I will prepare my official report this evening when I return.

Yours obediently,--JOHN DURHAM.




V

LALA HUANG



"No," said Lala Huang, "I don't like London--not this part of
London."

"Where would you rather be?" asked Durham. "In China?"

Dusk had dropped its merciful curtain over Limehouse, and as the
two paced slowly along West India Dock Road it seemed to the
detective that a sort of glamour had crept into the scene.

He was a clever man within his limitations, and cultured up to a
point; but he was not philosopher enough to know that he viewed
the purlieus of Limehouse through a haze of Oriental mystery
conjured up by the conversation of his companion. Temple bells
there were in the clangour of the road cars. The smoke-stacks
had a semblance of pagodas. Burma she had conjured up before
him, and China, and the soft islands where she had first seen the
light. For as well as a streak of European, there was Kanaka