“Ah, no!” cried the cruel triumphant Oriental. “Tai-K’an warned your father that he would have his revenge. His daughter was to him as much as you are to your own father the mandarin,” and he laughed that short, grating laugh of the Chinaman, which caused Otley to clench his fists.
For a few seconds he hesitated as to how he should act. Then, quick as his feet could carry him, he dashed back into the Commercial Road, where he enlisted the aid of a constable.
Together they hurried back to the house after the young man had made a brief statement that a white girl had been entrapped.
At first they were denied admittance, but when the constable demanded that the door should be opened, the bars were drawn and they entered the wretched den.
Peggy was naturally terrified until she heard her lover’s voice, and a few seconds later the pair were locked once more in each other’s arms, but the gems of Abdul Hamid were nowhere to be found. Indeed, neither Peggy nor Charlie dared mention the stolen jewels, so the Chinaman kept them.
“Do you wish to charge this Chink?” asked the constable of the girl. “If so, I’ll take him along to the station at once.”
But at Charlie’s suggestion she would prefer no charge, and after profuse thanks to the policeman, they found a taxi and drove back at once to Bennett Street.
On the way Peggy sobbed as she confessed to the theft; how, in desperation, she had stolen those wonderful jewels from Mrs. Bainbridge’s room in the hope of raising sufficient money to pay Charlie’s defalcations, and how she had two days later received a mysterious letter asking her if she happened to have any discarded jewelry that she wished to dispose of secretly. If she had, an appointment could be made at Limehouse Church. It was, she thought, an opportunity. So she took the jewels to sell to them. But to her amazement and horror she had found herself in the hands of the revengeful Chinaman who had a, possibly just, grievance against her father.
Rayne, taking the magnificent jewels and running them through his hands, said: