Robert will knock and then enter.

The office is typical of government offices Robert has seen, to the point of the desk he finds himself in front of being nearly identical to his own. A filing cabinet sits behind it, and there is an inner door to the right of the desk. Further to the right, a window, lightly dusted with ochre dust, looks out into the customs warehouse.

A young man of Asiatic descent looks up from his work with a polite smile. "How may I help you, Sir," then he sees Louis, "and Madam?"

Robert opened the door and motioned Louis in ahead of him.  "Thank you sir.  I am Commander Robert Darlington retired from her majesty's navy and this is my wife Louis.  We are investigating the recent unpleasantness with the riot involving the Germans.  Part of this entails tracking down a certain ship captain.  We were hoping to gain permission to look through the customs and arrivals logs to narrow down the identity of our quarry."

"Oh," the man says with a nod. "You will need to speak to the manager. She must authorize any access to our records." He steps around the desk. "She is on the customs floor. If you will be so good as to follow me, I will take you to her."

Robert nods agreeably.  "Certainly, we appreciate your assistance in this matter."  He motions to Louis and then follows to the manager's office.

The secretary leads the way though the office doorway, and out onto the customs floor. On Robert's left are the exit doors, with handcarts stacked high with wooden crates and boxes of all descriptions. Groups of workers labor to lift or slide them into the waiting cargo wagons.

Some of the larger and heavier crates run on rollers, set in metal frames bolted to the floor, while the smaller items are moved by handcarts and muscle power.

To Robert's right, the inspectors work from a row of a dozen cubicles spaced across the floor. Beyond them, stacks of crates and boxes stand waiting to be inspected. Another set of large doors is just visible beyond, leading to what Robert knows is the port itself.

They walk the length of the warehouse, stopping to let a handcart or two pass, and nipping over the roller tracks between crates. Finally, the secretary points ahead. "There she is."

They walk over to a middle aged woman who is speaking to one of the uniformed customs inspectors. She turns to them as they walk up. She wears an inspector's uniform with a brassard indicating her rank, and she smiles at her subordinate. She appears to be of Indian descent, with olive skin and straight black hair pulled into a bun.

"Mizz Duvall, may I present Commander Robert Darlington and his wife. They are investigators who wish to inspect our logs."

"Indeed," Duvall says with a nod. "Please, give me a moment to finish here, and I will speak with you."

The secretary leads Robert and Louis to a relatively safe spot a few feet away. A minute later, Duvall approaches them. "Now, how may I help you, Commander?"

Robert follows easily through the familiar hustle and bustle of cargo and people.  He is careful of Louis making sure that she stays safe but more realistically pointing out some of the more clever methods of moving heavy objects about with a minimum of effort.  When the reach the manager he introduces both Louis and himself but says little more in public.

When they reach a more private place he hands the manager a private letter of introduction written for just this sort of activity.  "Mrs. Darlington and I have been activated as private agents of the Crown to investigate not only the unpleasantness with the Germans most recently but the shocking breadth of arms smuggling and corruption in the Royal armory.  We seek to track down a certain ethership captain who has an arrangement with the smugglers by looking through your logs of arrivals." He paused.  "Your complete discretion and that of your supervisor would be greatly appreciated for the foe places little value on human life."

Duvall listens to Robert's introduction, and then she reads the neatly typed letter with a carefully neutral face. They were out of earshot, but not completely away from others on the floor.

Finally, she nods. "We have heard rumors of smuggling, although we have not seen anything on the scale of a major smuggling ring. Our problem, "she indicates the large building beyond with a wave of her hand, "is that we simply cannot inspect more than a tithe of the cargo we receive in any meaningful way. I have twenty inspectors on duty during our busiest part of the work week, while we receive approximately five thousand tons of cargo per day. Further, unless we break open every crate, we have no way to tell for certain what they contain."

Duvall sighs. "What we do is certify our shippers and receivers as to their trustworthiness. You are welcome to review our logs, and the shippers to whom we have issued certificates."

