“I shall, and thank you, honorable sir,” replied the Japanese, bowing.

“Then I won’t detain you any longer, or you may miss your train.”

Once more the Japanese bowed, then turned to Captain Jack Benson.

“Honorable Captain,” he said, “I had pleasure to show you something about jiu-jitsu.  You did me honor to show me most excellent thing you called American strategy.  I shall not forget it.”

With bows to the others Kamanako quickly took his leave.

“We had nothing very strong on which we could hold that fellow, so we had to let him go,” declared Mr. Trotter, after the outer door had closed.  Then he added, with a sigh:  “That’s the worst of catching spies, under such laws as we have in this country.  Rarely are we able to punish them as they deserve.”

“He won’t come back, will he?” asked Jack.

“Not for a while, anyway.  We have made the fellow nervous, and he will give us a wide berth for a considerable time.”

“Why don’t you hit all these people the hardest kind of a blow?” demanded young Benson.

“I wish I knew how to,” sighed Trotter.

“Then spoil them with too much publicity,” proposed the submarine captain.  “Let the whole country know all about them and their records, and just how they look.”

“If I could!  But how am I to do it?”

“Why, there’s a writer here at Spruce Beach,” Jack continued; “a man named Hennessy.  Let him write all the facts of this whole story, or such of the facts as you want made public.  Let Hennessy have the photographs of this spy crew.  He can print the yarn in his newspaper and in some magazine, and can use all the photos.  Then these people will find themselves so well known that about all of them value as spies will be gone.”

“By Jove, but that’s a clear-headed idea,” muttered Trotter, rising from his chair.  “It will do the trick, too.  Where is this man, Hennessy?”

“Stopping at the Clayton, sir.”

“Packwood, will you go over and get that reporter?” asked Mr. Trotter, turning to his associate.

In the next minute Jack was telling Trotter of the fire-incident and the envelope that Mlle. Nadiboff had given him.  By the time the submarine boy had finished his recital Jacob Farnum hurried in.

“That stuff,” he reported, “is morphine sulphate, and the druggist says there was enough of it to take you clear out of this world and into the next.”

“Hm!  That Nadiboff woman!” muttered Trotter.  “She has been as dangerous as any of them, and yet it is hard to be rough with her after her one act of gratitude to you, Benson.  I could see that she went north on the train, of course, but she’d be liable to suspicion and punishment by some of the members of the gang of that infernal Gaston.  He has yet other men, I suspect, who may be watching the trains further on, and Mlle. Nadiboff, after saving you, Benson, from their latest death trap, might run right into their vengeance.  She ought to be gotten away from here by some other means.”