Karr said to Lieutenant Tragg, “Chinese cousins are different from ours. In China they properly have only one hundred names. Everyone who has the same surname is supposed to be related. It’s a vague relationship. There’s nothing to compare with it in this country. That’s why a Chinaboy will say of another Chinese, ‘He allee same my cousin.’ ”
“I see,” Tragg said. “Most interesting. And your name is Loong?”
“That’s not really his family name,” Karr interposed again. “Gow Loong he calls himself. Literally translated, it means ‘nine dragons’ — Cantonese. So don’t try looking it up in the official Mandarin dictionaries. Cantonese is a different language. Sort of a Chinese nickname. Means he has the strength, wisdom, daring, and courage of nine dragons. Each one of them furnishes some attribute: Loyalty, courage, perspicacity, endurance, shrewdness in money matters, ability to study — let’s see. How many’s that? Seven. I’ve forgotten the other two. Virtue and filial respect, probably. No matter. It illustrates the point. Anyway, he’s got twenty-one witnesses. He wasn’t here. I know he wasn’t here. If you want to check up on him, that’s easy. Who else do you want?”
Tragg turned to Blaine.
Blaine said, “I believe I’ve explained that at the same time the murder was committed I was flying down from San Francisco with Mr. Wenston here. We left San Francisco at eleven o’clock. I had some friends come down to the plane to see me off.”
“Good thing you did too,” Wenston interposed. “Otherwise I couldn’t have prethented any alibi myself.”
Tragg suddenly whirled to Karr. “You,” he said.
Karr met his eyes with cold defiance. “I was here — alone.”
“That’s rather unusual, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”