n's interview with
Margaret had been an equally hurried journey to the big jail.

Unhappily Seton had failed to elicit the slightest information from the
saturnine Mareno. Unmoved alike by promises or threats, he had coolly
adhered to his original evidence.

So, while the authorities worked feverishly and all England reading of
the arrest of Mareno inquired indignantly, "But who is Kazmah, and where
is Mrs. Monte Irvin?" Sin Sin Wa placidly pursued his arrangements for
immediate departure to the paddyfields of Ho-Nan, and sometimes in the
weird crooning voice with which he addressed the raven he would sing a
monotonous chant dealing with the valley of the Yellow River where the
opium-poppy grows. Hidden in the cunning vault, the search had passed
above him; and watchful on a quay on the Surrey shore whereto his dinghy
was fastened, George Martin awaited the signal which should tell him
that Kazmah and Company were ready to leave. Any time after dark he
expected to see the waving lantern and to collect his last payment from
the traffic.

At the very hour that Kerry was hastening to Prince's Gate, Sin Sin Wa
sat before the stove in the drug cache, the green-eyed joss upon his
knee. With a fragment of chamois leather he lovingly polished the
leering idol, crooning softly to himself and smiling his mirthless
smile. Perched upon his shoulder the raven studied this operation with
apparent interest, his solitary eye glittering bead-like. Upon the
opposite side of the stove sat the ancient Sam Tuk and at intervals of
five minutes or more he would slowly nod his hairless head.

The sliding door which concealed the inner room was partly open,
and from the opening there shone forth a dim red light, cast by the
paper-shaded lamp which illuminated the place. The coarse voice of
the Cuban-Jewess rose and fell in a ceaseless half-muttered soliloquy,
indescribably unpleasant but to which Sin Sin Wa was evidently
indifferent.

Propped up amid cushions on the divan which once had formed part of
the furniture of the House of a Hundred Raptures, Mrs. Sin was smoking
opium. The long bamboo pipe had fallen from her listless fingers, and
her dark eyes were partly glazed. Buddha-like immobility was claiming
her, but it had not yet effaced that expression of murderous malice with
which the smoker contemplated the unconscious woman who lay upon the bed
at the other end of the room.

As the moments passed the eyes of Mrs. Sin grew more and