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CHAPTER I. A MESSAGE FOR IRVIN
CHAPTER I. A MESSAGE FOR IRVIN
Monte Irvin, alderman of the city and prospective Lord Mayor of London, paced restlessly from end to end of the well-appointed library of his house in Prince’s Gate. Between his teeth he gripped the stump of a burnt-out cigar. A tiny spaniel lay beside the fire, his beady black eyes following the nervous movements of the master of the house. At the age of forty-five Monte Irvin was not ill-looking, and, indeed, was sometimes spoken of as handsome. His figure was full without being corpulent; his
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CHAPTER II. THE APARTMENTS OF KAZMAH
CHAPTER II. THE APARTMENTS OF KAZMAH
It was rather less than two hours earlier on the same evening that Quentin Gray came out of the confectioner’s shop in old Bond Street carrying a neat parcel. Yellow dusk was closing down upon this bazaar of the New Babylon, and many of the dealers in precious gems, vendors of rich stuffs, and makers of modes had already deserted their shops. Smartly dressed show-girls, saleswomen, girl clerks and others crowded the pavements, which at high noon had been thronged with ladies of fashion. Here a t
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CHAPTER III. KAZMAH
CHAPTER III. KAZMAH
Mrs. Monte Irvin entered the inner room. The air was heavy with the perfume of frankincense which smouldered in a brass vessel set upon a tray. This was the audience chamber of Kazmah. In marked contrast to the overcrowded appointments, divans and cupboards of the first room, it was sparsely furnished. The floor was thickly carpeted, but save for an ornate inlaid table upon which stood the tray and incense-burner, and a long, low-cushioned seat placed immediately beneath a hanging lamp burning d
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CHAPTER IV. THE CLOSED DOOR
CHAPTER IV. THE CLOSED DOOR
Rather less than five minutes later a taxicab drew up in old Bond Street, and from it Quentin Gray leapt out impetuously and ran in at the doorway leading to Kazmah’s stairs. So hurried was his progress that he collided violently with a little man who, carrying himself with a pronounced stoop, was slinking furtively out. The little man reeled at the impact and almost fell, but: “Hang it all!” cried Gray irritably. “Why the devil don’t you look where you’re going!” He glared angrily into the face
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CHAPTER V. THE DOOR IS OPENED
CHAPTER V. THE DOOR IS OPENED
Quentin Gray and Seton strolled out of Prince’s and both paused whilst Seton lighted a long black cheroot. “It seems a pity to waste that box,” said Gray. “Suppose we look in at the Gaiety for an hour?” His humor was vastly improved, and he watched the passing throngs with an expression more suited to his boyish good looks than that of anger and mortification which had rested upon him an hour earlier. Seton Pasha tossed a match into the road. “My official business is finished for the day,” he re
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CHAPTER VI. RED KERRY
CHAPTER VI. RED KERRY
Chief Inspector Kerry, of the Criminal Investigation Department, stood before the empty grate of his cheerless office in New Scotland Yard, one hand thrust into the pocket of his blue reefer jacket and the other twirling a malacca cane, which was heavily silver-mounted and which must have excited the envy of every sergeant-major beholding it. Chief Inspector Kerry wore a very narrow-brimmed bowler hat, having two ventilation holes conspicuously placed immediately above the band. He wore this hat
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CHAPTER VII. FURTHER EVIDENCE
CHAPTER VII. FURTHER EVIDENCE
The examination of Quentin Gray was three times interrupted by telephone messages from Vine Street; and to the unsatisfactory character of these the growing irascibility of Chief Inspector Kerry bore testimony. Then the divisional surgeon arrived, and Burton incurred the wrath of the Chief Inspector by deserting his post to show the doctor upstairs. “If inspired idiocy can help the law,” shouted Kerry, “the man who did this job is as good as dead!” He turned his fierce gaze in Gray’s direction.
