commenced. A clever man could have slipped out in a hundred different ways unobserved. Sowerby, you are…”

What Sowerby was, did not come to light at the moment; for, the door quietly opened and in walked M. Gaston Max arrayed in his inimitable traveling coat, and holding his hat of velour in his gloved hand. He bowed politely.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said.

“Good morning,” said Dunbar and Sowerby together.

Sowerby hastened to place a chair for the distinguished visitor. M. Max, thanking him with a bow, took his seat, and from an inside pocket extracted a notebook.

“There are some little points,” he said with a deprecating wave of the hand, “which I should like to confirm.” He opened the book, sought the wanted page, and continued: “Do either of you know a person answering to the following description: Height, about four feet eight-and-a-half inches, medium build and carries himself with a nervous stoop. Has a habit of rubbing his palms together when addressing anyone. Has plump hands with rather tapering fingers, and a growth of reddish down upon the backs thereof, indicating that he has red or reddish hair. His chin recedes slightly and is pointed, with a slight cleft parallel with the mouth and situated equidistant from the ​base of the chin and the lower lip. A nervous mannerism of the latter periodically reveals the lower teeth, one of which, that immediately below the left canine, is much discolored. He is clean-shaven, but may at some time have worn whiskers. His eyes are small and ferret-like, set very closely together and of a ruddy brown color. His nose is wide at the bridge, but narrows to an unusual point at the end. In profile it is irregular, or may have been broken at some time. He has scanty eyebrows set very high, and a low forehead with two faint, vertical wrinkles starting from the inner points of the eyebrows. His natural complexion is probably sallow, and his hair (as hitherto mentioned) either red or of sandy color. His ears are set far back, and the lobes are thin and pointed. His hair is perfectly straight and sparse, and there is a depression of the cheeks where one would expect to find a prominence: that is—at the cheekbone. The cranial development is unusual. The skull slopes back from the crown at a remarkable angle, there being no protuberance at the back, but instead a straight slope to the spine, sometimes seen in the Teutonic races, and in this case much exaggerated. Viewed from the front the skull is narrow, the temples depressed, and the crown bulging over the ears, and receding to a ridge on top. In profile the forehead is almost apelike in size and contour.…”

“Soames!” exclaimed Inspector Dunbar, leaping ​to his feet, and bringing both his palms with a simultaneous bang upon the table before him—“Soames, by God!”

M. Max, shrugging and smiling slightly, returned his notebook to his pocket, and, taking out a cigar-case, placed it, open, upon the table, inviting both his confrères, with a gesture, to avail themselves of its contents.

“I thought so,” he said simply. “I am glad.”

Sowerby selected a cigar in a dazed manner, but Dunbar, ignoring the presence of the cigar-case, leant forward across the table, his eyes blazing, and his small, even, lower teeth revealed in a sort of grim smile.

“M. Max,” he said tensely—“you are a clever man! Where have you got him?”

“I have not got him,” replied the Frenchman, selecting and lighting one of his own cigars. “He is much too useful to be locked up”…

“But”…

“But yes, my dear Inspector—he is safe; oh! he is quite safe. And on Tuesday night he is going to introduce us to Mr. King!”

“Mr. King!” roared Dunbar; and in three strides of the long legs he was around the table and standing before the Frenchman.

In passing he swept Sowerby’s hat on to the floor, and Sowerby, picking it up, began mechanically to brush it with his left sleeve, smoking furiously the while.

​“Soames,” continued M. Max, quietly—“he is now known as Lucas, by the way—is a man of very remarkable character; a fact indicated by his quite unusual skull. He has no more will than this cigar”—he held the cigar up between his fingers, illustratively—“but of stupid pig obstinacy, that canaille—saligaud!—has enough for all the cattle in Europe! He is like a man who knows that he stands upon a sinking ship, yet, who whilst promising to take the plunge every moment, hesitates and will continue to hesitate until someone pushes him in. Pardieu! I push! Because of his pig obstinacy I am compelled to take risks most unnecessary. He will not consent, that Soames, to open the door for us…”

“What door?” snapped Dunbar.

“The door of the establishment of Mr. King,” explained Max, blandly.

“But where is it?”

“It is somewhere between Limehouse Causeway—is it not called so?—and the riverside. But although I have been there, myself, I can tell you no more.…”

“What! you have been there yourself?”

“But yes—most decidedly. I was there some nights ago. But they are ingenious, ah! they are so ingenious!—so Chinese! I should not have known even the little I do know if it were not for the inquiries which I made last week. I knew that the letters to Mr. Leroux which were supposed to ​come from Paris were handed by Soames to some one who posted them to Paris from Bow, East. You remember how I found the impression of the postmark?”

Dunbar nodded, his eyes glistening; for that discovery of the Frenchman’s had filled him with a sort of envious admiration.

“Well, then,” continued Max, “I knew that the inquiry would lead me to your east-end, and I suspected that I was dealing with Chinamen; therefore, suitably attired, of course, I wandered about in those interesting slums on more than one occasion; and I concluded that the only district in which a Chinaman could live without exciting curiosity was that which lies off the West India Dock Road.”…

Dunbar nodded significantly at Sowerby, as who should say: “What did I tell you about this man?”

“On one of these visits,” continued the Frenchman, and a smile struggled for expression upon his mobile lips, “I met you two gentlemen with a Mr.—I think he is called Stringer—”…

“You met us!” exclaimed Sowerby.

“My sense of humor quite overcoming me,” replied M. Max, “I even tried to swindle you. I think I did the trick very badly!”

Dunbar and Sowerby were staring at one another amazedly.

“It was in the corner of a public house billiard-room,” added the Frenchman, with twinkling eyes; ​“I adopted the ill-used name of Levinsky on that occasion.”…

Dunbar began to punch his left palm and to stride up and down the floor; whilst Sowerby, his blue eyes opened quite roundly, watched M. Max as a schoolboy watches an illusionist.

“Therefore,” continued M. Max, “I shall ask you to have a party ready on Tuesday night in Limehouse Causeway—suitably concealed, of course; and as I am almost sure that the haunt of Mr. King is actually upon the riverside (I heard one little river sound as I was coming away) a launch party might cooperate with you in affecting the raid.”

“The raid!” said Dunbar, turning from a point by the window, and looking back at the Frenchman. “Do you seriously tell me that we are going to raid Mr. King’s on Tuesday night?”

“Most certainly,” was the confident reply. “I had hoped to form one of the raiding party; but nom d’un nom!”—he shrugged, in his graceful fashion—“I must be one of the rescued!”

“Of the rescued!”

“You see I visited that establishment as a smoker of opium”…

“You took that risk?”

“It was no greater risk than is run by quite a number of people socially well known in London, my dear Inspector Dunbar! I was introduced by an habitué and a member of the best society; and since ​nobody knows that Gaston Max is in London—that Gaston Max has any business in hand likely to bring him to London—pardieu, what danger did I incur? But, excepting the lobby—the cave of the dragon (a stranger apartment even than that in the Rue St. Claude) and the Chinese cubiculum where I spent the night—mon dieu! what a night!—I saw nothing of the establishment”…

“But you must know where it is!” cried Dunbar.

“I was driven there in a closed limousine, and driven away in the same vehicle”…

“You got the number?”

“It was impossible. These are clever people! But it must be a simple matter, Inspector, to trace a fine car like that which regularly appears in those east-end streets?”

“Every constable in the division must be acquainted with it,” replied Dunbar, confidently. “I’ll know all about that car inside the next hour!”

“If on Tuesday night you could arrange to have it followed,” continued M. Max, “it would simplify matters. What I have done is this: I have bought the man, Soames—up to a point. But so deadly is his fear of the mysterious Mr. King that although he has agreed to assist me in my plans, he will not consent to divulge an atom of information until the raid is successfully performed.”

“Then for heaven’s sake what is he going to do?”

​“Visitors to the establishment (it is managed by a certain Mr. Ho-Pin; make a note of him, that Ho-Pin) having received the necessary dose of opium are locked in for the night. On Tuesday, Soames, who acts as valet to poor fools using the place, has agreed—for a price—to unlock the door of the room in which I shall be”…

“What!” cried Dunbar, “you are going to risk yourself alone in that place again?”

“I have paid a very heavy fee,” replied the Frenchman with his odd smile, “and it entitles me to a second visit; I shall pay that second visit on Tuesday night, and my danger will be no greater than on the first occasion.”

“But Soames may betray you!”

“Fear nothing; I have measured my Soames, not only anthropologically, but otherwise. I fear only his folly, not his knavery. He will not betray me. Morbleu! he is too much a frightened man. I do not know what has taken place; but I could see that, assured of escaping the police for complicity in the murder, he would turn King’s evidence immediately”…

“And you gave him that assurance?”

“At first I did not reveal myself. I weighed up my man very carefully; I measured that Soames-pig. I had several stories in readiness, but his character indicated which I should use. Therefore, suddenly I arrested him!”

“Arrested him?”

​“Pardieu! I arrested him very quietly in a corner of the bar of ‘Three Nuns’ public house. My course was justified. He saw that the reign of his mysterious Mr. King was nearing its close, and that I was his only hope”…

“But still he refused”…

“His refusal to reveal anything whatever under those circumstances impressed me more than all. It showed me that in Mr. King I had to deal with a really wonderful and powerful man; a man who ruled by means of fear; a man of gigantic force. I had taken the pattern of the key fitting the Yale lock of the door of my room, and I secured a duplicate immediately. Soames has not access to the keys, you understand. I must rely upon my diplomacy to secure the same room again—all turns upon that; and at an hour after midnight, or later if advisable, Soames has agreed to let me out. Beyond this, I could induce him to do nothing—nothing whatever. Cochon! Therefore, having got out of the locked room, I must rely upon my own wits—and the Browning pistol which I have presented to Soames together with the duplicate key”…

“Why not go armed?” asked Dunbar.

“One’s clothes are searched, my dear Inspector, by an expert! I have given the key, the pistol, and the implements of the house-breaker (a very neat set which fits easily into the breast-pocket) to Soames, to conceal in his private room at the establishment until Tuesday night. All turns upon my ​securing the same apartment. If I am unable to do so, the arrangements for the raid will have to be postponed. Opium smokers are faddists essentially, however, and I think I can manage to pretend that I have formed a strange penchant for this particular cubiculum”…

“By whom were you introduced to the place?” asked Dunbar, leaning back against the table and facing the Frenchman.

“That I cannot in honor divulge,” was the reply; “but the representative of Mr. King who actually admitted me to the establishment is one Gianapolis; address unknown, but telephone number 18642 East. Make a note of him, that Gianapolis.”

“I’ll arrest him in the morning,” said Sowerby, writing furiously in his notebook.

“Nom d’un p’tit bonhomme! M. Sowerby, you will do nothing of that foolish description, my dear friend,” said Max; and Dunbar glared at the unfortunate sergeant. “Nothing whatever must be done to arouse suspicion between now and the moment of the raid. You must be circumspect—ah, morbleu! so circumspect. By all means trace this Mr. Gianapolis; yes. But do not let him suspect that he is being traced”…

XXXV

Tracker Tracked

HELEN CUMBERLY and Denise Ryland peered from the window of the former’s room into the dusk of the Square, until their eyes ached with the strain of an exercise so unnatural.

“I tell you,” said Denise with emphasis, “that…sooner or later…he will come prowling…around. The mere fact that he did not appear…last night…counts for nothing. His own crooked…plans no doubt detain him…very often…at night.”

Helen sighed wearily. Denise Ryland’s scheme was extremely distasteful to her, but whenever she thought of the pathetic eyes of Leroux she found new determination. Several times she had essayed to analyze the motives which actuated her; always she feared to pursue such inquiries beyond a certain point. Now that she was beginning to share her friend’s views upon the matter, all social plans sank into insignificance, and she lived only in the hope of again meeting Gianapolis, of tracing out the opium group, and of finding Mrs. Leroux. In what state did she hope and expect to find her? This was a ​double question which kept her wakeful through the dreary watches of the night.…

“Look!”

Denise Ryland grasped her by the arm, pointing out into the darkened Square. A furtive figure crossed from the northeast corner into the shade of some trees and might be vaguely detected coming nearer and nearer.

“There he is!” whispered Denise Ryland, excitedly; “I told you he couldn’t…keep away. I know that kind of brute. There is nobody at home, so listen: I will watch…from the drawing-room, and you…light up here and move about…as if preparing to go out.”

