Endure My Heart by Joan Smith

greatest enthusiasm. “He spoke of smuggling for full fifteen minutes.”
    “Did he indeed?” Crites asked with the satisfied air of a man having his suspicions confirmed. “It seems he speaks of the matter often when he is courting the local girls.”
    “I shouldn’t think he would harp on it if he is Miss Sage,” Miss Aldridge mentioned. The name Miss Sage had seeped into the consciousness of the townspeople, by what means I know not.
    “That’s true,” I had to agree. “Also, when he spoke of smuggling the other night, he spoke hard against it.”
    “He would, wouldn’t he?” Crites asked knowingly.
    I saw his meaning at once but let him go on to explain it.
    “He is pretty bent on setting himself up as a foe of the smuggling business to such worthwhile persons as yourself, Miss Anderson. When he visits with the Slacks and Turners and the more common people, he has not a word to say against it. No doubt he has heard that you have been kind enough to help me in the past, and wishes to establish to you that he is innocent.”
    “The bounder!” I declared, with an admiring glance at Crites. I know I need not tell you this admiration was simulated. The little laugh that escaped my lips was sheer delight. What fun to have the old revenueman wasting his time chasing and pestering the new! A neat turn on Wicklow, who thought he did not require any help. “He didn’t fool you, Officer Crites.”
    Crites blushed modestly. “Nothing is proven, but as you ladies have helped me in the past, I would welcome hearing anything you pick up around town. It is good to know the upholders of the law have some friends they can count on. Most of the people in Salford wish me at Coventry, as I well know. However, I would not want to harass an innocent man, and would appreciate your saying nothing of what we have discussed here. I shall keep an eye on him. He behaves in a strange way, I can tell you.”
    I was much of a mind to have this dangerous statement expanded on. Crites was happy to oblige me. “He never stays in his apartments over the store for a minute at night. He is always out prowling.”
    “He is a womanizer,” Miss Aldridge stated categorically.
    “He is in that line, no denying, but he usually leaves the girls’ houses early on. He doesn’t go home.”
    “Where does he go?” I asked.
    “Strange places,” was the intriguing reply. “Spends many a night riding up and down the shore road, poking his nose into any barn or hole along the way. I’ve lost hours of sleep following him. I think he is looking for likely spots to conceal the brandy, but I check out each and every one of them, and have found nothing thus far. I’ll keep after him. If he is up to what I think he is up to, he’ll be caught. We’ll conquer yet, ladies.” With a gallant lift of the cap, he nodded and rode on down the road.
    “It wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” Miss Aldridge stated, then turned at once to gossip of the schoolroom.
    I began to see that if Williams was as busy as Crites indicated, he should have an eye kept on him by the smugglers as well as the revenueman. He would be the most watched gentleman ever to have set foot in Salford.
    Andrew retired early that Friday evening, giving me good privacy to speak to Jem about his coming to sell Edna’s beads, as well as setting a guard on Williams at night. We agreed on Mark Hessler for the job. Jem was too busy, and if we were to keep it within our own tight little circle, it must be one or the other of them. Williams’ early night courting was no secret—the thing to be done was to wait outside the girl’s house and follow him afterward.
    I should imagine Mark slept very well during the daytime with such busy nights as he had. It was incredible to me that Williams could be smiling each morning in the shop, when he spent several hours of the night skulking about the shadows, to see which men left their homes, and where they went. That was what he was trying to discover.