But when he walked into my office he was pie-eyed with fear. I sat him down, closed the door, and poured him some black coffee. At length he calmed down enough to stammer out his story.

They'd bugged his office, he gulped. Maybe even his car. Who had, I asked? The CIA?

The mob? The Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, solicitor-general for Canada? You're the private eye, he said, that's what I want you to find out. All right, all right, I said. Let's take it from the top.

His name was Gerry Morin. Turned out he was the chairman of some RCMP complaints panel -- the one looking into the APEC mess. It figured. Some pretty big slugs would be squirming if that particular rock were ever turned over. Obviously, somebody was trying to put a scare into him. Maybe he knew too much, I suggested. He looked at me blankly.

Knew too much? Hadn't I been watching the hearings?

Wait, he said. There's more. Weeks before, some RCMP gumshoe pops up out of the blue, name of Constable Russell Black, claiming he heard my guy pin the rap on the Mounties for pepper-spraying those protesters -- before the inquiry had even started. Says he heard him say it -- get this -- in a casino. That's right. The chairman of a major public inquiry, rendering his verdict in advance over a couple of hands of blackjack.

Loose lips sink more than ships, I thought. That's how they got Andy Scott. And Terry Milewski, the TV guy. A couple of stray phrases, and you end up swimming with the fishes, careerwise. No wonder my guy was spooked. And now this: Someone had jimmied open the side door to his Vancouver office, yet left without taking anything. He wondered if this was strictly coincidence. Maybe they were listening in on all his conversations. Maybe he was the subject of a covert investigation.

So on top of sweeping his office for electronic devices, he said, maybe I could get the goods on this bigmouth flatfoot. Nothing underhanded. Just a little "research." Let me get this straight, I said. You want me to investigate whether someone has been investigating your investigation? I'm supposed to snoop on the snoops?

That's right, he said. They were trying to discredit him. Well, maybe he could discredit them.

But who were "they," I wondered? The RCMP? But why? After all, the inquiry was going nowhere fast enough with Morin in the chair. The first few days had been consumed with arguments over whether to pay for the kids' lawyers, the next with delving into the Scott affair. The inquiry itself was the subject of at least four additional lawsuits. Why take out the chairman when you're already on a roll?

All right, then: who? The prime minister? The Shawinigan Strangler? But he appointed Morin, along with the other two panellists. If the fix was in, why work so hard to undermine your own stooge? On the other hand, if there was any danger of the inquiry putting the finger on the Little Guy for gassing the kids, why would Morin have been overheard telling his poker partners it was all the RCMP's fault? And if, as he maintains, he didn't say anything of the kind, why would anyone say he did?

My head was starting to hurt. This case was a lot more complicated than I had first thought. I needed some fast pain relief -- the kind that comes in tens and twenties. A case this delicate, I told him, it's going to cost you. I'm talking, oh, $8,000, in advance. That should put him off, I thought. Who wanted to get mixed up in politics, anyway? I'd dealt with some lowlifes in my line of work. But these guys were scary.

He didn't even blink. No problem, he said. I'll just expense it. Charge it to the inquiry.

Can you do that, I asked, half in admiration? Hire a P.I. to dig up dirt on your accusers, and write it off on the taxpayers' tab? Is this how you folks carry on?

Sure, he said. Besides, what do you expect me to do? Go to the cops?

But suppose your superiors get wind of this, I said? Suppose they won't foot the bill?

Easy, he said. In that case, I'll quit.