"Perhaps it would be a good idea."
"The Chink, he's nothing. He can be made quiet any time."
One of Ricardo's hands, reposing palm upwards on his folded legs, made
a swift thrusting gesture, repeated by the enormous darting shadow of an
arm very low on the wall. It broke the spell of perfect stillness in
the room. The secretary eyed moodily the wall from which the shadow had
gone. Anybody could be made quiet, he pointed out. It was not anything
that the Chink could do; no, it was the effect that his company must
have produced on the conduct of the doomed man. A man! What was a man? A
Swedish baron could be ripped up, or else holed by a shot, as easily as
any other creature; but that was exactly what was to be avoided, till
one knew where he had hidden his plunder.
"I shouldn't think it would be some sort of hole in his bungalow,"
argued Ricardo with real anxiety.
No. A house can be burnt--set on fire accidentally, or on purpose, while
a man's asleep. Under the house--or in some crack, cranny, or crevice?
Something told him it wasn't that. The anguish of mental effort
contracted Ricardo's brow. The skin of his head seemed to move in this
travail of vain and tormenting suppositions.
"What did you think a fellow is, sir--a baby?" he said, in answer to Mr.
Jones's objections. "I am trying to find out what I would do myself.
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