office.
Crossing the office, they gained the interior of the warehouse, where
chests bearing Chinese labels were stacked in great profusion.

"Then this place," began Soames...

"Is a ginger warehouse, Soames! There is a very small office staff, but
sufficiently large to cope with the limited business done--in the import
and export of ginger! The firm is known as Kan-Suh Concessions and
imports preserved Chinese ginger from its own plantations in that
province of the Celestial Empire. There is a small wharf attached,
as you may have noted. Oh! it is a going concern and perfectly
respectable!"

Soames looked about him with wide-opened eyes.

"The ginger staff," said Gianapolis, "is not yet arrived. Mr. Ho-Pin
is the manager. The lane, in which the establishment is situated,
communicates with Limehouse Causeway, and, being a cul-de-sac, is little
frequented. Only this one firm has premises actually opening into it and
I have converted the small corner building at the extremity of the wharf
into a garage for my car. There are no means of communication between
the premises of Kan-Suh Concessions and those of the more important
enterprise below--and I, myself, am not officially associated with the
ginger trade. It is a precaution which we all adopt, however, never to
enter or leave the garage if anyone is in sight."...

Soames became conscious of a new security. He set about his duties that
morning with a greater alacrity than usual, valeting one of the
living dead men--a promising young painter whom he chanced to know by
sight--with a return to the old affable manner which had rendered him so
popular during his career as cabin steward.

He felt that he was now part and parcel of Kan-Suh Concessions; that
Kan-Suh Concessions and he were at one. He had yet to learn that his
sense of security was premature, and that his added knowledge might be
an added danger.

When Said brought his lunch into his room, he delivered also a slip of
paper bearing the brief message:

"Go out 6.30--return 10."

Mr. Soames uncorked his daily bottle of Bass almost gaily, and attacked
his lunch with avidity.

XVIII

THE WORLD ABOVE

The night had set in grayly, and a drizzle of fine rain was falling.
West India Dock Road presented a prospect so uninviting that it must
have damped the spirits of anyone but a cave-dweller.

Soames, buttoned up in a raincoat kindly lent by Mr. Gianapolis, and of
a somewhat refined fit, with