The Danger Zone and Other Stories

The Danger Zone

A few blocks to the north of Market Street in San Francisco, Grant Avenue ceases to be a street of high class stores and becomes a part of China.

Major Copely Brane, free lance diplomat, soldier of fortune, knew every inch of this strange section. For Major Brane knew his Chinese as most baseball fans know the strength and weakness of opposing teams.

Not that Major Brane had consciously confined his free lance diplomatic activities to matters pertaining to the Orient. His services were available to various and sundry. He had accepted employment from a patriotic German who wished to ascertain certain information about the French attitude toward reparations; and it was perhaps significant of the Major’s absolute fairness, that the fee he had received from the German upon the successful completion of his task was exactly the amount which he had previously charged a French banker for obtaining confidential information from the file of a visiting ambassador as to the exact proposals which the German government was prepared to make as a final offer.

In short, Major Brane worked for various governments and various individuals. Those who had the price could engage his services. There was only one requirement: the task must be within the legitimate field of diplomatic activity. Major Brane was a clearing house of international and political information, and he took pride in doing his work well. Those who employed him could count upon his absolute loyalty upon all matters connected with the employment, could bank upon his subsequent silence; and best of all, they could rest assured that if Major Brane encountered any serious trouble in the discharge of his duties, he would never mention the name of his employer.

Of late, however, the Major’s activities had been centered upon the situation in the Orient. This was due in part to the extreme rapidity with which that situation was changing from day to day; and in part to the fact that Major Brane prided himself upon his ability to deliver results. There is no one who appreciates results more, and explanations less, than the native of the Orient.

It was early evening, and the streets of San Francisco’s China town were giving forth their strange sounds — the shuffling feet of herded tourists, gazing open-mouthed at the strange life which seethed about them; the slippety of Chinese shoes — skidded along the cement by feet that were lifted only a fraction of an inch; the pounding heels of plain clothes men who always worked in pairs when on China town duty.

Major Brane’s ears heard these sounds and interpreted them mechanically. Major Brane was particularly interested to notice the changing window displays of the Chinese stores. The embargo on Japanese products was slowly working a complete change in the merchandise handled by the curio stores, and Major Brane’s eyes narrowed as he noticed the fact. Disputes over the murder of a subject can be settled by arbitration, but there can be but one answer to a blow that hits hard at a nation’s business.

Major Brane let his mind dwell upon certain angles of the political situation which were unknown to the average man. Would the world powers close their eyes to developments in Manchuria, providing those same developments smashed the five year plan and...?

His ears, trained to constant watchfulness in the matter of unusual sounds, noticed the change in the tempo of the hurrying feet behind him. He knew that some man was going to accost him, even before he turned appraising eyes upon the other. The man was Chinese, probably Western born, since he wore his Occidental clothes with the air of one who finds in them nothing awkward; and he thudded his feet emphatically upon the sidewalk, slamming his heels hard home with every step.

He had been hurrying and the narrow chest was laboring. The eyes were glittering with some inner emotion of which there was no other external sign, save, perhaps a very slight muscular tenseness about the expressionless mask of the face.

“Major Brane,” he said in excellent English, and then stopped to suck in a lungful of air. “I have been to your hotel. You were out. I came here. I saw you, and ran.”

Major Brane bowed, and his bow was polite, yet uncordial. Major Brane did not like to have men run after him on the street. Much of his employment entailed very grave dangers, and it was always advisable to keep his connections as secret as possible. Grant Avenue, in the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown, at the hour of eight forty-seven in the evening, was hardly a proper place to discuss matters of business — not when the business of the person accosted was that of interfering with the political situation in the Far East.

“Well?” said Major Brane.

“You must come, sir!”

“Where?”

“To my grandfather.”

“And who is your grand father?”

“Wong Sing Lee.”

The lad spoke in the Chinese manner, giving the surname first. Major Brane knew that the family of Wong was very powerful and that Chinese venerate age, age being synonymous with wisdom. Therefore, the grandfather of the panting youth must be a man of great importance in the social fabric of Chinatown. Yet Major Brane could recall no prominent member of the Wong family whose given name was Sing Lee. Somehow, the entire name sounded manufactured for the occasion.

Major Brane turned these matters over in his mind rapidly.

“I am afraid I am not at liberty to accept,” he said. “Will you convey my very great regrets to your estimable grandparent?”

The lad’s hand moved swiftly. His face remained utterly expressionless but the black lacquer of the eyes assumed a red dish glint which would have spoken volumes to those who have studied the psychology of the Oriental.

“You come!” he said fiercely, his voice almost breaking, “or I kill!”

Major Brane squared his shoulders, studied the face intently. “You might get away with it,” he said, in a dispassionate voice that was almost impersonal, “but you’d be caught before you’d gone twenty feet — and you’d be hung for it.”

The boy’s eyes still held their reddish glint. “Without the help which you alone can give,” he said, “death is preferable to life!”

And it was only because Major Brane knew his Chinese so well that he determined to accompany the boy, when he heard that burst of impassioned speech. When your Chinese resolves up on murder, he is very, very cool; and very, very wily. Only when a matter of honor is concerned, only when there is a danger of “losing face,” does he resolve upon a heedless sacrifice. But when such occasions arise, he considers his own life of but minor moment.

Major Brane nodded. “Remove your hand from the gun,” he said. “There is a plain clothes man coming this way. I will go with you.”

He reached out, clamped a friendly hand about the arm of the youth, taking hold of the muscles just above the elbow. If the plain clothes officer should accost them, Major Brane wanted to prevent the youth from doing anything rash. And as his fingers clamped about the arm, Major Brane felt the quivering of the flesh, that tremor which comes from taut nerves.

“Steady!” he warned.

There is a popular belief that the Chinese is unemotional. The fallacy of that belief is on a par with the hundreds of fallacies which bar an understanding of the Orient by the Occident. Major Brane realized just how deadly dangerous the present situation was. If the officer should insist upon searching the youth for a weapon... But the officer was reassured by Major Brane’s words.

“If it’s real jade,” said Major Brane in a loud tone of voice, regarding the bulge in the pocket of the youth’s coat, “I’ll look at it, but I want a bargain.”

The officer veered off. The Chinese glittered his beady eyes at Major Brane and said nothing. A casual observer would have gathered that he was totally oblivious of the danger he had just escaped as well as the ruse by which he had been saved. But the reddish tinge left the surface of the eyes, and the boy took a deep breath.

“M’goy!” he muttered mechanically, which is a Cantonese expression of thanks, and means, “I am not worthy.”

Major Brane made the prompt reply which etiquette demanded.

“Hoh wah!” he said, which in turn means, “good talk!”

And the fact that most Westerners would have found the words amusing as well as entirely unrelated to expressions of thanks and welcome is but illustrative of the gulf between the races.

The young Chinese led the way down a side street. Major Brane fell in slightly behind, walked unhesitatingly, his hands swinging free, making no covert effort to reach toward the shoulder holster which was slung beneath his left arm. He had given his word, and his word had been accepted.

They paused before a dark door, which was the center one of a row of dark doors. Apparently these entrances were to separate buildings, huddled closely together in the congestion of poverty; but when the door swung open, Major Brane found himself in a courtyard enclosed by a brick wall. The enclosure was spacious and airy. The other doors had been but dummies set in the brick wall, and were kept locked. Had one opened any one of those other doors, he would have encountered nothing but brick.

Major Brane gave no evidences of surprise. He had been in such places before. The Chinese of wealth always builds his house with a cunning simulation of external poverty. In the Orient one may look in vain for mansions, unless one has the entree to private homes. The street entrances always give the impression of congestion and poverty, and the lines of architecture are carefully carried out so that no glimpse of the mansion itself is visible over the forbidding false front of what appears to be a squalid hovel.

“Quickly!” breathed the Chinese.

His feet pattered over flags, paused at an entrance, to the side of which was an altar and the Chinese characters which signify the presence of Toe Day, the god whose duty it is to frighten away the “homeless ghosts” who would attach themselves to the family, yet will permit free access to the spirits of departed ancestors.

