VII
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 "BishopMacKishnie," on board the westbound _Empress of China_ that the ReverendCaleb Simpson had safely landed from the _Manchuria_ at Hong Kong, andwas 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 out threeSecret Service code-despatches to Shanghai, Amoy and Hong Kong, which,being picked up by a German cruiser, were worried over and argued overand finally referred back to an intelligence bureau for explanation.
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 to reactto the stimuli of side-issues. From Kobe he caught a _Toyo Kisen Kaisha_steamer for Nagasaki and Shanghai. This steamer, he found, lay over atthe former port for thirteen hours, so he shifted again to an outboundboat 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 emerge fromhis half-cataleptic indifference to his environment. He began to realizethat he was at last in the Orient.
As they wound up the river past sharp-nosed and round-hooded sampans, andarchaic Chinese battle-ships and sea-going junks and gunboats flyingtheir unknown foreign flags, Blake at last began to realize that he wasin a new world. The very air smelt exotic; the very colors, the tints ofthe sails, the hues of clothing, the forms of things, land and skyitself--all were different. This depressed him only vaguely. He was toointent on the future, on the task before him, to give his surroundingsmuch thought.
Blake had entirely shaken off this vague uneasiness, in fact, when twentyminutes after landing he found himself in a red-brick hotel known as TheAstor, and guardedly shaking hands with an incredulously thin andsallow-faced man of about forty. Although this man spoke with an Englishaccent and exile seemed to have foreigneered him in both appearance andoutlook, his knowledge of America was active and intimate. He passed overto the detective two despatches in cipher, handed him a confidential listof Hong Kong addresses, gave him certain information as to Macao, and anhour later conducted him down the river to the steamer which started thatnight 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, inthe heart roomy enough to house it. And Blake's heart was taken up withmore material things. He was preoccupied with his new list of addresses,with his new lines of procedure, with the men he must interview and thedives and clubs and bazars he must visit. He had his day'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, ofBuddhist temples and British red-jackets, of stately parks and granitebuildings, of mixed nationalities and native theaters, of anchoredwarships and a floating city of houseboats. For it was the same hour thathe landed in this orderly and strangely English city that the discoveryhe was drawing close to Binhart again swept clean the slate of hisemotions. The response had come from a consulate secretary. One wire inall his sentinel network had proved a live one. Binhart was not in HongKong, but he had been seen in Macao; he was known to be still there. Andbeyond that there was little that Never-Fail Blake cared to know.
His one side-movement in Hong Kong was to purchase an American revolver,for it began to percolate even through his indurated sensibilities thathe was at last in a land where his name might not be sufficientlyrespected and his office sufficiently honored. For the first time inseven long years he packed a gun, he condescended to go heeled. Yet nominutest tingle of excitement spread through his lethargic body as heexamined this gun, carefully loaded it, and stowed it away in hiswallet-pocket. It meant no more to him than the stowing away of asandwich against the emergency of a possible lost meal.
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