The gun in Tai’s hand seemed to quiver with eagerness.
Through the other door—the door that gave to the next room—popped Mrs. Quarre, an enormous cocked revolver in her thin hand.
“Let go it, you nasty heathen,” she screeched.
Tai dropped his pistol before he turned to face her, and he held his hands up high—all of which was very wise.
Thomas Quarre came through the hall door then; he also held a cocked revolver—the mate of his wife’s—though, in front of his bulk, his didn’t look so enormously large.
I looked at the old woman again, and found little of the friendly fragile one who had poured tea and chatted about the neighbors. This was a witch if there ever was one—a witch of the blackest, most malignant sort. Her little faded eyes were sharp with ferocity, her withered lips were taut in a wolfish snarl, and her thin body fairly quivered with hate.
“I knew it,” she was shrilling. “I told Tom as soon as we got far enough away to think things over. I knew it was a frame-up! I knew this supposed detective was a pal of yours! I knew it was just a scheme to beat Thomas and me out of our shares! Well, I’ll show you, you yellow monkey! And the rest of you too! I’ll show the whole caboodle of you! Where are them bonds? Where are they?”
The Chinese had recovered his poise, if he had ever lost it.
“Our stout friend can tell you perhaps,” he said. “I was about to extract the information from him when you so—ah—dramatically arrived.”
“Thomas, for goodness sakes don’t stand there dreaming,” she snapped at her husband, who to all appearances was still the same mild old man who had given me an excellent cigar. “Tie up this Chinaman! I don’t