Kitabı oku: «The Pagan Madonna», sayfa 2

CHAPTER III

Outside the bar where the Whangpoo empties into the Yang-tse lay the thousand-ton yacht Wanderer II, out of New York. She was a sea whippet, and prior to the war her bowsprit had nosed into all the famed harbours of the seven seas. For nearly three years she had been in the auxiliary fleet of the United States Navy. She was still in war paint, owner’s choice, but all naval markings had been obliterated. Her deck was flush. The house, pierced by the main companionway, was divided into three sections – a small lounging room, a wireless room, and the captain’s cabin, over which stood the bridge and chart house. The single funnel rose between the captain’s cabin and the wireless room, and had the rakish tilt of the racer. Wanderer II could upon occasion hit it up round twenty-one knots, for all her fifteen years. There was plenty of deck room fore and aft.

The crew’s quarters were up in the forepeak. A passage-way divided the cook’s galley and the dry stores, then came the dining salon. The main salon, with a fine library, came next. The port side of this salon was cut off into the owner’s cabin. The main companionway dropped into the salon, a passage each side giving into the guest cabins. But rarely these days were there any guests on Wanderer II.

The rain slashed her deck, drummed on the boat canvas, and blurred the ports. The deck house shed webby sheets of water, now to port, now to starboard. The ladder was down, and a reflector over the platform advertised the fact that either the owner had gone into Shanghai or was expecting a visitor.

All about were rocking lights, yellow and green and red, from warships, tramps, passenger ships, freighters, barges, junks. The water was streaked with shaking lances of colour.

In the salon, under a reading lamp, sat a man whose iron-gray hair was patched with cowlicks. Combs and brushes produced no results, so the owner had had it clipped to a short pompadour. It was the skull of a fighting man, for all that frontally it was marked by a high intellectuality. This sort of head generally gives the possessor yachts like Wanderer II, tremendous bank accounts; the type that will always possess these things, despite the howl of the proletariat.

The face was sunburned. There was some loose flesh under the jaws. The nose was thick and pudgy, wide in the nostrils, like a lion’s. The predatory are not invariably hawk-nosed. The eyes were blue – in repose, a warm blue – and there were feathery wrinkles at the corners which suggested that the toll-taker could laugh occasionally. The lips were straight and thin, the chin square – stubborn rather than relentless. A lonely man who was rarely lonesome.

His body was big. One has to be keen physically as well as mentally to make a real success of anything. His score might have tallied sixty. He was at the peak of life, but hanging there, you might say. To-morrow Anthony Cleigh might begin the quick downward journey.

He had made his money in mines, rails, ships; and now he was spending it prodigally. Prodigally, yes, but with caution and foresight. There was always a ready market for what he bought. If he paid a hundred thousand for a Rembrandt, rest assured he knew where he could dispose of it for the same amount. Cleigh was a collector by instinct. With him it was no fad; it was a passion, sometimes absurd. This artistic love of rare and beautiful creations was innate, not acquired. Dealers had long since learned their lesson, and no more sought to impose upon him.

He was not always scrupulous. In the dollar war he had been sternly honest, harshly just. In pursuit of objects of art he argued with his conscience that he was not injuring the future of widows and orphans when he bought some purloined masterpiece. Without being in the least aware of it, he was now the victim, not the master, of the passion. He would have purchased Raphael’s Adoration of the Magi had some rogue been able to steal it from the Vatican.

Hanging from the ceiling and almost touching the floor, forward between the entrance to the dining salon and the owner’s cabin, was a rug eight and a half by six. It was the first object that struck your eye as you came down the companionway. It was an animal rug, a museum piece; rubies and sapphires and emeralds and topaz melted into wool. It was under glass to fend off the sea damp. Fit to hang beside the Ardebil Carpet.

You never saw the rug except in this salon. Cleigh dared not hang it in his gallery at home in New York for the particular reason that the British Government, urged by the Viceroy of India, had been hunting high and low for the rug since 1911, when it had been the rightful property of a certain influential maharaja whose Ai, ai! had reverberated from Hind to Albion over the loss. Thus it will not be difficult to understand why Cleigh was lonely rather than lonesome.

Queer lot. To be a true collector is to be as the opium eater: you keep getting in deeper and deeper, careless that the way back closes. After a while you cannot feel any kick in the stuff you find in the open marts, so you step outside the pale, where they sell the unadulterated. That’s the true, dyed-in-the-wool collector. He no longer acquires a Vandyke merely to show to his friends; that he possesses it for his own delectation is enough. He becomes brother to Gaspard, miser; and like Gaspard he cannot be fooled by spurious gold.

