“Where can I find Hoo Lun and Yin Hung?”
“Again I must grovel in my ignorance,” he murmured, “only consoling myself with the thought that the Master of Mysteries knows the answers to his questions, and is pleased to conceal his infallibly accomplished purpose from Chang.”
And that was as far as I got.
There were more crazy compliments, more bowing and scraping, more assurances of eternal reverence and love, and then I was following my rope-necked guide through winding, dark halls, across dim rooms, and up and down rickety stairs again.
At the street door—after he had taken down the bars—he slid my gun out of his shirt and handed it to me. I squelched the impulse to look at it then and there to see if anything had been done to it. Instead I stuck it in my pocket and stepped through the door.
“Thanks for the killing upstairs,” I said.
The Chinese grunted, bowed, and closed the door.
I went up to Stockton Street, and turned toward the office, walking along slowly, punishing my brains.
First, there was Dummy Uhl’s death to think over. Had it been arranged beforehand: to punish him for bungling that morning and, at the same time, to impress me? And how? And why? Or was it supposed to put me under obligations to the Chinese? And, if so, why? Or was it just one of those complicated tricks the Chinese like? I put the subject away and pointed my thoughts at the little plump yellow man in the purple robe.
I liked him. He had humor, brains, nerve, everything. To jam him in a cell would be a trick you’d want to write home about. He was my idea of a man worth working against.