cutaway. He came down a few moments later shooting his cuffs and adjusting his cufflinks.
“Are you ready, lad?” Barker called up the staircase to me. One always tries to dress appropriately, but what does one wear to a Chinese New Year celebration? Given the circumstances, I decided to err on the side of caution and wear my overcoat with the lead-lined padding and built-in holster. After all, we were looking for a killer, not merely taking in the sights.
My employer stuffed a finger and thumb under his mustache and emitted a shrill whistle that brought a hansom cab to our curb. We climbed aboard and were soon on our way.
“Are you armed?” he asked.
“One pistol. I couldn’t use the other one, so I did not bring it. Do you think tonight shall be important?”
“Yes, I do,” he responded. “New Year’s is a time to finish old business and begin the new. Alliances are made or broken. Everyone hopes for health and prosperity during the coming year, but I’ve known more than one life to be snuffed out on such a night and more than one business financially ruined.”
After we crossed London Bridge and were in Commercial Street, he went on. “I imagine much of the East End shall be there tonight to enjoy the spectacle. There shall be the usual food merchants and trinkets for sale. There shall also be pickpockets, confidence tricksters, drunken sailors, and brawls. Several West Enders will be slumming, looking for their first taste of opium. Street musicians will abound, as will beggars. Limehouse shall be rouged like an old tart, looking to divert the public, while the merchants of the quarter cosh them and take their money.”
We were reaching West India Dock Road when I heard a sound and tensed.
“Gunfire, sir!” I cried, reaching for my pistol.
“No, lad. Firecrackers. They shall be going on all day, I’m afraid. The Chinese have a fascination with fireworks. They believe they ward off evil spirits.”
The driver let us down and turned his cab before his horse could panic. One could hear firecrackers going off in every street. We were immediately assaulted by beggar children asking for ha’pennies for a ha’penny dinner. I was reaching for my pocket when Barker stopped me.
“It’s a trick, lad,” he said. “Off with you! They shall be begging all day from any prosperous-looking person and passing ha’pennies to their parents in the alleyways. They’ll earn several shillings by night’s end, I’ll wager.”
Rows of makeshift tables were set up in the street, fluttering with red crepe and silk in the cool afternoon breeze. I stopped to look over a table full of small Buddhas and other Chinese gods of all descriptions, some lacquered red and others a pale green.
“Jade?” I asked Barker.
“Plaster,” he corrected. “Probably made from molds and painted not three streets from here.”
Long strings of fireworks were suspended from balconies overhead, dancing in the air as they exploded one by one. Envelopes covered in gold leaf hung near the top, safely out of reach but tantalizing to the throng of people below. One Oriental sat at a corner, playing upon a kind of Chinese violin with a bow, his cap in front of him. Half the people of Limehouse seemed to have become food merchants.
Barker was looking around at the crowd, and I knew what he was thinking. It was the perfect time for Quong’s and Bainbridge’s killer to drill us with a bullet through the forehead from some balcony. I suddenly felt very exposed.
We looked about as we walked through West India Dock Road while hawkers tried to tempt us with games of chance and vendors to sell us things at twice the price they went for on shop shelves the morning before: Oriental dolls, incense, carved dragons, pearls whose authenticity I doubted, silk wallets and scarves, scrolls painted with the symbol for prosperity, novelties, and clothing. The English merchants were not above using the festival to make a few bob themselves, and there were stands selling beer, pork pies, jellied eels, and toffee. A sailor came out of a shop with his sleeves rolled up and a new tattoo on his forearm, the skin raw and red from the needle. He and his comrades were obviously drunk. He would regret today’s romp. I hoped I wouldn’t, as well.
I felt a hand dip into my pocket and recoil when it came in contact with the handle of my pistol. I spun ’round in time to see a Chinese boy run off, who could not have been more than eleven.
“Quite a to-do,” I said to Barker over the firecrackers.
“Yes, it is the only time of the year the district kicks up its heels.”
There was the steady clamor of a gong ahead, and Barker and I pushed our way through the crowd to a large intersection. Everyone was milling about expectantly.
