some way, for
consciousness was slipping--slipping...

Helpless as a child in that embrace which never faltered, she was lifted
again and carried down many steps. Insensibility was very near now, but
with all the will that was hers she struggled to fend it off. She felt
herself laid down upon soft cushions...

A guttural voice was speaking, from a vast distance away:

"What is this that you bwring us, Mahara?"

Answered a sweet, silvery voice:

"Does it matter to you what I bringing? It is one I hate--hate--HATE!
There will be TWO cases of 'ginger' to go away some day instead of
ONE--that is all! Said, yalla!"

"Your pwrimitive passions will wruin us"...

The silvery voice grew even more silvery:

"Do you quarrel with me, Ho-Pin, my friend?"

"This is England, not Burma! Gianapolis"...

"Ah! Whisper--WHISPER it to HIM, and"...

Oblivion closed in upon Helen Cumberly; she seemed to be sinking into
the heart of a giant rose.

XXXVI

IN DUNBAR'S ROOM

Dr. Cumberly, his face unusually pale, stood over by the window of
Inspector Dunbar's room, his hands locked behind him. In the chair
nearest to the window sat Henry Leroux, so muffled up in a fur-collared
motor-coat that little of his face was visible; but his eyes were tragic
as he leant forward resting his elbows upon his knees and twirling his
cap between his thin fingers. He was watching Inspector Dunbar intently;
only glancing from the gaunt face of the detective occasionally to look
at Denise Ryland, who sat close to the table. At such times his gaze was
pathetically reproachful, but always rather sorrowful than angry.

As for Miss Ryland, her habitual self-confidence seemed somewhat to
have deserted her, and it was almost with respectful interest that she
followed Dunbar's examination of a cabman who, standing cap in hand,
completed the party so strangely come together at that late hour.

"This is what you have said," declared Dunbar, taking up an official
form, and, with a movement of his hand warning the taxi-man to pay
attention: "'I, Frederick Dean, motor-cab driver, was standing on the
rank in Little Abbey Street to-night at about a quarter to nine. My cab
was the second on the rank. A young lady who wore, I remember, a woolen
cap and jersey, with a blue serge skirt, ran out from the corner of the
Square and directed me to follow the cab in front of me, which had just
been chartered by a dark man wearing a black overcoat and silk hat.