fire!" cried Winter.
Simultaneously came a shout from both ends of the street. Men were running from the detachment guarding the rear of the premises to say that a fierce fire was raging on the first floor back of No. 412.
"Smash in those three doors!" cried Winter to his helpers. "Drag out every Chinaman you meet! Handcuff them in threes and fours! Arrest these fellows standing outside, but keep the two lots separate!"
"Why are we, your friends, to be arrested?" demanded Li Chang's dignified voice.
"I'll soon tell you why, you slim demon!" shouted the chief inspector, roused to anger by the consciousness that he had been duped. "What fiendish trick have you played on those wretches penned up inside there? But I'll soon know."
He turned to the local officer.
"Better march this crowd of Chinamen straight to your station," he said. "I'll follow soon, and lay a charge."
He felt a claw-like hand on his arm, and wild with vexation though he was, forced himself to listen.
"We are ready to go where you wish," said Li Chang calmly. "But spare your own men. They must not enter No. 412. They will be blown to pieces. Stop them! I shall not warn you twice!"
Somehow, Winter was impelled to obey. The center door was already yielding, but he rushed forward and told the party which meant to enter at that point to abandon it, and reinforce their comrades. A number of detectives and police were already inside the dark hallways of Nos. 410 and 414 when the very walls trembled under the shock of a violent explosion in No. 412, which was quickly followed by three others.
A tongue of flame darted instantly to a height of many feet above the topmost storey, showing that the series of explosions had not only destroyed the whole rear section of the house, and thus given the fire fresh fuel and plenty of space but there could be no reasonable doubt that the bombs, if bombs they were, had themselves been filled with some highly inflammable substance. Thenceforth, the police could do nothing beyond keeping at a distance the crowds which soon gathered, and thus clear a space for the operations of the fire brigade.
No. 412 was thoroughly gutted. Not a shred of the building remained except the crumbling walls at front and back. Its neighbors were in little better case, and the firemen devoted their efforts mainly toward keeping the disaster within bounds.
One thing was certain. No human being had escaped from out of that doomed habitation. The fire, too, had gained hold with a phenomenal rapidity which argued the use of petrol, or some kindred agent of irresistible potency when ignited.
Winter and Furneaux, accompanied by the commissioner and Mr. Handyside, walked to the local police station. The American was the only one who spoke.
"Queer ducks, the Chinese!" he said, seemingly musing aloud rather than inviting comment. "They like to settle their own differences. I guess we'd feel pretty much like that if we lived in China."
No one took up the point thus raised. Winter bent a searching, almost sorrowful glance at Furneaux, but the little man's eyes were fixed on the ground, as though he were deep in thought.
In the charge room of the police station the twenty-five Chinamen awaited them. Twenty-five pairs of oblique eyes gleamed at the four when they entered, but not a word was spoken.
Winter, of course, singled out Li Chang for a parley.
"Now," he said, "tell me just what happened after you and these others went into the two houses in Charlotte Street."
The Chinaman faced him imperturbably. His manner was as unemotional and his words as slow and methodical as if he were selling jute in his East End warehouse.
"We asked to be admitted, and after giving the password and showing the sign there was no difficulty," he said. "We were in parties of three. As you probably saw, I headed one, which entered No. 410. My friend, Won Lung Foo, led the other. The ivory skulls made matters simple. We explained to the door-keepers that we had just arrived from China, and brought messages of great urgency. Once inside, we gagged and bound the door-keepers. Then we entered No. 412, where we knew that Wong Li Fu would be smoking opium with the remaining fourteen."
"Were there seventeen in the gang, all told?" broke in Furneaux.
"Seventeen Manchus. The rest are—paid men—of no account."
"Queer," muttered Furneaux, almost to himself. "The story begins and ends with the number 17!"
Again did Winter strive to pierce his colleague with a look from those bulging eyes, but the little man was far too occupied with a singular numerical coincidence to pay any heed to him.
"Well, go on!" he said impatiently, glaring at the Chinaman.
"We went to the big room at the back," continued Li Chang quietly, uttering each word separately, and evidently weighing it in his mind to test its accuracy before use, "and found Wong Li Fu. Him we bound quickly, and very securely. The others we tied in twos and threes. Of course, we brought the two doorkeepers to the same room, so that you should experience no difficulty, but take them all together."
Here Mr. Won Lung Foo broke in. Evidently he could follow English better than speak it.
"Yes," he said. "We wantee you catchee Chineemans all togeller—muchee wantee!"
Then he smiled blandly, and his tongue rolled over his lips as though some fruit or sweetmeat had left a pleasant taste there.
"Then, if your surprise was so successful, what caused the fire?" said Winter, affecting a magnificent disregard of the plain facts.
Li Chang, for once, permitted his immobile features to show some semblance of anxious uncertainty.
"That," he said, "is a mystery which can, perhaps, never be solved. But it saves your Government much trouble."
In those few words he expressed quite clearly the line he adhered to throughout a long cross-examination. Neither Winter nor the commissioner could shake him. The fire was an accident—the outcome of an extraordinary chance. He knew nothing whatsoever of its origin.
After a protracted debate in private between the two heads of the Criminal Investigation Department, the names and addresses of the prisoners were recorded and they were set at liberty.
Before Li Chang went away Furneaux demanded the return of the three ivory skulls, which were promptly handed over.
"One word in your ear," murmured the detective, sotto voce. "Did Wong Li Fu recognize you?"
"Oh, yes," said the Chinaman.
"And you spoke to him?"
"Oh, yes."
The eyes of the two clashed. For once, Furneaux peered deep into the mind of an Oriental, and what he saw there kept him quiet, but he knew, just as surely as if he had been present, exactly what Li Chang said to Wong Li Fu. He delivered a message from two graves in far-off China.
And that is all—or nearly all.
The "Charlotte Street Fire" caused only a slight sensation. It became known that No. 412 was a resort of Chinese opium fiends, and the loss of the den and its frequenters was not treated as a National calamity. The shooting at No. 11 Fortescue Square was regarded much more seriously, and the newspapers were full of it all next day.
Thenceforth, however, interest flagged. Mr. Forbes and his family and servants left London for Scotland, and the Amateur Golf Championship came along, so the escapades of a few Chinese fanatics in London were quickly forgotten.
They were forgotten, that is, by most people; but one man, Frank Theydon, went back to his flat in Innesmore Mansions to plunge into work and strive vainly to obliterate those pages of his memory charged with bitter-sweet day-dreams.
Strive as he would, and did, to bury the past under the duties and cares of the present, the radiant vision of Evelyn Forbes remained ineffaceable and entrancing.
But he was built of tough fiber, and resolutely refused an invitation to visit the Sutherlandshire glen