Ling Foo shrugged.
"Long ago, during the Boxer troubles, I bought it from a sailor."
"Ah, probably loot from the Peking palace. How much is it worth?"
Murder blazed up in Ling Foo's heart, but his face remained smilingly
bland.
"What I can get for it. But if the lady wishes I will give it to her in
exchange for the glass beads. I had no right to sell the beads," Ling Foo
went on with a deprecating gesture. "I thought the man who owned them
would never claim them. But he came this noon. Something belonging to his
ancestor--and he demands it."
"Trade them? Good heavens, yes! Of all things! Here!" Jane unclasped the
beads and thrust them toward Ling Foo's eager claw.
But Dennison reached out an intervening hand.
"Just a moment, Miss Norman. What's the game?" he asked of Ling Foo.
Ling Foo silently cursed all this meddler's ancestors from Noah down, but
his face expressed only mild bewilderment.
"Game?"
"Yes. Why didn't you offer some other bits of jade? This string is worth
two or three hundred gold; and this is patently a string of glass beads,
handsomely cut, but nevertheless plain glass. What's the idea?"
"But I have explained!" protested Ling Foo. "The string is not mine. I
have in honour to return it."
"Yes, yes! That's all very well. You could have told this lady that and
offered to return her money. But a jade necklace like this one! No, Miss
Norman; my advice is to keep the beads until we learn what's going on."
"But to let that jade go!" she wailed comically.
"The lady may keep the jade until to-morrow. She may have the night to
decide. This is no hurry."
Ling Foo saw that he had been witless indeed. The thought of raising the
bid of five hundred gold to a thousand or more had bemused him, blunted
his ordinary cunning.
Inwardly he cursed his stupidity. But the appearance of a witness to the
transaction had set him off his balance. The officer had spoken shrewdly.
The young woman would have returned the beads in exchange for the sum she
had paid for them, and she would never have suspected--nor the officer,
either--that the beads possessed unknown value. Still, the innocent
covetousness, plainly visible in her eyes, told him that the game was not
entirely played out; there was yet a dim chance. Alone, without the
officer to sway her, she might be made to yield.