"Mr. Police-Inspector is right," said Yada. "You will have to conduct what you call a raid. Now, do precisely what I tell you to do. Pilmansey's is an old-fashioned place, a very old house as regards its architecture, on the right-hand side of Tottenham Court Road. Go there today--this mid-day--a little before one--when there are always plenty of customers. Go with plenty of your plain-clothes men, like Mr. Ayscough there. Drop in, don't you see, as if you were customers--let there be plenty of you, I repeat. There are two Pilmanseys--men--middle-aged, sly, smooth, crafty men. When you are all there, take your own lines--close the place, the doors, if you like--but get hold of the Pilmansey men, tell them you are police, insist on being taken to the top floor and shown their opium den. They will object, they will lie, they will resist--you will use your own methods. But--in that opium den you will find Chang Li--and your property!" He had been drawing on his gloves as he spoke, and now, picking up his hat and umbrella, Yada bowed politely to the circle and moved to the door. "You will excuse me, now?" he said. "I have an important lecture at the medical school which I must not miss. I shall be at Pilmansey's, myself, a little before one--please oblige me by not taking any notice of me. I do not want to figure--actively--in your business." Then he was gone--and the rest of them were so deeply taken with the news which he had communicated that no one noticed that just before Yada fastened his last glove-button, Melky Rubinstein slipped from his corner and glided quietly out of the room. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX PILMANSEY'S TEA ROOMS Two hours later, it being then a quarter-to-one o'clock, Purdie and Lauriston got out of a taxi-cab at the north-end of Tottenham Court Road and walked down the right-hand side of that busy thoroughfare, keeping apparently careless but really vigilant eyes open for a first glimpse of the appointed rendezvous. But Pilmansey's Tea Rooms required little searching out. In the midst of the big modern warehouses, chiefly given up to furniture and upholstery, there stood at that time a block of old property which was ancient even for London. The buildings were plainly early eighteenth century: old redbrick erections with narrow windows in the fronts and dormer windows in the high, sloping roofs. Some of them were already doomed to immediate dismantlement; the tenants had cleared out, there were hoardings raised to protect passers-by from falling masonry, and bills and posters on the threatened walls announced that during the rebuilding, business would be carried on as usual at some other specified address. But Pilmansey's, so far, remained untouched, and the two searchers saw that customers were going in and out, all unaware that before evening their favourite resort for a light mid-day meal would attain a fame and notoriety not at all promised by its very ordinary and commonplace exterior.