ite
wall, she nibbled at the pencil's rubber, and her smooth brow was
darkened by a frown of perplexity.

Peter, lowering the aerial switch, sent out an inquiring call for the
Manila station. The air was still as death. A dreary hush filled the
black receivers, and then, through this gloomy silence trickled a
far-away silver voice, the brisk, clear signals of Manila.

He swiveled half around, and the girl nervously extended the pad of
radio blanks.

The message was directed to Emiguel Borria, the Peak, Hong Kong, and it
contained the information that she would reach the Hong Kong anchorage
on the following Tuesday morning. The last sentence; "Do not meet me."

Peter inclined his eyebrows slightly, but not impertinently, counted
the words and flashed them to the operator at Manila.

This one shot back the following greeting:

"Who are you? Only one man on the whole Pacific has a fist like that."

Peter changed the manner of his sending, resorting to a long and
painful "drawl."

"I am a little Chinese waif," Peter spelled out slowly, and smiled,
adding: "Good hunting to you, Smith!" He signed off.

The silvery spark of Smith was quick in reply.

"If you are Peter Moore, the Marconi people are scouring the earth
trying to find you. Are you Peter Moore?"

"In China," replied Peter breezily, changing back to the inimitably
crisp sending for which he was famous, "we bite off people's noses who
are inquisitive. Good night, old-timer!"

The voice of Manila screamed back in faint reprisal, but Peter dropped
the nickeled band to the ledge, and pivoted quickly, to face the girl.

It was startling, the look she was giving him. Perhaps he had
completed the transmission before she was aware. At all events, when
Peter turned with a smile, her eyes bored straight into his with a
distorted look, a look that seemed cruel, as if it might have sprung
from a well of hate; and hard and glinting and black as polished jade.

All of this vanished when she caught Peter's eyes, and it was as the
passage of a vision, unreal. In its place was an expression of
demureness, of gentle, almost fondling meekness. Had she been staring,
not at him, but beyond him, over the miles to a detestable scene, a
view of horror? It seemed more than likely.

Then he observed that the door of the wireless room was closed. He
made as if to open it, but she interrupted him midway with a commanding
gesture of her white, small hand.

"Lock