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to recommit, and the committees would be voted on in the above order except the old committee would precede other standing and select committees. In suggesting or moving that the committee be a special one, the word "special" is not generally used, the motion being made to refer the question to a committee of five, or any other number, which makes it a special committee; that is, not a standing committee. If any committee except a special one is decided upon, the chair should then put the question on referring the question to that committee. But any one may interrupt him and move to add instructions, or he, himself, may suggest them, or instructions may be given after the vote has been taken on committing the question. Instructions may be given to the committee by a majority vote at any time before it submits its report, even at another session. If the committee is to be a special one, it is necessary in addition to its number to decide how it is to be appointed. If different methods are suggested, or moved, they are voted on in the following order: Ballot; nominations from the floor (or open nominations); nominations by the chair; and lastly, appointment by the chair, the method that should usually be adopted in very large assemblies. When this is decided the completed motion to commit is put to vote. Instructions as heretofore stated may be added before the vote is taken


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116 returning ship should bear him back to the scenes of his boyhood and the land of his birth.

At length the wished-for time did arrive, and he embarked with a light and joyous heart on his voyage towards his Australian home, where in due time he arrived, and was in some degree recompensed for his temporary exile by the warm greetings of his friends and countrymen. The brilliancy of Binnelong's career was, however, destined to be clouded at this period by a circumstance which is known to have embittered the life of many a greater hero, if the stories of some poets and historians are to be credited. His faithless "gin," either wearied of the loneliness which his absence imposed, or allured from her fidelity by seductive wiles, had, during his stay in England, transferred her fealty to another lord. This injury Binnelong did not allow to pass unresented, and a battle took place in which both the aggressor and the aggrieved suffered considerable personal injury; but, although our hero fought and bled in defence of his honour, he did not resume possession of his faithless wife, but sought and won another bride.

Collin's "Account of the Colony," from which these particulars are chiefly gleaned, contains a portrait of Binnelong, taken while he was in England, in which he is represented in a sort of military uniform. He is said to have accommodated himself wonderfully to civilized customs and habits, imitating with considerable success the manners and ceremonies of his

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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 Tiley, Alexander Campbell, a student of Lincoln's Inn 18 April, 1877 (then aged 26), called to the bar 29 June, 1881 (2nd son of William George Tiley, of St. Peter's Park, London, surgeon); born, 1851.
 * St. Peter's Park, North Kensington, W.

 Tilghman, William Huskisson, M.A., Trin. Coll., Camb., 1856, a student of Lincoln's Inn 30 May, 1851 (then aged 23), called to the bar 17 Nov., 1855 (eldest son of Richard Milbanke Tilghman, late H.E.I.C.S., dec.); born, 1828.  Tillard, Philip Edward, a student of the Inner Temple 11 Nov., 1859 (then aged 23), called to the bar 11 June, 1862 (eldest surviving son of Philip Tillard, of Great Stukeley Hall, Hunts); born 31 July, 1836; married, 1871, Iona Mary, eldest dau. of late John Bonham-Carter, Esq., of Adhurst St. Mary.
 * Great Stukeley Hall, Huntingdon.

 Tillard, Rev. Richard Henry, M.A., St. John's Coll., Camb., 1842, rector of Blakeney since 1858, a student of Lincoln's Inn 15 Nov., 1836 (then aged 20), called to the bar 10 June, 1842 (3rd son of Rev. Richard Tillard, rector of Bluntisham, Hunts); born 28 Dec., 1815; married 24 June, 1847, Anna, 2nd dau. of Rev. Joseph Cotterill, rector of Blakeney.
 * Blakeney Rectory, Thetford.

 Tilley, Arthur Augustus, B.A. (fellow), King's Coll., Camb., 1878, a student of the Inner Temple 22 Nov., 1872 (then aged 21), called to the bar 28 June, 1876 (eldest son of Sir John Tilley, K.C.B., secretary to post office 1864–80); born 1 Dec., 1851 (see Foster's Baronetage).
 * 73, St. George's Square, S.W.; 9, New Square, Lincoln's Inn. W.C.

 Tillotson, Alfred, LL.B. London Univ. 1880 and a member of Convocation, educated at Bradford High School and Wesley Coll., Sheffield, a student of the Inner Temple 10 Nov., 1875 (then aged 20), pupil real property law scholarship Feb., 1879, called to the bar 7 May, 1879 (2nd son of Miles Tillotson, of Bradford, dec.); born 16 Aug., 1855; unmarried.
 * 12, Spring Bank, Bradford.

