"My bare hands are good
enough for any yellow smart in this area. And if they give out I
can kick like a mule."
The other laughed, shaking his head.
"It's silly, all the same," he persisted. "The man who did the
job out there in the fog to-night might have knifed you or shot
you long before you could have got here."
"He might," snapped Kerry, "but he didn't."
Yet, remembering his wife, who would be waiting for him in the
cosy sitting-room he knew a sudden pang. Perhaps he did take
unnecessary chances. Others had said so. Hard upon the thought
came the memory of his boy, and of the telephone message which
the episodes of the night had prevented him from sending.
He remembered, too, something which his fearless nature had
prompted him to forget: he remembered how, just as he had arisen
from beside the body of the murdered man, oblique eyes had
regarded him swiftly out of the fog. He had lashed out with a
boxer's instinct, but his knuckles had encountered nothing but
empty air. No sound had come to tell him that the thing had not
been an illusion. Only, once again, as he groped his way through
the shuttered streets of Chinatown and the silence of the yellow
mist, something had prompted him to turn; and again he had
detected the glint of oblique eyes, and faintly had discerned the
form of one who followed him.
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