Helen, aware that she was flushed with excitement, fell in with the proposal readily; and having switched on the lights in her room and put on her hat so that her moving shadow was thrown upon the casement curtain, she turned out the light again and ran to rejoin her friend. She found the latter peering eagerly from the window of the drawing-room.

“He thinks you are coming out!” gasped Denise. “He has slipped…around the corner. He will pretend to be…passing…this way…the cross-eyed…hypocrite. Do you feel capable…of the task?”

“Quite,” Helen declared, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling. “You will follow us as arranged; for heaven’s sake, don’t lose us!”

“If the doctor knew of this,” breathed Denise, ​“he would never…forgive me. But no woman…no true woman…could refuse to undertake…so palpable…a duty”…

Helen Cumberly, wearing a warm, golfing jersey over her dress, with a woolen cap to match, ran lightly down the stairs and out into the Square, carrying a letter. She walked along to the pillar-box, and having examined the address upon the envelope with great care, by the light of an adjacent lamp, posted the letter, turned—and there, radiant and bowing, stood Mr. Gianapolis!

“Kismet is really most kind to me!” he cried. “My friend, who lives, as I think I mentioned once before, in Peer’s Chambers, evidently radiates good luck. I last had the good fortune to meet you when on my way to see him, and I now meet you again within five minutes of leaving him! My dear Miss Cumberly, I trust you are quite well?”

“Quite,” said Helen, holding out her hand. “I am awfully glad to see you again, Mr. Gianapolis!”

He was distinctly encouraged by her tone. He bent forward confidentially.

“The night is young,” he said; and his smile was radiant. “May I hope that your expedition does not terminate at this post-box?”

Helen glanced at him doubtfully, and then down at her jersey. Gianapolis was unfeignedly delighted with her naïveté.

“Surely you don’t want to be seen with me in this extraordinary costume!” she challenged.

​“My dear Miss Cumberly, it is simply enchanting! A girl with such a figure as yours never looks better than when she dresses sportily!”

The latent vulgarity of the man was escaping from the bondage in which ordinarily he confined it. A real passion had him in its grip, and the real Gianapolis was speaking. Helen hesitated for one fateful moment; it was going to be even worse than she had anticipated. She glanced up at Palace Mansions.

Across a curtained window moved a shadow, that of a man wearing a long gown and having his hands clasped behind him, whose head showed as an indistinct blur because the hair was wildly disordered. This shadow passed from side to side of the window and was lost from view. It was the shadow of Henry Leroux.

“I am afraid I have a lot of work to do,” said Helen, with a little catch in her voice.

“My dear Miss Cumberly,” cried Gianapolis, eagerly, placing his hand upon her arm, “it is precisely of your work that I wish to speak to you! Your work is familiar to me—I never miss a line of it; and knowing how you delight in the outré and how inimitably you can describe scenes of Bohemian life, I had hoped, since it was my privilege to meet you, that you would accept my services as cicerone to some of the lesser-known resorts of Bohemian London. Your article, ‘Dinner in Soho,’ was a delightful piece of observation, and the third—I think it was the third—of the same series: ‘Curiosities ​of the Café Royal,’ was equally good. But your powers of observation would be given greater play in any one of the three establishments to which I should be honored to escort you.”

Helen Cumberly, though perfectly self-reliant, as only the modern girl journalist can be, was fully aware that, not being of the flat-haired, bespectacled type, she was called upon to exercise rather more care in her selection of companions for copy-hunting expeditions than was necessary in the case of certain fellow-members of the Scribes’ Club. No power on earth could have induced her to accept such an invitation from such a man, under ordinary circumstances; even now, with so definite and important an object in view, she hesitated. The scheme might lead to nothing; Denise Ryland (horrible thought!) might lose the track; the track might lead to no place of importance, so far as her real inquiry was concerned.

In this hour of emergency, new and wiser ideas were flooding her brain. For instance, they might have admitted Inspector Dunbar to the plot. With Inspector Dunbar dogging her steps, she should have felt perfectly safe; but Denise—she had every respect for Denise’s reasoning powers, and force of character—yet Denise nevertheless might fail her.

She glanced into the crooked eyes of Gianapolis, then up again at Palace Mansions.

The shadow of Henry Leroux recrossed the cream-curtained window.

​“So early in the evening,” pursued the Greek, rapidly, “the more interesting types will hardly have arrived; nevertheless, at the Memphis Café”…

“Memphis Café!” muttered Helen, glancing at him rapidly; “what an odd name.”

“Ah! my dear Miss Cumberly!” cried Gianapolis, with triumph—“I knew that you had never heard of the true haunts of Bohemia! The Memphis Café—it is actually a club—was founded by Olaf van Noord two years ago, and at present has a membership including some of the most famous artistic folk of London; not only painters, but authors, composers, actors, actresses. I may add that the peerage, male and female, is represented.”

“It is actually a gaming-house, I suppose?” said Helen, shrewdly.

“A gaming-house? Not at all! If what you wish to see is play for high stakes, it is not to the Memphis Café you must go. I can show you Society losing its money in thousands, if the spectacle would amuse you. I only await your orders”…

“You certainly interest me,” said Helen; and indeed this half-glimpse into phases of London life hidden from the world—even from the greater part of the ever-peering journalistic world—was not lacking in fascination.

The planning of a scheme in its entirety constitutes a mental effort which not infrequently blinds us to the shortcomings of certain essential details. Denise’s plan, a good one in many respects, had the ​fault of being over-elaborate. Now, when it was too late to advise her friend of any amendment, Helen perceived that there was no occasion for her to suffer the society of Gianapolis.

To bid him good evening, and then to follow him, herself, was a plan much superior to that of keeping him company whilst Denise followed both!

Moreover, he would then be much more likely to go home, or to some address which it would be useful to know. What a very womanish scheme theirs had been, after all; Helen told herself that the most stupid man imaginable could have placed his finger upon its weak spot immediately.

But her mind was made up. If it were possible, she would warn Denise of the change of plan; if it were not, then she must rely upon her friend to see through the ruse which she was about to practise upon the Greek.

“Good night, Mr. Gianapolis!” she said abruptly, and held out her hand to the smiling man. His smile faded. “I should love to join you, but really you must know that it’s impossible. I will arrange to make up a party, with pleasure, if you will let me know where I can ’phone you?”

“But,” he began…

“Many thanks, it’s really impossible; there are limits even to the escapades allowed under the cloak of ‘Copy’! Where can I communicate with you?”

“Oh! how disappointed I am! But I must permit you to know your own wishes better than I can ​hope to know them, Miss Cumberly. Therefore”—Helen was persistently holding out her hand—“good night! Might I venture to telephone to you in the morning? We could then come to some arrangement, no doubt”…

“You might not find me at home”…

“But at nine o’clock!”

“It allows me no time to make up my party!”

“But such a party must not exceed three: yourself and two others”…

“Nevertheless, it has to be arranged.”

“I shall ring up to-morrow evening, and if you are not at home, your maid will tell me when you are expected to return.”

Helen quite clearly perceived that no address and no telephone number were forthcoming.

“You are committing yourself to endless and unnecessary trouble, Mr. Gianapolis, but if you really wish to do as you suggest, let it be so. Good night!”

She barely touched his extended hand, turned, and ran fleetly back toward the door of Palace Mansions. Ere reaching the entrance, however, she dropped a handkerchief, stooped to recover it, and glanced back rapidly.

Gianapolis was just turning the corner.

Helen perceived the unmistakable form of Denise Ryland lurking in the Palace Mansions doorway, and, waving frantically to her friend, who was nonplussed at this change of tactics, she hurried back ​again to the corner and peeped cautiously after the retreating Greek.

There was a cab rank some fifty paces beyond, with three taxis stationed there. If Gianapolis chartered a cab, and she were compelled to follow in another, would Denise come upon the scene in time to take up the prearranged rôle of sleuth-hound?

Gianapolis hesitated only for a few seconds; then, shrugging his shoulders, he stepped out into the road and into the first cab on the rank. The man cranked his engine, leapt into his seat and drove off. Helen Cumberly, ignoring the curious stares of the two remaining taxi-men, ran out from the shelter of the corner and jumped into the next cab, crying breathlessly:

“Follow that cab! Don’t let the man in it suspect, but follow, and don’t lose sight of it!”

They were off!

Helen glanced ahead quickly, and was just in time to see Gianapolis’ cab disappear; then, leaning out of the window, she indulged in an extravagant pantomime for the benefit of Denise Ryland, who was hurrying after her.

“Take the next cab and follow me!” she cried, whilst her friend raised her hand to her ear the better to detect the words. “I cannot wait for you or the track will be lost”…

Helen’s cab swung around the corner—and she was not by any means certain that Denise Ryland had understood her; but to have delayed would have ​been fatal, and she must rely upon her friend’s powers of penetration to form a third in this singular procession.

Whilst these thoughts were passing in the pursuer’s mind, Gianapolis, lighting a cigarette, had thrown himself back in a corner of the cab and was mentally reviewing the events of the evening—that is, those events which were associated with Helen Cumberly. He was disappointed but hopeful: at any rate he had suffered no definite repulse. Without doubt, his reflections had been less roseate had he known that he was followed, not only by two, but by three trackers.

He had suspected for some time now, and the suspicion had made him uneasy, that his movements were being watched. Police surveillance he did not fear; his arrangements were too complete, he believed, to occasion him any ground for anxiety even though half the Criminal Investigation Department were engaged in dogging his every movement. He understood police methods very thoroughly, and all his experience told him that this elusive shadow which latterly had joined him unbidden, and of whose presence he was specially conscious whenever his steps led toward Palace Mansions, was no police officer.

He had two theories respecting the shadow—or, more properly, one theory which was divisible into two parts; and neither part was conducive to peace of mind. Many years, crowded with many ​happenings, some of which he would fain forget, had passed since the day when he had entered the service of Mr. King, in Pekin. The enterprises of Mr. King were always of a secret nature, and he well remembered the fate of a certain Burmese gentleman of Rangoon who had attempted to throw the light of publicity into the dark places of these affairs.

From a confidant of the doomed man, Gianapolis had learned, fully a month before a mysterious end had come to the Burman, how the latter (by profession a money-lender) had complained of being shadowed night and day by someone or something, of whom or of which he could never succeed in obtaining so much as a glimpse.

Gianapolis shuddered. These were morbid reflections, for, since he had no thought of betraying Mr. King, he had no occasion to apprehend a fate similar to that of the unfortunate money-lender of Rangoon. It was a very profitable service, that of Mr. King, yet there were times when the fear of his employer struck a chill to his heart; there were times when almost he wished to be done with it all . . .

By Whitechapel Station he discharged the cab, and, standing on the pavement, lighted a new cigarette from the glowing stump of the old one. A fair amount of traffic passed along the Whitechapel Road, for the night was yet young; therefore Gianapolis attached no importance to the fact that almost at the moment when his own cab turned and ​was driven away, a second cab swung around the corner of Mount Street and disappeared.

But, could he have seen the big limousine drawn up to the pavement some fifty yards west of London Hospital, his reflections must have been terrible, indeed.

Fate willed that he should know nothing of this matter, and, his thoughts automatically reverting again to Helen Cumberly, he enjoyed that imaginary companionship throughout the remainder of his walk, which led him along Cambridge Road, and from thence, by a devious route, to the northern end of Globe Road.

It may be enlightening to leave Gianapolis for a moment and to return to Mount Street.

Helen Cumberly’s cabman, seeing the cab ahead pull up outside the railway station, turned around the nearest corner on the right (as has already appeared), and there stopped. Helen, who also had observed the maneuver of the taxi ahead, hastily descended, and giving the man half-a-sovereign, said rapidly:

“I must follow on foot now, I am afraid! but as I don’t know this district at all, could you bring the cab along without attracting attention, and manage to keep me in sight?”

“I’ll try, miss,” replied the man, with alacrity; “but it won’t be an easy job.”

“Do your best,” cried Helen, and ran off rapidly around the corner, and into Whitechapel Road.

​She was just in time to see Gianapolis throw away the stump of his first cigarette and stroll off, smoking a second. She rejoiced that she was inconspicuously dressed, but, simple as was her attire, it did not fail to attract coarse comment from some whom she jostled on her way. She ignored all this, however, and, at a discreet distance followed the Greek, never losing sight of him for more than a moment.

