him--that he had left town and had never communicated with his relatives
or friends. While Gard had been off the case a vigilant watch had
none-the-less been kept upon all letters arriving in Royerton that might
possibly be from the fugitive. No letters had come.
"Now, Gard," said the detective to himself, "were you a youngster of
this training, living thus in Royerton, surrounded by a family to which
you were devoted, with no interests in the world outside, with a certain
element of boldness in your nature; if under these circumstances you got
into trouble, would you run clear away and never communicate with your
people?"
"No," he answered, transported back the few years that separated him
from the inexperience of twenty-four. "I could not break so easily from
my dependence upon my family and the only world I had ever known."
"And if you were thus thrown upon your own resources in the big outside
world and had no money, and if you had the additional handicap of
having to keep in hiding--would you be able to face a proposition like
this and still not call for help from your people?"
"No," again answered the hypothetical youngster. "I would hide and find
a way to get money and news from home."
So the detective reached the conclusion that Kester was, in all
probability, communicating with his relatives. It was evident that he
was not writing home. Too close a watch could be kept on letters coming
to a small town for any of his people or their confidential friends to
be receiving them without the knowledge of the special agents who,
through the postmaster and letter carriers, had been steadily watching
this means of communication.
So the conclusion was reached that Kester was getting messages to his
people through some other means than the mails, in all probability
through a confidential messenger. To do this he must be near by. He
could hide to best advantage in a city. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh,
Baltimore were in a convenient radius. The detective drew the conclusion
that, were he in the boots of the fugitive, he would have taken refuge
in one of these cities; that, had he not been willing to risk the
mails, which Kester evidently was not, he would have used some trusty
go-between and through that agency would have learned the news from home
and received from his relatives the money upon which to live.
Upon the basis of this theory Billy Gard asked himself more questions.
"Were I hiding under such conditions whom would I use as a messenger?"
A faithful former servant who might be living there, a distant relative,
some individual hired for the task. There were not so many
possibilities. They might be exhausted in a few weeks' investigation.
Was there not, however, a shorter road to results?
"If I were in this lad's place," the detective again queried
introspectively, "what would make me write home?"
"Obviously nothing would," came the answer, "so long as I could
communicate through the safer medium of a trusted messenger."
"But if the messenger were an impossibility, would I write?"
This query the detective had some difficulty in answering. He brought
himself to experience the lonesomeness and homesickness of the
fugitive, the lad whose whole life interest was wrapped up in the little
circle in which he had moved. At the same time he appreciated the
fugitive's proven fear of the mails and his avoidance of them so far.
But for the sake of laying down a basis for action Detective Billy Gard
granted that he would write if he could not communicate otherwise. If
this were admitted what was to be done? Obviously the former methods of
communication should be cut off.
How could this be done?
The messenger method of communication was possible only because the
fugitive was near home. If he were far away it could not be used. If he
were far away he would also feel an added degree of security. A worldly
fugitive would not, but Kester would. With a continent between him and
his crime the man who had always lived in this narrow sphere would not
appreciate the possibilities of his capture. He would write.
Special Agent Billy Gard was quite sure of this. He would have done it
himself at twenty-four. The runaway cashier should be captured by being
caused to flee thousands of miles further away.
Having reached this conclusion the special agent called Police Sergeant
Flaherty on the telephone. Would Flaherty come to see him? Flaherty
would be there in fifteen minutes.
Now Gard knew that Flaherty had grown up in the little town of Royerton.
His folks lived there and Flaherty occasionally went back for a visit.
The Irishman was a trustworthy guardian of the law and might be depended
upon to carry out orders.
"Flaherty," said the special agent, "would you like to take a bit of a
trip to Royerton over Sunday and see your folks, with all expenses
paid?"
"Would I eat a Dago's apples when I was hungry?" said the policeman.
"Well, here is the lay of the land," Gard explained. "I am after that
fugitive cashier, Kester, and I am going to get him. He is not far from
home and his folks are in communication with him. I want them to know
that I am after him. They will tell him, will supply him with a bundle
of money and he will not stop running until he reaches Arizona. Then I
will get him."
