Dope

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On a divan at the other end of the place, propped up by a number of
garish cushions, Rita beheld Mrs. Sin. The long bamboo pipe had fallen
from her listless fingers. Her face wore an expression of mystic
rapture, like that characterizing the features of some Chinese
Buddhas. . . .

In the other corner of the divan, contemplating her from under heavy
brows, sat Kazmah. . . .

CHAPTER XXXVI

SAM TUK MOVES

Chinatown was being watched as Chinatown had never been watched
before, even during the most stringent enforcement of the Defence of
the Realm Act. K Division was on its mettle, and Scotland Yard had
sent to aid Chief Inspector Kerry every man that could be spared to
the task. The River Police, too, were aflame with zeal; for every
officer in the service whose work lay east of London Bridge had
appropriated to himself the stigma implied by the creation of Lord
Wrexborough's commission.

"Corners" in foodstuffs, metals, and other indispensable commodities
are appreciated by every man, because every man knows such things to
exist; but a corner in drugs was something which the East End police
authorities found very difficult to grasp. They could not free their
minds of the traditional idea that every second Chinaman in the
Causeway was a small importer. They were seeking a hundred lesser
stores instead of one greater one. Not all Seton's quiet explanations
nor Kerry's savage language could wean the higher local officials from
their ancient beliefs. They failed to conceive the idea of a wealthy
syndicate conducted by an educated Chinaman and backed, covered, and
protected by a crooked gentleman and accomplished man of affairs.

Perhaps they knew and perhaps they knew not, that during the period
ruled by D.O.R.A. as much as L25 was paid by habitues for one pipe of
chandu. The power of gold is often badly estimated by an official
whose horizon is marked by a pension. This is mere lack of
imagination, and no more reflects discredit upon a man than lack of
hair on his crown or of color in his cheeks. Nevertheless, it may
prove very annoying.

Towards the close of an afternoon which symbolized the worst that
London's particular climate can do in the matter of drizzling rain and
gloom, Chief Inspector Kerry, carrying an irritable toy spaniel, came
out of a turning which forms a V with Limehouse Canal, into a narrow
street which runs parallel with the Thames. He had arrived at the
conclusion that the neighborhood was sown so thickly with detectives
that one could not throw a stone without hitting one. Yet Sin Sin Wa
had quietly left his abode and had disappeared from official ken.

Three times within the past ten minutes the spaniel had tried to bite
Kerry, nor was Kerry blind to the amusement which his burden had
occasioned among the men of K Division whom he had met on his travels.
Finally, as he came out into the riverside lane, the ill-tempered
little animal essayed a fourth, and successful, attempt, burying his
wicked white teeth in the Chief Inspector's wrist.

Kerry hooked his finger into the dog's collar, swung the yapping
animal above his head, and hurled it from him into the gloom and rain
mist.

"Hell take the blasted thing!" he shouted. "I'm done with it!"

He tenderly sucked his wounded wrist, and picking up his cane, which
he had dropped, he looked about him and swore savagely. Of Seton Pasha
he had had news several times during the day, and he was aware that
the Home office agent was not idle. But to that old rivalry which had
leapt up anew when he had seen Seton near Kennington oval had
succeeded a sort of despair; so that now he would have welcomed the
information that Seton had triumphed where he had failed. A furious
hatred of the one-eyed Chinaman around whom he was convinced the
mystery centred had grown up within his mind. At that hour he would
gladly have resigned his post and sacrificed his pension to know that
Sin Sin Wa was under lock and key. His outlook was official, and
accordingly peculiar. He regarded the murder of Sir Lucien Pyne and
the flight or abduction of Mrs. Monte Irvin as mere minor incidents in
a case wherein Sin Sin Wa figured as the chief culprit. Nothing had
acted so powerfully to bring about this conviction in the mind of the
Chief Inspector as the inexplicable disappearance of the Chinaman
under circumstances which had apparently precluded such a possibility.