A bell jangled. The door swung open. A huge Chinese servant stood in the doorway.

“The master awaits,” he said. The boy pushed his way into the house, through a reception room furnished in conventional dark wood furnishings, into an inner room, the doorway to which was a circle with a high ledge at the entrance, to keep away evil spirits.

Major Brane knew at once that he was dealing with an old family who had retained all the conventions of ten thousand years; knew also that he would be kept with his back to the door if he were received as a prisoner, and given a seat across the room facing the doorway, if he were an honored guest.

His eyes, suddenly grown as hard as polished steel, surveyed the interior of the room. An old man sat on a low stool. A wisp of white beard straggled down from either side of his chin. His face was withered and wrinkled. Most of the hair was gone from the head. The nails of the little fingers were almost three inches long. The left hand waved toward a stool which was at the end of the room facing the door.

“Cheng nay choh,” he said to Major Brane, and the boy interpreted. “Please sit down,” he said.

Major Brane heaved a sigh of relief as he sat down upon the rigidly uncomfortable chair which faced the doorway — the seat of honor.

The servant brought him a cup of tea and a plate of dried melon seeds, which he set down upon a stand of teakwood inlaid with ivory and jade. Major Brane knew that regardless of the urgency of the matter in hand, it would not be broached until he had partaken of the food and drink, so he sipped the scalding tea, took a melon seed between his teeth, cracked it and extracted the meat with a celerity which branded him at once as one who knew his way about. Chopsticks can be mastered with a few lessons, but not so with the technique of melon seeds.

The old man sucked up a bamboo pipe, the bowl of which was of soft metal. It was packed with sook yen, the Chinese tobacco which will eat the membranes from an uneducated throat. He gurgled into speech.

There was no doubt in Major Brane’s mind but that the young boy would act as interpreter; and he guessed that the lad was quite familiar with the situation, and eager to express himself up on it. Yet such is the veneration for age that the boy kept his eyes upon the old man’s face, listening intently, ready to interpret, not what he himself wanted to say, but what the head of the family should utter.

For some three minutes the old man spoke. Major Brane caught a word here and there, and, as his ears conveyed those words to his consciousness, Major Brane sat very rigidly attentive.

The boy interpreted, when the grandfather had finished speaking; and his voice held that absence of tone which comes to one who is repeating but the words of another.

“Jee Kit King has been taken by our enemies. She will be tortured. Even now, they are preparing to start the torture. She will be tortured until she speaks or until she dies, and she will not speak. You are to save her. You must work with speed. And your own life will be in danger.”

Major Brane snapped questions. “Who are your enemies?”

“Enemies of China.”

“Who are they?”

“We do not know.”

“How long has the girl been missing?”

“Less than one hour.”

“Why do they torture her?”

“To find out what she did with the evidence.”

“What evidence?”

That question brought a period of silence. Then the boy turned to the old man and rattled forth a swift sentence of Cantonese. Major Brane understood enough of that question to know that the youth was asking the old man for permission to give Major Brane the real facts; but even as the old man pursed his puckered lips about the stained mouthpiece of the pipe, Major Brane sensed that the reply would be adverse.

In fact there was no reply at all. The old man smoked placidly, puffing out the oily tobacco smoke, his eyes glittering fixed upon the distance.

The young man whirled back to Mayor Brane, lowered his voice.

“There is, in this city, Mah Bak Heng, who comes from Canton.”

Major Brane let his eyes show merely polite interest. He already knew much of Mah Bak Heng, and of his mission, but he kept that knowledge from showing in his eyes.

The boy began to outline certain salient facts.

“Mah Bak Heng has power in Canton. Canton is in revolt against the Nanking government. The Nanking government wishes to unite China to the end that war may be declared upon Japan, over Manchuria. Until the Canton matter is fixed, there can be no war. Canton has money and influence...

“Mah Bak Heng keeps peace from being made. He cables his men to yield to the Nanking government only upon terms that are impossible. Mah Bak Heng is a traitor. He is accepting pay from enemies of China, to keep the revolution alive. If we could prove that, the people of Canton would no longer listen to the voice of the traitor.

“Jee Kit King is my sister. This man is the grandfather. We talked it over. Jee Kit King has studied in the business schools. She can write down the words of a man as fast as a man can speak, and then she can copy those words upon a typewriter. She is very bright. She agreed that she would trap Mah Bak Heng into employing her as his secretary. Then, when the payment for his treason was delivered, she would get sufficient evidence to prove that payment, and would come to us.

“We know she secured that evidence. She left the place of Mah Bak Heng. But on the way here, two men spoke to her. She accompanied them to a cab. She has not been seen since.”

The boy ceased speaking, drew a quivering breath.

The old man puffed placidly upon the last dying embers of the oily tobacco, reached a stained thumb and forefinger into a time-glazed pouch of leather for a fresh portion.

Major Brane squinted his eyes slightly in thought. “Perhaps she went with friends.”

“No. They were enemies.”

“She had the evidence with her?”

“Apparently not.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because, just before I went to you, three men came hurriedly to her room and made a search.”

Major Brane puckered his forehead in thought.

“That means?” he asked.

“That they captured her, searched her but could not find that which they sought, and then went to the room, thinking it was hidden there.”

“And not finding it?” asked Major Brane.

“Not finding it, they will torture Jee Kit King.” The boy wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, gave a motion that was like a shudder. “They are very cruel,” he said. “They can torture well. They remove the clothes, string the body by hands and feet, and build small fires in the middle of the back.”

“The girl will not speak?” inquired Major Brane. “Not even under torture?”

“She will not speak.”

“How can I save her? There is no time. Even now they will have started the torture,” said Major Brane, and he strove to make his tone as kindly as possible.

The boy gave vent to a little scream. His hand flashed out from his pocket. The last vestige of self control left him. He thrust a trembling revolver barrel into the middle of Major Brane’s stomach.

“When she dies,” he screamed, “you die! You can save her! You alone. You have knowledge in such matters. If she dies, you die. I swear it, by the memory of my ancestors!”

Major Brane glanced sideways at the menace of the cocked revolver, the quivering hand. He knew too well the danger in which he was placed. He looked at the old man, saw that he was lighting a fresh bowl of tobacco and that the clawlike hand which held the flaming match was as steady as a rock. The ebony eyes were still fixed upon distance. He had not so much as turned his head.

Major Brane realized several things. “I will do my best,” he soothed, and gently moved backward, as though to get to his feet. The motion pushed the gun a little to one side. “If this girl is your sister,” he said, “why is she a Jee, when your grandfather is a Wong?”

“She is not my sister. I love her. I am to marry her! — You must save her. Fast! Quick! Go and do something, and prepare to die if you do not. Here, you can have money, money in plenty!”

The old man, his eyes still fixed upon space, his head never turning, reached his left hand beneath the folds of his robe and tossed a leather bag toward Major Brane. The mouth of the bag was open, and the light glinted upon a great roll of currency.

“Where does the girl have her room?” asked Major Brane, making no move to reach for the money.

The boy was too nervous to speak. He seemed about to faint or to become hysterical. The shaking hand which held the revolver jiggled the weapon about in a half circle.

“Quick!” snapped Major Brane. “If I am to be of help I must know where she lives.”

But the boy only writhed his lips.

It was the old man who answered. He removed the stained stem of the pipe from his mouth, and Brane was surprised to hear him speak in excellent English.

“She has a room at Number Thirteen Twenty-Two Stockton Street,” he said. “The room maintained in her name.”

Major Brane swung his eyes.

“I’ve seen you somewhere before...” he said, and would have said more. But as though some giant hand had snuffed out the lights, the room became suddenly dark, a pitch black darkness that was as oppressive as a blanket. And the darkness gave forth the rustling sound of bodies, moving with surreptitious swiftness.

Major Brane flung himself to one side. His hand darted beneath the lapel of his coat, clutched the reassuring bulk of the automatic which reposed in the shoulder holster.

Then the lights came on, as abruptly as they had been extinguished. The room was exactly as it had been three or four seconds before, save that Major Brane was the only occupant. The chairs were there. The old man’s pipe, the bowl still smoking and the oily tobacco sizzling against the sides of the metal, was even propped against a small table.

But the old Chinese grandfather and the boy himself had disappeared.

A man came shuffling along the flags of the outer room. It was the same servant who had escorted Major Brane into the room.

“What you want here?” he asked.

“I want to see the master.”

“Master not home. You go out now.”

Major Brane holstered his weapon, smiled affably. “Very well.”

The servant slip-slopped to the courtyard, unlocked the door.

“Good-bye,” he said.

“Good-bye,” observed Major Brane, and stepped out into the street.

A fog was coming in, and its first damp, writhing tendrils were clutching at the dim corners of the mysterious buildings. The sounds of traffic from the main avenues came to him, muffled as though they were the sounds of another world.

Major Brane moved, and as he moved a patch of shadow across the street slipped into furtive motion. A stooped figure hugged the patch of darkness which extended along the front of the dark and silent buildings. Another figure walked casually out of the doorway of a building at the corner, stood in the light, looking up and down the lighted thoroughfare. It might have been waiting for a friend. A bulky figure, padded out with a quilted coat, hands thrust up the sleeves, came from a doorway to the rear and started walking directly toward Major Brane.

Major Brane sighed, turned, and walked rapidly toward the lighted thoroughfare. The fact that the boy had been forced to accost him on the street made it doubly inconvenient. Things which happen upon the streets of Chinatown seldom go unobserved.

Major Brane had no way of knowing who those shadowing figures might be; they might be friends of the people who had employed him, keeping a watch upon him lest he seek to escape the trust which had been thrust upon him, or they might be emissaries of the enemy, seeking to balk him in accomplishing any thing of value.

But one thing was positive. Somewhere in the city a Chinese girl was held in restraint by enemies who were, in all probability, proceeding even now to a slow torture that would either end in speech or death. And another thing was equally positive: unless Major Brane could effect the rescue of that girl, he could count his own life as forfeit. The young man had sworn upon the memory of his ancestors, and such oaths are not to be disregarded. Moreover, there had been the silent acquiescence of the old man.

“Grandfather!” sputtered Major Brane under his breath. “He’s no more her grandfather than I am! I’ve seen him before somewhere, and I’ll place him yet!”

But he knew better than to waste any mental energy in jogging a tardy recollection. Major Brane was having his hands full at the moment. He had a task before him which required rare skill, and the price of failure would be death.

He reached back for his tobacco pouch, and his hand touched something which swung in a dangling circle from the skirt of his coat. He pulled the garment around. The thing was the leather pouch which the old man had tossed to him. It was filled with greenbacks of large denomination, rolled tightly together.

That bag must have been pinned to his coat by the old servant as he was leaving the court yard. The knowledge gave Major Brane a feeling of mingled security and uneasiness. That meant that at least one of his shadows must be in the employ of the old man who had posed as the girl’s grandfather. That shadow would make certain that Major Brane found the sack of currency, that it did not come loose and roll unheeded into the gutter.

But there were three shadows. What of the other two? And there was the disquieting knowledge that even the friendly shadow would become hostile should Major Brane fail in his undertaking.

The young man had promised that Brane should not outlive the girl; and the promise had been sworn by the sacred memory of the young man’s ancestors.

Major Copely Brane walked directly to his room in the hotel, which was almost on the outskirts of Chinatown. That step was, at least, noncommittal, and Major Brane needed time to think. Also, he had a secret method of exit from that room in the hotel.

He opened the door with his key, switched on the lights, bolted the door behind him, and dropped into a chair. He held his arm at an angle so that his wrist watch ticked off the seconds before his eyes.

He knew that it was hopeless to plunge blindly into the case without a plan of campaign. And he knew that it would be fatal to consume too much time in thought. Therefore he allowed himself precisely three minutes of concentration — one hundred and eighty seconds within which to work out some plan which might save the life of the girl, and, incidentally, preserve his own safety.

He thought of Mah Bak Heng. Major Brane had some shrewd suspicions about Mah Bak Heng, but he had no proof. There was a chance that those suspicions could be converted into proof by the burglary of a certain safe. But that burglary would take time. Even with the necessary proof, Major Brane would be no nearer locating those who held the girl captive; and she would be dead long before he could bring sufficient pressure to bear upon the Chinese politician to force a trade or treaty.

Major Brane squirmed uneasily in his chair. Thirty seconds had ticked by. He might trust to blind chance, figure out who would probably be chosen to kidnap a girl who had acquired dangerous information, make a guess as to the location that would be picked upon for torture. But there was only one chance in a hundred that, with all of his shrewd knowledge of things Oriental, he would be able to make a correct guess. Then there would remain the task of effecting a rescue.

No. The girl would have died a slow death long before such a plan could be carried into execution.

Forty-five seconds gone.

Major Brane shifted the position of his legs. His eyes were cold and hard as polished steel.

His jaw was thrust forward. His lips were a thin line of determination. The light illuminated the delicately chiseled lines of his aristocratic face.

He went back to the first principles of deductive reasoning. The girl was a spy. She had evidently secured the thing that would link Mah Bak Heng with interests that were inimical to China. That thing would, if Major Brane read his man right, be in the nature of cash. But cash leaves no trail. Therefore, the thing which the girl had secured was something equivalent to cash, which also indicated the person who had paid the cash. It was a safe bet that this something had been a check.

She had left the place, seeking her friends; and the enemy had known she was a spy — at least that soon, perhaps before. Had the girl been aware that her disguise had been penetrated? That was a question which could only be answered in the light of subsequent events. Those subsequent events proved that the girl had been “taken for a ride” by her enemies. Undoubtedly, she had been searched almost immediately; and the subsequent searching of her rooms would indicate that this search had been fruitless.

So far, then, the enemies were deprived of the evidence which they had sought to take from the girl. The girl had hidden it in some place that was not on her person. Where?

Obviously, those enemies had thought the most likely place was the girl’s bedroom. Rightly or wrongly, they had reasoned that the check was hidden there.

It was impossible now to find the girl within the time necessary to save her life; but the people who held her captive would torture her, not for the pleasure of torture, but for the purpose of securing that which they coveted — the check. Therefore, if they secured the check without torture, they would refrain from torture.

That thought lodged in Major Brane’s mind, and he immediately seized upon it as being the key to the situation. His eyes stared unwinkingly, his brows deepened into straight lines of thought.

Then, after a few moments, he nodded his head. His eyes snapped to a focus upon the dial of the wrist watch. The time lacked thirteen seconds of the three-minute limit which he had imposed upon himself.

Major Brane crossed to a desk in one corner of his room. That desk contained many curious odds and ends. They were articles which Major Brane had collected against future contingencies, and they dealt with many phases of the Orient. He selected a tinted oblong of paper. It was a check upon a bank that was known for its connections in the Far East. The check was, of course, blank. Major Brane filled it in.

The name of the payee was Mah Bak Heng. The amount caused Major Brane some deliberation. He finally resolved upon the figure of fifty thousand dollars. He felt that in all probability that amount would be the top price for the final payment, and he knew Mah Bak Heng well enough to believe that he would command the top price for the final payment, assuming that there had been several previous payments.

It was when it came to filling the name of the payer at the bottom of the check that Major Brane pulled his master stroke. There was a slight smile twisting the corners of his lips as he made a very credible forgery of signature. The signature was that of a man who was utterly unknown in the Oriental situation, save by a very select few. But Major Brane had always made it his business to secure knowledge which was not available to the average diplomat.

He blotted the check, folded it once, straightened the fold and folded it again. Then he began to fold it into the smallest possible compass, taking care to iron down each fold with the handle of an ivory paper knife. When he had finished, the check was but a tight wad of paper, folded into an oblong.

Major Brane took the cellophane wrapping from a package of cigarettes carefully wrapping the spurious check in it, and thrusting the tiny package into his pocket.

He left his room by the secret exit: through the connecting door into another room; through another connecting door into a room that had a window that opened on a fire escape platform; out the window to the platform; along the platform to a door; through the door to a back staircase; down the stairs to an alley exit; out the alley to the side street.

