"See here!" Cohen withdrew his arm from the other's grasp
angrily. "You can't freeze me out of this claim with bogey
stuff. You're listed, my lad, and you know it. Chief Inspector
Kerry is your pet nightmare. But if he walked in here right now
I could ask him to have a drink. I wouldn't but I could. You've
got the wrong angle, Jim. Lala likes me fine, and although she
doesn't say much, what she does say is straight. I'll ask her
to-night about the Chink."

"Then you'll be a damned fool."

"What's that?"

"I say you'll be a damned fool. I'm warning you, Freddy. There
are Chinks and Chinks. All the boys know old Huang Chow has got
a regular gold mine buried somewhere under the floor. But all
the boys don't know what I know, and it seems that you don't
either."

"What is that?"

Jim Poland bent forward more urgently, again seizing Cohen's
wrist, and:

"Huang Chow is a mighty big bug amongst the Chinese," he
whispered, glancing cautiously about him. "He's hellish clever
and rotten with money. A man like that wants handling. I'm not
telling you what I know. But call it fifty-fifty and maybe
you'll come out alive."