. But this
much I had to tell you, because ... I shall never see you again!"

"What!"

"A French detective, a very clever man, learned a lot about 'The
Scorpion' and he followed one of the members to England. This man
killed him. Oh, I know I belong to a horrible organization!" she
cried bitterly. "But I tell you I am helpless and _I_ have never
aided in such a thing. You should know that! But all he found out he
left with you--and I do not know if I succeeded in destroying it. I do
not ask you. I do not care. But I leave England to-night. Good-bye."

She suddenly stood up. Stuart rose also. He was about to speak when
Miska's expression changed. A look of terror crept over her face, and
hastily lowering her veil she walked rapidly away from the table and
out of the room!

Many curious glances followed the elegant figure to the door. Then
those glances were directed upon Stuart.

Flushing with embarrassment, he quickly settled the bill and hurried
out of the hotel. Gaining the street, he looked eagerly right and left.

But Miska had disappeared!

CHAPTER V

THE HEART OF CHUNDA LAL

Dusk had drawn a grey mantle over the East-End streets when Miska,
discharging the cab in which she had come from Victoria, hurried
furtively along a narrow alley tending Thamesward. Unconsciously she
crossed a certain line--a line invisible except upon a map of London
which lay upon the table of the Assistant Commissioner in New Scotland
Yard--the line forming the "red circle" of M. Gaston Max. And,
crossing this line, she became the focus upon which four pairs of
watchful eyes were directed.

Arriving at the door of a mean house some little distance removed
from that of Ah-Fang-Fu, Miska entered, for the door was open, and
disappeared from the view of the four detectives who were watching the
street. Her heart was beating rapidly. For she had thought, as she
had stood up to leave the restaurant, that the fierce eyes of Chunda
Lal had looked in through the glass panel of one of the doors.

This gloomy house seemed to swallow her up, and the men who watched
wondered more and more what had become of the elegant figure,
grotesque in such a setting, which had vanished into the narrow
doorway--and which did not reappear. Even Inspector Kelly, who knew
so much about Chinatown, did not know that the cellars of the three
houses left and right of Ah-Fang-Fu's were connected by a series of
doors planned and masked with Chinese cu