dirty water was pouring into the cave of the dragon through the open door ahead of him.
Into the disc of light, leaped, fantastic, the witch figure of the Eurasian. She turned and faced him, threw up both her arms, and laughed shrilly, insanely. Then she turned and ran like a hare, her yellow silk dress gleaming in the moving ray. Inhaling sibilantly, Max leaped after her. In three strides he found his foot splashing in water. An instant he hesitated. Through the corridor ahead of him sped the yellow figure, and right to the end. The seemingly solid wall opened before her; it was another masked door.
Max crossed the threshold hard upon her heels. Three descending steps were ahead of him, and then a long brick tunnel in which swirled fully three feet of water, which, slowly rising, was gradually flooding the cave of the dragon.
On went the Eurasian, up to her waist in the flood, with Max gaining upon her, now, at every stride. There was a damp freshness in the air of the passage, and a sort of mist seemed to float above the water. This mist had a familiar smell… .
They were approaching the river, and there was a fog to-night!
Even as he realized the fact, the quarry vanished, and the ray of light from Max's lamp impinged upon the opening in an iron sluice gate. The Eurasian had passed it, but Max realized that he must lower his head if he would follow. He ducked rapidly, almost touching the muddy water with his face. A bank of yellow fog instantly enveloped him, and he pulled up short, for, instinctively, he knew that another step might precipitate him into the Thames.
He strove to peer about him, but the feeble ray of the lamp was incapable of penetrating the fog. He groped with his fingers, right and left, and presently found slimy wooden steps. He drew himself closely to these, and directed the light upon them. They led upward. He mounted cautiously, and was clear of the oily water, now, and upon a sort of gangway above which lowered a green and rotting wooden roof.
Obviously, the tide was rising; and, after seeking vainly to peer through the fog ahead, he turned and descended the steps again, finding himself now nearly up to his armpits in water. He just managed to get in under the sluice gate without actually submerging his head, and to regain the brick tunnel.
He paused for a moment, hoping to be able to lower the gate, but the apparatus was out of his reach, and he had nothing to stand upon to aid him in manipulating it.
Three or four inches of water now flooded the cave of the golden dragon. Max pulled the keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door at the foot of the steps. He turned, resting the electric lamp upon one of the little ebony tables, and lifting Helen Cumberly, carried her half-way up the steps, depositing her there with her back to the wall. He staggered down again; his remarkable physical resources were at an end; it must be another's work to rescue Mrs. Leroux. He stooped over Gianapolis, and turned his head. The crooked eyes glared up at him deathly.
'May the good God forgive you,' he whispered. 'You tried to make your peace with Him.'
The sound of muffled blows began to be audible from the head of the steps. Max staggered out of the cave of the golden dragon. A slight freshness and dampness was visible in its atmosphere, and the gentle gurgling of water broke its heavy stillness. There was a new quality come into it, and, strangely, an old quality gone out from it. As he lifted the lamp from the table—now standing in slowly moving water—the place seemed no longer to be the cave of the golden dragon he had known… .
He mounted the steps again, with difficulty, resting his shaking hands upon the walls. Shattering blows were being delivered upon the door, above.
'Dunbar!' he cried feebly, stepping aside to avoid Helen Cumberly, where she lay. 'Dunbar!'…
Chapter 40 DAWN AT THE NORE
The river police seemed to be floating, suspended in the fog, which now was so dense that the water beneath was invisible. Inspector Rogers, who was in charge, fastened up his coat collar about his neck and turned to Stringer, the Scotland Yard man, who sat beside him in the stern of the cutter gloomily silent.
'Time's wearing on,' said Rogers, and his voice was muffled by the fog as though he were speaking from inside a box. 'There must be some hitch.'
'Work it out for yourself,' said the C. I. D. man gruffly. 'We know that the office in Globe Road belongs to Gianapolis, and according to the Eastern Exchange he was constantly ringing up East 39951; that's the warehouse of Kan-Suh Concessions. He garages his car next door to the said warehouse, and to-night our scouts follow Gianapolis and Max from Piccadilly Circus to Waterloo Station, where they discharge the taxi and pick up Gianapolis' limousine. Still followed, they drive—where? Straight to the garage at the back of that wharf yonder! Neither Gianapolis, Max, nor the chauffeur come out of the garage. I said, and I still say, that we should have broken in at once, but Dunbar was always pigheaded, and he thinks Max is a tin god.'…
'Well, there's no sign from Max,' said Rogers; 'and as we aren't ten yards above the wharf, we cannot fail to hear the signal. For my part I never noticed anything suspicious, and never had anything reported, about this ginger firm, and where the swell dope-shop I've heard about can be situated, beats me. It can't very well be UNDER the place, or it would be below the level of the blessed river!'
'This waiting makes me sick!' growled Stringer. 'If I understand aright—and I'm not sure that I do—there are two women tucked away there somewhere in that place'—he jerked his thumb aimlessly into the fog; 'and here we are hanging about with enough men in yards, in doorways, behind walls, and freezing on the river, to raid the Houses of Parliament!'
'It's a pity we didn't get the word from the hospitals before Max was actually inside,' said Rogers. 'For three wealthy ladies to be driven to three public hospitals in a sort of semi-conscious condition, with symptoms of opium, on the same evening isn't natural. It points to the fact that the boss of the den has UNLOADED! He's been thoughtful where his lady clients were concerned, but probably the men have simply been kicked out and left to shift for themselves. If we only knew one of them it might be confirmed.'
'It's not worth worrying about, now,' growled Stringer. 'Let's have a look at the time.'
He fumbled inside his overcoat and tugged out his watch.
'Here's a light,' said Rogers, and shone the ray of an electric torch upon the watch-face.
'A quarter-to-three,' grumbled Stringer. 'There may be murder going on, and here we are.'…
A sudden clamor arose upon the shore, near by; a sound as of sledge-hammers at work. But above this pierced shrilly the call of a police whistle.
'What's that?' snapped Rogers, leaping up. 'Stand by there!'
The sound of the whistle grew near and nearer; then came a voice—that of Sergeant Sowerby—hailing them through the fog.
'DUNBAR'S IN! But the gang have escaped! They've got to a motor launch twenty yards down, on the end of the creek'…
But already the police boat was away.
'Let her go!' shouted Rogers—'close inshore! Keep a sharp lookout for a cutter, boys!'
Stringer, aroused now to excitement, went blundering forward through the fog, joining the men in the bows. Four pairs of eyes were peering through the mist, the damnable, yellow mist that veiled all things.
'Curse the fog!' said Stringer; 'it's just our damn luck!'
'Cutter 'hoy!' bawled a man at his side suddenly, one of the river police more used to the mists of the Thames. 'Cutter on the port bow, sir!'
'Keep her in sight,' shouted Rogers from the stern; 'don't lose her for your lives!'
Stringer, at imminent peril of precipitating himself into the water, was craning out over the bows and staring until his eyes smarted.
'Don't you see her?' said one of the men on the lookout. 'She carries no lights, of course, but you can just make out the streak of her wake.'
Harder, harder stared Stringer, and now a faint, lighter smudge in the blackness, ahead and below, proclaimed itself the wake of some rapidly traveling craft.
'I can hear her motor!' said another voice.
Stringer began, now, also to listen.
Muffled sirens were hooting dismally all about Limehouse Reach, and he knew that this random dash through
