Max, with simulated eagerness, rested the mouthpiece between his lips and exhaled rapturously.

Said stood watching him, without the slightest expression of interest being perceptible upon his immobile face.  For some time the Frenchman made pretense of inhaling, gently, the potent vapor, lying propped upon one elbow; then, allowing his head gradually to droop, he closed his eyes and lay back upon the silken pillow.

Once more he exhaled feebly ere permitting the pipe to drop from his listless grasp.  The mouthpiece yet rested between his lips, but the lower lip was beginning to drop.  Finally, the pipe slipped through his fingers on to the rich carpet, and he lay inert, head thrown back, and revealing his lower teeth.  The nauseating fumes of opium loaded the atmosphere.

Said silently picked up the pipe, placed it upon the tray and retired, closing the door in the same noiseless manner that characterized all his movements.

For a time, M. Max lay inert, glancing about the place through the veil of his lashes.  He perceived no evidence of surveillance, therefore he ventured fully to open his eyes; but he did not move his head.

With the skill in summarizing detail at a glance which contributed largely to make him the great criminal investigator that he was, he noted those particulars which at an earlier time had occasioned the astonishment of Soames.

M. Max was too deeply versed in his art to attempt any further investigations, yet; he contented himself with learning as much as was possible without moving in any way; and whilst he lay there awaiting whatever might come, the door opened noiselessly—­to admit Ho-Pin.

He was about to be submitted to a supreme test, for which, however, he was not unprepared.  He lay with closed eyes, breathing nasally.

Ho-Pin, his face a smiling, mirthless mask, bent over the bed.  Adeptly, he seized the right eyelid of M. Max, and rolled it back over his forefinger, disclosing the eyeball.  M. Max, anticipating this test of the genuineness of his coma, had rolled up his eyes at the moment of Ho-Pin’s approach, so that now only the white of the sclerotic showed.  His trained nerves did not betray him.  He lay like a dead man, never flinching.

Ho-Pin, releasing the eyelid, muttered something gutturally, and stole away from the bed as silently as he had approached it.  Very methodically he commenced to search through M. Max’s effects, commencing with the discarded garments.  He examined the maker’s marks upon these, and scrutinized the buttons closely.  He turned out all the pockets, counted the contents of the purse, and of the notecase, examined the name inside M. Max’s hat, and explored the lining in a manner which aroused the detective’s professional admiration.  Watch and pocket-knife, Ho-Pin inspected with interest.  The little hand-bag which M. Max had brought with him, containing a few toilet necessaries, was overhauled religiously.  So much the detective observed through his lowered lashes.