“Hello! hello!  Sin Sin!  Sin Sin Wa!” croaked the raven.  “Number one p’lice chop, lo!” The note of a police whistle followed, rendered with uncanny fidelity.

Pyne entered the room.  It presented the same aspect as when he had left it.  The ship’s lantern stood upon the table, and Sin Sin Wa sat upon the tea-chest, the great black bird perched on his shoulder.  The fire in the stove had burned lower, and its downcast glow revealed less mercilessly the dirty condition of the floor.  Otherwise no one, nothing, seemed to have been disturbed.  Pyne leaned against the doorpost, taking out and lighting a cigarette.  The eye of Sin Sin Wa glanced sideways at him.

“Well, Sin Sin,” said Sir Lucien, dropping a match and extinguishing it under his foot, “you see I am not smoking tonight.”

“No smokee,” murmured the Chinaman.  “Velly good stuff.”

“Yes, the stuff is all right, Sin.”

“Number one proper,” crooned Sin Sin Wa, and relapsed into smiling silence.

“Number one p’lice,” croaked the raven sleepily.  “Smartest—­” He even attempted the castanets imitation, but was overcome by drowsiness.

For a while Sir Lucien stood watching the singular pair and smiling in his ironical fashion.  The motive which had prompted him to leave the neighboring house and to seek the companionship of Sin Sin Wa was so obscure and belonged so peculiarly to the superdelicacies of chivalry, that already he was laughing at himself.  But, nevertheless, in this house and not in its secret annex of a Hundred Raptures he designed to spend the night.  Presently: 

“Hon’lable p’lice patrol come ’long plenty soon,” murmured Sin Sin Wa.

“Indeed?” said Sir Lucien, glancing at his wristwatch.  “The door is open above.”

Sin Sin Wa raised one yellow forefinger, without moving either hand from the knee upon which it rested, and shook it slightly to and fro.

“Allee lightee,” he murmured.  “No bhobbery.  Allee peaceful fellers.”

“Will they want to come in?”

“Wantchee dlink,” replied Sin Sin Wa.

“Oh, I see.  If I go out into the passage it will be all right?”

“Allee lightee.”

Even as he softly crooned the words came a heavy squelch of rubbers upon the wet pavement outside, followed by a rapping on the door.  Sin Sin Wa glanced aside at Sir Lucien, and the latter immediately withdrew, partly closing the door.  The Chinaman shuffled across and admitted two constables.  The raven, remaining perched upon his shoulder, shrieked, “Smartest leg in Buenos Ayres,” and, fully awakened, rattled invisible castanets.

The police strode into the stuffy little room without ceremony, a pair of burly fellows, fresh-complexioned, and genial as men are wont to be who have reached a welcome resting-place on a damp and cheerless night.  They stood by the stove, warming their hands; and one of them stooped, took up the little poker, and stirred the embers to a brighter glow.