IX
THAT stolid practicality which had made Blake a successful operative asserted itself in the matter of his approach to the Luiz Camoes house, the house which had been pointed out to him as holding Binhart.
He circled promptly about to the front of that house, pressed a gold coin in the hand of the half-caste Portuguese servant who opened the door, and asked to be shown to the room of the English tea merchant.
That servant, had he objected, would have been promptly taken possession of by the detective, and as promptly put in a condition where he could do no harm, for Blake felt that he was too near the end of his trail to be put off by any mere side issue. But the coin and the curt explanation that the merchant must be seen at once admitted Blake to the house.
The servant was leading him down the length of the half-lit hall when Blake caught him by the sleeve.
"You tell my rickshaw boy to wait! Quick, before he gets away!"
Blake knew that the last door would be the one leading to Binhart's room. The moment he was alone in the hall he tiptoed to this door and pressed an ear against its panel. Then with his left hand, he slowly turned the knob, caressing it with his fingers that it might not click when the latch was released. As he had feared, it was locked.
He stood for a second or two, thinking. Then with the knuckle of one finger he tapped on the door, lightly, almost timidly.
A man's voice from within cried out, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" But Blake, who had been examining the woodwork of the door-frame, did not choose to wait a minute. Any such wait, he felt, would involve too much risk. In one minute, he knew, a fugitive could either be off and away, or could at least prepare himself for any one intercepting that flight. So Blake took two quick steps back, and brought his massive shoulder against the door. It swung back, as though nothing more than a parlor match had held it shut. Blake, as he stepped into the room, dropped his right hand to his coat pocket.
Facing him, at the far side of the room, he saw Binhart.
The fugitive sat in a short-legged reed chair, with a grip-sack open on his knees. His coat and vest were off, and the light from the oil lamp at his side made his linen shirt a blotch of white.
He had thrown his head up, at the sound of the opening door, and he still sat, leaning forward in the low chair in an attitude of startled expectancy. There was no outward and apparent change on his face as his eyes fell on Blake's figure. He showed neither fear nor bewilderment. His career had equipped him with histrionic powers that were exceptional. As a bank-sneak and confidence-man he had long since learned perfect control of his features, perfect composure even under the most discomforting circumstances.
"Hello, Connie!" said the detective facing him. He spoke quietly, and his attitude seemed one of unconcern. Yet a careful observer might have noticed that the pulse of his beefy neck was beating faster than usual. And over that great body, under its clothing, were rippling tremors strangely like those that shake the body of a leashed bulldog at the sight of a street cat.
"Hello, Jim!" answered Binhart, with equal composure. He had aged since Blake had last seen him, aged incredibly. His face was thin now, with plum-colored circles under the faded eyes.
He made a move as though to lift down the valise that rested on his knees. But Blake stopped him with a sharp movement of his right hand.
"That 's all right," he said. "Don't get up!"
Binhart eyed him. During that few seconds of silent tableau each man was appraising, weighing, estimating the strength of the other.
"What do you want, Jim?" asked Binhart, almost querulously.
"I want that gun you 've got up there under your liver pad," was Blake's impassive answer.
"Is that all?" asked Binhart. But he made no move to produce the gun.
"Then I want you," calmly announced Blake.
A look of gentle expostulation crept over Binhart's gaunt face.
"You can't do it, Jim," he announced. "You can't take me away from here."
"But I'm going to," retorted Blake.
"How?"
"I 'm just going to take you."
He crossed the room as he spoke.
"Give me the gun," he commanded.
Binhart still sat in the low reed chair. He made no movement in response to Blake's command.
"What 's the good of getting rough-house," he complained.
"Gi' me the gun," repeated Blake.
"Jim, I hate to see you act this way," but as Binhart spoke he slowly drew the revolver from its flapped pocket. Blake's revolver barrel was touching the white shirt-front as the movement was made. It remained there until he had possession of Binhart's gun. Then he backed away, putting his own revolver back in his pocket.
"Now, get your clothes on," commanded Blake.
"What for?" temporized Binhart.
"You 're coming with me!"
"You can't do it, Jim," persisted the other. "You couldn't get me down to the water-front, in this town. They 'd get you before you were two hundred yards away from that door."
"I 'll risk it," announced the detective.
