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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN THE
WORLDWIDE ANGLICAN COMMUNION
Contemporary Issues in the
Worldwide Anglican
Communion
Powers and Pieties

Edited by
ABBY DAY
University of Kent, UK
First published 2016 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa

business

Copyright © Abby Day 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.

Abby day has asserted her right under the Copyright, designs and
patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed
edition as follows:
Day, Abby.
Contemporary issues in the worldwide Anglican communion :
powers and pieties / edited by
Abby Day.
pages cm. -- (Ashgate contemporary ecclesiology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4724-4413-4 (hardcover)
1. Anglican Communion--History--21st century. I. Day,
Abby, 1956- editor. II. Title.
BX5005.D39 2015
283.09’015--dc23

2015017488
ISBN 9781472444134 (hbk)
Contents

List of Tables
List of Contributors
Preface

SECTION I GENERATIONAL SHIFTS

1 Farewell to Generation A: The Final ‘Active

Generation’ in the Anglican Communion
Abby Day

2 The Meaning and Inheritance of Anglican

Identity amongst Young People
Sylvia Collins-Mayo

3 Evangelical Anglicans and the Formation of

Children in Modern Britain
Anna Strhan

4 Belonging without Practising: Exploring the

Religious, Social and Personal Significance of Anglican
Identities among Adolescent Males
Leslie J. Francis and Gemma Penny

SECTION II GENDER, SEX AND CONTESTATIONS

5 Naming the Abuse, Establishing Networks and

Forging Negotiations: Contemporary Christian Women
 and the Ugly Subject of Domestic Violence
Nancy Nason-Clark and Catherine Holtmann

6 Conditional Love ? Assimilation and the

Construction of ‘Acceptable Homosexuality’ in
Anglicanism
Michael Keenan

7 Anglicans in a Globalizing World: The

Contradictions of Communion
Andrew McKinnon and Christopher Craig
Brittain

8 To Boldly Go: How Do Women in Senior

Positions in the Church of England Construe their
Leadership?
Diane E. Rees

SECTION III CLASS, CASTE AND CHANGE

9 Addressing the Problem of Socio-Economic-

Classification
Adrian Stringer

10 A Different Class? Anglican Evangelical

Leaders’ Perspectives on Social Class
Joanne McKenzie

11 Anglicans in South Asia: Life in the Midst of

Religious Marginality
 Anderson H.M. Jeremiah

SECTION IV MOVEMENTS AND RESPONSES

12 Locating the Church: On Corridors and

Shadows in the Study of Anglicanism
Simon Coleman

13 Theological Education and Formation for an

Uncommon Occupation
Martyn Percy

14 How Anglicans Lose Religion: An Oral History

of Becoming Secular
Callum G. Brown

Index
List of Tables

2.1 Attitudes in The Faith of Generation Y study

9.1 Differentiation of socio-economic-classification
between Anglican congregation, denomination and Province
9.2 Differentiation of respondent self-class identification,
between congregations
14.1 Respondents by denomination of childhood
List of Contributors

Christopher Craig Brittain is Senior Lecturer in Practical

Theology at the University of Aberdeen. He is a theologian
and ordained Anglican priest, and a member of the
international ‘Ecclesiology and Ethnography’ international
network of scholars, as well as the ‘Engaged Scholars Studying
Congregations’ network in the USA. He is on the editorial
board of the book series Critical Studies in Religion (Brill)
and ofthe journal, Critical Research in Religion (SAGE). Dr
Brittain’s publications include Plague on Both Their Houses:
Liberals versus Conservatives and the Divorce ofThe
Episcopal Church, USA (T&T Clark).

Callum G. Brown has, since 2013, been Professor of Late

Modern European History at the University of Glasgow, and
before that held chairs in Religion and Cultural History
successively at the Universities of Strathclyde and Dundee. He
is the author of10 monographs and two edited books, most
recently Religion and the Demographic Revolution: Women
and Secularisation in Canada, Ireland, UK and USA since
1960 (Boydell). He is currently completing a transnational
oral history project to be published as Becoming Atheist: The
Making of the Secular West (Bloomsbury).

Abby Day is Reader in Race, Faith and Culture in the

Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London
and Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer, Anthropology and
Sociology of Religion, Department of Religious Studies,
University of Kent. She is Chair of the British Sociological
Association’s Sociology of Religion study group. She has
researched belief and belonging since 2002, mainly among
young and elderly people and has published widely. Her most
recent books are Believing in Belonging: Belief and Social
Identity in the Modern World (Oxford University Press) and
Social Identities between the Sacred and Secular, Day, A.,
Vincett, G. and Cotter, C.R (Ashgate).

Simon Coleman is Chancellor Jackman Professor at the

Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto.
He has been an editor of the Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute and is co-editor of the annual j
ournal, Religion and Society: Advances in Research,
published by Berghahn Journals and of the book series
Ashgate Studies in Pilgrimage. He conducts fieldwork at the
English pilgrimage site of Walsingham and is part of an inter-
disciplinary project based at the Centre for the Study of
Christianity and Culture (University of York) examining
English cathedrals. His books include Pilgrimage Past and
Present in the World Religions (Harvard University Press,
with John Elsner) and Reframing Pilgrimage: Cultures in
Motion (Routledge, edited with John Eade).

Sylvia Collins-Mayo is Associate Professor in Sociology at

Kingston University. She completed her Ph.D. on young
people’s faith at the University of Surrey in 1997. Her post-
doctoral research interests have continued to focus on youth
religion with particular reference to the everyday faith of
young people from Christian backgrounds. She is co-author of
Making Sense of Generation Y (Church House Publishing)
and The Faith of Generation Y (Church House Publishing)
and co-editor of Religion and Youth (Ashgate). Current
research interests include the role of faith in secular places of
work and the spirituality and prayer practices of teenagers
and young adults.

Leslie J. Francis is Professor of Religions and Education at

the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit at the
University ofWarwick, Coventry, England, and Canon
Theologian and Canon Treasurer at Bangor Cathedral, Wales.
He received his Ph.D. and Sc.D. from the University of
Cambridge, his D. D. from the University of Oxford, and his
D.Litt. from the University of Wales. His recent books include
Preaching with All Our Souls (Continuum), The Public
Significance of Religion (Brill), Ordained Local Ministry in
the Church of England (Continuum) and Exploring Ordinary
Theology (Ashgate).

Catherine Holtmann is an Associate Professor in the

Sociology Department and the director of the Muriel
McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research at
the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New
Brunswick, Canada. Her research interests lie in the areas of
religion, gender, ethnicity, immigrants and domestic violence.
She is also active in the Catholic Network for Women’s
Equality in Canada (www.cnwe.org (http://www.cnwe.org)).
Anderson H.M. Jeremiah is a Lecturer in World
Christianity at Lancaster University, UK. He teaches and
researches in developing a localised perspective of the growth
and expansion of Global Christianity. He has published on the
heterogeneity and plurality of lived Christian experience in
different contexts, thus bringing to focus the interface
between culture, worldview and belief within Christianity.

Michael Keenan is a Lecturer in Sociology at Nottingham

Trent University, UK. His research interests focus on religious
and sexual identities, clergy lives and higher education
experiences. Michael’s publications have centred on his
research, exploring the lives of gay male clergy in the Anglican
Communion and related methodological reflections. Michael’s
most recent project explored the university experiences of
LGBTQ identifying undergraduate students.

Joanne McKenzie is currently undertaking doctoral

research in the Department of Theology and Religion at
Durham University, funded by the AHRC. The proj ect is
focused on how social class shapes contemporary English
evangelicalism and is supervised by Dr Mathew Guest and
professor Robert song.

Andrew McKinnon is senior Lecturer in sociology and

Director of postgraduate studies in the school of social science
at the University of Aberdeen. A sociologist of religion and
social theorist, he has a particular interest in the points where
those two endeavours meet and recently edited, with Marta
Trzebiatowska, Sociological Theory and the Question of
Religion (Ashgate). He is currently an associate editor of the
journal, Sociology of Religion, and of The Canadian Journal
of Sociology, and is on the editorial boards of sociology and
Critical Research in Religion.

Nancy Nason-Clark is professor (and chair) of sociology at

the University of New Brunswick in Canada. she is the
director of the Rave project, a research initiative funded by
the Us Lilly Endowment. Dr Nason-Clark received her ph.D.
in sociology from the London school of Economics and
political science in London, england. she has served as
president of numerous international professional associations
and two terms as editor of the journal, Sociology of Religion.
she has been actively engaged with the Muriel McQueen
Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research since its
inception, serving now as its Acting Director. Nancy is the
author of many books including Men Who Batter (with
Fisher-Townsend; Oxford University press), Secular and
Sacral Communities Working Together to Address Intimate
Partner Violence (with sevcik, Rothery and pynn; University
of Alberta press) and No Place for Abuse (with Kroeger;
InterVarsity press).

Gemma Penny is a Research Fellow at the Warwick

Religions and education Research Unit, Centre for Education
studies, University of Warwick. Her recent research has
focussed on individual differences in young people’s attitudes
toward religion, and the connection between attendance to
schools with a religious character and young people’s values.
Her recent publications have contributed to the j ournals
Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Scottish
Educational Review and Contemporary Religion.

Martyn Percy has been Dean of Christ Church since 2014.

He was, from 2004-14 the principal of Ripon College,
Cuddesdon, one of the world’s leading Anglican theological
colleges. Martyn is a member of the Faculty of Theology at
Oxford University, and writes and teaches on modern
ecclesiology. His recent books include Anglicanism:
Confidence, Commitment and Communion (Ashgate) and
Thirty-Nine New Articles: An Anglican Landscape of Faith
(Canterbury press).

