Boston Blackie

I'm more interested in the doings of someone on this ship.

What do you mean?

I think Charlotte Aiken was killed because she couldn't sleep last night.

I have good reason to believe that this ship of yours is being used for smuggling small but highly priced articles into this country.

That's absolutely fantastic.

My ship goes to no foreign port.

Why, we never sail a course more than eight miles offshore.

But you pass a certain buoy about eight miles offshore every night at midnight.

When we're on schedule, yes.

Well, here's what's been happening on your ship, Captain Randall.

When it slows down as it passes that buoy, someone on the lower deck reaches out with a hook or something and very neatly catches a chain dangling from the top of the buoy.

Yes, I looked at it myself.

On the end of that chain would be a package or a box or a container of some kind.

Once the smuggler has that container aboard, he can bring it into the country.

Yes, that's true.

We don't have to pass through customs.

Your steward, the one who was found dead in my cabin, was once arrested and convicted for smuggling.

Mrs. Aiken was killed because she was on deck at midnight last night and saw the smuggler at work.

Well, if she was killed at sea, why wasn't her body tossed overboard?

The smuggler didn't have time for that, I suppose.