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"What you want, haole?" sneered the behemoth of a door-guard, standing before the three men with his vast arms folded over his barrel chest.
"I want you to stand aside," Sherlock Holmes snapped to the brute blocking their entrance to the room. "This is hardly the first opium den I've helped shut down – and not even the first island on which I've done it."
Without a word the enormous guard pulled out a pistol.
Before Watson could fire his own revolver, a black whip snaked around the thug's wrist and yanked.
The pistol clattered to the ground and the big man fell to his knees, howling in pain as a policeman rushed forward to clap the cuffs on him. Other members of the Honolulu Police Department rushed in through the door to cries within, and the telltale smell of opium smoke.
The wiry besuited man still holding the whip didn't come up to Sherlock Holmes' chin, and was half Dr. Watson's width. But his gaze was stern and steely – and made all the more startling by a vivid scar above his right eye. "I am grateful for your help on this case, Mr. Holmes. Dr. Watson."
"Think nothing of it, Detective Chang," Holmes reassured him.
"'Let's go to Hawai'i, Watson,'" Watson muttered, pocketing his revolver and following the police into the den to help make the arrests. "'A voyage around the world, Watson.' 'A holiday on a tropical island paradise, Watson.'"
"I'm very sorry for interfering with your vacation," said the small detective.
Holmes made a dismissive move with his hands, a small smile on his face. "Detective, this is far more entertaining to both of us than acquiring a sunburn or looking at pineapple plants. Watson may complain a bit for form's sake, but he couldn't be happier."
Only then did a small thin smile briefly appear on Det. Chang Ah Ping's face. "You both have earned your reputation."
Out came the cuffed opium-den visitors and the cursing proprietor in the hands of the police, to join the bodyguard in the horse-drawn wagons outside. Watson rejoined them, fanning his hand to wave away the remains of the smoke.
"Now," said Sherlock Holmes to Chang Apana, "I do believe there is one thing that a man born in China and two men born in Great Britain can heartily agree upon."
Watson beamed. "Time for tea!" he chorused with Chang.
***
"Of course I have to lie a good deal when I write about this fellow." Watson gestured to his colleague over the table. "Mix up the dates and change the names, too. Can't have the clients bothered in real life when the story comes out in the STRAND, especially when murder's involved."
"I do not normally deal with murders." Chang lifted his teacup. "But I know a few things about dealing with dangerous men."
"So I've seen. That was done by a sickle." Holmes gestured with his pipe at the Hawaiian detective's scar. "And the calluses on your hands are from holding reins and a rope – that, as well as your skilled whip-work, tell me that you once worked as a cattleman."
Chang nodded. "You are Sherlock Holmes indeed. Yes, I was once a paniolo, as we call them here."
"Lord," Watson murmured. "What a career you've had, Detective Chang, what a life! I'd dearly love to write about you, too."
Chang smiled sadly. "You could not sell that story, Dr. Watson."
Watson nodded heavily and gazed into his own teacup. "I'm afraid you're right, Mr. Chang. You're a skilled police detective who speaks excellent English on top of three other languages. No one would believe the man in that story was Chinese unless he spoke broken English and quoted Confucius all the time. It's like writing about a Dutch fellow and giving him Oxford shoes, it's just not done even if it is the truth."
"In the meantime…" Chang poured more tea for all three of them. "I plan to go after a few holdouts from the opium den. They may be hiding in the leper colony. I plan to strike there tomorrow. Would you care to join me?"
Watson shuddered. Holmes grinned. Both nodded.
Detective Chang Ah Ping smiled.