The light was very low, and inside were curtained alcoves where drowsy human forms mumbled and shifted and lamps flickered.
A woman with a painted face, a black wig, and Chinese-style robes walked up to her, eyes narrowing.
“Evening.Are you looking for someone, miss?”she asked.Her eyes were lined heavily in an attempt to appear Asiatic.She was probably blonde under that wig, thought Penny.
“Yes, an Englishman named Eames,” said Penny.“He just came in five minutes ago.He’s wanted by the police.”
“Not by me he isn’t!”hissed the policeman on the other side of the curtain.He didn’t seem inclined to follow Penny any further.
The woman’s face hardened.“No one has come in the last five minutes, duck.You must be mistaken.”She turned to go.
“Please!”said Penny.Someone began to cough in one of the alcoves, and it made it hard for her to think.“Look, I’m not a complete fool, I can see what this place is, but you should know this man is really dangerous.He’s wanted for assault and theft in a high-profile case.If you want to keep your—well, yourestablishmentquiet, you won’t shelter him.”
“Thank you for the advice,” she said, showing her teeth, which were gappy and discoloured.“Now get out of myestablishment.”
Penny was almost crying with frustration.To have gotso close!She wassurethe man was still here!
“You ‘eard the woman, miss,” the bobby said, off-stage, as it were, as if he were whispering a cue to her.“Time to give up this lark.You’ll have a nice story for your friends, now, won’t you?”
The coughing intensified.Penny stopped listening to the policeman.
She knew that cough!
Penny dashed to the alcove and wrenched the curtain aside, revealing a familiar and most unexpected sight by oil lamp: a pale, slight young man with curly fawn-coloured hair and spectacles, who currently wore the expression of a stuffed carp on a mantelpiece.
“Crispin?”she shrieked.
It was not at all ideal, thought Crispin Fairweather, to be surprised on one’s very first trip to a shady drug den by one’s own sister.
“Fancy meeting you here?”he offered.What else was there to say?
Penny plucked the cheap reed pipe from his hand and flung it away, making the proprietress swear.
“I’m taking you home,” Penny hissed, seizing his cuff.“What would Mother say!”
Crispin wasn’t too worried about what his mother would say.She was always urging him to try new things, though probably she hadn’t meant opium.His father, on the other hand…
Penny dragged him through the curtain and down the stairs, past an open-mouthed policeman, and out the hotel into the dank evening.
“What’s happened to you?”Crispin asked, taking in her dishevelled appearance.“And where’s your umbrella?”
“Never mind that!”she shouted at him.“You’re the one who was in an opium den with a—with afloozy!”
“Well, actually, you were also—“ Crispin began.
“Don’t you evendare!I was working!I was on a story!”
“I saw him, you know,” said Crispin.
“What!”
“I saw a man with a false beard.He came in a bit before you and slipped out the window, onto the roof, when you started shouting.”
Penny made a wild circular movement, then leaned against the wall in defeat.
“Couldn’t you at least have jumped on him until I got there?”she wailed.
“I’ll be sure to do that next time I see a man wearing a false beard,” Crispin retorted.“You’ll have a whole collection of them to show your friends.Can we go home now?”
