Tom Swift and His Great Searchlight | Page 8

and Tom. "I only know I
was sent here to do certain work, and I'm going to do it. I wanted to
make some observations before you saw me, but I wasn't quite quick
enough."
"Would you mind telling me what you want to know?" asked Tom, a
bit impatiently. "You mentioned smuggling, and--"
"Smuggling!" interrupted Ned.
"Yes, over from Canada. Maybe you have seen something in the papers
about our department thinking airships were used at night to slip the
goods over the border."
"We saw it!" cried Tom eagerly. "But how does that concern me?"
"I'll come to that, presently," replied Mr. Whitford. "In the first place,
we have been roundly laughed at in some papers for proposing such a
theory. And yet it isn't so wild as it sounds. In fact, after seeing your
airship, Tom Swift, I'm convinced--"
"That I've been smuggling?" asked Tom with a laugh.
"Not at all. As you have read, we confiscated some smuggled goods the
other day, and among them was a scrap of paper with the words
Shopton, New York, on it."
"Was it a letter from someone here, or to someone here?" asked Ned.
"The papers intimated so."
"No. they only guessed at that part of it. It was just a scrap of paper,

evidently torn from a letter, and it only had those three words on it.
Naturally we agents thought we could get a clew here. We imagined, or
at least I did, for I was sent to work up this end, that perhaps the
airships for the smugglers were made here. I made inquiries, and found
that you, Tom Swift, and one other, Andy Foger, had made, or owned,
airships in Shopton."
"I came here, but I soon exhausted the possibility of Andy Foger
making practical airships. Besides he isn't at home here any more, and
he has no facilities for constructing the craft as you have. So I came to
look at your place, and I must say that it looks a bit suspicious, Mr.
Swift. Though, of course, as I said," he added with a smile, "you may
be able to explain everything."
"I think I can convince you that I had no part in the smuggling," spoke
Tom, laughing. "I never sell my airships. If you like you may talk with
my father, the housekeeper, and others who can testify that since my
return from taking moving pictures, I have not been out of town, and
the smuggling has been going on only a little while."
"That is true," assented the custom officer. "I shall be glad to listen to
any evidence you may offer. This is a very baffling case. The
government is losing thousands of dollars every month, and we can't
seem to stop the smugglers, or get much of a clew to them. This one is
the best we have had so far."
It did not take Tom many hours to prove to the satisfaction of Mr.
Whitford that none of our hero's airships had taken any part in cheating
Uncle Sam out of custom duties.
"Well, I don't know what to make of it," said the government agent,
with a disappointed air, as he left the office of the Shopton chief of
police, who, with others, at Tom's request, had testified in his favor.
"This looked like a good clew, and now it's knocked into a cocked hat.
There's no use bothering that Foger fellow," he went on, "for he has but
one airship, I understand."
"And that's not much good." put in Ned. "I guess it's partly wrecked,

and Andy has kept it out in the barn since he moved away."
"Well, I guess I'll be leaving town then," went on the agent. "I can't get
any more clews here, and there may be some new ones found on the
Canadian border where my colleagues are trying to catch the rascals.
I'm sorry I bothered you, Tom Swift. You certainly have a fine lot of
airships," he added, for he had been taken through the shop, and shown
the latest, noiseless model. "A fine lot. I don't believe the smugglers, if
they use them, have any better."
"Nor as good!" exclaimed Ned. "Tom's can't be beat."
"It's too late for our noiseless trial now," remarked Tom, after the agent
had gone. "Let's put her back in the shed, and then I'll take you down
street, and treat you to some ice cream, Ned. It's getting quite summery
now."
As the boys were coming out of the drug store, where they had eaten
their ice cream in the form of sundaes, Ned uttered a cry of surprise at
the sight of a man approaching them.
"It's Mr. Dillon, the carpenter whom we saw in the Foger house, Tom!"
exclaimed his chum.