by Sax Rohmer
He opened a bureau and took out a writing-block and a fountain pen. Then he turned and stared hard at Mollie. She quickly lowered her eyes.
“Excuse me,” said Kerry, “but didn’t I see you somewhere last night?”
“Yes,” she said. “I was sitting just inside the door at—”
“Right! I remember,” interrupted Kerry. He continued to stare. “Before you say any more, miss, I have to remind you that I am a police officer, and that you may be called upon to swear to the truth of any information you may give me.”
“Oh, of course! I know.”
“You know? Very well, then; we can get on. Who gave you my address?”
At the question, so abruptly asked, Mollie felt herself blushing again. It was delightful to know that she could still blush. “Oh — I... that is, I asked Scotland Yard”
She bestowed a swift, half-veiled glance at her interrogator, but he offered her no help, and:
“They wouldn’t tell me,” she continued. “So — I had to find out. You see, I heard you were trying to get information which I thought perhaps I could give.”
“So you went to the trouble to find my private address rather than to the nearest police station,” said Kerry. “Might I ask you from whom you heard that I wanted this information?”
“Well — it’s in the papers, isn’t it?”
“It is certainly. But it occurred to me that someone... connected might have told you as well.”
“Actually, someone did: Miss Margaret Halley.”
“Good!” rapped Kerry. “Now we’re coming to it. She told you to come to me?”
“Oh, no!” cried Mollie— “she didn’t. She told me to tell her so that she could tell the Home office.”
“Eh?” said Kerry, “eh?” He bent forward, staring fiercely. “Please tell me exactly what Miss Halley wanted to know.”
The intensity of his gaze Mollie found very perturbing, but:
“She wanted me to tell her where Mrs. Sin lived,” she replied.
Kerry experienced a quickening of the pulse. In the failure of the C.I.D. to trace the abode of the notorious Mrs. Sin he had suspected double-dealing. He counted it unbelievable that a figure so conspicuous in certain circles could evade official quest even for forty-eight hours. K Division’s explanation, too, that there were no less than eighty Chinamen resident in and about Limehouse whose names either began or ended with Sin, he looked upon as a paltry evasion. That very morning he had awakened from a species of nightmare wherein 719 had affected the arrest of Kazmah and Mrs. Sin and had rescued Mrs. Irvin from the clutches of the former. Now — here was hope. 719 would seem to be as hopelessly in the dark as everybody else.
“You refused?” he rapped.
“Of course I did, Inspector,” said Mollie, with a timid, tender glance. “I thought you were the proper person to tell.”
“Then you know?” asked Kerry, unable to conceal his eagerness.
“Yes,” sighed Mollie. “Unfortunately — I know. Oh Inspector, how can I explain it to you?”
“Don’t trouble, miss. Just give me the address and I’ll ask no questions!”
His keenness was thrilling, infectious. As a result of the night’s “beating” he had a list of some twenty names whose owners might have been patrons of Kazmah and some of whom might know Mrs. Sin. But he had learned from bitter experience how difficult it was to induce such people to give useful evidence. There was practically no means of forcing them to speak if they chose, from selfish motives, to be silent. They could be forced to appear in court, but anything elicited in public was worse than useless. Furthermore, Kerry could not afford to wait. Mollie replied excitedly:
“Oh, Inspector, I know you will think me simply an appalling person when I tell you; but I have been to Mrs. Sin’s house— ‘The House of a Hundred Raptures’ she calls it—”
“Yes, yes! But — the address?”
“However can I tell you the address, Inspector? I could drive you there, but I haven’t the very haziest idea of the name of the horrible street! One drives along dreadful roads where there are stalls and Jews for quite an interminable time, and then over a sort of canal, and then round to the right all among ships and horrid Chinamen. Then, there is a doorway in a little court, and Mrs. Sin’s husband sits inside a smelly room with a positively ferocious raven who shrieks about legs and policemen! Oh! Can I ever forget it!”
“One moment, miss, one moment,” said Kerry, keeping an iron control upon himself. “What is the name of Mrs. Sin’s husband?”