He hailed a passing cab and gave the address of the building where Jee Kit King had her residence. As the cab swung into speed, Major Brane looked behind him.

There were two cars, following closely.

Major Brane sighed wearily. It was no surprise; merely what he had expected. He was dealing with men who were very, very capable. He didn’t know whether he had shaken off one of the shadows, or whether one of the following cars held two men, the other holding one; but he was inclined to believe all three were following, two in one car, one in the other.

He made an abortive effort to shake off the pursuit. It was an effort that was purposely clumsy. The following cars dropped well to the rear, however, and switched off their lights.

A less experienced man than Major Brane would have believed that the ruse had been a success, and that the shadows were lost. Major Brane merely smiled and sent the cab rushing to the address where the girl had lived.

He found her apartment without difficulty.

It was on a third floor. The lodgings were, for the most part, given over to people of limited means who were neat and cleanly, but economical.

The door of the girl’s apartment was locked. Major Brane hesitated over that lock only long enough to get a key that would turn the bolt; and his collection of skeleton keys was sufficiently complete to cut that delay to a period of less than four seconds. He entered the apartment, leaving the door open behind him; not much, just a sufficient crack to insure against a surreptitious bolting from the outer side without his knowledge.

When he had jerked out a few drawers and rumpled a few clothes, Major Brane picked up a jar of cold cream. A frown of annoyance crossed his features as he saw that there was only a small amount of cream in the jar.

But in the bathroom he found a fresh jar, unopened. He unscrewed the top, thrust the cellophane-wrapped check deep down into the greasy mixture. He let it remain there for a few seconds, then fished it out again. In taking it out, he smeared a copious supply of cold cream over the edge of the jar, and wiped his fingers on a convenient towel, leaving the excess cold cream smeared about the edge of the jar, a deep hole in the center of the cream.

Unwrapping the cellophane, he left it on the shelf over the washstand, a transparent oblong of paper smeared with cold cream; left it in such a shape that it was readily apparent it had served as a container for some small object.

Then Major Brane, pocketing the spurious check, wiped his hands carefully to remove all traces of the cream from his fingertips, but was careful to leave a sufficient deposit under the nails of his fingers to be readily detected.

He walked to the door of the apartment, peered out. The hallway seemed deserted. As furtively as a thief in the night, Major Brane tiptoed down this hallway, came to the stairs, took them upon cautious feet, emerged up on the sidewalk.

He motioned to his cab driver.

“Married?” he asked.

The man nodded.

“Children?”

Another nod.

“Remember them, then, if anything happens,” said Major Brane. “Your first duty is to them.”

“I’ll say it is!” agreed the cab driver. “What’s the racket?”

“Nothing,” commented Major Brane crisply. “I simply wanted to impress that particular thought on your mind. Swing toward Chinatown, and drive fast as you can. Keep to the dark side streets.”

“Whereabouts in Chinatown?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just in that general direction.”

“And drive fast?”

“Take ’em on two wheels!”

“Get in!” snapped the driver.

He slammed the door. The cab started with a jerk. The tires screamed on the first corner, but all four wheels remained on the pavement. The cabbie did better the second corner. Then he nearly tipped over as he cut into a dark side street.

Major Brane gave no sign of nervousness. He was watching the road behind him, and his eyes were cold and hard, frosty in their unwinking stare.

They were midway in the block when a car swung into the cross street. It was a low roadster, powerful, capable of great speed, and it swept down on the taxicab as a hawk swoops upon a sparrow. The head lights were dark, and the car flashed through the night like some sinister beast of prey.

The cab had just turned into the second intersection when the roadster drew alongside. There sounded a swift explosion that might have been a backfire. The taxicab swerved as a rear tire went out. Then it settled to the rim and the thunkety — chunk — thunk — thunk, marked the revolutions as the cab skidded to the pavement and stopped.

The cab driver turned a white face to Major Brane, started to say something, then thrust his hands up as high as he could get them, the fingertips jammed into the top of the roof. For he was gazing directly into the business end of a large calibre automatic, held in the hands of one of the figures that had leapt from the roadster. The other figure was holding a sub machine gun pointed directly at Major Brane’s stomach.

Both of the men were masked.

“Seem to have tire trouble,” said one of the men. He spoke in the peculiar accents of a foreigner whose language is more staccato than musical.

Major Brane kept his hands in sight, but he did not elevate them. “Yes,” he said.

The man with the sub machine gun grinned. His flashing teeth were plainly visible below the protection of the mask.

He spoke English with the easy familiarity of one who has spoken no other language since birth. “Better come ride with us,” he said. “You seemed to be in a hurry, and it’ll take time to repair that tire.”

“I’d prefer to wait,” said Major Brane, and smiled.

“I’d prefer to have you ride,” said the man with the sub machine gun, politely, and the muzzle wavered suggestively in a little arc that took in Major Brane’s torso. “You might find it healthier to ride.”

“Thanks” said Major Brane. “I’ll ride, then.”

The man in the roadster snapped a command. “Open the car door for him,” he said.

The one who held the automatic stretched back his left hand, worked the catch of the door.

“Okay,” said the man in the roadster.

Major Brane stumbled. As he stumbled, he threw forth his hand to catch his balance, and the other hand slipped the folded check from his pocket. He lowered his head, thrust check in his mouth.

The man with the automatic jumped toward him. The man with the sub machine gun laughed sarcastically.

“No you don’t,” he said. “Get it!”

The last two words were cracked at the man who had held the automatic. That man leapt forward. Stubby fingers, that were evidently well acquainted with the human anatomy, pressed against nerve centers in Major Brane’s neck. Brane writhed with pain, and opened his jaw. The folded bit of tinted paper dropped to the pavement. The man swooped down upon it, picked it up with eager hands.

A police whistle trilled through the night.

“In!” crisped the man with the sub machine gun.

Major Brane felt arms about him, felt his automatic whisked from its hoister. Then he was boosted into the roadster. The gears clashed. The car lurched into speed.

Behind him, Major Brane could hear the taxicab driver yelling for the police, so loudly as to send echoes from the sides of the sombre buildings that lined the dark street.

The roadster’s lights clicked on. The man who had held the sub machine gun was driving. The other man was crowded close beside Major Brane’s neck, the other jabbing the end of the automatic into Major Brane’s ribs.

The man at the wheel knew the city, and he knew his car. The machine kept almost entirely to dark side streets and went swiftly. Within five minutes, it had turned to an alley on a steep hill, slid slowly downward, wheels rubbing against brake bands.

A garage door silently opened. The roadster went into the garage. The door closed. The roadster lights were switched off. A door opened from the side of the garage.

“Well?” said a voice.

“We got it. He found it. We grabbed him. He tried to swallow it, but we got it.”

“Where was it?” asked the voice from the darkness.

“In a jar of cold cream in her apartment.”

The voice made no answer. For several seconds the weight of the dark silence oppressed them. Then the voice gave a crisp command.

“Bring him in.”

The man who had driven the car took Major Brane’s arm above the elbow. The other man, an arm still around Major Brane’s neck, jabbed the gun firmly against his ribs.

“Okay, guy. No funny stuff,” said the one who had held the machine gun.

Major Brane groped with his feet, found the floor. The guards were on either side of him, pushing him forward. A door opened, disclosing a glow of diffused light. A flight of stairs led upward.

“Up and at ’em!” said the man on Major Brane’s left.

They clumped up the stairs, maintaining their awkward formation of three abreast. There was a landing at the top, then a hallway. Major Brane was taken down the hallway, into a room that was furnished with exquisite care, a room in which massive furniture dwarfed the high ceilings, the wide windows. Those windows were covered with heavy drapes that had been tightly drawn.

Major Brane was pushed into a chair.

“Park yourself, guy.”

Major Brane sank into the cushions. His hands were on the arms of the chair. The room was deserted, save for his two guards. The man whose voice had given the orders to the pair was nowhere in evidence.

“May I smoke?” asked Major Brane.

