He gained the hallway at the top of the stairs, started down is cautiously. He could hear voices from a room at one end of the corridor, voices that were raised in excited conversation. Major Brane avoided that room but slipped into the room which adjoined it. That room was dark; and Major Brane, closing the door behind him, listened for a moment while he stood perfectly still, his every faculty concentrated.
He was standing so, when there sounded the click of a light switch and the room was flooded with light.
A rather tall man with a black beard, and eyes that seemed the shade of dulled silver, was standing by a light switch, holding a huge automatic in a hand that was a mass of bony knuckles, of long fingers and black hair.
“Sit down, Major Brane,” said the man.
Major Brane sighed, for the man was he whose name Major Brane had forged to the spurious check.
The man chuckled. “Do you know, Major, I rather expected you back. Clever, aren’t you? But after one has dealt with you a few times he learns to anticipate your little schemes.”
Major Brane said nothing. He stood rigidly motionless, taking great care not to move his hands. He knew this man, knew the ruthless cruelty of him, the shrewd resourcefulness of his mind, the deadly determination which actuated him.
“Do sit down, Major.”
Major Brane crossed to a chair sat down.
The man with the beard let the tips of his white teeth glitter below the gloss of dark hairs which swept his upper lip in smooth regularity. The tip of the pointed beard quivered as the chin muscles twitched. “Yes,” he said, “I expected you back.”
Major Brane nodded. “I didn’t know you were here,” he observed. “Otherwise I would have been more cautious.”
“Thanks for the compliment, Major. Incidentally, my associates here know me by the name of Brinkhoff. It would be most unfortunate if they should learn of my real identity, or of my connections.”
“Unfortunate for you?” asked Major Brane meaningly.
The teeth glittered again as the lips swept back in a mirthless and all but noiseless laugh.
“Unfortunate for both of us, Major. Slightly unfortunate for me, but doubly-trebly-unfortunate for you.”
Major Brane nodded. “Very well, Mr. Brinkhoff,” he said.
The dulled silver eyes regarded him speculatively, morosely. “Rather clever of you to prepare forgery which you could use a red herring to drag across the trail,” he said. “That’s what comes of trusting subordinates. As soon as they told me how clumsy you were in your attempt to thrust the check into your mouth and swallow it, I knew they had been duped — Fools! They were laughing over your clumsy attempt! Bah!”
Major Brane inclined his head. “Thank you, Brinkhoff.”
Ominous lights glinted back of the dulled silver of the eyes. “Well,” rasped the man, after a moment, “what did you do with it?”
“The original?”
“Naturally.”
Major Brane took a deep breath. “I placed it where you could never find it, of course.”
The teeth shone again as the man grinned. “No you didn’t, Major. You took advantage of your arrival here to conceal it some place in the room — perhaps in the cushion of the chair. When you escaped, you went in a hurry to draw pursuit. You returned to get the check.”
Major Brane shook his head. “No. The check isn’t in the house. I placed it where it would be safe. I returned for the girl.”
A frown divided the man’s forehead. “You hid it?”
Major Brane chose his words carefully. “I feel certain that it is safe from discovery,” he said.
The man with the beard rasped out an oath, started toward Major Brane.
“Damn you,” he gritted, “I believe you’re telling the truth! I told them you’d come back after the girl. That’s why I had them carrying on a loud conversation in the next room. I thought you’d try to slip in here and listen, particularly if the room was dark.”
Major Brane inclined his head. “Well reasoned,” he said. His voice was as impersonally courteous as that of a tennis player who mutters a “well played” to his opponent.
For a long three seconds the two men locked eyes.
“There are ways,” said the bearded man, ending that long period of menacing silence, “of making even the stoutest heart weaken, of making even the most stubborn tongue talk.”
Major Brane shrugged his shoulders. “Naturally,” he said. “I hope you are not so stupid as to think that I would overlook that fact, and not take steps to guard against it.”
“Such as?”
“Such as seeing that the check was placed entirely out of my control before I returned.”
“Thinking that would make you immune from — persuasion?” asked the bearded man mockingly.
Major Brane nodded his head. “Thinking you would not waste time on torture when it could do you no good, and when your time is so short.”
“Time so short, Major?”
“Yes. I rather think there will be many things for you to do, now that that check is to be made public. There will be complete new arrangements to make, and your time is short. The Nanking government and the Canton government will be forced to settle their differences as soon as the knowledge of that check becomes public property.”
The bearded man cursed, bitterly, harshly.
Major Brane sat perfectly immobile.
The bearded one raised his voice. “All right. Here he is. Come in.”
The door of the room in which the loud conversation had taken place burst open. Four men came tumbling eagerly into the room. They were not masked. Major Brane knew none of them. They stared at him curiously.
The bearded man glowered at them. “He claims he ditched the original check in a safe place,” he said. “He’s clever enough to have done something that’ll be hard to check up on. The check may be in the house. He may have left it in the room where he sat; or he may have picked it up when he came in the second time, and put it some place where we’d never think to look. He’s that clever.
“Search him first, and then search the house. Then take up the trail of the car. He wouldn’t have taken it far. He was back too soon... Still, he wouldn’t have left it parked on the street. He’d know we’d spot it. He must have left it in the garage that’s down...”
Major Brane interrupted, courteously. “Pardon me, it is in the garage. I left it there and tore up the ticket. I didn’t know you were here, at the time, Brinkhoff, or I would have saved myself the trouble.”
The bearded man gave a formal inclination of the head. “Thanks. Now, since we understand each other so thoroughly, and since you have shown such a disposition to cooperate, there’s a possibility we can simplify matters still further. We can make a trade, we two. I’ll trade you the girl for the check.”
Major Brane smiled, the patronizing, chiding smile which a parent gives to a precocious child who is trying to obtain some unfair advantage. “No. The check will have to be eliminated from the discussion now.”
“We’ll get it eventually.”
“I hardly think so.”
“That which is going to happen to the girl is hardly a pleasant subject to discuss. You see there are very major political issues involved. You, my dear Major, and I, have long since learned not to grow emotional over political matters. Unfortunately, some of my subordinates — perhaps I should refer to them as associates — are still in the emotional stage. If they feel that major political issues have been shaped by the theft of a check, and that this girl is the guilty party...” He broke off with a suggestive shrug.