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Remember, I will come to you whenever you will
take me and hide me."
    Light footsteps pattered down the stairs. I heard a stifled cry
from Mrs. Dolan as the mysterious visitor ran past her. The front
door opened and closed.
     

Chapter 5
     
    "Shen-Yan's is a dope-shop in one of the burrows off the old
Ratcliff Highway," said Inspector Weymouth.
    "'Singapore Charlie's,' they call it. It's a center for some of
the Chinese societies, I believe, but all sorts of opium-smokers
use it. There have never been any complaints that I know of. I
don't understand this."
    We stood in his room at New Scotland Yard, bending over a sheet
of foolscap upon which were arranged some burned fragments from
poor Cadby's grate, for so hurriedly had the girl done her work
that combustion had not been complete.
    "What do we make of this?" said Smith. "'… Hunchback… lascar
went up… unlike others… not return… till Shen-Yan' (there is no
doubt about the name, I think) 'turned me out… booming sound…
lascar in… mortuary I could ident… not for days, or suspici…
Tuesday night in a different make… snatch… pigtail… '"
    "The pigtail again!" rapped Weymouth.
    "She evidently burned the torn-out pages all together,"
continued Smith. "They lay flat, and this was in the middle. I see
the hand of retributive justice in that, Inspector. Now we have a
reference to a hunchback, and what follows amounts to this: A
lascar (amongst several other persons) went up somewhere-presumably
upstairs-at Shen-Yan's, and did not come down again. Cadby, who was
there disguised, noted a booming sound. Later, he identified the
lascar in some mortuary. We have no means of fixing the date of
this visit to Shen-Yan's, but I feel inclined to put down the
'lascar' as the dacoit who was murdered by Fu-Manchu! It is sheer
supposition, however. But that Cadby meant to pay another visit to
the place in a different 'make-up' or disguise, is evident, and
that the Tuesday night proposed was last night is a reasonable
deduction. The reference to a pigtail is principally interesting
because of what was found on Cadby's body."
    Inspector Weymouth nodded affirmatively, and Smith glanced at
his watch.
    "Exactly ten-twenty-three," he said. "I will trouble you,
Inspector, for the freedom of your fancy wardrobe. There is time to
spend an hour in the company of Shen-Yan's opium friends."
    Weymouth raised his eyebrows.
    "It might be risky. What about an official visit?"
    Nayland Smith laughed.
    "Worse than useless! By your own showing, the place is open to
inspection. No; guile against guile! We are dealing with a
Chinaman, with the incarnate essence of Eastern subtlety, with the
most stupendous genius that the modern Orient has produced."
    "I don't believe in disguises," said Weymouth, with a certain
truculence. "It's mostly played out, that game, and generally leads
to failure. Still, if you're determined, sir, there's an end of it.
Foster will make your face up. What disguise do you propose to
adopt?"
    "A sort of Dago seaman, I think; something like poor Cadby. I
can rely on my knowledge of the brutes, if I am sure of my
disguise."
    "You are forgetting me, Smith," I said.
    He turned to me quickly.
    "Petrie," he replied, "it is MY business, unfortunately, but it
is no sort of hobby."
    "You mean that you can no longer rely upon me?" I said
angrily.
    Smith grasped my hand, and met my rather frigid stare with a
look of real concern on his gaunt, bronzed face.
    "My dear old chap," he answered, "that was really unkind. You
know that I meant something totally different."
    "It's all right, Smith;" I said, immediately ashamed of my
choler, and wrung his hand heartily. "I can pretend to smoke opium
as well as another. I shall be going, too, Inspector."
    As a result of this little passage of words, some twenty minutes
later two dangerous-looking seafaring ruffians entered a waiting
cab, accompanied by Inspector Weymouth, and were driven off into
the wilderness of London's night. In this