“Pull that light lower,” ordered Inspector Wessex. “There you are, Mr. Harley; what do you make of it?”  
Paul Harley and I bent gingerly over the ghastly exhibit to which the C.I.D. official had drawn our attention, and to view which we had journeyed from Chancery Lane to Wapping.
 
This was the body of a man dressed solely in ragged shirt and trousers. But the remarkable feature of his appearance lay in the fact that every scrap of hair from chin, lip, eyebrows and skull had been shaved off!
 
There was another facial disfigurement, peculiarly and horribly Eastern, which my pen may not describe.
 
“Impossible to identify!” murmured Harley. “Yes, you were right, Inspector; this is a victim of Oriental deviltry. Look here, too!”
 
He indicated three small wounds, one situated on the left shoulder and the others on the forearm of the dead man.
 
“The divisional surgeon cannot account for them,” replied Wessex. “They are quite superficial, and he thinks they may be due to the fact that the body got entangled with something in the river.”
 
“They are due to the fact that the man had a birthmark on his shoulder and something—probably a name or some device—tattooed on his arm,” said Harley quietly. “Some few years ago, I met with a similar case in the neighbourhood of Stambul. A woman,” he added, significantly.
 
Detective-Inspector Wessex listened to my companion with respect, for apart from his established reputation as a private inquiry-agent which had made his name familiar in nearly every capital of the civilized world, Paul Harley's work in Constantinople during the six months preceding war with Turkey had merited higher reward than it had ever received. Had his recommendations been adopted the course of history must have been materially changed.
 
“You think it's a Chinatown case, then, Mr. Harley?”
 
“Possibly,” was the guarded answer.
 
Paul Harley nodded to the constable in charge, and the ghastly figure was promptly covered up again. My friend stood staring vacantly at Wessex, and presently:
 
“The chief actor, I think, will prove to be not Chinese,” he said, turned, and walked out.
 
“If there's any development,” remarked Wessex as the three of us entered Harley's car, which stood at the door, “I will, of course, report to you, Mr. Harley. But in the absence of any clue or mark of identification, I fear the verdict will be, 'Body of a man unknown,' etc., which has marked the finish of a good many in this cheerful quarter of London.”
 
“Quite so,” said Harley, absently. “It presents extraordinary features, though, and may not end as you suppose. However—where do you want me to drop you, Wessex, at the Yard?”
 
“Oh no,” answered Wessex. “I made a special visit to Wapping just to get your opinion on the shaven man. I'm really going down to Deepbrow to look into that new disappearance case; the daughter of the gamekeeper. You'll have read of it?”
 
“I have,” said Harley shortly.
 
Indeed, readers of the daily press were growing tired of seeing on the contents bills: “Another girl missing.” The circumstance (which might have been no more than coincidence) that three girls had disappeared within the last eight weeks leaving no trace behind, had stimulated the professional scribes to link the cases, although no visible link had been found, and to enliven a somewhat dull journalistic season with theories about “a new Mormon menace.”
 
The vanishing of this fourth girl had inspired them to some startling headlines, and the case had interested me personally for the reason that I was acquainted with Sir Howard Hepwell, one of whose gamekeepers was the stepfather of the missing Molly Clayton. Moreover, it was hinted that she had gone away in the company of Captain Ronald Vane, at that tim............