“Splendid! But have a care, my friend. Have a care!” There was a note of warning in his voice. “Those Orientals are dangerous when some superstitious terror takes possession of them. There is something we do not know about those temple adornments; that knife and bell are forces to fight demons. Who can say what demons have taken possession of our vanishing Chinaman? Have a care! Just when you wish for your very life’s sake that he might vanish, you will find him insisting upon being very much of a present reality. He—”
“Listen!” Again her hand rested on his arm.
* * * * * * * *
There are certain people who “feel” events before they transpire. This, psychologists will tell you, is intuition. Jeanne’s intuition caused her knees to tremble as she walked from the elevator to Lorena LeMar’s apartment which, for the time, was her own.
“A trunk,” she whispered. “A trunk beyond that door.” By this time her key was in the lock. She wished to turn back; she willed to go forward. In the end courage won. She pushed open the door. She entered the room.
But she did not go far. One look was enough. The trunk, a huge affair such as is used by commercial traveling men, stood in the center of the room. Its lid was up. It was empty! And the whole apartment, as far as her startled eyes could take it in, was in a state of wild confusion.
Next, without exactly knowing how it happened, she found herself outside with the door locked behind her.
Her heart was beating painfully. As if to still its wild beating she clutched at her breast. Her brain was in a state of wild confusion. For some little time she could not think two thoughts in a row.
When at last her senses returned it all came to her in a flash. “It is that little yellow man with the long ears,” she assured herself. “He or one of his friends. He believed that those things, those priceless banners and that curious bell from the temple, were in this place. He had himself strapped tight in that monstrous trunk and shipped himself to this hotel, ‘To Miss LeMar’s apartment.’ To—”
She broke off. “He knows!” The thought fairly floored her. “This long-eared one knows I am not Lorena LeMar. He knows I am Petite Jeanne. Will he tell? Will he spoil all my fine plans?” Here indeed was a terrible probability.