Robert nods sympathetically. "We faced the problem in the Navy trying to enforce quarantines along the African coast or around Venus.  There were never enough men and ships."  He motions back toward the offices.  "There may be patterns that we can discern among the shipments with the additional knowledge we've picked up."

"Then I am more than willing to let you be about it," Duvall says with a grim smile. "Lothar, if you would show them the logs and the certificates, hopefully that will help them." The man who escorted Robert here bows fractionally. "Yes, Ma'am." He looks at the pair expectantly.

"Thank you ma'am.  We'll let you know what we find.  Also if you can keep this inquiry as silent as possible it would be beneficial to the health of my wife and myself."  He nodded to Lothar and followed the man.

Lothar leads the way to an office in the same area as the manager's office. There are rows of wooden and metal filing cabinets here, all neatly labeled by month and year. "Let me know if I can assist you with anything," Lothar says with a nod as he exits the room.There are several wooden tables with matching chairs, and gas lights for illumination.

"Oh, boy." Louis says, puffing her cheeks in a low whistle. An overhead fan rotates slowly, but the room is still stuffy.

Robert shakes his head as he looks at the rows of cabinets.  "This is part of the reason I was a line officer and not in the staff.  I always hated the paperwork."  He walked over to one of the cabinets and gave it a little kick."  He sighed.  "What time frame does the diary point to?  We can start there."

Louis steps up beside Robert and takes his hand in hers. "We can get through this, my dear." She pulls out the diary and opens it to the last entry:

5-15 2300 – whse 37A JW Dist. Red/Blue not Red/Black Wm.
M. 76 – 4x10 + 8k
M. 86 – 2x10 + 4k
M. 73 – 40x10 + 80k
M. 87 – 3x10 + 12k
CM. 73 – 10x10 + 10k
4000- in
500- RMM McD.
100- pol.
20 - dress
15 - boots

Robert looked over the list again and shook his head.  He kissed Louis on the cheek.  "Perhaps the 5-15 is May the 15th and the 2300 is 11 PM?"

"Yes, I think so." Louis runs her finger down the page. "We know about the warehouse, but I'm not sure about JW. We never did see the actual crates, but I'm wondering if this part is the description. The weapons are described, and then this last part is about the money. Do you see anything there that may help us?"

Robert looked over the notes they had taken.  "Well perhaps JW and Wm are initials.  Wn could be short for William.  The colors might be the description of a ship color?"

Louis' eyes narrow as she studies the entry. "Wait a moment. Red and black." She bites her lip in a most alluring manner as she thinks, and then her face lights up. "The crates! She's describing the crates; JW Black and Red." She grins at Robert. "Whiskey. Johnnie Walker, red, blue and black label, to be exact."

Robert thinks for a moment and then laughs.  "Whiskey..." He shook his head.  "Rum and gin is more the drink of a sailor and Englishman.  So they smuggled the rifles in whiskey crates or barrels.  That's clever, especially if they used kegs and immersed the rifles in the liquid.  It's an old trick for smugglers."

Louis nods. "Either way, it gives us a place to start. How many shipments of whisky could have come in at around midnight on the fifteenth?"

Robert moved over to the wall of filing cabinets.  "Well, let's see what we have for that time period.  It should be in the records." He opened cabinets until he found the time period in question and started looking for records of a shipment of American whiskey.

With Louis' assistance, Robert locates five shipments that include American whiskey. "Hm," Louis says as she flips though the records, "they don't show an exact description of the crates, though."

Robert spread the files out on the table before them.  "Can we see where they were cleared for customs?  There might be an address or vendor to whom they were sold."

Louis frowns. "Look at the number of rifles they shipped," she points out. "It would have to be an oddly shaped crate, and not one that would pass as a shipment of liquors."

Robert frowned as well.  "That's true, but would a rifle fit lengthwise in a keg of whiskey?  Or they may have bribed the inspector to ignore the difference with the manifest."