It seems a fling at the character of your fellow
bachelors--and in the vast majority of Zone cases it would be. But
it is in no sense surprising that among the many thousands that
swarm upon the Isthmus there should be some not averse to
increasing their income by taking advantage of these guileless
habits and bucolic conditions. There are suggestions that a few--
not necessarily whites--make a profession of it. No wonder "our
chief trouble is burglary" and has been ever since the Z. P. can
remember. Summed up, the pay-day gold that has thus faded away is
perhaps no small amount; compared with what it might have been
under prevailing conditions it is little.
As for detecting such felonies, police officers the world around
know that theft of coin of the realm in not too great quantities
is virtually as safe a profession as the ministry. The Z. P.
plain-clothes man, like his fellows elsewhere, must usually be
content in such cases with impressing on the victim his
Sherlockian astuteness, gathering the available facts of the case,
and return to typewrite his report thereof to be carefully filed
away among headquarters archives. Which is exactly what I had to
do in the case in question, diving out the door, notebook in hand,
to catch the evening train to Panama.
I was growing accustomed to Ancon and even to Ancon police-mess
when I strolled into headquarters on Saturday, the sixteenth, and
the Inspector flung a casual remark over his shoulder:
"Better get your stuff together.
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