The others acknowledged the introduction, then Karr said, “And my number one boy, Gow Loong.”
Mason regarded the Chinese with undisguised interest. He had, somehow, more the air of a companion or partner than of a servant. His high forehead, the calm placidity of his countenance, the steady inscrutability of his dark eyes gave him a distinguished appearance.
“Don’t get interested in him,” Karr warned, in his quick, nervous voice. “He’s too much like the Orient. You want to understand him, but can’t. A perpetual mystery. Arouses your curiosity and then slams the door in your face. We’ve got too confounded much to think about — too much to talk about. Glad you brought your secretary. She can take notes, and I won’t have to go over the thing twice. Makes me terribly impatient when I have to repeat things. What are you standing there for? Come on, let’s go in where we can sit down and be comfortable, and get this over with.”
He grasped the big rubber tires of the wheelchair, spun it in a quick turn, lunged forward with his thin shoulders, and, mustering surprising strength, sent the chair shooting back through the curtained doorway at such speed that the others, following along behind, were hopelessly in the rear.
The room beyond the curtained doorway was a well-furnished drawing room with hardwood floors, sumptuous Chinese rugs and furniture which had quite evidently been brought from the Orient. The dark wood of this furniture had been cunningly carved with a design in which the dragon motif predominated.
Karr spun the wheelchair into a quick turn and stopped it instantly. He handled his chair with the deft, expert skill born of long practice. “Sit down. Sit down,” he said in his high-pitched, piping voice. “Don’t stand on formality, please. There isn’t any time. Mason, sit over here. Miss Street, if you’ll use that table for your writing. No! Wait a minute. There’s some nested tables over there. You can get one just the right height. Gow Loong, put that table over by her elbow. All set? Sit down, Johns. Damn it, you make me nervous, hovering around over me. I’m not going to break in two.”
“What has happened?” Mason asked.
Karr said, “Listen attentively, please. You got your notebook there, Miss Street? That’s fine. I’m right in the middle of a delicate matter. I won’t go into details right now, but I had a partner in China. A rough partnership it was, too. We were running guns up the Yangtze. Slice you up in fine pieces if they caught you. Death of a thousand cuts, they called it.
“Well, anyway, my partner and I kept ’em supplied with guns. There was excitement in it, and money. I won’t go into that, though, not now. I’ll only say I’m doing something in connection with that old partnership — and I’ve got to keep under cover until it’s done. I can’t stand any notoriety — don’t want anyone to know of me. Far as anyone knows, Elston A. Karr was killed up the river.
“I rented this apartment in the name of my stepson, Rodney Wenston. He signs all the checks, pays the rent, and all that. I don’t enter into the picture at all.