“Tell the chauffeur to return,” he said.  “Len Shi will now confess.”

Once started, Len Shi talked volubly.  The others merely put in a question now and then, and the detectives curbed their impatience as best they might until Len Shi was safely lodged in Bow Street again.

Then Winter led his Chinese helpers into an inner office and closed the door.

“Well?” he said, addressing the jute merchant.  The other Chinaman had very little English and could not maintain a conversation.

But, to the chief inspector’s surprise and wrath, the English-speaking Chinaman had only a request to make.

“Give me and my friend those three ivory skulls,” he said.

“Why?” he said.

“Without them we can accomplish nothing.”

“Be good enough to explain yourself.  Above all, tell me what Len Shi has been jabbering about.  He had plenty to say.”

“He told us of the fate of our friends in China.  Those things do not concern you.  What you want is to have Wong Li Fu and the others—­ there are nearly twenty in all—­ delivered into your hands.  Very well.  Give us those ivory skulls, and bring your men to that house in Charlotte Street, at one o’clock this night, and you will take them without a blow being struck.”

“That is our business, not yours,” said Winter, gruffly decisive.  “I cannot expose you two gentlemen to any personal risk in this affair.  Kindly—­”

“You do not understand,” broke in the jute merchant, addressing the burly representative of the Criminal Investigation Department as if he were a fractious child who must be informed as to the why and wherefore of a disagreeable duty.  “What will you do?  Surround the house with policemen, break in the doors, and fight?  You may, or may not succeed.  Some, plenty, of your men will certainly be killed.  That is not good.  We do not wish it.  Give me those skulls.  I and my friend will go there.  You come at one o’clock, tap so on the door, and we will admit you.  Then you take Wong Li Fu and all the others.  There will be no fight.”

The Chinaman’s manner was singularly impressive as he tapped three times on a high desk to emphasize, as it were, his instructions.  The sound, too, was curious.  He did not use his knuckles, but bunched the fingers of his right hand together, and rapped on the wood with the long nails which are a mark of distinction in his race.

“We make things easy and certain for you,” he added, more by way of painstaking argument than because any further explanation was really necessary.  “You do not wish to fail, no?  You want to be sure that Wong Li Fu’s evil deeds shall be stopped?  Good.  We do that—­ I and my friend.  We can pass the door-keepers.  Can you?  No.  At one o’clock we open the door and the Young Manchus will be wholly in your power, to do with them what you will.  I promise that, and my word is always taken in the city.”

Winter turned troubled eyes on Furneaux.