“You—you said there was a long-eared Chinaman?”
“Yes, that long-eared fellow. It—it was queer.” He took a long pull at his black coffee. “He looked like some sort of monk, or priest. A Buddhist, I mean. He nearly got the chest of treasure from us.
“You see, it was entrusted to our care. It was sold all right, but wouldn’t be paid for until delivered to the purchaser in America.
“He tried to knife the man I was with, this long-eared fellow did. Entered our tent at night. Fortunately, I was awake. I smashed him one just in time; nearly killed him. Thought I had, until he showed up in Tientsin and made a second attempt to rob us.”
“But the treasure?” Florence tried to still her wildly beating heart, to seem calm, unconcerned. “The treasure? What happened?”
“That’s just the question!” Erik Nord shrugged his broad shoulders. “It was entrusted to me. I sent the chest that contained it all—worth a lot of dollars I can tell you—to San Francisco in care of a friend. It arrived in due time. The friend paid the duty and re-shipped it to Chicago. As far as I know, it never arrived.” He sat back and stared at the ceiling. “I trusted the wrong man. He bungled it somehow.
“That,” he added in a whisper, “is one of the reasons I’m here. Somehow that long-eared Chinaman has beaten us. We’ve got to catch up with him. In time we’ll get him, too.”
“That man—”
Florence did not finish. What should she tell? All or nothing?
“Might not be the man,” she assured herself. “Might not have been the same chest. Anyway, the chest is all I have left. That’s worthless. What’s the good of getting mixed up in an Oriental intrigue? Anyway, I’ll talk it over with Jeanne.”