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Page 27
"Captain. Egerton's," he replied slowly. "But what business may
it be of yours?"
"I'm Chief Inspector Kerry, of New Scotland Yard," came the rapid
reply. "I want to follow the car that has just left."
"What about running?" demanded the man insolently.
Kerry shot out a small, muscular hand and grasped the speaker's
wrist.
"I'll say one thing to you," he rapped. "I'm a police officer,
and I demand your help. Refuse it, and you'll wake up in Vine
Street."
The Chief Inspector was on the step now, bending forward so that
his fierce red face was but an inch removed from that of the
startled chauffeur. The quelling force of his ferocious
personality achieved its purpose, as it rarely failed to do.
"I'm getting in," added the Chief Inspector, jumping back on to
the pavement. "Lose that French bus, and I'll charge you with
resisting and obstructing an officer of the law in the execution
of his duty. Start."
Kerry leaped in and banged the door--and the Rolls-Royce started.
II
AT MALAY JACK'S
When Kerry left Bond Street the mistiness of the night was
developing into definite fog. It varied in different districts.
Thus, St. Paul's Churchyard had been clear of it at a time when
it had lain impenetrably in Trafalgar Square. When, an hour and
a half after setting out in the commandeered Rolls-Royce, Kerry
groped blindly along Limehouse Causeway, it was through a yellow
murk that he made his way--a vapour which could not only be seen,
smelled and felt, but tasted.
He was in one of his most violent humours. He found some slight
solace in the reflection that the impudent chauffeur, from whom
he had parted in West India Dock Road, must experience great
difficulty in finding his way back to the West End.
"Damn the fog!" he muttered, coughing irritably.
It had tricked him, this floating murk of London; for, while he
had been enabled to keep the coupe in view right to the fringe of
dockland, here, as if bred by old London's river, the fog had
lain impenetrably.
Chief Inspector Kerry was a man who took many risks, but because
of this cursed fog he had no definite evidence that Chada's car
had gone to a certain house. Right of search he had not, and so
temporarily he was baffled.
Now the nearest telephone was his objective, and presently, where
a blue light dimly pierced the mist, he paused, pushed open a
swing door, and stepped into a long, narrow passage. He
descended three stairs, and entered a room laden with a sickly
perfume compounded of stale beer and spirits; of greasy
humanity--European, Asiastic, and African; of cheap tobacco and
cheaper scents; and, vaguely, of opium.
It was fairly well lighted, but the fog had penetrated here,
veiling some of the harshness of its rough appointments. An
unsavoury den was Malay Jack's, where flotsam of the river might
be found. Yellow men there were, and black men and brown men.
But all the women present were white.
Fan-tan was in progress at one of the tables, the four players
being apparently the only strictly sober people in the room. A
woman was laughing raucously as Kerry entered, and many coarse-
voiced conversations were in progress; but as he pulled the rough
curtain walls aside and walked into the room, a hush, highly
complimentary to the Chief Inspector's reputation, fell upon the
assembly. Only the woman's raucous laughter continued, rising, a
hideous solo, above a sort of murmur, composed of the words "Red
Kerry!" spoken in many tones.
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