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They were passing under a street-lamp at the moment, and she glanced up at him with a grateful smile, pleased apparently by his thought of her. "That is good of you," she exclaimed, "but my story is easily told. Let me go on with it. I explained myself to my friends as best I could and went to my room. Then it suddenly occurred to me that Maku and his friend might have come to Evanston by boat."
Maku did not answer, but putting his hand behind the sleeping man's back, found some sensitive vertebra. With a yell, the man awoke and leaped to his feet. The conductor seized him by the arm and led him to the platform.
Orme followed, and when Maku turned west again at the next street, swung rapidly after him and around the corner, with the full expectation of seeing him hurrying along, half a block away. But no one was in sight. Had he slipped into one of the near-by buildings? While Orme was puzzling, a voice at his elbow said, "Hello!" He turned with a start.
"Just as, later, it occurred to me." "I thought that the other man might be waiting for Maku. The motor-car that we heard there was no good reason for thinking that our man was in it." She paused. "I know," he said. "I thought of those things, too." "It flashed on me," she went on, "that if I could find the man, I might be able to buy him off. I didn't believe that he would dare to injure me.
The search was not so nearly blind as it would have been if Orme had not found that folded slip of paper in Maku's pocket. The address, "three forty-one North Parker Street," was unquestionably the destination at which Maku had expected to meet friends. To North Parker Street, then, Orme prepared to go.
Maku could not well have seen him without turning his head, and Orme had watched the little Japanese closely enough to know that he had continued to stare straight before him. Safe on the back platform, a desire to smoke came to Orme. He found a cigar in his case and lighted it. While he was shielding the match, he looked over his hollowed hand and saw Maku produce a cigarette and light it.
And Maku, who had controlled himself while Orme was following him through the streets of the North Side, no longer had a diplomatic reason for restraining his rage against the man who had struck him down. In any event, the eyes of Arima and Maku glittered angrily, and Orme realized that he could expect no mercy.
The Japanese had apparently wished the consolation of tobacco just as Orme had. "An odd coincidence," muttered Orme. "I hope it wasn't mind-reading." And he smiled as he drew a mouthful of smoke. Lincoln Park slid by them on the left. The car was getting well down into the city. Suddenly Maku worked along to the end of his seat and got down on the running-board. The conductor pulled the bell.
Presently they came to the entrance of what appeared to be an extensive estate. Back among the trees glimmered the lights of a house. "Turn in," said Bessie. A thought struck Orme. If Poritol, why not the Japanese? Maku and his friends might easily have got back to this place. And if the minister had been able to telephone to his allies from Arradale, they would be expecting him.
"Oh," said Orme. The fact that Maku would not talk was in a measure reassuring. His apparent inability to understand English was, of course, assumed, unless, indeed, he was still too completely dazed by the blow which Orme had given him, to use a tongue which was more or less strange to him. But what would he say if he saw Orme?
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