I said again: “Name your own price, Melindo.”

He looked up and said softly: “Can I trust to your own generosity?”

With all those kids around, a childhood story came back to me, of a boy in a candy store who was told by the owner to help himself, go on, take a big handful. The boy refused, and the generous owner reached into the barrel and came out with a handful. Later, the boy said gleefully to his pal, explaining the strategy: You see, his hands are bigger than mine.

I said, looking at the soiled and ragged children: “Yes, you can, and my hands are indeed bigger than yours.”

He stood up then, his tea unfinished, and said: “Tell me, Senhor, where I can find you in an hour. Will you wait here, perhaps?”

I looked to Bonelli, and he nodded, and I said: “Come to the fan-tan house, The House of the Seven Hills. I’ll be there. And if you need men to help you...put them on the payroll.”

He left then, a sad and crafty man heading for riches and mortal danger, climbing over the garden fence and taking a short cut down the hill to the bay where the sampans were. We watched him go and saw Ericeira standing in the shade of a banyan tree, watching and waiting. And when we walked along the hot macadam surface towards the town, I knew that the skipper was still there behind us, keeping out of sight and remaining watchful. His competence was a great comfort to me.

Below us, the city was a panorama of brilliant colors, the pastel shades of its houses brightened by the gaudy flags and the glaring signs of the stores. There were bamboos there, and vines and flame-trees, with hibiscus and bananas, great rhododendrons and azaleas, and bright patches of green bracken. The sounds of the city came up to us here as we wound our way down to meet them.

Across the blue water, the ferry was puffing towards Hong Kong, a white tail of water behind it. There must have been a hundred junks in the tiny harbor. And across the bay, the hills of China were blue in the evening light. I looked at my watch; it was half-past five.

Bonelli was moving delicately, like a woman, down the steep slope, his body swaying gently. He seemed strangely out of place here, his elegance exaggerated and unseemly. He stopped abruptly, looked down on the town, and said broodingly: “How long will it take them to find out that she’s not Sally Hyde?”

I said: “They’ll know that right away. What they won’t know is why she’s posing as Sally Hyde.”

“She’ll tell them, of course.”

“At once, I hope. My hope is that they won’t believe her.”

He frowned, puzzled, and I said: “It might take some time before she convinces them that I’m the only one they have to worry about.”

He said: “Some time...and some energy, and some pain.”

“Yes.” The thought was enough to make me shiver. I remembered how Bettina had stroked her breasts and told me: They stick slivers of bamboo in you.

Bonelli said: “He can’t just let her go, you know that, don’t you?”

“He could, without any damage to himself. But I don’t suppose he will. A question of teaching me to mind my own business.”

“And you feel that Markle Hyde’s money can pay for all that woman’s agony?”

“No. I don’t.” I couldn’t help being short with him. He was drawing away from me because they’d acted faster than I’d expected. It was a mistake, and I was horribly aware of it. I said, excusing myself and not feeling at all comforted by my excuses: “I assumed that the word would have to be passed around for quite a while before anyone would rise to the bait. Instead, the real Sally Hyde made that one comment in the Essence of Heavenly Light, and that was enough. So when she apparently turned up a couple of days later, they moved in. That can only mean that the barman she spoke to had a direct line to Ming, it wasn’t just a fortuitous contact. And Sally Hyde must have known that. That’s why she spoke just once and then went smartly into hiding. The ball she started rolling moved faster than I thought it might.”

“And now?”

“Now we wait for Melindo.”

I filled in the time by taking Bonelli to the bar they called the Essence of Heavenly Light. It was hard to restrain my anger as I marched up to the barman; I wanted to kill him there and then, but instead I said to Bonelli: “Is this the man?”

He shook his head, “No, not he.”

It wasn’t worth asking where the man had gone that Sally had spoken to. He’d be well away from there by now, in one of the rabbit warrens of the city, or on a sampan in the harbor, or perhaps lying dead on its bottom.

We went back to the fan-tan house and waited. Melindo turned up an hour and a half later while we waited impatiently in the office. Waiting is always the hardest part, and I felt I wanted to get something, anything, in my fists and twist the life out of it. It was an ugly feeling. He showed no sign of fear, but there was a hesitancy about him which made me think he might not be of much further use. But he’d done well. He said, eyeing the bundle of bills I took out of my pocket:

“A woman from Hong Kong, Senhor, who is not what she pretends to be.”

So they knew already. I said: “Go on.”

“A chambermaid, a servant from the hotel put something in her whisky bottle while she was making up the beds, and a little while later two men went in through the fire-escape, just as you said, and took her down to the wharf. Another woman, a Chinese, was left behind unconscious.”

I said sharply: “And I want to know why they left her there.”

He shrugged. He could not take his eyes off the money. “The one they wanted was the European woman.”

“Well, I’ll find out about that later on. Do you know where they took her?”

He nodded eagerly: “A storehouse, Senhor, on the Rua Querenta, where they used to keep fireworks. There is a cellar there, and the Senhora is there now with three men and some geese to guard her.”

I knew all about the geese, but Bonelli said: “A hungry goose is the best watchdog there is, a very popular system in Macao.” He said to Melindo: “A fireworks storehouse...number eighty-five? There are no others, I think...?”

“The same, Senhor. On the south side of the street.”

“I know it.” Bonelli turned to me and said: “I know it well. I used to own it.”

“How well?”

“Well enough for your purpose, and more.”

“Good. Can I get in there?”

“Yes. A skylight, if you can reach it. It won’t be easy.”

“I’ll reach it. I’ll need some of your grain.”

“My grain?”

“Sour mash from your distillery, a handful or two.”

“Ah, that is good.”

It was a question I had to ask. I said: “Has she been hurt?”

There was a terribly tight feeling in my stomach.

Melindo said: “She has been hurt, Senhor.”

“And Ming? Alexander Ming?”

He shrugged. “There is never any word of Alexander Ming, Senhor. No one ever sees him, or hears him, or knows where he is. It is even said that he is not in Macao at this moment, but in Tangier.”

“And how good is that last bit of information?”