Mr. Moto is a spy for the Imperial Japanese government and often deals with people who are accidentally involved in his work.

When Mr. Moto appears, Boris becomes agitated and gives Dillaway a cigarette case made of silver inlaid with gunmetal, bearing a scenic design.

He leaves the train in Peking and is immediately picked up by Major Ahara of the Japanese Army, who wants to stop the cigarette case from getting to the Russians.

Gates finds Dillaway and Dr. Gilbreth captive by Hamby in the compound of a caravan trader named Holtz.

Hamby is negotiating the sale of the cigarette case between the Russians and the Japanese for Prince Wu, ruler of Ghuru Nor.

Moto and Japan win the rights to the Mongolian trade routes, thereby moving deeper into China.

Gates and Dillaway, the two Americans are oblivious to the machinations of the Japanese and the Russian armies as they wrestle for control of China.

Millicent Bell, Marquand’s biographer said that Gates is, …a man under a cloud, whose mission to China is purely personal, and who is so indifferent to politics that he allows himself to be thought a Japanese spy.

This duality may have given the pre-WWII reading audience a chance to see the Japanese as multi-dimensional people at a time when Japan was still mysterious.