The old man threw his hands to his face and stood silent for a moment while the others looked on in perplexed silence. When he uncovered his face again he stepped forward to the man he had called his son on entering the room.
“Let me see your hands, Albert,” he said, kindly. “Bend down so I can see the scar on your forehead!”
“Step aside, you old fool!” the young man cried, pushing the old man back rudely. “We have had enough of this, boys,” he continued, turning to the others. “The game is up unless we get rid of this dotard and this boy. Why don’t you get busy?”
The old man dropped into a chair and lifted his face to Ned’s.
“You found my son murdered?” he asked. “Then this man Felix Emory stands in his shoes! Even I was deceived by him! Why, he has been calling upon me for large sums of money during the past month. He has taken possession of my boy’s rooms. Was it this man Emory who killed him?”
“We believe so,” was the reply. “The proof is within reaching distance.”
“Out with them both!” shouted Emory.
“Your son Albert took this man in and tried to do something for him,” Ned went on, “and was robbed and murdered for his pains. This man Emory was the leader of this choice band of smugglers and firebugs when he came to your son. The band was on the point of scattering because the officers were close on their track. They needed a man well up in the world—a man against whom the breath of suspicion had never been blown—to represent them in the opium market and the smuggled Chinamen market. They sent this man Emory to your son with a proposition, and he turned him down. Then they parted. But Albert knew too much and so he was lured to the woods and killed, and Emory stood before the world as your son. It was a devilish plot, great wealth being the object. If you will look at the stubs in this check-book you will see the difference in the hand-writing.”
“I rather admire your nerve, boy,” Slocum said to Ned. “You’ve got the right kind of courage to stand up here and tell all this to us. You know very well that we can never let you go out of this place alive? That even this old man must suffer for your bit of foolish daring?”
“I’d like to have the training of that kid for a few years,” Chang said. “I could beat the world with him!”