Leaving Rita chatting with Miss Gretna, Kilfane took Pyne aside, offering him a cigarette from an ornate, jewelled case.

“Hello,” said the baronet, “can you still get these?”

“With the utmost difficulty,” murmured Kilfane, returning the case to his pocket.  “Lola charges me five guineas a hundred for them, and only supplies them as a favor.  I shall be glad to get back home, Pyne.  The right stuff is the wrong price in London.”

Sir Lucien laughed sardonically, lighting Kilfane’s cigarette and then his own.

“I find it so myself,” he said.  “Everything except opium is to be had at Kazmah’s, and nothing except opium interests me.”

“He supplies me with cocaine,” murmured the comedian.  “His figure works out, as nearly as I can estimate it, at 10s 7 1/2d. a grain.  I saw him about it yesterday afternoon, pointing out to the brown guy that as the wholesale price is roughly 2 1/4d., I regarded his margin of profit as somewhat broad.”

“Indeed!”

“The first time I had ever seen him, Pyne.  I brought an introduction from Dr. Silver, of New York, and Kazmah supplied me without question —­at a price.”

“You always saw Rashid?”

“Yes.  If there were other visitors I waited.  But yesterday I made a personal appointment with Kazmah.  He pretended to think I had come to have a dream interpreted.  He is clever, Pyne.  He never moved a muscle throughout the interview.  But finally he assured me that all the receivers in England had amalgamated, and that the price he charged represented a very narrow margin of profit.  Of course he is a liar.  He is making a fortune.  Do you know him personally?”

“No,” replied Sir Lucien, “outside his Bond Street home of mystery he is unknown.  A clever man, as you say.  You obtain your opium from Lola?”

“Yes.  Kazmah sent her to me.  She keeps me on ridiculously low rations, and if I had not brought my own outfit I don’t think she would have sold me one.  Of course, her game is beating up clients for the Limehouse dive.”

“You have visited ’The House of a Hundred Raptures’?”

“Many times, at week-ends.  Opium, like wine, is better enjoyed in company.”

“Does she post you the opium?”

“Oh, no; my man goes to Limehouse for it.  Ah! here she is.”

A woman came in, carrying a brown leather attache case.  She had left her hat and coat in the hall, and wore a smart blue serge skirt and a white blouse.  She was not tall, but she possessed a remarkably beautiful figure which the cut of her garments was not intended to disguise, and her height was appreciably increased by a pair of suede shoes having the most wonderful heels which Rita ever remembered to have seen worn on or off the stage.  They seemed to make her small feet appear smaller, and lent to her slender ankles an exaggerated frontal curve.

Her hair was of that true, glossy black which suggests the blue sheen of raven’s plumage, and her thickly fringed eyes were dark and southern as her hair.  She had full, voluptuous lips, and a bold self-assurance.  In the swift, calculating glance which she cast about the room there was something greedy and evil; and when it rested upon Rita Dresden’s dainty beauty to the evil greed was added cruelty.