hated him. But
it is strange nevertheless. I am sure he intended to rob my father."

"And is that why you think it strange?"

"Yes," she said, but her voice was almost inaudible.

They were come now to the narrow street communicating with the courtway
in which the great treasure-house of Huang Chow was situated, and Lala
stopped at the corner.

"It was nice of you to walk along with me," she said. "Do you live in
Limehouse?"

"No," replied Durham, "I don't. As a matter of fact, I came down here
to-night in the hope of seeing you again."

"Did you?"

The girl glanced up at him doubtfully, and his distaste for the task set
him by his superior increased with the passing of every moment. He was
a man of some imagination, a great reader, and ambitious professionally.
He appreciated the fact that Chief Inspector Kerry looked for great
things from him, but for this type of work he had little inclination.

There was too much chivalry in his make-up to enable him to play upon a
woman's sentiments, even in the interests of justice. By whatever means
the man Cohen had met his death, and whether or no the Chinaman Pi Lung
had died by the same hand, Lala Huang was innocent of any complicity in
these matters, he was perfectly well assured.

Doubts were to come later when he was away from her, when he had had
leisure to consider that she might regard him in the light of a third
potential rifler of her father's treasure-house. But at the moment,
looking down into her dark eyes, he reproached himself and wondered
where his true duty lay.

"It is so gray and dull and sordid here," said the girl, looking down
the darkened street. "There is no one much to talk to."

"But you have your business interests to keep you employed during the
day, after all."

"I hate it all. I hate it all."

"But you seem to have perfect freedom?"

"Yes. My mother, you see, was not Chinese."

"But you wish to leave Limehouse?"

"I do. I do. Just now it is not so bad, but in the winter how I tire of
the gray skies, the endless drizzling rain. Oh!" She shrank back into
the shadow of a doorway, clutching at Durham's arm. "Don't let Ah Fu see
me."

"Ah Fu? Who is Ah Fu?" asked Durham, also drawing back as a furtive
figure went slinking down the opposite side of the street.

"My father's servant. He let you in this morning."

"And why must he not see you?"

"I don't trust him. I think he tells my father things."

"What is it that he carries