“Must open on another street,” he muttered to himself. “Touchy sort of business this prowling through a strange city at night with a big row on foot. Can’t be helped though.”
He reached the door only to find it locked. The wall was not high. A gnarled pear tree offered him a lift to the top. He had soon scaled it, and was looking up and down the narrow street that ran on the other side.
“Not a soul in sight,” he whispered.
He listened for a second. The rattle of machine-gun fire had ceased. Now and again there came the crack of a rifle or automatic.
Johnny slipped off the wall. His feet had hardly touched ground when a shot rang out and a bullet sang past him. Dodging into the deep-set doorway, he whipped out his automatic and waited. Footsteps were approaching.
“Jig’s up,” he muttered. “Worse luck for it!”
His hands fumbled at the door. In a second there came a dull thud on the other side of it. He had pushed his automatic through a latch-string opening.
“No use getting caught armed,” was his mental comment.
In another moment the Japanese military police were upon him. In vain he told them that he was an American, in vain presented his papers. They had seen him climb over the wall; that was enough. Many Russian radicals spoke English very well, and, as for papers, they could be forged. Besides, were there not many American radicals, soldiers of fortune, here assisting in the attempt to overthrow their rule. He should go to prison at once, and “To-morrow!” There was something so sinister about the way they said that “to-morrow” that it sent the cold chills racing down his spine.
Down one narrow street, then another and another they went until, eventually, they came to a frowning stone-wall with an iron-grating set deep in an arched ante-room. Through this doorway he was thrust and the lock clanged behind him.