Read "The Dumpling" by Coulson Kernahan online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Surprised, not to say startled, I certainly was, and all the more so for the reason that I recognised the voice of the speaker. It was that of my long time friend and at one time colleague, Robert Grant, the detective.
When I turned round -- not suddenly or abruptly, for I feared to attract the attention, possibly the suspicion, of the four men still whispering on the landing -- the two Chinamen were still sucking nonchalantly at their flute-shaped opium pipes, and still eyeing me, as I have already said, as pigs, lying on a muck-heap in the sunshine, eye a terrier who has entered their domain.