Diane Rees has worked in four dioceses in a variety of

contexts since her ordination in 1996, including being Priest-
in-Charge of rural, suburban and city parishes and as
Assistant Director of Ministry and Training. She is also a
professional Chartered Psychologist who continues to
integrate ministry and psychology wherever possible. Diane
recently obtained her DThMin from King’s College, London
and is currently working freelance as an educator,
psychologist and priest.

Anna Strhan is a Lecturer in Religious Studies at the

University of Kent. She has written about the relations
between religion, ethics and everyday urban life, and is
currently completing a monograph based on a three-year
postdoctoral research project, ‘The Faithful Child:
Evangelicals and the Formation of Children in Modern
Britain’. She is the author of Aliens and Strangers? The
Struggle for Coherence in the Everyday lives of Evangelicals
(oxford University Press) and Levinas, Subjectivity,
Education: Towards an Ethics of Radical Responsibility
(Wiley-Blackwell ).

Adrian Stringer is a serving clergyman in the Church of

Ireland. His interest in the sociological context of church
congregations began with the MPhil study of religiosity in a
medium sized Cornish town (University of Essex)
‘Secularization and Social Networks’. Later, this was then
converted into a Ph.D. focusing upon the material/structural
dimensions within four contrasting congregational
memberships in Northern Ireland. He is currently preparing a
work ‘A Sociological Modelling of Ecclesial Ontology’. This
volume presents an alternative and structural paradigm for
the understanding of congregational dynamics.
Preface

This book developed from a two-day international research

symposium held in Canterbury, UK, in September 2013.
Participants were invited to the symposium as part of Abby
Day’s two-year Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC) funded research into the religious lives of a cohort of
women she calls ‘Generation A’: Anglican women born in the
1920s and 1930s who form a decreasingly active,
disappearing generation of women in the worldwide Anglican
Communion (see her chapter this volume).
Canterbury was appropriate as the symposium location,
not only because it is the site of the University of Kent where
Day and her co-chair for the event, Gordon Lynch, work but
because it is the spiritual home of Anglicans worldwide.
Nearly 1,500 years ago, in 597 CE, Augustine established his
seat (or ‘Cathedra’) in Canterbury. Interesting times and
events followed. What issues face the worldwide Anglican
Communion now and how are people interpreting these?
This book’s objectives are to explore what the academic
research community, Anglican clergy and laypeople are
suggesting are critical issues facing the Anglican communion
as, particularly, power and authority relations shift spatially
and temporally: gender roles; changing families; challenges
of an aging population; demands and opportunities
generated by young people; mobility and mutations of
worship communities; contested conformities to policies
surrounding sexual orientation; impact of social class and
income differences; variable patterns of congregational
growth and decline; global power and growth shifts from
north to south.
The purpose of the Canterbury symposium was to share
research about the contemporary Anglican Communion, an
entity that seems to be so taken for granted that it is not as
well researched as many other aspects of contemporary
religion. Anthropologists are generally accustomed to
studying the foreign, or the ‘other’, rather than the close and
familiar.
As the symposium closed, one delegate described
Anglicanism as ‘a relic’ that had a strange, partly invisible
public presence. The comparison to a ‘relic’ was, perhaps
inadvertently, fitting, both through its vernacular meaning of
‘something that has survived the passage of time, especially
an object or custom whose original culture has disappeared’
(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/relic
(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/relic) last accessed
08/02/2015) and as a religious term referring to a physical
object from a saint or otherwise venerated person considered
sacred and itself an object of veneration. Anglicanism’s
public presence is, indeed, somewhat strange through its
partial invisibility, as a consequence of the few people (as a
percentage of the population) who regularly attend Church
and its occasional visible, audible eruption into the public
sphere through controversial statements expressed by
Bishops, themselves a strange public presence with their
allocated seats in the otherwise secular House of Lords.
That odd mix of salience and irrelevance was at the heart
of many of the papers presented at the symposium,
beginning with keynote speaker simon Coleman, University
of Toronto. simon explored the complex ritual and
ideological landscape of English Anglicanism through a
particular lens: that of the pilgrimage site of Walsingham, in
Norfolk. He explored both the dense and the much more
diffuse liturgical fields being constructed in and around the
site, which he sees as pointing to a wider story not only about
the current state of Anglicanism in the country, but also
about how and where we are to locate ritual activity in
general. His argument suggests that we gain much analytical
purchase by shifting attention away from marked forms of
practice, such as the creed or the procession, towards much
more ambivalent and adjacent forms of practice. In terms of
pilgrimage theory, this means moving from a focus on the
‘liminal’ to concentrate on what he calls the ‘lateral’. In terms
of the Anglican landscape as a whole, it implies looking at
‘pilgrimage’ alongside ‘parish’ modes of practice.
Another odd feature of the Anglican Communion is its
tension between secular and religious powers and pieties.
Amongst devotions to an other-worldly god are dedications
to this-worldly struggles for spiritual and secular leadership.
Contemporary contestations have tended to focus on
generational divides, sex and gender. Looking, in this
collection, first at generational shifts, Abby Day offers
reflections on the female Christian Generation A, women in
countries of the global North born in the 1920s and 1930s,
and specifically those women who have maintained continual
support of Anglicanism. Day positions her study as necessary
to fill the lacunae in studies of that generation, with the
literature being mostly about the so-called Baby-Boomers,
and, increasingly, their grandchildren, the Generations X and
Y, and nearly Z. The chapter reflects on her ethnographic
fieldwork generating theories of embodied and performative
belief and belonging amongst a dying and irreplaceable
generation.
Turning the gaze to the younger generation’s experience of
residual religiosity, sylvia Collins-Mayo operationalises
theories about ‘believing without belonging’ and ‘vicarious
religion’. Most discussion has focused on the nature of broad
trends within populations in Western countries, and in
particular the extent to which Christian affiliation can be
seen as retaining some significance in the face of declining
church attendance and membership. To consider some of the
ways in which residual Christian culture continues to impact
on young people’s religious consciousness and identity, the
chapter draws on survey and interview data collected from
non-churchgoing young people who have contact with
Christian youth and community outreach programmes.
Anna Strhan examines evangelical Anglicans’
understandings of childhood and family life, and how these
shape their sense of the relation between their faith and
wider culture. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted
with conservative evangelical and charismatic evangelical
Anglican congregations in London, she explores how these
churches seek to form children within the context of everyday
church life, how children respond to these processes and the
meanings that childhood has for adults within the Church.
She shows that while there are significant differences in how
these different types of congregation conceive of the place of
children within the Church and family life, both articulate
hopes and ambitions that through their engagements with
children local families will ‘return’ to the Church.
Continuing with the theme of young people’s religious or
non-religious worlds, Gemma Penny and Leslie Francis
examine the religious, social and personal significance of
Anglican identities among a sample of 6,139 year- nine and
year-ten male students (aged 13 to 15 years) in England and
Wales. Comparisons are drawn among five groups:
religiously unaffiliated (not belonging), Anglicans who never
attend church (belonging without practising), Anglicans who
attend church occasionally (rare churchgoers), Anglicans
who attend church occasionally but less than weekly (active
churchgoers) and Anglicans who attend church most weeks
(weekly churchgoers). Comparisons are drawn across 10
themes: Christian beliefs; attitude toward Christianity;
Church and society; non-traditional beliefs; life after death;
sexual morality; substance use; moral behaviour; the
environment; and school.
Nancy Nason-Clark and Catherine Holtmann lead the
section on contesting issues of gender and sex with their
discussion about religious women’s experiences of family
domestic violence. Religious women often look to their
pastors, priests or ‘sisters in the faith’ when violence strikes
in the family, and yet few religious leaders know what to do.
This chapter explores the contested territory of domestic
violence and communities of faith. Based upon 20 years of
fieldwork, but focusing specifically on five recent projects,
the authors reflect on data collected in various countries
around the globe, using a variety of methodologies, with
clergy (including Anglicans), abused women, abusive men,
church women from a variety of Christian traditions
(including Anglicans), criminal justice, therapeutic and
domestic violence advocacy workers, as well as parish
workers. In particular they consider how the problem is
named in the family, the Church and the broader community,
how networks offer a way to bridge the chasm between faith
and abuse; and the process by which the secular and sacred
terrain is negotiated.
Michael Keenan suggests that when considering
‘contemporary issues’ in the Anglican Communion, the
‘issues’ which have gained most attention are those
connected with sexuality. His chapter focuses on the
interactions of gay male clergy in the Church of England with
institution, hierarchy and community, with a particular
emphasis on the presence of condition and constraint within
these men’s religious and sexual lives. He explores how
religious, sexual and vocational pressures interconnect in the
lived experience of ‘being’ clergy. He considers in particular
the negotiation of co-existing and competing ‘religious’ and
‘secular’ standards and expectations to illustrate some key
issues faced by those attempting the interconnection of
Anglican identity and same-sex attraction in the communion
today.
Looking through a global lens at the issues of sexuality,
Andrew McKinnon and Christopher Craig Brittain draw on
interviews with more than 50 global leaders in the Anglican
Communion to examine the conflict which has embroiled the
Anglican Communion over the past decade. While the
conflict is ostensibly over the legitimacy of gay bishops and
the blessing of same-sex unions, this is often described by
church leaders as a ‘presenting symptom’ of a broader
conflict (even if there is little agreement about the underlying
disease). His chapter draws on these interviews to highlight
the structural contradictions which form the basis for the
conflict in the global communion. Though the Church has
been held together by a growing number of ‘instruments of
communion’, these are proving themselves inadequate to the
task for a church that is both sensitive to the needs of local
contexts and seeks to exist as a global church.
Diane Rees situates her chapter in the historical moment
when the Church tried to discover a way forward for women
to become bishops. Her research, involving women in some
of the most senior positions of the Church of England, found
that effective leadership for those women consisted of three
core dimensions: the person of the leader, including the
connections between person and role within the public and
private spheres; the process of leadership, summarised as
‘agency enhanced by communion’; and the context in which
leadership takes place, involving a deep understanding and
engagement with the structures of the Church.
Of the social structures affecting members of the Anglican
Communion, class is one that has not received sufficient
attention. Two chapters here seek to redress that balance.
Adrian Stringer studied four contrasting congregations in
Northern Ireland and found that socio-economic class is
particularly salient at the scale of the individual congregation
rather than as a denominational amalgam. The significance
of this research is four-fold: it reignites interest in the
association between socio-economic class and organised
religion; it offers a new explanation for this link; it adds to
the growing interest in the study of religion at the
congregational level; it provides an explanation for why some
types of congregation are in decline whilst others are
growing.
Joanne McKenzie addresses the theme of class through a
close look at evangelical Anglicanism, an area previously
analysed mostly in terms of the inequalities ofgender and
‘race’. Her interviews addressed a number of questions: how
do Anglican evangelical leaders reflect upon the issue of class
? How is class ‘felt in the pews’ in evangelical congregations
within the Church of England? In what ways does class shape
the ministry and identity of Anglican evangelicals? she
concludes that attention to class is critical in understanding
Anglican evangelical identity: it is a complex dynamic, with
class boundaries being both transgressed and reinforced
within contemporary Anglican evangelicalism.
Closely related to class boundaries are boundaries created
and powers perpetuated through perceptions of ethnicity.
Anderson H.M. Jeremiah explored the distinct
characteristics and mission heritage of Anglicans living in
south Asia. While these seven million Anglicans in four
different countries share a colonial historical background,
they differ significantly in their respective journeys since
independence. This chapter considered ethnic, caste and
linguistic differences that contribute to the Anglican
Christian identity in the region, exploring issues such as the
blurring of boundaries amongst various religious
communities, confluence of religious worldviews and their
expression in worship among Anglicans.
 Martyn percy considered some aspects of the new,
emerging suppositions in ordination training that are now
becoming primary and prevalent in the Church of England,
and the wider Anglican Communion. The chapter made three
observations: first, that by addressing the ‘crisis of mission’
(as it has now become), the Church will be able to redeem
itself (numerically). second, setting the agenda for theological
education by casting its role and identity as ‘training for
mission’ will lead to narrow forms of ecclesiology, and,
ultimately, disaster. Third, education for clergy will be seen
largely in terms of gaining knowledge and acquiring skills,
with the most highly regarded educational establishments
being those that can impart ‘core’ knowledge and the latest
developments in understanding and practising skills and
techniques.
Callum Brown explores how individuals account for their
loss ofadherence to the Church of England or another church
of the Anglican Communion during the last 70 years. He
interviewed people in England, scotland, Canada and the
United states. The transnational approach adopted here is a
novel form of study in the oral history of religion.
Denominational studies of religious decline rarely approach
individuals for their accounts and, with some exceptions,
have tended to recruit respondents who have first lost and
then regained their Christian faith (leading to respondents
being confined to those within the faith and usually within a
church). Moreover, with a very few exceptions, nearly all
previous studies have been conducted by investigators
coming from a confessionalist position, often with the
explicit aim of better equipping the churches and Christian
evangelists for the task of better preventing or responding to
future loss. The present study starts at the other end - with
those who have a settled no-religion life stance and who have
volunteered to a no-religionist researcher interested in
conducting a study focusing mainly on humanism and its
origins in contemporary Western society.
This collection will be a therefore be a unique resource on
contemporary issues in the worldwide Anglican communion,
an organisation undergoing significant and rapid change with
important religious and wider sociological consequences. The
collection’s interdisciplinary character, representing history,
social science and theology, will, we hope allow a multi-
faceted, multi-vocal, multi-dimensional appreciation of the
multi-natured entity that is the worldwide Anglican
Communion.

