"I am not familiar with Mr. Bolton's relations with society," said Big Sam blandly. "But I'm sorry to have lost a good customer."
It was hopeless to study that changeless mask--hopeless to seek to match the Oriental in guile. So I abandoned the task and asked bluntly:
"Now that Peter Bolton is dead, and the Council of Nine is in jail, and the conspiracy is smashed beyond repair, would you mind telling me why you contributed money to such a harebrained scheme?"
"Your question makes an unwarranted assumption," said Big Sam dryly. "I know nothing about contributing money to Councils of Nine, or other harebrained revolutionists."
"Oh," I said, "you need not fear that I am asking this in the character of a public prosecutor. It is merely a feeling of private curiosity. In protecting Mr. Kendrick's affairs I have learned most of the inside history of the movement. And I should really like to know what led a man of your intelligence to further a cause that was apparently so opposed to his interests."
Big Sam looked at me in silence with calm and unflinching gaze for two or three minutes, and I suspected that the expediency of my mysterious disappearance was canvassed behind the inscrutable veil of his eyes. Then a sarcastic smile stole about the corners of his mouth, and he said:
"I am sorry to disappoint you. I must plead ignorance of the circumstances you mention. If Mr. Bolton was the representative of criminal or treasonable designs, I do not know it. But if it will be of any assistance or satisfaction to you, I will describe a hypothetical case. Let us suppose that an harassed race had found an insecure footing--say in Sumatra. Suppose that the head man of this harassed race had been approached by the leader of a revolutionary party, with whom he had been in business relations. This leader, or backer, or whatever you wish to call him, we may suppose, insists on the prospects of success of the revolutionary movement--enlarges on the certainty of disturbances to come among the classes of the people most opposed to this alien race, and urges its head man to raise up friends in the revolutionary party by a contribution of money. I put it to you, Mr. Hampden, would it be worth this man's while--in Sumatra, you understand--to pay enough to secure toleration for his race, in case its enemies came into possession of the government?"
"Candidly--since you ask my opinion--it was the most unpromising investment I could have suggested."
Big Sam was so far nettled by my judgment on his hypothetical case that he dropped his diplomatic pretense, and said:
"A judgment after the fact, Mr. Hampden, when it is easy to be wise. Yet even now it is not difficult to see that bitterness and division have been sown among the enemies of my race. Action against us has been postponed for years--perhaps for all time. The mass of your people--especially beyond the mountains--are shocked at the excesses of the past week, and will oppose the demands made by your disorderly classes. Like all the weak, we must conquer by the division of those who could harm us. The division has come."