Chen Li lay where the detective had last seen him, still and rigid, the
sheet drawn carefully over his yellow face. Without a word Mirandolet drew
that sheet aside, and motioning his companion to draw nearer, pointed to a
skull-cap of thin blue silk which fitted over the Chinaman's head.
"You see that!" he whispered. "You know what's beneath it!--something that
no true Chinaman ever parts with, even if he does come to Europe, and does
wear English dress and English headgear--his pigtail! Look here!"
He quietly moved the skull-cap, and showed the two astonished men a
carefully-coiled mass of black hair, wound round and round the back of the
head. And into it he slipped his own long, thin fingers--to draw them out
again with an exclamation which indicated satisfaction with his own
convictions.
"Just as I said," he remarked. "Gone! Mr. Detective--that's where Chen Li
hid the diamond--and that Japanese man has got it. And now--you'd better
be after him--half-an-hour's start to him is as good as a week's would be
to you."
He drew the sheet over the dead face and strode out, and Ayscough
followed, angry, mystified, and by no means convinced.
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