Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/388

356 room, "the four Chinamen—Wong Bo, Billy Lee, Sing Lo, and Sin Chung Ming.

"My first test is to see which of them—if any—were acquainted with Walter Newberry; and next who, if any of them, knew where he lived. For this purpose I have brought here Newberry's photograph and a view of his father's house, which I had taken yesterday." He stooped to one of his suit-cases, and took out first a dozen photographs of young men, among them Newberry's; and about twenty views of different houses, among which he mixed the one of the Newberry house. "If you are ready, inspector, I will go ahead with the test."

The psychologist threw open the door of the inner room, showing the four Celestials in a stolid group, and summoned first Wong Bo, who spoke English.

Trant, pushing a chair to the table, ordered the Oriental to sit down and place his hands upon the plates at the table's edge before him. The Chinaman obeyed passively, as if expecting some sort of torture. Immediately the light moved to the center of the screen, where it had moved when Trant was touching the plates, then kept on toward the next line beyond. But as Wong Bo's first suspicious excitement—which the movement of the light betrayed—subsided as he felt nothing, the light returned to the center of the screen.

"You know why you have been brought here, Wong Bo?" Trant demanded of the Chinaman.

"No," the Chinaman answered shortly, the light moving six inches as he did so.