Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/155

 "But what could he want with the paper?" Alan muttered. "How could he use it?"

"You may believe that he has some complicated scheme," Mr. Tyler said, tapping his pen on the table. "It may not be practicable, however. Chinese of his class are a strange mixture of shrewdness and child-like ignorance. But that does not alter the fact that the document is gone. How unfortunate!"

Mark thought that "unfortunate" was putting it very mildly. The stifling watches on the Delphian, the long, long sea-miles that lay behind, the fortunes of the Ingrams within reach—and now, the only claim to them gone forever! He must have spoken the last words aloud, for Mr. Tyler said:

"We'll hope not forever. Even Chinamen can be caught. The municipal police will be keen on the trail, if trail there be, before sunset. I'll get in touch with the Delphian at once."

There was nothing to be done. Mark and Alan went gloomily to their hotel, where the good Tyler had reserved their room. Shanghai did not lure them; they sat long over an almost untasted supper.