“I was making slow progress when Mr. Trasmere came one night. I did not recognize him at first. When I knew him first he was a very strong, healthy man, with a reputation for being cruel to his employees. I have known him to burn men to death in order to make them reveal where they had hidden gold which they had stolen from the diggings. We talked of old times, and then he asked me if there was money to be made in the restaurant business. I told him there was, and that was the beginning of the partnership which lasted until the day of his death. Three-quarters of the profits of the Golden Roof was paid every Monday to Mr. Trasmere and that was our agreement. It was the only agreement that we had, except one which I myself wrote at his dictation and which placed on record this fact: that in the event of his dying, the whole of the property should come to me. It was signed by me with my ‘hong’ and by him with his ‘hong’ which he always carried in his pocket.”
“The ‘hong,’ ” interrupted Carver, “is a small ivory stamp with a Chinese character at the end. It is carried in a thin ivory case, rather like a pencil case, isn’t it?”
Yeh Ling nodded.
“I kept the document until a few days before his death, when he asked me to let him take it away with him to make a copy. It will be news to you, though not perhaps to you, Miss Ardfern, that Mr. Trasmere spoke and wrote Chinese with greater ease than I, who am almost an authority upon Mandarin. A few days later he was murdered. My only hope of saving myself from ruin was to find that agreement, which he had taken away in my little lacquer box.”
“But could they touch your restaurant? Are there any other documents in existence which would give Mr. Trasmere’s heir the right of interfering with you?”
Yeh Ling looked at him steadily.
“It does not need a document,” he said quietly. “We Chinese are peculiar people. If Mr. Lander came to me on his return from Italy and said—‘Yeh Ling, this property is my uncle’s in which you have only a small share,’ I would reply, ‘that is true,’ and if the agreement which we two men had not signed was not discovered, I should make no effort at law to preserve my rights.”
And he meant it. Tab knew as he spoke, that he was telling the truth. He could only marvel that such an exalted code of honour could be held by a man who subconsciously, he regarded as of an inferior race and of an inferior civilisation.
“You found the agreement?”
“Yes, sir,” said Yeh Ling. “It had been taken out of the box in which I gave it to Mr. Trasmere and placed—elsewehere. But I found it—and other documents of no immediate interest. As to my coming here tonight—apart from your letter, lady, I was anxious to meet the Black Man also. Yes. He has been watching me for many days. I am certain it is the same.” He made a little grimace and rubbed his bruised head. “I met him,” he said.
Carver jotted down a few notes in his book and then putting the book away, he turned and faced the Chinaman squarely.
“Yeh Ling,” he said, “who murdered Jesse Trasmere?”
The Chinaman shook his head.
“I do not know,” he said simply. “To me it is amazing. There must be a secret passage that opens into the vault. I can think of no other way in which the murderer could have got in or out.”
“If there is a secret way,” said the detective grimly, “then it is the best kept secret I have known. It has certainly been kept a secret from the men who built the house and the vault, and the Clerk of the Works who was on the spot all the time it was being erected. No, Yeh Ling, you must get that idea out of your head. Either the man Brown or Walters is guilty. We shall know the method they employed when we get them.”
“Brown was not guilty,” said Yeh Ling quietly, “for I was with him when the murder was committed!”
They heard his pronouncement with astonishment, even the girl seemed surprised.
“Do you know what you are saying?”
“I know what I am saying, and I rather wish I hadn’t said it,” said the Chinaman with a quick smile. “Nevertheless, it is true. If the murder was committed on Saturday afternoon, then I certainly was with the man called Wellington Brown, but whom we called The Drinker or the Unemployed One, at that hour. It embarrasses me to say how or where, but it would embarrass me more if you were to ask me whether I know his whereabouts at the present moment. To that question I should answer: ‘No.’ ”
“And you would lie,” said Carver quietly.
“I should lie,” was the calm answer. “Yet I tell you, Mr. Carver, that Wellington Brown was with me, under my eye, from half-past one
