in the lock.

My first emotions were anger and the sense of humiliation. I was beaten,
outwitted, captured by Meeker, and by my own stupidity. But I realized
that the battle had but just begun, and my first task must be to attempt
some defence, some counter move against the old fraud who had drawn his
plot about me for his own mysterious object.

I berated myself for my conceit in imagining that I could play with such
a dangerous man as Meeker proved himself to be, especially since I had
seen through his disguise almost from the first. One of two things in
Manila would have saved me from my position--either I should have told
Meeker at once that he was mistaken in thinking me a spy and warned him
to keep clear of me, or I should have told the police that I was being
annoyed by a suspicious character. I had had grounds enough for making a
complaint against Meeker and Petrak when I found the little red-headed
man sneaking outside my door in the hotel, and the supposed missionary
blocking my pursuit on the stairway.

Even if the police had given me no satisfaction, I could have warned
Meeker that I would not submit to his espionage--a hundred ways of
protecting myself from the fellow came into my mind as I sat there on my
berth and reviewed what had taken place in Manila before I ever went on
board the _Kut Sang_.

But that was all past, and it did me no good to go over the mistakes I
had made. I was bitter at myself for allowing Petrak to bring my bag on
board, for I had thus given him an opportunity to claim me as an ally in
the murder.

The best that I could make of the whole affair was that Meeker took me
for a spy, as I had suspected from the first, and in order to prevent me
from going to Hong-Kong for some purpose opposed to the plans of his
masters, had done his best to keep me out of the steamer.

Then, when he found that he could not block me in going, he did the next
best thing and came with me. To further embarrass me and prevent me from
accomplishing the object of my supposed mission in Hong-Kong, he had got
me involved in a crime from which I knew I would have a great deal of
difficulty in getting myself free, especially as Petrak seemed willing
enough to testify against me even though he should hang for the murder.

It seemed beyond reason that they should kill Trego simply to have
something of which I might be accused; it seemed to me that my own death
would have been an easier way to get rid of me.