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It was addressed to her and had evidently come after she had left. Standing under the single gas jet that was all Fong's thrifty spirit would permit, she opened it. Anonymous and written in an unknown hand it struck upon her receptive mood with a staggering shock. It came, a bolt from the blue, but a bolt that fell precise on a spot ready to accept it.
"Miss Lolly," with a faint access of color and an eye sliding from Fong's to the back porch, had answered, "No, I'm not asking Mr. Burrage to this one, Fong." "Why not ask Mist Bullage?" Fong had persisted, slightly reproving. "Because I've asked him several times and he hasn't come." That was in the old Bonanza manner. One answered a Chinaman like Fong truthfully and frankly as man to man.
"You bin away, Mist Bullage," he said, placing the card the young man gave him on the hall table cards were only presented in the case of strangers. "How did you know that?" Mark asked, surprised. Fong's face suggested intense, almost childish amusement. "I dunno I hear some place I forget." "I've been up in Sacramento County with my people maybe Crowder told you."
It was, in fact, a medieval corselet of finest steel mesh, capable of turning an elephant bullet. "Go'long!" ordered Mooney finally. "I guess you're safe!" He turned back in the direction of Chatham Square, while Quong resumed his tortoiselike perambulation toward Ah Fong's.
She was inspecting it closely as if trying to find flaws in its arrangement and as Lorry came panting up the steps, said with a relieved air: "Oh, there you are! Fong's brought out breakfast. He says the kitchen's a wreck and he had to make the coffee on an alcohol lamp. The range is all broken and there's something the matter with the gas in the gas stove. Did you get the Barlows?"
It looked as if it was going to be a repetition of one of those evenings in the past before they had "known how to do things," when Fong caused a diversion by appearing from the dining room bearing a tray. To regale evening visitors with refreshments had been the fashion in Fong's youth, so in his old age the habit still persisted.
Detective Mooney, of the Second, detailed to make good District Attorney Peckham's boast that there had never been so little trouble with the foreign element since the administration of which he was an ornament came into office, saw Quong Lee emerge from his doorway in Doyers Street just before four o'clock the following Thursday and slip silently along under the shadow of the eaves toward Ah Fong's grocery and instantly sensed something peculiar in the Chink's walk.
As he did so, Fong entered through a door just opposite. "Water for Mr. Mayer, Fong," came Lorry's voice from the room beyond. The voice and Fong's appearance, coming simultaneously, abrupt and unexpected, made Mayer give a violent start. His hand jerked upward, sending the wine in a scattering spray over the cloth.
Ah Fong's subsequent story of what happened was simple, and briefly to the effect that Quong, having entered his shop and priced various litchi nuts and pickled starfruit, had purchased some powdered lizard and, with the package in his left hand, had opened the door to go out.
Her concern in life was Chrystie and it was being pointed out to her that she wasn't supposed to have any other. Finally the evening came and everything was ready. Fong's talents, after years of disuse, rose in the passion of the artist and produced a feast worthy of the past. A florist decorated the table and the lower floor.
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