along West India Dock Road, his mind's eye was set upon the
slinking figure of a Chinaman carrying a birdcage.




VI

A HINT OF INCENSE



One Chinaman more or less does not make any very great difference
to the authorities responsible for maintaining law and order in
Limehouse. Asiatic settlers are at liberty to follow their
national propensities, and to knife one another within reason.
This is wisdom. Such recreations are allowed, if not encouraged,
by all wise rulers of Eastern peoples.

"Found drowned," too, is a verdict which has covered many a dark
mystery of old Thames, but "Found in the river, death having been
due to the action of some poison unknown," is a finding which
even in the case of a Chinaman is calculated to stimulate the
jaded official mind.

New Scotland Yard had given Durham a roving commission, and had
been justified in the fact that the second victim, and this time
not a Chinaman, had been found under almost identical conditions.
The link with the establishment of Huang Chow was incomplete, and
Durham fully recognized that it was up to him to make it sound