Special Agent Billy Gard sat in the cafÉ of Fun Ken, that wealthy Oriental who had pitched his resort among the ferns of the Blue Mountains which look down upon Kingston, the capital city of the tropical and flowery island of Jamaica. Many drowsy afternoons had he spent here with orange juice and a siphon at his elbow and the best of Havanas in his teeth. For Billy, in the opinion of every man he met in the islands, with the single exception of the American consul, was a retired manufacturer, with money to spend and time hanging heavily on his hands.

As a matter of fact, his table at the cafÉ was chosen because it gave him an opportunity to observe Fun Ken and his satellites, whom he suspected of being a part of a huge conspiracy for the smuggling of opium and Chinamen into the States.

This afternoon he had thus silently gained a reaffirmation of his belief that Fun Ken was a part of the organization with which he had already associated Wilmer Peterson, whose acquaintance he had been cultivating. He had seen Peterson alight from the electric car that passed the door. The American had gone through the cafÉ and out at the back. Fun Ken, who was at the time presiding at the cashier's desk, had immediately disappeared. Half an hour later Fun Ken was again on the cashier's stool and Peterson shortly thereafter returned to the cafÉ. This occurrence had been witnessed for three days in succession by the special agent, who regarded it as a convincing indication of collusion between these two men.

Of Peterson's operations, Gard already had absolute proof. This he had gained at Port Antonio, the shipping point for fruit at the other end of the island. He had been sent to the Caribbean because of the difficulty the United States was having in preventing the smuggling of opium and of Chinamen not legally entitled to enter the country.

It was suspected that Jamaica was the base of operations for these smugglers, and the Government wanted to understand the case from the inside.

Gard assumed the rÔle of a retired glass manufacturer who had time to lounge the winter away about the southern seas. For two weeks he had luxuriated about the Hotel Titchfield, in Port Antonio, and changed his clothes oftener than any Englishman in the place. There he had noted the clumps of idle Chinamen who made headquarters near the wharf, and the occasional stealthy American who was particularly in evidence when there were freighters in the harbor.

Gard soon became a familiar figure about the hotel lobby and bar-room, where he spent money freely. Likewise was his boat to be seen on the bay for many hours of the day, for he made rowing his diversion.

"Don't buy drinks for that bunch, Mr. Gard," Hogan, the bartender at the Titchfield, admonished him. "They are nothing but a lot of smugglers."

This was his first lead. That night Gard rowed late on the bay, skirted a banana boat that lay tied to the wharf and scrambled up unseen to a side door of the customs house. To this door he had a key. He let himself in. Where the customs house faced the wharf were large double doors through which freight might be taken directly to the boat tied there. The special agent unlocked these doors and made a crack just large enough for observation and for eavesdropping, but still so small as not to attract attention from the outside. Here he waited from eight to eleven o'clock.

In the stillness of this late hour the skipper of the banana boat and Peterson, the smuggler, held a conference.

"I have room for ten men," said the skipper.

"I have the men ready to come aboard," said the smuggler.

"And the money?" suggested the man of the seas.

"The cash is ready; $150 for each man when he is stowed away. You will land them at Mobile."

"At Mobile," assented the captain.

"See me next trip at Kingston," said the smuggler. "I leave for that point in the morning."

Thus was gained the first peep into the methods of the smugglers. Gard reported to the American consul, who sent a message that would result in the seizure of the banana boat when it reached Mobile.

The special agent now had the thread of his work well in hand. His intentions were to get at the very bottom of the affair, however, and not merely to apprehend an individual like Peterson. That gentleman should be induced to show the way. Peterson should be "roped." That most effective, yet most difficult task of working into the confidence of a culprit and inducing him to lay his cards on the table, should be employed.

It was with this idea in mind that Gard came down to breakfast early the next morning, but not so early that Peterson was not there ahead of him. He sat opposite his man. The special agent kept looking at his watch apprehensively, and finally asked the man opposite if he knew what time the train left for Kingston.

"At eight-thirty," said Peterson. "There is plenty of time. I am going over on that train myself."

This opened the conversation, and placed Gard in the position of having first indicated his intention of making the trip. He had said he was going before he seemed to know that Peterson had any such intention. These small matters are of great importance in laying the foundation for getting your man. They talked through the meal. It was but natural when, at 8:15, Gard appeared with his grip and started to enter his cab, that he should ask Peterson, who was just then ready for departure, to join him.

