once! I shall hold him, if I can, or shoot him if I cannot hold
him! Both of us will blow police-whistles with which we shall be
provided and Inspectors Dunbar and Kelly will raid the premises. But I
am hoping for an interval. I do not like these inartistic scrimmages!
The fact that these people foregather at an opium-house suggests to me
that a certain procedure may be followed which I observed during the
course of the celebrated 'Mr. Q' case in New York. 'Mr. Q.' also had
an audience-chamber adjoining and opium den, and his visitors went
there ostensibly to smoke opium. The opium-den was a sort of anteroom."

"Weymouth's big Chinese case had similar features," said Inspector
Dunbar, who re-entered at that moment carrying a leathern grip. "If
you are kept waiting and you keep your ears open, doctor, that's when
your knowledge of the lingo will come in useful. We might rope in the
whole gang and find we hadn't a scrap of evidence against them, for
except the attempt on yourself, Dr. Stuart, there's nothing so far
that I can see to connect 'The Scorpion' with Sir Frank Newcombe!"

"It is such a bungle that I fear!" cried Max. "Ah! how this looped-up
lip annoys me!" He adjusted the bandage carefully.

"We've got the place comfortably surrounded," continued Dunbar, "and
whoever may be inside is booked! A lady, answering to the description
of Mlle. Dorian, went in this evening, so Sowerby reports."

Stuart felt that he was changing colour, and he stooped hastily to
inspect the contents of the bag which Dunbar had opened.

_"Eh bien!"_ said Gaston Max. "We shall not go empty-handed, then. And
now to transfigure you, my friend!"

CHAPTER VII

IN THE OPIUM DEN

Interrupting a spell of warm, fine weather the night had set in wet
and stormy. The squalid streets through which Stuart and Gaston Max
made their way looked more than normally deserted and uninviting. The
wind moaned and the rain accompanied with a dreary tattoo. Sometimes
a siren wailed out upon the river.

"We are nearly there," said Max. _"Pardieu!_ they are well concealed,
those fellows. I have not seen so much as an eyebrow."

"It would be encouraging to get a glimpse of some one!" replied Stuart.

"Ah, but bad--inartistic. It is the next door, I think ... yes. I hope
they have no special way of knocking."

Upon the door of a dark and apparently deserted shop he rapped.

Both had anticipated an interval of waiting, and both were astonished