ready to deal with him.

Cleigh lowered his book and assumed a listening attitude. Above the patter of the rain he heard the putt-putt of a motor launch. He laid the book on the table and reached for a black cigar, which he lit and began to puff quickly. Louder grew the panting of the motor. It stopped abruptly. Cleigh heard a call or two, then the creaking of the ladder. Two minutes later a man limped into the salon. He tossed his sou’wester to the floor and followed it with the smelly oilskin.

“Hello, Cleigh! Devil of a night!”

“Have a peg?” asked Cleigh.

“Never touch the stuff.”

“That’s so; I had forgotten.” 31

31

Cleigh never looked upon this man’s face without recalling del Sarto’s John the Baptist—supposing John had reached forty by the way of reckless passions. The extraordinary beauty was still there, but as though behind a blurred pane of glass.

“Well?” said Cleigh, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

“There’s the devil to pay—all in a half hour.”

“You haven’t got it?” Cleigh blazed out.

“Morrissy—one of the squarest chaps in the world—ran amuck the last minute. Tried to double-cross me, and in the rough-and-tumble that followed he was more or less banged up. We hurried him to a hospital, where he lies unconscious.”

“But the beads!”

“Either he dropped them in the gutter, or they repose on the floor of a Chinese shop in Woosung Road. I’ll be there bright and early—never you fear. Don’t know what got into Morrissy. Of course I’ll look him up in the morning.”

“Thousands of miles—to hear a yarn like this!”

“Cleigh, we’ve done business for nearly twenty years. You can’t point out an instance where I ever broke my word.”

“I know,” grumbled Cleigh. “But I’ve gone to all this trouble, getting a crew and all that. 32 And now you tell me you’ve let the beads slip through your fingers!”

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