"Tit for tat, and insult for insult!" smiled Don, as a brilliant light filled the room from concealed electric lamps. "You can't make me angry tonight, though, Cho-San. Not even by breaking up my evening's date with your ward! So far, your little game of hide-and-seek is most fascinating. Even as a boy, I remember...."
"Quite so!" hissed the Chinese furiously. "There is nothing wrong with your memory, Borg! And I can promise that you will have cause to remember _this_ night if you live to be a hundred--which is not likely. Ummm-hummm! Not likely at all! Now, Lotus, if you will lead the way, please."
"Which--which way do you wish to take, Cho-San?" asked the girl in a frightened voice. "The one through the shop?"
"Ummmm, yes. That will do," rumbled the Oriental. "It will be new, I think, to Count Borg."
"Right-o!" agreed Don airily. "I don't remember any secret passage through your shop."
"You made the last trip to the comrades' quarters by way of Cho-San's house, André," Lotus murmured, taking Don's hand. "Follow me closely now, and don't put out your hand to touch the walls!"
As she spoke a panel slid noiselessly open in the side of the room. Cho-San raised his hand to the light switch. Glancing back Don noted with surprise that the big rolling doors of the garage were now shut, though no sound had betrayed their closing.
Darkness descended like a blow as he turned his head. Don could not hear Cho-San's footsteps, though he guessed that the Chinese was moving toward him. Lotus' gentle grasp on his hand was the only thing that seemed real in that Stygian blackness. Like a blind man he followed her lead.
Meantime, several blocks away, Red Pennington perched anxiously on the seat of a skidding taxi. The driver he had picked up outside the Empire Hotel was good at this game of trailing a car on the dodge, but Ko Loo had been giving him the works.
Both the driver and his fare realized this at the same moment.
"It's this blasted fog, sir!" the former complained, straightening out after a turn on two wheels. "I can't get close enough to see if that car ahead's the same one we're after. Not without rammin' his rear bumper! Seems to me that guy cut in from behind us while we was dodgin' cross-traffic a mile back!"