Acknowledgements
Some people were invited to the symposium to participate
through questions, observations and discussions without the
expectation of submitting a chapter, but whose participation
was key to the way many contributors refined and shaped
their chapters: Grace Davie, University of Exeter; Emily
Falconer, London South Bank University; Allison Fenton,
Durham University; Tim Ling, Church House; Sarah Lloyd,
Ashgate Publishing; Stephen Parker, University of
Worcester; Katherine Prior, Independent Historian; Bev
Skeggs, Goldsmiths, University of London; Danny
Zschomler, Goldsmiths, University of London.
 Thanks also to the ESRC and to Lambeth Palace for
funding the Symposium; the University of Kent for
administrative support; Andy Christie, Naomi Turner, Emily
Lynn and Scarlett Shearwood for their editorial help ; Sarah
Lloyd at Ashgate for her support of the project and the
collection from its inception and all the anonymous research
participants whose generosity with their time, insights and
observations made the researchers’ work possible.
SECTION I
Generational Shifts
Chapter 1
Farewell to Generation A: The Final
‘Active Generation’ in the Anglican
Communion

Abby Day

This chapter draws on ethnographic fieldwork, cross-cultural

comparisons and relevant theories exploring the beliefs,
identities and practices of a cohort of people I am calling
‘Generation A’ in reference to their position as the mothers
and grandmothers of the Baby Boomers and the so-called
Generations X and Y. More specifically I am referring to
mainstream Anglican laywomen born in the 1920s and
1930s, now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, who are often
described as the ‘backbone’ of the Church. I am to propose
these women are likely to be its final active generation. The
chapter was developed thanks to a two-year Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project that
produced a near-insider empathy, complemented by multi-
sited comparative analysis, reaching into the depths of what
it means to be a religious woman of Generation A: a woman
formed by the challenges of war-time, prosperities of peace-
time, upheavals of cultural and religious revolutions and the
1
rise and demise of the welfare state.
Beginning with a deep ethnography of an urban
‘mainstream’ (that is, not evangelical) parish church in the
Church of England, the fieldwork expanded to nearby similar
urban and rural Anglican churches and then to other related
churches and cathedrals in the Anglican Communion: the
Scottish Episcopal Church; the Episcopal Church (United
States); the Anglican Church of Canada; and the Church of
Ceylon in Sri Lanka.
The twin ideas of power and piety, chosen as the subtitle of
this collection, may prompt notions of juxtaposition and yet,
for certain groups of people, such as Generation A, the
mutually constitutive relationship between power and piety
is central to their identity and way of living. Their religious
habits and dispositions, while specific to their generation,
echo a general pattern of gendered religiosity observed by
2
others although, I argue, insufficiently examined elsewhere.
The Generation A women I have been studying do not
describe themselves as either powerful or pious, but on this
occasion I shall take liberties to do so on their behalf. It is
not, as I will explain later, part of their disposition to describe
themselves overtly as a certain kind of person, especially one
who is perhaps seen as superior in some respect to their
peers: such reflection on the self is not a practice encouraged
by that generation. I will maintain however that the kind
ofpower they possess and have performed throughout their
religious lives is not easily recognisable if we are expecting to
see power exhibited through formal leadership structures
and hierarchies; nor are their pieties readily identifiable were
they to be reduced to numbers of prayers recited or
temptations rejected. Such forms of piety are anachronistic. I
will argue that Christian laywomen no longer need to be
chaste or self-denying to be considered holy. They wear their
devotion to God lightly, but never far from their everyday
actions and beliefs.
The women I studied were also, specifically, members of
the Anglican Church and therefore also part of the worldwide
Anglican Communion. The Church of England is one part of
the Anglican Communion, an international, colonial- era and
loose network of churches where three-quarters are in former
colonies (and see Markham et al. 2013 for a comprehensive
book written through contributions from the ‘provinces’.) A
relatively new (nineteenth century) framework, the
worldwide Anglican Communion provides an international
context for the religious lives of the women being studied,
historically through domains such as mission, education and
health, and currently with debates and schisms surrounding
sexuality and gender.
There was a high degree of resonance found in comparable
Anglican Communion churches studied in the UK, United
States and Canada, pointing to a shared commonality of
Anglican Communion experience, at least in the global
North. One of the most startling discoveries as I entered
Anglican churches in different cities and countries was their
similarities: the layout of pews occupying the central space,
the near-ubiquitous eagle lectern, the height of the pulpit,
style of the altar, and the same musty, candle-wax, wood-
infused smell. The congregations in the global North looked
the same: almost always people over 50 with a core of very
old Generation A women. Those ‘silver ladies’ were always
conservatively dressed, with hair coiffed neatly in the sort of
style rendered by weekly visits to the hairdresser using
curlers and big hood hair-dryers. The natural, blow-dried
look favoured by their daughters and granddaughters was
never theirs.
The similarities between the churches of the Anglican
Communion’s global North may extend beneath the surface,
for these are also a communion of churches, dioceses and
provinces in conflict. Many churches oppose the idea of
women bishops and recognition of gay relationships. A sri
Lankan priest told me that the gay issue was one for which he
could never foresee a resolution. This came as something of a
surprise, for many other aspects of his church’s life reflected
‘liberal’ values of diversity, multicultarism and integration.
Tamils and Buddhists were a large part of the extended
church community as it reached outside the church itself to
wider social and educational programmes. It seemed the
Church of Ceylon could absorb the idea of someone loving a
different god, but not the same gender. A woman who
belonged to the traditional element of the Anglican Church of
Canada was equally opposed to gay relationships. We had
been discussing women priests and bishops, when she added:
‘that in the end resolved itself. What tore a lot of Anglican
churches though was the business with the gays ... a lot of
churches got torn over that’.
In contrast, Episcopal churches I visited in Boston and
New York showed little evidence of such disputes. The first
woman bishop in the Anglican Communion, Barbara Harris,
became Bishop of Massachusetts in 1989: it took the Church
of England nearly 30 years to catch up with Libby Lane
ordained as the first female bishop in January 2015, after
fierce opposition from the laity, including women of
Generation A. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire became the
first openly gay bishop in 2004. At a mid-week communion I
attended at a church in New York the urban, professional
members of the congregation were largely gay; a Generation
A woman I interviewed in Boston was indifferent to the idea:

Well now in my day, at first, we didn’t have the problem,

this gay problem, you know with the gays and whatever
so that came afterwards lately, but it’s not a problem for
us [...] they just didn’t, you know, wasn’t out open [...]
but today and it doesn’t bother me, we’re all God’s
children he made us all and some are against it some,
like I say, don’t have anything against anyone.

