“ ‘It is not wise if you will leave this room for many minutes,’ the leader said to me, and they left us—both of them—closing the door behind them.
“I knew they were going, but I couldn’t walk on this leg. From what the doctor says, I’ll be lucky if I walk on it inside of a couple of months. I didn’t want my wife to go out, and perhaps run into one of them before they’d got away, but she insisted on going. She found they’d gone, and she phoned the police, and then ran up to the pack room and found Molloy’s package was gone.”
“And this Molloy didn’t give you any hint at all as to what was in the package?” O’Gar asked when Richter had finished.
“Not a word, except that it was something the Siamese were after.”
“Did he know the Siamese who stabbed him?” I asked.
“I think so,” Richter said slowly, “though I am not sure he said he did.”
“Do you remember his words?”
“Not exactly, I’m afraid.”
“I think I remember them,” Mrs. Richter said. “My husband, Mr. Richter, asked him, ‘What’s the matter, Molloy? Are you hurt, or sick?’
“Molloy gave a little laugh, putting a hand on his chest, and said, ‘Nothing much. I run into a Siamese who was looking for me on my way here, and got careless and let him scratch me. But I kept my little bundle!’ And he laughed again, and patted the package.”
“Did he say anything else about the Siamese?”
“Not directly,” she replied, “though he did tell us to watch out for any Asiatics we saw around the neighborhood. He said he wouldn’t leave the