“You don’t mean to tell me that that…silly fool…of a man, Harry Leroux…has allowed himself to be swindled of…all that money?”
“There is not the slightest doubt about it,” Dr. Cumberly assured her; “he opened a credit to that amount in Paris, and the entire sum has been absorbed by Mr. King!”
“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
