“Something back in the pines.”
Johnny sprang back into the pine boughs. He found nothing. “Perhaps it was a squirrel,” he said quietly when he returned.
“So now you see,” he whispered, “I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea. The thought-camera belongs to Tao Sing. He loaned it to me. I should return it. But where is he? A tong war is a terrible thing. It’s a fight between two Chinese secret societies. If it gets going right, several people will be killed. On the Pacific coast two Chinamen have been killed. The thing is spreading. Tao Sing is at the bottom of it all. He’s in this country without permission. These two Federal agents know he’s been here—found his finger-prints at the back of the Chinese spice shop. Perhaps someone has told them I know about Tao Sing—I’m not sure. Someone does know I have the thought-camera, or at least they think I have. That’s why I was chased last night. I’m sure of it.” Johnny mopped his brow. “I—I suppose I helped Tao Sing discover secrets. Probably when I brought him Wung Lu’s think-o-graphs he read what he wanted to know.
“Meggy,” Johnny said solemnly, “there’s no good in stealing anyone else’s thoughts! This thought-camera! I’d like to give it back right now. But I can’t. Tao Sing has vanished.”
“Johnny, let me see it,” Meg whispered.
Johnny drew the thought-camera from beneath his coat. Meg looked at it, starry-eyed as she might had she seen a ghost. “Johnny, where do you keep it?”
“In my trunk.”
“In your room?”
“In my room.”
“Well,” said Meg, shaking herself as if to waken from a bad dream, “it’s the strangest thing I ever heard of. It—