A whimpering cry came to Kerry's ears; and because beneath the mask of
ferocity which he wore a humane man was concealed: "Flames!" he
snapped; "perhaps I've broken the poor little devil's leg."

Shaking a cascade of water from the brim of his neat bowler, he set
off through the murk towards the spot from whence the cries of the
spaniel seemed to proceed. A few paces brought him to the door of a
dirty little shop. In a window close beside it appeared the legend:

SAM TUK
BARBER.

The spaniel crouched by the door whining and scratching, and as Kerry
came up it raised its beady black eyes to him with a look which, while
it was not unfearful, held an unmistakable appeal. Kerry stood
watching the dog for a moment, and as he watched he became conscious
of an exhilarated pulse.

He tried the door and found it to be open. Thereupon he entered a
dirty little shop, which he remembered to have searched in person in
the grey dawn of the day which now was entering upon a premature dusk.
The dog ran in past him, crossed the gloomy shop, and raced down into
a tiny coal cellar, which likewise had been submitted during the early
hours of the morning to careful scrutiny under the directions of the
Chief Inspector.

A Chinese boy, who had been the only occupant of the place on that
occasion and who had given his name as Ah Fung, was surprised by the
sudden entrance of man and dog in the act of spreading coal dust with
his fingers upon a portion of the paved floor. He came to his feet
with a leap and confronted Kerry. The spaniel began to scratch
feverishly upon the spot where the coal dust had been artificially
spread. Kerry's eyes gleamed like steel. He shot out his hand and
grasped the Chinaman by his long hair. "Open that trap," he said, "or
I'll break you in half!"

Ah Fung's oblique eyes regarded him with an expression difficult to
analyze, but partly it was murder. He made no attempt to obey the
order. Meanwhile the dog, whining and scratching furiously, had
exposed the greater part of a stone slab somewhat larger than those
adjoining it, and having a large crack or fissure in one end.

"For the last time," said Kerry, drawing the man's head back so that
his breath began to whistle through his nostrils, "open that trap."

As he spoke he released Ah Fung, and Ah Fung made one wild leap
towards the stairs. Kerry's fist caught him behind the ear as he
sprang, and he went down like a dead man upon a small heap of coal
which filled the angle of the cellar.

Breathing rapidly and having his teeth so tightly clenched that his
maxillary muscles protruded lumpishly, Kerry stood looking at the
fallen man. But Ah Fung did not move. The dog had ceased to scratch,
and now stood uttering short staccato barks and looking up at the
Chief Inspector. Otherwise there was no sound in the house, above or
below.

Kerry stooped, and with his handkerchief scrupulously dusted the stone
slab. The spaniel, resentment forgotten, danced excitedly beside him
and barked continuously.

"There's some sort of hook to fit in that crack," muttered Kerry.

He began to hunt about among the debris which littered one end of the
cellar, testing fragment after fragment, but failing to find any piece
of scrap to suit his purpose. By sheer perseverance rather than by any
process of reasoning, he finally hit upon the piece of bent wire which
was the key to this door of Sin Sin Wa's drug warehouse.

One short exclamation of triumph he muttered at the moment that his
glance rested upon it, and five seconds later he had the trapdoor open
and was peering down into the narrow pit in which wooden steps rested.
The spaniel began to bark wildly, whereupon Kerry grasped him, tucked
him under his arm, and ran up to the room above, where he deposited
the furiously wriggling animal. He stepped quickly back again and
closed the upper door. By this act he plunged the cellar into complete
darkness, and accordingly he took out from the pocket of his
rain-drenched overall the electric torch which he always carried.
Directing its ray downwards into the cellar, he perceived Ah Fung move
and toss his hand above his head. He also detected a faint rattling
sound.

"Ah!" said Kerry.

He descended, and stooping over the unconscious man extracted from the
pocket of his baggy blue trousers four keys upon a ring. At these
Kerry stared eagerly. Two of them belonged to yale locks; the third
was a simple English barrel-key, which probably fitted a padlock; but
the fourth was large and complicated.

