“Who told you that?” she asked contemptuously. “It was the doll-woman who killed him—I have said so.”
“You tella me so—hoi, hoi! But old Sin Sin Wa catchee wonder. Lo!”—he extended a yellow forefinger, pointing at his wife—“Mrs. Sin make him catchee die! No bhobbery, no palaber. Sin Sin Wa gotchee you sized up allee timee.”
Mrs. Sin snapped her fingers under his nose then stooped, picked up the stiletto, and swiftly restored it to its sheath. Her hands resting upon her hips, she came forward, until her dark evil face almost touched the yellow, smiling face of Sin Sin Wa.
“Listen, old fool,” she said in a low, husky voice; “I have done with you, ape-man, for good! Yes! I killed Lucy, I killed him! He belonged to me—until that pink and white thing took him away. I am glad I killed him. If I cannot have him neither can she. But I was mad all the same.”
She glanced down at Kerry, and:
“Tie him up,” she directed, “and send him to sleep. And understand, Sin, we’ve shared out for the last time—You go your way and I go mine. No stinking Yellow River for me. New York is good enough until it’s safe to go to Buenos Ayres.”
“Smartest leg in Buenos Ayres,” croaked the raven from his wicker cage, which was set upon the counter.
Sin Sin Wa regarded him smilingly.
“Yes, yes, my little friend,” he crooned in Chinese, while Tling-a-Ling rattled ghostly castanets. “In Ho-Nan they will say that you are a devil and I am a wizard. That which is unknown is always thought to be magical, my Tling-a-Ling.”
Mrs. Sin, who was rapidly throwing off the effects of opium and recovering her normal self-confident personality, glanced at her husband scornfully.