Chapter XV: A Crafty Oriental

Meeting Tsan Ti in this peculiar fashion was a seven-day wonder to the motor boys. The workings of chance, in connection with various matters appertaining to the stolen ruby, could not have been better exemplified.

Tsan Ti roused himself under Matt's touch, and blinked up at him through sleepy eyes. By degrees the lad's face took form before him, and he gave an incredulous grunt and floundered to his feet.

"Estimable, never-to-be-forgotten friend!" the mandarin wheezed, his flabby face beaming as he reached for Motor Matt's hand. "Also the notable McGlory, friend of my friend! This is a delight, all the more joyful because not expected until Catskill. Why is it I have the great honor to see you here?"

"That's quite a yarn, Tsan Ti," replied Matt.

"Let me hear it forthwith, I beseech!" and Tsan Ti ordered Sam Wing out of the seat and motioned for Matt to take his place.

The mandarin had been educated at one of the most famous colleges in the United States, and seemed, as McGlory expressed it, to have spent most of his time corralling adjectives.

Sam Wing, apparently not in the least excited by the sudden appearance of the motor boys, got a seat across the aisle and continued his doze. McGlory managed to secure a place behind Matt.

"I, most devoted youth," said Tsan Ti, as soon as Matt was seated, "am on my way to Catskill of a purpose to talk with you. No longer am I followed by the suspicious person whom I know to have been in the service of Grattan. So soon as I discovered this, I started immediately to find you. The five hundred gods of good luck must have decreed this meeting."

"Rather," answered Matt, "the ten thousand demons of misfortune. I suppose, Tsan Ti, you are after the Eye of Buddha?"

"Quite true, honorable youth."

"Well," said Matt, "I haven't got it."

Tsan Ti started, then slumped back into his seat.

"It has escaped you, vigilant one?" he inquired, his puffy eyelids half closing as he regarded Matt.

"It has escaped me, all right."

"And who has it now?"

"Grattan."

The mandarin turned his face away and looked out of the car window into the night. Motor Matt felt miserable enough. His words, just uttered, might have sealed the doom of the mandarin.

"Converse with me at length upon the subject," said Tsan Ti, again turning toward Matt. "What you say is of vast importance, excellent friend."

Matt had twenty miles of slow traveling in which to make his disclosures, and he made them in detail, with now and then an explanatory word from McGlory.

He began at the point where he had received the ruby, and set forth the manner in which Bunce had presented himself. Bunce's cock-and-bull story was gone into, and Tsan Ti's eyes twinkled humorously--Matt wondered at the humor--as he heard how he had been lured into a basement by a beach comber and was being held a prisoner. The leaving of the box with the hotel clerk, the flight into the hills, and the disappearance of Bunce, all dropped into the recital in chronological form; then came the tracking to the "pocket" under the ledge, and the following of the motorcycle trails in the direction of Catskill, the arrival of the boys in town, and the report of the clerk concerning the forged letter and the removal of the box.

"So there," put in the mandarin, "is where my ruby escaped from your unfortunate hands."

"Don't be so quick in your snap judgments, Tsan," spoke up McGlory. "The ruby wasn't in the box, but in Motor Matt's pocket. My pard had left the empty box with the clerk for a bluff."

The mandarin chuckled, and his body shook with his suppressed mirth.

"Remarkably well planned!" approved Tsan Ti. "Who could have done better? You have a brain of great power, my renowned friend, and your talk gives me much amusement and instruction. Grattan had the empty box and you had the ruby. What then?"

Then followed the call at the hotel of the man from the _Iris_, and Matt's agreement to take charge of the yacht's motor on the down-river trip, Matt to return to Catskill on the following morning. The treachery aboard the boat was listened to by the mandarin with flashing eyes.

"Grattan is possessed of a demon," declared Tsan Ti. "His wits are as keen as a sword's edge, and he knows how to use them. I do not wonder, estimable friend, that you fell into his power. Even I, had I been in your place, could not have saved the jewel."

"What's to be done now, Tsan Ti?" asked Matt anxiously.

"Nothing," was the answer.

"But--but--the yellow cord!"

"It shall not be used by me."

Here was a mystery. If Tsan Ti could not bear the Eye of Buddha back to the Canton temple, it was the august decree of the regent that he should perish by the yellow cord. The ruby had been recovered, and lost again, but Tsan Ti had no intention of strangling himself by invitation of his ruler.

Failing to understand this point, Matt shifted the subject.

"Did you know, Tsan Ti," he queried, "that while you were in New York you had a Chinese spy around with you? A man who was carrying news of everything you did to an agent of Grattan's?"

"You refer to Charley Foo, honorable one?"

"Yes."

"Grattan can plan, my son, and so can the mandarin. This agent of Grattan paid Charley Foo ten silver dollars to betray me, and Charley Foo told me of it, showed the money, and asked what it was I would have him tell this hireling of Grattan's. Charley Foo was of much help to me."

Tsan Ti folded his hands complacently over his capacious stomach.

"Well, sufferin' bluffs!" murmured McGlory. "Charley Foo was the kind of a dark horse they were playing both ways. He told Grattan's man only what Tsan Ti wanted him to know; then why, in the name of all that's hard to figure out, did Tsan tell Charley to let it be known that the ruby was being sent to Motor Matt?"

"It was my wish that Grattan should know about the sending of the ruby," said this most amazing Chinaman.

"Then," went on McGlory, "you expected that Grattan would get on Motor Matt's trail and make a dead set to get back the Eye of Buddha."

"I thought it most likely, sagacious youth."

"Then," averred McGlory warmly, "you can't blame Motor Matt for losing the ruby."

"Am I blaming him, inconsiderate one?" returned Tsan Ti. "Have I said one scolding word, or emitted anything but praise? Motor Matt has done excellently well, and I shall engrave his deeds on the tablets of my memory."

"But the ruby is gone!" said Matt.

"Not so, highly esteemed but most deceived friend. Observe!"

With that, Tsan Ti opened his yellow silk blouse and revealed a small bag suspended by a chain from his neck. Opening the bag, he gave Matt and McGlory a swift glimpse of a shining, blood-red jewel.

"Behold the Eye of Buddha," smiled the mandarin. "Not Grattan, with all his evil work, has it, but I."

This, as might be expected, heaped up the measure of astonishing events and topped off the motor boys' bewilderment.

"But the ruby--the Eye of Buddha Grattan took from me----"

"That, generous youth," answered the mandarin, dropping the bag on his breast and rearranging his blouse, "was not a ruby, but a base replica of the true gem. It is worth, possibly, five dollars. I secured it from a stonecutter in New York."

By degrees the mandarin's crafty performance dawned on the motor boys. They were awed by the scope and audacious success of the design--completely fooling Grattan as it had done. As a specimen of Oriental craft, it was a revelation to Matt and McGlory.