tures of the
case which, in justice to Sir Lucien, we should not overlook. He, who
had been a poor man, had become a wealthy one and had tasted the sweets
of wealth; also he was now hopelessly in the toils of the woman Lola.

"With the ingenious financial details of the concern, which were
conducted in the style of the 'Jose Santos Company,' I need not trouble
you now. We come to the second period, when the flat in Albemarle Street
and the two offices in old Bond Street became vacant and were promptly
leased by Mareno, acting on Sir Lucien's behalf, and calling himself
sometimes Mr. Isaacs, sometimes Mr. Jacobs, and at other times merely
posing as a representative of the Jose Santos Company in some other
name.

"All went well. The concern had ample capital, and was organized by
clever people. Sin Sin Wa took up new quarters in Limehouse; they had
actually bought half the houses in one entire street as well as a
wharf! And Sin Sin Wa brought with him the good-will of an illicit drug
business which already had almost assumed the dimensions of a control.

"Sir Lucien's household was a mere bluff. He rarely entertained at
home, and lived himself entirely at restaurants and clubs. The private
entrance to the Kazmah house of business was the back window of the
Cubanis Cigarette Company's office. From thence down the back stair to
Kazmah's door it was a simple matter for Mareno to pass unobserved. Sir
Lucien resumed his role of private inquiry agent, and Mareno recited the
'revelations' from notes supplied to him.

"But the 'dream reading' part of the business was merely carried on to
mask the really profitable side of the concern. We have recently learned
that drugs were distributed from that one office alone to the amount of
thirty thousand pounds' worth annually! This is excluding the profits
of the House of a Hundred Raptures and of the private chandu orgies
organized by Mrs. Sin.

"The Kazmah group gradually acquired control of the entire market, and
we know for a fact that at one period during the war they were actually
supplying smuggled cocaine, indirectly, to no fewer than twelve R.A.M.C.
hospitals! The complete ramifications of the system we shall never know.

"I come, now, to the tragedy, or series of tragedies, which brought
about the collapse of the most ingenious criminal organization which has
ever flourished, probably, in any community. I will dare to be frank.
Sir Lucien was the victim of a woman's jealo