At the station the smuggler, as a return favor, advised Gard not to purchase a ticket, as one could ride for half the fare by handing the cash to the conductor. Gard, however, declined this opportunity to save money, for he was looking to the future and the necessity of establishing himself in a given light with this stranger.

Peterson asked his companion as to the hotel to which he was going in Kingston.

"The Myrtlebank," said Gard.

"It will cost you six dollars a day," said the smuggler. "Come with me, and I will show you as good accommodations for three."

A detective less experienced in roping might have considered an opportunity to go to this man's hotel with him as a piece of good fortune. Gard declined the invitation.

"No," he said. "The expense is of little importance to me. I shall stay at the Myrtlebank. Won't you take dinner with me there to-night?"

Peterson, being what the English call a "bounder," was impressed by his friend's disregard for money, and eagerly accepted all his invitations to share a more expensive hospitality. So was the atmosphere created for which the detective was striving.

The two men spent much time together. They automobiled about the city and dined at the resort of Fun Ken, back in the hills. The man who claimed to be a retired glass manufacturer seemed to be a careless sort of individual, with a disregard of how he spent his time. He was rather indifferent of his associates, it seemed, and inclined toward those whose lives were free and easy. He was the last man in the world to appear to have any interest in the activities of his fellows, or to care whether their means of livelihood was honest or not. He was the source of a great deal of satisfaction to Peterson, who was often embarrassed by inquiries into his occupation.

And all the time Gard was picking up the details of the operations of the smugglers. It was through the negro boy who waited on him at the hotel that he learned of an opium shipment. The boy had overheard the conversation that gave him the information, and told of it amusingly in the cockney English of the Jamaican negro.

Sing Foo was the moving spirit from the Chinese end in these smuggling operations. He was a more important man, in fact, than was Fun Ken, who ran the resort on the hill. Sing Foo was a wealthy merchant with a large establishment in the center of the Kingston Chinatown. Gard had been studying his establishment. The strange thing about it was that there were constantly two or three hundred idle Chinamen in its vicinity. The presence of Chinamen not at work is a condition so peculiar as to require an explanation. But with the smuggling theory in the back of one's head, it was easy to conceive that these superfluous Mongolians were waiting an opportunity to be shuttled into the United States.

The smuggling of opium and of Chinamen was known to go hand in hand. Sing Foo, according to the negro boy, had arranged a shipment of opium to Philadelphia. A French-American named Flavot, whom Gard had met through Peterson, had been the intermediary. The captain of a tramp copra trader was to carry it. It was to be snugly hidden and, when the steamer docked, nothing was to be done immediately about it.

Presently a large negro wearing a linen ulster would come aboard under the pretext of doing some sort of work about the ship. This negro was to be shown the opium. He would carry it out a few boxes at a time.

Gard cabled his home office the details of this deal in opium introduction. He advised that nothing be done until the negro went aboard, actually carried out the stuff and was followed to his principal. There was a slip in Philadelphia, however; the captain got suspicious and the opium was thrown into the river.

Two months passed in this way. All the time Gard and Peterson were becoming more intimate. One day the supposed retired glass manufacturer confessed to the smuggler that he had once made some easy money by backing some men who had a system of beating the poolrooms. This, he said, was in Vicksburg, Miss. The poolrooms in that city got their returns on the Memphis races on a loop that was relayed out of New Orleans. That is, the results were telegraphed from Memphis to New Orleans and from there relayed to the smaller cities on a telegraphic loop. This caused a delay of about four minutes. The men whom Gard had backed had established communication by telephone between Memphis and Vicksburg and got the returns in time to put down bets ahead of the receipt of the poolroom's information. Thus they made the cleanup.

This not merely paved the way to similar confidences on the part of Peterson, but gave him to understand that Gard's morals were none too puritanical, and that he might be induced to back other questionable enterprises.

Peterson evidently thought this matter over thoroughly before acting, for it was three days before he touched on the subject. Then he said:

"I could show a man of your sort an investment that would pay him a hundred per cent. every month, if he were looking for a chance to make money."

"Well, I am not looking for such a chance," said Gard, "but if one should drop into my lap I might tie a string to it."

"Do you know anything about the opium business?" asked the smuggler.

"Not a thing," said Gard.