The crowd parted as Bok Fu Ying stepped forward into the street. She was without her veil and the plait she wore was down to her waist. She wore a suit of Chinese clothing made of red silk and a pair of embroidered slippers. In her hand was a long broadsword with a red sash. Somewhere off to the right, a band of Chinese musicians began to play a low melancholy tune and she began to move.
The crowd of mostly foreign men watched this representative of their homeland with rapt attention as she spun. The sword in her hand scythed the air left and right, the trailing sash popping like the string of a kite. The blade was extremely thin, though as broad as a pirate’s cutlass, and it bent and shivered to and fro as she moved from position to position. It looked like a beautiful dance, or so I would have said a year earlier. Now my eye recognized one deadly technique after another. She could have cut a man to ribbons with that sword, and I could personally attest that she kicked like a Surrey mule.
Finally, she came to a standstill in the center and settled down into a cross-legged position. The music changed and became lower and more eerie. I heard a woman give a short scream of surprise, which set us all craning our necks. The crowd parted and a creature came bounding out, heading straight for Bok Fu Ying.
It was a lion, or at least it was supposed to be. In fact, it was two very agile dancers in a lion costume, a multicolored Chinese fantasy with a huge head, blinking eyes, and a snapping jaw. It looked more like Harm than an actual lion, but then I realized Pekingese are called lion dogs in China, or more exotic still, butterfly lions. The creature charged toward Bok Fu Ying and skidded to a stop. The maiden feigned fear, keeping him at bay with her sword. It pranced about her like a tiger circling its prey. Sometimes both dancers inside would squat down, so that the long fabric of the body touched the ground on both sides. At others, the lead dancer raised the head as high as his arms would reach, the jaws chomping and the eyes rolling all the while. The crowd was enthralled.
Bok Fu Ying dipped, and the lion dipped. She stood and it stood. She turned in a circle, waving her sword, and the lion pranced about her. When it came too close, she smote the lion’s foot with the flat of her sword, which made it hop about with a paw in the air while the crowd laughed. The giant head shivered as if the lion were crying. It staggered and lunged toward the crowd as if asking solace, but everyone backed away. Finally, it limped back to Bok Fu Ying and made an elaborate bow in front of the courageous maiden, admitting defeat. In a moment, she had rolled it over on its back and was rubbing its belly as its feet kicked in the air. Everyone, even Barker, seemed to be enjoying the show.
Suddenly, there was an explosion of fireworks from the other side of the street. A new green and red creature appeared then and began to move toward them. This time, it was a dragon. The head was the size of the lion’s, but inside the long body, there must have been close to twenty dancers. It took up half the street, zigzagging and curling in a huge circle around Bok Fu Ying and the lion, as it attempted to catch its tail.
The dancers growled in unison as they attacked Bok Fu Ying and the lion. She slashed at its body, but the sword could not penetrate its scaly hide. With one sweep of its tail, it sent the lion sprawling. I could almost believe it real. Bok Fu Ying kept waving her sword at its face, which was vulnerable. The lion attacked, biting the tail of the dragon, which hopped around, trying to get it off.
The finale came when the lion was sent sprawling a second time and the dragon rushed upon the maiden. It reared up as the dancers inside mounted each other’s shoulders until the head was a full fifteen feet from the ground.
Quick as lightning, Bok Fu Ying struck. Her sword was thrust into the dragon’s breast, using the old theater trick of holding it between a dancer’s side and his arm. The creature reared in the throes of death. It danced about like an old tragedian, not having the decency to die until it had milked every last emotion from the crowd. Finally, it reared up and fell forward on top of Bok Fu Ying and there it lay, as if dead.
The lion, acting like a lapdog, revived. It pranced ’round the slain dragon, looking for its maiden. Finally, it seized the tail in its jaws and with a rough shake, rolled the row of dancers onto their backs one by one. I and everyone in the crowd craned our necks. Bok Fu Ying had vanished.
Barker put his head down as if he were listening, then slowly he nodded. I looked behind us and saw four Chinese men in the long quilted coats they favored. My first thought, foolhardy as it may have been, was that we
