e movement, and rolled over on to his side, drawing up his
knees.

The eye of Sin Sin Wa gleamed strangely, but he did not move, and Sam
Tuk who sat huddled in his chair where his feet almost touched the
fallen man, stirred never a muscle. But Mrs. Sin, who still moved in
a semi-phantasmagoric world, swiftly raised the hem of her kimona,
affording a glimpse of a shapely silk-clad limb. From a sheath attached
to her garter she drew a thin stilletto. Curiously feline, she crouched,
as if about to spring.

Sin Sin Wa extended his hand, grasping his wife's wrist.

"No, woman of indifferent intelligence," he said in his queer sibilant
language, "since when has murder gone unpunished in these British
dominions?"

Mrs. Sin snatched her wrist from his grasp, falling back wild-eyed.

"Yellow ape! yellow ape!" she said hoarsely. "One more does not
matter--now."

"One more?" crooned Sin Sin Wa, glancing curiously at Kerry.

"They are here! We are trapped!"

"No, no," said Sin Sin Wa. "He is a brave man; he comes alone."

He paused, and then suddenly resumed in pidgin English:

"You likee killa him, eh?"

Perhaps unconscious that she did so, Mrs. Sin replied also in English:

"No, I am mad. Let me think, old fool!"

She dropped the stiletto and raised her hand dazedly to her brow.

"You gotchee tired of knifee chop, eh?" murmured Sin Sin Wa.

Mrs. Sin clenched her hands, holding them rigidly against her hips; and,
nostrils dilated, she stared at the smiling Chinaman.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

Sin Sin Wa performed his curious oriental shrug.

"You putta topside pidgin on Sir Lucy alla lightee," he murmured. "Givee
him hell alla velly proper."

The pupils of the woman's eyes contracted again, and remained so. She
laughed hoarsely and tossed her head.

"Who told you that?" she asked contemptuously. "It was the doll-woman
who killed him--I have said so."

"You tella me so--hoi, hoi! But old Sin Sin Wa catchee wonder. Lo!"--he
extended a yellow forefinger, pointing at his wife--"Mrs. Sin make him
catchee die! No bhobbery, no palaber. Sin Sin Wa gotchee you sized up
allee timee."

Mrs. Sin snapped her fingers under his nose then stooped, picked up the
stiletto, and swiftly restored it to its sheath. Her hands resting upon
her hips, she came forward, until her dark evil face almost touched the
yellow, smiling face of Sin Sin Wa.

"Listen, old fool," she said in a low, husky voice; "I have done with