Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/165

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE SHADOW
155

East than in an ash-pile through which he might have to rake for a hidden coin.

By the time he reached Brindisi he had recovered his lost weight, and added to it, by many pounds. He had also returned to his earlier habit of chewing "fine-cut." He gave less thought to his personal appearance, becoming more and more indifferent as to the impression he made on those about him. His face, for all his increase in flesh, lost its ruddiness. It was plain that during the last few months he had aged, that his hound-like eye had grown more haggard, that his always ponderous step had lost the last of its resilience.

Yet one hour after he had landed at Brindisi his listlessness seemed a thing of the past. For there he was able to pick up the trail again, with clear proof that a man answering to Binhart's description had sailed for Corfu. From Corfu the scent was followed northward to Ragusa, and from Ragusa, on to Trieste, where it was lost again.

Two days of hard work, however, convinced Blake that Binhart had sailed from Fiume to