"Them are not police methods," said Flaherty. "I am not catching this
dip, but when I do pinch them it is usually by getting close to them."
"I like to catch them on the wing," said Gard. "Anyway, you have merely
a speaking part. Your talk is to the home folks, to the effect that I am
hot on the trail of Homer Kester and likely to nab him at any moment. Go
talk your head off."
Whereupon the policeman from Royerton spent the week-end at that
village, had a good time and passed the word of warning.
Billy Gard waited ten days.
At the end of that time he was called on the telephone by the postmaster
at Royerton. A letter had come to a sister of Homer Kester and in that
young man's handwriting. It was postmarked "Spokane, Washington."
Gard despatched a long telegram in code to the special agent of the
Department of Justice nearest Spokane, he being located in Seattle. He
asked that officer to run over to Spokane and pick up his man. It was
merely the task of locating a well-described stranger in a
comparatively small city. Two days later the Department was informed of
the arrest.
"Psychology," said Billy Gard ruminatively, "is a great help to a
detective--when it works."
VI
"ROPING" THE SMUGGLERS OF JAMAICA
Special Agent Billy Gard sat in the café of Fun Ken, that wealthy
Oriental who had pitched his resort among the ferns of the Blue
Mountains which look down upon Kingston, the capital city of the
tropical and flowery island of Jamaica. Many drowsy afternoons had he
spent here with orange juice and a siphon at his elbow and the best of
Havanas in his teeth. For Billy, in the opinion of every man he met in
the islands, with the single exception of the American consul, was a
retired manufacturer, with money to spend and time hanging heavily on
his hands.
As a matter of fact, his table at the café was chosen because it gave
him an opportunity to observe Fun Ken and his satellites, whom he
suspected of being a part of a huge conspiracy for the smuggling of
opium and Chinamen into the States.
This afternoon he had thus silently gained a reaffirmation of his
belief that Fun Ken was a part of the organization with which he had
already associated Wilmer Peterson, whose acquaintance he had been
cultivating. He had seen Peterson alight from the electric car that
passed the door. The American had gone through the café and out at the
back. Fun Ken, who was at the time presiding at the cashier's desk, had
immediately disappeared. Half an hour later Fun Ken was again on the
cashier's stool and Peterson shortly thereafter returned to the café.
This occurrence had been witnessed for three days in succession by the
special agent, who regarded it as a convincing indication of collusion
between these two men.
Of Peterson's operations, Gard already had absolute proof. This he had
gained at Port Antonio, the shipping point for fruit at the other end of
the island. He had been sent to the Caribbean because of the difficulty
the United States was having in preventing the smuggling of opium and of
Chinamen not legally entitled to enter the country.
It was suspected that Jamaica was the base of operations for these
smugglers, and the Government wanted to understand the case from the
inside.
Gard assumed the rôle of a retired glass manufacturer who had time to
lounge the winter away about the southern seas. For two weeks he had
luxuriated about the Hotel Titchfield, in Port Antonio, and changed his
clothes oftener than any Englishman in the place. There he had noted the
clumps of idle Chinamen who made headquarters near the wharf, and the
occasional stealthy American who was particularly in evidence when there
were freighters in the harbor.
Gard soon became a familiar figure about the hotel lobby and bar-room,
where he spent money freely. Likewise was his boat to be seen on the bay
for many hours of the day, for he made rowing his diversion.
"Don't buy drinks for that bunch, Mr. Gard," Hogan, the bartender at the
Titchfield, admonished him. "They are nothing but a lot of smugglers."
This was his first lead. That night Gard rowed late on the bay, skirted
a banana boat that lay tied to the wharf and scrambled up unseen to a
side door of the customs house. To this door he had a key. He let
himself in. Where the customs house faced the wharf were large double
doors through which freight might be taken directly to the boat tied
there. The special agent unlocked these doors and made a crack just
large enough for observation and for eavesdropping, but still so small
as not to attract attention from the outside. Here he waited from eight
to eleven o'clock.
