The morning "touch" with headquarters over, therefore, I scrambled
away across the silent yawning locks and the trainless and
workless dam to the Spillway, over which already some overflow
from the lake was escaping to the Caribbean. My friends "Dusty"
and H---- had carried their canoe to the Chagres below, and before
nine we were off down the river. It was a day that all the world
north of the Tropic of Cancer could not equal; just the weather
for a perfect "day off." A plain-clothes man, it is true, is not
supposed to have days off. Some one might run away with the
Administration Building on the edge of the Pacific and the
telephone wires be buzzing for me--with the sad result that a few
days later there would be posted in Zone police stations where all
who turned the leaves might read:
Special Order No. ....
Having been found Guilty of charges of
Neglect of Duty
preferred against him by his commanding officer
First-class Policeman No. 88
is hereby fined $2.
Chief of Division.
But shades of John Aspinwall! Should even a detective work on such
a Sunday? Surely no criminal would--least of all a black one.
Moreover these forest-walled banks were also part of my beat.
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