"In the ordinary course of your duty you frequently pass along this
street?"
"It's the limit of the Limehouse beat, sir. Poplar patrols on the
other side."
"So that at this point, or hereabout, you would sometimes meet the
constable on the next beat?"
"Well, sir," Bryce hesitated, clearing his throat, "this street isn't
properly in his district."
"I didn't say it was!" snapped Kerry, glaring fiercely at the
embarrassed constable. "I said you would sometimes meet him here."
"Yes, sometimes."
"Sometimes. Right. Did you ever come in here?"
The constable ventured a swift glance at the savage red face, and:
"Yes, sir, now and then," he confessed. "Just for a warm on a cold
night, maybe."
"Allee velly welcome," murmured Sin Sin Wa.
Kerry never for a moment removed his fixed gaze from the face of
Bryce.
"Now, my lad," he said, "I'm going to ask you another question. I'm
not saying a word about the warm on a cold night. We're all human.
But--did you ever see or hear or smell anything suspicious in this
house?"
"Never," affirmed the constable earnestly.
"Did anything ever take place that suggested to your mind that Sin Sin
Wa might be concealing something--upstairs, for instance?"
"Never a thing, sir.
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