Her remark that ‘it wasn’t out in the open’ suggests another
characteristic of Generation A: some things are just not
discussed, which is not to say they are not noticed. several
churches I visited during my study had openly gay ministers,
yet however subtly or overtly I tried to engage women in
discussion about this, I was rebuffed with the same sort of
response : ‘none of my business’, ‘don’t really notice’ and so
on.
From an organisation of both communion and conflict I
was, nevertheless, able to draw some broad themes to
characterise what I came to regard as Generation A, filling a
gap in the scholarly record about this specific generation as
more attention has been focused on other issues, such as
youth, non-Christian religions, people who say they are
spiritual but not religious or the role of women as priests and
bishops. Ask someone of the Baby Boomer generation born
in the 1940s and 1950s, the teenagers of the great cultural
revolution of the 1960s, what they think of religion and the
answer is likely to be either that they are indifferent, or
3
perhaps spiritual but not religious. Their children, the
Generation X and Y, are more likely to belong to the growing
cohort of people who say they have no religion: according to
the Office for National Statistics this number almost doubled
in 10 years and now represents one-quarter of the UK
population. Research is plentiful into Generation X,
Generation Y, Generation Z. But what about Generation A,
the mothers and grandmothers of those Baby Boomers and
their offspring? In every church I visited during the course of
my research I heard the same story: the numbers attending
mainstream Anglican churches are in decline and tend to be
composed mostly of older people, with older women
performing the bulk of voluntary work in the church and
sometimes outside the church in countries with few or
insufficient state-supported social services. Nevertheless this
female Christian Generation A is on the cusp of a
catastrophic decline in mainstream Christianity that
accelerated during the ‘post-war’ (post-1945) period. The age
profile of mainstream Christianity represents an increasingly
aging pattern, with Generation A not being replaced by their
children or grandchildren. Yet as Prelinger (1992, 3) noted:
‘Oddly, few so far have addressed the situation of women in
the mainline or asked what it may have to tell us about the
mainline’s widely analyzed “decline”’. Until now, we have
known little about Generation A’s mainstream religious lives,
and even less about how they influence and are influenced by
their other social relations and social networks. The lacunae
is troubling as this is the generation who have sometimes
been seen to lead a parallel church. They attend the
mainstream churches every Sunday, and are often the only
attendees of mid-week services. They - even in their 80s -
clean the church, wash the vestments, polish the brasses,
organise bring-and-buy sales or jumbles, bake cakes and visit
vulnerable people in their homes. Their often- invisible
labour not only populates the physical space of the church, it
ensures its continuity and enriches surrounding
communities.
Working often behind the scenes as they do their
invisibility is doubled, as they do not even feature in official
documents. National churches have historically not collected
statistics about gender and therefore leave a gap that
prompts the question: do they only count what counts ? A
major reason for the previous gap in knowledge about this
female generation is an androcentric methodological bias:
the national churches do not collect data about laywomen
and, hence, church scholars have continued to ignore them.
Over-generalisations from thin data produce grand
narratives about the apparent religiosity of women when, in
fact, the empirical evidence about lived religion in the
churches lacks ethnographic depth amidst studies that prefer
more at-distant methods. Underlying this is a pervasive
ignorance and neglect of laywomen reflected in church
practices that continue to render them invisible.
Generation A is irreplaceable and unique, and as a
‘generation’ it shares specific values, beliefs, behaviours and
orientations to belonging and a sense of self-identification
that set it apart from other ‘generations’. When this
generation finally disappears within the next five to 10 years,
its knowledge, insights and experiences will be lost forever
and so will its contribution to theories about gender,
mainstream religion, generation, age, voluntary labour and
informal acts of community sustainability and well-being.
My research findings tend to problematise the
overwhelming tendency by outsiders to stereotype older
women as worthy, dutiful, caring women in contrast with
their apparently individualised, selfish Baby Boomer
children. In fact, Generation A rarely criticise their offspring;
they did, after all, raise them. Generation A differ markedly
from their progeny, it is argued here, in one significant
respect: they desire and gain pleasure from a relationship
with a church-based, male-dominated earthly and spiritual
authority. It is an authority that in turn supports the sacred
institutions of their day of nation and of family. As Demerath
(1992, 46) has suggested, the Anglican Church in the UK
represents a particular kind of authority: ‘The Anglican
Confession has become a symbol of much more than religion
itself, given its ties to the throne, the past, and to civilization
at its zenith’.
The kind of spiritual authority valued by Generation A is
both masculine and ‘traditional’, embodied in the depiction
of their god, their saviour and their priest. Generation A’s god
is loving and beloved, if a little stern at times: a lot, it
transpires, like them, symbolised in an institution that in
many ways mirrors the ones these women, married or
unmarried, value most highly: the nation and the nuclear
family. And, for most of them, he (and unquestionably ‘he’) is
central to their lives not only on Sundays but throughout the
week. Most who know Generation A will agree they are hard-
working, intelligent, educated, smart, funny and sometimes
intimidating women. What they often fail to notice, blinded
by a particular representation of religion, is that they are,
above all else, religious women; holy women, deeply spiritual
women. For the remainder of this chapter I will focus on just
five observations about Generation A:
1. Gender and Generation
2. Pew Power
3. Doing Theology
4. Kinship and Community
5. The Final Active Generation

Method and Analysis

This work is not a case study of a single church. The research
design followed closely that approved by the peer-reviewed
EsRC funding proposal: my in-depth year-long ethnography
in one church provided rich findings and insights that I then
triangulated through purposive sampling and secondary data
analysis. My claims were tested in several ways with each,
confirming their representativeness and generalisability:
Further participant observation at several UK, sri
Lankan and North American churches;
Interviews with clergy and Generation A laywomen at
those further churches, in the UK, Canada, UsA and sri
Lanka;
Conference presentations to international audiences in
the UK, United states and mainland Europe;
Invited discussions with priests and bishops;
 A two-day symposium I hosted with scholars who
specialise in the Anglican Communion (from which
this volume emerged);
secondary data analysis of larger studies (themselves
over-generalised considering the absence of data on
this particular generation);
Close reading of scholarly literature related to the core
themes of Anglicanism, and generation;
The commissioning and production of this volume and
a forthcoming monograph: The Religious Lives of
Older Laywomen: the Last Anglican Generation.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2016.

