taking any chances. I’m going to give him those pearls now.”
Chan looked distressed. “No, no, please! Speaking humbly for myself—”
“Now, see here, Charlie—if I may call you that?”
“Greatly honored, to be sure.”
“Let’s not be foolish, just because we’re far from home on a desert. Chinese may be psychic people, as you say. But I see myself trying to explain that to Victor Jordan—and to dad. All we were to find out was whether Madden was here or not. He is. Please go to Madden at once and tell him I want to see him in his bedroom in twenty minutes. When I go in you wait outside his door, and when I call you—come. We’ll hand over our burden then and there.”
“An appalling mistake,” objected Chan.
“Why? Can you give me one definite reason?”
“Not in words, which are difficult. But—”
“Then I’m very sorry, but I’ll have to use my own judgment. I’ll take the full responsibility. Now, really, I think you’d better go—”
Reluctantly, Charlie went. Bob Eden lighted a cigarette and sat down before the fire. Silence had closed down like a curtain of fog over the house, over the desert, over the world. An uncanny silence that nothing, seemingly, would ever break.
Eden thought deeply. What had Charlie Chan been talking about, anyhow? Rot and nonsense. They loved to dramatize things, these Chinese. Loved to dramatize themselves. Here was Chan playing a novel role, and his complaint against it was not sincere. He wanted to go on playing it, to spy around and imagine vain things. Well,
