From the first he had doubted and distrusted Mayer. In his dog-like loyalty to his "old boss," his love for the children that he regarded as his charge, he had personally studied and, through the subterranean lines of information in Chinatown, inquired into the character and standing of every man that entered the house. Sometimes when Mayer was there, he had stood behind the dining-room door and listened to the conversation in the parlor. The more he saw of the man the more his distrust grew. Asked why, he could give no reason; he either had no power to put his intuition into words, or--what is more probable--did not care to do so. Two months before the present date a friend of his, member of the same tong, was made cook in the Argonaut Hotel. This gave him the opportunity to set in action one of those secret systems of espionage at which the Oriental is proficient. The cook, confined to his kitchen, became a communicating link between Fong and Jim, the room boy who attended to Mayer's apartment. Jim, evidently paid for his services and described as "an awful smart boy," was instructed to watch Mayer and note anything which might throw light on his character and manner of life. To an unsuspecting eye the result of Jim's investigations would have seemed insignificant. That Mayer gambled and had lost heavily the three men already knew from the gossip of Chinatown. The room boy's information was confined to small points of personal habit and behavior. Among Mayer's effects, concealed in the back of his closet, was a worn and decrepit suitcase which he always carried when he went on his business trips. These trips occurred at intervals of about six weeks, and in his casual allusions to them to Ned Murphy and Jim himself he had never mentioned their objective point. It was his habit to breakfast in his room, the meal being brought up on a tray by Jim and being paid for in cash each morning. For two and sometimes three days before the trips, Mayer always signed a receipt for the breakfast, but on his return he again paid in cash. Through a bellboy, who had admitted Jim to a patronizing intimacy, the astute Oriental had extended his field of observation. One of this boy's duties was to carry the mail to the rooms of the guests. For some weeks after his arrival Mayer had received almost no mail. After that letters had come for him, but all had borne the local postmark. The boy never remembered to have seen a letter for Mayer from New York, the city entered on the register as his home. Through this boy Jim had also gleaned the information that Mayer invariably paid his room rent in coin. He had heard Ned Murphy comment on the fact.