“Lord love you, once that code key is in my 72 hands you can go to heaven or the devil, as you please! We live in rough times, Ling Foo.”
“So we do. There is a stain on the floor, about where you stand. It is the blood of a white man.”
“What would you, when a comrade attempts to deceive you?”
“At five in the lobby of the Astor House. Good day,” concluded Ling Foo, fingering the buttons on his counting rack.
Cunningham limped out into the cold sunshine. Ling Foo shook his head. So like a boy’s, that face! He shuddered slightly. He knew that a savage devil lay ready behind that handsome mask—he had seen it last night. But five hundred gold—for a string of glass beads!
Ling Foo was an honest man. He would pay you cash for cash in a bargain. If he overcharged you that was your fault, but he never sold you imitations on the basis that you would not know the difference. If he sold you a Ming jar—for twice what it was worth in the great marts—experts would tell you that it was Ming. He had some jade of superior quality—the translucent deep apple-green. He never carried it about; he never even spoke of it unless he was sure that the prospective customer was wealthy.
His safe was in a corner of his workshop. An American yegg would have laughed at it, opened 73 it as easily as a ripe peach; but in this district it was absolute security. Ling Foo was obliged to keep a safe, for often he had valuable pearls to take care of, sometimes to put new vigour in dying lustre, sometimes to peel a pearl on the chance that under the dull skin lay the gem.
He trotted to the front door and locked it; then he trotted into his workshop, planning. If the glass beads were worth five hundred, wasn’t it likely they would be worth a thousand? If this man who limped had stuck to the hundred Ling Foo knew that he would have surrendered eventually. But the ease with which the stranger made the jump from one to five convinced Ling Foo that there could be no harm in boosting five to ten. If there was a taint of crookedness anywhere, that would be on the other side. Ling Foo knew where the beads were, and he would transfer them for one thousand gold. Smart business, nothing more than that. He had the whip hand.
Out of his safe he took a blackwood box, beautifully carved, Cantonese. Headbands, earrings, rings, charms, necklaces, tomb ornaments, some of them royal, all of them nearly as ancient as the hills of Kwanlun, from which most of them had been quarried—jade. He trickled them from palm to palm and one by one returned the objects to the box. In the end he retained two strings of 74 beads so alike that it was difficult to discern any difference. One was Kwanlun jade, royal loot; the other was a copy in Nanshan stone. The first was priceless, worth what any fool collector was ready to pay; the copy was worth perhaps a hundred gold. Held to the light, there was a subtle difference; but only an expert could have told you what this difference was. The royal jade did not catch the light so strongly as the copy; the touch of human warmth had slightly dulled the stone.
Ling Foo transferred the copy to a purse he wore attached to his belt under the blue jacket. The young woman would never be able to resist the jade. She would return the glass instantly. A thousand gold, less the cost of the jade! Good business!