“Oh, let me think! I can always remember it by recalling the croak of the raven.” She raised one hand to her brow, posing reflectively, and began to murmur:
“Sin Sin Ah... Sin Sin Jar... Sin Sin — Oh! I have it! Sin Sin Wa!”
“Good!” rapped Kerry, and made a note on the block. “Sin Sin Wa, and he has a pet raven, you say, who talks?”
“Who positively talks like some horrid old woman!” cried Mollie. “He has only one eye.”
“The raven?”
“The raven, yes — and also the Chinaman.”
“What!”
“Oh! it’s a nightmare to behold them together!” declared Mollie, clasping her hands and bending forward.
She was gaining courage, and now looked almost boldly into the fierce eyes of the Chief Inspector.
“Describe the house,” he said succinctly. “Take your time and use your own words.”
Thereupon Mollie launched into a description of Sin Sin Wa’s opium-house. Kerry, his eyes fixed upon her face, listened silently. Then:
“These little rooms are really next door?” he asked.
“I suppose so, Inspector. We always went through the back of a cupboard!”
“Can you give me names of others who used this place?”
“Well” — Mollie hesitated— “poor Rita, of course and Sir Lucien. Then, Cyrus Kilfane used to go.”
“Kilfane? The American actor?”
“Yes.”
“H’m. He’s back in America, Sir Lucien is dead, and Mrs. Irvin is missing. Nobody else?”
Mollie shook her head.
“Who first took you there?”
“Cyrus Kilfane.”
“Not Sir Lucien?”
“Oh, no. But both of them had been before.”
“What was Kazmah’s connection with Mrs. Sin and her husband?”
“I have no idea, Inspector. Kazmah used to supply cocaine and veronal and trional and heroin, but those who wanted to smoke opium he sent to Mrs. Sin.”
“What! he gave them her address?”
“No, no! He gave her their address.”
“I see. She called?”
“Yes. Oh, Inspector” — Mollie bent farther forward— “I can see in your eyes that you think I am fabulously wicked! Shall I be arrested?”
Kerry coughed drily and stood up.
“Probably not, miss. But you may be required to give evidence.”
“Oh, actually?” cried Mollie, also standing up and approaching nearer.
“Yes. Shall you object?”
Mollie looked into his eyes.
“Not if I can be of the slightest assistance to you, Inspector.”
A theory to explain why this social butterfly had sought him out as a recipient of her compromising confidences presented itself to Kerry’s mind. He was a modest man, having neither time nor inclination for gallantries, and this was the first occasion throughout his professional career upon which he had obtained valuable evidence on the strength of his personal attractions. He doubted the accuracy of his deduction. But, Mollie at that moment lowering her lashes and then rapidly raising them again, Kerry was compelled to accept his own astonishing theory.
“And she is the daughter of a peer!” he reflected. “No wonder it has been hard to get evidence.”
He glanced rapidly in the direction of the door. There were several details which were by no means clear, but he decided to act upon the information already given and to
get rid of his visitor without delay. Where some of the most dangerous criminals in Europe and America had failed, Mollie Gretna had succeeded in making Red Kerry nervous.
“I am much indebted to you, miss,” he said, and opened the door.
“Oh, it has been delightful to confess to you, Inspector!” declared Mollie. “I will give you my card, and I shall expect you to come to me for any further information you may want. If I have to be brought to court, you will tell me, won’t you?”
“Rely upon me, miss,” replied Kerry shortly.
He escorted Mollie to her brougham, observed by no less than six discreetly hidden neighbors. And as the brougham was driven off she waved her hand to him! Kerry felt a hot flush spreading over his red countenance, for the veiled onlookers had not escaped his attention. As he re-entered the house:
“Yon’s a bad woman,” said his wife, emerging from the dining-room.
“I believe you may be right, Mary,” replied Kerry confusedly.
“I kenned it when fairst I set een upon her painted face. I kenned it the now when she lookit sideways at ye. If yon’s a grand lady, she’s a woman o’ puir repute. The Lord gi’e us grace.”
