Ling Foo pressed down his excitement and slowly approached the vase. A
necklace! He gave the object a slight kick, which sent it rattling toward
the door to the rear. He resumed his pacing. Each time he reached the
necklace he gave it another kick. At length the necklace was at the
threshold. Ling Foo approached the light and shut it off. Next he opened
the door and kicked the necklace across the threshold. Diamonds--thirty
or forty of them on a string.
The room in the rear was divided into workshop and storeroom. The living
rooms were above. His wife was squatted on the floor in an unlittered
corner mending a ceremonial robe of his. She was always in this room at
night when Ling Foo was in the shop.
He ignored her and carried his prize to a lapidary's bench. He perched
himself on a stool and reached for his magnifying glass. A queer little
hiss broke through his lips. Cut-glass beads, patently Occidental, and
here in Shanghai practically worthless!
In his passion of disappointment he executed a gesture as if to hurl the
beads to the floor, but let his arm sink slowly. He had made a mistake.
These beads had not brought tragedy in and out of his shop. Somehow he had
missed the object; some nook or corner had escaped him. In the morning he
would examine every inch of the floor. White men did not kill each other
for a string of glass beads.
He stirred the beads about on his palm, and presently swung them under the
droplight. Beautifully cut, small and large beads alternating, and on the
smaller a graven letter he could not decipher. He observed some dark
specks, and scrutinized them under the magnifying glass. Blood! His
Oriental mind groped hopelessly. Blood! He could make nothing of it. A
murderous quarrel over such as these!
For a long time Ling Foo sat on his stool, the image of Buddha
contemplating the way. Outside the storm carried on vigorously, sending
rattles into casements and shudders into doors. The wifely needle, a
thread of silver fire, shuttled back and forth in the heavy brocade silk.
Glass beads! Trumpery! Ling Foo slid off the stool and shuffled back into
the shop for his metal pipe.
Having pushed Ling Foo into this blind alley, out of which he was shortly
to emerge, none the wiser, the Pagan Madonna swooped down upon the young
woman with the ruddy hair and touched her with the impelling finger.