It hurt him to feel that she might be indirectly, even remotely associated with such a public scandal, and he realised with a sudden sense of dismay that nothing was less unlikely than that her name would be mentioned as one who had quarrelled with the dead man.
"Pshaw!" he muttered, shrugging off the possibility as absurd, and, walking to the door, called his Chinese servant.
Ling Chu came silently at his bidding.
"Ling Chu," he said, "the white-faced man is dead." Ling Chu raised his imperturbable eyes to his master's face.
"All men die some time," he said calmly.

"This man quick die.

That is better than long die." Tarling looked at him sharply.
"How do you know that he quick die ?" he demanded.
"These things are talked about," said Ling Chu without hesitation.
"But not in the Chinese language," replied Tarling, "and, Ling Chu, you speak no English." "I speak a little, master," said Ling Chu, "and I have heard these things in the streets." Tarling did not answer immediately, and the Chinaman waited.
"Ling Chu," he said after awhile, "this man came to Shanghai whilst we were there, and there was trouble-trouble.

Once he was thrown out from Wing Fu's tea-house, where he had been smoking opium.

Also there was another trouble--do you remember ?" The Chinaman looked him straight in the eyes.
"I am forgetting," he said.