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CHAPTER VIII. KERRY CONSULTS THE ORACLE
CHAPTER VIII. KERRY CONSULTS THE ORACLE
The clock of Brixton Town Hall was striking the hour of 1 a.m. as Chief Inspector Kerry inserted his key in the lock of the door of his house in Spenser Road. A light was burning in the hallway, and from the little dining-room on the left the reflection of a cheerful fire danced upon the white paint of the half-open door. Kerry deposited his hat, cane, and overall upon the rack, and moving very quietly entered the room and turned on the light. A modestly furnished and scrupulously neat apartment
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CHAPTER IX. A PACKET OF CIGARETTES
CHAPTER IX. A PACKET OF CIGARETTES
Following their dismissal by Chief Inspector Kerry, Seton and Gray walked around to the latter’s chambers in Piccadilly. They proceeded in silence, Gray too angry for speech, and Seton busy with reflections. As the man admitted them: “Has anyone ’phoned, Willis?” asked Gray. “No one, sir.” They entered a large room which combined the characteristics of a library with those of a military gymnasium. Gray went to a side table and mixed drinks. Placing a glass before Seton, he emptied his own at a d
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CHAPTER X. SIR LUCIEN’S STUDY WINDOW
CHAPTER X. SIR LUCIEN’S STUDY WINDOW
Old Bond Street presented a gloomy and deserted prospect to Chief Inspector Kerry as he turned out of Piccadilly and swung along toward the premises of Kazmah. He glanced at the names on some of the shop windows as he passed, and wondered if the furriers, jewelers and other merchants dealing in costly wares properly appreciated the services of the Metropolitan Police Force. He thought of the peacefully slumbering tradesmen in their suburban homes, the safety of their stocks wholly dependent upon
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CHAPTER XI. THE DRUG SYNDICATE
CHAPTER XI. THE DRUG SYNDICATE
At six-thirty that morning Margaret Halley was aroused by her maid—the latter but half awake—and sitting up in bed and switching on the lamp, she looked at the card which the servant had brought to her, and read the following: CHIEF INSPECTOR KERRY, C.I.D. New Scotland Yard, S.W.I. “Oh, dear,” she said sleepily, “what an appallingly early visitor. Is the bath ready yet, Janet?” “I’m afraid not,” replied the maid, a plain, elderly woman of the old-fashioned useful servant type. “Shall I take a ke
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CHAPTER XII. THE MAID OF THE MASQUE
CHAPTER XII. THE MAID OF THE MASQUE
The past life of Mrs. Monte Irvin, in which at this time three distinct groups of investigators became interested—namely, those of Whitehall, Scotland Yard, and Fleet Street—was of a character to have horrified the prudish, but to have excited the compassion of the wise. Daughter of a struggling suburban solicitor, Rita Esden, at the age of seventeen, from a delicate and rather commonplace child began to develop into a singularly pretty girl of an elusive and fascinating type of beauty, almost e
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CHAPTER XIII. A CHANDU PARTY
CHAPTER XIII. A CHANDU PARTY
From the restaurant at which she had had supper with Sir Lucien, Rita proceeded to Duke Street. Alighting from Pyne’s car at the door, they went up to the flat of the organizer of the opium party—Mr. Cyrus Kilfane. One other guest was already present—a slender, fair woman, who was introduced by the American as Mollie Gretna, but whose weakly pretty face Rita recognized as that of a notorious society divorcée, foremost in the van of every new craze, a past-mistress of the smartest vices. Kilfane
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CHAPTER XIV. IN THE SHADE OF THE LONELY PALM
CHAPTER XIV. IN THE SHADE OF THE LONELY PALM