Over the top of the rug was a curtain of waxed sailcloth that could be dropped by the pull of a cord, and it was generally dropped whenever Cleigh made port.

It was vaguely known that Cleigh possessed the maharaja’s treasure. Millionaire collectors, agents, and famous salesroom auctioneers had heard indirectly; but they kept the information to themselves – not from any kindly spirit, however. Never a one of them but hoped some day he might lay hands upon the rug and dispose of it to some other madman. A rug valued at seventy thousand dollars was worth a high adventure. Cleigh, however, with cynical humour courted the danger.

There is a race of hardy dare-devils – super-thieves – of which the world hears little and knows little. These adventurers have actually robbed the Louvre, the Vatican, the Pitti Gallery, the palaces of kings and sultans. It was not so long ago that La Gioconda – Mona Lisa – was stolen from the Louvre. Cleigh had come from New York, thousands of miles, for the express purpose of meeting one of these amazing rogues – a rogue who, had he found a rich wallet on the pavements, would have moved heaven and earth to find the owner, but who would have stolen the Pope’s throne had it been left about carelessly.

It is rather difficult to analyze the moral status of such a man, or that of the man ready to deal with him.

Cleigh lowered his book and assumed a listening attitude. Above the patter of the rain he heard the putt-putt of a motor launch. He laid the book on the table and reached for a black cigar, which he lit and began to puff quickly. Louder grew the panting of the motor. It stopped abruptly. Cleigh heard a call or two, then the creaking of the ladder. Two minutes later a man limped into the salon. He tossed his sou’wester to the floor and followed it with the smelly oilskin.

“Hello, Cleigh! Devil of a night!”

“Have a peg?” asked Cleigh.

“Never touch the stuff.”

“That’s so; I had forgotten.”

Cleigh never looked upon this man’s face without recalling del Sarto’s John the Baptist – supposing John had reached forty by the way of reckless passions. The extraordinary beauty was still there, but as though behind a blurred pane of glass.

“Well?” said Cleigh, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

“There’s the devil to pay – all in a half hour.”

“You haven’t got it?” Cleigh blazed out.

“Morrissy – one of the squarest chaps in the world – ran amuck the last minute. Tried to double-cross me, and in the rough-and-tumble that followed he was more or less banged up. We hurried him to a hospital, where he lies unconscious.”

“But the beads!”

“Either he dropped them in the gutter, or they repose on the floor of a Chinese shop in Woosung Road. I’ll be there bright and early – never you fear. Don’t know what got into Morrissy. Of course I’ll look him up in the morning.”

“Thousands of miles – to hear a yarn like this!”

“Cleigh, we’ve done business for nearly twenty years. You can’t point out an instance where I ever broke my word.”

“I know,” grumbled Cleigh. “But I’ve gone to all this trouble, getting a crew and all that. And now you tell me you’ve let the beads slip through your fingers!”

“Pshaw! You’d have put the yacht into commission if you’d never heard from me. You were crazy to get to sea again. Any trouble picking up the crew?”

“No. But only four of the old crew – Captain Newton, of course, and Chief Engineer Svenson, Donaldson, and Morley. Still, it’s the best crew I ever had: young fellows off warships and transports, looking for comfortable berths and a little adventure that won’t entail hunting periscopes.”

“Plenty of coal?”

“Trust me for that. Four hundred tons in Manila, and I shan’t need more than a bucketful.”

“Who drew the plans for this yacht?” asked Cunningham, with a roving glance.

“I did.”

“Humph! Why didn’t you leave the job to someone who knew how? It’s a series of labyrinths on this deck.”

“I wanted a big main salon, even if I had to sacrifice some of the rest of the space. Besides, it keeps the crew out of sight.”

“And I should say out of touch, too.”

“I’m quite satisfied,” replied Cleigh, grumpily.

“Cleigh, I’m through.” Cunningham spread his hands.

“What are you through with?”

“Through with this game. I’m going in for a little sport. This string of beads was the wind-up. But don’t worry. They’ll be on board here to-morrow. You brought the gold?”

“Yes.”

The visitor paused in front of the rug. He sighed audibly.

“Scheherazade’s twinkling little feet! Lord, but that rug is a wonder! Cleigh, I’ve been offered eighty thousand for it.”

“What’s that?” Cleigh barked, half out of his chair.

“Eighty thousand by Eisenfeldt. I don’t know what crazy fool he’s dealing for, but he offers me eighty thousand.”