When, leaving Cambridge Road—a considerable thoroughfare—he plunged into a turning, crooked and uninviting, which ran roughly at right angles with the former, she hesitated, but only for an instant. Not another pedestrian was visible in the street, which was very narrow and ill-lighted, but she plainly saw Gianapolis passing under a street-lamp some thirty yards along. Glancing back in quest of the cabman, but failing to perceive him, she resumed the pursuit.

She was nearly come to the end of the street (Gianapolis already had disappeared into an even narrower turning on the left) when a bright light suddenly swept from behind and cast her shadow far out in front of her upon the muddy road. She heard the faint thudding of a motor, but did not look back, for she was confident that this was the taxi-man following. She crept to the corner and peered around it; Gianapolis had disappeared.

The light grew brighter—brighter yet; and, with the engine running very silently, the car came up almost beside her. She considered this unwise on ​the man’s part, yet welcomed his presence, for in this place not a soul was visible, and for the first time she began to feel afraid…

A shawl, or some kind of silken wrap, was suddenly thrown over her head!

She shrieked frenziedly, but the arm of her captor was now clasped tightly about her mouth and head. She felt herself to be suffocating. The silken thing which enveloped her was redolent of the perfume of roses; it was stifling her. She fought furiously, but her arms were now seized in an irresistible grasp, and she felt herself lifted—and placed upon a cushioned seat.

Instantly there was a forward movement of the vehicle which she had mistaken for a taxi-cab,…and she knew that she was speeding through those unknown east-end streets—God! to what destination?

She could not cry out, for she was fighting for air—she seemed to be encircled by a swirling cloud of purplish mist. On—and on—and on, she was borne; she knew that she must have been drugged in some way, for consciousness was slipping—slipping…

Helpless as a child in that embrace which never faltered, she was lifted again and carried down many steps. Insensibility was very near now, but with all the will that was hers she struggled to fend it off. She felt herself laid down upon soft cushions…

​A guttural voice was speaking, from a vast distance away:

“What is this that you bwring us, Mahâra?”

Answered a sweet, silvery voice:

“Does it matter to you what I bringing? It is one I hate—hate—hate! There will be two cases of ‘ginger’ to go away some day instead of one—that is all! Said, yälla!”

“Your pwrimitive passions will wruin us”…

The silvery voice grew even more silvery:

“Do you quarrel with me, Ho-Pin, my friend?”

“This is England, not Burma! Gianapolis”…

“Ah! Whisper—whisper it to him, and”…

Oblivion closed in upon Helen Cumberly; she seemed to be sinking into the heart of a giant rose.

XXXVI

In Dunbar’s Room

DR. CUMBERLY, his face unusually pale, stood over by the window of Inspector Dunbar’s room, his hands locked behind him. In the chair nearest to the window sat Henry Leroux, so muffled up in a fur-collared motor-coat that little of his face was visible; but his eyes were tragic as he leant forward resting his elbows upon his knees and twirling his cap between his thin fingers. He was watching Inspector Dunbar intently; only glancing from the gaunt face of the detective occasionally to look at Denise Ryland, who sat close to the table. At such times his gaze was pathetically reproachful, but always rather sorrowful than angry.

As for Miss Ryland, her habitual self-confidence seemed somewhat to have deserted her, and it was almost with respectful interest that she followed Dunbar’s examination of a cabman who, standing cap in hand, completed the party so strangely come together at that late hour.

“This is what you have said,” declared Dunbar, taking up an official form, and, with a movement of his hand warning the taxi-man to pay attention: “‘I, Frederick Dean, motor-cab driver, was standing ​on the rank in Little Abbey Street to-night at about a quarter to nine. My cab was the second on the rank. A young lady who wore, I remember, a woolen cap and jersey, with a blue serge skirt, ran out from the corner of the Square and directed me to follow the cab in front of me, which had just been chartered by a dark man wearing a black overcoat and silk hat. She ordered me to keep him in sight; and as I drove off I heard her calling from the window of my cab to another lady who seemed to be following her. I was unable to see this other lady, but my fare addressed her as “Denise.” I followed the first cab to Whitechapel Station; and as I saw it stop there, I swung into Mount Street. The lady gave me half-a-sovereign, and told me that she proposed to follow the man on foot. She asked me if I could manage to keep her in sight, without letting my cab be seen by the man she was following. I said I would try, and I crept along at some distance behind her, going as slowly as possible until she went into a turning branching off to the right of Cambridge Road; I don’t know the name of this street. She was some distance ahead of me, for I had had trouble in crossing Whitechapel Road.

“‘A big limousine had passed me a moment before, but as an electric tram was just going by on my off-side, between me and the limousine, I don’t know where the limousine went. When I was clear of the tram I could not see it, and it may have gone down Cambridge Road and then down the same turning ​as the lady. I pulled up at the end of this turning, and could not see a sign of any one. It was quite deserted right to the end, and although I drove down, bore around to the right and finally came out near the top of Globe Road, I did not pass anyone. I waited about the district for over a quarter-of-an-hour and then drove straight to the police station, and they sent me on here to Scotland Yard to report what had occurred.’

“Have you anything to add to that?” said Dunbar, fixing his tawny eyes upon the cabman.

“Nothing at all,” replied the man—a very spruce and intelligent specimen of his class and one who, although he had moved with the times, yet retained a slightly horsey appearance, which indicated that he had not always been a mechanical Jehu.

“It is quite satisfactory as far as it goes,” muttered Dunbar. “I’ll get you to sign it now and we need not detain you any longer.”

“There is not the slightest doubt,” said Dr. Cumberly, stepping forward and speaking in an unusually harsh voice, “that Helen endeavored to track this man Gianapolis, and was abducted by him or his associates. The limousine was the car of which we have heard so much”…

“If my cabman had not been such a…fool,” broke in Denise Ryland, clasping her hands, “we should have had a different…tale to tell.”

“I have no wish to reproach anybody,” said Dunbar, sternly; “but I feel called upon to remark, ​madam, that you ought to have known better than to interfere in a case like this; a case in which we are dealing with a desperate and clever gang.”

For once in her life Denise Ryland found herself unable to retort suitably. The mildly reproachful gaze of Leroux she could not meet; and although Dr. Cumberly had spoken no word of complaint against her, from his pale face she persistently turned away her eyes.

The cabman having departed, the door almost immediately reopened, and Sergeant Sowerby came in.

“Ah! there you are, Sowerby!” cried Dunbar, standing up and leaning eagerly across the table. “You have the particulars respecting the limousine?”

Sergeant Sowerby, removing his hat and carefully placing it upon the only vacant chair in the room, extracted a bulging notebook from a pocket concealed beneath his raincoat, cleared his throat, and reported as follows:

“There is only one car known to members of that division which answers to the description of the one wanted. This is a high-power, French car which seems to have been registered first in Paris, where it was made, then in Cairo, and lastly in London. It is the property of the gentleman whose telephone number is 18642 East—Mr. I. Gianapolis; and the reason of its frequent presence in the neighborhood of the West India Dock Road, is this: it is kept in a garage in Wharf-End Lane, off Limehouse ​Causeway. I have interviewed two constables at present on that beat, and they tell me that there is nothing mysterious about the car except that the chauffeur is a foreigner who speaks no English. He is often to be seen cleaning the car in the garage, and both the men are in the habit of exchanging good evening with him when passing the end of the lane. They rarely go that far, however, as it leads nowhere.”

“But if you have the telephone number of this man, Gianapolis,” cried Dr. Cumberly, “you must also have his address”…

“We obtained both from the Eastern Exchange,” interrupted Inspector Dunbar. “The instrument, number 18642 East, is installed in an office in Globe Road. The office, which is situated in a converted private dwelling, bears a brass plate simply inscribed, ‘I. Gianapolis, London and Smyrna.’”

“What is the man’s reputed business?” jerked Cumberly.

“We have not quite got to the bottom of that, yet,” replied Sowerby; “but he is an agent of some kind, and evidently in a large way of business, as he runs a very fine car, and seems to live principally in different hotels. I am told that he is an importer of Turkish cigarettes and”…

“He is an importer and exporter of hashish!” snapped Dunbar irritably. “If I could clap my eyes upon him I should know him at once! I tell you, Sowerby, he is the man who was convicted last ​year of exporting hashish to Egypt in faked packing-cases which contained pottery ware, ostensibly, but had false bottoms filled with cakes of hashish”…

“But,” began Dr. Cumberly…

“But because he came before a silly bench,” snapped Dunbar, his eyes flashing angrily, “he got off with a fine—a heavy one, certainly, but he could well afford to pay it. It is that kind of judicial folly which ties the hands of Scotland Yard!”

“What makes you so confident that this is the man?” asked the physician.

“He was convicted under the name of G. Ionagis,” replied the detective; “which I believe to be either his real name or his real name transposed. Do you follow me? I. Gianapolis is Ionagis Gianapolis, and G. Ionagis is Gianapolis Ionagis. I was not associated with the hashish case; he stored the stuff in a china warehouse within the city precincts, and at that time he did not come within my sphere. But I looked into it privately, and I could see that the prosecution was merely skimming the surface; we are only beginning to get down to the depths now.”

Dr. Cumberly raised his hand to his head in a distracted manner.

“Surely,” he said, and he was evidently exercising a great restraint upon himself—“surely we’re wasting time. The office in Globe Road should be raided without delay. No stone should be left unturned to effect the immediate arrest of this man ​Gianapolis or Ionagis. Why, God almighty! while we are talking here, my daughter”…

“Morbleu! who talks of arresting Gianapolis?” inquired the voice of a man who silently had entered the room.

All turned their heads; and there in the doorway stood M. Gaston Max.

“Thank God you’ve come!” said Dunbar with sincerity. He dropped back into his chair, a strong man exhausted. “This case is getting beyond me!”

Denise Ryland was staring at the Frenchman as if fascinated. He, for his part, having glanced around the room, seemed called upon to give her some explanation of his presence.

“Madame,” he said, bowing in his courtly way, “only because of very great interests did I dare to conceal my true identity. My name is Gaston, that is true, but only so far as it goes. My real name is Gaston Max, and you who live in Paris will perhaps have heard it.”

“Gaston Max!” cried Denise Ryland, springing upright as though galvanized; “you are M. Gaston Max! But you are not the least bit in the world like”…

“Myself?” said the Frenchman, smiling. “Madame, it is only a man fortunate enough to possess no enemies who can dare to be like himself.”

He bowed to her in an oddly conclusive manner, and turned again to Inspector Dunbar.

​“I am summoned in haste,” he said; “tell me quickly of this new development.”

Sowerby snatched his hat from the vacant chair, and politely placed the chair for M. Max to sit upon. The Frenchman, always courteous, gently forced Sergeant Sowerby himself to occupy the chair, silencing his muttered protests with upraised hand. The matter settled, he lowered his hand, and, resting it fraternally upon the sergeant’s shoulder, listened to Inspector Dunbar’s account of what had occurred that night. No one interrupted the Inspector until he was come to the end of his narrative.

“Mille tonnerres!” then exclaimed M. Max; and, holding a finger of his glove between his teeth, he tugged so sharply that a long rent appeared in the suede.

His eyes were on fire; the whole man quivered with electric force.

In silence that group watched the celebrated Frenchman; instinctively they looked to him for aid. It is at such times that personality proclaims itself. Here was the last court of appeal, to which came Dr. Cumberly and Inspector Dunbar alike; whose pronouncement they awaited, not questioning that it would be final.

“To-morrow night,” began Max, speaking in a very low voice, “we raid the headquarters of Ho-Pin. This disappearance of your daughter, Dr. Cumberly, is frightful; it could not have been foreseen or it should have been prevented. But the ​least mistake now, and”—he looked at Dr. Cumberly as if apologizing for his barbed words—“she may never return!”

“My God!” groaned the physician, and momentarily dropped his face into his hands.

But almost immediately he recovered himself and with his mouth drawn into a grim straight line, looked again at M. Max, who continued:

“I do not think that this abduction was planned by the group; I think it was an accident and that they were forced, in self-protection, to detain your daughter, who unwisely—morbleu! how unwisely!—forced herself into their secrets. To arrest Gianapolis (even if that were possible) would be to close their doors to us permanently; and as we do not even know the situation of those doors, that would be to ruin everything. Whether Miss Cumberly is confined in the establishment of Ho-Pin or somewhere else, I cannot say; whether she is a captive of Gianapolis or of Mr. King, I do not know. But I know that the usual conduct of the establishment is not being interrupted at present; for only half-an-hour ago I telephoned to Mr. Gianapolis!”

“At Globe Road?” snapped Dunbar, with a flash of the tawny eyes.