 Timms, John, B.A., Trin. Coll., Camb., 1867, practises before the supreme court of Victoria, a student of Lincoln's Inn 21 Nov., 1863 (then aged 21), called to the bar 26 Jan., 1871 (eldest son of William Timms, Esq., late of Geelong, Victoria); born, 1842.
 * Melbourne, Victoria.

 Tindal, Charles Harrison, M.A. Magdalen Coll., Oxon, B.C.L. 1874, a student of Lincoln's Inn 3 June, 1875, called to the bar 3 July, 1878 (3rd son of Acton Tindal, late of Aylesbury, Bucks, clerk of the peace, dec.); born 11 Nov., 1849.

Tinney, Edward William James, member of the Upper Canadian bar, a student of the Middle Temple 25 May, 1854, called to the bar 30 April, 1857 (only surviving son of Edward Thomas Tinney, of the civil service, formerly a merchant in the United States, dec.); born ,
 * Alexandria, Egypt.

Tobin, Alfred Aspinall, B.A., Univ. Coll., Oxon, 1878, from Rugby, a member of the Northern circuit, a student of the Middle Temple 31 Oct., 1877, international and constitutional law scholarship 1878, common law scholarship 1879, called to the bar 9 June, 1880 (3rd son of James Aspinall Tobin, of Eastham, Cheshire, merchant); born 26 Dec., 1855; unmarried.
 * Stephenson Chambers, 25, Lord Street, Liverpool.

Todd, Arthur Horatio, B.A., Univ. Coll., Oxon, 1878, assistant master Charterhouse since 1880, a member of the South-eastern circuit, assistant editor of A Digest of Criminal Law Cases, a student of the Inner Temple 30 Nov., 1877 (then aged 23), called to the bar 17 Nov., 1880 (5th son of John Todd, of London, merchant); born, 1854.
 * Charterhouse, Godalming; 2, Plowden Buildings, Temple, E.C.

Todd, John, M.A., Christ's Coll., Camb., 1840, J.P. Yorkshire East Riding, a student of Lincoln's Inn 2 June, 1835 (then aged 22), called to the bar 22 Nov., 1839 (only son of John Todd, Esq., of Swanland Hall, Yorks); born, 1813; married 30 Aug., 1847, Elizabeth Wingfield, dau. of late Rev. R. C. Winpenny, and has issue.
 * Swanland Hall, near Brough, Yorkshire; Union Club, S.W.

Todd, Thomas Frederick d'Arcy, M.A., Trin. Coll., Camb., 1877, a member of the Western circuit, a student of the Inner Temple 25 Jan., 1873 (then aged 20), called to the bar 17 Nov., 1875 (only son of Lt.-Col. Frederick William Todd, late 14th regt. Madras native infantry, retired); born 12 March, 1852; married 19 April, 1883, Theresa Emma Edith, dau. of late Llewellyn Wynne, Esq., of Hook, Surrey.
 * 36, Cambridge Terrace, Hyde Park, W.; 11, New Court, Lincoln's Inn, W.C.

Todd, Thomas Marshall, M.A., S.C.L. Queen's Coll., Oxon, B.A. 1873, from Winchester Coll., counsel for the Mint in Oxon, cos. Glouc., Stafford, Salop, a member of the Oxford circuit, a student of the Inner Temple 21 Nov., 1873 (then a ged 23), called to the bar 17 Nov., 1876 (eldest son of Rev. Thomas Todd, M.A., rector of Newton Folkingham, co. Linc.); born 3 June, 1850; married 24 June, 1875, Eleanor Agnes, youngest dau. of late John Jones, Esq., of Kidderminster.
 * Grove Hill, Suckley, co. Worcester; 5, St. Nicholas Street, The Cross, Worcester; 12, King's Bench Walk, Temple, E.C.

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Rh betters. In personal appearance he was one of the best specimens of the aboriginal race. His hair, of which he possessed a luxuriant crop, had, during his stay in England, acquired a smoothness and gloss which attracted general attention, completely controverting the erroneous opinion which for a long time prevailed, and which is now entertained by some, that the New Hollanders were of negro origin.

