Chronicles of the Secret Service Read Free Page B

some time longer, the Inspector-General leaving with the promise that he would order Ransome to concentrate his men on obtaining a complete list of everyone, as far as possible, who had been on the premises of the China Doll between eight-thirty and nine-fifteen the previous night. Special attention was to be paid to Japanese patrons and, if there had been any, their places of residence were to be immediately subjected to a visitation and intensive search.
    ‘I’m afraid I haven’t a great deal of hope that anything will come of that,’ remarked Sir Leonard, as the two men shook hands. ‘Still I can think of nothing more promising at the moment. I have a feeling that something very significant has eluded your men, probably because it is too obvious to have been noticed. I haven’t the faintest idea what it may be or how the notion got into my head, but I have been puzzling it out ever since I first read your report. Tell Ransome to set his men investigating everything of which they previously took no notice, because it was part of the scheme of things. You get my meaning?’
    Sir Masterson Winstanley did, and departed with his own mind in a state of extreme perplexity. He had had so much to do with Sir Leonard Wallace and seen such evidences of the cleverness of a brain that seldom missed anything, and seemed capable of thinking several moves ahead of that of an ordinary individual, that he felt now the governor, without at the moment knowing what it was, had hit on the one point that would probably mean success in the investigations. It was perhaps only natural that the Inspector-Generalof Police should be anxious to fathom the elusive item upon which the governor was placing so much importance. As his rickshaw took him speedily to police headquarters, the uniformed coolies trotting along with rhythmic leg and arm movements, he continually muttered to himself: ‘Too obvious to have been noticed! Now what the devil could fit in that was so much in the scheme of things that it might have been overlooked by observant fellows like Ransome’s Chinese detectives?’
    In the meantime, Sir Leonard had taken to pacing his study again, puffing clouds of smoke from his pipe as he strove to fathom that which was eluding him. For half an hour he tramped to and fro, quite forgetful that he needed rest in view of the fact that there was a garden party to attend later in the afternoon, that he afterwards was to receive the two unofficial Chinese members of the Legislative Council, Sir T’so Lin Tao and Sir Peter Hing Kee in audience, and that he and Lady Wallace were giving a great dinner and ball that night. For the time being his mind was devoted, to the exclusion of all else, to chasing something which he was certain would provide him with a very valuable clue. All at once he stopped dead. His steel-grey eyes gleaming triumphantly, he gave vent to a little chuckle.
    ‘Of course,’ he murmured. ‘Fancy taking all this time to remember a fact like that.’
    He did not remind himself that that which he had recollected, and connected with the present certainty, that Japanese agents were again busy in Hong Kong, had been the merest passing mention of something lacking, at the time, any interest whatever. It is a tribute to that retentive mind of his that an item so small should have been stored away and nowresurrected. He left his study, walking along the corridor to his secretary’s office. Carter was engaged in perusing, and signing, a pile of official-looking documents. He looked up as Sir Leonard entered the room; immediately rose to his feet.
    ‘Carter,’ commenced the governor, ‘do you remember that Yumasaki was said to be rather keen on a Chinese dancing girl?’
    The young man’s brow wrinkled in thought for a moment or two; then:
    ‘Yes, sir,’ he asserted; ‘I do vaguely remember something of the sort. Wasn’t she called—?’
    He paused frowning, as he strove to recollect the name. Sir Leonard watched him with