“Not good. A rumor, no more. The kind of rumor a man would spread if he wanted it thought that he was not here.”

“And is she likely to be moved? From the cellar?”

“You mean, no doubt, before dark, Senhor?”

“Don’t try to read my mind, Melindo. Just tell.”

“They will move her if they find out that I have learned that she is there. But they will not find this out.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself, and that’s the whole crux of the matter.”

“My source of information is very secure.”

Bonelli said: “Tell me who it is, Melindo.” He was sitting alone in a dark corner, Bonelli, detached from us and listening, his pointed fingers touching each other in an attitude of prayer.

The lieutenant wriggled hesitantly, shuffling his feet and looking at the ground, but he said at last: “Hu-san, the blind one.”

Bonelli said: “An old, old man who begs on the corner of Rua Figueroa Magalaes. A man who knows everything and says nothing.” He looked at Melindo and said, more curiously than anything else: “How did you get him to talk?”

Melindo smiled slowly: “He owes me a favor. Many favors. I helped him once to bring his family over the border.”

“And they go back if he doesn’t help you once in a while? You’re an evil man, Melindo.”

Melindo said: “We are all evil men, Senhor Bonelli. It is only a question of degree, is it not?” And I said: “Let’s leave it at that. Thank God for the evil. We’d get nowhere without it.”

I said: “And now?” Melindo looked at me, and I said impatiently: “They won’t just let her sit there.”

“No, Senhor, they will not. But they will not kill her either, not yet.” It was a straw to seize on. I looked at him, and he went on: “She told them that it was you who persuaded her to do what she did, and they think that she is a weapon they can use against you if they have to.”

“In other words, I’ll go looking for her, and then...But in that case, they expect me to find out where she is. Is this o jeito, Melindo?” The jeito is a game the Portuguese play; it means, simply, trickery, the outsmarting of one man by another for the sheer exhilaration that knavery can provide when it’s used as a game of skill. If I was supposed to go looking for Bettina, then they would have to let me know where she was being held, one way or another. They’d guess I’d try to find out for myself; could they so quickly guess I’d find a man like Melindo and use him? Perhaps they would: they knew I was with Bonelli, and Melindo was Bonelli’s man. On the other hand, perhaps it would be safer for them to let me know some other way, in which case I could expect a message of some sort. Or could I? Would they be so straightforward as to send a simple messenger saying: Come and get her. She’s here or there. Could they have told Hu-san, the blind man: Make sure that Cain learns this or that. Or was Melindo also one of Ming’s men?

O jeito, the game of trickery.

But Melindo shook his head. “Nao e o jeito, Senhor. It’s not the game.”

Somehow, I believed him; and trust was all I had working for me at the moment. But the message was drilling itself into my mind: if Melindo is telling the truth, there’s got to be a message coming from another source. Please God it comes in time, or I’m dead too, and then Bettina, whom I threw to the wolves.

And then, there was a commotion in the anteroom that led to the office. It was the sound of a shuffle, and a shriek of pain, and the sound of running feet, and Bonelli was on his feet in an instant, heading for the door, white-faced all of a sudden. But the door flew open before he got there, and there was Mai, her dress torn, her eyes dark with fury. Behind her, one of the guards who worked out there was getting to his feet, clutching his shoulder and grimacing with pain, and another was running forward towards Mai with a look of shocked surprise on his face, and a gun in his hand. Mai thrust Bonelli aside like a wilted flower and burst into the room. The guard was aiming the gun, and I yelled: “No! For God’s sake no, it’s all right!” I was physically stopping the sentry from shooting, and I swung round to Bonelli and said. quickly: “It’s all right, Bonelli. I know her. More, I was half-expecting her.”

