"Oh, it is not great sum. It will not cause your chain of banks to go crash. I am not sorry of dat, Fletch'r, for you have been such fine partner wit' me, so far, so helpful, dat I rreally wouldn't like to t'ink dat I had cause' all your banks to go burrst"
"Will you tell me the amount this Chinese has agreed to turn over to you?"
"Not so much, I say. Jus' half-million dollar' in cash."
"Only half a million! Only" Fletcher choked. The sum, it was true, would not bankrupt the Sino-American, but it would end his career. Ten years of hard work, building up the institution from one small bank in Shanghai to a great organization with fifty branches in China. Those ten years swept away. How could he go before his board of directors and say, "Yes, I tossed half a million squarely out the window?"
"No!" he began. "What you ask is too much" when a warning cough came to him from the figure squatting in the shadows, almost forgotten. Tsang Ah-bou. Tsang had told him to pretend acquiescence to all the schemes proposed by the Count. But did Tsang realize what he was asking now? Demanding that he, Fletcher, ruin his own career and cripple the bank, just to satisfy the insatiable money-lust of this Mazzino who had but one threat to offer after all, death. Would it not be better to risk that, to explain the true situation to the quiet man in gray serge who had been sitting so patiently while this colloquy in a foreign tongue was going on?
The ship-owner apparently read the conflicting emotions in Fletcher's mind, the thought of treachery, for he said with that same oily infleaion which held so much venom:
"The prroof of the—how you say?—Nesslerode?—is in de eating. I will know ver' easily, my good Fletch'r, w'ether or not you persuade dis Cha to do my bidding. Eith'r I get dis money in my hands, in cash, in good pap'r, or I leave you 'ere, stretch' on de floor of dis summ'r house, mos' unpleasantly dead. Takeyour choice, hein?"
Again Tsang Ah-bou coughed, a dry, rasping sound, accompanied by an asthmatic wheeze.
Fletcher hesitated no longer. The cough he translated as a signal to acquiesce. Tsang Ah-bou had never yet failed him. Nor had Tsang ever asked him to consent to a dishonorable act. He must blindly trust the small detective. He twisted toward the Count, saying dourly:
"All right!"
"Good!" said the ship-owner. "It is much bett'r for you dat you keep de breath of life! And it is bett'r for me dat I get de money!"
Fletcher turned to the Chinkiang banker. This time, he translated the Count's words without evasion or untruth.
"But, of course," quickly answered the gray-serge figure. "When I was first approached to loan the money, I demanded some sort of guaranty that it would go to the right persons. Now that you promise to underwrite the loan, I can ask for no finer security. The Count seems anxious to get away. I will not detain him."
Again he clapped his thin hands. Once more a servant appeared. Cha gave an order in Chinese, but he spoke so rapidly that Fletcher had difficulty in following it. The latter caught the key words, however: "Half a million."
As they waited for the servant's return, Fletcher turned to Cha.
"May I ask an impertinent question? How does it happen that you, a member of the great compradore class of Chinese, are allying yourself with these revolutionists? They are opposed to capital and to capitalists."
