“You don’t mean you’re going to try to get into Guayaquil?” demanded McGlade.
“If Connie Binhart’s down there I’ve got to go and get him,” was Never-Fail Blake’s answer.
* * * * * * * *
The following morning Blake, having made sure of his ground, began one of his old-time “investigations” of that unsuspecting worthy known as Pip Tankred.
This investigation involved a hurried journey back to Colon, the expenditure of much money in cable tolls, the examination of records that were both official and unofficial, the asking of many questions and the turning up of dimly remembered things on which the dust of time had long since settled.
It was followed by a return to Panama, a secret trip several miles up the coast to look over a freighter placidly anchored there, a dolorous-appearing coast-tramp with unpainted upperworks and a rusty red hull. The side-plates of this red hull, Blake observed, were as pitted and scarred as the face of an Egyptian obelisk. Her ventilators were askew and her funnel was scrofulous and many of her rivet-heads seemed to be eaten away. But this was not once a source of apprehension to the studious-eyed detective.
The following evening he encountered Tankred himself, as though by accident, on the veranda of the Hotel Angelini. The latter, at Blake’s invitation, sat down for a cocktail and a quiet smoke.
They sat in silence for some time, watching the rain that deluged the city, the warm devitalizing rain that unedged even the fieriest of Signor Angelinas stimulants.
“Pip,” Blake very quietly announced, “you’re going to sail for Guayaquil to-morrow!”
“Am I?” queried the unmoved Pip.