“Dear, dear,” sighed the Assistant Commissioner, “your intense zeal and activity are admirable, Chief Inspector, but appalling. And what did you learn?”
From an inside pocket Chief Inspector Kerry took out a plain brown paper packet containing several cigarettes and laid the packet on the table.
“I got these, sir,” he said grimly. “They were left at Mr. Gray’s some weeks ago by the late Sir Lucien. They are doped.”
The Assistant Commissioner, his head resting upon his hand, gazed abstractedly at the packet. “If only you could trace the source of supply,” he murmured.
“That brings me to my last point, sir. From Mrs. Irvin’s maid I learned that her mistress was acquainted with a certain Mrs. Sin.”
“Mrs. Sin? Incredible name.”
“She’s a woman reputed to be married to a Chinaman. Inspector Whiteleaf, of Vine Street, knows her by sight as one of the night-club birds—a sort of mysterious fungus, sir, flowering in the dark and fattening on gilded fools. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, Mrs. Sin is the link between the doped cigarettes and the missing Kazmah.”
“Does anyone know where she lives?”
“Lots of ’em know!” snapped Kerry. “But it’s making them speak.”
“To whom do you more particularly refer, Chief Inspector?”