nting the virtue of the favourite wife.

* * * * *

"I am an honest man," he said. "The tombs of my ancestors are not
neglected. When I say I could not get it I speak the truth. But I believe
I can get it later."

"How?" asked Cunningham. They were in the office, or bureau, of the Astor
House, which the manager had turned over to them for the moment.
"Remember, the arm of the British Government is long."

Ling Foo shrugged.

"Being an honest man, I do not fear. She would have given it to me but for
that officer. He knew something about jade."

Cunningham nodded.

"Conceivably he would." He jingled the gold in his pocket. "How do you
purpose to get the beads?"

"Go to the lady's room late. I left the jade with her. Alone, she will not
resist. I saw it in her eyes. But it will be difficult."

"I see. For you to get into the hotel late. I'll arrange that with the
manager. You will be coming to my room. What floor is her room on?"

"The third."

"The same as mine. That falls nicely. Return then at half after ten. You
will come to my room for the gold."

Ling Foo saw his thousand shrink to the original five hundred, but there
was no help for it. At half after ten he knocked on the panel of Jane's
door and waited. He knocked again; still the summons was not answered. The
third assault was emphatic. Ling Foo heard footsteps, but behind him. He
turned. The meddling young officer was striding toward him.

"What are you doing here?" Dennison demanded.

His own appearance in the corridor at this hour might have been
subjectable to inquiry. He had left Jane at nine. He had seen her to the
lift. Perhaps he had walked the Bund for an hour or two, but worriedly.
The thought of the arrival in Shanghai of his father and the rogue
Cunningham convinced him that some queer game was afoot, and that it
hinged somehow upon those beads.

There was no sighing in regard to his father, for the past that was. An
astonishing but purely accidental meeting; to-morrow each would go his
separate way again. All that was a closed page. He had long ago readjusted
his outlook on the basis that reconciliation was hopeless.

A sudden impulse spun him on his heel, and he hurried back to the Astor.
The hour did not matter, or the possibility that Jane might be abed. He
would ask permission to become the temporary custodian of the beads. What
were they, to have brought his father across the Pacific--