'I emptied every chamber of my gun,' I said. 'And it was too near to miss. I don't know how many deaths there are among that crowd, but there are six wounds.' 'Quite so. That means a most awkward investigation. Unless we take steps we may both find ourselves in queer street. You see the force of my reasoning?' 'Doesn't require much seeing. What do you suggest?' 'We must avoid appearing at that investigation.' 'Lie low, you mean, till it blows over. If you can put me up here for a day or two--' 'Utterly hopeless,' said Philipson. 'There were men there who know me well. The car must have been recognised. You too, I believe, left a revolver behind. It will be simplicity itself to trace the pair of us.' 'Then let's go to the police and make a clean breast of it. After all, you were the first attacked.' 'I was; but the evidence will lie heavily the other way. Those people have their story composed and rehearsed by now, backed by a dozen provably independent witnesses. Depend upon it. They will swear we provoked a quarrel, and we ourselves must admit that we did the killing, without a casualty on our side. It would look black against us even in a consular court.' I had to admit that the pronounced likelihood of this notion had already struck me. 'Moreover,' he continued, eyeing me closely, 'I have the very strongest reasons for not wishing my dealings with that gang to come out.' 'What are we to do, then?' 'Cut. We must be out of this house and away inside ten minutes,' said Saunders Philipson with decision. 'H'm. If they can set the police after us they can have the stations watched.' 'No need to depart by rail. Fortunately there is the river. We are near it here. I have my own launch moored off the French Bund. In half an hour I will undertake to get you well on your way to Wusung, and after that, barring typhoons, we can please ourselves, up coast or down.' I shall have to say it before long, and I may as well say here that there was something about this man entirely new to my experience. I had been strangely attracted towards him even through a marvellously clever Chinese disguise, and the feeling was intensified tenfold now that I saw him as he really was. Before the week was out I had realised that he was long and away the most remarkable man I had ever met, and as this narrative develops it will be seen I wasn't alone in my opinion. There was something about Saunders Philipson that came along like a great burning enthusiasm and swept up your loyalty and your love, something that literally compelled trust. It was his way, when his friends were wavering and he wanted to tune up their resolve, to talk to them; let him talk to you for five minutes and your brain began to reject the possibility that he could fail. I must have looked still undecided now, for he leaned over the blackwood table between us and spoke, and as he spoke, my doubts melted away like mist under the morning sun.