The place as usual was crowded, more particularly in the neighborhood of the two stoves.  Here were dock laborers, seamen and riverside loafers, lascars, Chinese, Arabs, negroes and dagoes.  Mrs. Dougal, defiant and red, brawny arms folded and her pose as that of one contemplating a physical contest, glared from behind the “solid” counter.  Dougal rested his hairy hands upon the “wet” counter and revealed his defective teeth in a vicious snarl.  Many of the patrons carried light baggage, since a P and O boat, an oriental, and the S. S. Mahratta, were sailing that night or in the early morning, and Dougal’s was the favorite house of call for a doch-an-dorrich for sailormen, particularly for sailormen of color.

Upon the police group became focussed the glances of light eyes and dark eyes, round eyes, almond-shaped eyes, and oblique eyes.  Silence fell.

“We are police officers,” called Coombes formally.  “All papers, please.”

Thereupon, without disturbance, the inspection began, and among the papers scrutinized were those of one, Chung Chow, an able-bodied Chinese seaman.  But since his papers were in order, and since he possessed two eyes and wore no pigtail, he excited no more interest in the mind of Detective-Sergeant Coombes than did any one of the other Chinamen in the place.

A careful search of the premises led to no better result, and George Martin accounted for his possession of a considerable sum of money found upon him by explaining that he had recently been paid off after a long voyage and had been lucky at cards.

The result of the night’s traffic, then, spelled failure for British justice, the S.S.  Mahratta sailed one stewardess short of her complement; but among the Chinese crew of another steamer Eastward bound was one, Chung Chow, formerly known as Sin Sin Wa.  And sometimes in the night watches there arose before him the picture of a black bird resting upon the knees of an aged Chinaman.  Beyond these figures dimly he perceived the paddy-fields of Ho-Nan and the sweeping valley of the Yellow River, where the opium poppy grows.

It was about an hour before the sailing of the ship which numbered Chung Chow among the yellow members of its crew that Seton Pasha returned once more to the deserted wharf whereon he had found Mrs. Monte Irvin’s spaniel.  Afterwards, in the light of ascertained facts, he condemned himself for a stupidity passing the ordinary.  For while he had conducted a careful search of the wharf and adjoining premises, convinced that there was a cellar of some kind below, he had omitted to look for a water-gate to this hypothetical cache.

Perhaps his self-condemnation was deserved, but in justice to the agent selected by Lord Wrexborough, it should be added that Chief Inspector Kerry had no more idea of the existence of such an entrance, and exit, than had Seton Pasha.