It was the letter that had been addressed to Floyd on the barge "Flowery Land." It read—
"Dear Mr. Floyd,—I have tried to carry out your instructions, but luck has been against me, as I have to be very careful. It has been easy enough to buy the seamen's discharges that you require, but I have been unable to see Lola since she took the advertisement to-day, so do not know if she has managed to raise money. I believe I am fairly safe here, and my friends are to be relied upon, though they are much occupied with the gambling and the smoke, so there is not much quietness. If you write, address me as Mackirty, 146 Smike Street, Shadwell."
It had needed little penetration to identify the writer of the note as Ivan, and to guess that he had taken refuge in a gambling and opium den. Indeed, this latter fact was soon verified by a telephone appeal to the detective-inspector in charge of the district, who declared that he was only waiting for sufficient proof of the character of the house before making a raid.
Foyle had promptly ordered the place to be discreetly surrounded, but that no steps were to be taken until his arrival. He had conceived an admiration for Ivan's cunning in the matter, for there was no place where a fugitive could be more certain of having the intrusion of strangers more carefully guarded against than a gambling-house.
He was willing to forego a conviction against the keepers of the place rather than miss an opportunity of securing Ivan. For cautious steps are always necessary in proceeding against such places. It is so easy to transform a game of baccarat, faro, or fantan into an innocent game of bridge or whist with a few innocent spectators, and to hide all gambling instruments between the time the police knock and the time they effect an entry. Then, however positive the officers may be, they have no legal proof, unless one of their number has been previously introduced as a "punter," and to do that would require time.
Smike Street at one time had been a street of some pretensions. Even now, in comparison with the neighbourhood in which it was set, it maintained an air of genteel respectability, and its gloomy three-storeyed houses had in many cases no more than one family to a floor. It was, however, one of those back streets of the East End which are never deserted, for its adult inhabitants plied trades which took them abroad at all hours—market porters, street hawkers, factory workers, dock labourers, seamen, all trades jostled here. One or two of the houses bore a sign, "Hotel for Men Only."
It was at the corner that Foyle and Green were
joined by the divisional detective-inspector, and the three swung into the deserted saloon bar of a shabby public-house which afforded a better opportunity for unobtrusive conversation than the street. Leaving the glass of ale he ordered untouched upon the counter, the superintendent rapidly learned all steps that had been taken.
"It's a corner house on this side," said the local man, "kept by an old scoundrel of a Chinaman calling himself Li Foo, and a man who was a bit of a bruiser in San Francisco at one time—a chap called Keller. He looks after the faro game in a back room on the first floor, while the chink runs the black smoke upstairs on the stop storey. They're the bosses, but there's three under-dogs, and the place is kept going night and day."
Foyle grunted. "How long have you known this? Couldn't you have dropped on 'em before?"