Evening star., 1923-06-03
BY BEN LUCIAN BURMAN.


//"HE most far-reaching opium
plot in American customs
service history The
u words are those of United
States Assistant District Attorney
| Herman l. Falk.4 whose convictions
Of the smugglers' band crushed q
gigantic conspiracy to introduce by
| stealth into this country more than
half a million dollars worth of the
Indian drug that seethes and fumes
in the dingy Chinatown the sight
| seer passes but never knows. And In
| this drama, enacted upon a stage of
| crooked streets and gloomy ware
houses, there stands out a youthful
| figure, grinning, unique - Willie
Smith, United States boy detective
| Willie Smith, seventeen, veteran
| resident of New York's west side
the street and number this historian
has sworn not to relate-after two
years of high school, found 1t neces-
| sary that he secure employment He
became office boy in the headquarters
| of the Government Treasury Service
| at the customs, building, continuing
| his scholarly pursuits in one of the
| night high schools. Standing at the
polished gate of the special agents
| office, barring the way to an intruder,
or welcoming an Official. he watched
wondered and envied. Whether
Willie had hoped, from the days he
| could first lisp out detective" to be-
| come enrolled in that mystic pro-
| fession. the bashful youth could not
| ny- f-F
Suffice it that often he had been an
| entranced listener Of the garrulous
| corner policeman near his home, and
| had read deeply in stories of strange
| crimes unraveling. Sherlock Holmes
he placed, and still places. far above
those psychic and mechanical detec-
tives who solve murders with ma
| chimes instead of their heads.
y 4 **
TT was not long before his genial
| l. ruddy face grinned itself into the
| friendship of the officers constantly
| passing. The winds of the friend
| ship blew warmer, until one day
| Allah was gracious. Willie bustled
| off a guest on a sudden night raid
| startling Mott streets sister across
| the Hudson-Newark's Chinatown.
| His behavior was without blemish.
| King Brady himself could not have
| observed a single violation of the de-
| tective's book of etiquette. AS a re-
| suit when other raids followed Willie
| accompanied. firing of being mere
| spectator, Willie determined that a
| good detective. even il only a guest.
1
| Through crannies which large men
| could not penetrate Willie squeezed
| up sooty chimneys. into dusty
| closets, to emerge black but trium-
| phant, in his hand the tin cans shell
| tering the "tois," tiny balls of the
potent drug. Now he tapped with
| his foot for a loose board, now pulled
with finger or pried with pocket
knife the knob of door or the scroll
| on a chair; now paved through a
coal pile. The guest proved his cali
| Der by thus amassing $500 worth of
| the gummy pellets that bring dreams
and was admitted into the great fra
ternity of sleuths.
The secrets of the craft impaired,
he was assigned to trail suspects.
noRerings where they entered, wait
ing outside. or If the building was
store of two entrances where pursuit
could be lost, strolling inside also, and
buying handkerchief or sundae.
To track a supposed drug peddler
hour after hour, trying to imagine
whether his next move would be to
board a bus, and ting whether
his own hundred feet behind was far
enough not to be perceived, yet near
enough to permit boarding the bus if
Necessary, was. of course, exhilarat-
ing. But today, by comparison, was
drab, he knew, as sitting in a restau-
rant near Union SQuare-where we
now find him-he slipped glass of
milk and. apparently absorbed in the
white fluid before him, listened with
acute ear to the whispered conversa-
tion of the four men at the table op-
posite. For this time he was trusted
agent in a case perhaps the most i'm
portant Of its kind in the annals of
the service; a dollar
opium conspiracy, embracing SNUG
glers. swarthy Italians and blinking
Cinnamon; q conspiracy which even
Sherlock Holmes would have deemed
worthy. He was trailing the ring
leader, a prosperous appearing, sleek
haired Italian, one Devanno.
Devanno. an uptown dealer in silks.
imported from Greece, packed secure
ly in twenty large cases $500 pounds
of opium, whose value on the street
totaled s56o.o00. The opium was
stored in a harbor United States
bonded warehouse, supposedly for
transshipment to Cuba, a transaction
usual, legal, in which the government
could have no concern. Emissaries of
the government, however, hidden in
the underworld, learned that enor-
nous quantities of the drug were
shortly to be on sale and suspected
the source. But it was only sus-
ricion. Mere surmise could not effect
one arrest, could not stop a single
sale. The need was evidence. Which
le gal fact explains why Willie's inter-
est at the moment was centered on
other things than milk.
0F the four diners to whose muffled
~ words he was eagerly but unob-
trusively attentive. besides the i'm
porter Devanno, were two white men,
i'll clad, malignant, probably not un-
acquainted with the penitentiary.
The fourth of the group was China
man, whose fiashy clothes contrasted
oddly with his staid, colorless face.
Now the voices were louder. the
Chanaman and one of the shabbily
dressed rufians. who appeared to be
the importers assistant were hag-
rling "Seyen hundred dollars. Too