The masked guard grinned. “Brother,” he said, “if there’s any smoking to be done, I’ll do it. You just sit pretty like you were having your picture taken, and don’t make no sudden moves. I’ve got your gat; but they say you’re full of tricks, and if I was to see any sudden moves, I’d have to cut you open to see whether you was stuffed with sawdust or tricks. You’ve got my curiosity aroused.”

Major Brane said nothing.

The man who had taken the check walked purposefully toward one of the draped exits, pushed aside the rich hangings and disappeared.

Major Brane eyed the masked figure who remained to guard him. The man grinned.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “You wouldn’t know me, even if it wasn’t for the mask.”

Major Brane lowered his voice, cautiously. “Are you in this thing for money?” he asked.

The man grinned. “No, no, brother. You got me wrong. I’m in it for my health!” And he laughed gleefully.

Major Brane was earnest. “They’ve got the check. That’s all they’re concerned with. There’d be some money in it for you if you let me go.”

The eyes glittered through the mask in scornful appraisal. “Think I’m a fool?”

Major Brane leaned forward, very slightly. “They won’t hurt me,” he said, “and the check’s gone already. But there are some other important papers that I don’t want them to find. They simply can’t find them — mustn’t. Those papers arc worth a great deal to certain parties, and it would be most unfortunate if they should fall into the hands of these men who were interested in the check. If you would only accept those papers and deliver them to the proper parties, you could get enough money to make you independent for years to come.”

The eyes back of the mask were no longer scornful. “Where are these papers?” asked the man.

“You promise you’ll deliver them?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“In my cigarette case,” said Major Brane. “Get them — quick!”

And he half raised his hands. The masked figure came to him in two swift strides.

“No you don’t! Keep your hands down. I’ll get the cigarette case. — In your inside pocket, eh? All right, guy; try anything and you’ll get bumped!” He held a heavy gun in his left hand, thrust an exploring right hand into Major Brane’s inside coat pocket. He extracted the cigarette case, grinned at Major Brane, stepped back.

“I said I’d deliver ’em. That was a promise. The only thing I didn’t promise was who I’d deliver ’em to. I’ll have to take a look at ’em first. I might be interested myself.” And he gloatingly held the cigarette case up, pressed the catch.

That cigarette case had been designed by Major Brane against just such an emergency. The man pressed the catch. The halves flew open, and a spring mechanism shot a stream of ammonia full into the man’s eyes.

Major Brane was out of the chair with a flashing spurt of motion which was deadly and swift. His right hand crossed over in the sort of blow which is only given by the trained boxer. It was a perfectly timed blow, the powerful muscles of the body swinging into play as the fist pivoted over and around.

The man with the mask caught the blow on the button of the jaw. Major Brane listened for an instant, but no one seemed to have heard the man’s fall. He walked swiftly to the doorway which led into the hall, then down the hall and down the steps to the garage. He opened the garage door, got in the roadster, turned on the ignition, stepped on the starter. The motor throbbed into life.

A light flashed on in the garage. A grotesque figure stumbled out through the door, silhouetted as a black blotch against the light of the garage. The man was waving his arms, shouting.

Major Brane spun the wheel, sent the car skidding around the corner. Behind him, there sounded a single shot; and the bullet whined from the pavement. There were no more shots.

Major Brane stepped on the gas.

He drove three blocks toward the south, headed toward Market Street. He saw a garage that was open, slowed the car, swung the wheel, rolled into the garage.

“Storage,” he said.

“Day, week or month?” asked the man in overalls and faded coat who slouched forward.

“Just for an hour or two; may be all night.”

The attendant grinned. “Four bits,” he said.

Major Brane nodded, handed him half a dollar, received an oblong of pasteboard with a number. He turned, walked out of the garage, paused at the curb and tore the oblong of numbered pasteboard into small bits. Then he started walking, directing his steps over the same route he had traveled in the roadster.

He heard the snarl of a racing motor, the peculiar screaming noise made by protesting tires when a corner is rounded too fast, and he stepped back into a doorway. A touring car shot past. There were three men in it; three grim figures who sat very erect and whose hands were concealed.

When the car had passed, Major Brane stepped out and resumed his rapid walk, back toward the house from which he had escaped.

He walked up the hill. The garage was dark now, but the door was still open.

Major Brane walked cautiously, but kept up his speed. He slipped into the dark garage, waited, advanced, tried the door which opened to the flight of stairs. The door was locked now, from the inside. Major Brane stopped, applied an eye to the keyhole. The key, he saw, was in the lock.

He took out his skeleton keys, also a long, slender-bladed pen knife. With the point of the knife blade he worked the end of the key around, up and down, up and down. Gradually, as he freed the key, the heavier end, containing the flange, had a tendency to drop down. Major Brane manipulated the key until this tendency had ample opportunity to assert itself. Then he pushed with the point of the knife. The key slid out of the lock, thudded to the floor on the other side of the door.

Major Brane inserted a skeleton key, pressed up and around on the key, felt the bolt snap back, and opened the door. The little entranceway with the flight of stairs was before him. Major Brane walked cautiously up those stairs. His eyes were slitted, his body poised for swift action.

He gained the hallway at the top of the stairs, started down is cautiously. He could hear voices from a room at one end of the corridor, voices that were raised in excited conversation. Major Brane avoided that room but slipped into the room which adjoined it. That room was dark; and Major Brane, closing the door behind him, listened for a moment while he stood perfectly still, his every faculty concentrated.

He was standing so, when there sounded the click of a light switch and the room was flooded with light.

A rather tall man with a black beard, and eyes that seemed the shade of dulled silver, was standing by a light switch, holding a huge automatic in a hand that was a mass of bony knuckles, of long fingers and black hair.

“Sit down, Major Brane,” said the man.

Major Brane sighed, for the man was he whose name Major Brane had forged to the spurious check.

The man chuckled. “Do you know, Major, I rather expected you back. Clever, aren’t you? But after one has dealt with you a few times he learns to anticipate your little schemes.”

Major Brane said nothing. He stood rigidly motionless, taking great care not to move his hands. He knew this man, knew the ruthless cruelty of him, the shrewd resourcefulness of his mind, the deadly determination which actuated him.

“Do sit down, Major.”

Major Brane crossed to a chair sat down.

The man with the beard let the tips of his white teeth glitter below the gloss of dark hairs which swept his upper lip in smooth regularity. The tip of the pointed beard quivered as the chin muscles twitched. “Yes,” he said, “I expected you back.”

Major Brane nodded. “I didn’t know you were here,” he observed. “Otherwise I would have been more cautious.”

“Thanks for the compliment, Major. Incidentally, my associates here know me by the name of Brinkhoff. It would be most unfortunate if they should learn of my real identity, or of my connections.”

“Unfortunate for you?” asked Major Brane meaningly.

The teeth glittered again as the lips swept back in a mirthless and all but noiseless laugh.

“Unfortunate for both of us, Major. Slightly unfortunate for me, but doubly-trebly-unfortunate for you.”

Major Brane nodded. “Very well, Mr. Brinkhoff,” he said.

The dulled silver eyes regarded him speculatively, morosely. “Rather clever of you to prepare forgery which you could use a red herring to drag across the trail,” he said. “That’s what comes of trusting subordinates. As soon as they told me how clumsy you were in your attempt to thrust the check into your mouth and swallow it, I knew they had been duped — Fools! They were laughing over your clumsy attempt! Bah!”

Major Brane inclined his head. “Thank you, Brinkhoff.”

Ominous lights glinted back of the dulled silver of the eyes. “Well,” rasped the man, after a moment, “what did you do with it?”

“The original?”

“Naturally.”

Major Brane took a deep breath. “I placed it where you could never find it, of course.”

The teeth shone again as the man grinned. “No you didn’t, Major. You took advantage of your arrival here to conceal it some place in the room — perhaps in the cushion of the chair. When you escaped, you went in a hurry to draw pursuit. You returned to get the check.”

Major Brane shook his head. “No. The check isn’t in the house. I placed it where it would be safe. I returned for the girl.”

A frown divided the man’s forehead. “You hid it?”

