“Keep cool, and always hold your guard high.”
—Kenyon’s “Art of the Sabre.”
AT last the receding footsteps of the girl and Forrester died away altogether; Kenyon, in spite of his icy exterior, had been filled with a nameless dread, but now experienced a quick sense of relief. Hong Yo and Farbush stood looking at him, mingled wonder and rage in their faces.
“Now,” spoke Kenyon, in a business-like tone, “if you will get rid of the worthy Sing Wang and his friends, I will come to the matter in hand.”
“One moment.” It was Hong Yo that spoke and his slit-like eyes seemed even more narrow than ever. “There is but one way of explaining this,” indicating the gaping doorway in a way that showed that he referred to the part Kenyon had just played in the girl’s departure. “Only one way!”
Kenyon smiled enigmatically.
“And is that one way not sufficient?” he demanded.
For a moment Hong Yo stood looking at him in silence, and Kenyon noticed that the grim mouth of Farbush grew straighter and harder. Then the Chinaman motioned to Sing Wang and the two coolies, and pointed silently toward the body. Then he led Kenyon and Farbush into another room.
“Sit down,” said Hong Yo, huskily.
All three seated themselves at a table. Kenyon was careful to select a chair facing the door, for he had not forgotten the creepy feeling that Forrester had given him when that personage had crept up behind him a few moments before. Then Hong Yo seemed to recollect something.
“Pardon me,” said he, “I had forgotten that you two had not met before. Mr. Kenyon—Mr. Farbush.”
The two nodded an acknowledgment, examining each other closely.
“And so you found it necessary to tell him,” then said Hong Yo, incredulously.
Kenyon nodded. He had not the faintest notion what was meant, but followed the plan of indirection in his answers which had so far served him so well. When he broke into the room a short time before he had had but two objects in his mind, to rescue the girl and force a “show down” from the murderers at the point of his revolver.
But, somehow, he now felt that the girl was, for the time being, safe under the care of Forrester; and the temptation to let the adventure take its own course was once again irresistible. There was a peculiar fascination in his position; these men, for some reason, regarded him as being of vast importance in a mysterious and far-reaching game. That they would halt at nothing was amply proven; but Kenyon had always felt a certain zest for danger; and then there was the girl, whose brilliant face had so attracted him. She was concerned in some strange way; she stood in peril, perhaps, of her life.
So he resolved once more to stick, no matter where the current took him, and until the end of it all was reached.
“I did not think it possible that he even knew of her existence,” remarked Farbush, after a long silence, during which he and Hong Yo had been exchanging looks.
“This must be the mysterious ‘he’ of whom the old man spoke last night in Selden’s Square,” thought Kenyon. “It’s delicate ground, and I must be careful.”
He rested his chin in the palm of one hand and his elbow upon the table.
“He knows a great deal more than you’d think,” he replied.
“Handle him carefully,” implored Farbush. “Don’t let him suspect you. Above all, don’t tell him more than you must.”
“There is no great danger of that,” smiled Kenyon. “You forget that I don’t know any too much, myself.”
There came a sudden grin upon the gaunt face of Hong Yo; his wasted fingers pattered upon the table’s edge as though in applause. He bent toward Kenyon.
“If there is one thing that I like more than another about you,” he said in his slow, distinct English, “it is that continual guard which you hold up. In my experience I have found that the man who consistently denies having special knowledge never betrays himself.”
Kenyon was suddenly called upon to struggle against an almost irresistible desire to laugh; it was a difficult task, but he succeeded in retaining his gravity. The thing was really absurd!
“Has he said anything about what his plans are, now that the old man is dead?” inquired Farbush, eagerly.
Kenyon never quite understood what prompted him to do it, but under a sudden impulse, he answered:
“He does not know that the old man is dead.”
Had a thunderbolt split the roof and dashed everything in the room into splinters it could not have had a more startling effect upon the two men who sat facing him. Instantly they were upon their feet, their hands wildly gesticulating, their lips babbling in amazement.