In the stillness of this late hour the skipper of the banana boat and
Peterson, the smuggler, held a conference.
"I have room for ten men," said the skipper.
"I have the men ready to come aboard," said the smuggler.
"And the money?" suggested the man of the seas.
"The cash is ready; $150 for each man when he is stowed away. You will
land them at Mobile."
"At Mobile," assented the captain.
"See me next trip at Kingston," said the smuggler. "I leave for that
point in the morning."
Thus was gained the first peep into the methods of the smugglers. Gard
reported to the American consul, who sent a message that would result
in the seizure of the banana boat when it reached Mobile.
The special agent now had the thread of his work well in hand. His
intentions were to get at the very bottom of the affair, however, and
not merely to apprehend an individual like Peterson. That gentleman
should be induced to show the way. Peterson should be "roped." That most
effective, yet most difficult task of working into the confidence of a
culprit and inducing him to lay his cards on the table, should be
employed.
It was with this idea in mind that Gard came down to breakfast early the
next morning, but not so early that Peterson was not there ahead of him.
He sat opposite his man. The special agent kept looking at his watch
apprehensively, and finally asked the man opposite if he knew what time
the train left for Kingston.
"At eight-thirty," said Peterson. "There is plenty of time. I am going
over on that train myself."
This opened the conversation, and placed Gard in the position of having
first indicated his intention of making the trip. He had said he was
going before he seemed to know that Peterson had any such intention.
These small matters are of great importance in laying the foundation for
getting your man. They talked through the meal. It was but natural when,
at 8:15, Gard appeared with his grip and started to enter his cab, that
he should ask Peterson, who was just then ready for departure, to join
him.
At the station the smuggler, as a return favor, advised Gard not to
purchase a ticket, as one could ride for half the fare by handing the
cash to the conductor. Gard, however, declined this opportunity to save
money, for he was looking to the future and the necessity of
establishing himself in a given light with this stranger.
Peterson asked his companion as to the hotel to which he was going in
Kingston.
"The Myrtlebank," said Gard.
"It will cost you six dollars a day," said the smuggler. "Come with me,
and I will show you as good accommodations for three."
A detective less experienced in roping might have considered an
opportunity to go to this man's hotel with him as a piece of good
fortune. Gard declined the invitation.
"No," he said. "The expense is of little importance to me. I shall stay
at the Myrtlebank. Won't you take dinner with me there to-night?"
Peterson, being what the English call a "bounder," was impressed by his
friend's disregard for money, and eagerly accepted all his invitations
to share a more expensive hospitality. So was the atmosphere created for
which the detective was striving.
The two men spent much time together. They automobiled about the city
and dined at the resort of Fun Ken, back in the hills. The man who
claimed to be a retired glass manufacturer seemed to be a careless sort
of individual, with a disregard of how he spent his time. He was rather
indifferent of his associates, it seemed, and inclined toward those
whose lives were free and easy. He was the last man in the world to
appear to have any interest in the activities of his fellows, or to care
whether their means of livelihood was honest or not. He was the source
of a great deal of satisfaction to Peterson, who was often embarrassed
by inquiries into his occupation.
And all the time Gard was picking up the details of the operations of
the smugglers. It was through the negro boy who waited on him at the
hotel that he learned of an opium shipment. The boy had overheard the
conversation that gave him the information, and told of it amusingly in
the cockney English of the Jamaican negro.
Sing Foo was the moving spirit from the Chinese end in these smuggling
operations. He was a more important man, in fact, than was Fun Ken, who
ran the resort on the hill. Sing Foo was a wealthy merchant with a large
establishment in the center of the Kingston Chinatown. Gard had been
studying his establishment. The strange thing about it was that there
were constantly two or three hundred idle Chinamen in its vicinity. The
presence of Chinamen not at work is a condition so peculiar as to
require an explanation. But with the smuggling theory in the back of
one's head, it was easy to conceive that these superfluous Mongolians
were waiting an opportunity to be shuttled into the United States.
The smuggling of opium and of Chinamen was known to go hand in hand.
