“Find me in what?” asked Cunningham, his poise recovered. He, too, began to smile. “Won’t you come in?”

“What about these glass beads?”

“Glass beads? Oh, yes. But why?”

“I fancy you’d better come out into the clear, Cunningham,” said Dennison, grimly.

“You wish to know about those beads? Very well, I’ll explain, because something has happened—I know not what. You all look so infernally serious. Those beads are a key to a code. The British Government is keenly anxious to recover this key. In the hands of certain Hindus those beads would constitute bad medicine.”

Ling Foo spread his hands relievedly.

“That is the story. I was to receive five hundred gold for their recovery.”

“A code key,” said Dennison, musing.

He knew Cunningham was lying. Anthony Cleigh wasn’t the man to run across half the world for a British code key. On the other hand, perhaps it would be wise to let the hotel manager and 83 the Chinaman continue in the belief that the affair concerned a British code.

83

“If I did not know you tolerably well——”

“My dear captain, you don’t know me at all,” interrupted Cunningham. “Have you got the beads?”

“I have not. I doubt if you will ever lay eyes on them again.”

Something flashed across the handsome face. Ling Foo alone recognized it. He had glimpsed it, this expression, outside his window the night before. He recalled the dark stain on the floor of his shop, and he also recollected a saying of Confucius relative to greed. He wished he was back in his shop, well out of this muddle. The jade could go, valuable as it was. With his hands tucked in his sleeves he waited.

Dennison turned upon the manager. He wanted to be alone with Cunningham.

“Go down and make inquiries, and take this Chinaman with you. I’ll be with you shortly.” As soon as the two were out of the way Dennison said: “Cunningham, the lady who wore those beads at dinner to-night has gone out alone, wearing them. If I find that you are anywhere back of this venture—if she does not return shortly—I will break you as I would a churchwarden pipe.”

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