Dope

by Sax Rohmer

  CHAPTER XXXI. THE STORY OF 719

  In a top back room of the end house in the street which also boasted theresidence of Sin Sin Wa, Seton Pasha and Chief Inspector Kerry sat oneon either side of a dirty deal table. Seton smoked and Kerry chewed. Asmoky oil-lamp burned upon the table, and two notebooks lay beside it.

  "It is certainly odd," Seton was saying, "that you failed to break myneck. But I have made it a practice since taking up my residence hereto wear a cap heavily padded. I apprehend sandbags and pieces of loadedtubing."

  "The tube is not made," declared Kerry, "which can do the job. You'reharder to kill than a Chinese-Jew."

  "Your own escape is almost equally remarkable," added Seton. "I rarelymiss at such short range. But you had nearly broken my wrist with thatkick."

  "I'm sorry," said Kerry. "You should always bang a door wide opensuddenly before you enter into a suspected room. Anybody standing behindusually stops it with his head."

  "I am indebted for the hint, Chief Inspector. We all have something tolearn."

  "Well, sir, we've laid our cards on the table, and you'll admit we'veboth got a lot to learn before we see daylight. I'll be obliged ifyou'll put me wise to your game. I take it you began work on the verynight of the murder?"

  "I did. By a pure accident--the finding of an opiated cigarette in Mr.Gray's rooms--I perceived that the business which had led to my recallfrom the East was involved in the Bond Street mystery. Frankly, ChiefInspector, I doubted at that time if it were possible for you and me towork together. I decided to work alone. A beard which I had worn in theEast, for purposes of disguise, I shaved off; and because the skin waswhiter where the hair had grown than elsewhere, I found it necessaryafter shaving to powder my face heavily. This accounts for thedescription given to you of a man with a pale face. Even now thecoloring is irregular, as you may notice.

  "Deciding to work anonymously, I went post haste to Lord Wrexhoroughand made certain arrangements whereby I became known to the responsibleauthorities as 719. The explanation of these figures is a simple one. Myname is Greville Seton. G is the seventh letter in the alphabet, and Sthe nineteenth; hence--'seven-nineteen.'

  "The increase of the drug traffic and the failure of the police to copewith it had led to the institution of a Home office inquiry, you see.It was suspected that the traffic was in the hands of orientals, and inlooking about for a confidential agent to make certain inquiries my namecropped up. I was at that time employed by the Foreign office, but LordWrexborough borrowed me." Seton smiled at his own expression. "Everyfacility was offered to me, as you know. And that my investigations ledme to the same conclusion as your own, my presence as lessee of thisroom, in the person of John Smiles, seaman, sufficiently demonstrates."

  "H'm," said Kerry, "and I take it your investigations have also led youto the conclusion that our hands are clean?"

  Seton Pasha fixed his cool regard upon the speaker.

  "Personally, I never doubted this, Chief Inspector," he declared. "Ibelieved, and I still believe, that the people who traffic in drugs areclever enough to keep in the good books of the local police. It is acase of clever camouflage, rather than corruption."

  "Ah," snapped Kerry. "I was waiting to hear you mention it. So long aswe know. I'm not a man that stands for being pointed at. I've got aboy at a good public school, but if ever he said he was ashamed of hisfather, the day he said it would be a day he'd never forget!"

  Seton Pasha smiled grimly and changed the topic.

  "Let us see," he said, "if we are any nearer to the heart of the mysteryof Kazmah. You were at the Regent Street bank today, I understand, atwhich the late Sir Lucien Pyne had an account?"

  "I was," replied Kerry. "Next to his theatrical enterprises his chiefsource of income seems to have been a certain Jose Santos Company, ofBuenos Ayres. We've traced Kazmah's account, too. But no one at the bankhas ever seen him. The missing Rashid always paid in. Checks were signed'Mohammed el-Kazmah,' in which name the account had been opened. Fromthe amount standing to his credit there it's evident that the proceedsof the dope business went elsewhere."

  "Where do you think they went?" asked Seton quietly, watching Kerry.

  "Well," rapped Kerry, "I think the same as you. I've got two eyes and Ican see out of both of them."

  "And you think?"

  "I think they went to the Jose Santos Company, of Buenos Ayres!"

  "Right!" cried Seton. "I feel sure of it. We may never know how it wasall arranged or who was concerned, but I am convinced that Mr. Isaacs,lessee of the Cubanis Cigarette Company offices, Mr. Jacobs (mylandlord!), Mohammed el-Kazmah--whoever he may be--the untraceableMrs. Sin Sin Wa, and another, were all shareholders of the Jose Santoscompany."

  "I'm with you. By 'another' you mean?"

  "Sir Lucien! It's horrible, but I'm afraid it's true."