Sing Foo, according to the negro boy, had arranged a shipment of opium
to Philadelphia. A French-American named Flavot, whom Gard had met
through Peterson, had been the intermediary. The captain of a tramp
copra trader was to carry it. It was to be snugly hidden and, when the
steamer docked, nothing was to be done immediately about it.
Presently a large negro wearing a linen ulster would come aboard under
the pretext of doing some sort of work about the ship. This negro was to
be shown the opium. He would carry it out a few boxes at a time.
Gard cabled his home office the details of this deal in opium
introduction. He advised that nothing be done until the negro went
aboard, actually carried out the stuff and was followed to his
principal. There was a slip in Philadelphia, however; the captain got
suspicious and the opium was thrown into the river.
Two months passed in this way. All the time Gard and Peterson were
becoming more intimate. One day the supposed retired glass manufacturer
confessed to the smuggler that he had once made some easy money by
backing some men who had a system of beating the poolrooms. This, he
said, was in Vicksburg, Miss. The poolrooms in that city got their
returns on the Memphis races on a loop that was relayed out of New
Orleans. That is, the results were telegraphed from Memphis to New
Orleans and from there relayed to the smaller cities on a telegraphic
loop. This caused a delay of about four minutes. The men whom Gard had
backed had established communication by telephone between Memphis and
Vicksburg and got the returns in time to put down bets ahead of the
receipt of the poolroom's information. Thus they made the cleanup.
This not merely paved the way to similar confidences on the part of
Peterson, but gave him to understand that Gard's morals were none too
puritanical, and that he might be induced to back other questionable
enterprises.
Peterson evidently thought this matter over thoroughly before acting,
for it was three days before he touched on the subject. Then he said:
"I could show a man of your sort an investment that would pay him a
hundred per cent. every month, if he were looking for a chance to make
money."
"Well, I am not looking for such a chance," said Gard, "but if one
should drop into my lap I might tie a string to it."
"Do you know anything about the opium business?" asked the smuggler.
"Not a thing," said Gard.
"Well, a can of opium can be bought for five dollars in Jamaica, and
sold for twenty-seven fifty in Philadelphia."
"That's a pretty good profit," said the special agent; "but a man would
have to get more than two or three boxes past for it to amount to
anything."
"If you had a trim little schooner and some one to show you how to get
her past the authorities, and she was loaded with opium to the gunwales,
you would not have to make a trip every other week to keep in cigarette
money, would you?"
"Obviously not," assented the capitalist.
"And you may have noticed all these idle Chinamen about Sing Foo's
place," continued the smuggler. "Somebody is going to get one hundred
and fifty dollars apiece for running those fellows into the States.
They are crossing in a steady stream and getting past. It is but around
the corner of Cuba and a hundred inlets inviting. Twenty of the Chinks
can live in a space as big as a dog's house, and they feed themselves.
It's clear profit. The little schooner could carry a score or so of them
every trip."
"It looks like a good proposition on paper," said Gard. "If it could be
demonstrated, it would easily get a backer. But the trouble with all
such schemes is that they are good on paper, but they can't be actually
shown upon the basis that a business man with money demands."
"But this one can be shown," urged the smuggler.
"That is the way you fellows with fancy schemes always talk," argued
Gard. "You can make all the money in the world if you only had the
backing. Then a man with the money comes along and says 'show me.' You
always fall down on the showing."
"Would you put up the price of a schooner and a cargo of opium if you
were shown that my scheme would work?" asked the smuggler.
"I would," said Gard. "But you must remember that I am a business man
who has made his stake by strictly business methods. I must be shown."
This was the first step toward the formation of a smuggling syndicate
that labored along in its preparation for birth and died tragically.
Gard here insisted on proving to Peterson his commercial reliability and
financial standing. He had long before prepared the papers for just such
an occasion. He had credentials, and letters of credit, and certificates
of deposit and bank books without end. The smuggler had had no idea of
the wealth of the man he had been cultivating. The backing was without
end, if he but won this man's confidence.
