"Five hundred gold, then. But are you sure you can get the beads back?"
Ling Foo smiled.
"I have a way. I will meet you in the lobby of the Astor House at five";
and he bowed with Oriental courtesy.
"Agreed. All aboveboard, remember, or you will feel the iron hand of the
British Government."
Ling Foo doubted that, but he kept this doubt to himself.
"I warn you, I shall go armed. You will bring the gold to the Astor House.
If I see you after I depart----"
"Lord love you, once that code key is in my hands you can go to heaven or
the devil, as you please! We live in rough times, Ling Foo."
"So we do. There is a stain on the floor, about where you stand. It is the
blood of a white man."
"What would you, when a comrade attempts to deceive you?"
"At five in the lobby of the Astor House. Good day," concluded Ling Foo,
fingering the buttons on his counting rack.
Cunningham limped out into the cold sunshine. Ling Foo shook his head. So
like a boy's, that face! He shuddered slightly. He knew that a savage
devil lay ready behind that handsome mask--he had seen it last night. But
five hundred gold--for a string of glass beads!
Ling Foo was an honest man. He would pay you cash for cash in a bargain.
If he overcharged you that was your fault, but he never sold you
imitations on the basis that you would not know the difference. If he sold
you a Ming jar--for twice what it was worth in the great marts--experts
would tell you that it was Ming. He had some jade of superior quality--the
translucent deep apple-green. He never carried it about; he never even
spoke of it unless he was sure that the prospective customer was wealthy.
His safe was in a corner of his workshop. An American yegg would have
laughed at it, opened it as easily as a ripe peach; but in this district
it was absolute security. Ling Foo was obliged to keep a safe, for often
he had valuable pearls to take care of, sometimes to put new vigour in
dying lustre, sometimes to peel a pearl on the chance that under the dull
skin lay the gem.
He trotted to the front door and locked it; then he trotted into his
workshop, planning. If the glass beads were worth five hundred, wasn't it
likely they would be worth a thousand? If this man who limped had stuck to
the hundred Ling Foo knew that he would have surrendered eventually. But
the ease with which the stranger made the jump from one to five convinced
Ling Foo that there could be no harm in boosting five to ten. If there was
a taint of crookedness anywhere, that would be on the other side. Ling Foo
knew where the beads were, and he would transfer them for one thousand
gold. Smart business, nothing more than that. He had the whip hand.