“At Globe Road—yes (oh! they would not detain her there!). Mr. Gianapolis was present to speak to me. He met me very agreeably in the matter of occupying my old room in the delightful Chinese hotel of Mr. Ho-Pin. Therefore”—he ​swept his left hand around forensically, as if to include the whole of the company—“to-morrow night at eleven o’clock I shall be meeting Mr. Gianapolis at Piccadilly Circus, and later we shall join the limousine and be driven to the establishment of Ho-Pin.” He turned to Inspector Dunbar. “Your arrangements for watching all the approaches to the suspected area are no doubt complete?”

“Not a stray cat,” said Dunbar with emphasis, “can approach Limehouse Causeway or Pennyfields, or any of the environs of the place, to-morrow night after ten o’clock, without the fact being reported to me! You will know at the moment that you step from the limousine that a cyclist scout, carefully concealed, is close at your heels with a whole troup to follow; and if, as you suspect, the den adjoins the river bank, a police cutter will be lying at the nearest available point.”

“Eh bien!” said M. Max; then, turning to Denise Ryland and Dr. Cumberly, and shrugging his shoulders: “you see, frightful as your suspense must be, to make any foolish arrests to-night, to move in this matter at all to-night—would be a case of more haste and less speed”…

“But,” groaned Cumberly, “is Helen to lie in that foul, unspeakable den until the small hours of to-morrow morning? Good God! they may”…

“There is one little point,” interrupted M. Max with upraised hand, “which makes it impossible that we should move to-night—quite apart from the ​advisability of such a movement. We do not know exactly where this place is situated. What can we do?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and, with raised eyebrows, stared at Dr. Cumberly.

“It is fairly evident,” replied the other slowly, and with a repetition of the weary upraising of his hand to his head, “it is fairly evident that the garage used by the man Gianapolis must be very near to—most probably adjoining—the entrance to this place of which you speak.”

“Quite true,” agreed the Frenchman. “But these are clever, these people of Mr. King. They are Chinese, remember, and the Chinese—ah, I know it!—are the most mysterious and most cunning people in the world. The entrance to the cave of black and gold will not be as wide as a cathedral door. A thousand men might search this garage, which, as Detective Sowerby” (he clapped the latter on the shoulder) “informed me this afternoon, is situated in Wharf-End Lane—all day and all night, and become none the wiser. To-morrow evening”—he lowered his voice—“I myself, shall be not outside, but inside that secret place; I shall be the concierge for one night—Eh bien, that concierge will admit the policeman!”

A groan issued from Dr. Cumberly’s lips; and M. Max, with ready sympathy, crossed the room and placed his hands upon the physician’s shoulders, looking steadfastly into his eyes.

​“I understand, Dr. Cumberly,” he said, and his voice was caressing as a woman’s. “Pardieu! I understand. To wait is agony; but you, who are a physician, know that to wait sometimes is necessary. Have courage, my friend, have courage!”

XXXVII

The Whistle

LUKE SOAMES, buttoning up his black coat, stood in the darkness, listening.

His constitutional distaste for leaping blindfolded had been over-ridden by circumstance. He felt himself to be a puppet of Fate, and he drifted with the tide because he lacked the strength to swim against it. That will-o’-the-wisp sense of security which had cheered him when first he had realized how much he owed to the protective wings of Mr. King had been rudely extinguished upon the very day of its birth; he had learnt that Mr. King was a sinister protector; and almost hourly he lived again through the events of that night when, all unwittingly, he had become a witness of strange happenings in the catacombs.

Soames had counted himself a lost man that night; the only point which he had considered debatable was whether he should be strangled or poisoned. That his employers were determined upon his death, he was assured; yet he had lived through the night, had learnt from his watch that the morning was arrived…and had seen the flecks at the roots of his dyed hair, blanched by the terrors of that ​vigil—of that watching, from moment to moment, for the second coming of Ho-Pin.…

Yes, the morning had dawned, and with it a faint courage. He had shaved and prepared himself for his singular duties, and Said had brought him his breakfast as usual. The day had passed uneventfully, and once, meeting Ho-Pin, he had found himself greeted with the same mirthless smile but with no menace. Perhaps they had believed his story, or had disbelieved it but realized that he was too closely bound to them to be dangerous.

Then his mind had reverted to the conversation overheard in the music-hall. Should he seek to curry favor with his employers by acquainting them with the fact that, contrary to Gianapolis’ assertion, an important clue had fallen into the hands of the police? Did they know this already? So profound was his belief in the omniscience of the invisible Mr. King that he could not believe that Power ignorant of anything appertaining to himself.

Yet it was possible that those in the catacombs were unaware how Scotland Yard, night and day, quested for Mr. King. The papers made no mention of it; but then the papers made no mention of another fact—the absence of Mrs. Leroux. Now that he was no longer panic-ridden, he could mentally reconstruct that scene of horror, could hear again, imaginatively, the shrieks of the maltreated woman. Perhaps this same active imagination of ​his was playing him tricks, but, her voice…Always he preferred to dismiss these ideas.

He feared Ho-Pin in the same way that an average man fears a tarantula, and he was only too happy to avoid the ever smiling Chinaman; so that the days passed on, and, finding himself unmolested and the affairs of the catacombs proceeding apparently as usual, he kept his information to himself, uncertain if he shared it with his employers or otherwise, but hesitating to put the matter to the test—always fearful to approach Ho-Pin, the beetlesque.

But this could not continue indefinitely; at least he must speak to Ho-Pin in order to obtain leave of absence. For, since that unforgettable night, he had lived the life of a cave-man indeed, and now began to pine for the wider vault of heaven. Meeting the impassive Chinaman in the corridor one morning, on his way to valet one of the living dead, Soames ventured to stop him.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, confusedly, “but would there be any objection to my going out on Friday evening for an hour?”

“Not at all, Soames,” replied Ho-Pin, with his mirthless smile: “you may go at six, wreturn at ten.”

Ho-Pin passed on.

Soames heaved a gentle sigh of relief. The painful incident was forgotten, then. He hurried into the room, the door of which Said was holding open, quite eager for his unsavory work.

​In crossing its threshold, he crossed out of his new peace into a mental turmoil greater in its complexities than any he yet had known; he met M. Gaston Max, and his vague doubts respecting the omniscience of Mr. King were suddenly reinforced.

Soames’ perturbation was so great on that occasion that he feared it must unfailingly be noticed. He realized that now he was definitely in communication with the enemies of Mr. King! Ah; but Mr. King did not know how formidable was the armament of those enemies! He (Soames) had overrated Mr. King; and because that invisible being could inspire Fear in an inconceivable degree, he had thought him all-powerful. Now, he realized that Mr. King was unaware of the existence of at least one clue held by the police; was unaware that his name was associated with the Palace Mansions murder.

The catacombs of Ho-Pin were a sinking ship, and Soames was first of the rats to leave.

He kept his appointment at the “Three Nuns” as has appeared; he accepted the blood-money that was offered him, and he returned to the garage adjoining Kan-Suh Concessions, that night, hugging in his bosom a leather case containing implements by means whereof his new accomplice designed to admit the police to the cave of the golden dragon.

Also, in the pocket of his overcoat, he had a neat Browning pistol; and when the door at the back of the garage was opened for him by Said, he found ​that the touch of this little weapon sent a thrill of assurance through him, and he began to conceive a sentiment for the unknown investigator to whom he was bound, akin to that which formerly he had cherished for Mr. King!

Now the time was come.

The people of the catacombs acquired a super-sensitive power of hearing, and Soames was able at this time to detect, as he sat or lay in his own room, the movements of persons in the corridor outside and even in the cave of the golden dragon. That mysterious trap in the wall gave him many qualms, and to-night he had glanced at it a thousand times. He held the pistol in his hand, and buttoned up within his coat was the leather case. Only remained the opening of his door in order to learn if the lights were extinguished in the corridor.

He did not anticipate any serious difficulty, provided he could overcome his constitutional nervousness. In his waistcoat pocket was a brand new Yale key which, his latest employer had assured him, fitted the lock of the end door of Block A. The door between the cave of the dragon and Block A was never locked, so far as Soames was aware, nor was that opening from the corridor in which his own room was situated. Therefore, only a few moments—fearful moments, certainly—need intervene, ere he should have a companion; and within a few minutes of that time, the police—his friends!—would be there to protect him! He recognized ​that the law, after all, was omnipotent, and of all masters was the master to be served.

There was no light in the corridor. Leaving his door ajar, he tiptoed cautiously along toward the cave. Assuring himself once again that the pistol lay in his pocket, he fumbled for the lever which opened the door, found it, depressed it, and stepped quietly forward in his slippered feet.

The unmistakable odor of the place assailed his nostrils. All was in darkness, and absolute silence prevailed. He had a rough idea of the positions of the various little tables, and he stepped cautiously in order to skirt them; but evidently he had made a miscalculation. Something caught his foot, and with a muffled thud he sprawled upon the floor, barely missing one of the tables which he had been at such pains to avoid.

Trembling like a man with an ague, he lay there, breathing in short, staccato breaths, and clutching the pistol in his pocket. Certainly he had made no great noise, but…

Nothing stirred.

Soames summoned up courage to rise and to approach again the door of Block A. Without further mishap he reached it, opened it, and entered the blackness of the corridor. He could make no mistake in regard to the door, for it was the end one. He stole quietly along, his fingers touching the matting, until he came in contact with the corner angle; then, feeling along from the wall until he touched ​the strip of bamboo which marked the end of the door, he probed about gently with the key; for he knew to within an inch or so where the keyhole was situated.

Ah! he had it! His hand trembling slightly, he sought to insert the key in the lock. It defied his efforts. He felt it gently with the fingers of his left hand, thinking that he might have been endeavoring to insert the key with the irregular edge downward, and not uppermost; but no—such was not the case.

Again he tried, and with no better result. His nerves were threatening to overcome him, now; he had not counted upon any such hitch as this: but fear sharpened his wits. He recollected the fall which he had sustained, and how he had been precipitated upon the polished floor, outside.

Could he have mistaken his direction? Was it not possible that owing to his momentary panic, he had arisen, facing not the door at the foot of the steps, as he had supposed, but that by which a moment earlier he had entered the cave of the golden dragon?

Desperation was with him now; he was gone too far to draw back. Trailing his fingers along the matting covering of the wall, he retraced his steps, came to the open door, and reentered the apartment of the dragon. He complimented himself, fearfully, upon his own address, for he was inspired with an idea whereby he might determine his position. Picking his way among the little tables and ​the silken ottomans, he groped about with his hands in the impenetrable darkness for the pedestal supporting the dragon. At last his fingers touched the ivory. He slid them downward, feeling for the great vase of poppies which always stood before the golden image.…

The vase was on the left and not on the right of the pedestal. His theory was correct; he had been groping in the mysterious precincts of that Block B which he had never entered, which he had never seen any one else enter, and from whence he had never known any one to emerge! It was the fall that had confused him; now, he took his bearings anew, bent down to feel for any tables that might lie in his path, and crept across the apartment toward the door which he sought.

Ah! this time there could be no mistake! He depressed the lever handle, and, as the door swung open before him, crept furtively into the corridor.

Repeating the process whereby he had determined the position of the end door, he fumbled once again for the keyhole. He found it with even less difficulty than he had experienced in the wrong corridor, inserted the key in the lock, and with intense satisfaction felt it slip into place.

He inhaled a long breath of the lifeless air, turned the key, and threw the door open. One step forward he took…

A whistle (God! he knew it!) a low, minor ​whistle, wavered through the stillness. He was enveloped, mantled, choked, by the perfume of roses!

The door, which, although it had opened easily, had seemed to be a remarkably heavy one, swung to behind him; he heard the click of the lock. Like a trapped animal, he turned, leaped back, and found his quivering hands in contact with books—books—books…

A lamp lighted up in the center of the room.

Soames turned and stood pressed closely against the book-shelves, against the book-shelves which magically had grown up in front of the door by which he had entered. He was in the place of books and roses—in the haunt of Mr. King!

A great clarity of mind came to him, as it comes to a drowning man; he knew that those endless passages, through which once he had been led in darkness, did not exist, that he had been deceived, had been guided along the same corridor again and again; he knew that this room of roses did not lie at the heart of a labyrinth, but almost adjoined the cave of the golden dragon.