Questions of representations undoubtedly arise. In what

respect and with what authority can I make the above claims
? My claim is that my study is representative of a generation
of Anglican women born in the 1920s and 30s in the UK, with
close and generalisable comparisons to others of a similar age
in the wider Anglican Communion, principally in Canada and
the United states. Further, the study is unique in being a rich
ethnography focused on the specific Generation A
generation, with insights drawn from action, discussion and
4
reflection rather than from surveys or interviews. My
research design was theoretically informed primarily by
anthropologists who took an ethnographic approach, by
which I mean the process of the researcher being immersed
in the ‘field’ being studied in order to gain insider knowledge.
In practice, this transpired to be the right approach for the
women being studied who were uniformly suspicious and
tired of surveys. Those with whom I worked most closely
were reluctant to be interviewed in the traditional recorded
fashion, preferring to have wide-ranging discussions about
relevant topics as we went about our business of cleaning,
serving food or chatting with local vulnerable people over a
cup of tea. I was not willing to persuade them differently for
many reasons to do with power relations and artificiality, as
feminists have argued before (Oakley 1981). Further, as my
goal was to gain insight into their lived religion as part of
their everyday lives (see Ammerman 2007), I was happy to
adopt the ‘classic’ ethnographic approach that regarded
interviews as unnatural events. As Tanya Luhrmann wrote
about her research into witchcraft: ‘If, as an anthropologist, I
wanted to understand what it was to be an insider, I had to
be an insider. And that meant no microphone, no note-
taking, no questionnaires’ (Luhrmann 1989, 15).
Here, she is following Malinowski, credited as first
creating the method of ethnography in order ‘to grasp the
native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision
of his world’ (Malinowski (1961) [1922], 25).
John Brewer provided a similar description ofethnography
from a sociological perspective, describing it as the study of
people in naturally occurring settings or ‘fields’ (Brewer
2000, 10). The American Anthropology Association describes
ethnography as the researcher’s study of human behaviour in
the natural settings in which people live. Observation and
description are not sufficient, of course. Ethnographers are
neither naturalised insiders nor neutral outsiders, but
professionals who will use reflexivity, analysis, interpretation
and theory to create a picture of the institution or place being
studied within a contemporary, and temporally grounded,
context. As Hammersley and Atkinson described it: ‘Any
account of human behaviour requires that we understand the
social meanings that inform it’ (1995, 9).
My research design therefore emphasised the ‘participant’
element of participant observation, with the aim being to
acquire specific roles and responsibilities that would
implicate myself in the lives of the women being studied. To
understand why they did what they did, I had to do it, not
just as a passive observer but as a co-actor. My journey
through their social settings and everyday lives drew me in
more deeply than I had expected, causing me some anxiety
about how I would withdraw from the ‘field’ I had entered
and partly created. The idea of field itself, as a place
apparently uncorrupted by but awaiting anthropological
investigation, is deeply problematic. Coleman and Collins
point out that the field is not a place waiting to be discovered,
but a construction by the anthropologist where we map:
‘Certain understandings of culture and theoretical concern on
to regions, thus naturalising their subsequent ‘discovery’ or
elucidation by the ethnographer. Such processes of cultural
cartography have reflected and reinforced the colonial
legacies of the discipline’ (2006, 5).
Nevertheless, recalling the colonial roots of the discipline
did not prevent me from being, as my work continued,
increasingly envious of most anthropologists I knew who
could get on a plane and leave whatever exotic corner of the
world they had studied. My ethnography was ‘at home’, close
to the church and the homes of the women I studied. I felt
like William Whyte who had become part of the
neighbourhood he had been observing: ‘I began as a non-
participating observer. As I became accepted into the
community, I found myself becoming almost a non-observing
participant’ (1943, 321).
Although I could not leave my research participants
wholly, my research design had been based on the idea of
multi-sited ethnography and I therefore had planned to at
least reduce my intensity in their lives as I sought to follow
my emerging themes to other places. George Marcus (1995)
and others (see in particular Coleman and von Hellermann
2011; Falzon 2009) pointed to the problems of a field being
conceptualised as a bounded site, a container, that might be
compared to other bounded sites with findings possibly
generalised, initially regionally and then maybe universally.
But what of phenomena that cannot be explained through its
context as a single site such as, I will argue, Generation A
women of the northern Anglican Communion? This is where
the technique of multi-sited ethnography becomes
important, not as a matter of simply comparing two or more
sites (anthropologists have long done that) but ‘to follow
people, connections, associations, and relationships across
space (because they are substantially continuous but spatially
non-contiguous)’ (Falzon 2009, 1-2). That observation
reflects the sense that a field is constructed through a play of
social relationships established between ethnographers and
informants that may extend across physical sites,
comprehending embodied as well as visual and verbal
interactions. It may also be, I suggest, ‘performative’ where
something is being created out of social action. Much of that
methodological approach falls under the main technique
Marcus (1995, 106-00) described as ‘following’, which may be
a matter of being able to follow the people, thing, metaphor,
plot, story or allegory, life or biography. For the purpose of
my research, I was following the people who were immersed
in a common story I identified and was able to elaborate
through observation and interviews. I will turn now to a
discussion of five of those key themes.

5
Gender and Generation
Women have been at the heart, but not the head, of the
Church of England throughout its history, from the moment
King Henry VIII fell in love with Anne Boleyn to
contemporary schisms over women priests and bishops. And
yet, despite their prominence in church politics and power
struggles, everyday laywomen remain remarkably absent
from the record. Popular descriptions of the Church of
England today as ‘the Conservative Party at prayer’ are only
partly facetious. In the United states, Episcopal women in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were significant
fundraisers for schools and hospitals, operating what was
described as a ‘parallel church’. Although smaller numerically
than the non-conformist and evangelical churches, the
members of the Anglican/Episcopal churches have
historically been disproportionately represented in society’s
establishment and perceived as the ‘national’ churches.
Women have been intrinsically implicated in the constitution
and maintenance of that network. There are several
important theories that seek to make sense of women’s
religiosity to explain why women seem to be more religious
than men. Common theses of this apparent phenomenon
centre on biology, deprivation, risk profile and socialisation
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
feet trod upon the ashes. Well, that is good, so far as it goes. It tells me
where he was, and also the kind of footwear he had. But he didn’t come in
by way of this flue, wide as it is.”
The room was at the back of the house, and heavy curtains were drawn
over the windows. Nick Carter flung one of the curtains aside and peered
out. He saw that there was a long balcony outside, which passed both
windows, and he knew it had been arranged thus for a fire escape.
It was not like the ordinary contrivance of that kind, such as is seen on
apartment houses and some business buildings.
It had been built by the owner of the house, and was of an ornate
description, with no ladder leading to the ground. Instead, there was a rope
ladder, with steel crosspieces, which could be let down if desired. The ladder
was out of reach of any burglar who might get to the back of the premises
and seek to get in by way of the study window.
The windows were both fastened with spring catches. These fastenings
were heavy and of modern pattern. But Nick Carter smiled sadly, as he
reflected how easy it would be for a professional cracksman to negotiate
them. A thin-bladed knife would be the only tool required. The fellow who
had murdered Anderton may not have been a professional burglar, but
assuredly he would be ingenious enough to get one of these windows open,
and close it again when he had finished his work.
The detective, flash lamp in hand, stepped out on the balcony. The floor
was of painted steel, and solid. Most fire escapes have a railed floor, but this
had been put up under the eye of the dead man, and he wanted it like the
floor of a room.
Directing the strong, white light of his lamp on the floor of the balcony,
Nick Carter did not discover anything that would help him for the first few
minutes. Suddenly a low ejaculation of satisfaction escaped him.
“By George! Here it is! But what does it mean?”
He had found a slight smudge of wood ash at the very end of the balcony.
It was so small that it might easily have been overlooked by any but the
sharpest eyes. Even the detective had passed it over several times.
He knelt down and put the light close to it. Beyond question, there was a
gray-white mark, but it bore nothing of the shape of a human foot.
“Well, I’ll have to try something else.”
 He took from his pocket a powerful magnifying glass, and, adjusting the
light properly, again stared hard at the ash mark. This time he was rewarded
for his patience by a discovery. Clearly defined, was the shape of a foot. In
the one place where the smudge was pronounced, as well as around it, the
detective made out the impress. It was very indistinct over most of its area,
but certainly was there, now that he had the magnifier to help him.
“So far, good! But how did he get up here, and again, how did he get
away. If he didn’t get up from the ground below the balcony, which way did
he come?”
Nick Carter still held his magnifying glass and flash in his fingers, as he
reflected, his gaze fell upon the top of the railing at the end of the balcony.
“I see now, I believe!” he murmured.
The flash had thrown its light upon the railing, and quickly he brought his
glass into play at the same spot. A smile of satisfaction spread over his keen
features, and he carefully looked all along the railing.
“He stood on this railing. But apparently with only one foot. What does
that mean? Where did he go? How did he get here? Hello! What are these
splinters of wood? There has been a plank laid on the railing. Yes, here is
some of the paint scraped off.”
He turned off his flash, and stood in the darkness, considering. The voice
of Chick came from below:
“Hello, chief! Are you there?”
“Yes,” answered Nick guardedly. “What have you found?”
“Nothing much. But it may have something to do with the case that the
next house to this is empty. The people who live here are away—gone to
California for two months. Went a week ago. Ruggins told me.”
“Ruggins? Oh, yes—the butler. Well? Has anybody been seen in the
house since the family went? I suppose there is a caretaker?”
“Yes. There is an old man who lives there by himself. But he hasn’t been
seen for three days. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
“Any lights in the house?”
“Yes. The light in the room the old man uses, in the basement, has been
going to-night. Before that it was dark. Now it is dark again.”
“Come up here, Chick, to the study. I’ll open the door.”
 Nick Carter went through the window, carefully closing it and pulling the
heavy curtains back into place. Then he opened the door, and, as soon as
Chick was inside, closed it again.
“The servants are kind of scared,” said Chick. “But I think that is only
because they know Mr. Anderton is lying dead in his bedroom. Only
Ruggins and one of the maids know he was killed, and they are keeping their
mouths shut.”
“I hope they are,” remarked Nick coldly.
“You can depend on that. Ruggins is a close-mouthed fellow, and he has
the girl hypnotized, I think. She has an idea he is the greatest ever, and he
can make her do anything. I heard some of the other maids talking about
Ruggins and Amelia going to be married next spring.”
Nick Carter smiled at this story of romance, which he regarded as a lucky
thing, if it would have the effect of keeping the maid from talking. But he
made no comment. He only asked Chick how he had found out about the
house next door.
“Ruggins told me,” replied Chick. “Oh, yes. And he said something else.
There is a tall Japanese professor, who used to visit there sometimes.”
“How do you know he was Japanese?” interrupted Nick.
“Ruggins. He said so. I told him Japanese men were not generally tall. He
came back at me by saying this one was, so there was nothing more to be
said. The professor’s name is Tolo. That’s all Ruggins could tell me—
Professor Tolo.”
There came a knock at the door at that moment, and Chick, at Nick
Carter’s request, opened it. He confronted Ruggins, who had come up with a
card in his hand.
“Gentleman would like to speak to Mr. Carter,” he announced.
Nick looked at the name on the card. Then he started, as he told Ruggins
to send the gentleman up.
“Chick,” he whispered, when the butler had gone. “Who do you think this
is, wants to see me?”
“I don’t know. Who?” asked Chick.
“Professor Tolo,” was Nick Carter’s unexpected reply.
 CHAPTER IV.

THE NEEDLES AGAIN.

