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Updated: May 4, 2025
"Very good," answered Kennedy, "but it doesn't catch the murderer of Bertha Curtis and the Jap. Where is Clendenin, do you suppose?" "I don't know, but it at least leaves me free to carry on that case. What are all these pictures?"
There was no glamour here; all was sordid. Several Chinamen in various stages of dazed indolence were jabbering in incoherent oblivion, a state I suppose of "Oriental calm." There, in a bunk, lay Clendenin. His slow and uncertain breathing told of his being under the influence of the drug, and he lay on his back beside a "layout" with a half-cooked pill still in the bowl of his pipe.
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."
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.
The Mexican soldiers attacked the Rangers, and forced them back under the river-banks, but during the fight the jefe politico was killed. The Rangers were in a fair way to be overcome by the Mexicans, when Lieutenant Clendenin turned a Gatling loose from the American side and covered their position.
"At least we know this," commented Kennedy, as I congratulated myself on our fortunate escape, "Clendenin was not there, and there is something doing to-night, for he has sent for Nichi." We dropped into our apartment to freshen up a bit against the long vigil that we knew was coming that night.
Curtis in going over the effects of his sister has found a note from Clendenin which mentions another opium joint down in Chinatown. He wished me to investigate privately, but I have told him it would be impossible." At the mention of a den in the district he was cleaning up O'Connor had pricked up his ears. "Where is it?" he demanded. Curtis mentioned a number on Dover Street.
In it were a man and a girl as well as a chauffeur who wore goggles and a cap pulled down over his head so that he was practically unrecognisable. The girl might have been Miss Curtis and, as for the man, it might have been Clendenin. No one had bothered much with them; no one had taken their number; no one had paid any attention where they went after the ferry landed.
It had been a good day's work, but as yet it had not caught the slayer or cleared up the mystery of Bertha Curtis. Some one or something had had a power over the girl to lure her on. Was it Clendenin? The place in Forty-fourth Street, on inquiry, proved to be really closed as tight as a drum. Where was he? All the deaths had been mysterious, were still mysterious.
Kennedy relieved me of the responsibility of cooking the opium by doing it for both of us and, incidentally, dropping a hint not to inhale it and to breathe as little of it as possible. Even then it made me feel badly, though he must have contrived in some way to get even less of the stuff than I. A couple of pipes, and Kennedy beckoned to Nichi. "Where is Mr. Clendenin?" he asked familiarly.
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