Major Brane chose his words carefully. “I feel certain that it is safe from discovery,” he said.

The man with the beard rasped out an oath, started toward Major Brane.

“Damn you,” he gritted, “I believe you’re telling the truth! I told them you’d come back after the girl. That’s why I had them carrying on a loud conversation in the next room. I thought you’d try to slip in here and listen, particularly if the room was dark.”

Major Brane inclined his head. “Well reasoned,” he said. His voice was as impersonally courteous as that of a tennis player who mutters a “well played” to his opponent.

For a long three seconds the two men locked eyes.

“There are ways,” said the bearded man, ending that long period of menacing silence, “of making even the stoutest heart weaken, of making even the most stubborn tongue talk.”

Major Brane shrugged his shoulders. “Naturally,” he said. “I hope you are not so stupid as to think that I would overlook that fact, and not take steps to guard against it.”

“Such as?”

“Such as seeing that the check was placed entirely out of my control before I returned.”

“Thinking that would make you immune from — persuasion?” asked the bearded man mockingly.

Major Brane nodded his head. “Thinking you would not waste time on torture when it could do you no good, and when your time is so short.”

“Time so short, Major?”

“Yes. I rather think there will be many things for you to do, now that that check is to be made public. There will be complete new arrangements to make, and your time is short. The Nanking government and the Canton government will be forced to settle their differences as soon as the knowledge of that check becomes public property.”

The bearded man cursed, bitterly, harshly.

Major Brane sat perfectly immobile.

The bearded one raised his voice. “All right. Here he is. Come in.”

The door of the room in which the loud conversation had taken place burst open. Four men came tumbling eagerly into the room. They were not masked. Major Brane knew none of them. They stared at him curiously.

The bearded man glowered at them. “He claims he ditched the original check in a safe place,” he said. “He’s clever enough to have done something that’ll be hard to check up on. The check may be in the house. He may have left it in the room where he sat; or he may have picked it up when he came in the second time, and put it some place where we’d never think to look. He’s that clever.

“Search him first, and then search the house. Then take up the trail of the car. He wouldn’t have taken it far. He was back too soon... Still, he wouldn’t have left it parked on the street. He’d know we’d spot it. He must have left it in the garage that’s down...”

Major Brane interrupted, courteously. “Pardon me, it is in the garage. I left it there and tore up the ticket. I didn’t know you were here, at the time, Brinkhoff, or I would have saved myself the trouble.”

The bearded man gave a formal inclination of the head. “Thanks. Now, since we understand each other so thoroughly, and since you have shown such a disposition to cooperate, there’s a possibility we can simplify matters still further. We can make a trade, we two. I’ll trade you the girl for the check.”

Major Brane smiled, the patronizing, chiding smile which a parent gives to a precocious child who is trying to obtain some unfair advantage. “No. The check will have to be eliminated from the discussion now.”

“We’ll get it eventually.”

“I hardly think so.”

“That which is going to happen to the girl is hardly a pleasant subject to discuss. You see there are very major political issues involved. You, my dear Major, and I, have long since learned not to grow emotional over political matters. Unfortunately, some of my subordinates — perhaps I should refer to them as associates — are still in the emotional stage. If they feel that major political issues have been shaped by the theft of a check, and that this girl is the guilty party...” He broke off with a suggestive shrug.

Major Brane sighed. The sigh seemed to be almost an incipient yawn. “As you, yourself have so aptly remarked,” he said in differently, “behave learned not to grow emotional over political matters.”

The bearded man sneered. “I thought you came here for the girl?”

“I did.”

“You don’t seem anxious to save her from an unpleasant experience.”

Major Brane made a slight gesture with his shoulders. “I was employed to recover the check. I thought it might be a good plan to throw in a rescue of the girl for good measure.”

The bearded man suddenly lost his semblance of poise, his veneer of culture. He took a swift step forward, his beard bristling, the strong white fangs behind it contrasting with the jet black of the beard.

“Damn you! We’ll get that check out of you. We’ll fry you in hot grease, a bit at a time. We’ll pull off the skin and stick burning cigars in the flesh. We’ll...” He choked with the very vehemence of his rage.

This time Major Brane yawned outright. “Come, come!” he said. “I thought we had outgrown these childish displays of emotion! We are playing major politics, we two. If you have lost the check, you have lost the fight. Torturing through vengeance won’t help you any.”

“It’ll make you suffer! It’ll eliminate you from any future interference. You’ve blocked too many of my plans before this!”

Major Brane nodded. It was as though he considered an impersonal problem. “Of course,” he muttered politely, “if you look at it that way!”

The man turned his dulled silver eyes morosely upon the others, who had been standing at sullen attention. “Search him. Then the house. Then the streets.”

The men came forward. They were thorough about the search and not at all gently. Major Brane assisted them wherever he could. They pulled his pockets inside out, took away all of his personal belongings, searched his shoes, his coat lining, the lapels of his coat, under the collar.

Then they divided into two groups. One searched the house, the other group the street. The man with the beard remained with Major Brane, glowering at him, the nature of his thoughts indicated by the dark of his skin, the closed fists, the level brows.

Major Brane regarded him speculatively. “The girl is here?” he asked.

His answer was a scornful, mocking laugh.

“I merely asked,” said Major Brane, “because it is so greatly to your advantage to see that she doesn’t come to harm. I telephoned, of course, to friends of hers before I returned to the house.”

The bearded man gave a sudden start. Despite himself, he changed color. “Yes?” he asked. “And just what do you expect her friends to do?”

Major Brane pursed his lips. “Probably,” he remarked, “they would not be so unwise as to storm the house; but they are well versed in certain matters of indirection. You might have some trouble in leaving the house.”

The dulled silver eyes regarded him scornfully. “You lie!” said the man who went under the name of Brinkhoff.

Major Brane made a gesture with the palms of his hands, a deprecating gesture, partially of apology.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I despair of you, Brinkhoff: You have a certain shrewdness, yes. But you lack perspective, breadth of vision; and you are unspeakably common!”

That last remark was like the lash of a whip.

“Common!” yelled the infuriated man. “I, who have the blood of three thousand years of royalty in my veins! Common, you scum of the gutter! I’ll draw the sight of this gun across your cursed face! Just a taste of what you can expect...”

He leaped forward, swinging his arm so that the sight of the gun made a sudden, sharp arc. But Major Brane’s forehead wasn’t there when the gunsight swished through the air. Major Brane had flung himself backwards in the chair; and as he went over, he watched the sweep of the arm, elevated his foot with every bit of strength he could muster. The foot caught the wrist of the enraged man, sent the gun swirling through the air in a lopsided flight. The chair crashed to the floor, Major Brane rolled clear.

Brinkhoff saw his danger and jumped back. His bony, capable hand went to the back of his coat collar, reaching for the hilt of a concealed knife.

He caught the knife, jerked it out and down. The lights glinted from the whirling steel. Major Brane flung his arms out in a football tackle. For a moment it seemed that the downward stroke of the knife would strike squarely between Major Brane’s shoulders. But the Major was first to reach his goal, first by that split fraction of a watch tick which seems to be so long when men are fighting for life and death, yet is the smallest unit of measured time.

The Major’s weight crashed against the shins of the man with the dulled silver eyes. The impact threw him back. The stroke of the knife swung wild. The two men teetered, crashed. The man with the beard shouted, squirmed.

Outside, the hallway pounded with running feet. There were other voices calling down from an upper floor.

Major Brane swung his fist. Brinkhoff’s cries ceased. Instantly, Major Brane was on his feet, as lithely active as a cat. He swooped toward the chair which lay on the floor, lifted it bodily, held it poised for a moment, and then flung it, straight through the glass of the window.

The chair smashed a great jagged hole in the glass. There sounded the crash, the tinkle, of falling glass fragments. Then the chair toppled outward and vanished into the night. There came a thud from the ground below.

Major Brane jumped for a closed door on one side of the room. He flung it open and found that it led, not to an adjoining room as he had hoped, but, into a closet. The closet was well filled with stacks of papers, papers that were arranged in bundles, tied with tape.

