Dope

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That Sin Sin Wa thought him to be still unconscious he did not
believe. He was confident that his tactics had deceived the Jewess,
but he entertained an almost superstitious respect for the cleverness
of the Chinaman. The trick with the ball of leaf opium was painfully
fresh in his memory.

Kerry, in common with many members of the Criminal Investigation
Department, rarely carried firearms. He was a man with a profound
belief in his bare hands--aided when necessary by his agile feet. At
the moment that Sin Sin Wa had checked the woman's murderous and half
insane outburst Kerry had been contemplating attack. The sudden change
of language on the part of the Chinaman had arrested him in the act;
and, realizing that he was listening to a confession which placed the
hangman's rope about the neck of Mrs. Sin, he lay still and wondered.

Why had Sin Sin Wa forced his wife to betray herself? To clear Mareno?
To clear Mrs. Irvin--or to save his own skin?

It was a frightful puzzle for Kerry. Then--where was Kazmah? That Mrs.
Irvin, probably in a drugged condition, lay somewhere in that
mysterious inner room Kerry felt fairly sure. His maltreated skull was
humming like a bee-hive and aching intensely, but the man was tough as
men are made, and he could not only think clearly, but was capable of
swift and dangerous action.

He believed that he could tackle the Chinaman with fair prospects of
success; and women, however murderous, he habitually disregarded as
adversaries. But the mummy-like, deceptive Sam Tuk was not negligible,
and Kazmah remained an unknown quantity.

From under that protective arm, cast across his face, Kerry's fierce
eyes peered out across the dirty floor. Then quickly he shut his eyes
again.

Sin Sin Wa, crooning his strange song, came in carrying a coil of rope
--and a Mauser pistol!

"P'licemanee gotchee catchee sleepee," he murmured, "or maybe he
catchee die!"

He tossed the rope to his wife, who stood silent tapping the floor
with one slim restless foot.

"Number one top-side tie up," he crooned. "Sin Sin Wa watchee withum
gun!"

Kerry lay like a dead man; for in the Chinaman's voice were menace and
warning.

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE EMPTY WHARF

The suspected area of Limehouse was closely invested as any fortress
of old when Seton Pasha once more found himself approaching that
painfully familiar neighborhood. He had spoken to several pickets, and
had gathered no news of interest, except that none of them had seen
Chief Inspector Kerry since some time shortly before dusk. Seton,
newly from more genial climes, shivered as he contemplated the misty,
rain-swept streets, deserted and but dimly lighted by an occasional
lamp. The hooting of a steam siren on the river seemed to be in
harmony with the prevailing gloom, and the most confirmed optimist
must have suffered depression amid those surroundings.

He had no definite plan of action. Every line of inquiry hitherto
followed had led to nothing but disappointment. With most of the
details concerning the elaborate organization of the Kazmah group
either gathered or in sight, the whereabouts of the surviving members
remained a profound mystery. From the Chinese no information could be
obtained. Distrust of the police resides deep within the Chinese
heart; for the Chinaman, and not unjustly, regards the police as ever
ready to accuse him and ever unwilling to defend him; knows himself
for a pariah capable of the worst crimes, and who may therefore be
robbed, beaten and even murdered by his white neighbors with impunity.
But when the police seek information from Chinatown, Chinatown takes
its revenge--and is silent.

Out on the river, above and below Limehouse, patrols watched for
signals from the Asiatic quarter, and from a carefully selected spot
on the Surrey side George Martin watched also. Not even the lure of a
neighboring tavern could draw him from his post. Hour after hour he
waited patiently--for Sin Sin Wa paid fair prices, and tonight he
bought neither opium nor cocaine, but liberty.