"Looks like the key of a jail," he said aloud.

He spoke with unconscious prescience. This was the key of the door of
the vault. Removing his overall, Kerry laid it with his cane upon the
scrap-heap, then he climbed down the ladder and found himself in the
mouth of that low timbered tunnel, like a trenchwork, which owed its
existence to the cunning craftsmanship of Sin Sin Wa. Stooping
uncomfortably, he made his way along the passage until the massive
door confronted him. He was in no doubt as to which key to employ; his
mental condition was such that he was indifferent to the dangers which
probably lay before him.

The well-oiled lock operated smoothly. Kerry pushed the door open and
stepped briskly into the vault.

His movements, from the moment that he had opened the trap, had been
swift and as nearly noiseless as the difficulties of the task had
permitted. Nevertheless, they had not been so silent as to escape the
attention of the preternaturally acute Sin Sin Wa. Kerry found the
place occupied only by the aged Sam Tuk. A bright fire burned in the
stove, and a ship's lantern stood upon the counter. Dense chemical
fumes rendered the air difficult to breathe; but the shelves, once
laden with the largest illicit collection of drugs in London, were
bare.

Kerry's fierce eyes moved right and left; his jaws worked
automatically. Sam Tuk sat motionless, his hands concealed in his
sleeves, bending decrepitly forward in his chair. Then:

"Hi! Guy Fawkes!" rapped Kerry, striding forward. "Who's been letting
off fire-works?"

Sam Tuk nodded senilely, but spoke not a word.

Kerry stooped and stared into the heart of the fire. A dense coat of
white ash lay upon the embers. He grasped the shoulder of the aged
Chinaman, and pushed him back so that he could look into the bleared
eyes behind the owlish spectacles.

"Been cleaning up the 'evidence,' eh?" he shouted. "This joint stinks
of opium and a score of other dopes. Where are the gang?" He shook the
yielding, ancient frame. "Where's the smart with one eye?"

But Sam Tuk merely nodded, and as Kerry released his hold sank
forward again, nodding incessantly.

"H'm, you're a hard case," said the Chief Inspector. "A couple of
witnesses like you and the jury would retire to Bedlam!"

He stood glaring fiercely at the limp frame of the old Chinaman, and
as he glared his expression changed. Lying on the dirty floor not a
yard from Sam Tuk's feet was a ball of leaf opium!

"Ha!" exclaimed Kerry, and he stooped to pick it up.

As he did so, with a lightning movement of which the most astute
observer could never have supposed him capable, Sam Tuk whipped a
loaded rubber tube from his sleeve and struck Kerry a shrewd blow
across the back of the skull.

The Chief Inspector, without word or cry, collapsed upon his knees,
and then fell gently forward--forward--and toppled face downwards
before his assailant. His bowler fell off and rolled across the dirty
floor.

Sam Tuk sank deeply into his chair, and his toothless jaws worked
convulsively. The skinny hand which clutched the piece of tubing
twitched and shook, so that the primitive deadly weapon fell from its
wielder's grasp.

Silently, that set of empty shelves nearest to the inner wall of the
vault slid open, and Sin Sin Wa came out. He, too, carried his hands
tucked in his sleeves, and his yellow, pock-marked face wore its
eternal smile.

"Well done," he crooned softly in Chinese. "Well done, bald father of
wisdom. The dogs draw near, but the old fox sleeps not."

CHAPTER XXXVII

SETON PASHA REPORTS

At about the time that the fearless Chief Inspector was entering the
establishment of Sam Tuk Seton Pasha was reporting to Lord Wrexborough
in Whitehall. His nautical disguise had served its purpose, and he had
now finally abandoned it, recognizing that he had to deal with a
criminal of genius to whom disguise merely afforded matter for
amusement.