The man who came into the room, bowing low and smiling with the
suave courtesy of the Oriental, was more than six feet in height, but not
stout. He looked as if he might have a great deal of strength in his wiry
frame, and his high forehead, which showed extensively under the narrow-
brimmed felt hat he wore far back on his head, was that of an intellectual
man. The color of his skin suggested that he might be a Japanese. This was
confirmed by his wiry black hair.
He appeared to have very sharp black eyes, but Nick Carter could not see
them very well, because they were behind large, thick glasses, with heavy,
tortoise-shell frames.
“I must ask your pardon for intruding, Mr. Carter,” began Professor Tolo.
“But Mr. Anderton was a warm friend of mine, and I have just heard that he
is seriously ill.”
“He is dead,” returned Nick simply.
Professor Tolo threw up both hands with a gesture of horror and sorrow.
As he did so, Nick Carter noted the powerful sinews of his arms, which
could be seen up his sleeves, moving like snakes under the yellow skin.
“Dead?” repeated Tolo. “Why, this is dreadful! How was it? Did you
hear? Wasn’t it very sudden?”
“Very,” returned Nick. “It was an affection of the heart.”
“Heart failure! Well, I always thought my poor friend has something of
the appearance of one who might be carried off in that way. Can I see him?”
“I am afraid not, professor. The coroner has his remains in charge. When
did you see Mr. Anderton last?”
“About a week ago. We met at the home of a friend of both of us. I had
never been in this house. You know, he only lately returned from China. He
had gathered up there a mass of valuable information for this government, I
understand.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Nick shortly.
 “I have heard so. In fact, Mr. Anderton made no secret of it. He even told
me where he kept the data he had gathered, and offered to let me look it
over. Part of my reason for being in this neighborhood now was to see Mr.
Anderton and ask him to show me those records.”
“It is eleven o’clock at night,” the detective reminded him. “Isn’t it rather
late to come on such a mission?”
“It was the habit of Mr. Anderton to work at night, and I have often met
him away from home at a later hour than this. Students pay little attention to
the time of day or night when they are interested in any subject they may be
discussing. Did Mr. Anderton leave those papers where they could be seen, I
wonder. They deal only with scientific subjects, of course.”
“Did I not understand you to say that they were intended for the
government?” asked Nick. “It would hardly be proper for anybody else to
see them, I should say.”
“They were to be sent to the Smithsonian Institute, I believe. But I was
told by Mr. Anderton himself that there was nothing secret about them. He
intended the facts he had gathered to be given to the world at large. My
understanding was that they were to be published simultaneously with their
being sent to Washington.”
“You’re a liar,” muttered Chick, under his breath. “And you know it.”
Chick had been gazing steadily at the tall professor without being
observed, and the result of his inspection was that he did not like the look of
the stranger. It occurred to Chick, too, that Professor Tolo was too sure of
Nick Carter’s name after hearing it for the first time that night.
“I could not interfere with any of Mr. Anderton’s papers, professor,” said
Nick. “I am sorry that you have been disappointed. I should think the best
way for you to see these records you want would be to communicate with
Washington.”
The professor bowed and shrugged his shoulders, while a smile spread
over the yellow face beneath the large spectacles.
“Probably you are right, Mr. Carter. I thank you for the suggestion. Any
suggestion from so able a detective as everybody knows you to be cannot
but be valuable. I am right, am I not, in supposing that you are the Mr.
Nicholas Carter whom all the world knows? Your home is in Madison
Avenue, is it not?”
“Yes. That is where I live, and my name is Nicholas.”
 Nick Carter said this in the cold tone in which he had conducted most of
his part of the conversation. It was easy to be seen that he was not favorably
impressed with the rather too smug Professor Tolo.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Ruggins, who
announced that a man, who seemed much excited—a young man—wanted
to see Mr. Carter on an important matter.
“Which Mr. Carter?” demanded Nick.
“Both, ’e said. ’E asked if you were both ’ere, and when I told him yes, ’e
said that was what he wanted. So I came up and left ’im in the ’all till I could
find out whether you would see ’im.”
“It might be Patsy,” whispered Chick to his chief.
The same idea had occurred to Nick Carter, and he hurried out of the
room, followed by Chick and Ruggins, who closed the door behind him.
Instantly the Japanese professor became active. He carefully laid a heavy
chair on its side against the door. Then he ran across the room, to where a
tall bookcase stood against the wall in a corner, opposite the windows.
Professor Tolo had a remarkable knowledge of its arrangements.
Throwing open one of the large glass doors of the case, he hastily removed
four or five heavy books and placed them on a chair by the side of it. Then
he fumbled inside, feeling the back wall.
“Curses!” he growled. “Where is that button? The chart I have gives it
just about here. Let me see.”
He thrust his hand into the long black coat he wore, and felt in a pocket,
from which he drew forth a peculiar-looking little volume, whose covers
were made of some sort of shiny green substance, and which was held
together by a metal clasp.
“If they will only stay away long enough,” he muttered, while the
perspiration came out on his forehead in large drops. “The jade book will tell
me. But I’ve got to have time to look it up.”
He stepped back from the bookcase, so that he could see better by the
electric light just behind him, and opened the metal clasp of the green-
covered book with a click.
He was still turning the leaves—which seemed to be of parchment—
when he heard footsteps outside the door.
 “Too late this time,” he mumbled. “But I’ll get it yet. That infernal Nick
Carter! Who would have thought he would mix himself up in this? And his
man, too! I’ll have a reckoning with both of them in due time. They’ll find
out that the crossed needles can reach anybody!”
Hurriedly he thrust the jade book, as he called it, back into his pocket,
and opening one of the big volumes he had taken from the bookcase, seemed
to be deeply absorbed in reading. In fact, he was so taken up with it that he
did not heed a racket at the door, when somebody outside pushed it against
the overturned chair.
It was not until Nick Carter had forced his way in, and Chick was picking
up the chair, that he turned, with a far-away expression, and smiled.
“Ah, Mr. Carter! Back again? I took the liberty of looking at this book
when I found myself alone. It is by my dear friend Anderton, written several
years ago. I have heard of it, but never happened to get hold of it before. Do
you know the work? It is called ‘The Orient and Orientalism.’ A splendid
treatment of a great subject. Masterly, in fact. I have often thought——”
“Why did you barricade the door?” demanded Nick, his eyes blazing. “I
don’t understand this, Professor Tolo.”
There was no chance to ignore the anger in the detective’s tones, and the
professor came to himself with a jerk. He shut the book and put it on its
shelf, while he looked from Nick Carter to Chick, and back again, in a most
edifying bewilderment.
“I don’t understand,” he faltered.
“You placed a chair against that door, didn’t you?” insisted the detective.
“Did I?” asked the professor vacantly. “I—I don’t know. I was thinking
about something else. Why, I—— Oh, yes, so I did. I remember. As I passed
a chair, I accidentally knocked it over. I intended to pick it up, of course. But
I saw the title of this volume in the bookcase——”
“Away across the room?” growled Chick.
The professor disregarded the query, and continued: “When I saw that
this book was here, I forgot everything else. All I saw was this work, that I
have longed for years, to hold in my hand, and I forgot all about the chair.
How I wish my dear Anderton were alive! He would lend it to me, I know.
As it is, I must try and get a copy somewhere else.”
“It would be advisable, I think,” said the detective, as he picked up the
other volumes and replaced them in the bookcase. “Is there anything more I
can do for you, professor? You will pardon me if I say that I am very busy,
and that it is getting late.”
“My dear Mr. Carter, I am sorry I have disturbed you. I apologize most
sincerely. Good night!”
He walked to the door, opened it, turned to bow and smile, and went
down the stairs.
Nick Carter waited till he heard the front door close after the professor,
and turned to Chick. But it was unnecessary for him to say anything. Chick
nodded comprehendingly, and leaped down the stairs three or four at a time.
Then he dashed along the hall and out to the street.
“I’ll go, too,” muttered Nick, as he also ran down the stairs and to the
outer air.
He had only just got off the stone steps and turned to the darkness on the
left, when he heard a muffled cry from somebody, followed by a scraping on
the sidewalk and the sound of something falling heavily.
“Chick!” he called.
There was no answer, and Nick Carter felt a strange premonition of evil.
He ran down the avenue for perhaps a hundred feet. Then, as he stumbled
over something soft that was lying across the sidewalk, he knew that his
premonition was not without foundation.
Chick was stretched out, unconscious. The detective turned the light of
his pocket flash upon him and gave vent to a shout of horror.
Sticking in the sleeve of his insensible assistant were two long needles,
crossed!
“Great heavens!” cried Nick. “Is it possible they’ve got Chick? Is no one
safe from these fiends?”
 CHAPTER V.

IN AND OUT.