Persian opium of good quality contains from ten to fifteen percent morphine, and chandu made from opium of Yezd would contain perhaps twenty-five per cent of this potent drug; but because in the act of smoking distillation occurs, nothing like this quantity of morphine reaches the smoker. To the distilling process, also, may be due the different symptoms resulting from smoking chandu and injecting morphia—or drinking tincture of opium, as De Quincey did. Rita found the flavor of the preparation
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CHAPTER XV. METAMORPHOSIS
CHAPTER XV. METAMORPHOSIS
As Irvin seized her hands and looked at her eagerly, half-fearfully, Rita achieved sufficient composure to speak. “Oh, Mr. Irvin,” she said, and found that her voice was not entirely normal, “what must you think—” He continued to hold her hands, and: “I think you are very indiscreet to be out alone at three o’clock in the morning,” he answered gently. “I was recalled to London by urgent business, and returned by road—fortunately, since I have met you.” “How can I explain—” “I don’t ask you to ex
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CHAPTER XVI. LIMEHOUSE
CHAPTER XVI. LIMEHOUSE
It was on the following Tuesday evening that Mrs. Sin came to the theatre, accompanied by Mollie Gretna. Rita instructed that she should be shown up to the dressing-room. The personality of this singular woman interested her keenly. Mrs. Sin was well known in certain Bohemian quarters, but was always spoken of as one speaks of a pet vice. Not to know Mrs. Sin was to be outside the magic circle which embraced the exclusively smart people who practiced the latest absurdities. The so-called artisti
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CHAPTER XVII. THE BLACK SMOKE
CHAPTER XVII. THE BLACK SMOKE
Up an uncarpeted stair Cyrus Kilfane led the party, and into a kind of lumber-room lighted by a tin oil lamp and filled to overflowing with heterogeneous and unsavory rubbish. Here were garments, male and female, no less than five dilapidated bowler hats, more tea-chests, broken lamps, tattered fragments of cocoanut-matting, steel bed-laths and straw mattresses, ruins of chairs—the whole diffusing an indescribably unpleasant odor. Opening a cupboard door, Kilfane revealed a number of pendent, ra
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CHAPTER XVIII. THE DREAM OF SIN SIN WA
CHAPTER XVIII. THE DREAM OF SIN SIN WA
For a habitual opium-smoker to abstain when the fumes of chandu actually reach his nostrils is a feat of will-power difficult adequately to appraise. An ordinary tobacco smoker cannot remain for long among those who are enjoying the fragrant weed without catching the infection and beginning to smoke also. Twice to redouble the lure of my lady Nicotine would be but loosely to estimate the seductiveness of the Spirit of the Poppy; yet Sir Lucien Pyne smoked one pipe with Mrs. Sin, and perceiving h
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CHAPTER XIX. THE TRAFFIC
CHAPTER XIX. THE TRAFFIC
Sir Lucien came out into the alley wearing a greasy cloth cap pulled down over his eyes and an old overall, the collar turned up about a red woollen muffler which enveloped the lower part of his face. The odor of the outfit was disgusting, but this man’s double life had brought him so frequently in contact with all forms of uncleanness, including that of the Far East, compared with which the dirt of the West is hygienic, that he suffered it without complaint. A Chinese “boy” of indeterminable ag
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CHAPTER XX. KAZMAH’S METHODS
CHAPTER XX. KAZMAH’S METHODS
Rita Dresden married Monte Irvin in the spring and bade farewell to the stage. The goal long held in view was attained at last. But another farewell which at one time she had contemplated eagerly no longer appeared desirable or even possible. To cocamania had been added a tolerance for opium, and at the last chandu party given by Cyrus Kilfane she had learned that she could smoke nearly as much opium as the American habitué. The altered attitude of Sir Lucien surprised and annoyed her. He, who h
