She knew that the truth would tarnish a memory, but she could not evade it. She smiled wanly.
"I have reached the 'Temple of Truth' in my 'Caves of Kor'! Yes, I followed, with a guide. Alan had wired me the name of a man who he said would serve me well—an old bearer of his. I waited all afternoon on the upper porch of the hotel, and when you left I followed, with Guru Singh, the bearer. We hired an automobile, instructing the driver to keep you in sight. When you left your automobile, we left ours.... Oh, those frightful places you led us through! Of course we were halted when you went into that house in that dreadful street.
"I determined then to make your acquaintance. Just before you came out I sent Guru Singh away; then I deliberately threw myself upon your mercy. But oh, I felt guilty! I realized that you didn't suspect it was all deliberate and planned!
"The next morning I made another desperate move. I had to return that piece of coral. Too, I wanted to learn your plans. I gave the pendant to Guru Singh—with instructions. To insure him against discovery, I—I asked you to go shopping with me. Guru Singh found a packet in your trunk showing that you had a berth on the Manchester to Rangoon, and that from there you were going to Myitkyina, to the shop of Da-yak, a Tibetan. But your servant happened along, and in the excitement Guru Singh forgot to leave the coral. It seemed that I'd never rid myself of it!"
The sun was almost below the hills now. A gong in the nearby Shan village rang clearly across the quiet evening. Both Trent and the girl sat motionless, listening until it died out.
"I wired Alan that I was going to Rangoon and would wait for him there," she said, taking up the thread of her story. "I didn't send it until just before I went to the boat, for I was afraid he might say no—and, oh, I wanted to see my adventure through!
"On shipboard Guru Singh at last succeeded in returning the coral—but that inevitable servant of yours appeared. I was terrified when I learned that Guru Singh had been caught! I felt responsible for it, and afterward I carried food to him several times. That was what I was doing the night I met you on deck. I was frightened, and I flung plate and all overboard. Then.... But you know what occurred then. I had come to hate myself for what I was doing, yet the thing was a Medusa. It held me and I let it draw me on.
"I met Guru Singh, by previous instructions, at the pagoda in Rangoon, and we drove to Alan's bungalow—but only to leave part of my baggage, and that night I took a train for Myitkyina with Guru Singh. When we got there I realized the presence of a strange white woman would be noticed in so small a place, so I instructed Guru Singh carefully and went back to Mandalay to wait.
"The second day in Mandalay I heard from Guru Singh. He wired for me to come. When I arrived he told me he had found where the jewels were—also that you had left Myitkyina. It seems that Da-yak was arrested"—here the muscles of Trent's jaw tensed again—"and your servant, too. Guru Singh said he bribed the jailer to let him see Da-yak, who, after he was paid liberally, told where you had gone.... He said the jewels had been taken to a city in Tibet: the name is Shingtse-lunpo. The sum of his words is that this place is the penetralia of a band called the Order of the Falcon, with a man known as the Falcon at its head. The Tibetan took oath he didn't know the Falcon. At any rate, he said that to get there one had to go first to a town across the China border—Tali-fang, he called it—and that only three men in Myitkyina knew the route to Tali-fang, one of whom had gone with your caravan and another with some one else. The third was a Buddhist priest. Da-yak said there were several ways of reaching Tali-fang and that you had been sent by the longest. At Tali-fang one would have to depend upon his own resources to get a guide to take him into Tibet, he said. That was all he would tell—or rather, he said that was all he knew."
"I don't suppose," Trent questioned, "he told who had him arrested?" Yet Trent felt that he knew without asking who had arrested Da-yak and Tambusami.