“Think of a man deliberately choosing a job like that!” Monty commented.
“So,” Denby continued, “when a friend of mine in Paris told me that R.J. had been requested by the government to investigate Customs frauds, I knew there would be more danger in the smuggling game than ever. I warned Mrs. Harrington because I did not want to see her humiliated by exposure.”
“That’s mighty good of you, Denby,” Michael said appreciatively; “but all the same I don’t see how—supposing she had slipped in without any fuss some stuff she had bought in Paris or London and ought to have declared—I don’t see how if they didn’t know it, they could blackmail her.”
“That’s the simplest part of it,” Denby assured him. “The clerk in the kind of store your wife would patronize is most often a government spy, unofficially, and directly after he has assured the purchaser that it is so simple to smuggle, and one can hide things so easily, he has cabled the United States Customs what you bought and how much it cost.”
“They do that?” said Michael indignantly. “I never did trust Frenchmen, the sneaks. I’ve no doubt that the heure de l’aperitif was introduced by an American.”
Miss Cartwright had been watching Denby closely. There was forced upon her the unhappy conviction that this explanation of the difficulties of smuggling was in a sense his way of boasting of a difficulty he had overcome. And she alone of all who were listening had the key to this. It was imperative—for the dread of Taylor and his threats had eaten into her soul—to gain more explicit information. Her manner was almost coquettish as she asked him:
“Tell me truly, Mr. Denby, didn’t you smuggle something, just one tiny little scarf-pin, for example?”
“Nothing,” he returned. “What makes you think I did?”
“It seemed to me,” she said boldly, “that your fear that Mrs. Harrington might be caught was due to the fear suspicion might fall on you.”
Denby looked at her curiously. He had never seen Ethel Cartwright in this mood. He wondered at what she was driving.