“There!  That’s one thing well done.  We’re better off without a coward like that.  He’d be getting under our feet all the time, or else opening the doors to the Caesars, with the idea of currying favor with them.  Where did you ever pick up such an arrant little poltroon?  Most Japs are plucky enough.”

“Hade lent him to us,” said Milo, evidently impressed by Brice’s athletic demonstration against the little Oriental.  “Sato worked for him, after Hade’s regular butler fell ill.  He—­”

“H’m!” mused Brice.  “A hanger-on of Hade’s, eh?  That may explain it.  Sato’s cowardice may have been a bit of rather clever acting.  He saw no use in risking his neck for you people when his master wasn’t here.  It was no part of his spy work to—­”

“Spy work?” echoed Standish, in real astonishment.  “What?”

“Let it go at that,” snapped Brice, adding as Claire reentered the room, followed by the lanky house-man, “All secure in the kitchen quarters, Miss Standish?  Good!  Please send this man to close the upstairs shutters, too.  Not that there’s any danger that the Caesars will try to climb, before they find they can’t get in on this floor.  The sight of the barred shutters will probably scare them off, anyway.  They’re likely to be more hungry for a surprise rush, than for a siege with resistance thrown in.  If—­”

He ceased speaking, his attention caught by a sight which, to the others, carried no significance, whatever.

Simon Cameron, the insolently lazy Persian cat, had been awakened from a nap in a rose-basket on the top of one of the hall bookcases.  The tramping of feet, the scrambling ejection of the Jap butler, the clanging shut of many metal blinds—­all these had interfered with the calm peacefulness of Simon Cameron’s slumbers.

Wherefore, the cat had awakened, had stretched all four shapeless paws out to their full length in luxurious flexing, and had then arisen majestically to his feet and had stretched again, arching his fluffy back to an incredible height.  After which, the cat had dropped lightly to the floor, five feet below his resting place, and had started across the hall in a mincing progress toward some spot where his cherished nap could be pursued without so much disturbance from noisy humans.

All this, Brice had seen without taking any more note of it than had the two others.  But now, his gaze fixed itself on the animal.

Simon Cameron’s flowingly mincing progress had brought him to the dining room doorway.  As he was about to pass through, under the curtains, he halted, sniffed the air with much daintiness, then turned to the left and halted again beside a door which flanked the dining room end of the wide hall.

For an instant Simon Cameron stood in front of this.  Then, winding his plumed tail around his hips, he sat down, directly in front of the door, and viewed the portal interestedly, as though he expected a mouse to emerge from it.