a!" he
shrugged. "It is finished!

"The place was arranged with Oriental magnificence. The
reception-room--if I can so term that apartment--was like the scene of
Rimsky Korsakov's Sheherezade; I could see that very heavy charges
were made at this establishment. I will not bore you with further
particulars, but I will tell you of my disappointment."

"Your disappointment?"

"Yes, I was disappointed. True, I had brought about the closing of that
house, but of the huge sums of money fraudulently obtained from victims,
I could find no trace in the accounts of Madame Jean. She defied me
with silence, simply declining to give any account of herself beyond
admitting that she conducted an hotel at which opium might be smoked if
desired. Blagueur! Sen, the Chinaman, who professed to speak nothing but
Chinese--ah! cochon!--was equally a difficult case, Nom d'un nom! I was
in despair, for apart from frauds connected with the concern, I had
more than small suspicions that at least one death--that of a wealthy
banker--could be laid at the doors of the establishment in Rue St.
Claude."...

Dr. Cumberly bent yet lower, watching the speaker's face.

"A murder!" he whispered.

"I do not say so," replied Max, "but it certainly might have been. The
case then must, indeed, have ended miserably, as far as I was concerned,
if I had not chanced upon a letter which the otherwise prudent Madame
Jean had forgotten to destroy. Triomphe! It was a letter of instruction,
and definitely it proved that she was no more than a kind of glorified
concierge, and that the chief of the opium group was in London."

"Undoubtedly in London. There was no address on the letter, and no date,
and it was curiously signed: Mr. King."

"Mr. King!"

Dr. Cumberly rose slowly from his chair, and took a step toward M. Max.

"You are interested?" said the detective, and shrugged his shoulders,
whilst his mobile mouth shaped itself in a grim smile. "Pardieu! I
knew you would be! Acting upon another clue which the letter--priceless
letter--contained, I visited the Credit Lyonnais. I discovered that an
account had been opened there by Mr. Henry Leroux of London on behalf of
his wife, Mira Leroux, to the amount of a thousand pounds."

"A thousand pounds--really!" cried Dr. Cumberly, drawing his heavy brows
together--"as much as that?"

"Certainly. It was for a thousand pounds," repeated Max, "and the whole
of that amount had been drawn out."

"The whole thousa