He continued to reside at Government House after his return, and was accustomed to assume a patronizing and authoritative tone towards the aborigines of the neighbourhood, declaring that it was his resolution to put a stop to those barbarous practices in which they had previously indulged; that he would compel them to wear clothing and adopt an industrious and settled mode of life. On one occasion his dignity was greatly shocked by his sister running to Government House to welcome him home, with her infant seated on her shoulder in the usual style, and wearing only the scanty habiliments of her caste. He thenceforth prohibited any of his relatives or friends appearing near Government House till they had arrayed themselves in a suitable costume. In this way did Binnelong pass the remainder of his days in the colony, treated by the whites as a man distinguished from his fellows by superior intelligence and by his knowledge of European society, and honoured by the blacks on account of the favour which he enjoyed at the hands of the colonists and the Government


text: Men-at-the-Bar/Tilley, Arthur Augustus

title: Men-at-the-Bar/Tilley, Arthur Augustus


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Pursuing the narrative of the chief facts and incidents of interest which came under the observation of the first voyagers and colonists in relation to the aborigines, and which have been handed down either through the medium of writing or by common report, we come to an occurrence highly illustrative of the character of the New Hollander in his primitive state. During his exploration of the coast, undertaken a few weeks after the establishment of the settlement, the Governor, having called into Broken Bay, proceeded in a boat to land at a late hour in the evening. Owing to the partial darkness and to the shallow nature of the shore at the spot to which the boat had been steered, the party experienced considerable difficulty in disembarking, the boat repeatedly grounding at some distance from the land. A solitary aged aboriginal, who witnessed the unpleasant difficulties by which the whites were beset, stationing himself on an elevated rock, by shouts and signs indicated to the party the part of the coast on which they would find the water sufficiently deep to admit of the boat touching land. Having thus made his experience of these waters, acquired in his fishing expeditions in his bark canoe, available in extricating


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Rh the strangers from one unpleasant position, the old man offered his services to relieve them from another not less unpleasant, by conducting them to a cave, in which he gave them to understand they would all find shelter from a drenching rain which was falling at the time. Being unwilling, however, to encounter the obscure and unexplored depths of this primitive asylum, they declined to enter, whereupon their benefactor proceeded to collect a quantity of brambles, reeds, and grass, and made arrangements for the party spending the night on shore as comfortably as possible. Having rested till morning in the shelter of the gunyas hastily put together under the direction and with the assistance of the aboriginal, the party proceeded at daylight to examine the cave indicated to them on the previous evening, and which they found, as described, capable of giving shelter to a number of men, forming a roomy and comfortable chamber in the solid rock. The Governor then presented the old man, by whom they had been so kindly and hospitably received, with some trifling gifts, and the party proceeded on their voyage. A week or two after the same locality was visited by another party of excursionists, also under the command of the Governor. This time, also, the old man made his appearance on the beach, accompanied by his son, whom he introduced to Governor Phillip, having previously welcomed the party by a dance and a song, or, more properly, a "corroboree" on a small scale. The Europeans remaining in Broken


text:
Author:Arthur Augustus Tilley

Works

 * François Rabelais
 * The Literature of the French Renaissance (multiple volumes)
 * “The Reformation in France” in The Cambridge Modern History
 * “Humanism under Francis I.” in English Historical Review

title: Author:Arthur Augustus Tilley


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120 Bay all the day and night following their arrival, they a second time received abundantly the good offices of their old friend. The time had now arrived, however, when their intimacy and friendship were at once to be severed by a most unexpected and unpleasant occurrence. On the morning following the landing of the boat party, an axe, which was among their implements, was missed, and search being made among the aborigines, who were encamped round the place, it was found in the possession of the old man. It had always been an object with the authorities to impress upon the blacks the nature of the crime of theft, by immediately punishing every act of stealing, and as quickly rewarding all acts of honesty. This time Governor Phillip determined to make no exception to the rule, and, accordingly, approaching the offender, he inflicted with his open hand two or three severe slaps on the shoulder, at the same time pointing significantly to the pilfered axe, to give him to understand the cause of the punishment. The old New Hollander was not, however, to be chastised thus summarily with impunity; his manhood fired at the insult offered in the presence of a multitude of his own people and a crowd of strangers. Darting to where the arms of the tribe were deposited, and seizing a spear, he poised it aloft, and giving utterance to his resentment in the most fierce imprecations, and foaming with rage, was about to hurl the weapon at his assailant, when his arm was arrested by some of the more peaceably disposed of his com-


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Rh panions. Thwarted thus in his meditated revenge, he departed in a sulky and angry mood, and did not again for some time make his appearance among the whites.

