but his exact association with the deaths first
of the Chinaman Pi Lung, and second of Cohen, remained to be proved.
Certain critics have declared the Metropolitan detective service to be
obsolete and inefficient. Kerry, as a potential superintendent, resented
these criticisms, and in his protege Durham, perceived a member of the
new generation who was likely in time to produce results calculated to
remove this stigma.

Durham recognized that a greater responsibility rested upon his
shoulders than the actual importance of the case might have indicated;
and now, proceeding warily along the deserted streets, he found his
brain to be extraordinarily active and his imagination very much alive.

There is a night life in Limehouse, as he had learned, but it is a mole
life, a subterranean life, of which no sign appears above ground after a
certain hour. Nevertheless, as he entered the area which harbours those
strange, hidden resorts the rumour of which has served to create the
glamour of Chinatown, he found himself to be thinking of the great
influence said to be wielded by Huang Chow, and wondering if unseen
spies watched his movements.

Lala was Oriental, and now, alone in the night, distrust leapt into
being within him. He had been attracted by her and had pitied her.
He told himself now that this was because of her dark beauty and the
essentially feminine appeal which she made. She was perhaps a vampire
of the most dangerous sort, one who lured men to strange deaths for some
sinister object beyond reach of a Western imagination.

He found himself doubting the success of those tactics upon which,
earlier in the day, he had congratulated himself. Perhaps beneath the
guise of Hampden, who bought antique furniture on commission, those
cunning old eyes beneath the horn-rimmed spectacles had perceived the
detective hidden, or at least had marked subterfuge.

While he could not count Lala a conquest--for he had not even
attempted to make love to her--the ease with which he had developed the
acquaintance now, afforded matter for suspicion.

At the entrance to the court communicating with the establishment of
Huang Chow he paused, looking cautiously about him. The men on the
Limehouse beats had been warned of the investigation afoot tonight, and
there was a plain-clothes man on point duty at no great distance away,
although carefully hidden, so that Durham had quite failed to detect his
presence.

Durham wore rough clothe