Any hut might be a hiding-place. I made ostensibly casual
inquiries, interlarded between stories, at several of them, and at
length established that the Greek had been there not long before,
but was elsewhere now. Then about four of the afternoon I burst
out suddenly in sight of a broad modern highway, and leaving the
ancient route as it headed away toward Old Panama, I turned aside
to the modern city.
Then I was "called off the Greek chase"; and a couple of evenings
later, along with the evening train and the evening fog, the
Inspector "blew in" from his forty-two days' vacation in the
States, like a breath from far-off Broadway. Buffalo Bill had been
duly opened and started on his season's way, the absent returned,
and Corporal Castillo suddenly dwindled again to a mere corporal.
As everything must have its flaws, perhaps the chief one that
might be charged against the Z. P. is "red tape." Strictly
speaking it is no Z. P. fault at all, but a weakness of all
government. One example will suffice.
During the month of May I was assigned the investigation of
certain alleged conditions in Panama's restricted district. The
then head of the plain-clothes division gave me carte blanche, but
suggested that I need not spare my expense account in libating the
various establishments until I "got acquainted" sufficiently with
the inmates to pick up indirectly the information desired.
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