She looked up quickly as he came in.
“Yeh Ling, did you read all the papers we found in the house?” she asked.
“Some of them,” he said cautiously.
“The other night you said that you had read them all,” she said reproachfully, “and you were not speaking the truth!”
He agreed with a gesture.
“There are so many,” he said, excusing himself, “and some are very difficult. Lady, you do not realize how many there were—”
“Was there anything about me?” she asked.
“There were references to you,” he said. “Much of the writing was in the nature of a diary. It is hard to disentangle item from item.”
She knew he was evading a direct answer.
“Was there any mention of my father or mother?” she challenged him directly.
“No,” he said, and her grey eyes searched his face.
“You are not speaking the truth, Yeh Ling,” she said in a low voice. “You think if you speak—if you think I know, that I shall be hurt. Isn’t that true? And because you would not hurt me, you are lying?”
He showed no evidence of embarrassment at the accusation.
“Lady, how can I say what is in papers which I have not read, or if I have read I cannot understand? Or suppose in his writings one revelation is so mixed up with another that it is impossible to betray one without the other? I will not deceive you. Shi Soh wrote about you. He said that you were the only person in the world he trusted.”
She looked her amazement.
“I? But—”
“He said other things—I am puzzled. It is not a simple matter to make a decision. Some day I must give you a translation of everything. I know that; it troubles me—what is best to do. We Chinese have a word for indecision. Literally it means a straw moving in cross currents—first this way, then that way. My mind is like that. I owe Shi Soh—Trasmere—much—how can I pay him? He was a hard man but our words, one to the other, have been more binding than sealed papers and once I said that I would serve his blood. That is my difficulty, a promise which is now. …”
Here, such was his emotion, that his English failed him. She saw the dull red of his face, the veins of his temples standing out like knotted cords and was sorry for him.
“I will be patient, Yeh Ling,” she said soothingly. “I know you are my friend.”
She held out her hand, remembered and drawing it back quickly took her own and shook it with a delighted gurgle of laughter.
Yeh Ling smiled too, as he followed her example.
“A barbarous custom,” he said drily, “but from a hygienic point of view a very wise one. You are forgiving me, Miss Ardfern?”
“Of course,” she nodded, “and now I really am feeling hungry—will you send me some food?”
He was out of the room before her request was completed.
It was like Yeh Ling that he did not come to the door when she went out. She hoped he would, but Yeh Ling could not have been there, for he was waiting outside and when she turned the corner, he was very near to her though she could not guess this.
XXV
Rex was home! His telegram handed in at the docks preceded him only by half-an-hour, and his thunderous knock at the door and his long and continuous peal on the bell told Tab the identity of the impatient caller, long before he had thrown open the door and gripped the hand of the returned traveller.
“Yes, I’m back,” said Rex heartily, as he dropped himself into a chair and fanned himself with his hat. He was looking thinner, a little more peaked of face, but the colour of health was on his cheeks and his eyes were bright.
“You’ll have to put me up, old man,” he said, “I simply will not go to an hotel while you’ve an available bed in the flat, and besides I want to tell you something about my plans for the future.”
“Before we start dreaming,” said Tab, “listen to a little bit of sordid reality. You have been burgled, my lad!”
“Burgled?” said Rex incredulously. “How do you mean, Tab? I left nothing to be burgled.”
“You left a couple of trunks which have been thoroughly and scientifically examined by somebody who has got a grudge against you.”
“Good God!” said Rex. “Did they find the key? I only saw the story of the second murder when I landed.”
“You did leave the key in the trunk?”
Rex nodded.
“I left it in a box, a small wooden box with a sliding lid. There were two of these boxes, I remember, one in each trunk, they were compass boxes.”
“Then they were the object of the visit. Why he should mutilate poor me I find it difficult to explain.”
He told Rex Lander what happened on the night of the second burglary and Rex listened fascinated.
“I’ve lost all the fun being away,” he grumbled. “So poor old Brown was the victim, eh? And we thought he was the murderer. And Carver—what has he got to say about it?”
“Carver is rattled, but mysterious,” said Tab.
Rex was deep in thought.
“I am going to have that strongroom bricked up,” he said, “I made up my mind while I was on the ship. Anyway, I don’t suppose anybody will want to buy the beastly place, and I shall have it on my hands for years. But I’ll take pretty good care that tragedy number two doesn’t become tragedy number three.”
“Why not remove the door?” suggested Tab, but Rex shook his head.
“I won’t have the vault turned into a show place,” he said quietly. “Besides, it will likely enough stop a good sale. My own inclinations are to pull the house down and have it rebuilt; dig it out from foundation to roof and start fresh. But I don’t think that even that would induce me to go and live there,” he said. “Poor old Jesse’s blood would rise up from
