y, no haste. Blake watched it as it calmly
approached him. He watched until he felt a finger against his arm.

"You clum b'long me," was the enigmatic message uttered in the
detective's ear.

"Why should I go along with you?" Blake calmly inquired.

"You clum b'long me," reiterated the Chinaman. The finger again
touched the detective's arm. "Clismas!"

Blake rose, at once. He recognized the code word of "Christmas." This
was the messenger he had been awaiting.

He followed the figure down the narrow stairway, through the sliding
door, out into the many-odored street, foul with refuse, bisected by
its open sewer of filth, took a turning into a still narrower street,
climbed a precipitous hill cobbled with stone, turned still again,
always overshadowed and hemmed in by tall houses close together, with
black-beamed lattice doors through which he could catch glimpses of
gloomy interiors. He turned again down a wooden-walled hallway that
reminded him of a Mott Street burrow. When the Chinaman touched him on
the sleeve he came to a stop.

His guide was pointing to a closed door in front of them.

"You sabby?" he demanded.

Blake hesitated. He had no idea of what was behind that door, but he
gathered from the Chinaman's motion that he was to enter. Before he
could turn to make further inquiry the Chinaman had slipped away like a
shadow.

VIII

Blake stood regarding the door. The he lifted his revolver from his
breast pocket and dropped it into his side pocket, with his hand on the
butt. Then with his left hand he quietly opened the door, pushed it
back, and as quietly stepped into the room.

On the floor, in the center of a square of orange-colored matting, he
saw a white woman sitting. She was drinking tea out of an egg-shell of
a cup, and after putting down the cup she would carefully massage her
lips with the point of her little finger. This movement puzzled the
newcomer until he suddenly realized that it was merely to redistribute
the rouge on them.

She was dressed in a silk petticoat of almost lemon yellow and an
azure-colored silk bodice that left her arms and shoulders bare to the
light that played on them from three small oil lamps above her. Her
feet and ankles were also bare, except for the matting sandals into
which her toes were thrust. On one thin arm glimmered an
extraordinarily heavy bracelet of gold. Her skin, which was very
white, was further albificated by a coat of ric