He had had no dealings with her in the way of business, for when he had had occasion to go into Ho Hans's tea-rooms, he was usually after bigger game than the graceful little dancer.
It all came back to him in a flash.

He had heard men at the club speaking of the grace of the Little Daffodil and her dancing had enjoyed something of a vogue amongst the young Britishers who were exiled in Shanghai.
The next cutting was also in English and ran: "A sad fatality occurred this morning, a young Chinese girl, O Ling, the sister of Inspector Ling Chu, of the Native Police, being found in a dying condition in the yard at the back of Ho Hans's tea-rooms.
The girl had been employed at the shop as a dancer, much against her brother's wishes, and figured in a very unpleasant affair reported in these columns last week.

It is believed that the tragic act was one of those 'save-face' suicides which are all too common amongst native women." Tarling whistled, a soft, long, understanding whistle.
The Little Daffodil! And the sister of Ling Chu! He knew something of the Chinese, something of their uncanny patience, something of their unforgiving nature.

This dead man had put an insult not only upon the little dancing girl, but upon the whole of her family.

In China disgrace to one is a disgrace to all and she, realising the shame that the notoriety had brought upon her brother, had taken what to her, as a Chinese girl, had been the only way out.
But what was the shame?
Tarling searched through the native papers and found several flowery accounts, not any two agreed save on one point, that an Englishman, and a tourist, had made public love to the girl, no very great injury from the standpoint of the Westerner, a Chinaman had interfered and there had been a "rough house." Tarling read the cuttings through from beginning to end, then carefully replaced them in the paper package and put them away in the little lacquer box at the bottom of the trunk.