“I was in this peculiar position,” he said, “that I was a rich man or a poor man, whichever way the great law of this country interprets an agreement I made with Shi Soh. Shi Soh you know as ‘Trasmere’ and that, of course, is his name. On the Amur River we called him Shi Soh. I came to this country many years ago and worked in the restaurant of which I am now proprietor. I do not mean the Golden Roof, but the little place in Reed Street. The man who owned it lost all his money at Fan-tan, and I bought it a bargain. You may wonder why a man of education, and the son of a great Clan should be here in this country, playing the humble part of waiter in a Chinese restaurant. I might tell you,” he said simply and without conscious humour, “that education in China, when it is applied to political objectives is not always popular, and I left China hurriedly. That, however, is all past. The Manchu has gone, the old Empress, the Daughter of Heaven is dead, and Li Hung is asleep on the Terraces of the Night. “I was making slow progress when Mr. Trasmere came one night. I did not recognize him at first. When I knew him first he was a very strong, healthy man, with a reputation for being cruel to his employees. I have known him to burn men to death in order to make them reveal where they had hidden gold which they had stolen from the diggings. We talked of old times, and then he asked me if there was money to be made in the restaurant business. I told him there was, and that was the beginning of the partnership which lasted until the day of his death. Three-quarters of the profits of the Golden Roof was paid every Monday to Mr. Trasmere and that was our agreement. It was the only agreement that we had, except one which I myself wrote at his dictation and which placed on record this fact: that in the event of his dying, the whole of the property should come to me. It was signed by me with my ‘hong’ and by him with his ‘hong’ which he always carried in his pocket.” “The ‘hong’,” interrupted Carver, “is a small ivory stamp with a Chinese character at the end. It is carried in a thin ivory case, rather like a pencil case, isn’t it?” Yeh Ling nodded. “I kept the document until a few days before his death, when he asked me to let him take it away with him to make a copy. It will be news to you, though not perhaps to you, Miss Ardfern, that Mr. Trasmere spoke and wrote Chinese with greater ease than I, who am almost an authority upon Mandarin. A few days later he was murdered. My only hope of saving myself from ruin was to find that agreement, which he had taken away in my little lacquer box.” “But could they touch your restaurant? Are there any other documents in existence which would give Mr. Trasmere’s heir the right of interfering with you?” Yeh Ling looked at him steadily.