Seton Pasha, passing from point to point, and nowhere receiving news
of Kerry, began to experience a certain anxiety respecting the safety
of the intrepid Chief Inspector. His mind filled with troubled
conjectures, he passed the house formerly occupied by the one-eyed
Chinaman--where he found Detective-Sergeant Coombes on duty and very
much on the alert--and followed the bank of the Thames in the
direction of Limehouse Basin. The narrow, ill-lighted street was quite
deserted. Bad weather and the presence of many police had driven the
Asiatic inhabitants indoors. But from the river and the docks arose
the incessant din of industry. Whistles shrieked and machinery
clanked, and sometimes remotely came the sound of human voices.

Musing upon the sordid mystery which seems to underlie the whole of
this dingy quarter, Seton pursued his way, crossing inlets and
circling around basins dimly divined, turning to the right into a lane
flanked by high eyeless walls, and again to the left, finally to
emerge nearly opposite a dilapidated gateway giving access to a small
wharf.

All unconsciously, he was traversing the same route as that recently
pursued by the fugitive Sin Sin Wa; but now he paused, staring at the
empty wharf. The annexed building, a mere shell, had not escaped
examination by the search party, and it was with no very definite
purpose in view that Seton pushed open the rickety gate. Doubtless
Kismet, of which the Arabs speak, dictated that he should do so.

The tide was high, and the water whispered ghostly under the pile-
supported structure. Seton experienced a new sense of chill which did
not seem to be entirely physical as he stared out at the gloomy river
prospect and listened to the uncanny whisperings of the tide. He was
about to turn back when another sound attracted his attention. A dog
was whimpering somewhere near him.

At first he was disposed to believe that the sound was due to some
other cause, for the deserted wharf was not a likely spot in which to
find a dog, but when to the faint whimpering there was added a
scratching sound, Seton's last doubts vanished.

"It's a dog," he said, "a small dog."

Like Kerry, he always carried an electric pocket-lamp, and now he
directed its rays into the interior of the building.

A tiny spaniel, whining excitedly, was engaged in scratching with its
paws upon the dirty floor as though determined to dig its way through.
As the light shone upon it the dog crouched affrightedly, and,
glancing in Seton's direction, revealed its teeth. He saw that it was
covered with mud from head to tail, presenting a most woe-begone
appearance, and the mystery of its presence there came home to him
forcibly.

It was a toy spaniel of a breed very popular among ladies of fashion,
and to its collar was still attached a tattered and muddy fragment of
ribbon.

The little animal crouched in a manner which unmistakably pointed to
the fact that it apprehended ill-treatment, but these personal fears
had only a secondary place in its mind, and with one eye on the
intruder it continued to scratch madly at the floor.

Seton acted promptly. He snapped off the light, and, replacing the
lamp in his pocket, stepped into the building and dropped down upon
his knees beside the dog. He next lay prone, and having rapidly
cleared a space with his sleeve of some of the dirt which coated it,
he applied his ear to the floor.

In spite of that iron control which habitually he imposed upon
himself, he became aware of the fact that his heart was beating
rapidly. He had learned at Leman Street that Kerry had brought Mrs.
Irvin's dog from Prince's Gate to aid in the search for the missing
woman. He did not doubt that this was the dog which snarled and
scratched excitedly beside him. Dimly he divined something of the
truth. Kerry had fallen into the hands of the gang, but the dog,
evidently not without difficulty, had escaped. What lay below the
wharf?

Holding his breath, he crouched, listening; but not a sound could he
detect.

"There's nothing here, old chap," he said to the dog.

Responsive to the friendly tone, the little animal began barking
loudly with high staccato notes, which must have been audible on the
Surrey shore.

Seton was profoundly mystified by the animal's behavior. He had
personally searched every foot of this particular building, and was
confident that it afforded no hiding-place. The behavior of the dog,
however, was susceptible of only one explanation; and Seton
recognizing that the clue to the mystery lay somewhere within this
ramshackle building, became seized with a conviction that he was being
watched.

Standing upright, he paused for a moment, irresolute, thinking that he
had detected a muffled shriek. But the riverside noises were
misleading and his imagination was on fire.

