The finding of the can of opium on the scene of the murder of
Bertha Curtis, and the chase after the lightless motor boat had at
last placed Kennedy on the right track. With one of the revenue
officers we made a quick trip to Brooklyn and spent the morning
inspecting the ships from South American ports docked in the
neighbourhood where the phantom boat had disappeared.
From ship to ship we journeyed until at last we came to one on
which, down in the chain locker, we found a false floor with a
locker under that. There was a compartment six feet square and in
it lay, neatly packed, fourteen large hermetically sealed
cylinders, each full of the little oblong tins such as Kennedy had
picked up the other day--forty thousand dollars' worth of the
stuff at one haul, to say nothing of the thousands that had
already been landed at one place or another.
It had been a good day's work, but as yet it had not caught the
slayer or cleared up the mystery of Bertha Curtis. Some one or
something had had a power over the girl to lure her on.
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