And then, I found Bettina.

She was moaning softly, lying between two huge piles of lumber. She had not been tied up; instead, there was a sickeningly heavy beam lying across her stomach, pinioning her to the ground like a squashed butterfly. It was nearly a foot and a half thick, and thirty feet or more long; one day it would be carved as the central pillar of a tien, the oblong, column-divided inner room of a temple; and when I stooped to lever it off her, I found it weighed almost more than I could lift. I heard her rasping sigh as the pressure came off her stomach, and she rolled over and vomited, half-conscious, half in a coma. Her face was mass of bloodied bruises, and her clothes were in shreds, no more than rags, her breasts bare in the dim light of the distant lamp. I ran my hands over them; the slivers of bamboo she had feared so much were not there, though there was blood everywhere.

But her eyes came to life, suddenly, and she gasped and turned away, and then she looked at me and said, half-choking: “You son of a bastard bitch, Cain, if you offer me more money now, I’ll kill you. So help me God, I’ll kill you.” She started swearing then, using every kind of obscenity I’d ever heard. It was a good sign; I knew she was going to be all right.

I said: “Mai’s here, we’ve come to take you home.”

Her voice was a hoarse whisper: “I know. I heard her. I knew she’d come.”

She pushed my arms away and staggered to her feet, and then fell back as I caught her; and the swearing went on, and I picked her up and carried her to the steps; and Mai said cheerfully: “Hi, Bettina,” as we passed her, not moving her eyes or the little Walther from the straight-ahead position.

I said to Mai: “I’ll get her onto the street and come back for you.”

She shook her head: “No. Take her out, I’ll follow when you’re clear.”

“All right.”

I went up the steps fast, crossed over the unconscious watchman, slid the bolts on the door, and went out onto the street. Behind me, I heard a recovering goose flapping its wings. He came towards me and staggered in the doorway, and then fell flat on his back, squawking. I stood there with Bettina in my arms. She was unconscious now that the fresh air had caught her, and I waited for Mai. In a few moments, there was the sound of a shot down there, followed by two more in rapid succession, and I put Bettina down on the pavement quickly and ran back into the building. And then, there was the most God-awful explosion and the sound of bursting crackers, and Mai came running through the cellar door, slamming it behind her and reaching for a timber to prop it shut with. I heaved a beam into position and said:

“All right? Did they give you trouble?”

She shook her head. “I just couldn’t resist the sight of all those explosives.”

“The Wuh-keis?”

She shrugged: “Here they come now.”

The sound was enough to tell us, and they were yelling their heads off on the other side of the door, hammering at it with their bodies. There was smoke coming out from under it, the choking blue smoke of cordite. The door shuddered and held, and I said:

“They’ll get through it in time, perhaps. Let’s get out of here.”

Mai was already running out onto the street to look for Bettina, and I dragged the unconscious watchman out, then, on an impulse, dragged the two geese out too—it wasn’t their fault they’d goofed—and saw Mai crouching down beside Bettina. Mai had Bettina’s head in her arms and was crooning to her like a nurse with a baby. I picked Bettina up, and ten minutes later we were back in Bonelli’s private quarters. Bettina was stretched out naked on the bed while two young Chinese girls and Mai sponged her cruelly treated body with warmed and perfumed oil. Her eyes were open now, and she looked at me and almost laughed, a short, angry, bitter laugh. She said chokingly: “Well, Cain, was it worth it?”

I said: “Yes, it was worth it. Are you going to be all right?”

She was recovering fast enough to snarl at me: “No thanks to you, yes, I’ll be all right.” And then she said heavily: “I told them about you, Cain. I had to.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have expected anything else.”

“As soon as they saw I wasn’t Sally Hyde...”

“I know. You want to go back to Hong Kong now? When you’re better?”

“Back to that God-awful jail? Not likely.”

“Her Majesty’s pardon is waiting there for you. They won’t jail you.”

She looked at me strangely, “A hell of a time to tell me that, Cain. You haven’t finished with me yet. I know that. So why do you tell me there’s nothing to keep me here now?”

“I felt I should.”

“Okay. But it’s my turn now.”

“Your turn?”

She gestured at her bruised body. “It’s not the first time I’ve been beat up, and it’s not likely to be the last, either. But I want my turn at them, Cain. I don’t care what it costs. With or without you, you bastard.” She turned painfully under the caressing hands of the girls and said somberly: “I’ve some payments of my own to make now.”

“Just one thing I want to know. Tell me about the man who...questioned you.”

“An American. Small, dark, a good, Boston sort of voice, a man too goddamn fastidious to lay a hand on me. He left that to the others.”

“The others who were there when we broke in?”

“That’s them.” She said, whispering: “Don’t ever get yourself raped by a Chinese, Cain. They’re too cruel with it.”

I said harshly: “Give me a day or two and I’ll find your American for you. I’ll bring him to you.”

She turned away, disgusted. “You sure as hell don’t know much about Macao, Cain. You’ll never find him.”

“I know his name. I know where he lives.”

I could feel surprised Mai’s eyes on me, but I was watching Bettina. She held my look for a while, and then she turned away and began to cry. She said through her tears: “You bastard, do you have to watch me cry? Get out of here, for God’s sake!”

Through the open windows with their heavy, curlicued bars, the sound of a siren was loud and insistent. It was only a half-mile or so to the warehouse, and the flames were taking good hold now.

I went and stood on the tiny veranda and watched the glow of the fire; the firecrackers were all going off, and we could hear the shouts of people in the streets. I turned and found Bonelli beside me.

He said, watching: “My old warehouse—we had a fire there once when I owned it. An insurance fire. Only the rains came and put it out before it could really take hold. It cost me a lot of money, that rain storm.”

He was making conversation, aware that I felt for Bettina more deeply than he did and not wanting to tell me again of the warnings he had given me.

He said: “Some people can stand anything if they know that sooner or later it will end. But at the time, she could not have known you would save her. Even after the things they did to her down there.”

“And how can I make it up to her, can you tell me that?”

A bright red rocket went sailing across the sky, trailing a plume of white magnesium smoke, and burst into a million golden stars. I always liked a good firework display.

Bonelli was silent for a while, and then he repeated Bettina’s question: “Was it worth it, Cain? Was it really worth it?”

I perched myself on the iron railing and turned to look at him. I said: “Do you know a man named Wentworth?”

“No. But if he has any interests in this part of the world, I can soon find out about him. It shouldn’t be too hard.”

“If you don’t know him, it presupposes that he has no interests in Macao?”

“I’d say so. Unless he operates under another name.”

There was a sudden light of intelligence in his eyes. He said sharply: “Wentworth? Yes, I remember now. I never met him.”