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Page 30
He walked on briskly, tapping the pavement with his malacca. The
sneaking figure of the informer was swallowed up in the fog. But
not a dozen paces had the Chief Inspector gone when he was
arrested by a frenzied scream, rising, hollowly, in a dreadful,
muffled crescendo. Words reached him.
"My God, he's stabbed me!"
Then came a sort of babbling, which died into a moan.
"Hell!" muttered Kerry, "the poor devil was right!"
He turned and began to run back, fumbling in his pocket for his
electric torch. Almost in the same moment that he found it he
stumbled upon Peters, who lay half in the road and half upon the
sidewalk.
Kerry pressed the button, and met the glance of upturned, glazing
eyes. Even as he dropped upon his knee beside the dying man,
Peters swept his arm around in a convulsive movement, having the
fingers crooked, coughed horribly, and rolled upon his face.
Switching off the light of the torch, Kerry clenched his jaws in
a tense effort of listening, literally holding his breath. But
no sound reached him through the muffling fog. A moment he
hesitated, well knowing his danger, then viciously snapping on
the light again, he quested in the blood-stained mud all about
the body of the murdered man.
"Ah!"
It was an exclamation of triumph.
One corner hideously stained, for it had lain half under Peters's
shoulder, Kerry gingerly lifted between finger and thumb a
handkerchief of fine white silk, such as is carried in the breast
pocket of an evening coat.
It bore an ornate monogram worked in gold, and representing the
letters "L. C." Oddly enough, it was the corner that bore the
monogram which was also bloodstained.
III
THE ROOM OF THE GOLDEN BUDDHA
It was a moot point whether Lady Pat Rourke merited condemnation
or pity. She possessed that type of blonde beauty which seems to
be a lodestone for mankind in general. Her husband was wealthy,
twelve years her senior, and, far from watching over her with
jealous care--an attitude which often characterizes such unions--
he, on the contrary, permitted her a dangerous freedom, believing
that she would appreciate without abusing it.
Her friendship with Lou Chada had first opened his eyes to the
perils which beset the road of least resistance. Sir Noel Rourke
was an Anglo-Indian, and his prejudice against the Eurasian was
one not lightly to be surmounted. Not all the polish which
English culture had given to this child of a mixed union could
blind Sir Noel to the yellow streak. Courted though Chada was by
some of the best people, Sir Noel remained cold.
The long, magnetic eyes, the handsome, clear-cut features, above
all, that slow and alluring smile, appealed to the husband of the
wilful Pat rather as evidences of Oriental, half-effeminate
devilry than as passports to decent society. Oxford had veneered
him, but scratch the veneer and one found the sandal-wood of the
East, perfumed, seductive, appealing, but something to be shunned
as brittle and untrustworthy.
Yet he hesitated, seeking to be true to his convictions. Knowing
what he knew already, and what he suspected, it is certain that,
could he have viewed Lou Chada through the eyes of Chief
Inspector Kerry, the affair must have terminated otherwise. But
Sir Noel did not know what Kerry knew. And the pleasure-seeking
Lady Rourke, with her hair of spun gold and her provoking smile,
found Lou Chada dangerously fascinating; almost she was
infatuated--she who had known so much admiration.
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