Under Cover Part 7

"You speak with feeling," Mrs. Harrington said, and wondered if this friend of Monty's had not been betrayed by some such confidence.

"Are you going to take warning?" Denby asked.

She shook her head. "I don't think so. You've been reading the American papers and are deceived by the annual warnings to intending European tourists. I'm a hardened and successful criminal." She leaned forward to look at a dancer on the stage below them and Denby knew that his monitions had left her unmoved.

"When were you last at home?" she demanded presently of Denby.

"About six months ago," he answered. "I shall be there a week from to-morrow if I live."

The last three words vaguely disturbed Monty. Why, he wondered crossly, was Denby always reminding him of danger? There was no doubt that what his friend really should have said was: "If I am not murdered by criminals for the two hundred thousand dollars' worth of valuables they probably know I carry with me."

"Have you booked your pa.s.sage yet?" she asked.

It occurred to her that it would be pleasant to have a second man on the voyage. Like all women of her world, she was used to the attentions of men and found life deplorably dull without them, although she was not a flirt and was still in love with her husband.

"Not yet," he answered, "but La Provence goes from Havre to-morrow."

"Come with us," she insisted. "The Mauretania sails a couple of days later but gets you in on the same morning as the other." She turned to Monty. "Isn't that a brilliant idea?"

"It's so brilliant I'm blinded by it," he retorted, gazing at his friend with a look of respect. Not many hours ago Steven had a.s.serted that he and Monty must sail together on the fastest of ships, and now he had apparently decided to forsake the Compagnie Transatlantique only on account of Alice Harrington's invitation.

"I shall be charmed," was all he had said.

Monty felt that he was a co-conspirator of one who was not likely to be upset by trifles. He sighed. A day or so ago he had imagined himself ill-used by Fate because no unusual excitement had come his way, and now his prayers had been answered too abundantly. The phrase "If I live"

remained in his memory with unpleasant insistency.

"We ought to cross the Channel by the afternoon boat to-morrow," Alice said. "There are one or two things I want to get for Michael in London."

"It will be a much nicer voyage for me than if I had gone alone on La Provence," Denby said gratefully, while Monty continued to meditate on the duplicity of his s.e.x.

When they had taken Mrs. Harrington to her hotel Monty burst out with what he had been compelled to keep secret all the evening.

"What in thunder makes you so careful about people smuggling?" he demanded.

"About other people smuggling, you mean," Denby corrected.

"It's the same thing," Monty a.s.serted.

"Far from it," his friend made answer. "If Mrs. Harrington is suspected and undeclared stuff found on her, you and I as her companions will be more or less under suspicion too. It is not unusual for women to ask their men friends to put some little package in their pockets till the customs have been pa.s.sed. The inspectors may have an idea that she has done this with us. Personally I don't relish a very exhaustive search."

"You bet you don't," his friend returned. "I shall probably be the only honest man aboard."

"Mrs. Harrington may ask you to hold some small parcel till she's been through the ordeal," Denby reminded him. "If she does, Monty, you'll be caught for a certainty."

"d.a.m.n it all!" Monty cried petulantly, "why can't you people do the right thing and declare what you bring in, just as I do?"

"What is your income?" Denby inquired. "Your father was always liberal with you."

"You mean I have no temptation?" Monty answered. "I forgot that part of it. I don't know what I'd do if there wasn't always a convenient paying teller who pa.s.sed me out all the currency I wanted."

He looked at his friend curiously, wondering just what this act of smuggling meant to him. Perhaps Denby sensed this.

"You probably wondered why I wrung that invitation out of Mrs.

Harrington instead of being honest and saying I, too, was going by the Cunard line. I can't tell you now, Monty, old man, but I hope some day if I'm successful that I can. I tell you this much, though, that it seems so much to me that no little conventionalities are going to stand in my way."

Monty, pondering on this later when he was in his hotel room, called to mind the rumor he had heard years ago that Steven's father had died deeply in debt. It was for this reason that the boy was suddenly withdrawn from Groton. It might be that his struggles to make a living had driven him into regarding the laws against smuggling as arbitrary and inequitable just as Alice Harrington and dozens of other people he knew did. Denby, he argued, had paid good money for the pearls and they belonged to him absolutely; and if by his skill he could evade the payment of duty upon them and sell them at a profit, why shouldn't he?

