“But Stark is an English name,” Gale whispered in surprise.
“Yes. She married a very rich English trader. He was not a good man. There are bad men from every land. They say he traded in opium. He treated her badly. That is why she hates all English people.”
“Is she really a spy?” Gale asked.
“This I do not know,” Than Shwe pondered. “Perhaps she may be. Anyway she did great harm in Burma. She paid men to wreck bridges and tear up railway tracks when the British army was coming. She was in China, too. Oh yes! And she was a bad one there! We have a Chinese nurse, Maida, at our hospital here. She knows about her in China. She will tell you plenty.
“But look!”—the little Burmese girl’s whisper changed. “Look. On her dressing table she has a dresser set that seems very strange.”
Putting the glasses once more to her eyes Gale stared in silence for a long time.
“Yes,” she agreed. “That IS a strange collection, stranger than you think, Than Shwe.” She seemed greatly excited.
“Let me look,” Isabelle whispered, naming the articles in the leather case as she looked—“The comb is missing. She is using it; a nail buffer; sharp pointed dagger; nail file; little blue automatic pistol; shoe horn, and—and something else I can’t make out. I’d hate to meet that lady in the dark.”
“And I,” Than Shwe agreed.
“But that ‘something else’ is the most important of all, unless I miss my guess,” Gale put in. “I can’t be quite sure, but I think it’s one of the three secrets of radar.”