The police smiled knowingly at mention of Chang Foo.

Who should know, if they didn't, that it was all harmless fake, all bunk! And so it was--UPSTAIRS! They were passing out of the shop now, bowed out through a side door by the obsequious and oily Chang Foo.

And now they massed again in a sort of little hallway--and Chang Foo, closing the door upon Jimmie Dale, who was the last in the line, shuffled back behind the counter in his shop to resume his guard duty over customers of quite another ilk.

With the door closed, it was dark, pitch dark.

And this, too, like everything else connected with Chang Foo's establishment, for more reasons than one--for effect--and for security.