calm order of the Limehouse district. It is time he is taught a lesson.”
“I do not understand, really I do not!” This outburst, finally, came from Lu Yang, who had not yet spoken. Chan knew Lu to be hot-blooded—the result of unbalanced
Zhang snorted.
“Since long before that, Lu,” said Chan.
“Yes, I know that! So why do we hesitate? I can send a man to eliminate our difficulties as soon as night falls. The Lascar will not trouble us again.” Lu sat back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. Unlike the three elder men, who wore long blue silk merchant’s robes as they had in their hometowns in China, Lu had adopted the wool trousers, jacket, and collared shirt of his new city. Chan wondered idly what such clothing felt like; perhaps he should try it.
“No, Lu,” Chan said. “Your man might eliminate the Lascar—”
“Might? He will, without question!”
“He will not, as skilled as he may be, because you will not send him. The Lascar has men also. We are attempting to lessen the amount of attention paid to Limehouse, Lu, not to increase it. A blood feud declared upon any of us by the Lascar’s men will have to be answered by all of us. The ensuing mayhem will bring a storm upon our heads. No, this situation must be handled with discretion. The Lascar must be spoken to in language only he will understand.”
Lu fixed his eyes on Chan, then relaxed and smiled. “Are you proposing we eliminate Mr. Neville St. Clair? That is an excellent idea! The Lascar will feel our displeasure—”
“Absolutely not!” Chan could see the young hothead would bear watching. “Or,” he allowed himself a smile, also, “in a way, I suppose I am. We must cause Mr. Neville St. Clair to vanish from our midst permanently, yes, but without violence. If we proceed as I am recommending, the Lascar, having lost the income he receives from his lodger, will also be required to fend off a certain amount of attention from the constabulary. Once this occurs, a discreet visit from one or more of us will be all that is needed to open the Lascar’s eyes to our displeasure with his behavior. We will have shown the lengths to which we are willing to go—to which we are capable of going—to protect our livelihoods. This will be a simple warning. Not particularly costly, to be sure, but the only one of its type. He will understand.”
“And if he does not?” Wing asked.
“He will also understand that there are further steps we can take.” Chan nodded pointedly at Lu, who returned both smile and nod.
“I think,” said Zhang, whose tea had by now grown cold from inattention, “we are all prepared to hear your scheme, Chan. We will decide how to proceed after the particulars have been explained.”
As senior man after Chan himself, it was Zhang’s privilege to speak for the others. “Very well,” Chan assented. He poured more tea for those who had drunk, refilling his own cup also. Lifting it, he said, “We must rid ourselves of the threat posed by the presence of Mr. Neville St. Clair by exposing his fraudulent practice, in a way so subtle as to cause him—healthily whole—to disappear, never to return. We must also, by this same stroke, lead the Lascar to understand he remains under the most vigilant watch. Although it is essential the authorities be involved, they must be restrained. Agreed?”
“Just how do you intend to achieve all of this, Chan?” Zhang inquired testily.
“There is one man in London capable of accomplishing our purposes with as much zeal as discretion.” Chan looked about him once again. “I propose we employ Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
“Oh, really!” Zhang snapped. “Have you had resort to your own pipes? We, the men of Limehouse, will hire London’s great consulting detective—this is your grand plan?”
“I have not said,” Chan responded, smiling, “that we will hire him. I am merely suggesting we employ him.”
As Chan explained his scheme to them all, the edge of hostility in his parlor gradually melted into the nodding of heads and the tranquillity of considered discussion.
“I had discreet inquiries made,” Chan told the men, “into not only Mr. Neville St. Clair, but others in his circle. I searched not specifically for further evildoing, but only to find something we might use to our advantage in this affair. I was, therefore, open to all information that came my way, not only that which might be obviously valuable at first glance.” He doubted if any man there would take a lesson from this; still, it was his duty to instruct. “After some time, a most interesting fact was presented to one of my agents, by a clerk at the Aberdeen Shipping Company.”
“They with offices in Fresno Street?” inquired Zhang.
“Precisely. Mrs. Neville St. Clair, I am told, awaits a parcel, to arrive on the SS
“Will she come herself?” Lu asked with calculation in his voice.
“According to the clerk, a sharp-eyed young man, past experience indicates that she will. Thus, gentlemen, we will have a rare opportunity on the day she chooses to come to London. I propose we use it thus.”
The men being, after discussion and debate, in agreement with the plan as Chan Ho elucidated it, each was dispatched to his assigned task.
Zhang would designate three men to remain in the doorway of his own establishment, hard by the street- facing window of the rooms Mr. Neville St. Clair took at the Lascar’s. These men would be given a simple task, the successful accomplishment of which would demand much patience, but little effort.
“My men’s duties being successfully performed,” Zhang said skeptically, “I still see no guarantee we will achieve the result we desire.”
“We will achieve it,” Chan responded. “I have set a watch upon Mr. Neville St. Clair these few weeks past. He is a man of punctilious habits, to be depended upon. Taking leave of Hugh Boone, Mr. Neville St. Clair spends a quarter of an hour at the open window, reliably each day. Perhaps, to make the transition, he requires the fresh air.” The men all laughed, for, with the wharves, the gutters, and the opium houses, the air of Upper Swandam Lane was generally agreed to be the worst in all London.
Zhang having been satisfied as to that point, Wing prepared to go off to speak to his friends among the constabulary—Chan noted a small, superior smile in Zhang’s direction when he made this promise—to get their agreement to be in place at the required moment. Wing also would be instructing the officers as to advice to be given to Mrs. Neville St. Clair at the proper time.
Lu, the most audacious of them, was known by Chan (but not, until that afternoon, by the others) to have a man of his own in service at the Lascar’s. “A Dane,” Lu told them, “a young and ambitious man, more loyal to my gold than to his master.” This man would be charged with preventing the admission of Mrs. Neville St. Clair to the Lascar’s establishment, if possible.
“If he cannot?” inquired Wing. “If, perhaps, the Lascar is prepared to allow the lady access to the rooms upstairs rather than suffer officers of the law to invade his establishment?”
“From our point of view, that would not be ideal,” Chan admitted, “but it would not be disastrous, either. Possibly, the hideous aspect of the beggar Hugh Boone will so startle her that she will inquire no further. If so, we can continue as planned. If, in the event, Mr. Neville St. Clair, having already dispensed for the day with Hugh Boone, cannot recover him fast enough, his duplicity will be revealed to his wife. This, as I say, is not ideal, for if her horror of the situation is sufficient she might be inclined to make it public, exactly the circumstance we are attempting to avoid. I rather think not, however. I believe we can depend upon Mrs. Neville St. Clair’s discretion, if not for the sake of her husband, whom by all accounts she holds very dear, then for that of her young children.”
The role of Chan himself in the scheme was to give instructions to the clerk at the Aberdeen offices through his agent, and then to keep abreast of developments there, so that the four men would be able to identify the precise moment at which to set their plan into motion.
As the men were departing, each to play his part, Wing spoke in sudden afterthought. “I have heard,” he said, “from my friends among the constabulary”—Chan heard Zhang softly snort, but Wing continued, unperturbed
