e those who knew the deadly
pass-word. Paradoxical doors which shut in, instead of out, danger!
But Saul knew them and they knew Saul. He knew further the haunts of
beginners, where opium is high and the surroundings are fairly clean,
he knew the haunts of the confirmed, where opium is cheaper and where
surroundings do not matter at all. Also he knew Wun Chung, who does
not smoke, but who, being rich, controls the trade and so keeps in
touch with all who buy.

On the way to Chung's Saul made one stop. With Donaldson at his heels,
he darted down a side street, pushed open, without knocking, a dingy
door, went up a flight of stairs, along a dark hallway and down another
flight, where he was stopped by a shadow. The big man spoke his name,
and the shadow turned instantly from a guard to an obsequious servant.
He opened the door and Saul strode across a narrow yard, stooping to
brush beneath the stout clothes-line hung with blankets, an innocent
appearing wash, which however served as an effective barrier to any one
who might approach at a run. They entered the rear of a second
tenement which faced a parallel street, but which, oddly enough, had no
entrance to its rear rooms from the front. Another shadow rose before
them only to vanish as the round red face of Saul appeared. He pushed
on into a long, low-ceilinged room lined with bunks, the air heavy with
the acrid dead smoke of opium.

"Light," demanded Saul.

The sleepy proprietor brought a kerosene lamp, the chimney befouled
with soot and grease. It was an old trick. These fellows protect
their customers and through a sooted chimney the feeble light makes
scarcely more than shadows in which it is very difficult to identify a
man. Seizing the slant-eyed ghoul by the arm Saul held the lamp within
an inch of the yellow face, so close that it burned.

"Don't try such fool things on me, Tong," he warned. "Bring me a
light."

The Chinaman squirmed in terror, and when loosed was back again in a
hurry with a lamp that lighted the whole room. Saul took it and
examined the nearest bunk. Donaldson glanced at the first face. That
was enough. He retreated to the door for fresh air. Down the line
went Saul, looking like some devil in Hell making tally of lost souls.
He reached in and turned them, one after the other, face to the light,
while Donaldson stood outside, dreading the call that should force him
to look again. He was no man of the world and the reek