Any time after dark he expected to see the waving lantern and
to collect his last payment from the traffic.
At the very hour that Kerry was hastening to Prince's Gate, Sin Sin Wa
sat before the stove in the drug cache, the green-eyed joss upon his
knee. With a fragment of chamois leather he lovingly polished the
leering idol, crooning softly to himself and smiling his mirthless
smile. Perched upon his shoulder the raven studied this operation with
apparent interest, his solitary eye glittering bead-like. Upon the
opposite side of the stove sat the ancient Sam Tuk and at intervals of
five minutes or more he would slowly nod his hairless head.
The sliding door which concealed the inner room was partly open, and
from the opening there shone forth a dim red light, cast by the paper-
shaded lamp which illuminated the place. The coarse voice of the
Cuban-Jewess rose and fell in a ceaseless half-muttered soliloquy,
indescribably unpleasant but to which Sin Sin Wa was evidently
indifferent.
Propped up amid cushions on the divan which once had formed part of
the furniture of the House of a Hundred Raptures, Mrs. Sin was smoking
opium. The long bamboo pipe had fallen from her listless fingers, and
her dark eyes were partly glazed.
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