That almost superstitious respect for the powers of Sin Sin Wa, which
had led Chief Inspector Kerry to look upon the Chinaman as a being
more than humanly endowed, began to take possession of Seton Pasha. He
regretted having entered the place so overtly, he regretted having
shown a light. Keen eyes, vigilant, regarded him. It was perhaps a
delusion, bred of the mournful night sounds, the gloom, and the
uncanny resourcefulness, already proven, of the Kazmah group. But it
operated powerfully.

Theories, wild, improbable, flocked to his mind. The great dope cache
lay beneath his feet--and there must be some hidden entrance to it
which had escaped the attention of the search-party. This in itself
was not improbable, since they had devoted no more time to this
building than to any other in the vicinity. That wild cry in the night
which had struck so mournful a chill to the hearts of the watchers on
the river had seemed to come out of the void of the blackness, had
given but slight clue to the location of the place of captivity.
Indeed, they could only surmise that it had been uttered by the
missing woman. Yet in their hearts neither had doubted it.

He determined to cause the place to be searched again, as secretly as
possible; he determined to set so close a guard over it and over its
approaches that none could enter or leave unobserved.

Yet Kismet, in whose omnipotence he more than half believed, had
ordained otherwise; for man is merely an instrument in the hand of
Fate.

CHAPTER XL

COIL OF THE PIGTAIL

The inner room was in darkness and the fume-laden air almost
unbreathable. A dull and regular moaning sound proceeded from the
corner where the bed was situated, but of the contents of the place
and of its other occupant or occupants Kerry had no more than a hazy
idea. His imagination supplied those details which he had failed to
observe. Mrs. Monte Irvin, in a dying condition, lay upon the bed, and
someone or some thing crouched on the divan behind Kerry as he lay
stretched upon the matting-covered floor. His wrists, tied behind him,
gave him great pain; and since his ankles were also fastened and the
end of the rope drawn taut and attached to that binding his wrists, he
was rendered absolutely helpless. For one of his fiery temperament
this physical impotence was maddening, and because his own
handkerchief had been tied tightly around his head so as to secure
between his teeth a wooden stopper of considerable size which
possessed an unpleasant chemical taste and smell, even speech was
denied him.

How long he had lain thus he had no means of judging accurately; but
hours--long, maddening hours--seemed to have passed since, with the
muzzle of Sin Sin Wa's Mauser pressed coldly to his ear, he had
submitted willy-nilly to the adroit manipulations of Mrs. Sin. At
first he had believed, in his confirmed masculine vanity, that it
would be a simple matter to extricate himself from the fastenings made
by a woman; but when, rolling him sideways, she had drawn back his
heels and run the loose end of the line through the loop formed by the
lashing of his wrists behind him, he had recognized a Chinese
training, and had resigned himself to the inevitable. The wooden gag
was a sore trial, and if it had not broken his spirit it had nearly
caused him to break an artery in his impotent fury.

Into the darkened inner chamber Sin Sin Wa had dragged him, and there
Kerry had lain ever since, listening to the various sounds of the
place, to the coarse voice, often raised in anger, of the Cuban-
Jewess, to the crooning tones of the imperturbable Chinaman. The
incessant moaning of the woman on the bed sometimes became mingled
with another sound more remote, which Kerry for long failed to
identify; but ultimately he concluded it to be occasioned by the tide
flowing under the wharf. The raven was silent, because, imprisoned in
his wicker cage, he had been placed in some dark spot below the
counter. Very dimly from time to time a steam siren might be heard
upon the river, and once the thudding of a screw-propeller told of the
passage of a large vessel along Limehouse Reach.

