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Putting two and two together I gathered that someone, although the name of this person never once passed the lips of the mandarin, had abducted his favourite wife." "Good heavens! truly amazing," I exclaimed. "Is it not? How small a place the world is. My old mandarin had traced the abductor and presumably the girl to some house which I gathered to be in the neighbourhood of Katong.
"Was there really anything in that story, or was it suggested by the unpleasant reputation of Adderley?" Jennings asked. "I can settle any doubts upon that point," said I; whereupon I immediately became a focus of general attention. "What! were you ever at that place of Adderley's at Katong?" asked Jennings with intense curiosity.
I don't know the particulars; I thought perhaps you did, as he was in your regiment." "I have heard nothing whatever about it," I replied. "You mean Sidney Adderley, the man who was so indecently rich?" someone interjected. "Had a place at Katong, and was always talking about his father's millions?" "That's the fellow."
"Your idea of fun is probably a peculiar one," I said dryly. Let me confess that I was only suffering the man's society because of an intense curiosity which now possessed me on learning that the lady of Katong was still in Adderley's company. Whether my repugnance for his society would have enabled me to remain any longer I cannot say.
"At his place at Katong." "I even thought his place at that resort was something of a myth," declared Jennings. "He never asked me to go there, but, then, I took that as a compliment. Pardon the apparent innuendo, Knox," he added, laughing. "But you say you actually visited the establishment?"
He was displaying its peculiar virtues and showing a certain acquaintance with his subject when he was interrupted. A door opened suddenly and a girl came in. Adderley put down the bowl and turned rapidly as I rose from my seat. It was the lady of Katong! I recognized her at once, although she wore a very up-to-date gown.
"I accidentally became implicated as follows," replied the American: "I was, as you know, doing voluntary surgical work near Singapore at the time, and one evening, presumably about the same period of which Knox is speaking, I was returning from the hospital at Katong, at which I acted sometimes as anaesthetist, to my quarters in Singapore; just drifting along, leisurely by the edge of the gardens admiring the beauty of the mangroves and the deceitful peace of the Eastern night.
What did all this portend, unless that the Mandarin Quong was dead? And if he were dead why was Adderley more afraid of him dead than he had been of him living? I thought of the haunting shadow, I thought of the night at Katong, and I thought of Dr. Matheson's words when he had told us of his discovery of the Chinaman lying in the road that night outside Singapore.
Seeing that I was still set upon departure: "Hold on a bit, Knox," he implored. "Don't go yet. There is something I want to ask you, something very important." He crossed to a sideboard and mixed himself a stiff whisky-and-soda. He asked me to join him, but I refused. "Won't you sit down again?" I shook my head. "You came to my place at Katong once," he began abruptly.
Anyhow, I could see that he was lonely, and as I chanced to be at a loose end I accepted an invitation to go over to what he termed his 'little place at Katong. "His little place proved to be a veritable palace. The man privately, or rather, secretly, to be exact, kept up a sort of pagan state. He had any number of servants.
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