The Yellow Snake by Edgar Wallace

she was travelling, overtook a very ordinary-looking taxicab, and it was only by accident that she glanced at its occupant. It was Clifford Lynne, and at his signal she stopped the car.
        He got out of the cab, walked to the car and, without even asking permission, he opened the door of the car and stepped in.
        "I'll travel with you as far as the end of my street," he said. "The fact is, my cab is rather uncomfortably loaded with grub! I'm taking possession of my new domain."
        He was looking at her keenly.
        "You have been to town. I won't presume to anticipate the rights of a loving husband and ask you why you are traveling in this splendour, but I presume that you have been visiting friend Narth?" And then, quickly: "You didn't see Fing-Su, did you?"
        She nodded.
        "Yes, I saw him," she said. "I had an interview with him this morning."
        "The devil you did!"
        If he was angry he did not betray his emotions.
        "And what did that naïve and ingenious child of nature say to you?" he asked banteringly. "I'll bet it was something pretty crude! There never was a Europeanized Chinaman who did not go through life under the delusion that he was a diplomat!"
        Should she tell him? She had given no promise, and only had Fing-Su's request that the character of the interview should be secret.
        He saw her hesitation, and with uncanny shrewdness leapt straight at the truth.
        "He didn't want to buy a founders' share of the YNC, did he?"
        And, when she went red, he slapped his knee and laughed long and riotously.
        "Poor old Machiavelli!" he said at last drying his eyes. "I never dreamt he would be satisfied with his tenth!"
        "His tenth?"
        He nodded.
        "Yes; Fing-Su owns a tenth of our property. That is news to you? Joe Bray held another tenth."
        "But who has the remainder?" she asked in amazement.
        "Your future lord, but I doubt master," he said. "Our Chinese friend is more than a millionaire, but isn't satisfied. In a moment of temporary aberration Joe parted with a block of founders' shares to Fing-Su's father, and on top of that he handed most of the remainder to Fing-Su himself! Honestly, I don't believe Joe was ever sane; and the maddest thing he ever did——" Here he checked himself. "Maybe he didn't do that
        ...but I have my suspicions, and I shall know for certain tonight."
     
        She did not ask him what those suspicions were and he went on:
        "There was no real company until I joined forces with Joe. He'd just scraped a little coal out of the land for which Fing-Su's sainted parent got the concession. But the silly old gentleman had made an agreement that his Chinese helper should have a tenth share of the profits. I didn't know this until I'd added a large tract of coal land to the property, and after that the legal difficulties of kicking out Fing-Su's papa were such that it wasn't worth while fighting. What I did, however, was to refloat the company with a larger capital—does this bore you?"
        She shook her head.
        "I only dimly understand," she said, "but I want to, badly!"
        Again his quick, half-suspicious scrutiny.
        "It was then that I put in the clause about the founders' shares to prevent dear old Joe from doing anything more altruistic. Your revered relative was not the most intelligent of men, though the truest heart that ever beat, and founders' shares meant nothing to him when he discovered there was no profit attached to them. Of the forty-nine shares issued, Fing-Su's father took nine (Joe was stout on this point), and Joe and I took twenty each."
        "What do the reserves mean?" she asked.
        For a second he looked at her, suspicion in his eyes.
        "We have a large reserve," he said at last, "but a great deal of it really doesn't belong to us. You see, we had a very big business in Manchuria—we were