It comprised the very poorest and most squalid section of the district. The inhabitants were mostly foreigners, and the handwriting on letters they received was hard to decipher. They were in the habit of changing their addresses frequently, too, and this entailed extra clerical work; for each carrier has to enter all such removals in his “log book.” Then, again, many of the tenants of the tenements were too shiftless or ignorant to post their names in the vestibules, and this made deliveries very difficult, and consumed a lot of time.
Nevertheless, Owen did not make any protest. He accepted the situation philosophically, and started out to cover his new route as cheerfully as if he really relished the change. But inwardly he registered a vow that he was going to find out the identity of the person whose mail Boss Coggswell wanted to get hold of, and check that politician’s sinister plans.
First he went to the three carriers responsible for route forty-eight—for every route is covered by three men—and warned them of what he purposed to do.
The two other carriers who took turns at covering that territory were named Gordon and Smithers. They had both had route forty-eight for several years. The fact that they were not now taken off gave Owen[{43}] reason to suppose that they must be satisfactory to Boss Coggswell, and willing to do his dirty work. For he reasoned that, in order to carry out his crooked scheme, the politician must have the coöperation of all three carriers who covered that route. Otherwise the particular letters which Coggswell wanted to get hold of might go through when Greene was not on duty.
Owen was on friendly terms with both Gordon and Smithers—in fact, the latter and he roomed in the same boarding house. The former was a good-natured, pleasant sort of fellow, but of a weak character. He was always heavily in debt, and he was a hard drinker. More than once he had been caught under the influence of liquor while on duty, and these lapses would have resulted in his dismissal from the department if it had not been for the intercession of Samuel J. Coggswell, who was a friend of his wife’s father.
Smithers, like Greene, was a member of the Samuel J. Coggswell Association, and a crony of Jake Hines. He was a tall, sharp-featured young man, of about Owen’s age, taciturn and very shrewd.
Owen felt sure that these men were all in the plot to tamper with the mails. As he didn’t want to see them disgraced and sent to prison, he decided to give them due warning. Of course, they indignantly denied that any such proposition had been made to them by Boss Coggswell, or that they knew anything about a scheme to hold up anybody’s mail on route forty-eight.
Smithers told Owen that he must be raving mad to suspect anything like that; Gordon laughed and declared that it was the best joke he had heard in many a day; Greene growled that Owen was sore at having been transferred, and was trying to besmirch his character in order to get square.
“Very well,” retorted Owen grimly; “I’ve given you fellows notice; now, if you go ahead and get caught, you’ve got only yourselves to blame. I know that there is such a crooked scheme afoot, and I’m going to find out the name of the victim and put him on his guard.”