less sure they could escape the menace of that pistol.
But Tsang Ah-bou had apparently contemplated no such scheme. Abruptly he drew to halt, turned with a wide-mouthed smile and said to the Count:
"Look, Mastah, my bring you all propah place! Dis b'long house Cha Wing-sun. You look—see." His brown finger was pointed to a gilded sign at the side of a tall gate piercing the street wall. The placard was half in English, half in Chinese. The lower portion read:
CHA—MONEY FOREIGN
BOUGHT AND SELL
BEST RATE
Fletcher dimly remembered the great gate with its colored tiles. Five years before, when he had opened the Chinkiang branch of his bank, he had been tendered a banquet by Cha Wing-sun. He had entered this very gate by sedan chair, and as he had done so, a band had burst into an approximation of foreign music mingled with the snapping of welcoming firecrackers. What a strangely different entry now, with a pistol—practically speaking—at his back!
In answer to Tsang's clatter upon a small brass knocker, a porter came from within and, grunting, swung back the ponderous gates. He lifted high a lantern of melted-buffalo-horn and eyed the trio suspiciously.
"Tell you' master," said the small Latin crisply, "dat we mus' see him at once!"
"You come ship-side in rivah?" asked the servant.
"Yes."
This seemed to satisfy the porter, for he waved them inside.
Fletcher felt a sudden stab of instinctive uneasiness. He had won free of the ship. Now he must immure himself behind high walls. A little of his earlier bravado, his desire to spike yet another of the Count’s guns, evaporated. He glanced about him. To escape now he would have to run back, past the ship-owner. That would expose him to the deadly aim of the Count. He stared at Tsang Ah-bou. The detective seemed placid. Obediently, almost eagerly, Tsang was trotting after the servant with the lantern.
"Aw rright, my good Fletch'r, go on!" admonished the Count, a satisfied lift to his voice.
And Fletcher found himself entering a courtyard, fronted by a spirit screen of lacquered dragons, gleaming in the lantern glow with suave glints of color. . . .
9
The court was banked with beds of peonies. In the center lay a small pond upon which floated great cream-white locus buds. Feeding the pool was a trickling stream that made a cool babbling as it emerged from a miniature mountain, cunningly builded.
Standing by the pool, gazing down into its clouded, carp-filled depths, was a tall, excessively slender man. He was garbed in a gown of shabby serge with scuffed felt shoes. Turning weary eyes upon the approaching trio, he mutely interrogated them.
Then, as the light of the lantern fell across Fletcher's face, a smile of genuine welcome parted the lips of the slender man. He said:
"Ah, Flei-chah, Lao-yeh, this is an honor you do my humble house! When I heard, this afternoon, that the foreign ship had anchored in the river, I expected the Count of Mazzino would come, for his agents had written me. But that you should come, too, Flei-chah, that was a pleasure I did not know I had in store."
Fletcher stared for a moment in surprize. Upon first glimpsing the man, he
