n short, what with my lowered condition and consequent frame of mind,
and what with the traditions, for me inseparable from that gloomy
quarter of London, I was in the grip of a shadowy menace which at any
moment might become tangible--I perceived, in the most commonplace
objects, the yellow hand of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

When the cab stopped in a place of utter darkness, I aroused myself with
an effort, opened the door, and stepped out into the mud of a narrow
lane. A high brick wall frowned upon me from one side, and, dimly
perceptible, there towered a smoke stack, beyond. On my right uprose
the side of a wharf building, shadowly, and some distance ahead, almost
obscured by the drizzling rain, a solitary lamp flickered. I turned up
the collar of my raincoat, shivering, as much at the prospect as from
physical chill.

"You will wait here," I said to the man; and, feeling in my
breast-pocket, I added: "If you hear the note of a whistle, drive on and
rejoin me."

He listened attentively and with a certain eagerness. I had selected
him that night for the reason that he had driven Smith and myself
on previous occasions and had proved himself a man of intelligence.
Transferring a Browning pistol from my hip-pocket to that of my
raincoat, I trudged on into the mist.

The headlights of the taxi were swallowed up behind me, and just abreast
of the street lamp I stood listening.

Save for the dismal sound of rain, and the trickling of water along the
gutters, all about me was silent. Sometimes this silence would be broken
by the distant, muffled note of a steam siren; and always, forming
a sort of background to the near stillness, was the remote din of
riverside activity.

I walked on to the corner just beyond the lamp. This was the street in
which the wooden buildings were situated. I had expected to detect some
evidences of surveillances, but if any were indeed being observed, the
fact was effectively masked. Not a living creature was visible, peer as
I could.

Plans, I had none, and perceiving that the street was empty, and that
no lights showed in any of the windows, I passed on, only to find that I
had entered a cul-de-sac.

A rickety gate gave access to a descending flight of stone steps, the
bottom invisible in the denser shadows of an archway, beyond which, I
doubted not, lay the river.

Still uninspired by any definite design, I tried the gate and found that
it was unlocked. Like some wandering soul, as it has sin