OPIUM – LINED PETTICOAT

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 34, 9 August 1921, Page 7

OPIUM - LINED PETTICOAT

SIDNEY CUSTOMS AND A WOMAN.

(FROH OUR OWN COMISBPONDBHT.) SYDNEY, Ist August. One day the Sydney Customs officials received a mysterious telephone message. A woman's voice told them to be on the gui vive in a few days' time, when an Eastern steamer wa» due. They were'to look out for a red-headed, very stylishly dressed woman, who would go aboard after all the passengers had disappeared. The informant would not give her name, and rang off. \

The Customs officials, engaged in their constant fight with opium smugglers— and not too successful a fight, for great quantities of the drug have recently got into the country somel/ow^-neglect no slightest clue. An official was on special watch for the red-headed woman on the day indicated. Sure enough," when the passengers were disembarked, the lady appeared and strolled up the gangway. She spoke to some of the stewards, and then wandered downstairs, with the Customs man in close attendance. She slipped into a cabin, and ho concealed himself,right alongside. Ho could then have- pounced 1, ,but he wanted lo catch hen with the goods.. - After some time, sho came out quickly, glanced around, and,, hurried uj-.Hairs. The Customs man was. only two hops behind: . . The Customs man overdid it. In his anxiety nb.t to be beaten, ho got too close, and,- the lady became suspicious. Sho walked on'quiekly. and then turned round suddenly. Her shadower foolishly tried to cluck back. Tho lady thereupon dropped all pretence and boited for tho deck. The- Customs man gave , furious chase. When he j;ot on deck she was just at tho. top ot'the gangway. She saw him v-coming.. Sho paused, thrust a hantt-, insider her quaquct and .pulled a string. Thus 'released a hea-vilyiweightetl underskirt dropped round her feet. She jumped clear and ran down the gangway. The officer stopped to v gather up tho skirt, with its scores-of little pockets filled with opium. Then he went after the lady. She had completely disappeared. , . .

Later v it, was learned 'that her name was Mrs. Wilkie^-that she maintained a luxurious little flat at Potts Point, and that she had a hundred men friends— [i including many sailors. She controlled' 1 a. smuggling scheme in,a big way—and might have still been pursuing her prosperous career had she not tried to "vamp" the husband of a woman who knew something about her, and^used the telephone to some effect.