With each turn the streets narrowed and the light grew dimmer. How had
Chahda heard of a place in such a poor quarter of the city? Rick
wondered.

Presently the rickshaws drew up in a dismal corner of what was little
more than an alleyway. They were in front of a low wooden building with
windows that hadn't been cleaned in years. Above the double door was a
faded painting, illumined by a single electric light bulb. The painting
probably was supposed to represent a mouse. Once, long ago, it had
evidently been yellow. Now it was so glazed with grime that it was hard
to tell.

Rick stepped down from his rickshaw, sniffing the combined odors of
garlic, pungent sauces, filth, and stale beer. Scotty joined him, and
they waited for the scientist to take the lead.

Zircon handed some money to the coolies and ordered them to wait. Then
he motioned to the boys and led the way to the door. It opened on a
large room dimly lighted by faded Chinese lanterns that hung over
low-power bulbs. The walls were covered with a grimy paper of faded
yellow on which unskilled drawings of mice at play were clustered. The
floor was crowded with tables, each table covered with a
yellow-checkered tablecloth. So far as Rick could see, there wasn't a
clean cloth in the lot.

In front of the room was a long bar of scarred teak-wood. Behind it were
row after row of ordinary ten-cent-store water tumblers. Rick guessed
Canton Charlie's clients weren't fussy about drinking from fine crystal.

Next to one wall, a white man in rumpled, dirty dungarees was sleeping
with head down on the table. His snores were not musical. At one of the
tables near the opposite wall, a dark-skinned man in a seaman's woolen
cap sat paring his nails with a knife easily a foot long.

Zircon motioned to the boys and they sat down at one of the tables.
"It's too early for many customers, I suppose. But someone in charge
must be here." He banged on the table, then lowered his voice. "How do
you like the customer over there? A Portuguese sailor, from the look of
him."

In a moment dingy curtains parted next to the bar and a man emerged. At
a guess, he was Spanish.

"Bet he's got a knife a foot long, too, under that apron," Scotty
whispered. "He's the type."

Rick nodded. Scotty was so right! The man's heavy-lidded eyes were set
in a swarthy face whose most prominent feature was a broken nose,
flattened probably with some weapon like a hard-swung bottle. A white
scar acro