"The relationship between 903 Bubbling Well Road in Shanghai and Dean's Dock and Warehouse Company in Brooklyn is not apparent on any map. But it's there. I know it. I came along on this clambake to snap the cord that ties those two locations together. This joint is where one end of it is anchored. You've got to see the theory before you can understand the problem."
He rested for a moment. It was still harder than he would have believed to marshal his thoughts.
"Once there was a man who got an idea. For the sake of convenience let's call him Dr. Ernst Zellermann, though it may be somebody else. His idea was utterly simple: If you can supply a man with narcotics you can make him into a tool. The war shot the dope-smuggling racket into its proper hell, but revival on a large scale was forecast when Hiroshima became a subject for history books. And that's where 903 Bubbling Well Road entered the picture."
He paused again.
"Let's assume that some person or persons glaumed on to the bulk of available opium in the Orient. Collaborationists, almost certainly. They established a headquarters, stored their supplies, and awaited the inevitable ending of hostilities. They knew that merchant ships would soon be coming, and that many of these ships would have touched at New York. So Dr. Z collects a pal or two and sets up a place here. For the sake of clarity let's call it Cookie's Canteen. Merchant seamen are invited, everything free, even a roll of hay with whatever hostess a boy can promote. Our likely character is wined and dined at Cookie's Cellar, everything still on the house. If he exhibits certain desirable larcenous tendencies — which would be revealed under questioning by a clever psychiatrist — the pitch is made. And the Mad Hatter said plaintively: 'It was the best butter—"
Avalon said: "Huh?"
The Saint took another grip on himself, brought his conscious mind up from whirling in dark chasms, lifted it with every ounce of will power he could command.
"Sorry, I wandered... The pitch was made. 'How would you like to make some extra money, chum, and here's a hundred on account. Just go to 903 Bubbling Well Road and say Benny sent you. Bring back the packages you'll be given, bring them here, and collect some more money.'... So our lad does it. Now the sale and distribution of the dope won't bring in enough to pay the overhead of a really big-scale setup like this, so Operation B goes into effect. A doctor can supply patients with narcotics, can turn them into hopheads more safely than anybody else. Then, by shutting off the supply, he can get almost anything in return for more dope to ease the craving. Blackmail — or services. That's where Dean's Warehouse and Docking Company is tied up with Operation A, or Shanghai. The hop-heads knock it over, bring in the sheaves — of furs, jewels, whiskey, whatnot. Or a bank is held up, instead. Or anything. A whole empire of crime begins to spread out from one central system."
The Saint sighed. He was weary. Avalon took his hand in hers.
"So that's it," she said. "That explains a lot of things I didn't understand before. Why they'd go overboard for some creep who knew the difference between port and starboard and nothing else."