Read Onyx City (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 3) for Free Online Page B

coppers.”
    Lazarus had heard enough. He left the children to their playing and headed towards his lodgings. On the way back he thought long and hard about his encounter with the street urchins. Apparently someone had been going in and out of the old lime oast, that much was certain.
    During those dull, exhausting days, Lazarus also found time to enquire of Limehouse’s Asian population if anybody knew of the recent arrival of a man from Siam. Limehouse had its share of Buddhist temples and he surmised that his attacker, if he were a true Siamese, would likely be a Buddhist, and if so would undoubtedly visit some temple in the area for his devotions.
    The Chinese population of Limehouse had grown in recent years. Tea and opium merchants from Shanghai and Tianjin sought homes and business opportunities amidst the chandlers and rope makers. Cantonese sailors, marooned by shipping lines that offered no return journeys to their deckhands, were left to build new lives for themselves in London’s dockside communities. Stalls and shops had sprung up to cater to the new settlers, selling dried foods, herbs and medicinal remedies while gambling dens and oriental restaurants clustered together in the narrow streets.
    It took several days of asking around before he was told by one Chinese man that yes, a number of tough Siamese men had been seen frequenting a temple on Pennyfields. It surprised Lazarus and unnerved him to think that his would-be assassin was not alone. He had already surmised that the man must be working for somebody higher up who held a grudge against him. It then stood to reason that this individual had several Siamese fighters in his employ. And to find the snake’s head, they say, one must follow its tail.
    He watched the temple on Pennyfields for several evenings, and finally spotted his man emerging from the unremarkable building of plum-colored brick. It was most definitely the same man; those loose-fitting clothes that suggested a previous trade at sea and the smooth, nut-brown face unadorned with beard or moustache. He grabbed a nearby street urchin of his own race and pointed the oriental out.
    “See that man?” he asked the child who blinked up at him, unsure if he was going to be given a farthing or a thick ear. “How would you like to earn half a crown?”
    The boy’s eyes goggled at the prospect.
    “I want you to follow that man, not now, he’s too far gone, but he’ll be back. I want to know where he goes and who he sees. If he stops at a house I want the address. I don’t care if he trails you all over London. If he takes a cab, I want you to keep on it. I’ve seen you lads do that, right?”
    “Right!” nodded the boy, his peaked cap wagging up and down.
    “Half a crown. Here’s sixpence for the time being. I’ll be back on Sunday for your news.”
    Still nodding vigorously, the child went on his way, giddy with his new employment. Lazarus hadn’t the time to spend any more evenings and weekends waiting and watching but London’s hordes of unwashed, illiterate and abandoned urchins was a more effective grapevine than anything the metropolitan or municipal police forces could muster between them. His lad would turn up the goods, he had no doubt about that.

Chapter Five
     
    In which the journal is obtained
     
    The daily grind of working life in the big city was taking its toll on Lazarus. He was a man who had spent most of his life either in exotic places or in a library reading about them. The past was what fascinated him, with all its colors and infinite lives entwined along paths of mysticism and strange faiths. The grey, gloomy drudgery of the industrial age and its modern rationalism was a terrible drag on his soul. He felt hopelessly out of his depth in his mission, not least because there seemed so very few leads open to him.
    Then, by a twist of fortune, Lazarus was brought into contact with a man who might just have the connections he desired. It was on Tuesday that Lazarus