"
With never another word he seized me by the arm and hurried me
out of the place! Ten paces along the street a shabby-looking
fellow was standing, leaning against a pillar. Harley stopped,
and:
"Even the greatest men make mistakes sometimes, Hewitt," he
remarked. "I'm throwing up the case; probably Inspector Wessex
will do the same. Good morning."
On towards the Causeway he led me--for not a word was I capable
of uttering; and just before we reached that artery of Chinatown,
from down-river came the deep, sustained note of a steamer's
siren, the warning of some big liner leaving dock.
"That will be the Patna," said Harley. "She sails at twelve
o'clock, I think you said?"
MAN WITH THE SHAVEN SKULL
I
A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
"Pull that light lower," ordered Inspector Wessex. "There you
are, Mr. Harley; what do you make of it?"
Paul Harley and I bent gingerly over the ghastly exhibit to which
the C.I.D. official had drawn our attention, and to view which we
had journeyed from Chancery Lane to Wapping.
This was the body of a man dressed solely in ragged shirt and
trousers. But the remarkable feature of his appearance lay in
the fact that every scrap of hair from chin, lip, eyebrows and
skull had been shaved off!
There was another facial disfigurement, peculiarly and horribly
Eastern, which my pen may not describe.
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