It would be hard to express in ordinary words the wave of relief that

surged through Nick Carter as he knelt by the side of Chick, and, looking
closely at the sleeve of his coat, saw that the crossed needles had not gone in
far.
“They haven’t reached his flesh, I’m sure,” murmured Nick. “They only
just catch in the cloth. The wretch who did this hadn’t time to finish the job.
The needles got entangled in the cloth, and before he could drive them in, he
heard, or saw, me coming.”
Cautiously, the detective withdrew the needles and laid them on the walk,
by his side. Then, picking up the unconscious Chick, he threw him over one
shoulder, and carried him into the Anderton mansion.
Nick Carter was blessed with extraordinary strength, and although Chick
was solid and of good weight, the burden was nothing to the detective.
“Merciful ’eavens!” squeaked Ruggins, as Nick came up the stone steps.
“What’s that, Mr. Carter?”
“Fainted, I think,” replied the detective briefly. “Let me put him on this
sofa in the hall.”
When Chick was laid out on a long leather settee that had been
encumbered with a raincoat and other garments untidily left there by
Ruggins, and which Nick Carter unceremoniously swept to the floor, the
detective hastily removed Chick’s coat, and pulled up his shirt sleeve on one
side.
“This was the arm,” he muttered. “There is no mark of the needles in the
sleeve, and I could not find any through the coat. I don’t think there’s any
danger of his having been struck. But I want to find out.”
With his flash lamp and magnifying glass, he went slowly and minutely
over the whole length of Chick’s arm. The skin was perfectly smooth,
without a prick or abrasion of any kind on it from shoulder to wrist.
“Just what I hoped. The needles never went through. If the point of one of
them had touched his flesh, he would be dead before this. A more powerful
poison I never came across, judging by its effects on Brand Jamieson and
poor Andrew Anderton.”
“Hello, chief! What’s the matter?” interposed a feeble voice.
“What, Chick? Are you all right again?” asked Nick, smiling, as Chick
raised his head. “I was just going to ask you what was the matter? Ah, I see!
You’ve been rapped on the head.”
“Oh, yes,” was the response, as Chick sat up on the settee and let his feet
fall to the floor. “I remember now. I was following the professor—a few
yards behind him, so that he shouldn’t see me. Then I had a feeling as if a
crowbar had come down on top of my head, and that was all I knew.”
“It was a sandbag,” declared Nick. “There is a little mark on your head,
made by that metal initial you had put in the crown of your hat. The sandbag
came down on top of your derby, crushed it in, and caused the brass letter to
cut your scalp just a little. There is no mark on your hat, however. It was
merely slammed in by something bulky and yielding, and the inference is
that it was a sandbag.”
“ ’Oly ’eavens!” mumbled Ruggins, who had been listening. “ ’Ow easy
it seems when you know.”
“I guess you’re right,” agreed Chick, speaking to Nick. “But it was so
sudden and unexpected that I did not get a chance to see who did it, or how.”
“It wasn’t the professor?”
“No. He was some distance in front, and I don’t think he knew I was
following him. He did not turn his head. He walked along as if he wasn’t
thinking of anything except to get to where he was going. I believe he had a
taxi. I saw one waiting about two blocks from the house.”
“There was none there when I went out,” observed Carter reflectively. “I
guess you’re right. But wait a minute. I have something to look after outside.
Go up to the study and wait for me.”
As Chick got up to obey, Nick Carter hurried out of the house and to the
place where he had left the crossed needles. He had put them close to the
iron fence of a house, so that there was no danger of their being trodden on
—even if anybody should happen to pass that way.
“I don’t think there has been any one going by since I left them,” he
muttered. “Anyhow, here are the needles.”
 He put them carefully between the leaves of his notebook, which he
carried in his hand back to the house, and up to the study. When he got there,
he laid the book on the table and opened it.
“You see, Chick, the person who knocked you down belonged to the
Yellow Tong. That is proved by the fact that he tried to kill you with the
crossed needles.”
“What?” cried Chick, turning pale.
“Oh, it’s all right now, my boy!” laughed Nick Carter. “I wouldn’t have
told you otherwise. The needles did not get to you. But that is no credit to
the blackguard who knocked you down. They were sticking in your coat
sleeve when I found you on the sidewalk. I satisfied myself that the points
had not reached you, even before I picked you up. But I don’t understand
what the object was in attacking you, unless——”
He paused and walked several times up and down the room before he
spoke again.
“I have it,” he declared at last. “It is simple enough. Somebody saw you
following Professor Tolo—somebody in his employ. To prevent your finding
out where the professor was going—and perhaps in fear that you might hit
on the professor’s real identity—this stranger knocked you down and tried to
kill you with the needles.”
“Then you believe Tolo is connected in some way with the Yellow
Tong?”
“I certainly do.”
“If that is the case, it ought not to be hard to get at the secret of Mr.
Anderton’s death.”
Nick Carter smiled slightly and shook his head.
“My dear Chick, don’t jump hastily to conclusions. What evidence have
we got against Professor Tolo?”
“Plenty, I should think. Wasn’t he snooping about in this room when we
came back to it, after going downstairs to see a man who had disappeared
when we got there? Then, doesn’t he hide his face with those big spectacles?
And wasn’t I following him when I was sandbagged and struck at with the
crossed needles?”
“All that is suspicious, but not proof, Chick.”
“Do we know where he lives?”
 “That is easily found out,” replied Carter. “But even then, we shall have
to learn a great deal more before we can show that he is associated with the
Yellow Tong.”
“But you believe he is, don’t you?”
“I do. Only we haven’t anything conclusive with which to back up that
belief—yet. For the present, I want to find out how the person who killed
Andrew Anderton got into this room. When I have reached that point, I shall
have something from which to start on other inquiries. It would give us a
base of operations.”
Nick Carter picked up a small pasteboard box from the table which had
been filled with brass paper fasteners at one time, but was nearly empty now.
He threw out the three or four fasteners that remained. Then he placed the
crossed needles in the box and fitted on the lid. To make it still more secure,
he put on two thick rubber bands. Then he dropped the box into his coat
pocket.
“Going to examine those needles, I suppose, chief?” asked Chick.
“Yes, when I have leisure, at home. They are so dangerous that I don’t
like to handle them until I can do so carefully. I would not even trust them in
an envelope. The points could easily come through, and one touch might
mean death.”
Chick shuddered, in spite of himself, as he thought how easily he might
have been scratched when the ghastly instrument was thrust into his sleeve,
as he lay on the sidewalk.
“What are we going to do now?” he asked.
“Come out on that balcony, and then we will see. But first we’ll turn out
the lights in this room.”
This was done; then Nick went to the window he had gone out by before,
and the next minute he and Chick were standing outside, in the pitch
darkness. Just as they got out, a distant tower clock chimed twelve.
“Now, Chick, I have a theory. It isn’t anything more than that, but it is a
strong one. I want you to climb into that next yard. You see there is a high
wooden fence dividing it from this.”
“About fifteen feet, I should say,” put in Chick.
“Not quite that, I think,” returned Carter. “But high enough. Anyhow, I
should like you to climb over, if you will. Then look about and see if there is
a long plank over there, or a ladder. I will stay here, on the balcony, where I
can look over, in case of any interference with you, and be ready to help.
You will get over with this rope ladder.”
He turned the flash on the ladder already referred to, which was intended
by Andrew Anderton for use as a fire escape, if necessary, and showed that it
had two powerful and large steel hooks at the end.
“I see,” said Chick. “I’ll climb down to our yard by this. Then you’ll drop
it to me, and I’ll throw up the end to the top of the fence and hook it on. Is
that the idea?”
“You have it exactly. Now, are you ready?”
“Sure! Let her go!”
It did not take Chick long to carry out his instructions. In a very short
space of time he was astride of the high fence. This brought him almost level
with Nick, standing on the balcony, and not more than ten feet away, for the
window was almost at the corner of the Anderton house.
“Careful, Chick!” whispered Nick. “Better drop your ladder into the other
yard and go down that way.”
“All right! Then what am I to do?”
There was a short pause, while Nick Carter considered his next move.
Then he said quietly:
“If there is a ladder, or plank, push it up to the top of the fence. I want to
see whether it could have been used as a bridge to get to this balcony from
the yard. Do you begin to see what I’m driving at?”
“I’d be a bonehead if I didn’t,” replied Chick, as he went to work.
For perhaps a minute there was silence. Then a gruff voice broke out,
demanding to know who was there. This was followed by a sound of
fighting, with Chick’s voice mingling with the gruff tones heard before.
“You’re a burglar. That’s what you are!” roared the gruff person. “I’ll
have you pinched as soon as I can get you to the front door! Come on! You
can’t get away! Lend me a hand here, Bill!”
“I’m here,” responded a voice that was strangely squeaky, and might have
been that of a Chinaman, except that it had not the Mongolian accent. “And
the others will help.”
“The durned, sneaking thief! Out with him!”
There was a little more noise. Then a door banged, and—silence!
 Nick Carter hurriedly went through the window to the study, and, without
taking the time to close it, rushed to the door, down the stairs, past the
mystified Ruggins, and out to the street.
There he met Chick, very much ruffled, and with his battered hat in his
hand, coming along from the next house, and occasionally looking over his
shoulder, as if he expected to see somebody come out.
“Well, chief, they bounced me!” he said, in a rueful tone. “Chucked me
out on my head.”
“Who?” asked Nick Carter.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see anybody. I only felt that there were at least
three men, and they were all huskies, too. We were in the dark. They shoved
me clean through the house and out of the front door before I had any chance
to fight back. It was the quickest bounce I ever had—or ever gave any one
else. What shall we do? Break down the door and go in?”
“No. We’ll leave them for the present. The caretaker had a right to throw
you out if he thought you were a burglar, and, naturally, if he had any friends
with him, they would help. We can’t break in, unless we want to bring the
police. I am glad he didn’t call the police, as it was.”
“Do you think he would dare do that?” asked Chick significantly.
“No,” was Nick Carter’s slow reply. “I don’t think he wants the police to
get into that house. That is where, I think, we have them.”
“You mean——”
“I mean that I am convinced the murderer of Andrew Anderton came in
from that house. But we can’t do anything more now. We’d better go in and
close that study. Then we’ll go to bed. Do you feel like walking?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. We’ll walk home.”
 CHAPTER VI.

PATSY’S STILL-HUNT.

