His wife, in buying a can of hop, had tendered the Chinese storekeeper a large bill. When he went into a rear room for the change, she saw that he had his money in a box concealed beneath the floor. He made a purchase later and verified her story.

“That’s all there is to it,” he said. “All you’ve got to do is go get it.”

I investigated and found that his story wasn’t altogether the rosy dream of a hop fiend. The storekeeper, an elderly Chinaman, did keep his money in a box under the floor, but he slept on top of it at night and in a room adjoining about a dozen Chinese laundry hands slept in bunks. It didn’t look a bit soft to me. I convinced myself that the money was there, and that I could get into the place, but that was all I could be reasonably sure of.

My friend’s wife was a resourceful woman. “Chloroform him, that’s easy. I’ll get you the chloroform,” she cried.