Cleigh got up and pressed a wall button. Presently a man stepped into the salon from the starboard passage. He was lank, with a lean, wind-bitten face and a hard blue eye.

“Dodge,” announced Cleigh, smiling, “this is Mr. Cunningham. I want you to remember him.”

Dodge agreed with a curt nod.

“If ever you see him in this cabin when I’m absent, you know what to do.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Dodge, with a wintry smile.

Cunningham laughed.

“So you carry a Texas gunman round with you now? After all, why not? You never can tell. But don’t worry, Cleigh. If ever I make up my mind to accept Eisenfeldt’s offer, I’ll lift the yacht first.”

Cleigh laughed amusedly.

“How would you go about to steal a yacht like this?”

“That’s telling. Now I’ve got to get back to town. My advice for you is to come in to-morrow and put up at the Astor, where I can get in touch with you easily.”

“Agreed. That’s all, Dodge.”

The Texan departed, and Cunningham burst into laughter again.

“You’re an interesting man, Cleigh. On my word, you do need a guardian – gallivanting round the world with all these treasures. Queer what things we do when we try to forget. Is there any desperate plunge we wouldn’t take if we thought we could leave the Old Man of the Sea behind? You think you’re forgetting when you fly across half the world for a string of glass beads. I think I’m forgetting when I risk my neck getting hold of some half-forgotten Rembrandt. But there it is, always at our shoulder when we turn. One of the richest men in the world! Doesn’t that tingle you when you hear people whisper it as you pass? Just as I tingle when some woman gasps, ‘What a beautiful face!’ We both have our withered leg – only yours is invisible.”

The mockery on the face and the irony on the tongue of the man disturbed Cleigh. Supposing the rogue had his eye on that rug? To what lengths might he not go to possess it? And he had the infernal ingenuity of his master, Beelzebub. Or was he just trying Anthony Cleigh’s nerves to see whether they were sound or raw?

“But the beads!” he said.

“I’m sorry. Simply Morrissy ran amuck.”

“I am willing to pay half as much again.”

“You leave that to me – at the original price. No hold-up. Prices fixed, as the French say. Those beads will be on board here to-morrow. But why the devil do you carry that rug abroad?”

“To look at.”

“Mad as a hatter!” Cunningham picked up his oilskin and sou’wester. “Hang it, Cleigh, I’ve a notion to have a try at that rug just for the sport of it!”

“If you want to bump into Dodge,” replied the millionaire, dryly, “try it.”

“Oh, it will be the whole thing – the yacht – when I start action! Devil take the weather!”

“How the deuce did the beads happen to turn up here in Shanghai?”

“Morrissy brought them east from Naples. That’s why his work to-night puzzles me. All those weeks to play the crook in, and then to make a play for it when he knew he could not put it over! Brain storm – and when he comes to he’ll probably be sorry. Well, keep your eye on the yacht.” Cunningham shouldered into his oilskin. “To-morrow at the Astor, between three and five. By George, what a ripping idea – to steal the yacht! I’m mad as a hatter, too. Good-night, Cleigh.” And laughing, Cunningham went twisting up the companionway, into the rain and the dark.

Cleigh stood perfectly still until the laughter became an echo and the echo a memory.

CHAPTER IV

Morning and winnowed skies; China awake. The great black-and-gold banners were again fluttering in Nanking Road. Mongolian ponies clattered about, automobiles rumbled, ’rickshas jogged. Venders were everywhere, many with hot rice and bean curd. Street cleaners in bright-red cotton jackets were busy with the mud puddles. The river swarmed with sampans and barges and launches. There was only one lifeless thing in all Shanghai that morning – the German Club.

In the city hospital the man Morrissy, his head in bandages, smiled feebly into Cunningham’s face.

“Were you mad to try a game like that? What the devil possessed you? Three to one, and never a ghost of a chance. You never blew up like this before. What’s the answer?”

“Just struck me, Dick – one of those impulses you can’t help. I’m sorry. Ought to have known I’d have no chance, and you’d have been justified in croaking me. Just as I was in the act of handing them over to you the idea came to bolt. All that dough would keep me comfortably the rest of my life.”

“What happened to them?”

“Don’t know. After that biff on the coco I only wanted some place to crawl into. I had them in my hand when I started to run. Sorry.”

“Have they quizzed you?”

“Yes, but I made out I couldn’t talk. What’s the dope?”

“You were in a rough-and-tumble down the Chinese Bund, and we got you away. Play up to that.”

