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It is one I hate hate HATE! There will be TWO cases of 'ginger' to go away some day instead of ONE that is all! Said, yalla!" "Your pwrimitive passions will wruin us"... The silvery voice grew even more silvery: "Do you quarrel with me, Ho-Pin, my friend?" "This is England, not Burma! Gianapolis"... "Ah! Whisper WHISPER it to HIM, and"...
"Because of the... carelessness of someone... Mrs. Vernon wandered into the room ... of Mrs. Leroux. She seems to have had a fit of remorse... or something like it. She begged Mrs. Leroux to pull up... before... too late. Ho-Pin arrived just as she was crying to ... Mrs. Leroux... and asking if she could ever forgive her ... for bringing her here.... It was Mrs.
"You are vewry welcome," said the Chinaman in his monotonous, metallic voice. "I understand that a fee of twenty-five guineas" he bowed again, still smiling. The visitor took out his pocket-book and laid five notes, one sovereign, and two half-crowns upon a little ebony table beside him. Ho-Pin bowed again and waved his hand toward the lemon-colored door on the left.
Gaston Max, from his silken bed in the catacombs of Ho-Pin, watched the hand of his watch which lay upon the little table beside him.
"And when you wreturn, you see and you hear stwrange things, Mr. Soames?" Soames, who was in imminent danger of becoming physically ill, gulped noisily. "No, sir," he whispered, tremulously, "I've been in here all the time." Ho-Pin nodded, slowly and sympathetically, but never removed the glittering eyes from the face of the man on the bed. "So you hear nothing, and see nothing?"
The night held yet another adventure in store for Soames. His encounter with the two Scotland Yard men had finally expelled all thoughts of pleasure from his mind. The upper world, the free world, was beset with pitfalls; he realized that for the present, at any rate, there could be no security for him, save in the catacombs of Ho-Pin.
"The office and warehouse staff of the ginger importing concern are innocent enough, as you know already. Kan-Suh Concessions was conducted merely as a blind, of course, but it enabled the Chinaman, Ho-Pin, to appear in Wharf-end Lane at all times of the day and night without exciting suspicion. He was supposed to be the manager, of course.
"I'll undertake to say there wasn't an Englishman on the job. The whole of the gang was probably imported from abroad somewhere, boarded and lodged during the day-time in the neighborhood of Limehouse, and watched by Mr. Ho-Pin or somebody else until the job was finished; then shipped back home again. It's easily done if money is no object."
Soames whirled around in a sudden panic, his heart leaping madly. The immobile brown face peered in at the door. "Ta'ala wayyaya!" repeated Said, his face expressionless as a mask. He pointed along the corridor. "Ho-Pin Effendi!" he explained. Soames, raising his hands to his collarless neck, made a swallowing noise, and would have spoken; but: "Ta'ala wayyaya!" reiterated the Oriental.
Here was the last court of appeal, to which came Dr. Cumberly and Inspector Dunbar alike; whose pronouncement they awaited, not questioning that it would be final. "To-morrow night," began Max, speaking in a very low voice, "we raid the headquarters of Ho-Pin. This disappearance of your daughter, Dr. Cumberly, is frightful; it could not have been foreseen or it should have been prevented.
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