"I saw a picture of the black woman who stole my child." "You mean Balkis?" "Yes. I mean the woman who keeps an opium shop at the Docks." "Did she steal your child?" asked Eustace, wondering. "Years ago," sighed Mrs. Burl, while Tilly looked on intelligently. "Why should she steal your child?" "Ah, that's a long story. I'll tell it to you if you like, sir." "I'm ready to hear it," answered Eustace, wondering at the coincidence which had brought his former housekeeper into contact with Balkis. "Burl drank," began the lady, abruptly. "He was a house-painter, and earned wages of the highest when not at the bottle. He turned me out into the street one night with Tilly." Mrs. Burl pointed to her newly-found offspring, who giggled. "We lived near the Docks, by reason of the cheap rents. I had nowhere to go, and was found by that black woman, who called herself Balkis." "How long ago did this happen?" "Never you mind," replied Mrs. Burl, drawing her shawl closely round her. "I'll tell what I can, and that which I don't tell don't matter. Balkis (as she called herself) said she wanted a servant, and took me in. She gave no wages, but a comfortable home. We--Tilly and me--stopped with her for some time. Then I left." "Why did you leave a comfortable place?" asked Jarman. Mrs. Burl pursed up her lips, and shook her head. "It weren't respectable," she said, nodding. "No; though in one way it were. I haven't a word to say against Balkis, who always kept herself like a lady, though she was the colour of the tea-kettle. But you see, Mr. Jarman, she kept an opium shop, and a gambling den." "Ah! did she. What did the police say?" "Now you come to the reason of my leaving, sir. The police knew nothing about the gambling. I don't think they minded the opium smoking. Such people came there!" Mrs. Burl shuddered. "Chinamen and Lascars, and low sailors, and sometimes gentlemen who were fond of the pipe. But all that was almost public, as you might say. The gambling"--here Mrs. Burl lowered her voice--"it took place in the secret rooms." "What do you mean by the secret rooms?" "What I do say, Mr. Jarman," replied Mrs. Burl, with several nods, and an air of mystery. "The opium shop was near the river, and respectable to look at outside, being painted and kept clean. But the rooms--which I cleaned--were almost under the river, and furnished like Buckingham Palace. Balkis used to boast that if the police ever found out her rooms they would never leave them alive." "Did she mean to murder them?" "Ah, that's just what I don't know. She's a terrible woman, and has all kinds of ideas--very wicked ideas, though I must say that she is respectable for the most part. All she wanted was to make money, and she made it quicker out of the gambling rooms than in any other way. The piles of gold and notes I've seen there, sir, you wouldn't believe. And the Chinamen played an evil game called Fan-tan--" "I know it," said Eustace, who had been in Canton.