hey must
leave evidence, when discovered, of his visit.

A large and solid table stood near the divan, and he moved this
immediately under the trap. Upon it he laid a leopard-skin to deaden
any noise he might make, and then upon the leopard-skin he set a massive
chair: he replaced his torch in his pocket and drew himself up on to the
roof again. Reclosing the trap by means of the awl which he had screwed
into it, he removed the awl and placed it in his pocket.

Then, sliding gently down the sloping roof, he dropped back into the
deserted court.

VIII

A CAGE OF BIRDS

"No," said Lala, "we have never had robbers in the house." She looked up
at Durham naively. "You are not a thief, are you?" she asked.

"No, I assure you I am not," he answered, and felt himself flushing to
the roots of his hair.

They were seated in a teashop patronized by the workers of the district;
and as Durham, his elbows resting on the marble-topped table, looked
into the dark eyes of his companion, he told himself again that whatever
might be the secrets of old Huang Chow, his daughter did not share them.

The Chinaman had made no report to the authorities, although the piled
up furniture beneath the skylight must have afforded conclusive evidence
that a burglarious entry had been made into the premises.

"I should feel very nervous," Durham declared, "with all those valuables
in the house."

"I feel nervous about my father," the girl answered in a low voice. "His
room opens out of the warehouse, but mine is shut away in another part
of the building. And Ah Fu sleeps behind the office."

"Were you not afraid when you suspected that Cohen was a burglar? You
told me yourself that you did suspect him."

"Yes, I spoke to my father about it."

"And what did he say?"

"Oh"--she shrugged her shoulders--"he just smiled and told me not to
worry."

"And that was the last you heard about the matter?"

"Yes, until you told me he was dead."

Again he questioned the dark eyes and again was baffled. He felt
tempted, and not for the first time, to throw up the case. After all, it
rested upon very slender data--the mysterious death of a Chinaman
whose history was unknown and the story of a crook whose word was worth
nothing.

Finally he asked himself, as he had asked himself before, what did it
matter? If old Huang Chow had disposed of these people in some strange
manner, they had sought to rob him. The morality of the case was
co