looked startled and gave a nervous laugh. Then, to my astonishment, he met the crisis like a man.
“Oh yes, yes!” he responded. “My niece explained, baron, why I was not here to meet you? I had the chance to procure a copy of the original edition of the Yuan Shi in Cheng-tu. I got it, and I also left the note your sub-priest sent in to his cousin, Wan Shih. I am so absent-minded that I nearly forgot it. About the Yuan Shi—a marvelous thing, Rosoff! You must inspect it by all means.”
“Is it in your pocket?” queried the girl innocently. We all chuckled at that.
“My dear, it’s a huge sack of manuscript volumes!” explained Groot. “When I met Breck, I was so excited that I took them to his quarters for inspection, and then I insisted on bringing him out here, and upon my word I forgot all about the Yuan Shi until we were outside town!”
“Yes,” I said, laughing, “and he would have gone back for them if I’d let him! Nonsense, Alan; they’re safe enough. Can’t you take a vacation occasionally?”
That devil of a priest was blinded, and so was Rosoff. What was better, I perceived that Alan Groot was doing some up-to-date thinking behind his thick spectacles.
Dinner over, we adjourned to the main section of the shrine, which had been converted into a sort of living room and study combined. Here Wan Shih left us, being due at some kind of religious exercises, and Baron Rosoff entertained us with his escape from the Bolshevists.
That went off very well. He was a Germanophile, as John Li had warned me, and I caught him in a couple of finely fluent lies, but kept my mouth shut. When he came out with the usual propaganda about the Shanghai government being Bolshevist, however, I cut loose and gave him a head-full of facts. He got the idea that I wanted to impress upon him—namely, that I was an ardent young fool, carried off my feet by the patriotic fervor of Young China.
In the midst of my argument, I reached for my pipe and tobacco, and drew them out of my pocket. Something else came with them, and fell tinkling to the floor—something I had completely forgotten. It was the thin oval of copper which I had taken from the neck of John Li.
Rosoff leaned over, picked it up, and handed it to me. His face was inscrutable. For a moment I was startled into fear; then I reflected that no harm had been done. I did not know what the thing was, but certainly it had nothing to do with the service. A personal charm, I thought.
After a little, Groot got the baron tangled up in some involved discussion about the Arabic importation of asbestos into China, and Mary took the opportunity to invite me to see the moonlight view of the river. I accepted promptly, and we got outside on the terrace before Rosoff could untwist from his argument. I had the feeling that his eyes followed us in a disagreeable fashion.
Outside, I cleaned my pipe and refilled it. Neither of us spoke for a moment, for the scene was rarely beautiful—even in this province, where the most beautiful spots have been preserved as places of spiritual culture for thousands of years. Above us the gray buildings, dotted with faint lantern-lights; the terraced garden and the dark walls below, and upon the reaches of the river the faint moonlight.
“When did the baron get here?” I asked casually. Mary gave me a glance.
“A little before noon. Uncle Alan went in to the city this morning, you know.”
I nodded. This checked up pretty well. John Li reached here with Rosoff, knew that he was dying, and only got away sometime in the course of the afternoon.
“By the way,” said Mary, her voice quite low and soft, “do you know any one named John Li?”
I must have jumped, for the pipe fell out of my hand and lay on the stone at her feet.
CHAPTER IV
A Nocturnal Visitor
“Look here, Mary, don’t startle me any more! I have a weak heart,” I said, retrieving the pipe and staring at her. “What’s the big idea?”
She frowned slightly. We stood quite alone, with only the new moon to overhear us. “My dear Captain Breck—or may I adopt my uncle’s familiarity and call you Sam?—I do hope that you won’t do any more pretending; with me, at least. I read in your eyes at dinner that you understood, and I comprehended your answer perfectly. It was all I needed to make me quite certain of you.”
“Oh!” I said, confused by this direct frontal attack. “Oh!”
“Precisely—oh!” she mimicked me, smilingly.
“Why did you mention John Li?”
She went sober at this.
“I’ll tell you, Sam. A year ago I attended the graduation exercises at Harvard. John Li was being graduated, that same year, from Johns Hopkins. He had run up from Baltimore to attend the Harvard commencement where some of his friends were getting degrees. I met him, and I liked him.”
She paused a moment, then went on.
“Today Baron Rosoff came. He had come from Siam by the mountain road over the Yunchan pass, with only one servant besides his muleteers. I was down at the gate when they came up, and I recognized that servant, in spite of his coolie disguise, as John Li.”
“Good lord!” I breathed. “You didn’t speak his name?”
A smile curved her lips—an unwontedly grim smile for that sweet face!
“No. He was ill, and the priests took care of him. Later I went to see him, when they were not around. He was shut in a room, and I drew the bars. He would not talk, and insisted that I go back to our own quarters immediately. He said that he could get away. Half an hour later, I heard shooting down by the river—and I was afraid—”
She paused, and I knew that there was no escape. She was the kind to trust.
“Well,” I said, plunging into it, “you heard what your uncle said about meeting a chap who had been killed by bandits? That was John Li. He had time to tell me a little—before he died.”
“He died! Today, this very afternoon?” The girl caught her breath.
“Poisoned by Rosoff,” I went on. “He was serving his country as a spy—and he paid the price.”
“Baron Rosoff!” she breathed. “Why!—I suspected Wan Shih!”
“You did? Suspected him of what?”
“Nothing definite. But strangers have been here, most of them coming by river. Twice I was certain that I saw Japanese faces. I thought perhaps he might be concerned in smuggling opium or morphia—except that he’s a man of such deep character, such high ideals—”
I laughed harshly.
“Right enough, Mary! He’s a fanatic, and I think he is one of those who have been fooled and tricked into trusting the politicians. Damn the politicians! Look here, I want to get you and your uncle out of here and inside the walls of Cheng-tu. That’s why I came. Rosoff is in charge of operations here for the Jap party.
“His business is to stir up an open fuss that will give Peking an excuse to intervene. My business is to prevent it. You will disappear; your uncle will be killed.
