“It must be somebody who has a house out in the country, the farther the better, the more secluded the better. They would phone one of the Chinese employment offices that they needed three servants—cook, houseman, and chauffeur. We throw in the cook for good measure, to cover the game. It’s got to be airtight on the other end, and, if we’re going to catch our fish, we have to give ’em time to investigate. So whoever does it must have some servants, and must put up a bluff—I mean in his own neighborhood—that they are leaving, and the servants must be in on it. And we’ve got to wait a couple of days, so our friends here will have time to investigate. I think we’d better use Fong Yick’s employment agency, on Washington Street.
“Whoever does it could phone Fong Yick tomorrow morning, and say he’d be in Thursday morning to look the applicants over. This is Monday—that’ll be long enough. Our helper gets at the employment office at ten Thursday morning. Miss Shan and I arrive in a taxicab ten minutes later, when he’ll be in the middle of questioning the applicants. I’ll slide out of the taxi into Fong Yick’s, grab anybody that looks like one of our missing servants. Miss Shan will come in a minute or two behind me and check me up—so there won’t be any false-arrest mixups.”
The Old Man nodded approval.
“Very well,” he said. “I think I can arrange it. I will let you know tomorrow.”
I went home to bed. Thus ended the first day.