He knew that he was a poor, blind fool; that his plotting had been known to those whom he had thought to betray; that the new key which had opened a way into this place of dread was not the key which his accomplice had given him. He knew that that upon which he had tripped at the outset of his journey had been set in his path by cunning design, in order that the fall might confuse his sense ​of direction. He knew that the great vase of poppies had been moved, that night.…

God! his brain became a seething furnace.

There, before him, upstood the sandalwood screen, with one corner of the table projecting beyond it. Nothing of life was visible in the perfumed place, where deathly silence prevailed.…

No lion has greater courage than a cornered rat. Soames plucked the pistol from his pocket and fired at the screen—once!—twice!

He heard the muffled report, saw the flash of the little weapon, saw the two holes in the carven woodwork, and gained a greater, hysterical courage—the courage of a coward’s desperation.

Immediately before him was a little ebony table, bearing a silver bowl, laden to the brim with sulphur-colored roses. He overturned the table with his foot, laughing wildly. In three strides he leapt across the room, grasped the sandalwood screen, and hurled it to the floor.…

In the instant of its fall, he became as Lot’s wife. The pistol dropped from his nerveless grasp, thudding gently on the carpet, and, with his fingers crooked paralytically, he stood swaying…and looking into the face of Mr. King!

Soames’ body already was as rigid as it would be in death; his mind was numbed—useless. But his outraged soul forced utterance from the lips of the man.

​A scream, a scream to have made the angels shudder, to have inspired pity in the devils of Hell, burst from him. Two yellow hands leaped at his throat.…

XXXVIII

The Secret Traps

M.GASTON MAX, from his silken bed in the catacombs of Ho-Pin, watched the hand of his watch which lay upon the little table beside him. Already it was past two o’clock, and no sign had come from Soames; a hundred times his imagination had almost tricked him into believing that the door was opening; but always the idea had been illusory and due to the purple shadow of the lamp-shade which overcast that side of the room and the door.

He had experienced no difficulty in arranging with Gianapolis to occupy the same room as formerly; and, close student of human nature though he was, he had been unable to detect in the Greek’s manner, when they had met that night, the slightest restraint, the slightest evidence of uneasiness. His reception by Ho-Pin had varied scarce one iota from that accorded him on his first visit to the cave of the golden dragon. The immobile Egyptian had brought him the opium, and had departed silently as before. On this occasion, the trap above the bed had not been opened. But hour after hour had passed, uneventfully, silently, in that still, suffocating room.…

​A key in the lock!—yes, a key was being inserted in the lock! He must take no unnecessary risks; it might be another than Soames. He waited—the faint sound of fumbling ceased. Still, he waited, listening intently.

Half-past-two. If it had been Soames, why had he withdrawn? M. Max arose noiselessly and looked about him. He was undecided what to do, when…

Two shots, followed by a most appalling shriek—the more frightful because it was muffled; the shriek of a man in extremis, of one who stands upon the brink of Eternity, brought him up rigid, tense, with fists clenched, with eyes glaring; wrought within this fearless investigator an emotion akin to terror.

Just that one gruesome cry there was and silence again.

What did it mean?

M. Max began hastily to dress. He discovered, in endeavoring to fasten his collar, that his skin was wet with cold perspiration.

“Pardieu!” he said, twisting his mouth into that wry smile, “I know, now, the meaning of fright!”

He was ever glancing toward the door, not hopefully as hitherto, but apprehensively, fearfully.

That shriek in the night might portend merely the delirium of some other occupant of the catacombs; but the shots…

“It was Soames!” he whispered aloud; “I have risked too much; I am fast in the rat-trap!”

​He looked about him for a possible weapon. The time for inactivity was past. It would be horrible to die in that reeking place, whilst outside, it might be, immediately above his head, Dunbar and the others waited and watched.

The construction of the metal bunk attracted his attention. As in the case of steamer bunks one of the rails—that nearer to the door—was detachable in order to facilitate the making of the bed. Rapidly, nervously, he unscrewed it; but the hinges were riveted to the main structure, and after a brief examination he shrugged his shoulders despairingly. Then, he recollected that in the adjoining bathroom there was a metal towel rail, nickeled, and with a heavy knock at either end, attached by two brackets to the wall.

He ran into the inner room and eagerly examined these fastenings. They were attached by small steel screws. In an instant he was at work with the blade of his pocket-knife. Six screws in all there were to be dealt with, three at either end. The fifth snapped the blade and he uttered an exclamation of dismay. But the shortened implement proved to be an even better screw-driver than the original blade, and half a minute later he found himself in possession of a club such as would have delighted the soul of Hercules.

He managed to unscrew one of the knobs, and thus to slide off from the bar the bracket attachments; then, replacing the knob, he weighed the ​bar in his hand, appreciatively. His mind now was wholly composed, and his course determined. He crossed the little room and rapped loudly upon the door.

The rapping sounded muffled and dim in that sound-proof place. Nothing happened, and thrice he repeated the rapping with like negative results. But he had learnt something: the door was a very heavy one.

He made a note of the circumstance, although it did not interfere with the plan which he had in mind. Wheeling the armchair up beside the bed, he mounted upon its two arms and, once—twice—thrice—crashed the knob of the iron bar against that part of the wall which concealed the trap.

Here the result was immediate. At every blow of the bar the trap behind yielded. A fourth blow sent the knob crashing through the gauze material, and far out into some dark place beyond. There was a sound as of a number of books falling.

He had burst the trap.

Up on the back of the chair he mounted, resting his bar against the wall, and began in feverish haste to tear away the gauze concealing the rectangular opening.

An almost overpowering perfume of roses was wafted into his face. In front of him was blackness.

Having torn away all the gauze, he learned that the opening was some two feet long by one foot high. ​Resting the bar across the ledge he extended his head and shoulders forward through this opening into the rose-scented place beyond, and without any great effort drew himself up with his hands, so that, provided he could find some support upon the other side, it would be a simple matter to draw himself through entirely.

He felt about with his fingers, right and left, and in doing so disturbed another row of books, which fell upon the floor beneath him. He had apparently come out in the middle of a large book-shelf. To the left of him projected the paper-covered door of the trap, at right angles; above and below were book-laden shelves, and on the right there had been other books, until his questing fingers had disturbed them.

M. Max, despite his weight, was an agile man. Clutching the shelf beneath, he worked his way along to the right, gradually creeping further and further into the darkened room, until at last he could draw his feet through the opening and crouch sideways upon the shelf.

He lowered his left foot, sought for and found another shelf beneath, and descended as by a ladder to the thickly carpeted floor. Grasping the end of the bar, he pulled that weapon down; then he twisted the button which converted his timepiece into an electric lantern, and, holding the bar in one tensely quivering hand, looked rapidly about him.

This was a library; a small library, with bowls ​of roses set upon tables, shelves, in gaps between the books, and one lying overturned upon the floor. Although it was almost drowned by their overpowering perfume, he detected a faint smell of powder. In one corner stood a large writing-table with papers strewn carelessly upon it. Its appointments were markedly Chinese in character, from the singular, gold inkwell to the jade paperweight; markedly Chinese—and—feminine. A very handsome screen lay upon the floor in front of this table, and the rich carpet he noted to be disordered as if a struggle had taken place upon it. But, most singular circumstance of all, and most disturbing…there was no door to this room!

For a moment he failed to appreciate the entire significance of this. A secret room difficult to enter he could comprehend, but a secret room difficult to quit passed his comprehension completely. Moreover, he was no better off for his exploit.

Three minutes sufficed him in which to examine the shelves covering the four walls of the room from floor to ceiling. None of the books were dummies, and slowly the fact began to dawn upon his mind that what at first he had assumed to be a rather simple device, was, in truth, almost incomprehensible.

For how, in the name of Sanity, did the occupant of this room—and obviously it was occupied at times—enter and leave it?

“Ah!” he muttered, shining the light upon a row of yellow-bound volumes from which he had ​commenced his tour of inspection and to which that tour had now led him back, “it is uncanny—this!”

He glanced back at the rectangular patch of light which marked the trap whereby he had entered this supernormal room. It was situated close to one corner of the library, and, acting upon an idea which came to him (any idea was better than none) he proceeded to throw down the books occupying the corresponding position at the other end of the shelf.

A second trap was revealed, identical with that through which he had entered!

It was fastened with a neat brass bolt; and, standing upon one of the little Persian tables—from which he removed a silver bowl of roses—he opened this trap and looked into the lighted room beyond. He saw an apartment almost identical with that which he himself recently had quitted; but in one particular it differed. It was occupied…and by a woman!

Arrayed in a gossamer nightrobe she lay in the bed, beneath the trap, her sunken face matching the silken whiteness. Her thin arms drooped listlessly over the rails of the bunk, and upon her left hand M. Max perceived a wedding ring. Her hair, flaxen in the electric light, was spread about in wildest disorder upon the pillow, and a breath of fetid air assailed his nostrils as he pressed his face close to the gauze masking the opening in order to peer closely at this victim of the catacombs.

He watched the silken covering of her bosom, ​intently, but failed to detect the slightest movement.

“Morbleu!” he muttered, “is she dead?”

He rent the gauze with a sweep of his left hand, and standing upon the bottom shelf of the case, craned forward into the room, looking all about him. A purple shaded lamp burnt above the bed as in the adjoining apartment which he himself had occupied. There were dainty feminine trifles littered in the big armchair, and a motor-coat hung upon the hook of the bathroom door. A small cabin-trunk in one corner of the room bore the initials: “M. L.”

Max dropped back into the incredible library with a stifled gasp.

“Pardieu!” he said. “It is Mrs. Leroux that I have found!”

A moment he stood looking from trap to trap; then turned and surveyed again the impassable walls, the rows of works, few of which were European, some of them bound in vellum, some in pigskin, and one row of huge volumes, ten in number, on the bottom shelf, in crocodile hide.

“It is weird, this!” he muttered, “nightmare!”—turning the light from row to row. “How is this lamp lighted that swings here?”

He began to search for the switch, and, even before he found it, had made up his mind that, once discovered, it would not only enable him more fully to illuminate the library, but would constitute a valuable clue.

​At last he found it, situated at the back of one of the shelves, and set above a row of four small books, so that it could readily be reached by inserting the hand.

He flooded the place with light; and perceived at a glance that a length of white flex crossing the ceiling enabled anyone seated at the table to ignite the lamp from there also. Then, replacing his torch in his pocket, and assuring himself that the iron bar lay within easy reach, he began deliberately to remove all of the books from the shelves covering that side of the room upon which the switch was situated. His theory was a sound one; he argued that the natural and proper place for such a switch in such a room would be immediately inside the door, so that one entering could ignite the lamp without having to grope in the darkness. He was encouraged, furthermore, by the fact that at a point some four feet to the left of this switch there was a gap in the bookcases, running from floor to ceiling; a gap no more than four inches across.

Having removed every book from its position, save three, which occupied a shelf on a level with his shoulder and adjoining the gap, he desisted wearily, for many of the volumes were weighty, and the heat of the room was almost insufferable. He dropped with a sigh upon a silk ottoman close beside him.…

A short, staccato, muffled report split the heavy silence…and a little round hole appeared in the ​woodwork of the book-shelf before which, an instant earlier, M. Max had been standing—in the woodwork of that shelf, which had been upon a level with his head.

In one giant leap he hurled himself across the room—…as a second bullet pierced the yellow silk of the ottoman.

Close under the trap he crouched, staring up, fearful-eyed.…

A yellow hand and arm—a hand and arm of great nervous strength and of the hue of old ivory, directed a pistol through the opening above him. As he leaped, the hand was depressed with a lightning movement, but, lunging suddenly upward, Max seized the barrel of the pistol, and with a powerful wrench, twisted it from the grasp of the yellow hand. It was his own Browning!

At the time—in that moment of intense nervous excitement—he ascribed his sensations to his swift bout with Death—with Death who almost had conquered; but later, even now, as he wrenched the weapon into his grasp, he wondered if physical fear could wholly account for the sickening revulsion which held him back from that rectangular opening in the bookcase. He thought that he recognized in this a kindred horror—as distinct from terror—to that which had come to him with the odor of roses through this very trap, upon the night of his first visit to the catacombs of Ho-Pin.

It was not as the fear which one has of a ​dangerous wild beast, but as the loathing which is inspired by a thing diseased, leprous, contagious.…

A mighty effort of will was called for, but he managed to achieve it. He drew himself upright, breathing very rapidly, and looked through into the room—the room which he had occupied, and from which a moment ago the murderous yellow hand had protruded.

That room was empty…empty as he had left it!

“Mille tonneres! he has escaped me!” he cried aloud, and the words did not seem of his own choosing.