"Well, a can of opium can be bought for five dollars in Jamaica, and sold for twenty-seven fifty in Philadelphia."

"That's a pretty good profit," said the special agent; "but a man would have to get more than two or three boxes past for it to amount to anything."

"If you had a trim little schooner and some one to show you how to get her past the authorities, and she was loaded with opium to the gunwales, you would not have to make a trip every other week to keep in cigarette money, would you?"

"Obviously not," assented the capitalist.

"And you may have noticed all these idle Chinamen about Sing Foo's place," continued the smuggler. "Somebody is going to get one hundred and fifty dollars apiece for running those fellows into the States. They are crossing in a steady stream and getting past. It is but around the corner of Cuba and a hundred inlets inviting. Twenty of the Chinks can live in a space as big as a dog's house, and they feed themselves. It's clear profit. The little schooner could carry a score or so of them every trip."

"It looks like a good proposition on paper," said Gard. "If it could be demonstrated, it would easily get a backer. But the trouble with all such schemes is that they are good on paper, but they can't be actually shown upon the basis that a business man with money demands."

"But this one can be shown," urged the smuggler.

"That is the way you fellows with fancy schemes always talk," argued Gard. "You can make all the money in the world if you only had the backing. Then a man with the money comes along and says 'show me.' You always fall down on the showing."

"Would you put up the price of a schooner and a cargo of opium if you were shown that my scheme would work?" asked the smuggler.

"I would," said Gard. "But you must remember that I am a business man who has made his stake by strictly business methods. I must be shown."

This was the first step toward the formation of a smuggling syndicate that labored along in its preparation for birth and died tragically.

Gard here insisted on proving to Peterson his commercial reliability and financial standing. He had long before prepared the papers for just such an occasion. He had credentials, and letters of credit, and certificates of deposit and bank books without end. The smuggler had had no idea of the wealth of the man he had been cultivating. The backing was without end, if he but won this man's confidence.

So he took the financier in tow, with the idea of first showing him the source of supply of opium and of Chinamen. In the presence of Gard he got quotations on opium from Sing Foo and from Fun Ken at five dollars for a can the size of a pot of salmon. It was shown that there was opium to be had practically without end.

And the Chinamen themselves! He was told that there were always five hundred of them in Jamaica, ready to make the run into the States. When these were gone there were as many more on the way. In fact, there was all China to draw from. Every Chinaman who came was a member of an association. That membership was to cost him six hundred dollars. He need not pay in advance, as such men as Sing Foo stood back of the association and furnished the capital. Whenever a Chinaman got into the United States he went to work. He was able to earn at least twelve dollars a week. Half of this went to the association, until the six hundred dollar fee was paid. The association was willing to spend a total of four hundred dollars to get a Chinaman into the country. Its minimum profit was two hundred dollars a man. The stream flowed constantly. Were not Sing Foo and Fun Ken the richest Chinamen in the Caribbean?

The supposed financier declared himself satisfied of the abundance of the supply of these objects for profitable smuggling. But he wanted to see some of the money actually made. Whereupon Peterson and Flavot agreed that he should have a complete demonstration.

There was then a Norwegian bark in port, and her captain had agreed to take aboard twelve Orientals. He was bound for Norfolk. Peterson and Flavot had made arrangements with him, and Sing Foo was ready with his men. In the dead of night Gard accompanied the two Americans as they pushed off the well-laden boats from the foot of a deserted street in Kingston. He saw the men go aboard. He went deep into the bow of the ship with them and saw them nailed up in a nook behind a wall that seemed to be the end of the vessel. He saw a Chinaman who had come aboard as the representative of Sing Foo pass the captain eighteen American one hundred dollar bills. He went back to Chinatown with Peterson and Flavot and saw them draw their bonus of fifty dollars for each Chinaman that had thus been disposed of.

The capitalist declared himself convinced so far as the Chinamen were concerned. How could he be shown profits in opium?

"Opium," said Peterson, "is the one sure way of making easy money. If you are ready for a little run back to the States, I will show you all the details."

The special agent assured the smuggler that he would be as pleased in making a run back to the mainland as in loafing in the Hotel Myrtlebank, if there were amusement in it and a chance to make some money in an interesting way.

Two days later the three men were aboard a fruit and passenger steamer at Port Antonio, bound for Philadelphia. Beneath the mattress of each man's bunk were twenty cans of opium.

