"Going to the baseball games," said Gard.
"I hadn't noticed any cargoes being unloaded out that way," said Stimson. "How long have you been a fan?"
"Just a week," said the special agent. "Never attended a game before in my life. I sit in the nice, warm sun of the bleachers to the right among the fanatics. I have learned to keep a score card already."
And such were actually the facts. To solve the riddle of the customs frauds Agent Gard was working hard at the task of becoming a baseball fan.
Two weeks he had devoted to the docks. During the first of these weeks he had gone from wharf to wharf and from man to man. He had asked many questions which were but the common places that any individual who wanted to get a smattering of the detail of such a business would have asked. He was received tolerantly by the old heads of the customs crowd. Many agents had been to the docks ahead of him and most of these had been experts. If they began to get dangerous, political influence was used in having them pulled off the job or money was used in having them fail to report any wrongdoing. But this youngster who did not know the simplest things about the customs service—he was hardly worthy of notice.
But during that week Gard had not expected to become a customs expert. His plan for getting results was founded on a different idea. He had been hunting for a man who suited the purpose of his plan, and had found him. This man was an Irishman by the name of O'Toole, who was one of the weighers at a certain dock in Brooklyn. He had in the back of his head all the facts that the special agent lacked. If he could be induced to cooperate, the case might be worked out.
O'Toole was a man of fifty, and had been a weigher for eleven years. Gard had learned many things about him. He had no family, his great enthusiasm was baseball, and his weakness was a certainty of going to the mat with John Barleycorn every third Saturday night. He was a lonesome man, and sour and cynical.
"How long have you been on this investigation?" O'Toole asked Gard before the conversation had gone far.
"Just this week," said the special agent.
"Have you found anything?" asked the weigher.