ABSTRACT
One day Tot and I were summoned to Mrs. Wilson’s house where we found her alone and very nervous. She informed us that her husband had been imprisoned on suspicion of smuggling strychnine. This was one of the commodities that it was particularly profitable to import, since the poison was in great demand not only by the trappers of Mongolia but also by the nomads, who use it against the wolves, the hereditary foes who constantly attack their cattle. The Soviet has now prohibited its importation with a view to making the trade in strychnine a Russian monopoly, but Wilson, who had considerable quantities lying in Kalgan and knew that there were always buyers in Urga, had sewn his stock into the cover of his car and succeeded in getting through the customs inspection without being caught. One of his Russian chauffeurs had, however, given information about this to the Cheka, and the “green police” had come to examine the cars. Fortunately Mr. and Mrs. Wilson had succeeded in removing the contraband goods and burying them in a place where they thought they would escape discovery. The Cheka, however, had conducted such exhaustive enquiries and made so energetic a search that Mrs. Wilson was now afraid that the cache would come to light, in which case the Soviet would have a welcome pretext for putting a representative of the hated capitalism out of the way. If only the dangerous stock of strychnine could be got out of the town, the release of Wilson was merely a question of time, because in that case no evidence could be brought against him.
