e opium, cocaine, veronal, or
heroin to sell can always find a ready market in London and elsewhere.
But one sufficiently curious and clever enough to have solved the riddle
of the vacant wharf would have discovered that the mysterious owner who
showed himself so loath to accept reasonable offers for the property
could well afford to be thus independent. Those who control "the
traffic" control El Dorado--a city of gold which, unlike the fabled
Manoa, actually exists and yields its riches to the unscrupulous
adventurer.

Smiling his mirthless, eternal smile, Sin Sin Wa placed the newly
purchased stock upon a shelf immediately behind Sam Tuk; and Sam
Tuk exhibited the first evidence of animation which had escaped him
throughout the progress of the "deal." He slowly nodded his hairless
head.

CHAPTER XX. KAZMAH'S METHODS

Rita Dresden married Monte Irvin in the spring and bade farewell to
the stage. The goal long held in view was attained at last. But another
farewell which at one time she had contemplated eagerly no longer
appeared desirable or even possible. To cocamania had been added a
tolerance for opium, and at the last party given by Cyrus Kilfane she
had learned that she could smoke nearly as much opium as the American
habitue.

The altered attitude of Sir Lucien surprised and annoyed her. He, who
had first introduced her to the spirit of the coca leaf and to the
goddess of the poppy, seemed suddenly to have determined to convince
her of the folly of these communions. He only succeeded in losing her
confidence. She twice visited the "House of a Hundred Raptures" with
Mollie Gretna, and once with Mollie and Kilfane, unknown to Sir Lucien.

Urgent affairs of some kind necessitated his leaving England a few weeks
before the date fixed for Rita's wedding, and as Kilfane had already
returned to America, Rita recognized with a certain dismay that she
would be left to her own resources--handicapped by the presence of a
watchful husband. This subtle change in her view of Monte Irvin she was
incapable of appreciating, for Rita was no psychologist. But the effect
of the drug habit was pointedly illustrated by the fact that in a period
of little more than six months, from regarding Monte Irvin as a rock of
refuge--a chance of salvation--she had come to regard him in the light
of an obstacle to her indulgence. Not that her respect had diminished.
She really loved at last, and so well that the idea of discovery by thi