The indications of the presence of art among the aborigines have before been referred to. As, however, these indications have been observed in a marked degree among the tribes which are now more particularly treated of, it may not be out of place to recur to the subject. A primitive gallery of sculpture, discovered by voyagers on the northern coast of the country, has previously been minutely described. The existence of similar objects of curiosity in the neighbourhood of Port Jackson is mentioned in the journals of some of the early voyagers. They consist of carvings, executed with more or less skill on the smooth surface of large rocks — flint, shell, or bone principally forming the implement substituted for a chisel. The figures generally represented were animals, weapons of different descriptions, men in various attitudes, fish, and serpents. The writer has been given to understand that one of these sculptured rocks is at the present day to be seen on the shores of Port Jackson, in the neighbourhood of Middle Head. In the consideration of this point the mind is forcibly struck by one of those links which would seem to connect the aborigines of Australia with those of America, and which go so far to support the theory which claims a common origin for these people. The following passage from Catlings "Travels among the North


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122 American Indians" will at once show a similarity between the two nations in point of artistic performances : —

"I have been unable to find anything like a system of hieroglyphic writing among them; yet their picture-writings on the rocks, and on their robes, approach somewhat towards it. Of the former I have seen a great many in the course of my travels; and I have satisfied myself that they are generally the totems (symbolic names) merely of Indians who have visited these places, and, from a similar feeling of vanity that everywhere belongs to man much alike, have been in the habit of recording their names or symbols, such as birds, beasts, or reptiles, by which each family and each individual is generally known, as white men are in the habit of recording their names at watering-places."

Catlin's work contains, among other illustrations, a few plates representing these picture-writings, and the similarity between the works of the Indians and those of the New Hollanders, as shown in a representation before alluded to in these papers, is most remarkable. In point of skill and ingenuity no difference whatever is observable. There is something very remarkable and interesting in the consideration of this point of coincidence in two races of savage men, separated from each other by more than half the globe — the one people having attained one degree above the lowest level of barbarism — the other, so far as external appearances go, little removed from the lowest point to which it is possible for human nature to descend. While on this subject, another fact, suggestive of a variety of speculations, forcibly recurs to the mind. This is the discovery, made in the early part of the


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Rh last century, and familiar to every lover of antiquities and student of history, near Mount Sinai, in Arabia, of a place known as the "Written Mountain" — an accumulation of rocks, on the surfaces of which are delineated an immense number of figures and characters. When this place was first discovered, numberless were the conjectures, and extreme the interest, to which it gave rise in the learned and antiquarian world. Among other probable results anticipated as likely to spring from the deciphering of the characters, it was believed that they would throw additional light on the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea; and in order to satisfy the intense curiosity which prevailed, many of the European governments despatched learned men to examine the hieroglyphics, and, if possible, to construe them. Among those who proceeded on this mission was an English bishop, celebrated in his day for his knowledge in everything pertaining to the ancient world. After the expenditure of a considerable amount of attention and time, it was found that the characters belonged to several languages, in which the Arabic prevailed, and were, for the most part, names, emblematic figures, and short sentences, and the date assigned to the commencement of the novel writing was the sixth century. Now, the difference which is observable between the rock-writing found at Mount Sinai, and almost in the centre of the ancient nursery of civilization, and the same writing discovered on the river banks of North America or along the coast of New Holland, appears


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122 to consist altogether in degree, being more or less perfect in proportion to the mechanical appliances employed, or the knowledge or ignorance of letters among the sculptors. In every other respect no difference is observable. The questions which naturally follow on these facts, and which present a fertile field for operation and research, are these: Is this writing on the rocks part and parcel of a system which prevailed among the primary inhabitants of the earth prior to the invention of scroll-writing or books, and hitherto overlooked or undiscovered by antiquarians, but preserved among the wild Arabs, Red Indians, and New Hollanders, after their separation from the parent stock, in lieu of a better system, to the present day? Or is it merely the simultaneous development of that desire for an after-life so universal among men, and which, while it actuates the civilized and refined to transmit to posterity their deeds and their names by means of elaborate and beautiful histories, would impel the Arab, the American Indian, and the aboriginal of New Holland to inscribe on the rough rock his name, his initials, or his emblematic symbol to rivet the attention of future generations and "form a lasting link of ages"

Among the customs of the New Hollanders there is one in which, not less than in the foregoing, is to be traced a coincidence between them and the


text:
Author:John Sturgeon Mackay

Works

 * Arithmetical Exercises
 * Elements of Euclid (1884)
 * Arithmetic, Theoretical and Practical (1899)
 * Plane Geometry (1904-5)

title: Author:John Sturgeon Mackay


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXI

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXI


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXII

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXII


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXIII

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXIII


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXIV

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXIV


text: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXV

title: The Yellow Claw/Chapter XXXV


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T 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

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 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.

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 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.

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 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

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 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!”

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 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.

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 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

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 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

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 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.

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ORNING 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

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 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,

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 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?”