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CHAPTER XXI. THE CIGARETTES FROM BUENOS AYRES
CHAPTER XXI. THE CIGARETTES FROM BUENOS AYRES
Sir Lucien’s intervention proved successful. Kazmah’s charges became more modest, and Rita no longer found it necessary to deprive herself of hats and dresses in order to obtain drugs. But, nevertheless, these were not the halcyon days of old. She was now surrounded by spies. It was necessary to resort to all kinds of subterfuge in order to cover her expenditures at the establishment in old Bond Street. Her husband never questioned her outlay, but on the other hand it was expedient to be armed a
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CHAPTER XXII. THE STRANGLE-HOLD
CHAPTER XXII. THE STRANGLE-HOLD
Less than a month later Rita was in a state of desperation again. Kazmah’s prices had soared above anything that he had hitherto extorted. Her bank account, as usual, was greatly overdrawn, and creditors of all kinds were beginning to press for payment. Then, crowning catastrophe, Monte Irvin, for the first time during their married life, began to take an interest in Rita’s reckless expenditure. By a combination of adverse circumstances, she, the wife of one of the wealthiest aldermen of the Cit
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CHAPTER XXIII. CHIEF INSPECTOR KERRY RESIGNS
CHAPTER XXIII. CHIEF INSPECTOR KERRY RESIGNS
“Come in,” said the Assistant Commissioner. The door opened and Chief Inspector Kerry entered. His face was as fresh-looking, his attire as spruce and his eyes were as bright, as though he had slept well, enjoyed his bath and partaken of an excellent breakfast. Whereas he had not been to bed during the preceding twenty-four hours, had breakfasted upon biscuits and coffee, and had spent the night and early morning in ceaseless toil. Nevertheless he had found time to visit a hairdressing saloon, f
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CHAPTER XXIV. TO INTRODUCE 719
CHAPTER XXIV. TO INTRODUCE 719
Some moments of silence followed. Sounds of traffic from the Embankment penetrated dimly to the room of the Assistant Commissioner; ringing of tram bells and that vague sustained noise which is created by the whirring of countless wheels along hard pavements. Finally: “You have selected a curious moment to retire, Chief Inspector,” said the Assistant Commissioner. “Your prospects were never better. No doubt you have considered the question of your pension?” “I know what I’m giving up, sir,” repl
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CHAPTER XXV. NIGHT-LIFE OF SOHO
CHAPTER XXV. NIGHT-LIFE OF SOHO
It was close upon midnight when Detective-Sergeant Coombes appeared in a certain narrow West End thoroughfare, which was lined with taxicabs and private cars. He wore a dark overcoat and a tweed cap, and although his chin was buried in the genial folds of a woollen comforter, and his cap was pulled down over his eyes, his sly smile could easily be detected even in the dim light afforded by the car lamps. He seemed to have business of a mysterious nature among the cabmen; for with each of them in
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CHAPTER XXVI. THE MOODS OF MOLLIE
CHAPTER XXVI. THE MOODS OF MOLLIE
Early the following morning Margaret Halley called upon Mollie Gretna. Mollie’s personality did not attract Margaret. The two had nothing in common, but Margaret was well aware of the nature of the tie which had bound Rita Irvin to this empty and decadent representative of English aristocracy. Mollie Gretna was entitled to append the words “The Honorable” to her name, but not only did she refrain from doing so but she even preferred to be known as “Gretna”—the style of one of the family estates.
