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way. I want Ho Chen Alley.”

Chapter Six
    The carriage hurtled out of the port, up the hill and twisted sharply to the right. Shops and warehouses thundered by and then we were out of the shipping district and charging through the traffic. Drays and other coaches swept out of our way and soon we veered off the main roads, going deeper and deeper into the dark alleys behind the splendid facade of San Francisco.
    A firecracker exploded above us as we pelted past a shop gilded with black and red dragons. We were in San Francisco’s Chinatown. For an instant I was transported thousands of miles across the sea, back to China, by the names of the shops: Chow Yun Hed, Yeng Lee, Wang Ho. Scarlet lanterns painted with delicate oriental brushstrokes swung high in the air.
    â€œI feel strange,” I whispered to Waldo as the carriage threw me against him. “Like we’re back in Shanghai or—”
    â€œFrisco’s Chinatown. Biggest in the world. Pretty impressive, huh?” he replied, not meeting my eye.
    Cyril had spent much of the ride looking through thewindow at the back of the carriage, checking for pursuit. It was an unusual design to have a window so placed. Now he hung out of the door of the carriage and shouted something to the coachman, who lurched to a stop.
    â€œIt’s better we walk the rest of the way,” Mr. Baker said, his hand straying to his gingery wig. “It’ll make it harder for him.”
    â€œMake it harder for whom?” Aunt Hilda demanded. “What is all this cloak-and-dagger stuff for?”
    Baker didn’t reply. Instead he turned into a door that said COME IN AND STRIKE LUCKY GOLD . We passed through a Fan Tan gambling saloon crowded with Chinamen smoking and dealing cards. There were one or two women, in tight, high-necked Chinese dresses, serving drinks. Before I had the time to see more, Baker had gone through the gambling den and ducked out of a side entrance. We followed him down an alley till we came to an even smaller alley. Baker stopped in front of a small door with no sign but plenty of peeling blue paint. He selected a key from a bunch and opened the lock. Stepping aside, he invited us in.
    â€œHardly discreet,” he muttered to himself, “charging through Chinatown with a pack of foreigners. Still, can’t be helped.”
    We tramped up a dingy, unlit staircase which smelt of damp. A tenement—the kind of boarding house whereyou would find several, indeed, dozens of families huddled together. Cyril stopped at a landing and opened another door.
    What a shock! I had expected a dingy room, a parlor maybe, for a cheap Chinese lodging house. But it was nothing of the sort. We had entered a world of taste and comfort. Deep leather armchairs, a glossy mahogany table, telegraph equipment, glass-fronted bookcases lined with leather-bound tomes. A shelf of pea-green vases shimmered near the window.
    Careful not to upset the vase nearby, I took a seat next to Mr. Baker, who had slumped in an armchair and covered his head with his hands.
    â€œWho are you running from, Cyril?” I asked.
    â€œIsn’t that obvious?”
    â€œNot to me,” Aunt Hilda muttered.
    â€œIt’s Cecil. My brother.”
    Our silence hung in the air, thick with distrust.
    â€œCecil? Your twin?” Aunt Hilda said finally. “I thought you were inseparable.”
    Cyril raised his hand to his head and took off the ginger wig. With a sigh, he tossed it onto the table.
    â€œIt used to be that way,” he replied. “We were Tweedledum and Tweedledee. I was Cecil’s shadow. We thought as one, acted as one, got rich—fantastically rich—as one. But all that has changed.”
    â€œHow so?”
    Cyril hung his head. I could see the pinkish line of his scalp where the black dye had not penetrated.
    â€œHe has gone too far—even for me.”
    â€œWhat has he done? It must have been truly awful to