In his proper person, as Greville Seton, he afforded a marked contrast
to that John Smiles, seaman, who had sat in a top room in Limehouse
with Chief Inspector Kerry. And although he had to report failure, the
grim, bronzed face and bright grey eyes must have inspired in the
heart of any thoughtful observer confidence in ultimate success. Lord
Wrexborough, silver-haired, florid and dignified, sat before a vast
table laden with neatly arranged dispatch-boxes, books, documents tied
with red tape, and the other impressive impedimenta which characterize
the table of a Secretary of State. Quentin Gray, unable to conceal his
condition of nervous excitement, stared from a window down into
Whitehall.

"I take it, then, Seton," Lord Wrexborough was saying, "that in your
opinion--although perhaps it is somewhat hastily formed--there is and
has been no connivance between officials and receivers of drugs?"

"That is my opinion, sir. The traffic has gradually and ingeniously
been 'ringed' by a wealthy group. Smaller dealers have been bought out
or driven out, and today I believe it would be difficult, if not
impossible, to obtain opium, cocaine, or veronal illicitly anywhere in
London. Kazmah and Company had the available stock cornered. Of
course, now that they are out of business, no doubt others will step
in. It is a trade that can never be suppressed under existing laws."

"I see, I see," muttered Lord Wrexborough, adjusting his pince-nez.
"You also believe that Kazmah and Company are in hiding within what
you term"--he consulted a written page--"the 'Causeway area'? And you
believe that the man called Sin Sin Wa is the head of the
organization?"

"I believe the late Sir Lucien Pyne was the actual head of the group,"
said Seton bluntly. "But Sin Sin Wa is the acting head. In view of his
physical peculiarities, I don't quite see how he's going to escape us,
either, sir. His wife has a fighting chance, and as for Mohammed
el-Kazmah, he might sail for anywhere tomorrow, and we should never
know. You see, we have no description of the man."

"His passports?" murmured Lord Wrexborough.

Seton Pasha smiled grimly.

"Not an insurmountable difficulty, sir," he replied, "but Sin Sin Wa
is a marked man. He has the longest and thickest pigtail which I ever
saw on a human scalp. I take it he is a Southerner of the old school;
therefore, he won't cut it off. He has also only one eye, and while
there are many one-eyed Chinamen, there are few one-eyed Chinamen who
possess pigtails like a battleship's hawser. Furthermore, he travels
with a talking raven, and I'll swear he won't leave it behind. On the
other hand, he is endowed with an amount of craft which comes very
near to genius."

"And--Mrs. Monte Irvin?"

Quentin Gray turned suddenly, and his boyish face was very pale.

"Seton, Seton!" he said. "For God's sake tell me the truth! Do you
think--"

He stopped, choking emotionally. Seton Pasha watched him with that
cool, confident stare which could either soothe or irritate; and:

"She was alive this morning, Gray," he replied quietly, "we heard her.
You may take it from me that they will offer her no violence. I shall
say no more."

Lord Wrexborough cleared his throat and took up a document from the
table.

"Your remark raises another point, Quentin," he said sternly, "which
has to be settled today. Your appointment to Cairo was confirmed this
morning. You sail on Tuesday."

Quentin Gray turned again abruptly and stared out of the window.

"You're practically kicking me out, sir," he said. "I don't know what
I've done."

"You have done nothing," replied Lord Wrexborough "which an honorable
man may not do. But in common with many others similarly
circumstanced, you seem inclined, now that your military duties are at
an end, to regard life as a sort of perpetual 'leave.' I speak frankly
before Seton because I know that he agrees with me. My friend the
Foreign Secretary has generously offered you an appointment which
opens up a career that should not--I repeat, that should not prove
less successful than his own."

Gray turned, and his face had flushed deeply.

"I know that Margaret has been scaring you about Rita Irvin," he said,
"but on my word, sir, there was no need to do it."

He met Seton Pasha's cool regard, and:

"Margaret's one of the best," he added. "I know you agree with me?"

A faint suggestion of added color came into Seton's tanned cheeks.

