the third, have got some kind of big influence behind
them. Yet you wander about in the fog without even a gun in your
pocket."

"I don't believe in guns," rapped Kerry. "My bare hands are good enough
for any yellow smart in this area. And if they give out I can kick like
a mule."

The other laughed, shaking his head.

"It's silly, all the same," he persisted. "The man who did the job out
there in the fog to-night might have knifed you or shot you long before
you could have got here."

"He might," snapped Kerry, "but he didn't."

Yet, remembering his wife, who would be waiting for him in the cosy
sitting-room he knew a sudden pang. Perhaps he did take unnecessary
chances. Others had said so. Hard upon the thought came the memory of
his boy, and of the telephone message which the episodes of the night
had prevented him from sending.

He remembered, too, something which his fearless nature had prompted him
to forget: he remembered how, just as he had arisen from beside the body
of the murdered man, oblique eyes had regarded him swiftly out of the
fog. He had lashed out with a boxer's instinct, but his knuckles had
encountered nothing but empty air. No sound had come to tell him that
the thing had not been an illusion. Only, once again, as he groped his
way through the shuttered streets of Chinatown and the silence of
the yellow mist, something had prompted him to turn; and again he had
detected the glint of oblique eyes, and faintly had discerned the form
of one who followed him.

Kerry chewed viciously, then:

"I think I'll 'phone the wife," he said abruptly. "She'll be expecting
me."

Almost before he had finished speaking the 'phone bell rang, and a few
moments later:

"Someone to speak to you, Chief Inspector," cried the officer in charge.

"Ah!" exclaimed Kerry, his fierce eyes lighting up. "That will be from
home."

"I don't think so," was the reply. "But see who it is."

"Hello!" he called.

He was answered by an unfamiliar voice, a voice which had a queer,
guttural intonation. It was the sort of voice he had learned to loathe.

"Is that Chief Inspector Kerry?"

"Yes," he snapped.

"May I take it that what I have to say will be treated in confidence?"

"Certainly not."

"Think again, Chief Inspector," the voice continued. "You are a man
within sight of the ambition of years, and although you may be unaware
of the fact, you stand upon the edge of a disaster. I appreciate your
sense of duty