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Page 52
"It is," I replied.
"You are required to come at once to Bow Street to identify a
woman who was found murdered in a taxi-cab in the Strand about
eleven o'clock to-night."
I suppressed an exclamation of horror; I felt myself turning
pale.
"But what has it to do------"
"The driver stated she came from your chambers, for you saw her
off, and her last words to you were 'Good night, Mr. Knox, I am
sincerely sorry to have given you all this trouble.' Is that
correct, sir?"
The constable, who had read out the information in an official
voice, now looked at me, as I stood there stupefied.
"It is," I said blankly. "I'll come at once." It would seem that
I had misjudged my unfortunate visitor: her story of the yellow
man on the stair had apparently been not a fabrication, but a
gruesome fact!
III
HOW I REGAINED IT
My ghastly duty was performed; I had identified the dreadful
thing, which less than an hour before had been a strikingly
beautiful woman, as my mysterious visitor. The police were
palpably disappointed at the sparsity of my knowledge respecting
her. In fact, had it not chanced that Detective Sergeant Durham
was in the station, I think they would have doubted the accuracy
of my story.
As a man of some experience in such matters, I fully recognized
its improbability, but beyond relating the circumstances leading
up to my possession of the pigtail and the events which had
ensued, I could do no more in the matter. The weird relic had
not been found on the dead woman, nor in the cab.
Now the unsavoury business was finished, and I walked along Bow
Street, racking my mind for the master-key to this mystery in
which I was become enmeshed. How I longed to rush off to
Harley's rooms in Chancery Lane and to tell him the whole story!
But my friend was a thousand miles away--and I had to see the
thing out alone.
That the pigtail was some sacred relic stolen from a Chinese
temple and sought for by its fanatical custodians was a theory
which persistently intruded itself. But I could find no place in
that hypothesis for the beautiful Jewess; and that she was
intimately concerned I did not doubt. A cool survey of the facts
rendered it fairly evident that it was she and none other who had
stolen the pigtail from my rooms. Some third party--possibly the
"yellow man" of whom she had spoken--had in turn stolen it from
her, strangling her in the process.
The police theory of the murder (and I was prepared to accept it)
was that the assassin had been crouching in hiding behind or
beside the cab--or even within the dark interior. He had leaped
in and attacked the woman at the moment that the taxi-man had
started his engine; if already inside, the deed had proven even
easier. Then, during some block in the traffic, he had slipped
out unseen, leaving the body of the victim to be discovered when
the cab pulled up at the hotel.
I knew of only one place in London where I might hope to obtain
useful information, and for that place I was making now. It was
Malay Jack's, whence I had been bound on the previous night when
my strange meeting with the seaman who then possessed the pigtail
had led to a change of plan. The scum of the Asiatic population
always come at one time or another to Jack's, and I hoped by dint
of a little patience to achieve what the police had now
apparently despaired of achieving--the discovery of the assassin.
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