"I do, Gray," he answered quietly. "I believe you are good enough to
look upon me as a real friend; therefore allow me to add my advice,
for what it is worth, to that of Lord Wrexborough and your cousin:
take the Egyptian appointment. I know where it will lead. You can do
no good by remaining in London; and when we find Mrs. Irvin your
presence would be an embarrassment to the unhappy man who waits for
news at Prince's Gate. I am frank, but it's my way."

He held out his hand, smiling. Quentin Gray's mercurial complexion was
changing again, but:

"Good old Seton!" he said, rather huskily, and gripped the
outstretched hand. "For Irvin's sake, save her!"

He turned to his father.

"Thank you, sir," he added, "you are always right. I shall be ready on
Tuesday. I suppose you are off again, Seton?"

"I am," was the reply. "Chief Inspector Kerry is moving heaven and
earth to find the Kazmah establishment, and I don't want to come in a
poor second."

Lord Wrexborough cleared his throat and turned in the padded revolving
chair.

"Honestly, Seton," he said, "what do you think of your chance of
success?"

Seton Pasha smiled grimly.

"Many ascribe success to wit," he replied, "and failure to bad luck;
but the Arab says 'Kismet.'"

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE SONG OF SIN SIN WA

Mrs. Sin, aroused by her husband from the deep opium sleep, came out
into the fume-laden vault. Her dyed hair was disarranged, and her dark
eyes stared glassily before her; but even in this half-drugged state
she bore herself with the lithe carriage of a dancer, swinging her
hips lazily and pointing the toes of her high-heeled slippers.

"Awake, my wife," crooned Sin Sin Wa. "Only a fool seeks the black
smoke when the jackals sit in a ring."

Mrs. Sin gave him a glance of smiling contempt--a glance which,
passing him, rested finally upon the prone body of Chief Inspector
Kerry lying stretched upon the floor before the stove. Her pupils
contracted to mere pin-points and then dilated blackly. She recoiled a
step, fighting with the stupor which her ill-timed indulgence had left
behind.

At this moment Kerry groaned loudly, tossed his arm out with a
convulsive movement, and rolled over on to his side, drawing up his
knees.

The eye of Sin Sin Wa gleamed strangely, but he did not move, and Sam
Tuk who sat huddled in his chair where his feet almost touched the
fallen man, stirred never a muscle. But Mrs. Sin, who still moved in a
semi-phantasmagoric world, swiftly raised the hem of her kimona,
affording a glimpse of a shapely silk-clad limb. From a sheath
attached to her garter she drew a thin stilletto. Curiously feline,
she crouched, as if about to spring.

Sin Sin Wa extended his hand, grasping his wife's wrist.

"No, woman of indifferent intelligence," he said in his queer sibilant
language, "since when has murder gone unpunished in these British
dominions?"

Mrs. Sin snatched her wrist from his grasp, falling back wild-eyed.

"Yellow ape! yellow ape!" she said hoarsely. "One more does not matter
--now."

"One more?" crooned Sin Sin Wa, glancing curiously at Kerry.

"They are here! We are trapped!"

"No, no," said Sin Sin Wa. "He is a brave man; he comes alone."

He paused, and then suddenly resumed in pidgin English:

"You likee killa him, eh?"

Perhaps unconscious that she did so, Mrs. Sin replied also in English:

"No, I am mad. Let me think, old fool!"

She dropped the stiletto and raised her hand dazedly to her brow.

"You gotchee tired of knifee chop, eh?" murmured Sin Sin Wa.

Mrs. Sin clenched her hands, holding them rigidly against her hips;
and, nostrils dilated, she stared at the smiling Chinaman.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

Sin Sin Wa performed his curious oriental shrug.

"You putta topside pidgin on Sir Lucy alla lightee," he murmured.
"Givee him hell alla velly proper."

The pupils of the woman's eyes contracted again, and remained so. She
laughed hoarsely and tossed her head.

"Who told you that?" she asked contemptuously. "It was the doll-woman
who killed him--I have said so."

