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right arm, he backed towards the door. Not for one moment did he take his eyes off Yumasaki as with his left hand behind him, he felt for the key, which he had already noticed in the lock, and turned it.
    ‘Now,’ he observed, ‘you’re going to talk, and talk fast.’ He returned to his prisoner; sat down opposite him. ‘Take those glasses off. I don’t like them.’ He was obeyed. ‘Place your hands on your knees. That’s fine.’
    Yumasaki’s face was a paler yellow than usual. He looked a very much frightened man.
    ‘Who are you?’ he muttered.
    ‘Shall we dispense with my name?’ suggested Carter, in the exact words previously used by the Japanese. ‘It really does not matter. You made a pretty bad blunder in not reckoning that I might be armed, didn’t you? I guess you’re mighty sore about that now. Well, let us get on. You’re going to spill the beans about this secret service racket, get me? If you refuse, or I think you’re not coming clean, I’ll shoot. I can do it without the slightest trouble coming my way. In fact, I’ll probably earn the thanks of the government for removing a pest. Commence right at the beginning, and get a move on.’
    Yumasaki was cornered, and he knew it. The dice was heavily loaded against him. Moreover, he felt quite certain the other would not hesitate to shoot, were the slightest excuse given him and, unlike most Japanese, Yumasaki regarded his life as his most precious possession. He must have long since decided that the man who had so completely turned the tables on him was not merely an American mercantile officer but, if he still wondered who he was, he refrained from making further attempts to find out. The expression on his captor’s face warned him that questions might be decidedly injudicious.
    At first, in response to Carter’s demand, he strove to temporise, but as he became aware, to his vast astonishment and increased dismay, of that young man’s knowledge, for Carter let him know the full extent of his information regarding Yumasaki’s previous activities, he apparently came to the conclusion that it would be safer and wiser to open out completely. Perhaps he still nursed a hope that his opponent might be destroyed and himself rescued before the former could divulge the facts he was forcing from him. Whether that was the case or not, Carter learnt all Sir Leonard Wallace was so anxious to discover. Of course, it remained to be verified, but the British Secret Service agent had little doubt that it would prove entirely correct. Suggestive movements of his revolver every now and again brought vehement assertions from Yumasaki that he was telling the truth – as well as beads of perspiration to his brow, despite the fan, at fear of his imminent end.
    He had returned from Japan on a steamer with half a dozen compatriots of the Secret Service. They had been smuggled ashore in bales of merchandise, and had spread themselves among thedancing saloons, five of which – the Fan Tan, Macao, Nanking, China Doll, and Canton were actually owned by Yumasaki, having been bought with money supplied by his superiors in Japan. The China Doll had been his actual headquarters but, aware that his connection with that establishment had become known, he had transferred his residence and all articles or papers of an incriminating nature to the Canton. A suite of rooms above the actual dancing hall had been transformed into a flat, which included a secret chamber in which he worked and kept confidential documents. The acting proprietors of the China Doll, Fan Tan, the Macao, the Nanking and the Canton were all in the pay of Japan, each of them having been compelled to work on his behalf by threat of the revelations of unsavoury incidents in their past lives of which he possessed proof.
    ‘Very nice too,’ commented Carter when he had forced all this from the reluctant spy. ‘So the address you gave as your headquarters, when you were first found out, was just a blind, and