"
"How perfectly extraordinary!" muttered Durham.
"I distrust Ah Fu," whispered the girl. "I am glad he did not
see me with you."
"Young birds," murmured Durham absently. "What kind of young
birds? Any particular breed?"
"No; canaries, linnets--all sorts. Isn't it funny?" The girl
laughed in a childish way. "And now I think Ah Fu will have gone
in, so I must say good night."
But when presently Detective Durham found himself walking back
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.
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