Who had escaped? Someone—man or woman; rather some thing, which, yellow handed, had sought to murder him!

Max ran across to the second trap and looked down at the woman whom he knew, beyond doubt, to be Mrs. Leroux. She lay in her death-like trance, unmoved.

Strung up to uttermost tension, he looked down at her and listened—listened, intently.

Above the fumes of the apartment in which the woman lay, a stifling odor of roses was clearly perceptible. The whole place was tropically hot. Not a sound, save the creaking of the shelf beneath him, broke the heavy stillness.

XXXIX

The Labyrinth

FEVERISHLY, Max clutched at the last three books upon the shelf adjoining the gap. Of these, the center volume, a work bound in yellow calf and bearing no title, proved to be irremovable; right and left it could be inclined, but not moved outward. It masked the lever handle of the door!

But that door was locked.

Max, with upraised arms, swept the perspiration from his brows and eyes; he leant dizzily up against the door which defied him; his mind was working with febrile rapidity. He placed the pistol in his pocket, and, recrossing the room, mounted up again upon the shelves, and crept through into the apartment beyond, from which the yellow hand had protruded. He dropped, panting, upon the bed, then, eagerly leaping to the door, grasped the handle.

“Pardieu!” he muttered, “it is unlocked!”

Though the light was still burning in this room, the corridor outside was in darkness. He pressed the button of the ingenious lamp which was also a watch, and made for the door communicating with the cave of the dragon. It was readily to be detected by reason of its visible handle; the other doors ​being externally indistinguishable from the rest of the matting-covered wall.

The cave of the dragon proved to be empty, and in darkness. He ran across its polished floor and opened at random the door immediately facing him. A corridor similar to the one which he had just quitted was revealed. Another door was visible at one end, and to this he ran, pulled it open, stepped through the opening, and found himself back in the cave of the dragon!

“Morbleu!” he muttered, “it is bewildering—this!”

Yet another door, this time one of ebony, he opened; and yet another matting-lined corridor presented itself to his gaze. He swept it with the ray of the little lamp, detected a door, opened it, and entered a similar suite to those with which he already was familiar. It was empty, but, unlike the one which he himself had tenanted, this suite possessed two doors, the second opening out of the bathroom. To this he ran; it was unlocked; he opened it, stepped ahead…and was back again in the cave of the dragon.

“Mon dieu!” he cried, “this is Chinese—quite Chinese!”

He stood looking about him, flashing the ray of light upon doors which were opened and upon openings in the walls where properly there should have been no doors.

“I am too late!” he muttered; “they had ​information of this and they have ‘unloaded.’ That they intend to fly the country is proven by their leaving Mrs. Leroux behind. Ah, nom d’un nom, the good God grant that they have left also.”…

Coincident with his thoughts of her, the voice of Helen Cumberly reached his ears! He stood there quivering in every nerve, as: “Help! Help!” followed by a choking, inarticulate cry, came, muffled, from somewhere—he could not determine where.

But the voice was the voice of Helen Cumberly. He raised his left fist and beat his brow as if to urge his brain to super-activity. Then, leaping, he was off.

Door after door he threw open, crying, “Miss Cumberly! Miss Cumberly! Where are you? Have courage! Help is here!”

But the silence remained unbroken—and always his wild search brought him back to the accursed cave of the golden dragon. He began to grow dizzy; he felt that his brain was bursting. For somewhere—somewhere but a few yards removed from him—a woman was in extreme peril!

Clutching dizzily at the pedestal of the dragon, he cried at the top of his voice:—

“Miss Cumberly! For the good God’s sake answer me! Where are you?”

“Here, M. Max!” he was answered; “the door on your right…and then to your right again—quick! quick! Saints! she has killed me!”

​It was Gianapolis who spoke!

Max hurled himself through the doorway indicated, falling up against the matting wall by reason of the impetus of his leap. He turned, leaped on, and one of the panels was slightly ajar; it was a masked door. Within was darkness out of which came the sounds of a great turmoil, as of wild beasts in conflict.

Max kicked the door fully open and flashed the ray of the torch into the room. It poured its cold light upon a group which, like some masterpiece of classic statuary, was to remain etched indelibly upon his mind.

Helen Cumberly lay, her head and shoulders pressed back upon the silken pillows of the bed, with both hands clutching the wrist of the Eurasian and striving to wrench the latter’s fingers from her throat, in the white skin of which they were bloodily embedded. With his left arm about the face and head of the devilish half-caste, and grasping with his right hand her slender right wrist—putting forth all his strength to hold it back—was Gianapolis!

His face was of a grayish pallor and clammy with sweat; his crooked eyes had the glare of madness. The lithe body of the Eurasian writhing in his grasp seemed to possess the strength of two strong men; for palpably the Greek was weakening. His left sleeve was torn to shreds—to bloody shreds beneath the teeth of the wild thing with which he ​fought; and lower, lower, always nearer to the throat of the victim, the slender, yellow arm forced itself, forced the tiny hand clutching a poniard no larger than a hatpin but sharp as an adder’s tooth.

“Hold her!” whispered Gianapolis in a voice barely audible, as Max burst into the room. “She came back for this and…I followed her. She has the strength of…a tigress!”

Max hurled himself into the mêlée, grasping the wrist of the Eurasian below where it was clutched by Gianapolis. Nodding to the Greek to release his hold, he twisted it smartly upward.

The dagger fell upon the floor, and with an animal shriek of rage, the Eurasian tottered back. Max caught her about the waist and tossed her unceremoniously into a corner of the room.

Helen Cumberly slipped from the bed, and lay very white and still upon the garish carpet, with four tiny red streams trickling from the nail punctures in her throat. Max stooped and raised her shoulders; he glanced at the Greek, who, quivering in all his limbs, and on the verge of collapse, only kept himself upright by dint of clutching at the side of the doorway. Max realized that Gianapolis was past aiding him; his own resources were nearly exhausted, but, stooping, he managed to lift the girl and to carry her out into the corridor.

“Follow me!” he gasped, glancing back at Gianapolis; “Morbleu, make an effort! The keys—the keys!”

​Laying Helen Cumberly upon one of the raised divans, with her head resting upon a silken cushion, Max, teeth tightly clenched and dreadfully conscious that his strength was failing him, waited for Gianapolis. Out from the corridor the Greek came staggering, and Max now perceived that he was bleeding profusely from a wound in the breast.

“She came back,” whispered Gianapolis, clutching at the Frenchman for support…“the hellcat!…I did not know…that…Miss…Cumberly was here. As God is my witness I did not know! But I followed…her—Mahâra…thank God I did! She has finished me, I think, but”—he lowered the crooked eyes to the form of Helen Cumberly—“never mind…Saints!”

He reeled and sank upon his knees. He clutched at the edge of his coat and raised it to his lips, wherefrom blood was gushing forth. Max stooped eagerly, for as the Greek had collapsed upon the floor, he had heard the rattle of keys.

“She had…the keys,” whispered Gianapolis. “They have…tabs…upon them…Mrs. Leroux…number 3 B. The door to the stair”—very, very slowly, he inclined his head toward the ebony door near which Max was standing—“is marked X. The door…at the top—into garage…B.”

“Tell me,” said Max, his arm about the dying ​man’s shoulders—“try to tell me: who killed Mrs. Vernon and why?”

“Mr. King!” came in a rattling voice. “Because of the…carelessness of someone…Mrs. Vernon wandered into the room…of Mrs. Leroux. She seems to have had a fit of remorse…or something like it. She begged Mrs. Leroux to pull up…before…too late. Ho-Pin arrived just as she was crying to…Mrs. Leroux…and asking if she could ever forgive her…for bringing her here.…It was Mrs. Vernon who…introduced Mrs.…Leroux. Ho-Pin heard her…say that she…would tell…Leroux the truth…as the only means”…

“Yes, yes, morbleu! I understand! And then?”

“Ho-Pin knows…women…like a book. He thought Mrs. Vernon would…shirk the scandal. We used to send our women…to Nurse Proctor’s, then…to steady up a bit…We let Mrs. Vernon go…as usual. The scene with…Mrs. Leroux had shaken…her and she fainted…in the car…Victoria Street.…I was with her. Nurse Proctor had…God! I am dying!…a time with her;…she got so hysterical that they had to…detain her…and three days later…her husband died; Proctor, the…fool…somehow left a paper ​containing the news in Mrs. Vernon’s room.…They had had to administer an injection that afternoon…and they thought she was…sleeping.”…

“Morbleu! Yes, yes!—a supreme effort, my friend!”

“Directly Ho-Pin heard of Vernon’s death, he knew that his hold…on Mrs. Vernon…was lost.…He…and Mahâra…and…Mr. King…drove straight to…Gillingham…Street…to…arrange.…Ah!…she rushed like a mad woman into the street, a moment before…they arrived. A cab was passing, and”…

“I know this! I know this! What happened at Palace Mansions?”

The Greek’s voice grew fainter.

“Mr. King followed…her…upstairs. Too late;…but whilst Leroux was in…Cumberly’s flat…leaving door open…Mr. King went…in…Mahâra…was watching…gave signal…whistle…of someone’s approach. It was thought…Mr. King…had secured all the message…Mrs. Vernon…was…writing.…Mr. King opened the door of…the lift-shaft…lift not working…climbed down that way…and out by door on…ground floor…when Mr.…the Member of Parliament…went upstairs.”…

​“Ah! pardieu! one last word! Who is Mr. King?”

Gianapolis lurched forward, his eyes glazing, half raised his arm—pointing back into the cave of the dragon—and dropped, face downward, on the floor, with a crimson pool forming slowly about his head.

An unfamiliar sound had begun to disturb the silence of the catacombs. Max glanced at the white face of Helen Cumberly, then directed the ray of the little lamp toward the further end of the apartment. A steady stream of dirty water was pouring into the cave of the dragon through the open door ahead of him.

Into the disc of light, leaped, fantastic, the witch figure of the Eurasian. She turned and faced him, threw up both her arms, and laughed shrilly, insanely. Then she turned and ran like a hare, her yellow silk dress gleaming in the moving ray. Inhaling sibilantly, Max leaped after her. In three strides he found his foot splashing in water. An instant he hesitated. Through the corridor ahead of him sped the yellow figure, and right to the end. The seemingly solid wall opened before her; it was another masked door.

Max crossed the threshold hard upon her heels. Three descending steps were ahead of him, and then a long brick tunnel in which swirled fully three feet of water, which, slowly rising, was gradually flooding the cave of the dragon.

​On went the Eurasian, up to her waist in the flood, with Max gaining upon her, now, at every stride. There was a damp freshness in the air of the passage, and a sort of mist seemed to float above the water. This mist had a familiar smell.…

They were approaching the river, and there was a fog to-night!

Even as he realized the fact, the quarry vanished, and the ray of light from Max’s lamp impinged upon the opening in an iron sluice gate. The Eurasian had passed it, but Max realized that he must lower his head if he would follow. He ducked rapidly, almost touching the muddy water with his face. A bank of yellow fog instantly enveloped him, and he pulled up short, for, instinctively, he knew that another step might precipitate him into the Thames.

He strove to peer about him, but the feeble ray of the lamp was incapable of penetrating the fog. He groped with his fingers, right and left, and presently found slimy wooden steps. He drew himself closely to these, and directed the light upon them. They led upward. He mounted cautiously, and was clear of the oily water, now, and upon a sort of gangway above which lowered a green and rotting wooden roof.

Obviously, the tide was rising; and, after seeking vainly to peer through the fog ahead, he turned and descended the steps again, finding himself now nearly ​up to his armpits in water. He just managed to get in under the sluice gate without actually submerging his head, and to regain the brick tunnel.

He paused for a moment, hoping to be able to lower the gate, but the apparatus was out of his reach, and he had nothing to stand upon to aid him in manipulating it.

Three or four inches of water now flooded the cave of the golden dragon. Max pulled the keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door at the foot of the steps. He turned, resting the electric lamp upon one of the little ebony tables, and lifting Helen Cumberly, carried her half-way up the steps, depositing her there with her back to the wall. He staggered down again; his remarkable physical resources were at an end; it must be another’s work to rescue Mrs. Leroux. He stooped over Gianapolis, and turned his head. The crooked eyes glared up at him deathly.

“May the good God forgive you,” he whispered. “You tried to make your peace with Him.”

