“Tchée, tchée,” he said, turned, and disappeared.
Although he had studiously avoided looking at me, that Ah Tsong would inform his master of the identity of his second visitor I did not doubt. If I had doubted I should promptly have been disillusioned, for:
“Tell them to go away!” came a muffled cry from somewhere within. “No spy of Devil Menendez shall ever pass my doors again!”
The Chinaman, on retiring, had left the door wide open, and I could see right to the end of the gloomy hall. Ah Tsong presently re-appeared, shuffling along in our direction. Unemotionally:
“Master no got,” he repeated.
Paul Harley stamped his foot irritably.
“Good God, Knox,” he said, “this unreasonable fool almost exhausts my patience.”
Again he addressed Ah Tsong in Chinese, and although the man’s wrinkled ivory face exhibited no trace of emotion, a deep understanding was to be read in those oblique eyes; and a second time Ah Tsong turned and trotted back to the study. I could hear a muttered colloquy in progress, and suddenly the gaunt figure of Colin Camber burst into view.
He was shaved this morning, but arrayed as I had last seen him. Whilst he was not in that state of incoherent anger which I remembered and still resented, he was nevertheless in an evil temper.
He strode along the hallway, his large eyes widely opened, and fixing a cold stare upon the face of Harley.