“All right. But, gee! I won’t be able to go with you.”

“If we have any luck, I’ll see you get a share.”

“That’s white. You were always a white man, Dick. I feel like a skunk. I knew I couldn’t put it over, with the three of you at my elbow. What the devil got into me?”

“Any funds?”

“Enough to get me down to Singapore. Where do you want me to hang out?”

“Suit yourself. You’re out of this play – and it’s my last.”

“You’re quitting the big game?”

“Yes. What’s left of my schedule I’m going to run out on my own. So we probably won’t meet again for a long time, Morrissy. Here’s a couple of hundred to add to your store. If we find the beads I’ll send your share wherever you say.”

“Might as well be Naples. They’re off me in the States.”

“All right. Cook’s or the American Express?”

“Address me the Milan direct.”

Cunningham nodded.

“Well, good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Dick. I’m sorry I gummed it up.”

“I thought you’d be. Good-bye.”

But as Cunningham passed from sight, the man on the cot smiled ironically at the sun-splashed ceiling. A narrow squeak, but he had come through.

Cunningham, grateful for the sunshine, limped off toward Woosung Road, grotesquely but incredibly fast for a man with only one sound leg. He never used a cane, having the odd fancy that a stick would only emphasize his affliction. He might have taken a ’ricksha this morning, but he never thought of it until he had crossed Soochow Creek.

But Ling Foo was not in his shop and the door was locked. Cunningham explored the muddy gutters all the way from Ling Foo’s to Moy’s tea house, where the meeting had taken place. He found nothing, and went into Moy’s to wait. Ling Foo would have to pass the restaurant. A boy who knew the merchant stood outside to watch.

Jane woke at nine. The brightness of the window shade told her that the sun was clear. She sprang out of bed, a trill of happiness in her throat. The shops! Oh, the beautiful, beautiful shops!

“China, China, China!” she sang.

She threw up the shade and squinted for a moment. The sun in the heavens and the reflection on the Whangpoo were blinding. The sampans made her think of ants, darting, scuttling, wheeling.

“Oh, the beautiful shops!”

Of all the things in the world – this side of the world – worth having, nothing else seemed comparable to jade – a jade necklace. Not the stone that looked like dull marble with a greenish pallor – no. She wanted the deep apple-green jade, the royal, translucent stone. And she knew that she had as much chance of possessing the real article as she had of taking her pick of the scattered Romanoff jewels.

Jane held to the belief that when you wished for something you couldn’t have it was niggardly not to wish magnificently.

She dressed hurriedly, hastened through her breakfast of tea and toast and jam, and was about to sally forth upon the delectable adventure, when there came a gentle knock on the door. She opened it, rather expecting a boy to announce that Captain Dennison was below. Outside stood a Chinaman in a black skirt and a jacket of blue brocade. He was smiling and kotowing.

“Would the lady like to see some things?”

“Come in,” said Jane, readily.

Ling Foo deposited his pack on the floor and opened it. He had heard that a single woman had come in the night before and, shrewd merchant that he was, he had wasted no time.

“Furs!” cried Jane, reaching down for the Manchurian sable. She blew aside the top fur and discovered the smoky down beneath. She rubbed her cheek against it ecstatically. She wondered what devil’s lure there was about furs and precious stones that made women give up all the world for them. Was that madness hidden away in her somewhere?

“How much?”

She knew beforehand that the answer would render the question utterly futile.

“A hundred Mex,” said Ling Foo. “Very cheap.”

“A hundred Mex?” That would be nearly fifty dollars in American money. With a sigh she dropped the fur. “Too much for me. How much is that Chinese jacket?”

“Twenty Mex.”

Jane carried it over to the window.

“I will give you fifteen for it.”

“All right.”

Ling Foo was willing to forego his usual hundred per cent. profit in order to start the day with a sale. Then he spread out the grass linen.

Jane went into raptures over some of the designs, but in the end she shook her head. She wanted something from Shanghai, something from Hong-Kong, something from Yokohama. If she followed her inclination she would go broke here and now.

“Have you any jade? Understand, I’m not buying. Just want to see some.”

“No, lady; but I can bring you some this afternoon.”

“I warn you, I’m not buying.”

“I shall be glad to show the lady. What time shall I call?”

“Oh, about tea time.”

Ling Foo reached inside his jacket and produced a string of cut-glass beads.

“How pretty! What are they?”

“Glass.”

Jane hooked the string round her neck and viewed the result in the mirror. The sunshine, striking the facets, set fire to the beads. They were really lovely. She took a sudden fancy to them.

