Never-Fail Blake

  VI

  It was by wireless that Blake made what efforts he could to confirm hissuspicions that Binhart had not dropped off at any port of call betweenSan Francisco and Hong Kong. In due time the reply came back to"Bishop MacKishnie," on board the westbound _Empress of China_ that theReverend Caleb Simpson had safely landed from the _Manchuria_ at HongKong, and was about to leave for the mission field in the interior.

  The so-called bishop, sitting in the wireless-room of the _Empress ofChina_, with a lacerated black cigar between his teeth, received thismuch relayed message with mixed feelings. He proceeded to send outthree Secret Service code-despatches to Shanghai, Amoy and Hong Kong,which, being picked up by a German cruiser, were worried over andargued over and finally referred back to an intelligence bureau forexplanation.

  But at Yokohama, Blake hurried ashore in a sampan, met an agent whoseemed to be awaiting him, and caught a train for Kobe. He hurried on,indifferent to the beauties of the country through which he wound,unimpressed by the oddities of the civilization with which he foundhimself confronted. His mind, intent on one thing, seemed unable toreact to the stimuli of side-issues. From Kobe he caught a _Toyo KisenKaisha_ steamer for Nagasaki and Shanghai. This steamer, he found, layover at the former port for thirteen hours, so he shifted again to anoutbound boat headed for Woosung.

  It was not until he was on the tender, making the hour-long run fromWoosung up the Whangpoo to Shanghai itself, that he seemed to emergefrom his half-cataleptic indifference to his environment. He began torealize that he was at last in the Orient.

  As they wound up the river past sharp-nosed and round-hooded sampans,and archaic Chinese battle-ships and sea-going junks and gunboatsflying their unknown foreign flags, Blake at last began to realize thathe was in a new world. The very air smelt exotic; the very colors, thetints of the sails, the hues of clothing, the forms of things, land andsky itself--all were different. This depressed him only vaguely. Hewas too intent on the future, on the task before him, to give hissurroundings much thought.

  Blake had entirely shaken off this vague uneasiness, in fact, whentwenty minutes after landing he found himself in a red-brick hotelknown as The Astor, and guardedly shaking hands with an incredulouslythin and sallow-faced man of about forty. Although this man spoke withan English accent and exile seemed to have foreigneered him in bothappearance and outlook, his knowledge of America was active andintimate. He passed over to the detective two despatches in cipher,handed him a confidential list of Hong Kong addresses, gave him certaininformation as to Macao, and an hour later conducted him down the riverto the steamer which started that night for Hong Kong.

  As Blake trod that steamer's deck and plowed on through strange seas,surrounded by strange faces, intent on his strange chase, no sense ofvast adventure entered his soul. No appreciation of a great hazardbewildered his emotions. The kingdom of romance dwells in the heart,in the heart roomy enough to house it. And Blake's heart was taken upwith more material things. He was preoccupied with his new list ofaddresses, with his new lines of procedure, with the men he mustinterview and the dives and clubs and bazars he must visit. He had hisday's work to do, and he intended to do it.

  The result was that of Hong Kong he carried away no immediate personalimpression, beyond a vague jumble, in the background of consciousness,of Buddhist temples and British red-jackets, of stately parks andgranite buildings, of mixed nationalities and native theaters, ofanchored warships and a floating city of houseboats. For it was thesame hour that he landed in this orderly and strangely English citythat the discovery he was drawing close to Binhart again swept cleanthe slate of his emotions. The response had come from a consulatesecretary. One wire in all his sentinel network had proved a live one.Binhart was not in Hong Kong, but he had been seen in Macao; he wasknown to be still there. And beyond that there was little thatNever-Fail Blake cared to know.

  His one side-movement in Hong Kong was to purchase an Americanrevolver, for it began to percolate even through his induratedsensibilities that he was at last in a land where his name might not besufficiently respected and his office sufficiently honored. For thefirst time in seven long years he packed a gun, he condescended to goheeled. Yet no minutest tingle of excitement spread through hislethargic body as he examined this gun, carefully loaded it, and stowedit away in his wallet-pocket. It meant no more to him than the stowingaway of a sandwich against the emergency of a possible lost meal.