In my rambles about Vancouver, I met an acquaintance from Salt Lake. He and his wife were exiled from the Mormon city and could not return in safety till they got a “bunch of trouble fixed up.” He fell on my neck, saying: “Just the party I’m looking for. I’ve got something soft for you; you can’t go wrong.” He invited me to his quarters, a cottage they had rented. They were both “smokers,” and over the hop he explained the “soft” thing.
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.
I hesitated about that. I was practical, I knew nothing about chloroforming people. Sanc had never once mentioned chloroform and what he knew about burglary was plenty. In searching my mind for something to guide me I recalled having met a talkative chap in Chicago at California Jack’s hop joint, who told me in great detail about his “ether outfit,” how he injected the fluid through keyholes, putting his victims out before going into their rooms, how he chloroformed women sleepers by holding a saturated handkerchief to their noses, and how he stripped their fingers of rings while they were stupefied. I remembered his talk didn’t ring just right and that he borrowed two dollars from me at the finish and never paid them. I had long since dismissed him from my mind as a magazine burglar, a reader and rehasher of
crime stories, embellished and embroidered by daily devotion to the bamboo pipe.
Still his talk kept in my mind. There might be something in it. The old Chinaman had money there; I needed it. I was ambitious to learn. Chloroform seemed to be the only way and I decided to try it. I gave the place a final looking-over. It was a one-story shack between two larger buildings. A storeroom in front with its long counter, and shelves on both sides filled with merchandise, a small room directly back of it where the storekeeper slept on his pallet. I made sure of that by rousing him early one morning to make a purchase. The big rear room accommodated the Chinese laundry hands.
My friend’s wife delivered the chloroform and a clean handkerchief. I rehearsed the whole business in my mind, and, feeling reasonably safe, put it to the touch. An open window let me into the bunk room, where I unfastened the back door, for a getaway.