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"You are ignorant of our sublime motives, but you shall nevertheless assist us to establish that intellectual control which is destined to be the new World Force. No doubt you are conscious of a mental hiatus extending from the moment when you found the pigtail of the worthy Ah-Fang-Fu about your throat until that when you recovered consciousness in this room.
Both had anticipated an interval of waiting, and both were astonished when the door opened almost at once, revealing a blackly cavernous interior. "Go off! Too late! Shuttee shop!" chattered a voice out of the darkness. Max thrust his way resolutely in, followed by Stuart. "Shut the door, Ah-Fang-Fu!" he said curtly, speaking with a laboured French accent. "Scorpion!"
"Someone, as you say, is still there," replied Max. "But everything points to the imminent departure of this someone. Will you see to it, Inspector, that not a rat pardieu not a little mouse is allowed to slip out of our red circle to-day. For to-night we shall pay a friendly visit to the house of Ah-Fang-Fu, and I should wish all the company to be present."
An' unless they 'ung yer which it ain't 'umanly possible to 'ang a Chink it wouldn't be the last an' not by a damn long way ...an' not by a damn long way!" Ah-Fang-Fu, shrugging resignedly, shuffled from bunk to bunk in quest of a disused pipe, found one, and returning to the extemporised table, began to load it, muttering to himself.
She was out again almost immediately and bending over a bunk close to the left of the masked opening. The occupant concealed in its shadow did not rise and follow her, however. She seemed to be speaking to him. Stuart and Max watched intently. The head of Ah-Fang-Fu reappeared in the doorway behind them. "Now is our time!" whispered Max tensely.
Being covertly nudged by Max: "Cut the palaver, Pidgin," growled Stuart. "Allee lightee," chattered Ah-Fang-Fu, for evidently this was he. "You play one piecee pipee till Fo-Hi got." Raising the lantern, he led the way through a door at the back of the shop. Descending four wooden steps, Stuart and Max found themselves in the opium-den. "Full up. No loom," said the Chinaman.
"Velly special chop!" He passed from bunk to bunk, and presently came to a comatose Chinaman from whose limp hand, which hung down upon the floor, the pipe had dropped. This pipe Ah-Fang-Fu took from the smoker's fingers and returning to the box upon which the tin lamp was standing began calmly to load it. "Good heavens!" muttered Stuart "he is short of pipes! Pah! how the place reeks!"
Suppose he has written that it is here people meet together?" "Makee chit tell my name? Muchee hard luck! Number one police chop." "You say Fo-Hi not buying you bread and cheese. Perhaps it is Fo-Hi that save you from hanging!" Ah-Fang-Fu hugged himself. "Yak pozee!" Chunda Lal raised his finger. "Be very careful, Ah-Fang-Fu!" "Allee time velly careful."
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