in murk of early
morning and gloom of early night, scoured by a nondescript rabble employed
in the vast dockyards whose man-made forests of masts and cordage, funnels
and cranes, on either hand lifted angular black silhouettes against the
misty silver of the sky.

Black and white and yellow and brown, men of every race and skin, they came
and went, their brief hours loud with babel of strange tongues and a
scuffling of countless feet like the sound of surf; and their goings left
the street strangely hushed, a way of sinister reticences, its winding
length ill-lighted by infrequent corner-lamps, its mephitic glooms
enlivened by windows of public houses all saffron with specious promise of
purchasable good-fellowship.

One of these, the Red Moon, faced the row of waterfront houses, standing at
the intersection of a street which struck inland to the pulsing heart of
Limehouse. A retired bully of the prize-ring ruled with a high hand over
its several bars and many patrons, yellow men and white girls, deck-hands
and dock-workers, pugilistic and criminal celebrities of the quarter, and
their sycophants. Its revels rendered the nights cacophonous, its portals
sucked in streams of sweethearts and more impersonal lovers of life and
laughter, and spewed out sots close-locked in embraces of maudlin affection
or brutal combat. Bobbies kept an eye on the Red Moon, a respectful one:
interference with the time-hallowed customs and prerogatives of its
clientele was something to be adventured with extreme discretion.

Out of the hinterland of Limehouse, a tall man came to the Red Moon that
night, walking with long, loose-jointed strides, holding his head high and
looking over the heads of all he passed with a fixed, far gaze. He had a
hatchet-face, sallow, with lantern jaws, a petulant mouth, hot eyes that
showed too much white above their pupils. A lank black mane greased his
collar. His garments, shoddy but whole, were stained and bleached in spots,
apparently the work of acids, and so wrinkled and shapeless as to suggest
that their owner slept without undressing as a matter of habit. The pockets
of his coat bulged noticeably.

Shouldering heedlessly into the saloon-bar, he found it deserted except for
a chinless potman: the liveliest evening trade was always plied in the
cheaper bars adjacent.

One glance sufficed to identify him: with a surly nod the potman ducked
behind a partition to call the proprietor. Drinks were in order w