look, then came at me.

A little too late. My hand had shot out and snatched the mask from the
face of China's monarch. A moment I glared, the bit of black stuff in my
grasp, at the alien countenance I had uncovered. Crowding and craning of
the others to see. Jabbering, exclaiming all around us.

"Corking make-up; looks like a sure-enough Chinaman."

"No make-up at all. The real thing."

"What's the big idea?"

"Why did he unmask, then?"

"Didn't want to. They made him."

And last, but loudest, repeated time and again, with wonder, with
distaste, with rising anger,

"The Vandeman's Chinese cook!"

For with the ripping away of that black oval, I had looked into the
slant, inscrutable eyes of Fong Ling. Hemmed in by the crowd, he could
but face me; he did so with a kind of unhuman passivity.

And the committee went wild. Their own masks came off on the run. I saw
Cummings' face, Bowman's; Eddie Hughes slid from the balcony stair and
bucked the crowd, pushing through to the seat of war. The grand march
had become a jostling, gabbling chaos.

Barbara, up there, above it all, knew what she was about. I had utter
confidence in her. But she was plainly holding back for a further
development, her eyes on the entrances; and what the devil was my next
move?

Ina Vandeman wheeled where she stood and faced the room, both hands
thrown up, laughing.

"It was meant to be a joke--a great, big foolish joke!" her high treble
rang out. "Bron's here somewhere. Wait. He'll tell you better than I
could. At a masquerade--people do--they do foolish things.... They--"

"Is Bronse Vandeman here?" I questioned Fong Ling. The Chinaman's stiff
lips moved for the first time, in his formal, precise English.

"Yes, sir. Mr. Vandeman will explain." He crossed his hands and resigned
the matter to his employer. And I demanded of Ina Vandeman, "You tell us
your husband's present--in this room? Now?" and when her answer was
drowned in the noise, I roared,

"Vandeman! Bronson Vandeman! You're wanted here!"

No answer. Edwards took up the call after me; the committee yelled the
name in all keys and variations. In the middle of our squawking, a minor
disturbance broke out across by the porch entrance, where Big Bill
Capehart stood. As I looked, he turned over his post to Eddie Hughes,
who came abreast of him at the moment, and started, scuffling and
struggling toward us, with a captive.

"I had my orders!" his big voice boomed out. "Pin