crackers. There he stood--the man with the sluing walk! Ling
Foo still wore a queue, so his hair could not very well stand on end.

"You speak English."

It was not a question; it was a statement.

Ling Foo shrugged.

"Can do."

"Cut out the pidgin. Your neighbour says you speak English fluently. At
Moy's tea-house restaurant they say that you lived in California for
several years."

"Twelve," said Ling Foo with a certain dry humour.

"Why didn't you admit me last night?"

"Shop closed."

"Where is it?"

"Where is what?" asked the merchant.

"The string of glass beads you found on the floor last night."

A sense of disaster rolled over the Oriental. Had he been overhasty in
ridding himself of the beads? Patience! Wait a bit! Let the stranger open
the door to the mystery.

"Glass beads?" he repeated, ruminatively.

"I will give you ten gold for them."

Ha! Now they were getting somewhere. Ten gold! Then those devil beads had
some worth outside a jeweller's computations? Ling Foo smiled and spread
his yellow hands.

"I haven't them."

"Where are they?"

The Oriental loaded his pipe and fired it.

"Where is the man who stumbled in here last night?" he countered.

"His body is probably in the Yang-tse by now," returned Cunningham,
grimly.

He knew his Oriental. He would have to frighten this Chinaman badly, or
engage his cupidity to a point where resistance would be futile.

There was a devil brooding over his head. Ling Foo felt it strangely. His
charms were in the far room. He would have to fend off the devil without
material aid, and that was generally a hopeless job. With that twist of
Oriental thought which will never be understood by the Occidental, Ling
Foo laid down his campaign.

"I found it, true. But I sold it this morning."

"For how much?"

"Four Mex."

Cunningham laughed. It was actually honest laughter, provoked by a lively
sense of humour.

"To whom did you sell it, and where can I find the buyer?"

Ling Foo picked up the laughter, as it were, and gave his individual quirk
to it.

"I see," said Cunningham, gravely.

"So?"

"Get that necklace back for me and I will give you a hundred gold."

"Five hundred."

"You saw what happened last night."

"Oh, you will not beat in my head," Ling Foo declared, easily. "What is
there about this string of beads that makes it worth a hundred gold--and
life worth nothing?"

"Very well," said Cunningham, resignedly. "I am a se