Two things I never understood

1. How did Barlow arrive in the country without being discovered? Anything coming into the country from abroad has to be checked out by Custom's Inspectors. So when the crate he arrived in got to the Portland Docks, it should have been opened to be searched for contraband, along with his coffin (presumably during the daylight hours )and that should have been the end of Barlow right there. I suppose it's possible that Straker could have bribed someone in Customs not to open it, but that seems like a stretch to me.

2. Straker tells Crockett that when Mike and Ned deliver the crate with Barlow inside it to the Marsten House's basement, that they put padlocks on all the doors, and leave the keys to all the locks on a table in the basement. If they were to have done that, (but didn't because they fled the house in fear before they got the chance), how would Straker have gotten back into the house? I guess Barlow would have had to let him in, but why didn't Crockett think to ask Straker that? It was almost word for word in the book this way too, and I always wonder about it.