In the eyes of Mrs. Sin Kerry had read menace, and for all their dark
beauty they had reminded him of the eyes of a cornered rat. Beneath
the contemptuous nonchalance which she flaunted he read terror and
remorse, and a foreboding of doom--panic ill repressed, which made her
dangerous as any beast at bay. The attitude of the Chinaman was more
puzzling. He seemed to bear the Chief Inspector no personal animosity,
and indeed, in his glittering eye, Kerry had detected a sort of
mysterious light of understanding which was almost mirthful, but which
bore no relation to Sin Sin Wa's perpetual smile. Kerry's respect for
the one-eyed Chinaman had increased rather than diminished upon closer
acquaintance. Underlying his urbanity he failed to trace any symptom
of apprehension. This Sin Sin Wa, accomplice of a murderess self-
confessed, evident head of a drug syndicate which had led to the
establishment of a Home office inquiry--this badly "wanted" man, whose
last hiding-place, whose keep, was closely invested by the agents of
the law, was the same Sin Sin Wa who had smilingly extended his
wrists, inviting the manacles, when Kerry had first made his
acquaintance under circumstances legally very different.

Sometimes Kerry could hear him singing his weird crooning song, and
twice Mrs. Sin had shrieked blasphemous execrations at him because of
it. But why should Sin Sin Wa sing? What hope had he of escape? In the
case of any other criminal Kerry would have answered "None," but the
ease with which this one-eyed singing Chinaman had departed from his
abode under the very noses of four detectives had shaken the Chief
Inspector's confidence in the efficiency of ordinary police methods
where this Chinese conjurer was concerned. A man who could convert an
elaborate opium house into a dirty ruin in so short a time, too, was
capable of other miraculous feats, and it would not have surprised
Kerry to learn that Sin Sin Wa, at a moment's notice, could disguise
himself as a chest of tea, or pass invisible through solid walls.

For evidence that Seton Pasha or any of the men from Scotland Yard had
penetrated to the secret of Sam Tuk's cellar Kerry listened in vain.
What was about to happen he could not imagine, nor if his life was to
be spared. In the confession so curiously extorted from Mrs. Sin by
her husband he perceived a clue to this and other mysteries, but
strove in vain to disentangle it from the many maddening complexities
of the case.

So he mused, wearily, listening to the moaning of his fellow captive,
and wondering, since no sign of life came thence, why he imagined
another presence in the stuffy room or the presence of someone or of
some thing on the divan behind him. And in upon these dreary musings
broke an altercation between Mrs. Sin and her husband.

"Keep the blasted thing covered up!" she cried hoarsely.

"Tling-a-Ling wantchee catchee bleathee sometime," crooned Sin Sin Wa.

"Hello, hello!" croaked the raven drowsily. "Smartest--smartest--
smartest leg."

"You catchee sleepee, Tling-a-Ling," murmured the Chinaman. "Mrs. Sin
no likee you palaber, lo!"

"Burn it!" cried the woman, "burn the one-eyed horror!"

But when, carrying a lighted lantern, Sin Sin Wa presently came into
the inner room, he smiled as imperturbably as ever, and was unmoved so
far as external evidence showed.

Sin Sin Wa set the lantern upon a Moorish coffee-table which once had
stood beside the divan in Mrs. Sin's sanctum at the House of a Hundred
Raptures. A significant glance--its significance an acute puzzle to
the recipient--he cast upon Chief Inspector Kerry. His hands tucked in
the loose sleeves of his blouse, he stood looking down at the woman
who lay moaning on the bed; and:

"Tchee, tchee," he crooned softly, "you hate no catchee die, my
beautiful. You sniffee plenty too muchee 'white snow,' hoi, hoi! Velly
bad woman tly makee you catchee die, but Sin Sin Wa no hate got for
killee chop. Topside pidgin no good enough, lo!"

His thick, extraordinary long pigtail hanging down his back and
gleaming in the rays of the lantern, he stood, head bowed, watching
Rita Irvin. Because of his position on the floor, Mrs. Irvin was
invisible from Kerry's point of view, but she continued to moan
incessantly, and he knew that she must be unconscious of the
Chinaman's scrutiny.

