William Holman shook his head.
“Take it from me, sir, Wu Li Chang is not the man to call upon any one,” he said; “they must go to him.”
“Indeed!” Gregory snapped.
“And did you see him at two?” Tom said eagerly.
“No, Tom; he sent a coolie with a chit to say that he would call here at three—unless he found it inconvenient—unless he found it inconvenient! Look. I’ve hurried over from the club to see him.”
Tom came across the room and picked up the note Gregory had tossed towards him, and stood studying it closely.
The trouble on Holman’s face thickened. “If Mr. Wu condescends to answer such a summons,” he said earnestly, “why, that very fact strengthens my belief. I tell you he never discusses anything outside his own offices—never! And if for once he breaks that rule, he has some terrible reason for doing it—some damnably sinister motive.”
“Pretty cool sort of johnnie, anyway,” Tom commented, still scrutinizing Wu’s note. “But I say, what an educated, professional sort of fist he writes.”
“Oh!” Holman said impatiently, “he’s got us both ways. He has all the advantages of a Western education without having lost a scrap of his Eastern cunning. I came out once with the skipper who took Wu to Europe—Wu and an English tutor he’d had for years—he was only a kid then, but Watson said he played a better game of chess than any white man on board—unless it was the tutor chap—had ever seen played before, bar none. Wu was nine or ten then. He’s forty now, and no doubt his chess has been improving every day since.”
Gregory smiled nastily. “Well,” he said, “you may be perfectly correct in all you say, Holman, but it seems to me that you’re all afraid of these Chinamen.”