you in
tracing this Chuh Fen, if Chuh Fen is in England. When Wing and I
were in London--we were there for some time after I returned from
India, previous to my coming down here--Wing paid a good many visits
to his fellow Chinamen in the East End, Limehouse way; he also had a
holiday in Liverpool and another at Swansea and Cardiff, where, I am
told, there are Chinese settlements. And I happen to know that he
carries on an extensive correspondence with his compatriots. If you
think he could give you any information, Mr. Scarterfield----"

"I'd like to have a talk with him, certainly," responded the
detective, with some eagerness. "I know a bit about these chaps--some
of them can see through a brick wall!"

Lorrimore turned to Mr. Raven.

"If your coachman could run across with the dog-cart, or anything
handy," he said, "and would tell Wing that I want him, here, he'd be
with me at once. And he may be able to suggest something--I know that
before he came to me--I picked him up in Bombay--he had knocked about
the ports of Southern China a great deal."

"Come with me and give my coachman instructions," said Mr. Raven.
"He'll run over to your place in ten minutes; and while we are
discussing this affair we may as well have as much light as we can get
on it."

He and Lorrimore left the room together; when they returned, the
conversation reverted to a discussion of possible ways and means of
finding out more about the antecedents of the Quicks. Half an hour
passed in this--fruitlessly; then the door was quietly opened and
behind the somewhat pompous figure of the butler I saw the bland,
obsequious smile of the Chinaman.

CHAPTER XI

THE FIVE CONCLUSIONS

We who sat round that table during the next hour or so must have made a
strange group. Mr. Raven, always a little nervous and flustered in manner;
his niece, fresh and eager, in her pretty dinner dress, a curious contrast
to the antiquated garb and parchment face of old Cazalette, who sat by
her, watchful and doubting; the officialdom-suggesting figure of the
police-inspector, erect and rigid in his close-fitting uniform; the
detective, rubicund and confident, though of what one scarcely knew;
Lorrimore and myself, keen listeners and watchers, and last, but not by
any means the least notable, the bland, suave Chinaman in his neat native
dress, sitting modestly in the background, inscrutable as an image carved
out of ivory. I do not know what the rest thought