"I see," Uzali said. "Well, gentlemen, if you will help me I will promise to help you. But even as yet you don't quite appreciate where the danger lies. Everything is in the hands of those two clansmen of mine. If they are here on their own responsibility and I can gain speech with them, I may prevent murder. But if, on the other hand, these men are here as the emissaries of our priests, then it is little heed they will pay to me. If I were to sit here talking to you all night I could not impress upon you the influence which our priests exercised over our people. But at any rate, I can try. If you will both come with me to a place in the East End of London——"
"Impossible so far as I am concerned," Russell said curtly. "I have other and much more important work to do. But there is no reason why Mercer should be home before Saturday evening, and I daresay he will be glad to keep you company."
"Anything where I can oblige," Mercer said.
Uzali rose hurriedly to his feet.
"Then there is no more to be said for the present," he exclaimed. "I suppose Dr. Mercer knows where to find you if necessary. Now, if you will give me a few moments I will change my dress."
Russell had gone by the time Uzali came back. The latter had changed into a thick pilot suit with a blue cap which came well below his ears. A short clay pipe in his mouth gave him the aspect of the foreign type of seaman generally to be found loitering about the docks, and along the wharves about Limehouse.
"We are going into some queer company," he explained. "I had better give you a cap like my own to wear and a shabby overcoat. If we have any luck we shall be on the track of our friends before daylight. We can take a cab as far as Upper Thames Street and walk the rest of the journey."
Uzali chuckled to himself as the first passing cabman looked at him keenly and demanded to know where his fare was to come from. The sight of half a sovereign seemed to allay the cab-man's fears and he set his horse going somewhat sulkily. When the cab was dismissed there was a good step yet to go before Uzali turned down a side street with the air of a man who appears to be sure of his ground, and knocked three times at a doorway which was so far underground as to be more like the entrance to a cellar than anything else. A grating in the doorway was pushed cautiously back and a yellow, skinny face peeped through. It was the face of an elderly Chinaman scored and creased with thousands of lines, each line having the dirt ground into it, and the whole resembling an engraving after Rembrandt. It was an old, cunning, wicked face, too, so that even Mercer, accustomed to all sorts and conditions of men, recoiled at the sight.
Apparently the guardian of the door was satisfied, for he mumbled something in response to Uzali's question and opened the door. For a moment the atmosphere was unbearable. It smote Mercer with the strength of a blow. He had had many adventures in various sinks of iniquity on the four continents. He knew San Francisco and New York, Port Said and Cairo, but never before had he encountered anything quite so bad as this. He reeled to and fro and then sat down on the filthy door-step. As to Uzali, it seemed natural to him.
He was speaking a kind of pidgin English which Mercer could understand. He chinked some coins in his pocket which seemed to Mercer rather an imprudent thing to do, for the yellow face lit up and the dark almond eyes gleamed with cupidity.