"Hurry, old fool!" came Mrs. Sin's harsh voice from the outer room.
"In ten minutes Ah Fung will give the signal. Is she dead yet--the
doll-woman?"

"She hate no catchee die," murmured Sin Sin Wa, "She still vella
beautiful--tchee!"

It was at the moment that he spoke these words that Seton Pasha
entered the empty building above and found the spaniel scratching at
the paved floor. So that, as Sin Sin Wa stood looking down at the wan
face of the unfortunate woman who refused to die, the dog above,
excited by Seton's presence, ceased to whine and scratch and began to
bark.

Faintly to the vault the sound of the high-pitched barking penetrated.

Kerry tensed his muscles and groaned impotently feeling his heart
beating like a hammer in his breast. Complete silence reigned in the
outer room. Sin Sin Wa never stirred. Again the dog barked, then:

"Hello, hello!" shrieked the raven shrilly. "Number one p'lice chop,
lo! Sin Sin Wa! Sin Sin Wa!"

There came a fierce exclamation, the sound of something being hastily
overturned, of a scuffle, and:

"Sin--Sin--Wa!" croaked the raven feebly.

The words ended in a screeching cry, which was followed by a sound of
wildly beating wings. Sin Sin Wa, hands tucked in sleeves, turned and
walked from the inner room, closing the sliding door behind him with a
movement of his shoulder.

Resting against the empty shelves, he stood and surveyed the scene in
the vault.

Mrs. Sin, who had been kneeling beside the wicker cage, which was
upset, was in the act of standing upright. At her feet, and not far
from the motionless form of old Sam Tuk who sat like a dummy figure in
his chair before the stove, lay a palpitating mass of black feathers.
Other detached feathers were sprinkled about the floor. Feebly the
raven's wings beat the ground once, twice--and were still.

Sin Sin Wa uttered one sibilant word, withdrew his hands from his
sleeves, and, stepping around the end of the counter, dropped upon his
knees beside the raven. He touched it with long yellow fingers, then
raised it and stared into the solitary eye, now glazed and sightless
as its fellow. The smile had gone from the face of Sin Sin Wa.

"My Tling-a-Ling!" he moaned in his native mandarin tongue. "Speak to
me, my little black friend!"

A bead of blood, like a ruby, dropped from the raven's beak. Sin Sin
Wa bowed his head and knelt awhile in silence; then, standing up, he
reverently laid the poor bedraggled body upon a chest. He turned and
looked at his wife.

Hands on hips, she confronted him, breathing rapidly, and her glance
of contempt swept him up and down.

"I've often threatened to do it," she said in English. "Now I've done
it. They're on the wharf. We're trapped--thanks to that black,
squalling horror!"

"Tchee, tchee!" hissed Sin Sin Wa.

His gleaming eye fixed upon the woman unblinkingly, he began very
deliberately to roll up his loose sleeves. She watched him, contempt
in her glance, but her expression changed subtly, and her dark eyes
grew narrowed. She looked rapidly towards Sam Tuk but Sam Tuk never
stirred.

"Old fool!" she cried at Sin Sin Wa. "What are you doing?"

But Sin Sin Wa, his sleeves rolled up above his yellow, sinewy
forearms, now tossed his pigtail, serpentine, across his shoulder and
touched it with his fingers, an odd, caressing movement.

"Ho!" laughed Mrs. Sin in her deep scoffing fashion, "it is for me you
make all this bhobbery, eh? It is me you are going to chastise, my
dear?"

She flung back her head, snapping her fingers before the silent
Chinaman. He watched her, and slowly--slowly--he began to crouch,
lower and lower, but always that unblinking regard remained fixed upon
the face of Mrs. Sin.

