"There they are, thanks to you," said Haynes, pointing. "Two as clever criminals as ever plagued the system. We've been a long time catching them. But their career is over now.
"Our local operative, known as Brown to you, has been trying for months to locate the source of the trilobaine flood but without avail. The Venusian authorities blocked him at every turn but there was nothing we could do about that unless we could hang a Federal offense on them. It was you who did that for us. I am very glad I gave you that identification ring after our cleanup on Callisto and the list of the secret addresses of our agents. I felt then that you were a man of discretion and would not abuse its privileges and today I most certainly am more than justified. When I interviewed you in your cell...."
"You!"
Inspector Haynes grinned at Hank's surprise.
"Pretty effective disguise, eh? Well, as I was about to say—you gave me all the tips that were needed. First of all, your mention of the scourge of pagras told me it was trilobaine you had aboard, for that is a distillation of pagra venom. That gave us jurisdiction. I attended the secret auction and tried to bid. Everything in the ship went for a song to Von Kleber's pals, but when I went to bid on the trocklebeck hides I ran into stiff opposition. They were not to be had at any price. So I stopped bidding.
"Our operatives trailed those hides through five sets of owners before we came to the Collector himself. Early this morning we made our raid and took in all their supplies of drugs and twenty-five of their peddlers. Previously we had raided Mercury and those men came in about an hour ago. They had quite a thriving little business, and why we didn't think of their method of smuggling in the trilobaine before this I'll never know. We knew, of course, that it must be coming in the ships that they confiscated. That much we were sure of. But we couldn't prove a damn thing until we knew how. Thanks to you, the ring is busted now, and we can do something for those poor devils who were innocently duped into being carriers of the drug. Runners have already been sent to the Swamp to bring back your friends. And there you are. You'll find your old Swapper in the Yard, completely overhauled and stocked to the gunwales with grade A trade goods."
Hank Karns, trader, tugged at his grizzled beard and looked rather sheepishly at the floor.
"Dag it all," he said "that's fine enough. But gosh, I sure hated to make a damfool of myself in front of everybody thataway."
Inspector Haynes broke into laughter and crossed over and slapped him on the back.
"You old liar. You loved it!"