As Kennedy related the conversation to me on our way over to Staten Island I tried to piece the thing together, but like one of the famous Chinese puzzles, it would not come out.  I had to admit the possibility that it was Clendenin who might have quarrelled over her attachment to Chin Jung, even though I have never yet been able to understand what the fascination is that some Orientals have over certain American girls.

All that night we watched patiently from a vantage point of an old shed near both the house and the decayed pier.  It was weird in the extreme, especially as we had no idea what might happen if we had success and saw something.  But there was no reward for our patience.  Absolutely nothing happened.  It was as though they knew, whoever they were, that we were there.  During the hours that passed O’Connor whiled away the time in a subdued whisper now and then in telling us of his experiences in Chinatown which he was now engaged in trying to clean up.  From Chinatown, its dens, its gamblers and its tongs we drifted to the legitimate business interests there, and I, at least, was surprised to find that there were some of the merchants for whom even O’Connor had a great deal of respect.  Kennedy evidently did not wish to violate in any way the confidence of Walker Curtis, and mention of the name of Chin Jung, but by a judicious question as to who the best men were in the Celestial settlement he did get a list of half a dozen or so from O’Connor.  Chin Jung was well up in the list.  However, the night wore away and still nothing happened.

It was in the middle of the morning when we were taking a snatch of sleep in our own rooms uptown that the telephone began to ring insistently.  Kennedy, who was resting, I verily believe, merely out of consideration for my own human frailties, was at the receiver in an instant.  It proved to be O’Connor.  He had just gone back to his office at headquarters and there he had found a report of another murder.

“Who is it?” asked Kennedy, “and why do you connect it with this case?”

O’Connor’s answer must have been a poser, judging from the look of surprise on Craig’s face.  “The Jap—­Nichi Moto?” he repeated.  “And it is the same sort of non-fatal wound, the same evidence of asphyxia, the same circumstances, even down to the red car reported by residents in the neighbourhood.”

Nothing further happened that day except this thickening of the plot by the murder of the peculiar-acting Nichi.  We saw his body and it was as O’Connor said.

“That fellow wasn’t on the level toward Clendenin,” Craig mused after we had viewed the second murder in the case.  “The question is, who and what was he working for?”

There was as yet no hint of answer, and our only plan was to watch again that night.  This time O’Connor, not knowing where the lightning would strike next, took Craig’s suggestion and we determined to spend the time cruising about in the fastest of the police motor boats, while the force of watchers along the entire shore front of the city was quietly augmented and ordered to be extra vigilant.