Bonelli closed the door and stood leaning against it; adjusting the immaculate set of his tie. He said: “If you would perhaps be kind enough to present me...” His voice was cold with anger; and I supposed that it wasn’t often that frail little things like Mai burst into his office and almost put a half-nelson on him. And there was also the destruction of a cherished image; he’d told me that his office was safe, well protected, and who should burst into it, throwing the guards about, disarming them, and putting an arm-lock on the boss himself? None but a frail and pretty little thing he must have thought he could have blown over with a good puff. Soothing his ruffled feathers, he opened the door again and said savagely to the men outside: “All right, get back to your work.” One of them started, ashamed, to explain, but Bonelli slammed the door in his face and turned and said viciously: “A virago!”

“Yes, I suppose you could call her that. But a nice one. Senhor Carlo Bonelli. Miss Mai Cho-sing.” Bonelli recovered his composure, but not enough to do more than bow imperceptibly. I said: “Sit down, Mai, I know why you are here.”

Recovering some more, Bonelli made a slight gesture towards a blue and green silk-covered ebony chair, and Mai hesitated, then sat there almost sulkily. She glared at me for a moment with more venom in her lovely face than I’d ever expect to see on one so young-seeming; and then she said, puzzled:

“You were expecting me?”

I said: “Sooner or later. Didn’t they contact you?”

Melindo was hovering there in the background, not quite knowing what to do. I gave him a thousand dollars and said: “I may need you again, Melindo. And thanks.” He stuffed the money into his shirt, down by the waist, and pulled his belt over it; he bowed politely and left, and I said to Mai: “All right, they called you? Sent a messenger?”

She took a deep breath, looked at Bonelli, and half-smiled. She said: “I’m sorry. I was very rude, was I not? But I was worried. I do hope I didn’t hurt you.” Smiling at him, she said, as though to justify his helplessness against her: “I am trained in these things. It’s not always easy to accept, I know.”

Now, he bowed more graciously. The aplomb was all back in its proper place again. He said: “I’m sure you will forgive me if I pour myself a large glass of cognac? May I offer you one, Mai Cho-sing?”

She shook her head and looked at me. She said slowly: “Yes, a phone call, how did you know?”

I said: “A link to me, and thank God for it. That’s why they didn’t take you too. I was worrying about it. They wanted a sure way of getting a message to me. And proof positive that Bettina didn’t just get up and go.”

She was busy trying to fix her torn dress, and Bonelli, a gentleman again, clapped his hands for one of his girls. She came in and made a polite little bow, looked at the high collar of Mai’s dress and wondered about it; then Bonelli said shortly: “Needle and thread.” The girl went out and Mai said: “Fifteen minutes ago, I was sleeping. They drugged my drink, did you know that?”

I nodded. “Chloral hydrate. It was I who put you to bed and wrapped you up.”

“Oh. Well, a man who spoke Mandarin called. He said Bettina is with them, a hostage, and that they will exchange her for information they want from you.”

“Did they say what information? Not that it really matters very much.”

“No, they did not. They said you should come to the Tang-si tonight at ten o’clock. That’s one of the junks in the harbor.”

“Sailing for China tomorrow,” Bonelli said promptly.

I asked her: “And that’s where Bettina is now?”

“Yes. She’s on board the junk.”

“Then we know what we have to do, don’t we?”

Mai looked at me uncertainly. “It must almost certainly not be true. They would not tell you where she is.”

“Uh-huh. How do you feel?”

Surprised, she said: “Fine, why?”

I said: “I’m wondering whether to let you sit here and sweat it out...or to take you along with me tonight.”

“To the junk? But surely you don’t believe...”

“She’s in a storehouse on Rua Querenta, and tonight I’m going to get her out.”

Mai got to her feet and said sharply: “Then let us go there now.”

Bonelli was looking at her suddenly with a great deal of admiration. He said: “There are three men guarding her.”

Mai said: “Then we will need guns, perhaps.”

“And geese.”

“Oh.” She looked at me, and I said: “No problem with the geese. And no guns, we can’t litter the colony with corpses. It wouldn’t be proper. Do you know anything about the Wuh-keis?”