The woman laughed again, more loudly. Bending her lithe body forward
in mocking mimicry, she snapped her fingers, once--again--and again
under Sin Sin Wa's nose. Then:

"Do you think, you blasted yellow ape, that you can frighten me?" she
screamed, a swift flame of wrath lighting up her dark face.

In a flash she had raised the kimona and had the stiletto in her hand.
But, even swifter than she, Sin Sin Wa sprang. . .

Once, twice she struck at him, and blood streamed from his left
shoulder. But the pigtail, like an executioner's rope, was about the
woman's throat. She uttered one smothered shriek, dropping the knife,
and then was silent. . .

Her dyed hair escaped from its fastenings and descended, a ruddy
torrent, about her as she writhed, silent, horrible, in the death-coil
of the pigtail.

Rigidly, at arms-length, he held her, moment after moment, immovable,
implacable; and when he read death in her empurpled face, a miraculous
thing happened.

The "blind" eye of Sin Sin Wa opened!

A husky rattle told of the end, and he dropped the woman's body from
his steely grip, disengaging the pigtail with a swift movement of his
head. Opening and closing his yellow fingers to restore circulation,
he stood looking down at her. He spat upon the floor at her feet.

Then, turning, he held out his arms and confronted Sam Tuk.

"Was it well done, bald father of wisdom?" he demanded hoarsely.

But old Sam Tuk seated lumpish in his chair like some grotesque idol
before whom a human sacrifice has been offered up, stirred not. The
length of loaded tubing with which he had struck Kerry lay beside him
where it had fallen from his nerveless hand. And the two oblique,
beady eyes of Sin Sin Wa, watching, grew dim. Step by step he
approached the old Chinaman, stooped, touched him, then knelt and laid
his head upon the thin knees.

"Old father," he murmured, "Old bald father who knew so much. Tonight
you know all."

For Sam Tuk was no more. At what moment he had died, whether in the
excitement of striking Kerry or later, no man could have presumed to
say, since, save by an occasional nod of his head, he had often
simulated death in life--he who was so old that he was known as "The
Father of Chinatown."

Standing upright, Sin Sin Wa looked from the dead man to the dead
raven. Then, tenderly raising poor Tling-a-Ling, he laid the great
dishevelled bird--a weird offering--upon the knees of Sam Tuk.

"Take him with you where you travel tonight, my father," he said. "He,
too, was faithful."

A cheap German clock commenced a muted clangor, for the little hammer
was muffled.

Sin Sin Wa walked slowly across to the counter. Taking up the gleaming
joss, he unscrewed its pedestal. Then, returning to the spot where
Mrs. Sin lay, he coolly detached a leather wallet which she wore
beneath her dress fastened to a girdle. Next he removed her rings, her
bangles and other ornaments. He secreted all in the interior of the
joss--his treasure-chest. He raised his hands and began to unplait his
long pigtail, which, like his "blind" eye, was camouflage--a false
queue attached to his own hair, which he wore but slightly longer than
some Europeans and many Americans. With a small pair of scissors he
clipped off his long, snake-like moustaches. . . .

CHAPTER XLI

THE FINDING OF KAZMAH

At a point just above the sweep of Limehouse Reach a watchful river
police patrol observed a moving speck of light on the right bank of
the Thames. As if in answer to the signal there came a few moments
later a second moving speck at a point not far above the district once
notorious in its possession of Ratcliff Highway. A third light
answered from the Surrey bank, and a fourth shone out yet higher up
and on the opposite side of the Thames.

The tide had just turned. As Chief Inspector Kerry had once observed,
"there are no pleasure parties punting about that stretch," and,
consequently, when George Martin tumbled into his skiff on the Surrey
shore and began lustily to pull up stream, he was observed almost
immediately by the River Police.

Pulling hard against the stream, it took him a long time to reach his
destination--stone stairs near the point from which the second light
had been shown. Rain had ceased and the mist had cleared shortly after
dusk, as often happens at this time of year, and because the night was
comparatively clear the pursuing boats had to be handled with care.

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