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CHAPTER XXVII. CROWN EVIDENCE
CHAPTER XXVII. CROWN EVIDENCE
The appearance of the violet-enamelled motor brougham upholstered in cream, and driven by a chauffeur in a violet and cream livery, created some slight sensation in Spenser Road, S.E. Mollie Gretna’s conspicuous car was familiar enough to residents in the West End of London, but to lower middle-class suburbia it came as something of a shock. More than one window curtain moved suspiciously, suggesting a hidden but watchful presence, when the glittering vehicle stopped before the gate of number 67
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CHAPTER XXVIII. THE GILDED JOSS
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 neigh
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CHAPTER XXIX. DOUBTS AND FEARS
CHAPTER XXIX. DOUBTS AND FEARS
Monte Irvin raised his head and stared dully at Margaret Halley. It was very quiet in the library of the big old-fashioned house at Prince’s Gate. A faint crackling sound which proceeded from the fire was clearly audible. Margaret’s grey eyes were anxiously watching the man whose pose as he sat in the deep, saddle-back chair so curiously suggested collapse. “Drugs,” he whispered. “Drugs.” Few of his City associates would have recognized the voice; all would have been shocked to see the change wh
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CHAPTER XXX. THE FIGHT IN THE DARK
CHAPTER XXX. THE FIGHT IN THE DARK
Towards eleven o’clock at night the fog began slightly to lift. As Kerry crossed the bridge over Limehouse Canal he could vaguely discern the dirty water below, and street lamps showed dimly, surrounded each by a halo of yellow mist. Fog signals were booming on the railway, and from the great docks in the neighborhood mechanical clashings and hammerings were audible. Turning to the right, Kerry walked on for some distance, and then suddenly stepped into the entrance to a narrow cul-de-sac and st
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CHAPTER XXXI. THE STORY OF 719
CHAPTER XXXI. THE STORY OF 719
In a top back room of the end house in the street which also boasted the residence of Sin Sin Wa, Seton Pasha and Chief Inspector Kerry sat one on either side of a dirty deal table. Seton smoked and Kerry chewed. A smoky oil-lamp burned upon the table, and two notebooks lay beside it. “It is certainly odd,” Seton was saying, “that you failed to break my neck. But I have made it a practice since taking up my residence here to wear a cap heavily padded. I apprehend sandbags and pieces of loaded tu
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CHAPTER XXXII. ON THE ISLE OF DOGS
CHAPTER XXXII. ON THE ISLE OF DOGS
As the police boat left Limehouse Pier, a clammy south-easterly breeze blowing up-stream lifted the fog in clearly defined layers, an effect very singular to behold. At one moment a great arc-lamp burning above the Lavender Pond of the Surrey Commercial Dock shot out a yellowish light across the Thames. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the light vanished again as a stratum of mist floated before it. The creaking of the oars sounded muffled and ghostly, and none of the men in the boat seemed to
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CHAPTER XXXIII. CHINESE MAGIC
CHAPTER XXXIII. CHINESE MAGIC
Detective-Sergeant Coombes and three assistants watched the house of Sin Sin Wa, and any one of the three would have been prepared to swear “on the Book” that Sin Sin Wa was sleeping. But he who watches a Chinaman watches an illusionist. He must approach his task in the spirit of a psychical inquirer who seeks to trap a bogus medium. The great Robert Houdin, one of the master wizards of modern times, quitted Petrograd by two gates at the same hour according to credible witnesses; but his perform
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CHAPTER XXXIV. ABOVE AND BELOW
CHAPTER XXXIV. ABOVE AND BELOW
“Thank the guid God I see ye alive, Dan,” said Mary Kerry. Having her husband’s dressing-gown over her night attire, and her usually neat hair in great disorder, she stood just within the doorway of the little dining-room at Spenser Road, her face haggard and the fey light in her eyes. Kerry, seated in the armchair dressed as he had come in from the street, a parody of his neat self with mud on his shoes and streaks of green slime on his overall, raised his face from his hands and stared at her
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CHAPTER XXXV. BEYOND THE VEIL
CHAPTER XXXV. BEYOND THE VEIL
Rita Irvin’s awakening was no awakening in the usually accepted sense of the word; it did not even represent a lifting of the veil which cut her off from the world, but no more than a momentary perception of the existence of such a veil and of the existence of something behind it. Upon the veil, in grey smoke, the name “Kazmah” was written in moving characters. Beyond the veil, dimly divined, was life. As of old the victims of the Inquisition, waking or dreaming, beheld ever before them the inst