So he took the financier in tow, with the idea of first showing him the
source of supply of opium and of Chinamen. In the presence of Gard he
got quotations on opium from Sing Foo and from Fun Ken at five dollars
for a can the size of a pot of salmon. It was shown that there was opium
to be had practically without end.
And the Chinamen themselves! He was told that there were always five
hundred of them in Jamaica, ready to make the run into the States. When
these were gone there were as many more on the way. In fact, there was
all China to draw from. Every Chinaman who came was a member of an
association. That membership was to cost him six hundred dollars. He
need not pay in advance, as such men as Sing Foo stood back of the
association and furnished the capital. Whenever a Chinaman got into the
United States he went to work. He was able to earn at least twelve
dollars a week. Half of this went to the association, until the six
hundred dollar fee was paid. The association was willing to spend a
total of four hundred dollars to get a Chinaman into the country. Its
minimum profit was two hundred dollars a man. The stream flowed
constantly. Were not Sing Foo and Fun Ken the richest Chinamen in the
Caribbean?
The supposed financier declared himself satisfied of the abundance of
the supply of these objects for profitable smuggling. But he wanted to
see some of the money actually made. Whereupon Peterson and Flavot
agreed that he should have a complete demonstration.
There was then a Norwegian bark in port, and her captain had agreed to
take aboard twelve Orientals. He was bound for Norfolk. Peterson and
Flavot had made arrangements with him, and Sing Foo was ready with his
men. In the dead of night Gard accompanied the two Americans as they
pushed off the well-laden boats from the foot of a deserted street in
Kingston. He saw the men go aboard. He went deep into the bow of the
ship with them and saw them nailed up in a nook behind a wall that
seemed to be the end of the vessel. He saw a Chinaman who had come
aboard as the representative of Sing Foo pass the captain eighteen
American one hundred dollar bills. He went back to Chinatown with
Peterson and Flavot and saw them draw their bonus of fifty dollars for
each Chinaman that had thus been disposed of.
The capitalist declared himself convinced so far as the Chinamen were
concerned. How could he be shown profits in opium?
"Opium," said Peterson, "is the one sure way of making easy money. If
you are ready for a little run back to the States, I will show you all
the details."
The special agent assured the smuggler that he would be as pleased in
making a run back to the mainland as in loafing in the Hotel
Myrtlebank, if there were amusement in it and a chance to make some
money in an interesting way.
Two days later the three men were aboard a fruit and passenger steamer
at Port Antonio, bound for Philadelphia. Beneath the mattress of each
man's bunk were twenty cans of opium.
"All you have to do," elaborated the smuggler, "is to open up your
baggage for inspection as you approach the port. The inspectors go
through it, but never do such a thing as look beneath the mattress. When
they have gone you take the opium out from its hiding place and put it
into your baggage, which had already been inspected. Then it goes
ashore."
"But," insisted the special agent, "is not your stuff examined again on
the wharf?"
"This system would not work," Peterson explained, "if you were landing
at New York. There the baggage is examined in the staterooms and again
on the pier, as the passengers come ashore. But in Philadelphia there is
but the one examination, which takes place in the stateroom."
"But is there not a pretty good chance that the inspector may sometime
look under the mattress?" Gard asked.
"There is the barest possibility," assented the smuggler. "We have been
taking it in this way for years, and it has never been found. But if it
is discovered, we have but to look innocent. It cannot be proved that we
are responsible for its presence. It might be the steward."
The three came into Philadelphia, and passed the customs officials as
the smugglers had prophesied, without a hitch. They went to their hotel,
and there found themselves each the possessor of twenty cans of opium,
for which they had paid five dollars and for which, Peterson said, they
were to receive $27.50. This was the part of the transaction that was
yet to be demonstrated.
"We will do but a little business in Philadelphia," said Peterson, "just
to show that it can be done."
They took ten cans of the opium to a Chinaman in Arch street, with whom
Peterson was acquainted. Yes, this man would buy opium. The price for
the same grade was the same as before, $27.50. He could use all he could
get. He would be glad to take ten cans. The profit on these ten cans
was $225.
"We could have sold him a hundred cans as easily, with ten times the
profit," said Peterson.