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HAT stolid practicality which had made Blake a successful operative asserted itself in the matter of his approach to the Luiz Camoes house, the house which had been pointed out to him as holding Binhart.

He circled promptly about to the front of that house, pressed a gold coin in the hand of the half-caste Portuguese servant who opened the door, and asked to be shown to the room of the English tea merchant.

That servant, had he objected, would have been promptly taken possession of by the detective, and as promptly put in a condition where he could do no harm, for Blake felt that he was too near the end of his trail to be put off by any mere side issue. But the coin and the curt explanation that the merchant must be seen at once admitted Blake to the house.

The servant was leading him down the length 139