No one answered, and, turning, she leaned back against the curtain, breathing heavily and fighting for composure, for strength.
IV
ZANI CHADA, THE EURASIAN
“I can't help thinking, Chief Inspector,” said the officer in charge at Limehouse Station, “that you take unnecessary risks.”
“Can't you?” said Kerry, tilting his bowler farther forward and staring truculently at the speaker.
“No, I can't. Since you cleaned up the dope gang down here you've been a marked man. These murders in the Chinatown area, of which this one to-night makes the third, have got some kind of big influence behind them. Yet you wander about in the fog without even a gun in your pocket.”
“I don't believe in guns,” rapped Kerry. “My bare hands are good enough for any yellow smart in this area. And if they give out I can kick like a mule.”
The other laughed, shaking his head.
“It's silly, all the same,” he persisted. “The man who did the job out there in the fog to-night might have knifed you or shot you long before you could have got here.”