“One of the frequenters of the place was this unfortunate girl, Bertha Curtis.  I have watched her go in and out myself, wild-eyed, nervous, mentally and physically wrecked for life.  Perhaps twenty-five or thirty persons visit the place each day.  It is run by a man known as ‘Big Jack’ Clendenin who was once an actor and, I believe, met and fascinated Miss Curtis during her brief career on the stage.  He has an attendant there, a Jap, named Nichi Moto, who is a perfect enigma.  I can’t understand him on any reasonable theory.  A long time ago we raided the place and packed up a lot of opium, pipes, material and other stuff.  We found Clendenin there, this girl, several others, and the Jap.  I never understood just how it was but somehow Clendenin got off with a nominal fine and a few days later opened up again.  We were watching the place, getting ready to raid it again and present such evidence that Clendenin couldn’t possibly beat it, when all of a sudden along came this—­this tragedy.”

We had at last arrived at the private establishment which was doing duty as a morgue.  The bedraggled form that had been bandied about by the tides all night lay covered up in the cold damp basement.  Bertha Curtis had been a girl of striking beauty once.  For a long time I gazed at the swollen features before I realised what it was that fascinated and puzzled me about her.  Kennedy, however, after a casual glance had arrived at at least a part of her story.

“That girl,” he whispered to me so that her brother could not hear, “has led a pretty fast life.  Look at those nails, yellow and dark.  It isn’t a weak face, either.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing, the Oriental glamour and all that, fascinated her as much as the drug.”

So far the case with its heartrending tragedy had all the earmarks of suicide.

XI

THE OPIUM JOINT

O’Connor drew back the sheet which covered her and in the calf of the leg disclosed an ugly bullet hole.  Ugly as it was, however, it was anything but dangerous and seemed to indicate nothing as to the real cause of her death.  He drew from his pocket a slightly misshapen bullet which had been probed from the wound and handed it to Kennedy, who examined both the wound and the bullet carefully.  It seemed to be an ordinary bullet except that in the pointed end were three or four little round, very shallow wells or depressions only the minutest fraction of an inch deep.

“Very extraordinary,” he remarked slowly.  “No, I don’t think this was a case of suicide.  Nor was it a murder for money, else the jewels would have been taken.”

O’Connor looked approvingly at me.  “Exactly what I said,” he exclaimed.  “She was dead before her body was thrown into the water.”

“No, I don’t agree with you there,” corrected Craig, continuing his examination of the body.  “And yet it is not a case of drowning exactly, either.”