“All right! I know it was a terrible thing to do, but...Well, she’s not exactly a lady, is she? I don’t suppose it’s the first time she had that sort of...I mean, it wouldn’t be as bad for her as it might be for, well, for someone else. I mean...Well, would it?”

I let him talk, not answering him, letting him put the rope around his neck. Mai was looking at me now, and I knew what she wanted; I shook my head.

He said again: “All right, it was a terrible thing to do, but...I had to treat her badly, Cain, don’t you understand that? With someone of our class it would not have been necessary, but a woman off the streets—they’ve different standards from ours, can’t you understand that?”

Mai moved, and I sat still. She went across to him and took him by the collar of his jacket, and yanked him to his feet. The surprise on his face was on account of the physical thing: he was a small man, but she was slighter, and yet, she yanked him up as if she were lifting a kitten off the floor. She held him with her left hand under his chin and jabbed the pointed fingers of her right hand into his gut; they were hard, quick, three rapid-fire blows into the solar plexus, and I said: “Don’t do that, Mai, he’ll be sick all over the carpet.”

She took hold of his thin wrist, twisted her shoulder under his armpit, doubled up and yanked, and sent him flying through the air to land with a terrible thud against the wall; I heard his arm break as she let go of it at just the right moment.

I said: “All right, Mai, sit down.”

She was moving towards him again, her hands open for a chop at his neck that would have killed him, and I said sharply: “No! Sit down! Sit down, Mai!”

She looked at me hard for a moment, then went and sat down, put her hands in her lap, and looked sadly at the tips of her little black shoes.

Wentworth groaned. He said, stumbling over the words: “My arm...my arm’s broken.” He didn’t know yet the pain that would soon hit him around the gut, but his face was white.

I said: “Go back to your corner and talk.”

He staggered to his feet and moved across the room, keeping a wary eye on Mai, and sank down again, leaning his head back, clutching his arm and groaning.

I said: “Now, the big question. Where is Sally Hyde now?”

He shook his head, moaning, and I said again, sharply: “Where is she, Wentworth?”

“I don’t know. So help me, I don’t know, Cain. If I did, I’d tell you. I swear I would.”

“I believe you. Where’s Alexander Ming?”

“He’s...he’s in Macao.”

“So I guessed. But it’s a big town.”

“He...he moves around a lot.”

“And at this precise moment?”

He whispered: “He’s going to kill me, Cain, unless you get me out of here. South America. He’ll kill me.”

“Where are the suitcases?”

“The suitcases?”

I said impatiently: “The ones you want to take with you.”

“They’re in...in a warehouse in town, on Rua Querenta.”

“And what’s in them?”

“Money. Dollars from the States, I’ll split it with you, Cain. Just let me get them. Send for them. I’ll split it with you...A lot of money, more than three million dollars.”

I didn’t think it would be very kind to tell him it had all gone up in flames with the fireworks. I said mildly: “That’s a lot of money. No reason why I shouldn’t take all of it if I want to.”

He doubled up and groaned, the pains coming on now.

“Just let me...let me have...a few hundred thousand of it to get...to get away with. The rest...the rest is yours.” His voice was trailing off, and he looked at me with very glassy eyes and whispered: “Give me some of that cognac, for God’s sake.”

“No. Tell me where Ming is. Now, at this moment.”

“He’s at...at a bar on the main street, a place called The Essence of Heavenly Light.”

“He lives there?”

“No. He’s got a hideout somewhere, but the bar...the bar is one of his places, a sort of meeting place for the boys.”

I said: “When Sally Hyde first came here, she went straight to The Essence of Heavenly Light to leave a message for Ming that she was after his guts. How did she know where to go?”

He said, gulping in great drafts of air: “I told her.”

Well, that was a nice twist.

I said: “That’s something I’d like to know a great deal more about. Tell.”

He took a deep breath and said again: “Some brandy, for God’s sake.”

I poured him a glass and gave it to him, and yanked him to his feet and sat him down on a chair, like a civilized human being once more, I said: “All right, talk or I’ll set Tiger on you again.”

He drank down the cognac and held out his glass for a refill, and when I poured it, he said: “We were married, Sally and I, and it didn’t work out, so we got divorced. Her father, Markle Hyde, was against me right from the start. Well, the divorce didn’t work out either, and we’d been writing to each other for some time now, but secretly, because of him.”

“Or because of his money?”

“Because of both, I guess. Markle Hyde had used his money to ruin me financially. I didn’t have a penny left in the world, so...” His voice trailed off, not wanting to tell too loudly of treachery. And the pieces were dropping into place.

I said: “All these years, Ming must have heard of the great philanthropist Markle Hyde. And he never knew that he was really his old enemy Ben Stirani, did he? Until?”

He licked his lips. “That’s right.”

“Until what, Wentworth?”

He said, stammering: “Until...until I went to Ming and told him.”

“How did you know? It must have been a well-kept secret to have fooled so many people for so long. And I’m sure Sally would never have told you. She loved her father too much for that.”

As I spoke, it occurred to me that this was only a guess; how did I know she loved him? Because he loved her so much? And then Wentworth cleared it up for me. He said earnestly:

“No, that’s not true. Sally hated her father, though he never knew it. And one day, she told me why—because he was Ben Stirani.”

“And then, after the divorce, you told Ming. For money?”