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 “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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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, 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.”

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ND 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

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 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

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 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,

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 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.”

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 “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,

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 “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.

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ETECTIVE-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 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.”

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 “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

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text:
Author:Samuel Waddington

Works

 * English Sonnets by Living Writers (1881)
 * English Sonnets by Poets of the Past (1882)
 * Sonnets of Europe (1886)
 * Arthur Hugh Clough; a monograph (1883)
 * Chapters of my Life (1909)
 * "Some Views Respecting a Future Life" (1917)

Poetry

 * Prince Lucifer

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 ! 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.

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 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

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 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

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 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.

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 “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

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 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;

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 “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

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 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?”

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 “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?”

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 “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

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text:
The Times/1923/Obituary/Samuel Waddington

DEATH OF SAMUEL WADDINGTON

We regret to announce that Mr. Samuel Waddington, anthologist, sonneteer, and biographer, died yesterday at his residence at Kilburn, two days before his 79th birthday. He never recovered from a paralytic seizure he had six weeks ago.

Samuel Waddington was born in a house called Wharfedale Villa, at Boston Spa, Yorkshire, on November 9, 1844, the youngest of a family of five. His father was a man of independent means, who dabbled in poetry and theology, but he received his bias to literature rather from his mother, who was a Shillito of Pontefract. He was sent to St. Peter's School, York, in 1857, was transferred to St. John's, Huntingdon, in 1858, and went up to Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1862. There he admired Walter Pater, then a newly-elected Fellow, but did not form his acquaintance. Dr. Pusey, on the other hand, observed the young Yorkshireman, and admitted him to his famous private lectures at Christ Church. But the influence of the Tractarian movement was beginning to wane, and Dean Stanley and Jowett attracted Waddington's admiration. He took his degree, without honours, in 1865. He intended to be ordained, but the necessity of subscribing to the Thirty-nine Articles proved an insuperable barrier. Nevertheless, he remained all his life profoundly religious in sentiment.

In 1868, on the nomination of the then Duke of Richmond, he accepted a clerkship in the Board of Trade, and spent the next thirty-nine years in the Marine Department. During the next decade the Board of Trade became the centre of a remarkable poetic activity, and Waddington was stirred by finding himself the colleague of Austin Dobson, Edmund Gosse, and Cosmo Monkhouse, into much study of versification. Dobson, who occupied the room next to him suggested to him an anthology of "English Sonnets by Living Writers," and thus Waddington published in 1881, with an essay on the history and composition of the sonnet-form. It was followed by "English Sonnets by Poets of the Past" in 1882, and by "Sonnets of Europe" in 1886. Those three anthologies were prepared with great deliberation, and Waddington acknowledged the help, not only of his colleagues already mentioned, but also of John Addington Symonds and Richard Garnett, with whom he corresponded. Waddington published a great many sonnets and other poems of his own, and he collected his poetical works 1902. His sonnets are correct in form and highly-finished, but they can hardly considered great poetry. Nevertheless, there is something of his to be found in almost every modern anthology. In 1883 he issued a critical and biographical monograph of Arthur Hugh Clough, with religious views he sympathized. His dissertation on the subject of immortality entitled "Some Views Respecting a Future Life," appeared in 1917.

As a poet, Waddington was most in sympathy with Wordsworth, Clough and Matthew Arnold. His verse is gentle, reflective, and deeply charged with religious feeling. In a preface to his first book of poems he suggested that the saying of a great critic that the strongest part of our religion was its unconscious poetry might be inverted: that in fact the strongest part of our poetry was its unconscious religion. But by religion Waddington meant anything but dogma, as when he wrote:—

The quotation fairly illustrates both his charm and his technical limitations.

Having refused promotions to the post of Registrar-General of Shipping because it involved separation from his friends in Whitehall, Waddington retired from the Board of Trade in 1906 and in 1909 published his "Chapters of my Life." His life had been unusually placid, without adventures of any kind, and his autobiography is naturally for the most part a commonplace book of quotations, anecdotes and reflections. But it is full of good nature and gracefully written. Waddington was a hero-worshipper from a distance; he liked to correspond with eminent people, and in his autobiography he prints their more or less formal replies, but his own life was solitary and he formed few intimacies. He was meticulous and rather prim in manner and seldom did justice in conversation to his genuine enthusiasm for and absorption in literature. He never married.

The funeral will be at Kensal Green, to-morrow, at 2.45.


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 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”…

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ELEN 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

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 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,

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 “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.

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 “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

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 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.

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 “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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 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

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, 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

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 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.

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 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

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 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…

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 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.

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