"It's the bank clerk!" Scotty gasped.
It was. Ronald Keaton-Yeats ran to meet them. "Do hurry!" he exclaimed. "We think someone from this end has gone for reinforcements for your friends yonder." The three followed him to the car, a touring sedan of British make. Rick sensed that someone was behind him and started to turn, but a soft voice whispered in his ear.
"Keep looking ahead. Get to your hotel and wait there for a phone call."
They piled into the car, wet clothes and all. Keaton-Yeats ran around to the driver's seat, then stopped. "I say! Where did that other chap go to?"
"What other?" Zircon asked.
"A Eurasian. He's the one who led me here, and who fired that shot. Dashed uncivilized, but I guess it saved your bacon, rather. No matter. He's vanished and that's an end to it." The young Englishman had been peering into the shadows. "We'll hie on our merry way and leave him to his own devices."
Rick started to mention the message that had been whispered in his ear, then decided not to, although he couldn't have explained why.
The car roared into life. Keaton-Yeats spun the wheel and they raced up the street, the buildings magnifying the sound of their passing into thunder. Not until they were on the main street was there quiet enough for conversation, then Zircon demanded, "Would you mind giving us an explanation? Naturally, we're interested."
"Rather!" Keaton-Yeats said. "I met Brant and Scott this afternoon when they inquired from me the way to a Golden Mouse. I'd never heard of the creature, as I told them, and they rejected my offer of some other sort of animal. Haw! But after they had gone, I made inquiries. I learned that this Golden Mouse was a dive of the most unsavory character."
He steered around a group of rickshaws and Rick clutched the back of the front seat. He was having a fine case of jitters, because the Englishman was driving on what appeared to Rick to be the wrong side of the road. Even when he realized that left-hand driving was the rule in Hong Kong, dodging cars on the wrong side left him rattled!