The man flung up his hands, staggered back and fell upon the pier.
"Just in time to be witnesses to a murder!" cried Alice. "Can he be a Chinaman?"
"I couldn't make out," replied Old King Brady. "He must have been shot from a boat, whoever he is."
Their curiosity was now fully aroused, and they lost no time getting on the pier.
No one else seemed to have been attracted by the shot.
In fact, there was only one house to be seen, a small cottage up a lane behind the pier, in the window of which a light burned.
And now the detectives made a discovery which brought them to the conclusion that after all they had made no mistake in starting out to follow up their Chinese clew.
For the man on the pier was a Chinese in American dress.
He was dying when the Bradys came up.
Old King Brady knelt beside him.