London was fog-bound. The threat of the past week had been no empty one. Towards the hour of each wintry sunset had come the yellow racks, hastening dusk and driving folks more speedily homeward to their firesides. The dull reports of fog-signals had become a part of the metropolitan bombilation, but hitherto the choking mist had not secured a strangle-hold.
Now, however, it had triumphed, casting its thick net over the city as if eager to stifle the pulsing life of the new Babylon. In the neighborhood of the Docks its density was extraordinary, and the purlieus of Limehouse became mere mysterious gullies of smoke impossible to navigate unless one were very familiar with their intricacies and dangers.
Chief Inspector Kerry, wearing a cardigan under his oilskins, tapped the pavement with the point of his malacca like a blind man. No glimmer of light could he perceive. He could not even see his companion.
“Hell!” he snapped irritably, as his foot touched a brick wall, “where the devil are you, constable?”
“Here beside you, sir,” answered P.C. Bryce, of K Division, his guide.
“Which side?”
“Here, sir.”
The constable grasped Kerry's arm.
“But we've walked slap into a damn brick wall!”
“Keep the wall on your left, sir, and it's all clear ahead.”
“Clear be damned!” said Kerry. “Are we nearly there?”
“About a dozen paces and we shall see the lamp—if it's been lighted.”
“And if not we shall stroll into the river, I suppose?”
“No danger of that. Even if the lamp's out, we shall strike the iron pillar.”
“I don't doubt it,” said Kerry grimly.
They proceeded at a slow pace. Dull reports and a vague clangor were audible. These sounds were so deadened by the clammy mist that they might have proceeded from some gnome's workshop deep in the bowels of the earth. The blows of a pile-driver at work on the Surrey shore suggested to Kerry's mind the phantom crew of Hendrick Hudson at their game of ninepins in the Katskill Mountains. Suddenly:
“Is that you, Bryce?” he asked.
“I'm here, sir,” replied the voice of the constable from beside him.
“H'm, then there's someone else about.” He raised his voice. “Hi, there! have you lost your way?”
Kerry stood still, listening. But no one answered to his call.
“I'll swear there was someone just behind us, Bryce!”
“There was, sir. I saw someone, too. A Chinese resident, probably. Here we are!”
A sound of banging became audible, and on advancing another two paces, Kerry found himself beside Bryce before a low closed door.
“Hello! hello!” croaked a dim voice. “Number one p'lice chop, lo! Sin Sin Wa!”
The flat note of a police whistle followed.
“Sin Sin is at home,” declared Bryce. “That's the raven.”
“Does he take the thing about with him, then?”
“I don't think so. But he puts it in a cupboard when he goes out, and it never talks unless it can see a light.”
Bolts were unfastened and the door was opened. Out through the moving curtain of fog shone the red glow from a stove. A grotesque silhouette appeared outlined upon the dim redness.
“You wantchee me?” crooned Sin Sin Wa.
“I do!” rapped Kerry. “I've called to look for opium.”
He stepped past the Chinaman into the dimly lighted room. As he did so, the cause of an apparent deformity which had characterized the outline of Sin Sin Wa became apparent. From his left shoulder the raven partly arose, moving his big wings, and:
“Smartest leg!” it shrieked in Kerry's ear and rattled imaginary castanets.
The Chief Inspector started, involuntarily.
“Damn the thing!” he muttered. “Come in, Bryce, and shut the door. What's this?”
On a tea-chest set beside the glowing stove, the little door of which was open, stood a highly polished squat wooden image, gilded and colored red and green. It was that of a leering Chinaman, possibly designed to represent Buddha, and its jade eyes seemed to blink knowingly in the dancing rays from the stove.
“Sin Sin Wa's Joss,” murmured the proprietor, as Bryce closed the outer door. “Me shinee him up; makee Joss glad. Number one piecee Joss.”
Kerry turned and stared into the pock-marked smiling face. Seen in that dim light it was not unlike the carved face of the image, save that the latter possessed two open eyes and the Chinaman but one. The details of the room were indiscernible, lost in yellowish shadow, but the eye of the raven and the eye of Sin Sin Wa glittered like strange jewels.
“H'm,” said Kerry. “Sorry to interrupt your devotions. Light us.”
“Allee velly proper,” crooned Sin Sin Wa.
He took up the Joss tenderly and bore it across the room. Opening a little cupboard set low down near the floor he discovered a lighted lantern. This he took out and set upon the dirty table. Then he placed the image on a shelf in the cupboard and turned smilingly to his visitors.
“Number one p'lice!” shrieked the raven.
“Here!” snapped Kerry. “Put that damn thing to bed!”
“Velly good,” murmured Sin Sin Wa complacently.
He raised his hand to his shoulder and the raven stepped sedately from shoulder to wrist. Sin Sin Wa stooped.
“Come, Tling-a-Ling,” he said softly. “You catchee sleepee.”
The raven stepped down from his wrist and walked into the cupboard.
“So fashion, lo!” said Sin Sin Wa, closing the door.
He seated himself upon a tea-chest beside the useful cupboard, resting his hands upon his knees and smiling.
Kerry, chewing steadily, had watched the proceedings in silence, but now:
“Constable Bryce,” he said crisply, “you recognize this man as Sin Sin Wa, the occupier of the house?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Bryce.
He was not wholly at ease, and persistently avoided the Chinaman's oblique, beady eye.
“In the ordinary course of your duty you frequently pass along this street?”
“It's the limit of the Limehouse beat, sir. Poplar patrols on the other side.”
“So that at this point, or hereabout, you would sometimes meet the constable on the next beat?”
“Well, sir,” Bryce hesitated, clearing his throat, “this street isn't properly in his district.”
“I didn't say it was!” snapped Kerry, glaring fiercely at the embarrassed constable. “I said you would sometimes meet him here.”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Sometimes. Right. Did you ever come in here?”
The constable ventured a s............