“Why,” almost shouted Farbush, beating the table, “I never dreamed of such luck. It’s like a miracle.”
Their sudden outbreak had dismayed Kenyon; for a moment he feared that he had somehow betrayed himself. But at the words of Farbush, he drew a breath of relief.
“Luck’s with me!” he thought. “But in the future I’ll refrain from taking chances.”
“I would have thought that your very appearance would have told him all,” spoke Hong Yo.
“But as it happens it didn’t. He is a practical sort of a person, and takes very little for granted.”
“And the old man thought him a dreamer!” cried Farbush, opening his eyes.
“Did the old man really know him very well?” asked Kenyon, meaningly.
Farbush seemed struck by this.
“Well, no, perhaps not. But outside all else, yours is a splendid piece of news. It gives us so much more time; and time was the one thing which we sadly lacked.”
“What did you and he talk about?” asked Hong Yo.
“About many things, but nothing of much importance. I was satisfied to hold him safe.”
“Did he ask questions?”
“At the beginning he did little else. But I told him nothing.”
A hollow chuckle came from the Chinaman.
“I can well believe that,” he said, grimly.
Kenyon was silent for a space, and the two watched him with interest; there could be no question but that, whatever their enterprise, it was expected of Kenyon to make the move that would bring things to a crisis. So far he had been kept dodging their questions; Forrester had told him that they had tidings of importance for him, and he was anxious to hear what it was. So he asked, carelessly:
“What have you been doing in the meantime?” looking from one to the other. “Anything that might interest me?”
“The girl, as you see, suspects something,” said Hong Yo. “There is no telling how deeply she was in the old man’s confidence. He loved her as he loved no one else; and trusted her in many things, as we now find.”
“That,” put in Farbush, “has always been an uncertain point to me. If he trusted her so, how much did he tell her?”
Kenyon found the eyes of both fixed steadily upon him; and the expectancy in their gaze gave him his cue.
“I’m supposed to have inside information right here,” he thought. “But then the sphinx-like attitude, I think, is the safest: and it seems to tickle Hong Yo. So I had better maintain it.”
So he smiled enigmatically and shook his head.
“She knows less than you think,” said he.
There was a deep frown upon Farbush’s face, and he rapped out sharply:
“Perhaps of the things you mean—yes. But what of the others?”
Kenyon gestured indifferently; he drew a case from his pocket and lighted a cigarette.
“Do I understand that you are blaming me for this state of affairs?” he asked, evenly.
“He is right,” said Hong Yo, quickly interrupting Farbush, as he was about to reply to this. “Mr. Kenyon has had nothing to do with the side of the matter to which you refer. That is, and has been, entirely in our own hands from the beginning.”
Kenyon was delighted to hear this; but he concealed any facial manifestation of it by throwing up a dense cloud of smoke between them. But Farbush seemed impatient.
“I am not trying to fix responsibility, but merely making a statement of facts,” declared he. “We are all together in this, and each, I hope, is eager for success. So it is well, if anything slips, to make it known.”
“I quite approve of that,” said Kenyon, with candor. “But just what is it that the girl has discovered, or been told?”
Farbush nodded toward the room which they had left a short time before.
“She came here with him, for one thing; and she knows that my private safe contains matter of consequence.”
“Oh!”
“I cannot imagine how she ever became acquainted with that man.” He hesitated and then darted a quick look at Hong Yo; a new idea seeming to have entered his mind. “Can it be possible that Forrester has told her?”
“He is not a fool,” replied the Chinaman.
The other laughed.
“There are times when I am not altogether sure of that,” returned he. “Witness his work,” with a gesture. “It is not the sort of thing to be proud of.”
That there was a decided feeling between Farbush and Forrester seemed certain. From what the latter had said in the rear room of the “Far East,” Kenyon had begun to suspect this state of affairs; now he felt sure of it.
“It’s a situation that may prove exceedingly useful in the future;” he told himself. “And I think I’ll do well to make a note of it.”
