"Ah!" said Ben, leaning forward with eager interest.
"Yes. These chaps here are a crafty lot, and hard—hard as nails. It's my belief they won't stop at anything short of murder to prevent anyone spoiling their trade. And close! I've never met such closeness. I've been here nearly three weeks now, and I haven't found out a fact that's of real importance, though I've discovered a few things that bear upon the case and reveal the extent of the difficulty we're up against.
"But I'd better begin at the beginning. The day after I landed I took over the office here. The tide-waiter was helpful but not very enthusiastic about my coming. In fact, the majority of the people seem to resent it. The merchants are the only men who are downright glad to see me. There's some resentment naturally at Johnson's being fired. He's lived here a long time and has his home here still. The truth of it is, of course, the majority of the people benefit by the smuggling, for it's not only liquor and tobacco that's smuggled, but commodities like sugar, luxuries (though in a smaller way) such as perfume, and much more extensive than that, the smuggling of gear. But the tobacco and liquor trade is the heaviest.
"This attitude of the townspeople—the place, by the way, is little more than a village—made things difficult for me from the start. Naturally I'd expected to extract a good deal of information from the people, but they won't talk. As for my predecessor in office, I couldn't very well, in the nature of things, expect to learn much from him. He turned over the office to me and left me to work out my own salvation.
"The news of my coming travelled fast, of course, and no doubt the smugglers knew it before anyone else. I received a letter hinting at bribery before I'd been here a week, and when I didn't answer it I received another, threatening me and advising me to go back to St. John's, as Saltern wasn't a healthy place for busybodies. I didn't take any notice, of course. I've been threatened before. I kept on with my work.
"I hired a boat and sailed up and down the coast by day and night. I took long walks on the cliff-head when there was a chance of being unobserved. And last of all, I kept my ears well open, but for all I saw or discovered I might have saved myself the trouble. Nevertheless, I knew that all I had to do was to keep at it. Something was bound to turn up. Someone was sure to talk. Or the smugglers were sure to make a slip or to relax their vigilance some time or other.
"The smugglers and the villagers probably realized this as much as I did, and in the first ten days I was here I became the most unpopular man in the district. They'd all found out by that time that I wasn't to be bribed or frightened off by threatening letters. So they changed their tactics and commenced an offensive. I found myself being deliberately hindered in my work. My boat's gear was stolen and when afterwards I kept the new gear locked up, they sunk the boat at her moorings. The windows of the house here were broken late one night—pure hooliganism, that—and the man who was helping me work the boat gave up the job. And I found I couldn't get another, though I offered big money. Those who would have liked to take the money were afraid. The gang here really dominates the district. They're not outlaws, but they're very nearly becoming so. Of course, there's no police force. A sleepy fat old constable keeps the peace, but he's practically useless except to settle domestic quarrels and to fine people for keeping dogs without a licence.
"I had to deal with the hooliganism alone, but all I could do was to lodge a complaint and guard against similar trouble in future. For a while I was successful. Then I was caught, not off my guard, but in a defenceless position, without a weapon except a heavy walking-stick, for I don't believe in carrying a revolver."
A knock at the door interrupted the narrative at this point, and Martha came in bearing three steaming bowls of chocolate and a plate of sandwiches. She refused to leave the room until the chocolate had been drunk and the sandwiches eaten.
When Martha, satisfied, finally left the room the captain took up the thread of his story.