Came a disturbance and the sound of voices, and Lou Chada, his son, stood at the doorway.  He still wore his evening clothes, but he no longer looked smart.  His glossy black hair was dishevelled, and his handsome, olive face bore a hunted look.  Panic was betoken by twitching mouth and fear-bright eyes.  He stopped, glaring at his father, and: 

“Why are you not gone?” asked the latter sternly.  “Do you wish to wreck me as well as yourself ?”

“The police have posted a man opposite Kwee’s house.  I cannot get out that way.”

“There was no one there when the boy was brought in.”

“No, but there is now.  Father!” He took a step forward.  “I’m trapped.  They sha’n’t take me.  You won’t let them take me?”

Zani Chada stirred not a muscle, but: 

“To-night,” he said, “your mad passion has brought ruin to both of us.  For the sake of a golden doll who is not worth the price of the jewels she wears, you have placed yourself within reach of the hangman.”

“I was mad, I was mad,” groaned the other.

“But I, who was sane, am involved in the consequences,” retorted his father.

“He will be silent at the price of the boy’s life.”

“He may be,” returned Zani Chada.  “I hate him, but he is a man.  Had you escaped, he might have consented to be silent.  Once you are arrested, nothing would silence him.”

“If the case is tried it will ruin Pat’s reputation.”

“What a pity!” said Zani Chada.

In some distant part of the house a gong was struck three times.

“Go,” commanded his father.  “Remain at Kwee’s house until I send for you.  Let Ah Fang go to the room above and see that the woman is silent.  An outcry would ruin our last chance.”

Lou Chada raised his hands, brushing the hair back from his wet forehead, then, staring haggardly at his father, turned and ran from the room.

A minute later Kerry was ushered in by the Chinese servant.  The savage face was set like a mask.  Without removing his hat, he strode across to the table and bent down so that fierce, wide-open blue eyes stared closely into long, half-closed black ones.

“I’ve got one thing to say,” explained Kerry huskily.  “Whatever the hangman may do to your slimy son, and whatever happens to the little blonde fool he kidnapped, if you’ve laid a hand on my kid I’ll kick you to death, if I follow you round the world to do it.”

Zani Chada made no reply, but his knuckles gleamed, so tightly did he clutch the knobs on the chair arms.  Kerry’s savagery would have awed any man, even though he had supposed it to be the idle threat of a passionate man.  But Zani Chada knew all men, and he knew this one.  When Daniel Kerry declared that in given circumstances he would kick Zani Chada to death, he did not mean that he would shoot him, strangle him, or even beat him with his fists; he meant precisely what he said—­that he would kick him to death—­and Zani Chada knew it.