  They became silent for a while. Kerry chewed and Seton smoked. Then:

  "The significance of the fact that Sir Lucien's study window was nomore than forty paces across the leads from a well-oiled window of theCubanis Company will not have escaped you," said Seton. "I performedthe journey just ahead of you, I believe. Then Sir Lucien had lived inBuenos Ayres; that was before he came into the title, and at a time, Iam told, when he was not overburdened with wealth. His man, Mareno,is indisputably some kind of a South American, and he can give nosatisfactory account of his movements on the night of the murder.

  "That we have to deal with a powerful drug syndicate there can be nodoubt. The late Sir Lucien may not have been a director, but I feel surehe was financially interested. Kazmah's was the distributing office, andthe importer--"

  "Was Sin Sin Wa!" cried Kerry, his eyes gleaming savagely. "He's asclever and cunning as all the rest of Chinatown put together. Somewherenot a hundred miles from this spot where we are now there's a store ofstuff big enough to dope all Europe!"

  "And there's something else," said Seton quietly, knocking a cone ofgrey ash from his cheroot on to the dirty floor. "Kazmah is hiding therein all probability, if he hasn't got clear away--and Mrs. Monte Irvin isbeing held a prisoner!"

  "If they haven't--"

  "For Irvin's sake I hope not, Chief Inspector. There are two verycurious points in the case--apart from the mystery which surrounds theman Kazmah: the fact that Mareno, palpably an accomplice, stayed to facethe music, and the fact that Sin Sin Wa likewise has made no effort toescape. Do you see what it means? They are covering the big man--Kazmah.Once he and Mrs. Irvin are out of the way, we can prove nothing againstMareno and Sin Sin Wa! And the most we could do for Mrs. Sin would be toconvict her of selling opium."

  "To do even that we should have to take a witness to court," said Kerrygloomily; "and all the satisfaction we'd get would be to see her chargedten pounds!"

  Silence fell between them again. It was that kind of sympathetic silencewhich is only possible where harmony exists; and, indeed, of all thethings strange and bizarre which characterized the inquiry, this suddenamity between Kerry and Seton Pasha was not the least remarkable. Itrepresented the fruit of a mutual respect.

  There was something about the lean, unshaven face of Seton Pasha, andsomething, too, in his bright grey eyes which, allowing for differenceof coloring, might have reminded a close observer of Kerry's fiercecountenance. The tokens of iron determination and utter indifference todanger were perceptible in both. And although Seton was dark and turningslightly grey, while Kerry was as red as a man well could be, thatthey possessed several common traits of character was a fact which thedissimilarity of their complexions wholly failed to conceal. But whileSeton Pasha hid the grimness of his nature beneath a sort of humorousreserve, the dangerous side of Kerry was displayed in his opentruculence.

  Seated there in that Limehouse attic, a smoky lamp burning on the tablebetween them, and one gripping the stump of a cheroot between his teeth,while the other chewed steadily, they presented a combination which nonebut a fool would have lightly challenged.

  "Sin Sin Wa is cunning," said Seton sudd
enly. "He is a very clever man.Watch him as closely as you like, he will never lead you to the 'store.'In the character of John Smiles I had some conversation with him thismorning, and I formed the same opinion as yourself. He is waiting forsomething; and he is certain of his ground. I have a premonition, ChiefInspector, that whoever else may fall into the net, Sin Sin Wa will slipout. We have one big chance."

  "What's that?" rapped Kerry.

  "The dope syndicate can only have got control of 'the traffic' in oneway--by paying big prices and buying out competitors. If they cease tocarry on for even a week they lose their control. The people who bringthe stuff over from Japan, South America, India, Holland, and so forthwill sell somewhere else if they can't sell to Kazmah and Company.Therefore we want to watch the ships from likely ports, or, betterstill, get among the men who do the smuggling. There must be resortsalong the riverside used by people of that class. We might pick upinformation there."

  Kerry smiled savagely.

  "I've got half a dozen good men doing every dive from Wapping toGravesend," he answered. "But if you think it worth looking intopersonally, say the word."

  "Well, my dear sir,"--Seton Pasha tossed the end of his cheroot into theempty grate--"what else can we do?"

  Kerry banged his fist on the table.

  "You're right!" he snapped. "We're stuck! But anything's better thannothing. We'll start here and now; and the first joint we'll make for isDougal's."

  "Dougal's?" echoed Seton Pasha.

  "That's it--Dougal's. A danger spot on the Isle of Dogs used by thelowest type of sea-faring men and not barred to Arabs, Chinks, and othergaily-colored fowl. If there's any chat going on about dope, we'll hearit in Dougal's."

  Seton Pasha stood up, smiling grimly. "Dougal's it shall be," he said.