The night was young, the air warm and close within doors, and he felt not in the least like turning in. Strolling through the wide corridors, he passed into the street and moved idly in the direction of the Bund, attracted by the music of a band which was playing in the park near by. The place was like a lovely garden with wide areas of lawn and a profusion of foliage. The large number of men and women who walked to and fro or chatted in groups were, for the most part, English, American, and German; exiles of a fashionable and prosperous air who appeared to find life in the Far East quite endurable and success in their commercial enterprises not harassingly difficult. Captain O’Shea found a seat on a rustic bench and watched the passing show. Presently he smiled as he descried the incongruous figure of a wizened little elderly Irishman in a black frock-coat with a rusty tall hat firmly jammed on the back of his head. In this smart company Paddy Blake was a fish out of water, but he had lost not a bit of his brisk, devil-may-care demeanor which dared any one to tread on the tail of the coat aforesaid. O’Shea hailed him, and he halted to cackle cordially: “I was lookin’ for ye to drop into me place all day. There was a magnum on ice and a brace of cold roast Chinese pheasants that ’ud make a king lick his chops. I had something important to impart to ye in th’ back room.” “’Twas about McDougal, no doubt,” said O’Shea. “I found him, and dead as a mackerel he was.” “I had the same news this mornin’,” exclaimed Paddy Blake. “One of me Chinese bar-boys lives in the native city forninst the French Gate. He was bound home last night whin the body was found, but the likes of him ’ud scuttle away and say nawthin’ to the police.” “Inspector Burke tells me that you were not too free with information yourself,” dryly observed O’Shea. Paddy Blake vehemently thumped his knee with his tall hat and returned: “Me place has a bad enough reputation, God knows, and the damned British police is biassed agin me. Would it do me anny good to be dragged into court as witness in a murder case and th’ inspector makin’ out that the man got drunk on my booze? Which is wrong entirely, for McDougal was sober when he went off in tow of Captain Spreckels, as ye well know. But ’tis no use holdin’ post-mortems. Thim Chinese divils done for McDougal same as he was afraid of. And are ye makin’ anny headway in the matter of the big red-headed man that I informed ye was Jim Eldridge, mate of the _Tai Yan_ steamer?” “I will not find easy weather of it without McDougal,” said O’Shea, who had no intention of showing his hand to Paddy Blake.