"Pooh!" cried Furneaux, snapping a thumb and forefinger. "Don't worry about that! Put yourself in the position of the Chinese Ambassador. He can't even guess who may be the ruler of China from one day to another. Yesterday it was an old woman, today a dictator, tomorrow the mob; who can foretell what shape the lava erupted from a volcano will take? Bet you a new hat, Mr. Forbes, that the minute the embassy heard of Mrs. Lester's murder they put two and two together and kept a sharp eye on these mansions and on your house. That gray car is nothing more nor less than a red herring accidentally drawn across the trail. Some cute Chinaman said 'Hallo! that murdered woman is the wife of Forbes's agent in Shanghai. Now, let's see what Forbes is doing, and who visits him, and perhaps we'll learn something.' Want a bet?"
Forbes could not help but recover some of his shattered nerve in view of the detective's airy optimism. Still, he was shaken and dubious.
"Don't forget that the Chinese Ambassador has no knowledge whatsoever of my share in the revolution," he said.
"And don't forget that for ways which are dark and tricks which are vain the heathen Chinee is peculiar," retorted Furneaux. "How can you be sure that there is not in the Embassy at this moment a full statement of your payments into the reformers' funds, as well as the list of conspirators which our friend Wong Li Fu is in search of?"
"I think that such a thing is almost impossible."
"Is there anything really impossible? We used to believe that once a man was dead he could not be brought to life again. A Frenchman has just demonstrated that by a judicious application of galvanism to the heart and salt water to the veins any average corpse can be revived."
Evidently Furneaux was enjoying himself. He sat there, absorbing new impressions and irradiating scraps of irrelevant knowledge in a way that would have been full of significance to Winter had he been present. Furneaux was never so mercurial, never so ready to jump from one subject to another, as when his subtle brain was working at high pressure.
He actually reveled in a crime which lay on the borderland of the exotic and the grotesque. Like the French philosopher in Poe's "Tales of Mystery and Imagination," the savant who read his newspaper in a dingy Paris room, and solved by sheer force of intellect extraordinary criminal problems which baffled the shrewdest official minds, he felt in relation to this particular tragedy that he required only to be brought in touch with certain contingent forces bound up with it—Forbes, for instance, and, in a minor degree, Theydon—and in due course he would be able to go forth and find the master wrongdoer.
Suddenly the millionaire seemed to cast off the cloak of despair which clogged his energies and impaired his brilliant intellect. He rose to his feet and involuntarily squared his shoulders.
"Surely we are wasting valuable hours which should be given to action," he cried. "I am going to the city and shall arrange for a prolonged absence from my office. Then I'll hurry home, perfect my defenses, and defy these murderous curs. My wife must come to London. In a crisis like this I must have my loved ones under my own personal supervision. I can still shoot straight and quick, and woe betide any man, white or yellow, who enters my house unbidden. As for this infernal symbol—!"
He raised a clenched fist, and would have pounded into fragments the thin fabric of the ivory skull still lying where he had placed it on the table had not Furneaux snatched it into safety.
"No, no!" protested the detective. "I want that for purposes of comparison. Kindly give me that typed note, too, Mr. Forbes. It may bear finger-marks. You never can tell. The cardboard box in which it was posted also. Thank you. Now, a few more questions before you go. How much money did you provide for the revolutionaries?"
"Two millions sterling."
"As a gift or a loan?"
"If they failed, I lost every farthing, of course. If they succeeded, I was to recoup myself by financing the new government."
"But I gather that they have neither failed nor succeeded. China has a constitution, but the Presidential election was conducted on lines suspiciously akin to those recently adopted in Mexico."
"Nevertheless negotiations are now on foot for a big loan."
"If you died, what would become of the two millions?"
"They would be lost irretrievably."
Furneaux sat back in his chair.
"That gives one furiously to think," he said. "The gray car comes back into the picture."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know. But I'll tell you what—the man who first spoke of a Chinese puzzle as a metaphor for something downright bewildering knew what he was talking about."
Forbes put a hand to his forehead in an unconscious gesture of hopelessness.
"My brain is reeling," he muttered. "To think that in the London of today we should live in abject terror of a band of Mongolian ruffians! Why do you remain here, man? You vaunt the prowess of your department—why are you not scouring every haunt of Chinamen in the East End? Spread your net widely enough, and you will surely get hold of some minor scoundrel who will talk for fear or money. Bribe him to the point where he cannot refuse to speak. Wong Li Fu is the only man I fear. Put him where he can accomplish no mischief, and the rest of his crew will be powerless!"
"When you come to count up the achievements of my friend Winter and myself—in the face of stupid but none the less disheartening obstacles—we have not done so badly in two days," said Furneaux complacently.
"Can I drive you anywhere? My car is waiting."
"No, thanks. The truth is, Mr. Forbes, I look on you as a disturbing influence. A man who can talk as calmly as you about dropping two millions on a crazy project to introduce Western methods into China is not fitted for the phlegmatic and judicial atmosphere of Scotland Yard. If I want any money I'll come to you. If not, and all goes well at No. 11 Fortescue Square, the next time I'll trouble you will be when you are asked to identify Wong Li Fu, dead or alive."
Forbes seemed hardly to be aware of Furneaux's words. He went out. Theydon accompanied him, and, as they descended the stairs together, the older man said brokenly:
"It is my wife and daughter for whom I fear. I can hardly control my senses when I think of these yellow fiends contemplating vengeance on me through them. Theydon—do you believe in that detective? He is either a vain fool or a genius. By the way, I forgot to ask him how he found out that I had received the warning delivered by this morning's post."
"I'll try and worm an explanation out of him. If he tells me I'll telephone you later. He is an extraordinary creature, but abnormally clever at his work, I am sure. For my own part, I feel disposed to trust him implicitly. I wish you had met his colleague, Chief Inspector Winter. He is the sort of man whose mere presence inspires confidence."
Forbes halted on the step of the automobile and glanced at his watch.
"I shall be home in an hour," he said. "After that I shall not stir out all day. Telephone me if you have any news. Why not dine with us tonight?"
Theydon's eyes sparkled. He was longing to meet Evelyn Forbes once more, but a wretched doubt diminished the glow of gratification which the prospect brought. Should he, or should he not, tell the girl's father of the rather indiscreet admissions she had made during their brief talk that morning?
That minor worry, however, was banished suddenly and forever. Furneaux, taking the three steps which led from entrance hall to pavement with a flying leap, cannoned right into Forbes, whom he grasped with both hands, quite as much by way of emphasis as to check the impetus of his diminutive body.
"In with you!" he piped. "Tell your chauffeur to obey my orders, no matter what they are!"
Action, determination, were as the breath of the millionaire's nostrils. He aroused himself instantly.
"You hear, Downs!" he said to the chauffeur.
Downs was one of those strange beings who have been evolved by the age of petrol, an automaton compounded, seemingly, of steel