With his eyes but slightly opened, and with
all his weight resting upon the arm of the Egyptian, he gulped the hot
tea, and noted that it was of exquisite quality.
THEINE is an antidote to opium, and M. Max accordingly became somewhat
restored, and lay staring at the Oriental, and blinking his eyes
foolishly.
Said, leaving the tea service upon the little table, glided from the
room. Something else the Egyptian had left upon the tray in addition to
the dainty vessels of porcelain; it was a steel ring containing a dozen
or more keys. Most of these keys lay fanwise and bunched together, but
one lay isolated and pointing in an opposite direction. It was a Yale
key--the key of the door!
Silently as a shadow, M. Max glided into the bathroom, and silently,
swiftly, returned, carrying a cake of soap. Three clear, sharp
impressions, he secured of the Yale, the soap leaving no trace of the
operation upon the metal. He dropped the precious soap tablet into his
open bag.
In a state of semi-torpor, M. Max sprawled upon the bed for ten minutes
or more, during which time, as he noted, the door remained ajar.
Then there entered a figure which seemed wildly out of place in the
establishment of Ho-Pin. It was that of a butler, most accurately
dressed and most deferential in all his highly-trained movements.
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