“Possibly. Oh, yes, it is salt!” chuckled Charlie Sing. “You have almost as many proverbs as we Chinese. Well, Hop Wong can tell only what he overheard. As to the motives of Mr. Stower, he knows nothing. But he heard what these two men said. Later, when Hop Wong left the house where he worked with them and found the Corner House and saw the young ladies there, he decided to try to let them know about the fortune and, independent of the two men, to reap a small reward for himself.”
“Well, he tried all right!” said Agnes, snappily.
“But he meant no harm. I’m glad to know that,” put in Ruth, who seemed to champion the cause of Hop Wong. “But why did he run away?”
Charlie did some more questioning and replied:
“Hop Wong left his laundry in Milton after he tried to disclose to you the secret of the fortune because he was afraid of being arrested. Then, too, he says he saw Rother and Meggs in the town and he thought they might do him some harm for telling their secret.”
“Ah, ha! So those men have been in town, have they?” cried Neale. “Those must be the two fake water inspectors!” he added.
“Sure, they are!” exclaimed Agnes. “There is more to this than appears at first sight, boys. I’m not so sure we did well by not getting the police in on it. Perhaps we had better——”
“Oh, we’ve gone this far alone, let’s finish it,” suggested Ruth. “But we can’t stay here all night. We’d better be getting back to Milton. What are we going to do with Hop Wong? Have we gotten all the information from him we need?”
“He seems to have told all he knows,” answered Charlie Sing. “As for taking him back to Milton, I don’t believe he’ll go. He seems to be afraid—probably of those two men. And I don’t see how you can take him back against his will.”
“No, probably not—unless we bring in the police,” agreed Ruth. “And I don’t want to do that. Poor fellow!”