“I believe I’ve found him,” was the assertion with which Patsy Garvan
greeted Nick Carter, as he opened the door of his own library. “I’ve heard of
a chink with a sore mudhook and a listener branded from the top edge down
to the flap where you’d hang an earring, if you wore such a thing.”
Patsy jumped from behind Nick’s desk as the detective and Chick entered
the room, and it was obvious that the enthusiastic second assistant had been
about to write a report for his chief when he was interrupted.
He had thrown his hat on a chair, taken off his coat, rolled up his shirt
sleeves, and thrust the fingers of his left hand through his hair, as a
preparation for literary labor. Writing was one of the occupations that he
seldom took up by choice.
“Where is he, Patsy?” asked Nick, as he took the chair the young fellow
had vacated. “Can you produce him?”
“Sure I can,” replied Patsy. “That is, after we’ve laid out three or four
other chinks who’ll maybe stick in the way.”
“In Chinatown?” asked Chick.
“Naw!” was Patsy’s scornful reply. “That isn’t any place to look for a
chink who’s traveling on the ragged edge of the law. That’s where you’d
naturally look for him, and he wouldn’t be a chink if he didn’t have cunning
enough to be somewhere else. Gee! They’re a wise bunch, and don’t you
forget it. Why, I——”
“Where did you find him?” interrupted Nick. “Get down to business.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” returned Patsy, in a half-apologetic tone. “When I
went out of the house to-night, to look for this chink, I didn’t know where to
go. It wasn’t likely he’d be down near Mott or Doyers or Pell Street. Those
are Chinatown, of course, and there are more chinks to the square yard
around there than you’d find in square miles anywhere else in New York.”
“That’s so,” commented Chick.
“Of course, it’s so. Everybody knows that. Also, there was a possibility
that this crooked-eyed geezer might be there. But I didn’t think so. The
question was, where should I look? I know a lot of chink laundries in
Greater New York, and some more over in Jersey City. But it would take me
a week to look into them all, and I wouldn’t be sure of landing my man, at
that.”
“Great Scott! Why don’t you tell your yarn right off the bat, Patsy?”
begged Chick. “Where is this Chinaman?”
“I’m coming to that, Chick. Don’t be in such a hustle. When I’d walked
around for a while, thinking it over, I found myself back in front of our
house.”
“Yes?”
“I was on the other side of the avenue, in the shadow, when I saw two
men come out of this house.”
“You did?” shouted Chick. “Did you know them? Who were they? Why
didn’t you say so at first?”
“Of course, I knew them,” replied Patsy, to Chick’s first query. “They
were the chief and you.”
Chick snorted in disgust, while Nick Carter laughed, for he had suspected
what Patsy would say.
“What did you do then?” asked Nick.
“I followed your taxi in another one that I picked up on Thirty-fourth
Street, and I told him to keep yours in sight. It took me to Andrew
Anderton’s house.
“When I saw you and Chick go in, I paid off my taxi driver and told him
to beat it. Then I took up my post on the other side of the avenue and
watched. You see, you’d told me that it was the Yellow Tong that had laid
out Mr. Anderton, and I know the ways of chinks.”
“Go on.”
“You hadn’t been in there more than a minute before a chink came
strolling past the house, and he met another one at the corner. Then two more
came, and two more after that. They did not all stay in a bunch, but I saw
them all speak to each other.”
“What about the man with the scar that the chief wants?” put in Chick.
“I’m coming to that. The chinks were all watching the Anderton house in
a casual kind of way, but all at once I found two of them were missing. What
was funny about that was that they did not walk away. I saw the whole six in
front of the house at one moment, and the next, when I went to count them,
there were only four.”
“What had become of the other two?”
“I don’t know. But that wasn’t all of it. While I was wondering where
they had gone, I’m a chink myself if two more didn’t vanish the same way.”
“But they must have gone somewhere,” interposed Nick Carter
impatiently. “They weren’t swallowed up by the sidewalk.”
“That’s what they seemed to be,” insisted Patsy. “However, I wasn’t
going to stand anything like that without trying to call the bluff. So I walked
down the avenue for a block, under the trees, against the park fence, and
then crossed over. I came moseying along past Anderton’s, and there was my
two Mr. Chinks.”
“What were they doing?”
“Just coming slowly along, chattering to each other. I don’t know much
chink lingo, but I’m on to some of their words, and I heard one of them say
he’d had another fight. The other one asked him what about. Then came
something I couldn’t make out, but I caught the chink word for smoothing
iron.”
“Yes?”
“Just then they came into the light of an arc lamp, and I got a flash at the
ear of the one who said he’d been in a fight. I saw the white scar. At once I
piped off his right hand, and I saw that he had a finger tied up in a white rag.
That was enough. I kept right on past them, as if I wasn’t interested. But I
knew they were suspicious.”
“What did they do?”
“They waited till I’d got to the corner, where I turned around. I know that
part of the avenue pretty well, and I made for a vacant lot with boards built
up around it. There’s one loose board that I’d noticed when I was past there
last week, and it had struck me then that it would be handy if a fellow
happened to want to hide.”
“That’s right, Patsy!” commended Nick. “A good detective is always
careful to take note of everything. The most unimportant things—or things
that seem unimportant—may mean a great deal at some other time.”
“Exactly the way I’d figured it,” said Patsy, his freckled face flushing
with pleasure at his chief’s words. “And it just hit the spot to-night. I slipped
through the hole—just wide enough for me to squeeze through—and pulled
the board back into place.”
“It’s a good job you’re slim, Patsy,” smiled Nick.
“Yes. That’s been a help to me many times. Anyhow, as I was going to
say, I hadn’t more than got behind the boards, when the chinks came to the
corner and peeked around. There’s a big arc light there, you know, so that I
could see them quite plainly. They waited a minute, and then they walked
past the place where I was, and hustled around into Madison Avenue. I was
out of the hole and at the corner just as they boarded a street car.”
“Did you get on the same car?” asked Chick.
Patsy shook his head emphatically.
“Not me, Chick. I was too wise for that. But luck was with me, for
another car came along, close behind the other. There had been a blockade
downtown, and there was a string of five or six cars in a row.”
“Well?” put in Nick.
“There was nothing to it after that,” replied Patsy, grinning. “The chinks
got off at Hundred and Twenty-fifth and walked east. I was a block behind
them. They turned the corner when they got to Third Avenue, and then
another corner. I landed them at last. They went into a chink laundry that
was all dark. One of them knocked at the door. It was opened right away. I
guess there was a peephole. But after a while the door swung back and the
two went in.”
“And that was all?”
“Not quite. I hung around for a while, and, sure enough, four other
Chinamen came and got in. I couldn’t see whether they were the same four
I’d been watching on Fifth Avenue, and who got away from me, but it’s a
gold watch to a rusty nail that they were.”
“You know just where this laundry is, of course?” asked Nick.
“Gee! Yes. I can lead you right to it. But there’s a little more I haven’t
told you yet. I thought, if I hung around for a while, I might find out
something else. So I crossed the street, a little way below the laundry. Then I
came back and got into a doorway right opposite. I hadn’t been there more
than two minutes, when a taxicab came up and a tall man got out. I got only
a glimpse of him. He had a long black coat and soft hat, and he wore
spectacles with big black rims.”
 Nick Carter betrayed the first excitement that had marked him since Patsy
began to tell his story.
“Was he a Chinaman or a Japanese, Patsy?” he asked eagerly.
“Search me. I couldn’t see in the dark.”
“Where did he go?”
“Into the laundry. The door opened as soon as the taxi stopped. There
wasn’t any waiting for him. It was all done up in a flash. He’d gone in and
the taxi was on its way in less time than you could take off your hat. I did
not stay any longer. I thought I’d seen enough. I jumped an elevated train
and came home. The name on the sign over the laundry was ‘Sun Jin.’ ”
“That will do,” said Nick Carter shortly. “We’ll all go to bed. In the
morning we’ll go after the man with the scar on his ear and the rag on his
finger.”
 CHAPTER VII.

CHICK FINDS HIS MAN.

If Chick had a fault, it was an excess of enthusiasm in his work that

sometimes led him into indiscretion. That is what Nick Carter told him
sometimes, although the admonition never had any particular effect. Chick
would go ahead on his own responsibility whenever he believed he could get
results.
It was because of this disposition to do things on his own judgment that
he did not go to bed when told to do so by his chief. He went to his bedroom
obediently enough. But he did not stay there.
“The chief believes I’m tired,” he muttered, as he sat on the edge of his
bed, waiting till the house should quiet down. “That’s why he fires me off to
bed. Well, I feel just right for work, and I’m going to do it.”
He chuckled to himself, as he thought of how quickly Patsy would be in
his room, to go with him, if he knew what Chick contemplated.
“But I don’t want Patsy,” he decided. “I can handle this myself. That
chink with the scar probably killed Mr. Anderton, and if I could get him, I’d
probably have the whole case cleared up. If I don’t get him, I’m going to
interview that professor. What was he going into that laundry for? A man
like him, who is supposed to be a Japanese, and who is supposed to be a
professor, wouldn’t be mixing up with chinks of that kind if he was square.
Well, he’s got to talk to me.”
Chick felt sure that the attack on him had been made by order of
Professor Tolo, and he believed that he would be found to be mixed up in
some way with the Yellow Tong.
“I don’t believe he is what he pretends to be,” went on Chick, as he got
up from the bed and put a revolver in his pocket. “Anyhow, I’ll be ready for
him if he tries any more monkey work with me.”
He went to the door, opened it a little, and listened. Everything was quiet.
No doubt Nick Carter had gone to bed, and Patsy, of course, was in his own
room. It would be safe to go out.
Chick knew the house so well that he could have gone down the stairs in
darkness and let himself out without a sound. But there was a light in the