Treasury Department reported to Washington that a collection of uncut
diamonds, most of them rather large, had been sold to the German
representative of a firm in Rotterdam. From certain tips which they
picked up, however, the men abroad were of the opinion that the stones
were destined for the United States and advised that all German boats be
carefully watched, because the Dillingham diamonds--as the collection
was known--had been last heard of en route to Hamburg and it was to be
expected that they would clear from there.
The cablegram didn't cause any wild excitement in the Treasury
Department. European agents have a habit of trying to stir up trouble in
order to make it appear that they are earning their money and then they
claim that the people over here are not always alert enough to follow
their tips. It's the old game of passing the buck. You have to expect it
in any business.
But, as events turned out, the men on the other side were dead right.
Almost before Washington had time officially to digest the cable and to
mail out the stereotyped warnings based upon it, a report filtered in
from Wheeling, West Virginia, that one of the newly made coal
millionaires in that section had invested in some uncut diamonds as
large as the end of your thumb. The report came in merely as a routine
statement, but it set the customs authorities to thinking.
Uncut stones, you know, are hard to locate, either when they are being
brought in or after they actually arrive. Their color is dull and
slatelike and there is little to distinguish them from other and far
less valuable pebbles. Of course, there might not be the slightest
connection in the world between the Wheeling diamonds and those of the
Dillingham collection--but then, on the other hand, there might....
Hence, it behooved the customs people to put on a little more speed and
to watch the incoming steamers just as carefully as they knew how.
Some weeks passed and the department had sunk back into a state of
comfortable ease--broken only occasionally by a minor case or two--when
a wire arrived one morning stating that two uncut diamonds had appeared
in New York under conditions which appeared distinctly suspicious. The
owner had offered them at a price 'way under the market figure, and
then, rather than reply to one or two questions relative to the history
of the stones, had disappeared. There was no record of the theft of any
diamonds answering to the description of those seen in Maiden Lane, and
the police force inquired if Washington thought they could have been
smuggled.
"Of course they could," snorted the chief. "But there's nothing to prove
it. Until we get our hands upon them and a detailed description of the
Dillingham stones, it's impossible to tell."
So he cabled abroad for an accurate list of the diamonds which had been
sold a couple of months earlier, with special instructions to include
any identifying marks, as it was essential to spot the stones before a
case could be built up in court.
The following Tuesday a long dispatch from Rotterdam reached the
department, stating, among other things, that one of the Dillingham
diamonds could be distinguished by a heart-shaped flaw located just
below the surface. That same afternoon came another wire from New York
to the effect that two rough stones, answering to the description of the
ones alluded to in a previous message, had turned up in the jewelry
district after passing through half a dozen underground channels.
"Has one of the diamonds a heart-shaped flaw in it?" the chief inquired
by wire.
"It has," came back the response. "How did you know it?"
"I didn't," muttered the head of the Customs Service, "but I took a
chance. The odds were twenty to one against me, but I've seen these long
shots win before. Now," ringing for Mahoney, his assistant, "we'll see
what can be done to keep the rest of that collection from drifting
in--if it hasn't already arrived."
"Where's Marks located now?" the chief inquired when Mahoney entered.
"Somewhere in the vicinity of Buffalo, I believe. He's working on that
Chesbro case, the one in connection with--"
"I know," cut in the chief. "But that's pin money compared with this
matter of the Dillingham diamonds. Thousands of dollars are at stake
here, against hundreds there. Besides, if this thing ever leaks out to
the papers we'll never hear the last of it. The New York office isn't in
any too strong as it is. Wire Marks to drop the trail of those silk
hounds and beat it to New York as fast as he can. He'll find real work
awaiting him there--something that ought to prove a test of the
reputation he's built up on the other three borders. Hurry it up!"
"E. Z." found the message awaiting him when he returned to his hotel
that night, and without the slightest symptom of a grouch grabbed the
next train for New York. As he told me later, he didn't mind in the
least dropping the silk matter, because he had put in the better part of
a month on it and didn't seem any closer than when he started.
It took Ezra less than five minutes to get all the dope the New York
office had on the case--and it took him nearly six months to solve it.
"The two diamonds in Wheeling and the two that turned up here are the
only ones we know about," said the man in charge of the New York office.