Major Brane leaped inside, scrambled atop the bundles, pawed at the door, trying to get it closed. He had but partially succeeded when he heard the door of the room burst open, and the sound of bodies catapulting into the room.

Of a sudden, the sounds ceased. That, reasoned Major Brane, perched precariously atop the slippery pile of documents, would be when the others entered the room and took in the situation, the unconscious form of Brinkhoff sprawled on the floor, the window with its great jagged hole.

“Gone!” a voice croaked, and added a curse.

“Jumped out of the window...”

“Quick! After him. — No, no, not that way! Close the block! Signal the others! He’s got fifty yards the start of us. Turn on the red lights. Hurry!”

Once more, feet pounded in haste. Major Brane could hear excited shouts, comments that were called back and forth.

A small section of the lighted floor of the room showed through the half-open door of the closet. Major Brane watched that section of floor for a full two seconds, to see if there were any moving shadows crossing it. There were no shadows. The room seemed utterly silent.

Major Brane strove to step quietly from his perch, but a packet of documents tilted, slid. Major Brane flung himself back, lost his balance, put out his arms, and crashed through the closet door into the room.

Brinkhoff lay sprawled on the floor. A man was bending over him, and that man had evidently been in the act of going through Brinkhoff’s pockets when Major Brane, catapulting from the closet, had frozen him into startled immobility.

He looked at Major Brane, and Major Brane took advantage of his first moment of surprise. He rushed. The man teetered back to his heels, jumped backward in time to escape the momentum of that first rush. Major Brane landed a glancing blow with his left. Then he caught himself, turned, and lashed out with his right.

He realized then that the man with whom he had to deal was one who was trained in jujutsu. Too late he strove to beat down the other’s left. It caught his right wrist; a foot shot out; a hand darted down with bone-crunching violence.

Major Brane knew the method of attack well enough to know that there was but one possible defense. To resist would be to have his arm snapped. The hands of the other were in a position to exert a tremendous leverage against the victim’s own weight. Major Brane therefore did the only thing that would save him. Even before the last ounce of pressure had been brought to play upon his arms, he flung himself in a whirling somersault, using the momentum of his rush to send him over and around.

He whirled through the air like a pinwheel, crashed to the floor. But even while he was in midair, his brain, trained to instant appreciation of all of the angles of any given situation, remembered the gun which had been kicked from Brinkhoff’s hand.

Major Brane whirled, even as the flashing shape of his opponent hurtled at him. His clawing hand groped for and found the automatic. The other pounced, and the automatic jabbed into his ribs.

“I shall pull the trigger,” said Major Brane, his words muffled by the weight of the other, “in exactly one and one-half seconds!”

The, words had the desired effect. Major Brane had a reputation for doing exactly whatever he said he would do, and the figure that had been on top of him flung backwards, hands elevated.

Major Brane, still lying on the floor, thrust the gun forward, so that it was plainly visible.

From the yard, outside the window, could be heard the low voices of men who were closing in on the spot where the chair had thudded to the ground.

“Don’t move!” said Major Brane.

The man who faced him, twisted back his lips in a silent snarl, then let his face become utterly expressionless.

Major Brane smiled at him. “I wonder,” he said, “what you were searching for, my friend?”

The man made no sound.

“Back against the wall,” said Major Brane.

The man hesitated, then caught the steely glitter of Major Brane’s eye. He backed, slowly. Major Brane raised himself to his knees, then to his feet. His eyes were almost dreamy with concentration.

“You want something,” mused Major Brane, “that Brinkhoff is supposed to have on him; but you don’t want the rest of the gang to know that you want it. You’d yell, if you were really one of them, and take a chance on my shooting. — The answer is that you’re hostile. Probably the others don’t even know you’re here.”

The man who stood against the wall had been breathing heavily. Now, as Major Brane summed up the situation, he held himself rigidly motionless, even the rising and falling of his shoulders ceasing. It was as though he held his breath, the better to check any possible betrayal of his thoughts through some involuntary start of surprise.

Major Brane moved toward the unconscious form of the man who went under the name of Brinkhoff. From outside came a series of cries; rage, surprise, disappointment, shouted instructions. — The attackers had found that they had been stalking only a chair that had been thrown from a window.

Major Brane remained as calmly cool as though he had ample time at his disposal.

“Therefore,” he said, “the thing to do is to search until I find what you were looking for, and...”

His prisoner could stand the strain no longer. Already the thud of running feet showed that the others were coming toward the house. The man blurted out in excellent English:

“It’s in the wallet, in the inside pocket. It’s nothing that concerns you. It relates to another matter. My government wants it. They’ll kill me if they find me, and they’ll kill you. Let me have the paper, and I’ll show you the girl.”

Major Brane smiled. “Fair enough,” he said. “No, don’t move. Not yet!” His hands went to Brinkhoff’s inside pocket, scooped out the leather folder, abstracted a document. The man against the wall was breathing heavily, as though he had been running. His hands were clenching and unclenching. A door banged somewhere in the house, feet sounded in the corridor. Brinkhoff stirred and groaned.

Major Brane paused to cast a swift eye over the documents which he had abstracted from the leather folder. He smiled, nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s a go. Show me the girl.”

“This way,” said the man, and ran toward a corner of the room. He opened a door, disclosed another closet, pressed a section of the wall. It opened upon a flight of stairs.

Major Brane followed, taking care to close the closet door after him. He could hear the sound of steps dashing down the corridor, the sound of confused voices shouting instructions.

The man led him down a winding staircase, to a cellar stored with various and sundry munitions and supplies. The house was a veritable arsenal, on a small scale. He crossed the storeroom, opened another door; and Major Brane, half expecting that which he was to find, came to an abrupt pause and took a deep breath.

The Chinese girl sat in a chair. Her arms and legs were bound. The clothing had been ripped from her torso, and there were evidences that her captors had been trying to make her talk. But she was staring ahead of her with a face absolutely void of expression, with eyes that glittered like lacquer. She was not gagged, for the room was virtually sound proof.

The girl surveyed them with eyes that remained glitteringly inexpressive, with a face that was like old ivory; but she said nothing.

The man who had guided Major Brane to the room pulled a knife and slit the bonds.

“Devils!” said Major Brane. The man with the knife turned to him. “I have done my share. From now on, it is each man for himself. They have the entire block well guarded. I can’t be bothered with the woman. Give me the paper.”

Major Brane tossed him the wallet.

The man dashed from the room. “Each man for himself. — Remember!” he said as he left.

Major Brane nodded. He picked up a ragged remnant of the girl’s clothing, flung it over her shoulders, looked around for a coat.

From the cellar he heard a voice calling.

“He is down here, with the girl!”

It was the voice of the man who had just guided Major Brane to the torture chamber.

The Major nodded approvingly.

The man had warned him; it was to be each man for himself; and the devil take the hindmost. The one who had guided him to the girl felt that he stood a better chance to escape if he guided the enemy to Major Brane. That would lead to conflict, confusion and a chance for escape. It was the strategy of warfare.

Major Brane heard the men running, coming pell mell down the stairs which led to the room. And the block was surrounded, guarded. They were many, and they were ruthless. Here, in the heart of San Francisco, he had stumbled into a spy’s nest, perhaps the headquarters for the lone wolves of diplomacy, the outlaws who ran ahead of the pack, ruthlessly doing things for which no government dared assume even a partial responsibility.

Major Brane stepped out into the cellar. He could see a pair of legs coming down the cellar stairs.

Major Brane observed a can of gasoline. The automatic he had captured barked twice. One shot splintered the stairs, just below the legs of the man who was descending, caused him to come to an abrupt halt. The other shot ripped through the can of gasoline.

The liquid poured out, ran along the cement floor of the cellar, Major Brane tossed a match, stepped back into the room which had been used as a torture chamber, and closed the door.

From the cellar came a loud poof! then a roaring, crackling sound.

Immediately, Major Brane dismissed the cellar from his thoughts and turned his attention to the room in which he found himself. The girl had arranged the clothing about her, had found a coat. She regarded him with glittering eyes and silent lips.

