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 passage warned him that his chief might possibly be coming in, he settled down in an attitude 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.
“Hello, Jim,” he said when he entered.
Duncan assumed 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 passenger 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 passing.
“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.”
Duncan nodded acquiescence.
“It’s a hell of a thing when a government official has to live on his salary,” he said regretfully. “They didn’t ought to expect it of us.”
“What do they care?” Gibbs asserted bitterly, and then added with that inquiring air which had frequently been mistaken for intelligence: “Ain’t it funny that it’s always women who smuggle? They’ll look you right in the eye and lie like the very devil, and if you do land ’em they ain’t ashamed, only sore!”
Duncan assumed his most superior air.
“I guess men are honester than women, Jim, and that’s the whole secret.”
“They certainly are about smuggling,” the other returned. “Why, we grabbed one of these here rich society women this morning and pulled out about forty yards of old lace – and say, where do you think she had it stowed?”
“Sewed it round her petticoat,” Duncan said with a grin. He had had experience.
Gibbs shook his head, “No. It was in a hot-water bottle. That was a new one on me. Well, when we pinched her she just turned on me as cool as you please: ‘You’ve got me now, but damn you, I’ve fooled you lots of times before!’”
Gibbs leaned back in enjoyment of his own imitation of the society lady’s voice and watched Duncan looking over some declaration papers. Duncan looked up with a smile. “Say, here’s another new one. Declaration from a college professor who paid duty on spending seventy-five francs to have his shoes half-soled in Paris.”
But Gibbs was not to be outdone.
“That’s nothing,” said he, “a gink this morning declared a gold tooth. I didn’t know how to classify it so I just told him nobody’d know if he’d keep his mouth shut. It was a back tooth. He did slip me a cigar, but women who are smugglin’ seem to think it ain’t honest to give an inspector any kind of tip.” Gibbs dived into an inner pocket and brought out a bunch of aigrettes. “The most I can do now is these aigrettes. I nipped ’em off of a lady coming down the gangplank of the Olympic. They ain’t bad, Jim.”
Duncan rose from his chair and came over to Gibbs’ side and took the plume from his hand.
“Can’t you guys ever get out of the habit of grafting?” he demanded. “Queer,” he continued, looking at the delicate feathers closely, “how some soft, timid little bit of a woman is willing to wear things like that. Do you know where they come from?”
“From some factory, I s’pose,” Gibbs answered with an air of candor.
“No they don’t,” Duncan told him. “They take ’em from the mother bird just when she’s had her young ones; they leave her half dead with the little ones starving. Pretty tough, I call it, on dumb animals,” he concluded, with so sentimental a tone as to leave poor Gibbs amazed. He was still more amazed when his fellow inspector put them in his own pocket and went back to his desk.
“Say, Jim,” Gibbs expostulated, “what are you doing with them?”
“Why, my wife was asking this morning if I couldn’t get her a bunch. These’ll come in just right.”
“You’re a funny guy to talk about grafting,” Gibbs grumbled, “I ain’t showing you nothin’ more.”
“Never you mind me,” Duncan commanded. “You keep your own eyes peeled. Old man Taylor’s been raising the deuce around here about reports that some of you fellows still take tips.”
Gibbs had heard such rumors too often for them to affect him now. “Oh, it’s just the usual August holler,” he declared.
Duncan contradicted him, “No, it isn’t,” he observed. “It’s because the Collector and the Secretary of the Treasury have started an investigation about who’s getting the rake-off for allowing stuff to slip through. I heard the Secretary was coming over here to-day. You keep your eyes peeled, Harry.”
“If times don’t change,” Gibbs said with an air of gloom, “I’m going into the police department.”
He turned about to see if the steps he heard at the door were those of the man he had come to see. He breathed relief when he saw it was only Peter, the doorkeeper.
“Mr. Duncan,” said the man, “Miss Ethel Cartwright has just ’phoned that she’s on her way and would be here in fifteen minutes.”
Gibbs looked from one to the other with his accustomed mild interest. He could see that the news of which he could make little had excited Duncan. It was evidently something important. Directly the doorkeeper had gone Duncan called his chief on the telephone and Gibbs sauntered nearer the ’phone. To hear both sides of the conversation would