“Dr. Xenophon Quintero Sanchez — what’s the matter with Dr. Sanchez?”
“That’s what we are trying to find out, Purser.”
“His bags will be in the S pen, sir.”
Slidenberry was searching among the S’s for the initials X.Q.S. when a cabin boy came up and touched his cap.
“Excuse me, sir, but the passenger in 36-B asks if you will please come to his cabin?”
The inspector became suspicious at once.
“What’s the point in that? Why doesn’t he bring down his keys?”
“His bags are not down yet,” explained the boy. “He sent me to ask if you would please examine them in his cabin.”
Slidenberry lifted an eyebrow at Poggioli, and the two men started aboard the Stanhope. When they reached stateroom 36-B Slidenberry tapped on the door, and a man’s voice called—
“Enter, señor, and pardon my occupation.”
The shutter swung open and Poggioli saw a heavy man of dark complexion and dissipated features sitting on his bunk apparently cutting up his wardrobe with a pair of scissors. Two or three garments already were in pieces, and he was taking out the lining of a coat. The two visitors stood looking at the queer sight.
“Are you a tailor, Mr. Sanchez?” inquired Slidenberry.
The heavy man on the bunk made a deprecatory gesture.
“A kind of analytic tailor, señores. I am preparing to make my declaration in customs.”
“Just how?” inquired the inspector dryly. “Are you trying to reduce the value of your wardrobe?”
“I am trying to find out what my portmanteau contains, señores.”
“Don’t you know already?” asked Slidenberry in a brittle voice.
“I do not,” stated Sanchez sharply. “I know what I put in my baggage, but what others have slipped into it I have no way of knowing except by some such method as this.” He jabbed his shears into a garment.
As Mr. Poggioli viewed this irrational scene there seemed a touch of something familiar in the old Latin’s somber face. He stood trying to recall where he had met the man while Slidenberry went on with his astonished questioning.
“Do you mean some one has slipped something in your bags?”
“That’s what I mean, señor.”
“Why didn’t you find out before the Stanhope entered customs?”
“Because I did not want to sit in my cabin all day long to make sure nothing else was added. I wanted to go to my meals, take the air, sleep.”
Slidenberry looked at the old man intently, then glanced at Poggioli, said, “Pardon us a moment,” and drew the psychologist outside the cabin.
“Crazy,” he said in an undertone, “or do you think it’s a hoax?”
“Our cablegram shows there is a reality to it somewhere, so I would mark out insanity.”
“But if it’s a hoax why didn’t he select a more reasonable falsehood?”
“You know, the fact that it’s unreasonable is an argument for its truth,” pointed out Poggioli — “that is, if he really isn’t insane.”
“That somebody actually planted dutiable goods of value in his bags?”
Poggioli shrugged.
“But whoever did would lose money on it,” went on Slidenberry. “His reward would be only a part of the value of the goods smuggled. He would certainly lose half of his investment even if his scheme worked.”
“This can’t be simply a trick to get a reward,” agreed Poggioli at once. “There is something... something else—” The scientist drew out a cigaret and tapped it on his thumbnail. “You know — I’ve seen that old man before!”
“Something criminal?” asked Slidenberry hopefully.
“Must have been, if I remember him.”
“Good, good.” The inspector nodded. He turned back into the cabin. “Dr. Sanchez,” he began, “I want to ask you pointblank: Have you any diamonds to declare?”
“I don’t know,” said the old man, still scissoring away. “That’s what I’m trying to find out for you.”
“Do you think somebody hid diamonds in your trunk and clothes?”
“I have no idea what they hid — diamonds possibly.”
Slidenberry gave a brief smile.
“Suppose you let me help you hunt. I’ve a knack at that sort of thing.”
Dr. Sanchez straightened and held up a prohibitory hand.
“Not as you are, señor, please,” he said with a dry smile.
“Not as I am — what do you mean?”
“I mean, señor, not with your coat and vest and trousers on, if you please.”
The customs officer stared in amazement.
“Are you suggesting that I undress myself to inspect your—”
Poggioli interposed—
“He means he is afraid you will put something in his bags and then arrest him for having it.”
Slidenberry looked at Poggioli, tapped his forehead and shook his head slightly.
“Listen, Señor Sanchez,” reasoned Poggioli, “no matter what Mr. Slidenberry should plant in your trunk he could not arrest you for it. You have declared that you don’t know what your baggage contains. All he could do would be to confiscate anything illegal he discovered or let you pay the duty on it and keep it yourself. Either way he would lose and you would go free.”
Sanchez nodded.
“That is the legal theory — but if he slipped something in my pocket and I walk off the ship carrying goods on which I have paid no duty, I go to jail. That has happened to me many times, señor.”
The psychologist was astonished and incredulous.
“You don’t mean to tell me the customs officers themselves—”
Sanchez interrupted—
“Certainly, señor; there is no tyranny so inescapable and so difficult to prove as that of the police department.”
“But why should the customs officers themselves wish to—” Poggioli broke off, studying the old man’s almost remembered face.
Dr. Sanchez shrugged, then spoke in a bitter voice—
“If I were a North American, señor, I would not only tell you my story; I would also tell the newspapers and the radio broadcasters, but we Latin-Americans—” he spread his palms sardonically — “feel somewhat differently about our private affairs.”
“In my opinion,” interposed Slidenberry dryly, “you handle not only your private affairs with the greatest reticence, but the truth also. The idea of a customs officer planting something in the baggage of a traveler! It was never done in the history of American customs.”
The old man bristled at such an insult, but the dawning quarrel was interrupted by the voice of a cabin boy paging Captain Slidenberry. The officer stepped outside to call the boy, and Poggioli followed curiously.
As the messenger came up, the inspector turned to Poggioli and asked sharply:
“What do you think of him now? Is he crazy, or is he just a hopeless liar?”
Poggioli shook his head.
“If he really has been framed—”
“Framed, the devil! Did you ever hear of customs men framing a casual traveler?”
“I never did, but it is the most probable explanation of this riddle.”
“You don’t mean it has really happened?”
“I do because the old man doesn’t insist on it. If he were a simple liar he would have gone on with a long cock-and-bull story to prove what he said was the truth, but he simply says it’s so.”
Slidenberry shook his head.
“You may believe it for psychological reasons if you want to, but I’m a customs man. No such thing ever happened on the face of the earth!”
The messenger boy came running up the deck and delivered a parcel. Slidenberry signed for it and opened it.
“Oh,” he ejaculated, “the clerk has found the consular reports at last. Let me see; what was the page?” He drew out his cablegram and consulted it. “1125 and 6.”