to Jack's, and I hoped by dint of a little patience to achieve
what the police had now apparently despaired of achieving--the discovery
of the assassin.

Having called at my chambers to obtain my revolver, I mounted an
eastward-bound motor-bus. The night, as I have already stated, was
exceptionally dark. There was no moon, and heavy clouds were spread over
the sky; so that the deserted East End streets presented a sufficiently
uninviting aspect, but one with which I was by no means unfamiliar and
which certainly in no way daunted me.

Changing at Paul Harley's Chinatown base in Wade Street, I turned my
steps in the same direction as upon the preceding night; but if my
own will played no part in the matter, then decidedly Providence
truly guided me. Poetic justice is rare enough in real life, yet I was
destined to-night to witness swift retribution overtaking a malefactor.

The by-ways which I had trodden were utterly deserted; I was far from
the lighted high road, and the only signs of human activity that reached
me came from the adjacent river; therefore, when presently an outcry
arose from somewhere on my left, for a moment I really believed that my
imagination was vividly reproducing the episode of the night before!

A furious scuffle--between a European and an Asiatic--was in progress
not twenty yards away!

Realizing that such was indeed the case, and that I was not the victim
of hallucination, I advanced slowly in the direction of the sounds,
but my footsteps reechoed hollowly from wall to wall of the narrow
passage-way, and my coming brought the conflict to a sudden and dramatic
termination.

"Thought I wouldn't know yer ugly face, did yer?" yelled a familiar
voice. "No good squealin'--I got yer! I'd bust you up if I could!"
(a sound of furious blows and inarticulate chattering) "but it ain't
'umanly possible to kill a Chink------"

I hurried forward toward the spot where two dim figures were locked in
deadly conflict.

"Take that to remember me by!" gasped the husky voice as I ran up.

One of the figures collapsed in a heap upon the ground. The other
made off at a lumbering gait along a second and even narrower passage
branching at right angles from that in which the scuffle had taken
place.

The clatter of the heavy sea-boots died away in the distance. I stood
beside the fallen man, looking keenly about to right and left; for an
impression was strong upon me that another than I had been witness of