losely questioned.

He was an ambitious man, and consequently one who took big chances.
Nothing disturbed the silence; he sat upon the divan and again pressed
the button of his torch, shining it all about the low-beamed apartment
and peering curiously into the weird shadows of the place. He calculated
he was now in the position which Cohen had occupied during the last
moments of his life, and a sense of the uncanny touched him coldly.

As he thought of the unnatural screams spoken of by Poland, some strange
instinct prompted him to curl up his feet upon the divan again, as
though a secret menace crawled upon the floor amid its many rugs and
carpets.

He must now endeavour to reconstruct the plan upon which the American
cracksman had operated. Poland had a persistent belief that Cohen had
known where the fabled hoard of Huang Chow was concealed.

Durham began a deliberate inspection of the place. He thought it
unlikely that a wily old Chinaman, assuming that he possessed hidden
wealth, would keep it in so accessible a spot as this. It was far more
probable that he had a fireproof safe in the room upstairs, perhaps
built into the wall. Yet, according to Poland's account, it was in this
room and not in any other that death came to Diamond Fred.

The wall-hangings first engaged Durham's attention. He moved them aside
systematically, one after another, seeking for any hiding-place, but
failing to find one. The door communicating with the outer office he
found to be locked, but he did not believe for a moment that the office
would be worthy of inspection.

There were cases containing jewelled weapons and cups and goblets inlaid
with precious stones, but none of these seemed to have been tampered
with, and all were locked, as was the big cabinet filled with snuff
bottles.

Many of the larger pieces about the place contained drawers and
cupboards, and these he systematically opened one after another, without
making any discovery of note. Some of the cupboards contained broken
pieces of crockery, and more or less damaged curios of one kind and
another, but none of them gave him the clue for which he was seeking.

He examined the couch upon which Huang Chow had been seated when first
he had met him, but although he searched it scientifically he was
rewarded by no discovery.

A very fusty and unpleasant smell was more noticeable at this point than
elsewhere in the room, and he found himself staring speculatively up
the