"The original Dillingham collection contained twenty-one rough
stones--but whether the other seventeen have already been brought in or
whether the people who are handling them have shipped them elsewhere is
wholly problematical. The chief learned about the heart-shaped flaw from
our man at Rotterdam, so that identifies one of the stones. But at the
same time it doesn't help us in the least--for we can't handle the case
from this end."
"Same rules as on the Coast, eh?" inquired Marks.
"Precisely. You've got to tackle the other end of the game. No rummaging
around here, trying to pick up the trail that ends with the stone in
Maiden Lane. As you know, this bunch is pretty well organized, wheels
within wheels and fences on fences. You get something on one of them and
the rest of the crowd will perjure themselves black in the face to get
him off, with the result that your case will be laughed out of court and
the man you're really after--the chap who's running the stones under
your nose--is a thousand miles away with a grin on his face. You've got
to land him first and the others later, if the chief wants them. The
chances are, though, that he'll be well satisfied to have the goods on
the crook that's doing the main part of the work."
"Well," drawled Marks, "I trust he gets his satisfaction. Got any ideas
on the matter?"
"Nary an idea. The stones were sold abroad and presumably they were
headed for Hamburg--which would appear to point to a German boat. Four
of them, supposedly--one of them, certainly--turned up here without
passing through the office or paying the customary duty. Now go to it!"
When Marks got back to his hotel and started to think the problem over,
he had to admit that there wasn't very much to "go to." It was the
thinnest case he had ever tackled--a perfect circle of a problem,
without the slightest sign of a beginning, save the one which was
barred.
Anxious as he was to make good, he had to concede that the department's
policy of working from the other end of the case was the right course to
follow. He had heard of too many arrests that fell flat, too many weary
weeks of work that went for nothing--because the evidence was
insufficient--not to realize the justice of the regulations that
appeared to hamper him.
"No," he thought, as he half dreamed over a pipe-load of tobacco, "the
case seems to be impregnable. But there must be some way to jimmy into
it if you try long enough."
His first move was the fairly obvious one of searching the newspaper
files to discover just what ships had docked during the ten days
previous to the appearance of the stones in Wheeling. But this led
nowhere, because that week had been a very busy one in maritime circles.
The _Celtic_, the _Mauretania_, the _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_, the
_Kronprinzessin Cecelie_, the _Deutschland_ and a host of other smaller
vessels had landed within that time.
Just as a check upon his observations, he examined the records for the
week preceding the first appearance of the diamonds in New York. Here
again he ran into a snag, but one which enabled him to eliminate at
least half of the vessels he had considered before. However, there still
remained a sufficient number to make it impossible to watch all of them
or even to fix upon two or three which appeared more suspicious than the
others.
The information from abroad pointed to the fact that a German boat was
carrying the diamonds, but, Marks figured, there was nothing in the
world to prevent the stones from being taken into England or France or
Italy and reshipped from there. They had turned up in the United States,
so why couldn't they have been slipped through the customs of other
countries just as easily?
The one point about the whole matter that appeared significant to him
was that two stones had been reported in each case--a pair in Wheeling
and another pair in New York. This evidence would be translated either
to mean that the smugglers preferred to offer the diamonds in small
lots, so as not to center suspicion too sharply in their movements, or
that the space which they used to conceal the stones was extremely
limited.
Marks inclined to the latter theory, because two stones, rather than
one, had been offered in each instance. If the whole lot had been run
in, he argued, the men responsible would market them singly, rather than
in pairs. This would not detract in the slightest from the value of the
stones, as it isn't easy to match rough diamonds and thus increase their
market value.
Having settled this matter to his own satisfaction and being convinced
that, as not more than two stones were being run in at one time, it
would take at least eight more trips to import the entire shipment,
"E. Z." settled down to a part of the government detective's work which
is the hardest and the most necessary in his life--that which can best
be characterized by the phrase "watchful waiting."
For weeks at a time he haunted the docks and wharves along the New York
water front. His tall, angular figure became a familiar sight at every
landing place and his eyes roamed restlessly over the crowds that came
down the gangplank. In a number of instances he personally directed the
searching of bags and baggage which appeared to be suspicious. Save for
locating a few bolts of valuable lace and an oil painting concealed in
the handle of a walking stick which was patently hollow, he failed to
turn up a thing.
