The first impulse of Horikawa had been to free him and carry him to the bedroom.  But Shibo interfered.  He pushed his hand into the pocket of the smoking-jacket and drew out a pocket-book.  It bulged with bills.  In two sentences Shibo sketched a plan of operations.  They would steal the money and lay the blame for it on the Hulls.  Cunningham’s own testimony would convict the fat man and his wife.  The evidence of the two Japanese would corroborate his.

Cunningham’s eyelids flickered.  There was a bottle of chloroform on the desk.  The promoter had recently suffered pleurisy pains and had been advised by his doctor to hold a little of the drug against the place where they caught him most sharply.  Shibo snatched up the bottle, drenched a handkerchief with some of its contents, and dropped the handkerchief over the wounded man’s face.

A drawer was open within reach of Cunningham’s hand.  In it lay an automatic pistol The two men were about to hurry away.  Shibo turned at the door.  To his dismay he saw that the handkerchief had slipped from Cunningham’s face and the man was looking at him.  He had recovered consciousness.

Cunningham’s eyes condemned him to death.  In their steely depths there was a gleam of triumph.  He was about to call for help.  Shibo knew what that meant.  He and Horikawa were in a strange land.  They would be sent to prison, an example made of them because they were foreigners.  Automatically, without an instant of delay, he acted to protect himself.

Two strides took him back to Cunningham.  He reached across his body for the automatic and sent a bullet into the brain of the man bound to the chair.

Horikawa, to judge by his confession, was thunderstruck.  He was an amiable little fellow who never had stepped outside the law.  Now he was caught in the horrible meshes of a murder.  He went to pieces and began to sob.  Shibo stopped him sharply.

Then they heard some one coming.  It was too late to get away by the door.  They slipped through the window to the fire escape and from it to the window of the adjoining apartment.  Horikawa, still sick with fear, stumbled against the rail as he clambered over it and cut his face badly.

Shibo volunteered to go downstairs and get him some sticking plaster.  On the way down Shibo had met the younger James Cunningham as he came out of the elevator.  Returning with first-aid supplies a few minutes later, he saw Jack and Phyllis.

It was easy to read between the lines that Shibo’s will had dominated Horikawa.  He had been afraid that his companion’s wounded face would lead to his arrest.  If so, he knew it would be followed by a confession.  He forced Horikawa to hide in the vacant apartment till the wound should heal.  Meanwhile he fed him and brought him newspapers.

There were battles of will between the two.  Horikawa was terribly frightened when he read that his flight had brought suspicion on him.  He wanted to give himself up at once to the police.  They quarreled.  Shibo always gained the temporary advantage, but he saw that under a grilling third degree his countryman would break down.  He killed Horikawa because he knew he could not trust him.