Page:Mr. Wu (IA mrwumilnlouisejo00milniala).pdf/160

 are telling the truth and when they are lying to me. She had some suspicion—what it was I have no idea, or whether it was right or wrong—but she would tell me nothing, except that she risked her life to warn me that at all costs the Gregorys must go from China, and go now."

"And leave poor Mr. Basil to his fate?"

Bradley made a gesture of baffled helplessness.

The clerk's lip curled. "You have a poor idea of my intelligence. I know it all now—all that you know—and what you suspect."

"Then you do not know much," the other retorted hotly.

"No," Holman admitted grimly. "Not much to chew on, and nothing at all to go upon. Ah Wong comes to you in the middle of the night—it was Ah Wong; she is devoted to Mrs. Gregory, and quite indifferent to Mr. Basil, dead or alive. You learn from her, or from some one else, the next morning, of the visit three days ago to Wu's garden at Kowloon, and off you go to Kowloon to dig it all out. You said you went to Kowloon to try to interest your friend Wu in the case, because he is the one man who can do anything that can be done in China. Now, you did not go—excuse me, Mr. Bradley—to Kowloon to try to interest Wu in the case; you went to find Mr. Basil."

Bradley threw down the hat he had taken up and sat down again. "You are wrong there," he said. "For I too believe that Basil Gregory will not be found. But I did go to try to interest Wu Li Chang in what is very urgent to me—for—for several reasons—because I know him to be, humanly speaking, almost omnipotent, and because I trust and like him."

"Trust and like Wu Li Chang!"

"Emphatically," was the quiet answer. "I've seen