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE GILDED JOSS
London was fog-bound. The threat of the past week had been no empty one. Towards the hour of each wintry sunset had come the yellow racks, hastening dusk and driving folks more speedily homeward to their firesides. The dull reports of fog-signals had become a part of the metropolitan bombilation, but hitherto the choking mist had not secured a strangle-hold.
Now, however, it had triumphed, casting its thick net over the city as if eager to stifle the pulsing life of the new Babylon. In the neighborhood of the Docks its density was extraordinary, and the purlieus of Limehouse became mere mysterious gullies of smoke impossible to navigate unless one were very familiar with their intricacies and dangers.
Chief Inspector Kerry, wearing a cardigan under his oilskins, tapped the pavement with the point of his malacca like a blind man. No glimmer of light could he perceive. He could not even see his companion.
“Hell!” he snapped irritably, as his foot touched a brick wall, “where the devil are you, constable?”
“Here beside you, sir,” answered P.C. Bryce, of K Division, his guide.
“Which side?”
“Here, sir.”
The constable grasped Kerry’s arm.
“But we’ve walked slap into a damn brick wall!”
“Keep the wall on your left, sir, and it’s all clear ahead.”
“Clear be damned!” said Kerry. “Are we nearly there?”
“About a dozen paces and we shall see the lamp — if it’s been lighted.”
“And if not we shall stroll into the river, I suppose?”
“No danger of that. Even if the lamp’s out, we shall strike the iron pillar.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Kerry grimly.
They proceeded at a slow pace. Dull reports and a vague clangor were audible. These sounds were so deadened by the clammy mist that they might have proceeded from some gnome’s workshop deep in the bowels of the earth. The blows of a pile-driver at work on the Surrey shore suggested to Kerry’s mind the phantom crew of Hendrick Hudson at their game of ninepins in the Katskill Mountains. Suddenly:
“Is that you, Bryce?” he asked.
“I’m here, sir,” replied the voice of the constable from beside him.
“H’m, then there’s someone else about.” He raised his voice. “Hi, there! have you lost your way?”
Kerry stood still, listening. But no one answered to his call.
“I’ll swear there was someone just behind us, Bryce!”
“There was, sir. I saw someone, too. A Chinese resident, probably. Here we are!”
A sound of banging became audible, and on advancing another two paces, Kerry found himself beside Bryce before a low closed door.
“Hello! hello!” croaked a dim voice. “Number one p’lice chop, lo! Sin Sin Wa!”
The flat note of a police whistle followed.
“Sin Sin is at home,” declared Bryce. “That’s the raven.”
“Does he take the thing about with him, then?”
“I don’t think so. But he puts it in a cupboard when he goes out, and it never talks unless it can see a light.”
Bolts were unfastened and the door was opened. Out through the moving curtain of fog shone the red glow from a stove. A grotesque silhouette appeared outlined upon the dim redness.
“You wantchee me?” crooned Sin Sin Wa.
“I do!” rapped Kerry. “I’ve called to look for opium.”
He stepped past the Chinaman into the dimly lighted room. As he did so, the cause of an apparent deformity which had characterized the outline of Sin Sin Wa became apparent. From his left shoulder the raven partly arose, moving his big wings, and:
“Smartest leg!” it shrieked in Kerry’s ear and rattled imaginary castanets.
The Chief Inspector started, involuntarily.
“Damn the thing!” he muttered. “Come in, Bryce, and shut the door. What’s this?”
On a tea-chest set beside the glowing stove, the little door of which was open, stood a highly polished squat wooden image, gilded and colored red and green. It was that of a leering Chinaman, possibly designed to represent Buddha, and its jade eyes seemed to blink knowingly in the dancing rays from the stove.
“Sin Sin Wa’s Joss,” murmured the proprietor, as Bryce closed the outer door. “Me shinee him up; makee Joss glad. Number one piecee Joss.”
Kerry turned and stared into the pock-marked smiling face. Seen in that dim light it was not unlike the carved face of the image, save that the latter possessed two open eyes and the Chinaman but one. The details of the room were indiscernible, lost in yellowish shadow, but the eye of the raven and the eye of Sin Sin Wa glittered like strange jewels.