“I warned you not to trust too much to him in the first place,” said Hong Yo. He coughed weakly, and applied his handkerchief to his lips. “He is young and without experience.”
“The first of these I will grant you. But the last I must question. Was it not his manipulations that brought matters to a state where we could take hold? Is not that experience? Did it not apparently show talent?”
There was a trace of anger in the man’s voice. But as the direction of the talk did not please Kenyon, he interposed, quietly:
“Don’t forget that I have not a great deal of time. We were speaking of the girl, and of some information that she had gained. I’d like to be fully informed upon this point.”
“Oh, yes. After all, that is the real kernel at the moment. You see, she came to me this morning and without any preamble asked me to turn over everything having to do with the case to her for examination.”
“Humph! And did she state why?”
“She volunteered nothing, save that it was her duty and her right to have a complete understanding of the affair. It is possible that she only suspected that I was possessed of what she desired to know, and assumed her air of positiveness to deceive me. When I refused she said that she would see Hong Yo—and, if she must—yourself!”
Kenyon went on smoking quietly; if there was any surprise in this statement for him he did not show it.
“She must be most anxious to obtain facts if she would go the length of asking Kenyon for them.” And Hong Yo laughed, his teeth showing hideously, as he did so.
Farbush echoed the laugh.
“That’s so,” said he. “She would be most anxious, indeed. For somehow, Kenyon, she doesn’t seem to have taken a fancy to you—that is, not the sort of fancy a girl should take to the man whom her friends have selected as her husband.”
“It is not news to me,” replied Kenyon, without a trace of feeling in his voice or manner. “She dislikes me, in fact, and is at no pains to conceal it.”
Hong Yo bent forward across the table, his narrow eyes fixed upon the young adventurer.
“I thought last night that you seemed struck by her appearance,” spoke he.
“Perhaps so.” Kenyon’s voice was cold and repellent; the Chinaman noticed it and drew slightly back.
“I merely wished to warn you, that is all. This is a matter of business. It will not do to introduce any entanglements or impediments. We have had enough of them.”
Kenyon nodded.
“I understand,” replied he. “But there is no need to warn me, as you call it. My eyes are clear enough to see what I must avoid.”
Farbush smiled grimly and nodded his head.
“I think we may safely trust you for that,” remarked he.
Kenyon looked at his watch.
“Is there anything else?” he asked, in a bored sort of way. “I really have very little time.”
“Nothing,” and Farbush laughed a little, “except that the girl threatened to proceed on her own account and in her own way, if she were not dealt with considerately.”
Kenyon fancied that he detected a shade of anxiety in the man’s laughing words; but he said nothing, allowing him to proceed.
“And her coming here to-night shows that she might have some notion of keeping her word. She came to see Hong Yo, as she said she would—and with her came an astounding companion. I had laughed at her up to that point; but now,” with a shrug, “I don’t know what to think.”
“It has a queer look,” admitted Kenyon. “But perhaps it is not as serious as it seems. At the worst, she can know but little of consequence. And that little she cannot use.”
“Let her attempt it,” cried Hong Yo, with that deadly creeping gesture of the hand toward his breast, “and I’ll—”
“I think,” interrupted Kenyon, “that you left that plaything of yours inside there. So there is no use in your feeling for it.” He arose to his feet, and slowly began drawing on his gloves. His face was cold and hard, and the look in his eyes was unmistakable. “And I think it as well,” he continued, “to warn you against anything of that sort. My short acquaintance with you, Hong Yo, has shown me that you have the temper of a half-dozen devils; and, also, that you are not given to controlling it. But this girl must not be harmed! Do you understand? No matter what she does or says, she must not be harmed. She can injure us but little, if she does her worst. But, as I have told you, he knows about her, and from that you must draw your line of policy.”
“I understand,” answered Hong Yo, sullenly.
“Good. And now if you will have the worthy Sing Wang or someone else show me the way, I’ll be going.”