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CHAPTER XXXVI. SAM TÛK MOVES
CHAPTER XXXVI. SAM TÛK MOVES
Chinatown was being watched as Chinatown had never been watched before, even during the most stringent enforcement of the Defence of the Realm Act. K Division was on its mettle, and Scotland Yard had sent to aid Chief Inspector Kerry every man that could be spared to the task. The River Police, too, were aflame with zeal; for every officer in the service whose work lay east of London Bridge had appropriated to himself the stigma implied by the creation of Lord Wrexborough’s commission. “Corners”
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CHAPTER XXXVII. SETON PASHA REPORTS
CHAPTER XXXVII. SETON PASHA REPORTS
At about the time that the fearless Chief Inspector was entering the establishment of Sam Tûk Seton Pasha was reporting to Lord Wrexborough in Whitehall. His nautical disguise had served its purpose, and he had now finally abandoned it, recognizing that he had to deal with a criminal of genius to whom disguise merely afforded matter for amusement. In his proper person, as Greville Seton, he afforded a marked contrast to that John Smiles, seaman, who had sat in a top room in Limehouse with Chief
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CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE SONG OF SIN SIN WA
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE SONG OF SIN SIN WA
Mrs. Sin, aroused by her husband from the deep opium sleep, came out into the fume-laden vault. Her dyed hair was disarranged, and her dark eyes stared glassily before her; but even in this half-drugged state she bore herself with the lithe carriage of a dancer, swinging her hips lazily and pointing the toes of her high-heeled slippers. “Awake, my wife,” crooned Sin Sin Wa. “Only a fool seeks the black smoke when the jackals sit in a ring.” Mrs. Sin gave him a glance of smiling contempt—a glance
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CHAPTER XXXIX. THE EMPTY WHARF
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE EMPTY WHARF
The suspected area of Limehouse was closely invested as any fortress of old when Seton Pasha once more found himself approaching that painfully familiar neighborhood. He had spoken to several pickets, and had gathered no news of interest, except that none of them had seen Chief Inspector Kerry since some time shortly before dusk. Seton, newly from more genial climes, shivered as he contemplated the misty, rain-swept streets, deserted and but dimly lighted by an occasional lamp. The hooting of a
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CHAPTER XL. COIL OF THE PIGTAIL
CHAPTER XL. COIL OF THE PIGTAIL
The inner room was in darkness and the fume-laden air almost unbreathable. A dull and regular moaning sound proceeded from the corner where the bed was situated, but of the contents of the place and of its other occupant or occupants Kerry had no more than a hazy idea. His imagination supplied those details which he had failed to observe. Mrs. Monte Irvin, in a dying condition, lay upon the bed, and someone or some thing crouched on the divan behind Kerry as he lay stretched upon the matting-cov
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CHAPTER XLI. THE FINDING OF KAZMAH
CHAPTER XLI. THE FINDING OF KAZMAH
At a point just above the sweep of Limehouse Reach a watchful river police patrol observed a moving speck of light on the right bank of the Thames. As if in answer to the signal there came a few moments later a second moving speck at a point not far above the district once notorious in its possession of Ratcliff Highway. A third light answered from the Surrey bank, and a fourth shone out yet higher up and on the opposite side of the Thames. The tide had just turned. As Chief Inspector Kerry had
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CHAPTER XLII. A YEAR LATER
CHAPTER XLII. A YEAR LATER
Beneath an awning spread above the balcony of one of those modern elegant flats, which today characterize Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, site of perhaps the most ancient seat of learning in the known world, a party of four was gathered, awaiting the unique spectacle which is afforded when the sun’s dying rays fade from the Libyan sands and the violet wonder of the afterglow conjures up old magical Egypt from the ashes of the desert. “Yes,” Monte Irvin was saying, “only a year ago; but, thank G
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CHAPTER XLIII. THE STORY OF THE CRIME
CHAPTER XLIII. THE STORY OF THE CRIME
“You are all aware,” Seton continued, “that Sir Lucien Pyne was an admirer of Mrs. Irvin. God knows, I hold no brief for the man, but this love of his was the one redeeming feature of a bad life. How and when it began I don’t profess to know, but it became the only pure thing which he possessed. That he was instrumental in introducing you, Mrs. Irvin, to the unfortunately prevalent drug habit, you will not deny; but that he afterwards tried sincerely to redeem you from it I can positively affirm
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