ct on your part. And incidentally
you will be aiding me."

"Very well," said I. "But I don't understand this at all."

"No--of course not. I wish I could explain to you; but I can not. I
will say this--the death of Captain Fraser-Freer is regarded as a most
significant thing by the War Office. Thus it happens that two distinct
hunts for his assassin are under way--one conducted by Bray, the other
by me. Bray does not suspect that I am working on the case and I want to
keep him in the dark as long as possible. You may choose which of these
investigations you wish to be identified with."

"I think," said I, "that I prefer you to Bray."

"Good boy!" he answered. "You have not gone wrong. And you can do me a
service this evening, which is why I was on the point of coming here,
even before you telephoned me. I take it that you remember and could
identify the chap who called himself Archibald Enwright--the man who
gave you that letter to the captain?"

"I surely could," said I.

"Then, if you can spare me an hour, get your hat."

And so it happens, lady of the Carlton, that I have just been to
Limehouse. You do not know where Limehouse is and I trust you never
will. It is picturesque; it is revolting; it is colorful and wicked. The
weird odors of it still fill my nostrils; the sinister portrait of it is
still before my eyes. It is the Chinatown of London--Limehouse. Down
in the dregs of the town--with West India Dock Road for its spinal
column--it lies, redolent of ways that are dark and tricks that are
vain. Not only the heathen Chinee so peculiar shuffles through its
dim-lit alleys, but the scum of the earth, of many colors and of many
climes. The Arab and the Hindu, the Malayan and the Jap, black men from
the Congo and fair men from Scandinavia--these you may meet there--the
outpourings of all the ships that sail the Seven Seas. There many
drunken beasts, with their pay in their pockets, seek each his favorite
sin; and for those who love most the opium, there is, at all too regular
intervals, the Sign of the Open Lamp.

We went there, Colonel Hughes and I. Up and down the narrow Causeway,
yellow at intervals with the light from gloomy shops, dark mostly
because of tightly closed shutters through which only thin jets found
their way, we walked until we came and stood at last in shadow outside
the black doorway of Harry San Li's so-called restaurant. We waited ten,
fifteen minutes; then a man came down the Causeway