Some days later their ship berthed at Qinhuangdao and they disembarked and continued their journey by land. 'I've got to think of some way of getting inside the Palace,' Trinket told his companions when they finally reached Peking, 'but I don't know how long this job is going to take. I think we'd better first look for somewhere safe to stay.' Doctor Lu made this his responsibility and rented a house for them in Hair Lane in a quiet part of the North City near the Gate of Military Proclamation. As soon as they had moved in there and were comfortably settled, Trinket went off on his own to make contact with his Triad friends at their headquarters in Sweet Water Lane; but the place had now become a tea emporium and and his muttered password evoked only a blank stare. It was clear that the new occupant was not a Triad and that the Triads had moved their headquarters to somewhere else in the city. He made his way to the Bridge of Heaven, reasoning that even if Xu Tianchuan, the Eight-Armed Ape, wasn't at his usual stand, having perhaps, like himself, been forced to join the Mystic Dragon Sect, he was bound to run into one or other of the Brothers somewhere in that area. But though he tramped round the whole of it three times, he didn't catch sight of a single one of them.

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