"And I 'd fight you myself, every move. This ain't Manhattan Borough, you know, Jim; you can't kidnap a white man. I 'd have you in irons for abduction the first ship we struck. And at the first port of call I 'd have the best law sharps money could get. You can't do it, Jim. It ain't law!"
"What t' hell do I care for law," was Blake's retort. "I want you and you 're going to come with me."
"Where am I going?"
"Back to New York."
Binhart laughed. It was a laugh without any mirth in it.
"Jim, you 're foolish. You could n't get me back to New York alive, any more than you could take Victoria Peak to New York!"
"All right, then, I 'll take you along the other way, if I ain't going to take you alive. I 've followed you a good many thousand miles, Connie, and a little loose talk ain't going to make me lie down at this stage of the game."
Binhart sat studying the other man for a moment or two.
"Then how about a little real talk, the kind of talk that money makes?"
"Nothing doing!" declared Blake, folding his arms.
Binhart flickered a glance at him as he thrust his own right hand down into the hand-bag on his knees.
"I want to show you what you could get out of this," he said, leaning forward a little as he looked up at Blake.
When his exploring right hand was lifted again above the top of the bag Blake firmly expected to see papers of some sort between its fingers. He was astonished to see something metallic, something which glittered bright in the light from the wall lamp. The record of this discovery had scarcely been carried back to his brain, when the silence of the room seemed to explode into a white sting, a puff of noise that felt like a whip lash curling about Blake's leg. It seemed to roll off in a shifting and drifting cloud of smoke.
It so amazed Blake that he fell back against the wall, trying to comprehend it, to decipher the source and meaning of it all. He was still huddled back against the wall when a second surprise came to him. It was the discovery that Binhart had caught up a hat and a coat, and was running away, running out through the door while his captor stared after him.
It was only then Blake realized that his huddled position was not a thing of his own volition. Some impact had thrown him against the wall like a toppled nine-pin. The truth came to him, in a sudden flash; Binhart had shot at him. There had been a second revolver hidden away in the hand bag, and Binhart had attempted to make use of it.
A great rage against Binhart swept through him. A still greater rage at the thought that his enemy was running away brought Blake lurching and scrambling to his feet. He was a little startled to find that it hurt him to run. But it hurt him more to think of losing Binhart.
He dove for the door, hurling his great bulk through it, tossing aside the startled Portuguese servant who stood at the outer entrance. He ran frenziedly out into the night, knowing by the staring faces of the street-corner group that Binhart had made the first turning and was running towards the water-front. He could see the fugitive, as he came to the corner; and like an unpenned bull he swung about and made after him. His one thought was to capture his man. His one obsession was to haul down Binhart.
Then, as he ran, a small trouble insinuated itself into his mind. He could not understand the swishing of his right boot, at every hurrying stride. But he did not stop, for he could already smell the odorous coolness of the water-front and he knew he must close in on his man before that forest of floating sampans and native house-boats swallowed him up.
A lightheadedness crept over him as he came panting down to the water's edge. The faces of the coolies about him, as he bargained for a sampan, seemed far away and misty. The voices, as the flat-bottomed little skiff was pushed off in pursuit of the boat which was hurrying Binhart out into the night, seemed remote and thin, as though coming from across foggy water. He was bewildered by a sense of dampness in his right leg. He patted it with his hand, inquisitively, and found it wet. He stooped down and felt his boot. It was full of blood. It was overrunning with blood. He remembered then. Binhart had shot him, after all.
He could never say whether it was this discovery, or the actual loss of blood, that filled him with a sudden giddiness. He fell forward on his face, on the bottom of the rocking sampan.
He must have been unconscious for some time, for when he awakened he was dimly aware that he was being carried up the landing-ladder of a steamer. He heard English voices about him. A very youthful-looking ship's surgeon came and bent over him, cut away his trouser-leg, and whistled.
"Why, he 's been bleeding like a stuck pig!" he heard a startled voice, very close to him, suddenly exclaim. And a few minutes later, after being moved again, he opened his eyes to find himself in a berth and the boyish-looking surgeon assuring him it was all right.
"Where's Binhart?" asked Blake.
"That 's all right, old chap, you just rest up a bit," said the placatory youth.
At nine the next morning Blake was taken ashore at Hong Kong.
After eleven days in the English hospital he was on his feet again. He was quite strong by that time. But for several weeks after that his leg was painfully stiff.