On Secret Service Part 42

"The first supposition," argued Carr, "is feasible but hardly within the bounds of probability. If the shortage had occurred in a shipment of gold or something else which combines high value with small volume, that's where I'd look for the leak. But when it comes to hundreds of thousands of pounds of sugar--that's something else. You can't carry that around in your pockets or even unload it without causing comment and employing so many a.s.sistants that the risk would be extremely great.

"No, the answer must lie right here on the docks--just as it did in the sampling cases."

So it was on the docks that he concentrated his efforts, working through the medium of a girl named Louise Wood, whom he planted as a file clerk and general a.s.sistant in the offices of the company which owned the _Murbar_ and a number of other sugar ships.

This, of course, wasn't accomplished in a day, nor yet in a month. As a matter of fact, it was February when Carr was first a.s.signed to the case and it was late in August when the Wood girl went to work. But, as d.i.c.k figured it, this single success was worth all the time and trouble spent in preparing for it.

It would be hard, therefore, to give any adequate measure of his disappointment when the girl informed him that everything in her office appeared to be straight and aboveboard.

"You know, d.i.c.k," reported Louise, after she had been at work for a couple of months, "I'm not the kind that can have the wool pulled over my eyes. If there was anything crooked going on, I'd spot it before they'd more than laid their first plans. But I've had the opportunity of going over the files and the records and it's all on the level."

"Then how are you to account for the discrepancies between the bills of lading and the final receipts?" queried Carr, almost stunned by the girl's a.s.surance.

"That's what I don't know," she admitted. "It certainly looks queer, but of course it is possible that the men who ship the sugar deliberately falsify the records in order to get more money and that the company pays these statements as a sort of graft. That I can't say. It doesn't come under my department, as you know. Neither is it criminal. What I do know is that the people on the dock have nothing to do with faking the figures."

"Sure you haven't slipped up anywhere and given them a suspicion as to your real work?"

"Absolutely certain. I've done my work and done it well. That's what I was employed for and that's what's given me access to the files. But, as for suspicion--there hasn't been a trace of it!"

It was in vain that Carr questioned and cross-questioned the girl. She was sure of herself and sure of her information, positive that no crooked work was being handled by the men who received the sugar when it was unloaded from the incoming ships.

Puzzled by the girl's insistence and stunned by the failure of the plan upon which he had banked so much, Carr gave the matter up as a bad job--telling Louise that she could stop her work whenever she wished, but finally agreeing to her suggestion that she continue to hold her place on the bare chance of uncovering a lead.

"Of course," concluded the girl, "you may be right, after all. They may have covered their tracks so thoroughly that I haven't been able to pick up the scent. I really don't believe that they have--but it's worth the gamble to me if it is to you."

More than a month pa.s.sed before the significance of this speech dawned upon d.i.c.k, and then only when he chanced to be walking along Fifth Avenue one Sat.u.r.day afternoon and saw Louise coming out of Tiffany's with a small cubical package in her hand.

"Tiffany's--" he muttered. "I wonder--"

Then, entering the store, he sought out the manager and stated that he would like to find out what a lady, whom he described, had just purchased. The flash of his badge which accompanied this request turned the trick.

"Of course, it's entirely against our rules," explained the store official, "but we are always glad to do anything in our power to a.s.sist the government. Just a moment. I'll call the clerk who waited on her."

"The lady," he reported a few minutes later, "gave her name as Miss Louise Wood and her address as--"

"I know where she lives," snapped Carr. "What did she buy?"

"A diamond and platinum ring."

"The price?"

"Eight hundred and fifty dollars."

"Thanks," said the operative and was out of the office before the manager could frame any additional inquiries.

When the Wood girl answered a rather imperative ring at the door of her apartment she was distinctly surprised at the ident.i.ty of her caller, for she and Carr had agreed that it would not be wise for them to meet except by appointment in some out-of-the-way place.

"d.i.c.k!" she exclaimed. "What brings you here? Do you think it's safe?"

"Safe or not," replied the operative, entering and closing the door behind him. "I'm here and here I'm going to stay until I find out something. Where did you get the money to pay for that ring you bought at Tiffany's to-day?"

"Money? Ring?" echoed the girl. "What are you talking about?"

"You know well enough! Now don't stall. Come through! Where'd you get it?"

"An--an aunt died and left it to me," but the girl's pale face and halting speech belied her words.

"Try another one," sneered Carr. "Where did you get that eight hundred and fifty dollars?"

"What business is it of yours? Can't I spend my own money in my own way without being trailed and hounded all over the city?"

"You can spend your own money--the money you earn by working and the money I pay you for keeping your eyes open on the dock as you please.

But--" and here Carr reached forward and grasped the girl's wrist, drawing her slowly toward him, so that her eyes looked straight into his, "when it comes to spending other money--money that you got for keeping your mouth shut and putting it over on me--that's another story."

"I didn't, d.i.c.k; I didn't!"

"Can you look me straight in the eyes and say that they haven't paid you for being blind? That they didn't suspect what you came to the dock for, and declared you in on the split? No! I didn't think you could!"

With that he flung her on a couch and moved toward the door. Just as his hand touched the k.n.o.b he heard a voice behind him, half sob and half plea, cry, "d.i.c.k!"

Reluctantly he turned.

"d.i.c.k, as there's a G.o.d in heaven I didn't mean to double cross you. But they were on to me from the first. They planted some stamps in my pocket during the first week I was there and then gave me my choice of bein'

pulled for thieving or staying there at double pay. I didn't want to do it, but they had the goods on me and I had to. They said all I had to do was to tell you that nothing crooked was goin' on--and they'll pay me well for it."

"While you were also drawing money from me, eh?"

"Sure I was, d.i.c.k. I couldn't ask you to stop my pay. You'd have suspected. Besides, as soon as you were done with me, they were, too."

"That's where the eight hundred and fifty dollars came from?"

"Yes, and a lot more. Oh, they pay well, all right!"

For fully a minute there was silence in the little apartment, broken only by the sobs of the girl on the couch. Finally Carr broke the strain.

"There's only one way for you to square yourself," he announced. "Tell me everything you know--the truth and every word of it!"

"That's just it, d.i.c.k. I don't know anything--for sure. There's something goin' on. No doubt of that. But what it is I don't know. They keep it under cover in the scale house."

"In the scale house?"

"Yes; they don't allow anyone in there without a permit. Somebody uptown tips 'em off whenever a special agent is coming down, so they can fix things. But none of the staff knows, though nearly all of them are drawin' extra money for keeping their mouths shut."

"Who are the men who appear to be implicated?"

"Mahoney, the checker for the company, and Derwent, the government weigher."

"Derwent!"