268
THE SURAKARTA
"I did not say I did intend to do so." Hereford frowned.
"For you, Mr. Hereford, as trustee, are more anxious than almost anybody else that the emerald should stay lost."
"If it has not struck you how easily I obtained these facts you are even duller than I have given you credit for being."
"I do not follow you," Annis said.
Suddenly Hereford got up, his annoyance preventing him from sitting still.
"Mr. Annis," he exclaimed, "no doubt the Javanese had seen you upon the steamer with them; Baraka or some other among them may even have known of you in Java; perhaps they saw you in San Francisco and again on the way from San Francisco to Chicago. Your chance of being noted and suspected by them, if they saw you still again at the