The sound of muffled blows began to be audible from the head of the steps. Max staggered out of the cave of the golden dragon. A slight freshness and dampness was visible in its atmosphere, and the gentle gurgling of water broke its heavy stillness. There was a new quality come into it, and, strangely, an old quality gone out from it. As he lifted the lamp from the table—now standing in ​slowly moving water—the place seemed no longer to be the cave of the golden dragon he had known.…

He mounted the steps again, with difficulty, resting his shaking hands upon the walls. Shattering blows were being delivered upon the door, above.

“Dunbar!” he cried feebly, stepping aside to avoid Helen Cumberly, where she lay. “Dunbar!”…

XL

Dawn at the Nore

THE river police seemed to be floating, suspended in the fog, which now was so dense that the water beneath was invisible. Inspector Rogers, who was in charge, fastened up his coat collar about his neck and turned to Stringer, the Scotland Yard man, who sat beside him in the stern of the cutter gloomily silent.

“Time’s wearing on,” said Rogers, and his voice was muffled by the fog as though he were speaking from inside a box. “There must be some hitch.”

“Work it out for yourself,” said the C. I. D. man gruffly. “We know that the office in Globe Road belongs to Gianapolis, and according to the Eastern Exchange he was constantly ringing up East 39951; that’s the warehouse of Kan-Suh Concessions. He garages his car next door to the said warehouse, and to-night our scouts follow Gianapolis and Max from Piccadilly Circus to Waterloo Station, where they discharge the taxi and pick up Gianapolis’ limousine. Still followed, they drive—where? Straight to the garage at the back of that wharf yonder! Neither Gianapolis, Max, nor the chauffeur come out of the garage. I said, and I ​still say, that we should have broken in at once, but Dunbar was always pigheaded, and he thinks Max is a tin god.”…

“Well, there’s no sign from Max,” said Rogers; “and as we aren’t ten yards above the wharf, we cannot fail to hear the signal. For my part I never noticed anything suspicious, and never had anything reported, about this ginger firm, and where the swell dope-shop I’ve heard about can be situated, beats me. It can’t very well be under the place, or it would be below the level of the blessed river!”

“This waiting makes me sick!” growled Stringer. “If I understand aright—and I’m not sure that I do—there are two women tucked away there somewhere in that place”—he jerked his thumb aimlessly into the fog; “and here we are hanging about with enough men in yards, in doorways, behind walls, and freezing on the river, to raid the Houses of Parliament!”

“It’s a pity we didn’t get the word from the hospitals before Max was actually inside,” said Rogers. “For three wealthy ladies to be driven to three public hospitals in a sort of semi-conscious condition, with symptoms of opium, on the same evening isn’t natural. It points to the fact that the boss of the den has unloaded! He’s been thoughtful where his lady clients were concerned, but probably the men have simply been kicked out and left to shift for themselves. If we only knew one of them it might be confirmed.”

​“It’s not worth worrying about, now,” growled Stringer. “Let’s have a look at the time.”

He fumbled inside his overcoat and tugged out his watch.

“Here’s a light,” said Rogers, and shone the ray of an electric torch upon the watch-face.

“A quarter-to-three,” grumbled Stringer. “There may be murder going on, and here we are.”…

A sudden clamor arose upon the shore, near by; a sound as of sledge-hammers at work. But above this pierced shrilly the call of a police whistle.

“What’s that?” snapped Rogers, leaping up. “Stand by there!”

The sound of the whistle grew near and nearer; then came a voice—that of Sergeant Sowerby—hailing them through the fog.

“Dunbar’s in! But the gang have escaped! They’ve got to a motor launch twenty yards down, on the end of the creek”…

But already the police boat was away.

“Let her go!” shouted Rogers—“close inshore! Keep a sharp lookout for a cutter, boys!”

Stringer, aroused now to excitement, went blundering forward through the fog, joining the men in the bows. Four pairs of eyes were peering through the mist, the damnable, yellow mist that veiled all things.

“Curse the fog!” said Stringer; “it’s just our damn luck!”

​“Cutter ’hoy!” bawled a man at his side suddenly, one of the river police more used to the mists of the Thames. “Cutter on the port bow, sir!”

“Keep her in sight,” shouted Rogers from the stern; “don’t lose her for your lives!”

Stringer, at imminent peril of precipitating himself into the water, was craning out over the bows and staring until his eyes smarted.

“Don’t you see her?” said one of the men on the lookout. “She carries no lights, of course, but you can just make out the streak of her wake.”

Harder, harder stared Stringer, and now a faint, lighter smudge in the blackness, ahead and below, proclaimed itself the wake of some rapidly traveling craft.

“I can hear her motor!” said another voice.

Stringer began, now, also to listen.

Muffled sirens were hooting dismally all about Limehouse Reach, and he knew that this random dash through the night was fraught with extreme danger, since this was a narrow and congested part of the great highway. But, listen as he might, he could not detect the sounds referred to.

The brazen roar of a big steamer’s siren rose up before them. Rogers turned the head of the cutter sharply to starboard but did not slacken speed. The continuous roar grew deeper, grew louder.

“Sharp lookout there!” cried the inspector from the stern.

Suddenly over their bows uprose a black mass.

​“My God!” cried Stringer, and fell back with upraised arms as if hoping to fend off that giant menace.

He lurched, as the cutter was again diverted sharply from its course, and must have fallen under the very bows of the oncoming liner, had not one of the lookouts caught him by the collar and jerked him sharply back into the boat.

A blaze of light burst out over them, and there were conflicting voices raised one in opposition to another. Above them all, even above the beating of the twin screws and the churning of the inky water, arose that of an officer from the bridge of the steamer.

“Where the flaming hell are you going?” inquired this stentorian voice; “haven’t you got any blasted eyes and ears”…

High on the wash of the liner rode the police boat; down she plunged again, and began to roll perilously; up again—swimming it seemed upon frothing milk.

The clangor of bells, of voices, and of churning screws died, remote, astern.

“Damn close shave!” cried Rogers. “It must be clear ahead; they’ve just run into it.”

One of the men on the lookout in the bows, who had never departed from his duty for an instant throughout this frightful commotion, now reported:

“Cutter crossing our bow, sir! Getting back to her course.”

​“Keep her in view,” roared Rogers.

“Port, sir!”

“How’s that?”

“Starboard, easy!”

“Keep her in view!”

“As she is, sir!”

Again they settled down to the pursuit, and it began to dawn upon Stringer’s mind that the boat ahead must be engined identically with that of the police; for whilst they certainly gained nothing upon her, neither did they lose.

“Try a hail,” cried Rogers from the stern. “We may be chasing the wrong boat!”

“Cutter ’hoy!” bellowed the man beside Stringer, using his hands in lieu of a megaphone—“heave to!”

“Give ’em ‘in the King’s name!’” directed Rogers again.

“Cutter ’hoy,” roared the man through his trumpeted hands,—“heave to—in the King’s name!”

Stringer glared through the fog, clutching at the shoulder of the shouter almost convulsively.

“Take no notice, sir,” reported the man.

“Then it’s the gang!” cried Rogers from the stern; “and we haven’t made a mistake. Where the blazes are we?”

“Well on the way to Blackwall Reach, sir,” answered someone. “Fog lifting ahead.”

“It’s the rain that’s doing it,” said the man beside Stringer.

​Even as he spoke, a drop of rain fell upon the back of Stringer’s hand. This was the prelude; then, with ever-increasing force, down came the rain in torrents, smearing out the fog from the atmosphere, as a painter, with a sponge, might wipe a color from his canvas. Long tails of yellow vapor, twining—twining—but always coiling downward, floated like snakes about them; and the oily waters of the Thames became pock-marked in the growing light.

Stringer now quite clearly discerned the quarry—a very rakish-looking motor cutter, painted black, and speeding seaward ahead of them. He quivered with excitement.

“Do you know the boat?” cried Rogers, addressing his crew in general.

“No, sir,” reported his second-in-command; “she’s a stranger to me. They must have kept her hidden somewhere.” He turned and looked back into the group of faces, all directed toward the strange craft. “Do any of you know her?” he demanded.

A general shaking of heads proclaimed the negative.

“But she can shift,” said one of the men. “They must have been going slow through the fog; she’s creeping up to ten or twelve knots now, I should reckon.”

“Your reckoning’s a trifle out!” snapped Rogers, irritably, from the stern; “but she’s certainly ​showing us her heels. Can’t we put somebody ashore and have her cut off lower down?”

“While we’re doing that,” cried Stringer, excitedly, “she would land somewhere and we should lose the gang!”

“That’s right,” reluctantly agreed Rogers. “Can you see any of her people?”

Through the sheets of rain all peered eagerly.

“She seems to be pretty well loaded,” reported the man beside Stringer, “but I can’t make her out very well.”

“Are we doing our damnedest?” inquired Rogers.

“We are, sir,” reported the engineer; “she hasn’t got another oat in her!”

Rogers muttered something beneath his breath, and sat there glaring ahead at the boat ever gaining upon her pursuer.

“So long as we keep her in sight,” said Stringer, “our purpose is served. She can’t land anybody.”

“At her present rate,” replied the man upon whose shoulders he was leaning, “she’ll be out of sight by the time we get to Tilbury or she’ll have hit a barge and gone to the bottom!”

“I’ll eat my hat if I lose her!” declared Rogers angrily. “How the blazes they slipped away from the wharf beats me!”

“They didn’t slip away from the wharf,” cried Stringer over his shoulder. “You heard what Sowerby said; they lay in the creek below the wharf, and there was some passageway underneath.”

​“But damn it all, man!” cried Rogers, “it’s high tide; they must be a gang of bally mermaids. Why, we were almost level with the wharf when we left, and if they came from below that, as you say, they must have been below water!”

“There they are, anyway,” growled Stringer.

Mile after mile that singular chase continued through the night. With every revolution of the screw, the banks to right and left seemed to recede, as the Thames grew wider and wider. A faint saltiness was perceptible in the air; and Stringer, moistening his dry lips, noted the saline taste.

The shipping grew more scattered. Whereas, at first, when the fog had begun to lift, they had passed wondering faces peering at them from lighters and small steamers, tow boats and larger anchored craft, now they raced, pigmy and remote, upon open waters, and through the raindrift gray hulls showed, distant, and the banks were a faint blur. It seemed absurd that, with all those vessels about, they nevertheless could take no steps to seek assistance in cutting off the boat which they were pursuing, but must drive on through the rain, ever losing, ever dropping behind that black speck ahead.

A faint swell began to be perceptible. Stringer, who throughout the whole pursuit thus far had retained his hold upon the man in the bows, discovered that his fingers were cramped. He had much difficulty in releasing that convulsive grip.

“Thank you!” said the man, smiling, when at ​last the detective released his grip. “I’ll admit I’d scarcely noticed it myself, but now I come to think of it, you’ve been fastened onto me like a vise for over two hours!”

“Two hours!” cried Stringer; and, crouching down to steady himself, for the cutter was beginning to roll heavily, he pulled out his watch, and in the gray light inspected the dial.

It was true! They had been racing seaward for some hours!

“Good God!” he muttered.

He stood up again, unsteadily, feet wide apart, and peered ahead through the grayness.

The banks he could not see. Far away on the port bow a long gray shape lay—a moored vessel. To starboard were faint blurs, indistinguishable, insignificant; ahead, a black dot with a faint comet-like tail—the pursued cutter—and ahead of that, again, a streak across the blackness, with another dot slightly to the left of the quarry…

He turned and looked along the police boat, noting that whereas, upon the former occasion of his looking, forms and faces had been but dimly visible, now he could distinguish them all quite clearly. The dawn was breaking.

“Where are we?” he inquired hoarsely.

“We’re about one mile northeast of Sheerness and two miles southwest of the Nore Light!” announced Rogers—and he laughed, but not in a particularly mirthful manner.

​Stringer temporarily found himself without words.

“Cutter heading for the open sea, sir,” announced a man in the bows, unnecessarily.

“Quite so,” snapped Rogers. “So are you!”

“We have got them beaten,” said Stringer, a faint note of triumph in his voice. “We’ve given them no chance to land.”

“If this breeze freshens much,” replied Rogers, with sardonic humor, “they’ll be giving us a fine chance to sink!”

Indeed, although Stringer’s excitement had prevented him from heeding the circumstance, an ever-freshening breeze was blowing in his face, and he noted now that, quite mechanically, he had removed his bowler hat at some time earlier in the pursuit and had placed it in the bottom of the boat. His hair was blown in the wind, which sang merrily in his ears, and the cutter, as her course was slightly altered by Rogers, ceased to roll and began to pitch in a manner very disconcerting to the landsman.

