The night, as I have already stated,
was exceptionally dark. There was no moon, and heavy clouds were
spread over the sky; so that the deserted East End streets
presented a sufficiently uninviting aspect, but one with which I
was by no means unfamiliar and which certainly in no way daunted
me.
Changing at Paul Harley's Chinatown base in Wade Street, I turned
my steps in the same direction as upon the preceding night; but
if my own will played no part in the matter, then decidedly
Providence truly guided me. Poetic justice is rare enough in
real life, yet I was destined to-night to witness swift
retribution overtaking a malefactor.
The by-ways which I had trodden were utterly deserted; I was far
from the lighted high road, and the only signs of human activity
that reached me came from the adjacent river; therefore, when
presently an outcry arose from somewhere on my left, for a moment
I really believed that my imagination was vividly reproducing the
episode of the night before!
A furious scuffle--between a European and an Asiatic--was in
progress not twenty yards away!
Realizing that such was indeed the case, and that I was not the
victim of hallucination, I advanced slowly in the direction of
the sounds, but my footsteps reechoed hollowly from wall to wall
of the narrow passage-way, and my coming brought the conflict to
a sudden and dramatic termination.
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