Under the work-table, beneath the furnace, one could feel the
warmth of the thing slightly. Quickly he took the curious affair,
which he had hastily shaped, and fastened it under the table at
that point, then led the wires out through a little barred window
to an air-shaft, the only means of ventilation of the place except
the door.
While he was working I had been gingerly inspecting the rest of
the den. In a corner, just beside the door, I had found a set of
shelves and a cabinet. On both were innumerable packets done up in
white paper. I opened one and found it contained several pinches
of a white, crystalline substance.
"Little portions of cocaine," commented Kennedy, when I showed him
what I had found. "In the slang of the fiends, 'decks.'"
On the top of the cabinet he discovered a little enamelled box,
much like a snuff-box, in which were also some of the white
flakes. Quickly he emptied them out and replaced them with others
from jars which had not been made up into packets.
"Why, there must be hundreds of ounces of the stuff here, to say
nothing of the various things they adulterate it with," remarked
Kennedy.
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