Old Broadbrim laughed derisively.
"You are very innocent. You were not watching me, not keeping track of me? Whom do you serve in this part of the island?"
"I serve myself!" cried Danny, his little eyes blazing like stars. "I'm an old man who does no wrong, but I come from Melbourne, now and then, on business."
"The business of a spy!"
The next minute Old Danny sprang up with the agility of a cat and his face seemed transformed.
In one of his bony hands he gripped a dagger, which he threw above his head with all the fiendishness of a thug, and in another instant he made at Old Broadbrim like a panther.
But the detective threw up one hand and caught the descending arm in a grip of steel.
He looked down into the old man's face and laughed at the expression of baffled rage that seamed it.
"So you are the innocent old man of Melbourne!" he cried. "You carry a knife all the same."
Danny showed his teeth and batted his eyes.