Major Brane pursed his lips. There seemed to be no opening from the room; yet he knew the type of mind with which he had to deal, and he sensed that there would be an opening.

The crackling sound was growing louder now. Major Brane could hear the frantic beat of panic stricken feet on the floor above. Then there was an explosion, followed by a series of explosions, coming from the cellar. Those would be cartridges exploding.

Major Brane upset a chest of drawers to examine the wall behind it. He picked up a hammer and pounded the cement of the floor. He cocked a wary eye at the ceiling, studied it.

The girl watched him in silence.

The fire was seething flame now, crackling, roaring. The door of the room in which they found themselves began to warp under the heat.

Major Brane was as calm as though he had been solving a chess problem, over a cigarette and cordial. He moved a box. The box didn’t tip as it should. It pivoted instead. An oblong opening showed in the wall as the swinging box moved back a slab of what appeared to be solid concrete.

A fire siren was wailing in the distance. There were no more sounds of running feet above the torture chamber.

An automobile exhaust ripped the night. There were heavier explosions from the seat of the fire; then a terrific explosion that burst in the warped door. An inferno of red, roaring flame showed its hideous maw. Heat transformed the room into an oven. The red flames were bordered with a twisting vortex of black smoke.

Major Brane gave the inferno a casual glance, stood to one side to let the girl join him. She walked steadily to his side, and together, they walked along the passage, climbed a flight of stairs.

They came to what appeared to be a solid wall. Major Brane pushed against it. It was plaster and lath, and doubtless swung on a pivot. Major Brane had no time to locate the catch which controlled the opening; he lashed out with his foot, kicked a hole in the plaster. When he looked through the opening, he was peering into a room, furnished as a bedroom. It was deserted.

His second kick dislodged the spring mechanism which controlled the door. The section of plastered wall swung around. Major Brane led the girl into the room, Brinkhoff’s automatic ready at his side. They walked through the room to a passage.

The open door led to the night, revealed a glimpse of the street outside, which was already crowded with curious spectators, showed firemen running with a hose. But Major Brane turned in the other direction.

“This way,” he said. “It will avoid explanations.”

They ran down the corridor, toward a rear exit. Major Brane recognized the stairs which led to the garage. He piloted the girl toward them.

In the garage she paused, looked about her. There was a wooden jack handle lying on a bench. The girl stopped to pick it up.

Major Brane grinned at her. “You won’t need it. They’ve all ducked for cover,” he said.

The girl said nothing, which was as he had expected.

A fireman came running down the alley, motioning calling instructions to other men, who were dragging a hose. He glanced sharply at Major Brane and the girl.

“Get outa here!” he yelled. “You’re inside the fire lines. You’ll get killed, sticking your noses into danger zones.”

Major Brane bowed apologetically. “Is this the danger zone?” he asked, wide-eyed in his innocence.

The fireman snorted.

“It sure is. Get out!”

Major Brane followed instructions. They came to the fire lines at the corner, turned into a dark building entrance. Major Brane peered out, whispered to the girl.

“We don’t want to be seen coming out of this district. The thing to do is to wait until they run in that second hose, then slip along the shadows, and...”

He sensed a surreptitious rustle behind him. He turned, startled, just in time to see the jack handle coming down. He tried to throw up his hand, and was too late. The jack handle crashed on his head. He fought to keep his senses. There were blinding lights before his eyes, a black nausea gripping him. Something seemed to burst in his brain. He realized it was the jack handle making a second blow, and then he knew nothing further, save a vast engulfing wall of blackness that smothered him with a rushing embrace.

When next he knew anything, it was a series of joltings and swayings, interspersed with demoniacal screams. The screams grew and receded at regular intervals, split the tortured head of Major Brane as though they had been edged with the teeth of a saw.

Then he identified them. They were the wails of a siren, and he was riding in an ambulance.

A bell clanged. The screams died away. The ambulance stopped, backed. The door opened. Hands slid out the stretcher. Major Brane groaned, tried to sit up, was gripped with faintness and nausea. He became unconscious again.

The next thing he knew, there was a bright light in his eyes, and something soothing on his head. He felt soft hands patting about in the finishing touches of a dressing.

He opened his eyes. A nurse regarded him without pity, without scorn, merely as a receiving hospital nurse regards any minor case.

“You got past the fire line and into the danger zone,” she said. “Something fell on your head.”

Major Brane had presence of mind enough to heave a sigh of relief that the Chinese girl had taken his automatic with her. To have had that in his possession when he was found would have necessitated explanation.

“A Chinese girl told them about seeing you try to run past the line, when something fell from a building,” said the nurse. “Her name’s on record, if you want a witness for anything.”

Major Brane grinned. “Not at all necessary,” he said. “I was simply careless, that’s all.”

“I’ll say you were,” said the nurse, helping him to sit up right. “Feel better?”

Major Brane slid his feet over the edge of the surgical table.

“I think I can make it all right,” he said.

She helped him to a chair, gave him a stimulant. Fifteen minutes later he was able to call a cab and leave the hospital. He went at once to his hotel.

He brushed past the clerk, who stared at his bandaged head curiously; he took the elevator, went to his own room. He fitted a key, opened the door. The smell of Chinese tobacco assailed his nostrils.

“Do not turn on the light,” said a voice, and Major Brane recognized it as that of the old Chinese sage who had started him upon his mission.

Major Brane hesitated, sighed, walked into the room and closed the door.

“I came to give my apologies,” said the old man, a huddled figure of dark mystery in the darkened room, illuminated only by such light as came through the transom over the door.

“Don’t mention it,” said Major Brane. “I was careless.”

“But,” said the sage, “I want you to understand...”

Major Brane laughed. “I understood,” he said, “as soon as I saw the jack handle coming down on my head. The girl had the check hidden, and she wanted to get it right away. She couldn’t be certain that my rescue wasn’t merely a ruse on the part of her enemies. I didn’t have anything to identify me as having come from her friends. Therefore, it was possible that her enemies, seeing that torture would do no good, had staged a fake rescue, hoping to trap her into taking her supposed rescuer to the place where the check was hidden. I should have anticipated just such a thought on her part.”

The old man got to his feet. Major Brane could hear him sigh.

“It is satisfying to deal with one who has understanding,” he said.

Major Brane saw him move to the door, open it, saw the hunched figure silhouetted against the oblong of light from the corridor.

“She had dropped the check in the waste basket by the side of her desk when she knew her theft was discovered,” said the old man, and closed the door.

Major Brane sat in the darkness for some seconds before he turned on the light. When he did so he saw two articles on the table near which the old man had sat. One was a white jade figure of the Goddess of Mercy, a figure that was carved with infinite cunning and patience, a figure that thrilled the collector’s heart of Major Brane. Instantly he knew that it was something that was almost priceless. The second object was a purse, crammed with bills of large denomination.

Major Brane inspected the jade figure with appreciative eyes, touched it with fingertips that were almost reverent for a full ten minutes before he even thought to count the currency in the purse. The amount was ample.

Then Major Brane undressed, crawled into bed. He got up an hour later, took ten grains of aspirin, and drifted off to sleep. He awoke in the morning, jumped from bed and pulled the morning’s paper out from under the door.

Headlines announced that representatives of the Cantonese government had consented to consult with Chiang Kai-shek at the international port of Shanghai, the object being to patch up their internal difficulties so that China could present an unbroken front to her external enemies.

Major Brane sighed. It had been a hard night’s work, but the results had been speedy.

On his way to breakfast, he encountered the night elevator operator.

“There was an old Chinaman who called on me last night,” he said. “What time did he come in?”

The operator stared at him with wide eyes. “There wasn’t any Chinaman came in while I was on duty,” he said.

Major Brane nodded. “Perhaps,” he said. “I was mistaken.”

When he came to think of it, the Chinese sage would never have left a back track could be traced to Major Brane.

Doubtless the events of the preceding night had been such that no man and no government wished to be officially identified either with their success or failure.

Major Brane was a lone wolf, prowling through a diplomatic danger zone; but he would not have had it otherwise.