hurried out. He held open the door of the car and stood at attention.
Two men issued from the restaurant and crossed the pavement. I turned
deliberately round to watch them--vulgar curiosity, perhaps, but a
curiosity which I never regretted. The first man--tall and
powerful--wore the splendid dress and black silk cap of a Chinese of
high rank. The man who followed him was Delora. I knew him in a
second, although he wore a white silk scarf around his neck,
concealing the lower part of his face, and a silk hat pushed down
almost over his eyes. I saw his little nervous glance up and down the
street, I saw him push past the _commissionnaire_ as though in a
hurry to gain the semi-obscurity of the car. I stopped short upon the
pavement, motionless for one brief and fatal moment. Then I turned
back and hastened to the side of the car. I knocked at the window.

"Delora," I said, "I must speak to you."

The car had begun to move. I wrenched at the handle, but I found it
held on the inside with a grip which even I could not move. I looked
into the broad, expressionless face of the Chinaman, who, leaning
forward, completely shielded the person of the man with whom I sought
to speak.

"One moment," I called out. "I must speak with Mr. Delora. I have a
message for him."

The car was going faster now. I tried to jump on to the step, but the
first time I missed it. Then the window was suddenly let down. The
Chinaman's arm flashed out and struck me on the chest, so that I was
forced to relinquish my grasp of the handle. I reeled back, preserving
my balance only by a desperate effort. Before I could start in
pursuit, the car had turned into the more crowded thoroughfare, and
when I reached the spot where it had disappeared a few seconds later,
it was lost amongst the stream of vehicles.

I went back to the restaurant. It was like a hundred others of its
class--stuffy, smelly, reminiscent of the poorer business quarters of
a foreign city. A waiter in a greasy dress-suit flicked some crumbs
from a vacant table and motioned me to sit down. I ordered a Fin
Champagne, and put half-a-crown into his hand.

"Tell me," I said, "five minutes ago a Chinaman and another man were
here."

The man laid the half-crown down on the table. His manner had
undergone a complete change.

"Perhaps so, sir," he answered. "We have been busy to-night. I noticed
nobody."

I called the proprietor to me--a little pale-faced man with a black
moustache, w