Fay carried no revolver. He scorned such things. The police rated him too clever to commit murder. Only amateurs and coke-fiends did things like that. He wished, however, that he could thrust the blued-steel muzzle of a gat through the panel and order the Dropper to unlatch the door. The thug was so long in making up his none-too-alert mind. It swung finally. Fay stepped into the room. He narrowed his eyes and mentally photographed a mean den, made translucent by the greenish-hued smoke that swirled over a peanut-oil lamp and floated before the drawn faces of many poppy-dreamers who were peering from bunks. The Dropper stood waiting. His elbows were slightly bent. His huge, broken-boned hands came slowly in front. He measured Fay from the tip of the shoes to the prematurely gray hair that showed beneath the cracksman’s straw hat. “Well, when did you get out of stir?” he snarled with sudden recognition. “I thought they threw the key away on yuh.” “Easy, Dropper! Who are all these people?” “Aw, they’re all right! There’s Canada Mac and Glycerine Jimmy an’ three broads over there. Then there’s Mike the Bike and Micky Gleason with us to-night. Know them?” Fay unhooked his cane from his arm. He swung it back and forth as he studied the faces in the bunks. His stare dropped to the peanut-oil lamp and the lay-out tray around which reclined two smokers. He saw a piglike dog crouching by a screen. Behind this was the entrance to another room. “Suppose we go in there,” he said. “There’s something I want to speak to you about, Dropper.” “Spit it out, here!” “No!” Fay’s voice took on a metallic incisiveness. He flashed a warning at the Dropper. The big man shifted his eyes uneasily, and followed Fay around the screen and into a room where two chintz-covered windows looked out into Harrison Street. There were a poker-table, a couch and many chairs in the room. The floor was covered with a cheap matting. “Listen,” said Fay, still swinging his cane: “I came here to see Charley O’Mara’s daughter. I want to see her quick! I can’t stay around here. It’s no place--” “Aw, cut that kid-glove stuff. What d’ye think we are--stools?” “I want to see Charley’s daughter--Emily!” “You can’t!” “What have you done with her?” “I aint done nothin’. She lives right here.” Fay hung his cane on a chair, removed his hat, turned, backed against the poker-table and fastened upon the Dropper a glance of white fire. “Tell that girl to come to me.” “Well, who the hell are you orderin’ around?” “Go! Get--that--girl!” The Dropper was in his own castle. The bunks in the den were filled with the reclining forms of a number of men who would commit murder at his bidding. He had, safely planted, the only hundred toys of choice Victoria hop in all of Chicago. One could buy most anything, from virtue to a man’s soul, with opium at the current prices.