"Who's that?" asked Hunt.
"Don't you know him? That's Shanghai Smith, the biggest scoundrel unhung. He's a sailors' crimp, and a daylight robber, and a man with a 'pull.'"
Certainly Smith had some political power. In the United States it is impossible to avoid politics and the police at the same time, except by lavish bribery.
"And why do they call him 'Shanghai'?" asked Hunt.
"Because he 'shanghais' men," answered Gardiner, "and nowadays that means drugging a man and putting him aboard some ship. Oh, he's a daisy. He'd ship your dad to New York round the Horn if there was money in it. When a man disappears in this city we look first in the morgue, and then make inquiries at Smith's."
"I wish Gawthrop was in the morgue, I do," said Hunt "And here I'll say good-night. You're a good chap, Gardiner, if you are a newspaper man, and it's been a relief to talk to you, so it has."
They shook hands and parted, but Gardiner had not walked ten yards before he turned and came back. His eyes glittered curiously. Hunt's were blurred and fishy. He had certainly taken a little too much. Gardiner wondered if he had taken too much to remember in the morning what happened now.
"You wish he was in the morgue, eh?"
"I do," said Hunt firmly. "I do."
"Why not get him shanghaied?" asked Gardiner, and he walked away very swiftly, and did not return when Hunt called to him.