“Father said I could,” protested the boy.

“He says so, and ye shall go, but I think it madness a’ the same.”

However, some ten minutes later young Kerry set out, keenly resenting the woollen muffler which he had been compelled to wear, and secretly determined to remove it before mounting the tram.  Across one arm he carried the glistening overall which was the Chief Inspector’s constant companion on wet nights abroad.  The fog had turned denser, and ten paces from the door of the house took him out of sight of the light streaming from the hallway.

Mary Kerry well knew her husband’s theories about coddling boys, but even so could not entirely reconcile herself to the present expedition.  However, closing the door, she returned philosophically to her sewing, reflecting that little harm could come to Dan after all, for he was strong, healthy, and intelligent.

On went the boy through the mist, whistling merrily.  Not twenty yards from the house a coupe was drawn up, and by the light of one of its lamps a man was consulting a piece of paper on which, presumably, an address was written; for, as the boy approached, the man turned, his collar pulled up about his face, his hat pulled down.

“Hallo!” he called.  “Can you please tell me something?”

He spoke with a curious accent, unfamiliar to the boy.  “A foreigner of some kind,” young Kerry determined.

“What is it?” he asked, pausing.

“Will you please read and tell me if I am near this place?” the man continued, holding up the paper which he had been scrutinizing.

Dan stepped forward and bent over it.  He could not make out the writing, and bent yet more, holding it nearer to the lamp.  At which moment some second person neatly pinioned him from behind, a scarf was whipped about his head, and, kicking furiously but otherwise helpless, he felt himself lifted and placed inside the car.

The muffler had been thrown in such fashion about his face as to leave one eye partly free, and as he was lifted he had a momentary glimpse of his captors.  With a thrill of real, sickly terror he realized that he was in the hands of Chinamen!

Perhaps telepathically this spasm of fear was conveyed to his father, for it was at about this time that the latter was interviewing Zani Chada, and at about this time that Kerry recognized, underlying the other’s words, at once an ill-concealed suspense and a threat.  Then, a few minutes later, had come the three strokes of the gong; and again that unreasonable dread had assailed him, perhaps because it signalized the capture of his son, news of which had been immediately telephoned to Limehouse by Zani Chada’s orders.

Certain it is that Kerry left the Eurasian’s house in a frame of mind which was not familiar to him.  He was undecided respecting his next move.  A deadly menace underlay Chada’s words.