ished--as
'Mrs. Jacobs.' You join the Mahratta at the Albert Dock. I have bought
you a post as stewardess."

Mrs. Sin tossed her head. "And Juan?"

"What can they prove against your Juan if you are missing?"

Mrs. Sin nodded towards the bed.

With slow and shuffling steps Sin Sin Wa approached. He continued
to smile, but his glittering eye held even less of mirth than usual.
Tucking his hands into his sleeves, he stood and looked down--at Rita
Irvin.

Her face had acquired a waxen quality, but some of her delicate coloring
still lingered, lending her a ghastly and mask-like aspect. Her nostrils
and lips were blanched, however, and possessed a curiously pinched
appearance. It was impossible to detect the fact that she breathed, and
her long lashes lay motionless upon her cheeks.

Sin Sin Wa studied her silently for some time, then:

"Yes," he murmured, "she is beautiful. But women are like adder's eggs.
He is a fool who warms them in his bosom." He turned his slow regard
upon Mrs. Sin. "You have stained your hair to look even as hers. It was
discreet, my wife. But one is beautiful and many-shadowed like a copper
vase, and the other is like a winter sunset on the poppy-fields. You
remind me of the angry red policeman, and I tremble."

"Tremble as much as you like," said Mrs. Sin scornfully, "but
do something, think; don't leave everything to me. She screamed
tonight--and someone heard her. They are searching the river bank from
door to door."

"Lo!" murmured Sin Sin Wa, "even this I had learned, nor failed to heed
the beating of a distant drum. And why did she scream?"

"I was--keeping her asleep; and the prick of the needle woke her."

"Tchee, tchee," crooned Sin Sin Wa, his voice sinking lower and lower
and his eye nearly closing. "But still she lives--and is beautiful."

"Beautiful!" mocked Mrs. Sin. "A doll-woman, bloodless and nerveless!"

"So--so. Yet she, so bloodless and nerveless, unmasked the secret of
Kazmah, and she, so bloodless and nerveless, struck down--"

Mrs. Sin ground her teeth together audibly.

"Yes, yes!" she said in sibilant Chinese. "She is a robber, a thief, a
murderess." She bent over the unconscious woman, her jewel-laden fingers
crooked and menacing. "With my bare hands I would strangle her, but--"

"There must be no marks of violence when she is found in the river.
Tchee, chee--it is a pity."

"Number one p'lice chop, lo!" croaked the raven, following this remark
with the