“How much?”

“Four Mex.” It was magnanimous of Ling Foo.

“I’ll take them.” They were real, anyhow. “Bring your jade at tea time and call for Miss Norman. I can’t give you any more time.”

“Yes, lady.”

Ling Foo bundled up his assorted merchandise and trotted away infinitely relieved. The whole affair was off his hands. In no wise could the police bother him now. He knew nothing; he would know nothing until he met his honourable ancestors.

From ten until three Jane, under the guidance of Captain Dennison, stormed the shops on the Bunds and Nanking Road; but in returning to the Astor House she realized with dismay that she had expended the major portion of her ammunition in this offensive. She doubted if she would have enough to buy a kimono in Japan. It was dreadful to be poor and to have a taste for luxury and an eye for beauty.

“Captain,” she said as they sat down to tea, “I’m going to ask one more favour.”

“What is it?”

“A Chinaman is coming with some jade. If I’m alone with him I’m afraid I’ll buy something, and I really can’t spend another penny in Shanghai.”

“I see. Want me to shoo him off in case his persistence is too much for you.”

“Exactly. It’s very nice of you.”

“Greatest pleasure in the world. I wish the job was permanent – shooing ’em away from you.”

She sent him a quick sidelong glance, but he was smiling. Still, there was something in the tone that quickened her pulse. All nonsense, of course; both of them stony, as the Britishers put it; both of them returning to the States for bread and butter.

“Why didn’t you put up here?” she asked. “There is plenty of room.”

“Well, I thought perhaps it would be better if I stayed at the Palace.”

“Nonsense! Who cares?”

“I do.” And this time he did not smile.

“I suppose my Chinaman will be waiting in the lobby.”

“Let’s toddle along, then.”

Dennison followed her out of the tea room, his gaze focused on the back of her neck, and it was just possible to resist the mad inclination to bend and kiss the smooth, ivory-tinted skin. He was not ready to analyze the impulse for fear he might find how deep down the propellant was. A woman, young in the heart, young in the body, and old in the mind, disillusioned but not embittered, unafraid, resourceful, sometimes beautiful and sometimes plain, but always splendidly alive.

Perhaps the wisest move on his part was to avoid her companionship, invent some excuse to return by the way of Manila, pretend he had transfer orders. To spend twenty-one days on the same ship with her and to keep his head seemed a bit too strong. Had there been something substantial reaching down from the future – a dependable job – he would have gone with her joyously. But he had not a dollar beyond his accumulated pay; that would melt quickly enough when he reached the States. He was thirty; he would have to hustle to get anywhere by the time he was forty. His only hope was that back in the States they were calling for men who knew how to manage men, and he had just been discharged – or recalled for that purpose – from the best school for that. But they were calling for specialists, too, and he was a jack of all trades and master of none.

He knew something about art, something about music, something about languages; but he could not write. He was a fair navigator, but not fair enough for a paying job. He could take an automobile engine apart and reassemble it with skill, but any chauffeur could do that.

“Hadn’t we better go into the parlour?” he heard Jane asking as they passed out.

“We’ll be alone there. It will be easier for you to resist temptation, I suppose, if there isn’t any audience. Audiences are nuisances. Men have killed each other because they feared the crowd might mistake common sense for the yellow streak.”

Instantly the thought leaped into the girl’s mind: Supposing such an event lay back of this strange silence about his home and his people? She recalled the ruthless ferocity with which he had broken up a street fight between American and Japanese soldiers one afternoon in Vladivostok. Supposing he had killed someone? But she had to repudiate this theory. No officer in the United States Army could cover up anything like that.

“Come to the parlour,” she said to Ling Foo, who was smiling and kotowing.

Ling Foo picked up his blackwood box. Inwardly he was not at all pleased at the prospect of having an outsider witness the little business transaction he had in mind. Obliquely he studied the bronze mask. There was no eagerness, no curiosity, no indifference. It struck Ling Foo that there was something Oriental in this officer’s repose. But five hundred gold! Five hundred dollars in American gold – for a string of glass beads!

He set the blackwood box on a stand, opened it, and spread out jade earrings, rings, fobs, bracelets, strings. The girl’s eagerness caused Ling Foo to sigh with relief. It would be easy.

“I warned you that I should not buy anything,” said Jane, ruefully. “But even if I had the money I would not buy this kind of a jade necklace. I should want apple-green.”

“Ah!” said Ling Foo, shocked with delight. “Perhaps we can make a bargain. You have those glass beads I sold you this morning?”

