Crossing Limehouse Canal, the car swung to the right into West India Dock Road.  The uproar of the commercial thoroughfare was left far behind.  Dark, narrow streets and sinister-looking alleys lay right and left of them, and into one of the narrowest and least inviting of all Mareno turned the car.

In the dimly-lighted doorway of a corner house the figure of a Chinaman showed as a motionless silhouette.

“Oh!” sighed Mollie Gretna rapturously, “a Chinaman!  I begin to feel deliciously sinful!”

The car came to a standstill.

“We get out here and walk,” said Sir Lucien.  “It would not be wise to drive further.  Mareno will deliver our baggage by hand presently.”

“But we shall all be murdered,” cried Mollie, “murdered in cold blood!  I am dreadfully frightened!”

“Something of the kind is quite likely,” drawled Sir Lucien, “if you draw attention to our presence in the neighborhood so deliberately.  Walk ahead, Kilfane, with Mollie.  Rita and I will follow at a discreet distance.  Leave the door ajar.”

Temporarily subdued by Pyne’s icy manner, Miss Gretna became silent, and went on ahead with Cyrus Kilfane, who had preserved an almost unbroken silence throughout the journey.  Rita and Sir Lucien followed slowly.

“What a creepy neighborhood,” whispered Rita.  “Look!  Someone is standing in that doorway over there, watching us.”

“Take no notice,” he replied.  “A cat could not pass along this street unobserved by the Chinese, but they will not interfere with us provided we do not interfere with them.”

Kilfane had turned to the right into a narrow court, at the entrance to which stood an iron pillar.  As he and his companion passed under the lamp in a rusty bracket which projected from the wall, they vanished into a place of shadows.  There was a ceaseless chorus of distant machinery, and above it rose the grinding and rattling solo of a steam winch.  Once a siren hooted apparently quite near them, and looking upward at a tangled, indeterminable mass which overhung the street at this point, Rita suddenly recognized it for a ship’s bow-sprit.

“Why,” she said, “we are right on the bank of the river!”

“Not quite,” answered Pyne.  “We are skirting a dock basin.  We are nearly at our destination.”

Passing in turn under the lamp, they entered the narrow court, and from a doorway immediately on the left a faint light shone out upon the wet pavement.  Pyne pushed the door fully open and held it for Rita to enter.  As she did so: 

“Hello! hello!” croaked a harsh voice.  “Number one p’lice chop, lo!  Sin Sin Wa!”

The uncanny cracked voice proceeded to give an excellent imitation of a police whistle, and concluded with that of the clicking of castanets.

“Shut the door, Lucy,” came the murmurous tones of Kilfane from the gloom of the stuffy little room, in the centre of which stood a stove wherefrom had proceeded the dim light shining out upon the pavement.  “Light up, Sin Sin.”