“It’ll be rather fresh outside, sir,” said one of the men, doubtfully. “We’re miles and miles below our proper patrol”…

“Once we’re clear of the bank it’ll be more than fresh,” replied Rogers; “but if they’re bound for France, or Sweden, or Denmark, that’s our destination, too!”…

On—and on—and on they drove. The Nore Light lay astern; they were drenched with spray. ​Now green water began to spout over the nose of the laboring craft.

“I’ve only enough juice to run us back to Tilbury, sir, if we put about now!” came the shouted report.

“It’s easy to talk!” roared Rogers. “If one of these big ’uns gets us broadside on, our number’s up!”…

“Cutter putting over for Sheppey coast, sir!” bellowed the man in the bows.

Stringer raised himself, weakly, and sought to peer through the driving spray and rain-mist.

“By God! They’ve turned—turtle!”…

“Stand by with belts!” bellowed Rogers.

Rapidly life belts were unlashed; and, ahead, to port, to starboard, brine-stung eyes glared out from the reeling craft. Gray in the nascent dawn stretched the tossing sea about them; and lonely they rode upon its billows.

“Port! port! hard a-port!” screamed the lookout.

But Rogers, grimly watching the oncoming billows, knew that to essay the maneuver at that moment meant swamping the cutter. Straight ahead they drove. A wave, higher than any they yet had had to ride, came boiling down upon them…and twisting, writhing, upcasting imploring arms to the elements—the implacable elements—a girl, a dark girl, entwined, imprisoned in silken garments, swept upon its crest!

Out shot a cork belt into the boiling sea…and ​fell beyond her reach. She was swept past the cutter. A second belt was hurled from the stern…

The Eurasian, uttering a wailing cry like that of a seabird, strove to grasp it…

Close beside her, out of the wave, uprose a yellow hand, grasping—seeking—clutching. It fastened itself into the meshes of her floating hair…

“Here goes!” roared Rogers.

They plunged down into an oily trough; they turned; a second wave grew up above them, threateningly, built its terrible wall higher and higher over their side. Round they swung, and round, and round…

Down swept the eager wave…down—down—down…It lapped over the stern of the cutter; the tiny craft staggered, and paused, tremulous—dragged back by that iron grip of old Neptune—then leaped on—away—headed back into the Thames estuary, triumphant.

“God’s mercy!” whispered Stringer—“that was touch-and-go!”

No living thing moved upon the waters.

XLI

Westminster—Midnight

DETECTIVE-SERGEANT SOWERBY reported himself in Inspector Dunbar’s room at New Scotland Yard.

“I have completed my inquiries in Wharf-end Lane,” he said; and pulling out his bulging pocketbook, he consulted it gravely.

Inspector Dunbar looked up.

“Anything important?” he asked.

“We cannot trace the makers of the sanitary fittings, and so forth, but they are all of American pattern. There’s nothing in the nature of a trademark to be found from end to end of the place; even the iron sluice-gate at the bottom of the brick tunnel has had the makers’ name chipped off, apparently with a cold chisel. So you see they were prepared for all emergencies!”

“Evidently,” said Dunbar, resting his chin on the palms of his hands and his elbows upon the table.

“The office and warehouse staff of the ginger importing concern are innocent enough, as you know already. Kan-Suh Concessions was conducted merely as a blind, of course, but it enabled the Chinaman, Ho-Pin, to appear in Wharf-end Lane ​at all times of the day and night without exciting suspicion. He was supposed to be the manager, of course. The presence of the wharf is sufficient to explain how they managed to build the place without exciting suspicion. They probably had all the material landed there labeled as preserved ginger, and they would take it down below at night, long after the office and warehouse Staff of Concessions had gone home. The workmen probably came and went by way of the river, also, commencing work after nightfall and going away before business commenced in the morning.”

“It beats me,” said Dunbar, reflectively, “how masons, plumbers, decorators, and all the other artisans necessary for a job of that description, could have been kept quiet.”

“Foreigners!” said Sowerby triumphantly. “I’ll undertake to say there wasn’t an Englishman on the job. The whole of the gang was probably imported from abroad somewhere, boarded and lodged during the day-time in the neighborhood of Limehouse, and watched by Mr. Ho-Pin or somebody else until the job was finished; then shipped back home again. It’s easily done if money is no object.”

“That’s right enough,” agreed Dunbar; “I have no doubt you’ve hit upon the truth. But now that the place has been dismantled, what does it look like? I haven’t had time to come down myself, but I intend to do so before it’s closed up.”

​“Well,” said Sowerby, turning over a page of his notebook, “it looks like a series of vaults, and the Rev. Mr. Firmingham, a local vicar whom I got to inspect it this morning, assures me, positively, that it’s a crypt.”

“A crypt!” exclaimed Dunbar, fixing his eyes upon his subordinate.

“A crypt—exactly. A firm dealing in grease occupied the warehouse before Kan-Suh Concessions rented it, and they never seem to have suspected that the place possessed any cellars. The actual owner of the property, Sir James Crozel, an ex-Lord Mayor, who is also ground landlord of the big works on the other side of the lane, had no more idea than the man in the moon that there were any cellars beneath the place. You see the vaults are below the present level of the Thames at high tide; that’s why nobody ever suspected their existence. Also, an examination of the bare walls—now stripped—shows that they were pretty well filled up to the top with ancient débris, to within a few years ago, at any rate.”

“You mean that our Chinese friends excavated them?”

“No doubt about it. They were every bit of twenty feet below the present street level, and, being right on the bank of the Thames, nobody would have thought of looking for them unless he knew they were there.”

“What do you mean exactly, Sowerby?” said ​Dunbar, taking out his fountain-pen and tapping his teeth with it.

“I mean,” said Sowerby, “that someone connected with the gang must have located the site of these vaults from some very old map or book.”

“I think you said that the Reverend Somebody-or-Other avers that they were a crypt?”

“He does; and when he pointed out to me the way the pillars were placed, as if to support the nave of a church, I felt disposed to agree with him. The place where the golden dragon used to stand (it isn’t really gold, by the way!) would be under the central aisle, as it were; then there’s a kind of side aisle on the right and left and a large space at top and bottom. The pillars are stone and of very early Norman pattern, and the last three or four steps leading down to the place appear to belong to the original structure. I tell you it’s the crypt of some old forgotten Norman church or monastery chapel.”

“Most extraordinary!” muttered Dunbar. “But I suppose it is possible enough. Probably the church was burnt or destroyed in some other way; deposits of river mud would gradually cover up the remaining ruins; then in later times, when the banks of the Thames were properly attended to, the site of the place would be entirely forgotten, of course. Most extraordinary!”

“That’s the reverend gentleman’s view, at any rate,” said Sowerby, “and he’s written three books on the subject of early Norman churches! He even ​goes so far as to say that he has heard—as a sort of legend—of the existence of a very large Carmelite monastery, accommodating over two hundred brothers, which stood somewhere adjoining the Thames within the area now covered by Limehouse Causeway and Pennyfields. There is a little turning not far from the wharf, known locally—it does not appear upon any map—as Prickler’s Lane; and my friend, the vicar, tells me that he has held the theory for a long time”—Sowerby referred to his notebook with great solemnity—“that this is a corruption of Pré-aux-Clerce Lane.”

“H’m!” said Dunbar; “very ingenious, at any rate. Anything else?”

“Nothing much,” said Sowerby, scanning his notes, “that you don’t know already. There was some very good stuff in the place—Oriental ware and so on, a library of books which I’m told is unique, and a tremendous stock of opium and hashish. It’s a perfect maze of doors and observation-traps. There’s a small kitchen at the end, near the head of the tunnel—which, by the way, could be used as a means of entrance and exit at low tide. All the electric power came through the meter of Kan-Suh Concessions.”

“I see,” said Dunbar, reflectively, glancing at his watch; “in a word, we know everything except”…

“What’s that?” said Sowerby, looking up.

“The identity of Mr. King!” replied the ​inspector, reaching for his hat which lay upon the table.

Sowerby replaced his book in his pocket.

“I wonder if any of the bodies will ever come ashore?” he said.

“God knows!” rapped Dunbar; “we can’t even guess how many were aboard. You might as well come along, Sowerby, I’ve just heard from Dr. Cumberly. Mrs. Leroux”…

“Dead?”

“Dying,” replied the inspector; “expected to go at any moment. But the doctor tells me that she may—it’s just possible—recover consciousness before the end; and there’s a bare chance”…

“I see,” said Sowerby eagerly; “of course she must know!”

The two hastened to Palace Mansions. Despite the lateness of the hour, Whitehall was thronged with vehicles, and all the glitter and noise of midnight London surrounded them.

“It only seems like yesterday evening,” said Dunbar, as they mounted the stair of Palace Mansions, “that I came here to take charge of the case. Damme! it’s been the most exciting I’ve ever handled, and it’s certainly the most disappointing.”

“It is indeed,” said Sowerby, gloomily, pressing the bell-button at the side of Henry Leroux’s door.

The door was opened by Garnham; and these two, fresh from the noise and bustle of London’s ​streets, stepped into the hushed atmosphere of the flat where already a Visitant, unseen but potent, was arrived, and now was beckoning, shadowlike, to Mira Leroux.

“Will you please sit down and wait,” said Garnham, placing chairs for the two Scotland Yard men in the dining-room.

“Who’s inside?” whispered Dunbar, with that note of awe in his voice which such a scene always produces; and he nodded in the direction of the lobby.

“Mr. Leroux, sir,” replied the man, “the nurse, Miss Cumberly, Dr. Cumberly and Miss Ryland”…

“No one else?” asked the detective sharply.

“And Mr. Gaston Max,” added the man. “You’ll find whisky and cigars upon the table there, sir.”

He left the room. Dunbar glanced across at Sowerby, his tufted brows raised, and a wry smile upon his face.

“In at the death, Sowerby!” he said grimly, and lifted the stopper from the cut-glass decanter.

In the room where Mira Leroux lay, so near to the Borderland that her always ethereal appearance was now positively appalling, a hushed group stood about the bed.

“I think she is awake, doctor,” whispered the nurse softly, peering into the emaciated face of the patient.

​Mira Leroux opened her eyes and smiled at Dr. Cumberly, who was bending over her. The poor faded eyes turned from the face of the physician to that of Denise Ryland, then to M. Max, wonderingly; next to Helen, whereupon an indescribable expression crept into them; and finally to Henry Leroux, who, with bowed head, sat in the chair beside her. She feebly extended her thin hand and laid it upon his hair. He looked up, taking the hand in his own. The eyes of the dying woman filled with tears as she turned them from the face of Leroux to Helen Cumberly—who was weeping silently.

“Look after…him,” whispered Mira Leroux.

Her hand dropped and she closed her eyes again. Cumberly bent forward suddenly, glancing back at M. Max who stood in a remote corner of the room watching this scene.

Big Ben commenced to chime the hour of midnight. That frightful coincidence so startled Leroux that he looked up and almost rose from his chair in his agitation. Indeed it startled Cumberly, also, but did not divert him from his purpose.

“It is now or never!” he whispered.

He took the seemingly lifeless hand in his own, and bending over Mira Leroux, spoke softly in her ear:

“Mrs. Leroux,” he said, “there is something which we all would ask you to tell us; we ask it for a reason—believe me.”

​Throughout the latter part of this scene the big clock had been chiming the hour, and now was beating out the twelve strokes of midnight; had struck six of them and was about to strike the seventh.

Seven! boomed the clock.

Mira Leroux opened her eyes and looked up into the face of the physician.

Eight!…

“Who,” whispered Dr. Cumberly, “is he?”

Nine!

In the silence following the clock-stroke, Mira Leroux spoke almost inaudibly.

“You mean…Mr. King?”

Ten!

“Yes, yes! Did you ever see him?”…

Every head in the room was craned forward; every spectator tensed up to the highest ultimate point.

“Yes,” said Mira Leroux quite clearly; “I saw him, Dr. Cumberly…He is”…

Eleven!

Mira Leroux moved her head and smiled at Helen Cumberly; then seemed to sink deeper into the downy billows of the bed. Dr. Cumberly stood up very slowly, and turned, looking from face to face.

“It is finished,” he said—“we shall never know!”

But Henry Leroux and Helen Cumberly, their ​glances meeting across the bed of the dead Mira, knew that for them it was not finished, but that Mr. King, the invisible, invisibly had linked them.

Twelve!…

THE END

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article  Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.