Ten minutes later the secret of Sam Tûk’s cellar was unmasked. The place was empty, and the subterranean door locked; but it succumbed to the persistent attacks of axe and crowbar, and Seton Pasha was the first of the party to enter the vault. It was laden with chemical fumes....
He found there an aged Chinaman, dead, seated by a stove in which the fire had burned very low. Sprawling across the old man’s knees was the body of a raven. Lying at his feet was a woman, lithe, contorted, the face half hidden in masses of bright red hair.
“End case near the door!” rapped the voice of Kerry. “Slides to the left!”
Seton Pasha vaulted over the counter, drew the shelves aside, and entered the inner room.
By the dim light of a lantern burning upon a moorish coffee-table he discerned an untidy bed, upon which a second woman lay, pallid.
“God!” he muttered; “this place is a morgue!”
“It certainly isn’t healthy!” said an irritable voice from the floor. “But I think I might survive it if you could spare a second to untie me.”
Kerry’s extensive practice in chewing and the enormous development of his maxillary muscles had stood him in good stead. His keen, strong teeth had bitten through the extemporized gag, and as a result the tension of the handkerchief which had held it in place had become relaxed, enabling him to rid himself of it and to spit out the fragments of filthy-tasting wood which the biting operation had left in his mouth.
Seton turned, stooped on one knee to release the captive... and found himself looking into the face of someone who sat crouched upon the divan behind the Chief Inspector. The figure was that of an oriental, richly robed. Long, slim, ivory hands rested upon his knees, and on the first finger of the right hand gleamed a big talismanic ring. But the face, surmounted by a white turban, was wonderful, arresting in its immobile intellectual beauty; and from under the heavy brows a pair of abnormally large eyes looked out hypnotically.
“My God!” whispered Seton, then: