Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/225

Rh prisoning me close within his arms, all they had to do was to slip one cord round my throat, and another round his. We were at their mercy. No man can show much fight when he is being strangled; especially when the job is in the hands of a skilled practitioner. Never mind what the theory is, that is the teaching of experience.

What they wanted, with so much anxiety, in my office, I was unable to guess. They had already purloined the God of Fortune.

Stay! It had been returned to me again. I had dropped it on the floor; been unable to find it. Could it be that they were after it a second time. I wondered. What peculiar significance, what attribute, could that small plaything have?

Beyond doubt they were treating my belongings with scant regard for the feelings of their owner? If they failed to find what they were seeking it would not be for want of a thorough quest. Pretty well everything the apartment contained they subjected to a minute examination. They allowed nothing to escape them. It was delightful to watch them. If I had been suffering a little less physical inconvenience I should have enjoyed myself immensely. They might be Orientals; but if they were not professional burglars in their own country then they ought to have been. They were artists any way.

To note one point—there was such order in their methods. They began at one corner of the room, and they worked right round it, emptying boxes, turning out drawers, pulling the books out of their covers, and the stuffing out of the chairs, and the furniture to pieces generally, in search of secret hiding-places. Then they began tapping at the walls, tearing off scraps of paper here and there, to see what was behind. It beat me to imagine what it was that they were after, though it was flattering to think what a first-rate hand at concealment they must be taking