He was absolutely certain that he could identify the “unknown European” found dead near a gate-way of the native city. It was McDougal, and he had been slain because in some manner, as yet unrevealed, he had played a part in the tragic mystery of the red-haired sailor. Intuition welded the circumstances together. With this premise O’Shea framed one swift conclusion after another. McDougal had suddenly veered from his purpose of going to sea with Captain Spreckels. With the morbid impulse of a man whose nerves were shattered by drink, he had been afraid lest the German skipper might find him and carry him off whether or no. Therefore he had fled to cover, making for the native city where he doubtless had Chinese friends. Perhaps he had been watched and followed by hostile agents from the moment he landed in Shanghai.
“I have seen others like him,” said O’Shea to himself. “They will run from their own shadows, and their friends can do nothing with them. And I must be getting a bit flighty meself or I would not sit here and take for granted things that are no more than guesswork. How do I know that the dead man is McDougal? The answer is this: ’Tis one of me strong hunches, and they seldom go wrong.”
He passed out of the dining-room and delayed in the office of the hotel to ask a question of the clerk. The atmosphere of the place was so wholly European that the China, with which O’Shea had come darkly, gropingly in touch, seemed almost as far away as when he had been on the farm in Maine. The clerk went to the porch and gave instructions to a ’rickshaw cooly, and Captain O’Shea rattled off to the headquarters buildings of the English police. A Sikh orderly conducted him into the small room where Inspector Burke sat at a desk scanning a file of reports. He was a tall, dark, soldierly man of about forty. The slim-waisted khaki tunic, the riding-breeches, and the polished brown puttees gave him the air of a dashing trooper of light-horse. Glancing at O’Shea’s card, he nodded pleasantly and said with a singularly winning smile:
“And what can I do for Captain Michael O’Shea, of New York? I am very much at your service.”
“’Tis about the man that was found murdered close by the native city last night,” was the reply.
“Ah, by Jove!” exclaimed the inspector, and his pencil tapped the desk with a quick tattoo. “An odd case, that! Most unusual. I was potterin’ about on it a good part of the night. My men report that he was in Paddy Blake’s place during the evening, but the old rip denies knowing him, of course. He wants to steer clear of the case. I’m rather stumped so far. You are at the Astor House? I fancy I saw you there at dinner last night.”
“Right you are, sir. I am more than a little interested in this dead man,” pursued O’Shea in a straightforward manner. “And I will first describe him to ye,” which he proceeded to do with the detail of an observer whose eye was keen and memory retentive.
“That’s the Johnny, to a dot,” cried Inspector Burke, alertly interested. “And when did you last see him?”
“I talked with him last night, but before we go further I will prove an alibi,” hastily answered O’Shea, suddenly realizing that his position in the matter might look compromising.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” was the easy assurance. “You are jolly well out of it and satisfactorily accounted for. This was a native job, not a bit of doubt of it. Suppose we take a look at the body. It is packed in ice in the go-down just back of this building. Your identification must go on the records, you know. Then we can have a chin-chin, and I hope you’ll be good enough to stay for tiffin with me.”