“H’m,” said Kerry. “Sorry to interrupt your devotions. Light us.”
“Allee velly proper,” crooned Sin Sin Wa.
He took up the Joss tenderly and bore it across the room. Opening a little cupboard set low down near the floor he discovered a lighted lantern. This he took out and set upon the dirty table. Then he placed the image on a shelf in the cupboard and turned smilingly to his visitors.
“Number one p’lice!” shrieked the raven.
“Here!” snapped Kerry. “Put that damn thing to bed!”
“Velly good,” murmured Sin Sin Wa complacently.
He raised his hand to his shoulder and the raven stepped sedately from shoulder to wrist. Sin Sin Wa stooped.
“Come, Tling-a-Ling,” he said softly. “You catchee sleepee.”
The raven stepped down from his wrist and walked into the cupboard.
“So fashion, lo!” said Sin Sin Wa, closing the door.
He seated himself upon a tea-chest beside the useful cupboard, resting his hands upon his knees and smiling.
Kerry, chewing steadily, had watched the proceedings in silence, but now:
“Constable Bryce,” he said crisply, “you recognize this man as Sin Sin Wa, the occupier of the house?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Bryce.
He was not wholly at ease, and persistently avoided the Chinaman’s oblique, beady eye.
“In the ordinary course of your duty you frequently pass along this street?”
“It’s the limit of the Limehouse beat, sir. Poplar patrols on the other side.”
“So that at this point, or hereabout, you would sometimes meet the constable on the next beat?”
“Well, sir,” Bryce hesitated, clearing his throat, “this street isn’t properly in his district.”
“I didn’t say it was!” snapped Kerry, glaring fiercely at the embarrassed constable. “I said you would sometimes meet him here.”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Sometimes. Right. Did you ever come in here?”
The constable ventured a swift glance at the savage red face, and:
&n
bsp; “Yes, sir, now and then,” he confessed. “Just for a warm on a cold night, maybe.”
“Allee velly welcome,” murmured Sin Sin Wa.
Kerry never for a moment removed his fixed gaze from the face of Bryce.
“Now, my lad,” he said, “I’m going to ask you another question. I’m not saying a word about the warm on a cold night. We’re all human. But — did you ever see or hear or smell anything suspicious in this house?”
“Never,” affirmed the constable earnestly.
“Did anything ever take place that suggested to your mind that Sin Sin Wa might be concealing something — upstairs, for instance?”
“Never a thing, sir. There’s never been a complaint about him.”
“Allee velly proper,” crooned Sin Sin Wa.
Kerry stared intently for some moments at Bryce; then, turning suddenly to Sin Sin Wa:
“I want to see your wife,” he said. “Fetch her.”
Sin Sin Wa gently patted his knees.
“She velly bad woman,” he declared. “She no hate topside pidgin.”
“Don’t talk!” shouted Kerry. “Fetch her!”
Sin Sin Wa turned his hands palms upward.
“Me no hate gotchee wifee,” he murmured.
Kerry took one pace forward.
“Fetch her,” he said; “or—” He drew a pair of handcuffs from the pocket of his oilskin.
“Velly bad luck,” murmured Sin Sin Wa. “Catchee trouble for wifee no got.”
He extended his wrists, meeting the angry glare of the Chief Inspector with a smile of resignation. Kerry bit savagely at his chewing-gum, glancing aside at Bryce.
“Did you ever see his wife?” he snapped.
“No, sir. I didn’t know he had one.”
“No habgotchee,” murmured Sin Sin Wa, “velly bad woman.”
“For the last time,” said Kerry, stooping and thrusting his face forward so that his nose was only some six inches from that of Sin Sin Wa, “where’s Mrs. Sin?”
“Catchee lun off,” replied the Chinaman blandly. “Velly bad woman. Tlief woman. Catchee stealee alla my dollars!”
“Eh!”
Kerry stood upright, moving his shoulders and rattling the handcuffs.
“Comee here when Sin Sin Wa hate gone for catchee shavee, liftee alla my dollars, and-pff! chee-lo!”
