But the
Chief Inspector had deduced (correctly) that the exotic appointments
depicted by Mollie were all of a detachable nature--merely masking the
filthiness beneath; so that at the shortest notice the House of a
Hundred Raptures could be dismantled. The communicating door was a
larger proposition, but that it was one within the compass of Sin Sin
Wa its effectual disappearance sufficiently demonstrated.
Doubtless (Kerry mused savagely) the appointments of the opium-house
had been smuggled into that magically hidden cache which now concealed
the conjurer Sin Sin Wa as well as the other members of the Kazmah
company. How any man of flesh and blood could have escaped from a
six-roomed house surrounded by detectives surpassed Kerry's powers of
imagination. How any apartment large enough to contain a mouse, much
less half a dozen human beings, could exist anywhere within the area
covered by the search-party he failed to understand, nor was he
prepared to admit it humanly possible.
Kerry chartered a taxicab by Brixton Town Hall and directed the man to
drive to Prince's Gate. To the curious glances of certain of his
neighbors who had never before seen the Chief Inspector otherwise than
a model of cleanliness and spruceness he was indifferent.
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