Woodhouse quickly turned his back to the man, and was absorbed in the passing strollers. When he looked back again Capper was slowly and a little unsteadily making his way around the comer into the Cannebiere. Woodhouse followed, sauntering. Capper began a dilatory exploration of the various cafes along the white street; his general course was toward the city's slums about the Quai. Woodhouse, dawdling about tree boxes and dodging into shadows by black doorways, found his quarry easy to trail. And he knew that each of Capper's sojourns in an oasis put a period to the length of the pursuit. The time for him to act drew appreciably nearer with every tipping of that restless elbow.

Midnight found them down in the reek and welter of the dives and sailors' frolic grounds. Now the trailer found his task more difficult, inasmuch as not only his quarry but he himself was marked by the wolves. Dances in smoke-wreathed rooms slackened when Capper lurched in, found a seat and ordered a drink. Women with cheeks carmined like poppies wanted to make predatory love to him; dock rats drew aside and consulted in whispers. When Capper retreated from an evil dive on the very edge of the Quai, Woodhouse, waiting by the doors, saw that he was not the only shadower. Close against the dead walls flanking the narrow pavement a slinking figure twisted and writhed after the drunkard, now spread-eagling all over the street.

Woodhouse quickened his pace on the opposite sidewalk. The street was one lined with warehouses, their closely shuttered windows the only eyes. Capper dropped his stick, laboriously halted, and started to go back for it. That instant the shadow against the walls detached itself and darted for the victim. Woodhouse leaped to the cobbles and gained Capper's side just as he dropped like a sack of rags under a blow from the dock rat's fist.

"Son of a pig! This is my meat; you clear out!" The humped black beetle of a man straddling the sprawling Capper whipped a knife from his girdle and faced Woodhouse. Quicker than light the captain's right arm shot out; a thud as of a maul on an empty wine butt, and the Apache turned a half somersault, striking the cobbles with the back of his head. Woodhouse stooped, lifted the limp Capper from the street stones, and staggered with him to the lighted avenue of the Cannebiere, a block away. He hailed a late-cruising fiacre, propped Capper in the seat, and took his place beside him.

"To La Vendee, Quai de la Fratemite!" Woodhouse ordered.

The driver, wise in the ways of the city, asked no questions, but clucked to his crow bait. Woodhouse turned to make a quick examination of the unconscious man by his side. He feared a stab wound; he found nothing but a nasty cut on the head, made by brass knuckles. With the wine helping, any sort of a blow would have put Capper out, he reflected.

Woodhouse turned his back on the bundle of clothes and reached for the malacca stick. Even in his coma its owner grasped it tenaciously at mid-length. Without trying to disengage the clasp, Woodhouse gripped the wood near the crook of the handle with his left Kand while with his right he applied torsion above.