The curtains were drawn aside and the shade rolled up. Seated in full view of the two crooks was the man they had been following for five years. He wore a dressing-gown, and beside his easy chair was a low table on which rested a leather covered box.
Suddenly he turned, raised the cover of the box—and Monte and the “Kid” held their breath and stared hungrily. The light was caught and split up into a cascade of vivid colors. The man in the dressing-gown seemed to have in his clutching hands a fountain of fire.
“The Resurrection Pendant!” snarled the “Kid,” reaching for his pistol. “Damn him!”
Monte gripped his companion by the wrist.
“None of that, you fool!” he hissed. “We’ve got to play safe—but the Count is caught in a trap! That Chink must have kidnapped him!”
CHAPTER FIVE
ONE OF AH WING’S DOOR KEEPERS
Colonel Knight awoke and lay staring at the ceiling. It seemed a surprisingly long distance from him—and then his glance narrowed.
He turned his head, and suddenly sat up in bed. He had just remembered the events preceding his loss of consciousness.
Ponderingly, he examined his surroundings. He was in a big room, with a high ceiling. There were two windows at his right and one straight ahead, the latter partly open. Several easy chairs, a handsome mahogany house desk, and a row of bookcases flanking a fireplace came to him as successive details of his environment. A bar of yellow sunlight streamed through the end window.
A door behind him opened, and he turned to see a grinning, brown-faced Chinese boy approaching his bedside, bearing a breakfast tray.