Karr didn’t so much as glance at her. He kept his eyes on Gow Loong.
Gow Loong extended his forefinger. The nail protruded a good half inch from the end of the finger. He placed this long nail on the face in the photograph. “Alla same Dow Tucker,” he said.
Karr nodded.
Gow Loong turned to Karr. “Maybe-so you tired. Too much work. Too much tlouble. Maybe-so you go sleep. Maybe one two hours. Wake up, feel more better. Too many people. Too much talk. Velly much no good.”
Karr turned to Johns Blaine. “I see no reason for prolonging the matter. This girl seems to be it. We’ll have to make an additional check, but that’s Dow Tucker’s picture all right. What she says about how he came to adopt the name of Dow sounds logical. Get me that album of pictures out of the desk in my bedroom.”
Gow Loong became merely a part of the scenery. He effaced himself beyond a point of silence. It seemed that even his personality had retired behind the expressionless composure of a calmly indifferent face. Johns Blaine hurried toward the bedroom.
Mason asked casually, “Keep those pictures in your bedroom all the time?”
“Prints,” Karr said. “The negatives are in a safe place. Wouldn’t take a million dollars for those negatives. Adventures in China that would curl your hair. I’ve seen things that white men aren’t permitted to see, things that no person should ever see. The Temple of the Passionate Buddha under the walls of the Forbidden City — the living dead man called up out of the grave to make obeisance to a Lama god. You might think it’s hypnotism, might think it’s superstition, might think it’s imagination, but I’ve seen things you can’t explain, things you can’t understand, things you don’t even dare to talk about. Take a look through that album, Johns. Get some of those pictures taken at Shanghai in the fall of ’20 and the spring of ’21.”
Blaine turned the pages of the photograph album. “Here’s a picture taken on a junk on the Whangpoo,” he said. “That shows him pretty well.”
“Show it to Mason,” Karr said. “Want him to see it.”