That night, while everyone in the hostelry was sleeping, Trinket was woken up by a gentle tapping on the window of his room. He sat up, still half asleep, and listened. Someone was calling softly to him from the other side of the window. 'Mr Wei! Mr Wei!' The voice was familiar. After a moment or two he recognized it as that of Shaker Wu, the grizzled retainer of Young Count Mu whom he had once helped to escape from the Palace and whom he had seen that morning with his back to the town wall, fighting side by side with his master and the Little Countess when they and the other members of the Yunnan delegation were set upon in error by the Manchu guards. He jumped out of bed and went to open the window. 'Mr Wu!' Shaker Wu jumped lightly into the bedroom and enfolded Trinket in a tight embrace. Then, having first closed the window carefully behind him, he took Trinket by the hand, led him over to the bed, and sat down shoulder to shoulder with him on the side of it. 'I asked some of your Triad people at the big meeting in Hejianfu where you were,' he said, 'but they wouldn't tell me.' 'I was at the meeting myself,' said Trinket, 'in disguise. They weren't being unfriendly: they didn't know I was there.'

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