"You tella me so--hoi, hoi! But old Sin Sin Wa catchee wonder. Lo!"--
he extended a yellow forefinger, pointing at his wife--"Mrs. Sin make
him catchee die! No bhobbery, no palaber. Sin Sin Wa gotchee you sized
up allee timee."

Mrs. Sin snapped her fingers under his nose then stooped, picked up
the stiletto, and swiftly restored it to its sheath. Her hands resting
upon her hips, she came forward, until her dark evil face almost
touched the yellow, smiling face of Sin Sin Wa.

"Listen, old fool," she said in a low, husky voice; "I have done with
you, ape-man, for good! Yes! I killed Lucy, I killed him! He belonged
to me--until that pink and white thing took him away. I am glad I
killed him. If I cannot have him neither can she. But I was mad all
the same."

She glanced down at Kerry, and:

"Tie him up," she directed, "and send him to sleep. And understand,
Sin, we've shared out for the last time--You go your way and I go
mine. No stinking Yellow River for me. New York is good enough until
it's safe to go to Buenos Ayres."

"Smartest leg in Buenos Ayres," croaked the raven from his wicker
cage, which was set upon the counter.

Sin Sin Wa regarded him smilingly.

"Yes, yes, my little friend," he crooned in Chinese, while
Tling-a-Ling rattled ghostly castanets. "In Ho-Nan they will say that
you are a devil and I am a wizard. That which is unknown is always
thought to be magical, my Tling-a-Ling."

Mrs. Sin, who was rapidly throwing off the effects of opium and
recovering her normal self-confident personality, glanced at her
husband scornfully.

"Tell me," she said, "what has happened? How did he come here?"

"Blinga filly doggy," murmured Sin Sin Wa. "Knockee Ah Fung on him
head and comee down here, lo. Ah Fung allee lightee now--topside.
Chasee filly doggy. Allee velly proper. No bhobbery."

"Talk less and act more," said Mrs. Sin. "Tie him up, and if you must
talk, talk Chinese. Tie him up."

She pointed to Kerry. Sin Sin Wa tucked his hands into his sleeves and
shuffled towards the masked door communicating with the inner room.

"Only by intelligent speech are we distinguished from the other
animals," he murmured in Chinese.

Entering the inner room, he began to extricate a long piece of thin
rope from amid a tangle of other materials with which it was
complicated. Mrs. Sin stood looking down at the fallen man. Neither
Kerry nor Sam Tuk gave the slightest evidence of life. And as Sin Sin
Wa disentangled yard upon yard of rope from the bundle on the floor by
the bed where Rita Irvin lay in her long troubled sleep, he crooned a
queer song. It was in the Ho-Nan dialect and intelligible to himself
alone.

"Shoa, the evil woman (he chanted), the woman of
many strange loves. . . .
Shoa, the ghoul. . . .
Lo, the Yellow River leaps forth from the nostrils
of the mountain god. . . .
Shoa, the betrayer of men. . . .
Blood is on her brow.
Lo, the betrayer is betrayed. Death sits at her elbow.
See, the Yellow River bears a corpse upon its tide. . .
Dead men hear her secret.
Shoa, the ghoul. . . .
Shoa, the evil woman. Death sits at her elbow.
Black, the vultures flock about her. . . .
Lo, the Yellow River leaps forth from the nostrils
of the mountain god."

Meanwhile Kerry, lying motionless at the feet of Sam Tuk was doing
some hard and rapid thinking. He had recovered consciousness a few
moments before Mrs. Sin had come into the vault from the inner room.
There were those, Seton Pasha among them, who would have regarded the
groan and the convulsive movements of Kerry's body with keen
suspicion. And because the Chief Inspector suffered from no illusions
respecting the genius of Sin Sin Wa, the apparent failure of the one-
eyed Chinaman to recognize these preparations for attack nonplussed
the Chief Inspector. His outstanding vice as an investigator was the
directness of his own methods and of his mental outlook, so that he
frequently experienced great difficulty in penetrating to the motives
of a tortuous brain such as that of Sin Sin Wa.

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