"Surely we are wasting valuable hours which should be given to action," he cried. "I am going to the city and shall arrange for a prolonged absence from my office. Then I'll hurry home, perfect my defenses, and defy these murderous curs. My wife must come to London. In a crisis like this I must have my loved ones under my own personal supervision. I can still shoot straight and quick, and woe betide any man, white or yellow, who enters my house unbidden. As for this infernal symbol—!"
He raised a clenched fist, and would have pounded into fragments the thin fabric of the ivory skull still lying where he had placed it on the table had not Furneaux snatched it into safety.
"No, no!" protested the detective. "I want that for purposes of comparison. Kindly give me that typed note, too, Mr. Forbes. It may bear finger-marks. You never can tell. The cardboard box in which it was posted also. Thank you. Now, a few more questions before you go. How much money did you provide for the revolutionaries?"
"Two millions sterling."
"As a gift or a loan?"
"If they failed, I lost every farthing, of course. If they succeeded, I was to recoup myself by financing the new government."
"But I gather that they have neither failed nor succeeded. China has a constitution, but the Presidential election was conducted on lines suspiciously akin to those recently adopted in Mexico."
"Nevertheless negotiations are now on foot for a big loan."
"If you died, what would become of the two millions?"
"They would be lost irretrievably."