"All you have to do," elaborated the smuggler, "is to open up your baggage for inspection as you approach the port. The inspectors go through it, but never do such a thing as look beneath the mattress. When they have gone you take the opium out from its hiding place and put it into your baggage, which had already been inspected. Then it goes ashore."

"But," insisted the special agent, "is not your stuff examined again on the wharf?"

"This system would not work," Peterson explained, "if you were landing at New York. There the baggage is examined in the staterooms and again on the pier, as the passengers come ashore. But in Philadelphia there is but the one examination, which takes place in the stateroom."

"But is there not a pretty good chance that the inspector may sometime look under the mattress?" Gard asked.

"There is the barest possibility," assented the smuggler. "We have been taking it in this way for years, and it has never been found. But if it is discovered, we have but to look innocent. It cannot be proved that we are responsible for its presence. It might be the steward."

The three came into Philadelphia, and passed the customs officials as the smugglers had prophesied, without a hitch. They went to their hotel, and there found themselves each the possessor of twenty cans of opium, for which they had paid five dollars and for which, Peterson said, they were to receive $27.50. This was the part of the transaction that was yet to be demonstrated.

"We will do but a little business in Philadelphia," said Peterson, "just to show that it can be done."

They took ten cans of the opium to a Chinaman in Arch street, with whom Peterson was acquainted. Yes, this man would buy opium. The price for the same grade was the same as before, $27.50. He could use all he could get. He would be glad to take ten cans. The profit on these ten cans was $225.

"We could have sold him a hundred cans as easily, with ten times the profit," said Peterson.

In New York the smugglers called upon a Doctor Yen, in Pell Street, one of the important men in Chinatown. He stated that he was able to buy opium at $27.50. The smugglers insisted on $30. After much haggling 20 cans were sold at $28.50. Here was a profit of $470.

But Doctor Yen was to be counseled on a much more important matter. He was to be told of the proposal to purchase a boat for the opium traffic. He was to be asked to guarantee the purchase of large amounts of opium.

The old Chinaman became greatly excited. He ran to his safe and came back with $10,000 in currency. He was willing to put up this money for its value in opium at $27.50 a can as soon as delivered. When that was gone there would be other money. He alone would make the owners of the boat rich.

In Boston was the actual headquarters of Peterson and Flavot. A Jew by the name of Ferren was their financial backer. It was Ferren who had put them into the business. When Ferren was told of the proposed enterprise he would not at first listen to it. He would have to be shown that this Mr. Gard was on the level. There were too many eyes watching for opium.

Peterson told of the credentials, and finally succeeded in convincing him that Gard was what he purported to be and, gaining confidence as the plan developed, the Jew finally became enthusiastic. In the end he vied with Doctor Yen in his anxiety to purchase unlimited opium.

Gradually Gard granted that he was convinced of the feasibility of the scheme, if he were shown the possibility of getting the schooner into the States. It was at this point that he was introduced to one Captain Bailey, who had, some years before, figured in a very sensational attempt at the introduction of Chinamen from Canada and their landing at New Haven. Bailey had been caught, had served a term in prison, and, since his liberation, was running a fish stand in Boston market.

But Bailey knew all the coves in the Atlantic and the gulf into which a boat might put. He knew every dock where she might tie up, and the time that must pass thereafter before it would be safe to put his men ashore. Operating from Jamaica there was none of the danger into which he had run in bringing Orientals from Canada.

Eventually the papers were drawn, setting forth conditions under which all these men entered into a partnership in this smuggling venture. Gard, Ferren, Peterson, Flavot and Bailey had all signed, and Gard had gone to New York to get the signature of Doctor Yen. The district attorney's office in Boston was prepared for the arrests when the papers should finally be signed. When Doctor Yen affixed his signature Gard signaled an associate across the narrow street in Chinatown. He sent the flash to Boston and the trap was sprung.

"WHEN DOCTOR YEN AFFIXED HIS SIGNATURE GARD SIGNALLED"
—Page 135

So were all the inside facts of this most aggravating system of smuggling revealed. With these facts in hand, the Government had little difficulty in breaking up a system that had been causing a lot of trouble for a decade.

So, also, was one of the most complete and successful cases of "roping" that any of the Government agents had ever attempted carried to a successful termination.