The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5375]
"Good night, guv'nor!" he cried hoarsely
"So-long," muttered Sin Sin Wa.
He waited until the boat was swallowed in the deeper shadows, then reclosed the water-gate and ascended to the room where Sir Lucien awaited. Such was the receiving office of Sin Sin Wa. While the wharf remained untenanted it was not likely to be discovered by the authorities, for even at low tide the river-door was invisible from passing craft. Prospective lessees who had taken the trouble to inquire about the rental had learned that it was so high as to be prohibitive.
Sin Sin Wa paid fair prices and paid cash. This was no more than a commercial necessity. For those who have opium, cocaine, veronal, or heroin to sell can always find a ready market in London and elsewhere. But one sufficiently curious and clever enough to have solved the riddle of the vacant wharf would have discovered that the mysterious owner who showed himself so loath to accept reasonable offers for the property could well afford to be thus independent. Those who control "the traffic" control El Dorado--a city of gold which, unlike the fabled Manoa, actually exists and yields its riches to the unscrupulous adventurer.
Smiling his mirthless, eternal smile, Sin Sin Wa placed the newly purchased stock upon a shelf immediately behind Sam Tuk; and Sam Tuk exhibited the first evidence of animation which had escaped him throughout the progress of the "deal." He slowly nodded his hairless head.
CHAPTER XX
KAZMAH'S METHODS
Rita Dresden married Monte Irvin in the spring and bade farewell to the stage. The goal long held in view was attained at last. But another farewell which at one time she had contemplated eagerly no longer appeared desirable or even possible. To cocamania had been added a tolerance for opium, and at the last party given by Cyrus Kilfane she had learned that she could smoke nearly as much opium as the American habitue.
The altered attitude of Sir Lucien surprised and annoyed her. He, who had first introduced her to the spirit of the coca leaf and to the goddess of the poppy, seemed suddenly to have determined to convince her of the folly of these communions. He only succeeded in losing her confidence. She twice visited the "House of a Hundred Raptures" with Mollie Gretna, and once with Mollie and Kilfane, unknown to Sir Lucien.
Urgent affairs of some kind necessitated his leaving England a few weeks before the date fixed for Rita's wedding, and as Kilfane had already returned to America, Rita recognized with a certain dismay that she would be left to her own resources--handicapped by the presence of a watchful husband. This subtle change in her view of Monte Irvin she was incapable of appreciating, for Rita was no psychologist. But the effect of the drug habit was pointedly illustrated by the fact that in a period of little more than six months, from regarding Monte Irvin as a rock of refuge--a chance of salvation--she had come to regard him in the light of an obstacle to her indulgence. Not that her respect had diminished. She really loved at last, and so well that the idea of discovery by this man whose wholesomeness was the trait of character which most potently attracted her, was too appalling to be contemplated. The chance of discovery would be enhanced, she recognized, by the absence of her friends and accomplices.
Of course she was acquainted with many other devotees. In fact, she met so many of them that she had grown reconciled to her habits, believing them to be common to all "smart" people--a part of the Bohemian life. The truth of the matter was that she had become a prominent member of a coterie closely knit and associated by a bond of mutual vice--a kind of masonry whereof Kazmah of Bond Street was Grand Master and Mrs. Sin Grand Mistress.
The relations existing between Kazmah and his clients