As Bill Jones, A.B., my friend, Paul Harley, was well known to Ma Lorenzo as he was well known to many others in that strange colony which clusters round the London docks.  I sometimes enjoyed the privilege of accompanying my friend on a tour of investigation through the weird resorts which abound in that neighbourhood, and, indeed, we had been returning from one of these Baghdad nights when our present adventure had been thrust upon us.  Assuming a wild and boisterous manner which he had at command: 

“’Urry up, Ma!” said Harley, entering without ceremony; “I want to introduce my pal Jim ’ere to old Kwen Lung, and make it all right for him before I sail.”

Ma Lorenzo, who was half Portuguese, replied in her peculiar accent: 

“This no time to come waking me up out of bed!”

But Harley, brushing past her, was already inside the stuffy little room, and I hastened to follow.

“Kwen Lung!” shouted my friend loudly.  “Where are you?  Brought a friend to see you.”

“Kwen Lung no hab,” came the complaining tones of Ma Lorenzo from behind us.

It was curious to note how long association with the Chinese had resulted in her catching the infection of that pidgin-English which is a sort of esperanto in all Asiatic quarters.

“Eh!” cried my friend, pushing open a door on the right of the passage and stumbling down three worn steps into a very evil-smelling room.  “Where is he?”

“Go play fan-tan.  Not come back.”

Ma Lorenzo, having relocked the street door, had rejoined us, and as I followed my friend down into the dim and uninviting apartment she stood at the top of the steps, hands on hips, regarding us.

The place, which was quite palpably an opium den, must have disappointed anyone familiar with the more ornate houses of Chinese vice in San Francisco and elsewhere.  The bare floor was not particularly clean, and the few decorations which the room boasted were garishly European for the most part.  A deep divan, evidently used sometimes as a bed, occupied one side of the room, and just to the left of the steps reposed the only typically Oriental object in the place.

It was a strange thing to see in so sordid a setting; a great gilded joss, more than life-size, squatting, hideous, upon a massive pedestal; a figure fit for some native temple but strangely out of place in that dirty little Limehouse abode.

I had never before visited Kwen Lung’s, but the fame of his golden joss had reached me, and I know that he had received many offers for it, all of which he had rejected.  It was whispered that Kwen Lung was rich, that he was a great man among the Chinese, and even that some kind of religious ceremony periodically took place in his house.  Now, as I stood staring at the famous idol, I saw something which made me stare harder than ever.

The place was lighted by a hanging lamp from which depended bits of coloured paper and several gilded silk tassels; but dim as the light was it could not conceal those tell-tale stains.