Paddy Blake briskly led the way to a cubby-hole of a room with a very strong door, which he made fast with a bolt. There was a window whose shutters were of iron. O’Shea suspected that fuddled seamen might be tucked in here for safe-keeping when the occasion required. The two Irishmen studied each other with a kind of cheerful, candid appraisement. Each recognized in the other certain qualities to be admired. Paddy Blake was a hardened old ruffian, but he was a two-fisted little man with the courage of a terrier.
“I have come a long way to find you,” said O’Shea. “And it was imparted to me that the business that has brought me to China had best be discussed in whispers. ’Tis a mighty queer yarn——”
“Ye need not fill and back. Steam ahead. I like your looks,” broke in Paddy Blake. “Whatever passes bechune us stays inside the door. Are ye in throuble?”
“Not me. This is about a friend of mine. Tell me, Paddy Blake, and think hard. Do ye recall a strappin’ big man with red hair and blue eyes and a deep voice that used to roll the dice in your place? Hold a minute; I have not done with him. One front tooth was broken so you would notice it when he talked. And he had a crooked little finger that must have stuck out when he held a glass or waved his hand about.”
Paddy Blake puckered his brows and pinched his long upper lip between a grimy thumb and forefinger.
“What was he—a Yankee?” he asked, sitting straighter in his chair and gazing at the shipmaster with puzzled, groping interest.
“He was an American seafarin’ man—a mate most likely. You could not forget him if you cast eyes on him only once. Yankee sailors are scarce in deep-water ports. This one should stick out in your recollection like a light-house in a fog.”
“A whale of a man with a red head and an eye as blue as a bit of the Inland Sea!” vehemently exclaimed Paddy Blake. “And when was he in me place? How long ago was it?”
“’Tis yourself that must answer that question. At a guess, it was more than a year ago.”
The spry little man bounded to his feet and clutched the tails of his coat with both hands as he bent forward with his face close to O’Shea’s and rasped out: