OPIUM-LINED PETTICOAT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18321, 11 August 1921, Page 6

OPIUM-LINED PETTICOAT

SYDNEY CUSTOMS AND A WOMAN. (From Oub Own Cobrespondent.) SYDNEY, August 1. One day the Sydney Customs officials received a mysterious ’phone message. A woman’s voice told them to be on the -qui vivo in a few days’ time, when an Eastern steamer was due. 'They were to look out for a red-headed, very stylishly dressed woman, who would go aboard after 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 somehow —neglect no slightest clno. An official was on special watch for tho red-haired woman on tho day indicated. Sure enough, when the passengers were disembarked, the lady appeared and strolled up the gangway. , y he spoke to some of (ho stewards and then wandered downstairs, with tho Customs man in close attendance, .yho slipped into a cabin, and In- concealed himself rigid alongside. He could thoii have pounced, but lie wanted to catch her with the goods. After some time, she came out quickly, glanced around, and hurried upstairs. The Customs man was only two hops behind.

The Customs man overdid it. In his anxiety not to be beaten, ho got too close, and tile lady became suspicious. She walked on quickly and then turned round suddenly. Her shadow foolishly tried to duck brick. The lady thereupon dropped all pretence and bolted for the deck. The Customs man cave furious chase. When ho got on deck «'>•» was ju«l at the top of the gangway. She saw him coming. She pan.-d, thrusi. a hand inside her plaquct and pulled a string. Thus released, a heavily weighted underskirt dropped round her feet. She jumped clear anti ran down the gangway. The officer stopped to gather up the skirt, with its scores of little pockets filled with opium. Then ho went after the lady. She had completely disappeared. Later it was learned that she maintained a luxurious little flat tit Potts Point, and that, she had 100 men friends—including many sailors. She controller! smugvling scheme in a big way—and might have slill been pursuing her properous career had she not tried to “vamp” the husband of a woman who knew something about her, and used the telephone to tome effect.