“I kept the document until a few days before his death, when he asked me to let him take it away with him to make a copy. It will be news to you, though not perhaps to you, Miss Ardfern, that Mr. Trasmere spoke and wrote Chinese with greater ease than I, who am almost an authority upon Mandarin. A few days later he was murdered. My only hope of saving myself from ruin was to find that agreement, which he had taken away in my little lacquer box.”
“But could they touch your restaurant? Are there any other documents in existence which would give Mr. Trasmere’s heir the right of interfering with you?”
Yeh Ling looked at him steadily.
“It does not need a document,” he said quietly. “We Chinese are peculiar people. If Mr. Lander came to me on his return from Italy and said—‘Yeh Ling, this property is my uncle’s in which you have only a small share’, I would reply, ‘that is true’, and if the agreement which we two men had not signed was not discovered, I should make no effort at law to preserve my rights.”
And he meant it. Tab knew as he spoke, that he was telling the truth. He could only marvel that such an exalted code of honour could be held by a man who subconsciously, he regarded as of an inferior race and of an inferior civilisation.
“You found the agreement?”
“Yes, sir,” said Yeh Ling. “It had been taken out of the box in which I gave it to Mr. Trasmere and placed—elsewehere. But I found it—and other documents of no immediate interest. As to my coming here tonight—apart from your letter, lady, I was anxious to meet the Black Man also. Yes. He has been watching me for many days. I am certain it is the same.” He made a little grimace and rubbed his bruised head. “I met him,” he said.
Carver jotted down a few notes in his book and then putting the book away, he turned and faced the Chinaman squarely.
“Yeh Ling,” he said, “who murdered Jesse Trasmere?”
The Chinaman shook his head.