“Yes, I am wearing them.”

Jane took off her mink-fur collaret, which was sadly worn.

Ling Foo’s hand went into his box again. From a piece of cotton cloth he drew forth a necklace of apple-green jade, almost perfect.

“Oh, the lovely thing!” Jane seized the necklace. “To possess something like this! Isn’t it glorious, captain?”

“Let me see it.” Dennison inspected the necklace carefully. “It is genuine. Where did you get this?”

Ling Foo shrugged.

“Long ago, during the Boxer troubles, I bought it from a sailor.”

“Ah, probably loot from the Peking palace. How much is it worth?”

Murder blazed up in Ling Foo’s heart, but his face remained smilingly bland.

“What I can get for it. But if the lady wishes I will give it to her in exchange for the glass beads. I had no right to sell the beads,” Ling Foo went on with a deprecating gesture. “I thought the man who owned them would never claim them. But he came this noon. Something belonging to his ancestor – and he demands it.”

“Trade them? Good heavens, yes! Of all things! Here!” Jane unclasped the beads and thrust them toward Ling Foo’s eager claw.

But Dennison reached out an intervening hand.

“Just a moment, Miss Norman. What’s the game?” he asked of Ling Foo.

Ling Foo silently cursed all this meddler’s ancestors from Noah down, but his face expressed only mild bewilderment.

“Game?”

“Yes. Why didn’t you offer some other bits of jade? This string is worth two or three hundred gold; and this is patently a string of glass beads, handsomely cut, but nevertheless plain glass. What’s the idea?”

“But I have explained!” protested Ling Foo. “The string is not mine. I have in honour to return it.”

“Yes, yes! That’s all very well. You could have told this lady that and offered to return her money. But a jade necklace like this one! No, Miss Norman; my advice is to keep the beads until we learn what’s going on.”

“But to let that jade go!” she wailed comically.

“The lady may keep the jade until to-morrow. She may have the night to decide. This is no hurry.”

Ling Foo saw that he had been witless indeed. The thought of raising the bid of five hundred gold to a thousand or more had bemused him, blunted his ordinary cunning.

Inwardly he cursed his stupidity. But the appearance of a witness to the transaction had set him off his balance. The officer had spoken shrewdly. The young woman would have returned the beads in exchange for the sum she had paid for them, and she would never have suspected – nor the officer, either – that the beads possessed unknown value. Still, the innocent covetousness, plainly visible in her eyes, told him that the game was not entirely played out; there was yet a dim chance. Alone, without the officer to sway her, she might be made to yield.

“The lady may wear the beads to-night if she wishes. I will return for them in the morning.”

“But this does not explain the glass beads,” said the captain.

“I will bring the real owner with me in the morning,” volunteered Ling Foo. “He sets a high value on them through sentiment. Perhaps I was hasty.”

Dennison studied the glass beads. Perhaps his suspicions were not on any too solid ground. Yet a string of jade beads like that in exchange! Something was in the air.

“Well,” said he, smiling at the appeal in the girl’s eyes, “I don’t suppose there will be any harm in keeping them overnight. We’ll have a chance to talk it over.”

Ling Foo’s plan of attack matured suddenly. He would call near midnight. He would somehow manage to get to her door. She would probably hand him the glass beads without a word of argument. Then he would play his game with the man who limped. He smiled inwardly as he put his wares back into the carved box. A thousand gold! At any rate, he would press the man into a corner. There was something about this affair that convinced Ling Foo that his noon visitor would pay high for two reasons: one, to recover the glass beads; the other, to keep out of the reach of the police.

Ling Foo considered that he was playing his advantage honestly. He hadn’t robbed or murdered anybody. A business deal had slipped into his hands and it was only logical to make the most of it. He kotowed several times on the way out of the parlour, conscious, however, of the searching eyes of the man who had balked him.

“Well!” exclaimed Jane. “What in the world do you suppose is going on?”

“Lord knows, but something is going on. You couldn’t buy a jade necklace like that under five hundred in New York. This apple-green seldom runs deep; the colour runs in veins and patches. The bulk of the quarried stone has the colour and greasy look of raw pork. No; I shouldn’t put it on just now, not until you have washed it. You never can tell. I’ll get you a germicide at the English apothecary’s. Glass beads! Humph! Hanged if I can make it out. Glass; Occidental, too; maybe worth five dollars in the States. Put it on again. It’s a great world over here. You’re always stumbling into something unique. I’m coming over to dine with you to-night.”

“Splendid!”