e in a back room on the first floor, while the
chink runs the black smoke upstairs on the stop storey. They're the
bosses, but there's three under-dogs, and the place is kept going night
and day."

Foyle grunted. "How long have you known this? Couldn't you have dropped
on 'em before?"

The other made a deprecatory gesture with his hands. "They're cunning.
The show had been running three months before we got wind of it. That
was about a month ago, and we've tried every trick in the bag to get one
of our men inside. There's no chance of rushing the place on a warrant
either, because both front and back doors are double, and only one man
is allowed to go in at a time. They won't open to two or more. Before we
could get the doors down there'd not be a thing left in the place as
evidence."

A gleam of temper showed in Foyle's blue eyes. "That's all very well,
Mr. Penny. It won't do to tell me that you've known of this place for a
month and that it is still carried on. Why didn't you let a man try
single-handed? With the door once open he could force his way in."

"I couldn't send a man on a job like that," protested the other. "Why,
you don't know the place. They'd murder him before we could get at him."

He flinched away from Foyle as though afraid his superior would strike
him. For the superintendent's hands were clenched and his eyes were
blazing. Yet when he spoke it was with dangerous quietness.

"A man of your experience ought to know by now that it's his business to
take risks. If you'd made up your mind there was no other way of
obtaining evidence you should have sent a man in. Never mind that now.
Take your orders from Mr. Green for the day. Green, I'll be back in an
hour. I'm going into that place. Act according to your own discretion if
you think I'm in difficulties."

CHAPTER XXXVII

The game of faro is one that makes no strenuous demands on the skill of
the players. It is chance pure and simple, and therein lies its
fascination. While baccarat or chemin-de-fer are almost invariably games
to be most in favour when the police raid a gambling-house in the West
End, at the other side of the town it is invariably discovered that faro
holds first place in the affections of gamblers. In its simplest form it
is merely betting on the turn of each card throughout a pack.

Although it was broad daylight, the room in which the operations took
place was shuttered and had the blinds drawn. A three-light gase