Shortly after our entrance into the passage the dance terminated, and the dancer fled through a curtained door at the farther end of the room.  A buzz of conversation arose.

“It is a sort of combined Wekaleh and place of entertainment for a certain class of Oriental residents in, or visiting, London,” Smith whispered.  “The old gentleman who has just left us is the proprietor or host.  I have been here before on several occasions, but have always drawn blank.”

He was peering out eagerly into the strange clubroom.

“Whom do you expect to find here?” I asked.

“It is a recognized meeting-place,” said Smith in my ear. 
“It is almost a certainty that some of the Fu-Manchu group
use it at times.”

Curiously I surveyed all these faces which were visible from the spy-hole.  My eyes rested particularly upon the two Chinamen.

“Do you recognize anyone?” I whispered.

“S-sh!”

Smith was craning his neck so as to command a sight of the doorway.  He obstructed my view, and only by his tense attitude and some subtle wave of excitement which he communicated to me did I know that a new arrival was entering.  The hum of conversation died away, and in the ensuing silence I heard the rustle of draperies.  The newcomer was a woman, then.  Fearful of making any noise I yet managed to get my eyes to the level of the shutter.

A woman in an elegant, flame-colored opera cloak was crossing the floor and coming in the direction of the spot where we were concealed.  She wore a soft silk scarf about her head, a fold partly draped across her face.  A momentary view I had of her—­and wildly incongruous she looked in that place—­and she had disappeared from sight, having approached someone invisible who sat upon the divan immediately beneath our point of vantage.

From the way in which the company gazed towards her, I divined that she was no habitue of the place, but that her presence there was as greatly surprising to those in the room as it was to me.

Whom could she be, this elegant lady who visited such a haunt—­ who, it would seem, was so anxious to disguise her identity, but who was dressed for a society function rather than for a midnight expedition of so unusual a character?

I began a whispered question, but Smith tugged at my arm to silence me.  His excitement was intense.  Had his keener powers enabled him to recognize the unknown?

A faint but most peculiar perfume stole to my nostrils, a perfume which seemed to contain the very soul of Eastern mystery.  Only one woman known to me used that perfume—­Karamaneh.

Then it was she!

At last my friend’s vigilance had been rewarded.  Eagerly I bent forward.  Smith literally quivered in anticipation of a discovery.  Again the strange perfume was wafted to our hiding-place; and, glancing neither to right nor left, I saw Karamaneh—­for that it was she I no longer doubted—­ recross the room and disappear.