"Mista Quin, oh!" said Skookum, scrambling to his feet.
"What is it?" asked Quin again. "Kahta mamook yukwa? What do you do here?"
"Pete him kill Jenny," screamed Annawillee. Quin staggered back.
"He, he——"
He pointed at the drunken man.
"Not mimaloose, him dlunk," said Annawillee, "Jenny with Chinaman."
Skookum led Quin, the big Tyee, to Wong's shack.
"If she's dead——" said Quin, looking towards Pete. He opened Wong's door.
The room was eight feet by twelve by ten: it reeked of fierce tobacco and the acrid fumes of "dope." Some of them "hit the pipe," smoked opium. The smell was China; Quin, who had been there, knew it. With the odours of Canton were the odours of bad oil. Three lamps ate up the air. Quin saw a row of whitish masks about the table: some excited, some stupid, one or two villainous. At the head of the table was the quiet majestic head of the old philosopher Wong. He had a great domed skull and a skin of drawn parchment over wide bones. With a sponge he wiped blood from Jenny's face. Sam held a bowl of water. He looked anxious and strange. And Jenny's body, in white linen and crimson silk, fouled with sawdust and blood, lay there quietly.
"Is she dead?" asked Quin.