Before slumber sealed his eyes, Montague Vaughan had decided that smuggling was as legitimate a sport as fly-fishing. That these views would shock his father he knew. But his father always prided himself upon a traditional conservatism.

CHAPTER FOUR

Less than an hour before the Mauretania reached Quarantine, James Duncan, whose rank was that of Customs Inspector and present a.s.signment the more important one of a.s.sistant to Daniel Taylor, a Deputy-Surveyor, threw away the stub of cigar and reached for the telephone.

When central had given him his number he called out: "Is that you, Ford?" Apparently the central had not erred and his face took on a look of intentness as he gave the man at the other end of the line his instructions. "Say, Ford," he called, "I've got something mighty important for you. Directly the Mauretania gets into Quarantine, go through the declarations and 'phone me right away whether a man named Steven Denby declares a pearl necklace valued at two hundred thousand dollars. No. No, not that name, Denby, D-E-N-B-Y. Steven Denby. That's right. A big case you say? I should bet it is a big case. Never you mind who's handling it, Ford. It may be R. J., or it may not. Don't you worry about a little thing like that. It's your job to 'phone me as soon as you get a peek at those declarations. Let Hammett work with you.

Bye-bye."

He hung up the receiver and leaned back in his chair, well satisfied with himself. He was a spare, hatchet-faced man, who held down his present position because he was used to those storm warnings he could see on his chief's face and knew enough to work in the dark and never ask for explanations.

He did not, for instance, lean back in his chair and smoke cigars with a lordly air when Deputy-Surveyor Daniel Taylor was sitting in his big desk in the window opposite. At such times Duncan worked with silent fury and felt he had evened up matters when he found a Customs Inspector whom he could impress with his own superiority.

When a step in the outside pa.s.sage warned him that his chief might possibly be coming in, he settled down in an att.i.tude of work. But there entered only Harry Gibbs, dressed in the uniform of a Customs Inspector.

Gibbs was a fat, easy man, whose existence was all the more pleasant because of his eager interest in gossip. None knew so well as Gibbs the undercurrent of speculation which the lesser lights of the Customs term office politics. If the Collector frowned, Gibbs instantly dismissed the men upon whom his displeasure had fallen and conjured up erroneous reasons concerning high official wrath. Since Duncan was near to a man in power, Gibbs welcomed any opportunity to converse with him. He seldom came away from such an interview empty-handed. He was a pleasant enough creature and filled with mild wonder at the vagaries of Providence.

Just now he seemed hot but that was not unusual, for he was rarely comfortable during the summer months as he complained frequently. He seemed worried, Duncan thought.

"h.e.l.lo, Jim," he said when he entered.

Duncan a.s.sumed the inquisitorial air his chief had in a marked degree.

"Thought you were searching tourists on the Olympic this afternoon," he replied.

Gibbs mopped his perspiring head, "I was," he answered. "I had two thousand crazy women, all of 'em swearing they hadn't brought in a thing. Gosh! Women is liars."

"What are you doing over here?" Duncan asked.

"I brought along a dame they want your boss Taylor to look over. It needs a smart guy like him to land her. Where is he?"

"Down with Malone now; he'll be back soon."

Gibbs sank into a chair with a sigh of relief. "He don't have to hurry on my account. I'll be tickled to stay here all day. I'm sick of searching trunks that's got nothing in 'em but clothes. It ain't like the good old days, Jim. In them times if you treated a tourist right he'd hand you his business card, and when you showed up in his office next day, he'd come across without a squeal. I used to know the down-town business section pretty well in them days."

"So did I. Why, when I was inspector, if you had any luck picking out your pa.s.senger you'd find twenty dollars lying right on the top tray of the first trunk he opened up for you."

Gibbs sighed again. It seemed the golden age was pa.s.sing.

"And believe me," he said, "when that happened to me I never opened any more of his trunks, I just labeled the whole bunch. But now--why, since this new administration got in I'm so honest it's pitiful."