“It’s almost incredible!” said Helen.
“I quite agree with you,” replied her
father. “Of course, most people know that
there are opium dens in London, as in almost every
other big city, but the existence of these palatial
establishments, conducted by Mr. King, although undoubtedly
a fact, is a fact difficult to accept. It doesn’t
seem possible that such a place can be conducted secretly;
whereas I am assured that all the efforts of Scotland
Yard thus far have failed to locate the site of the
London branch.”
“But surely,” cried Denise Ryland, nostrils
dilated indignantly, “some of the... customers
of this... disgusting place... can be followed?"...
“The difficulty is to identify them,”
explained Cumberly. “Opium smoking is essentially
a secret vice; a man does not visit an opium den openly
as he would visit his club; and the elaborate precautions
adopted by the women are illustrated in the case of
Mrs. Vernon, and in the case of Mrs. Leroux.
It is a pathetic fact almost daily brought home to
me, that women who acquire a drug habit become more
rapidly and more entirely enslaved by it than does
a man. It becomes the center of the woman’s
existence; it becomes her god: all other claims,
social and domestic, are disregarded. Upon this
knowledge, Mr. King has established his undoubtedly
extensive enterprise."...
Dr. Cumberly stood up.
“I will go down and see Leroux,” he announced
quietly. “His sorrow hitherto has been
secondary to his indignation. Possibly ignorance
in this case is preferable to the truth, but nevertheless
I am determined to tell him what I know. Give
me ten minutes or so, and then join me. Are you
agreeable?”
“Quite,” said Helen.
Dr. Cumberly departed upon his self-imposed mission.
FATE’S SHUTTLECOCK
Some ten minutes later, Helen Cumberly and Denise
Ryland were in turn admitted to Henry Leroux’s
flat. They found him seated on a couch in his
dining-room, wearing the inevitable dressing-gown.
Dr. Cumberly, his hands clasped behind him, stood
looking out of the window.
Leroux’s pallor now was most remarkable; his
complexion had assumed an ivory whiteness which lent
his face a sort of statuesque beauty. He was
cleanly shaven (somewhat of a novelty), and his hair
was brushed back from his brow. But the dark
blue eyes were very tragic.
He rose at sight of his new visitors, and a faint
color momentarily tinged his cheeks. Helen Cumberly
grasped his outstretched hand, then looked away quickly
to where her father was standing.
“I almost thought,” said Leroux, “that
you had deserted me.”
“No,” said Helen, seeming to speak with
an effort—“we—my father,
thought—that you needed quiet.”
Denise Ryland nodded grimly.
“But now,” she said, in her most truculent
manner, “we are going to... drag you out of...
your morbid... self... for a change... which you need...
if ever a man... needed it.”