The only ray of hope that he could glimpse was the fact that, since he
had been assigned to the case, four more stones had been reported--again
in pairs. This proved that his former reasoning had been correct and
also that the smugglers evidently intended to bring in all of the
twenty-one stones, two at a time. But when he came to catalog the hiding
places which might be used to conceal two articles of the size of the
stones already spotted, he was stumped. The list included a walking
stick, the heels of a pair of women's shoes, two dummy pieces of candy
concealed in a box of real confections, a box of talcum, a bag of
marbles, the handle of an umbrella, or any one of a number of other
trinkets which travelers carry as a matter of course or bring home as
curios or gifts.
Finally, after two solid months of unproductive work, he boarded the
midnight train for Washington and strolled into the chief's office the
following morning, to lay his cards on the table.
"Frankly," he admitted, "I haven't accomplished a thing. I'm as far from
breaking into the circle as I was at the beginning, and, so far as I can
see, there isn't any hope of doing it for some time to come."
"Well," inquired the chief, "do you want to be relieved of the case or
do you want me to drop the matter entirely--to confess that the Customs
Service has been licked by a single clever smuggler?"
"Not at all!" and Marks's tone indicated that such a thought had never
entered his head. "I want the Service to stick with the case and I want
to continue to handle it. But I do want a definite assurance of time."
"How much time?"
"That I can't say. The only lead I've located--and that isn't sufficient
to be dignified by the term 'clue'--will take weeks and probably months
to run to earth. I don't see another earthly trail to follow, but I
would like to have time to see whether this one leads anywhere."
"All right," agreed the chief, fully realizing what "E. Z." was up
against and not being hurried by any pressure from the outside--for the
case had been carefully kept out of the newspapers--"this is September.
Suppose we say the first of the year? How does that suit you?"
"Fair enough, if that's the best you can do."
"I'm afraid it is," was the comment from across the desk, "because
that's all the case is worth to us. Your time is valuable and we can't
afford to spend a year on any case--unless it's something as big as the
sugar frauds. Stick with it until New Year's, and if nothing new
develops before then we'll have to admit we're licked and turn you loose
on something else."
"Thanks, Chief," said Marks, getting up from his chair. "You can depend
upon my doing everything possible in the next three months to locate the
leak and I surely appreciate your kindness in not delivering an
ultimatum that you want the smuggler or my job. But then I guess you
know that I couldn't work any harder than I'm going to, anyhow."
"Possibly," agreed the head of the Service, "and then, again, it may be
because I have confidence that you'll turn the trick within the year.
Want any help from this end?"
"No, thanks. This looks like a one-man game and it ought not to take
more than one man to finish it. A whole bunch of people always clutter
up the place and get you tangled in their pet theories and personal
ideas. What I would like, though, is to be kept in close touch with any
further developments concerning stones that appear later on--where they
are located--their exact weight and diameter, and any other facts that
might indicate a possible hiding place."
"You'll get that, all right," promised the chief. "And I trust that
you'll develop a red-hot trail of your own before January first."
With that Marks shook hands and started back to New York, fairly well
pleased with the results of his trip, but totally disgusted with the
lack of progress which he had made since leaving Buffalo.
Early in October a message from Washington informed him that a couple of
uncut diamonds had turned up in Cincinnati, stones which answered to the
description of a pair in the Dillingham collection.
Around the 10th of November another pair was heard from in Boston, and
anyone who was familiar with Marks and his methods would have noted a
tightening of the muscles around his mouth and a narrowing of his eyes
which always indicated that he was nearing the solution of a difficulty.
After receiving the November message he stopped haunting the wharves and
commenced to frequent the steamship offices of the Hamburg-American,
North German Lloyd and Llanarch lines. The latter, as you probably know,
is operated by Welsh and British capital and runs a few small boats
carrying passengers who would ordinarily travel second class, together
with a considerable amount of freight.
When the first day of December dawned, Marks drew a deep-red circle
around the name of the month on his calendar and emitted a prayerful
oath, to the effect he'd "be good and eternally damned if that month
didn't contain an unexpected Christmas present for a certain person." He
made no pretense of knowing who the person was--but he did feel that he
was considerably closer to his prey than he had been five months before.
Fate, as some one has already remarked, only deals a man a certain
number of poor hands before his luck changes. Sometimes it gets worse,
but, on the average, it improves. In Ezra Marks's case Fate took the
form of a storm at sea, one of those winter hurricanes that sweep
across the Atlantic and play havoc with shipping.
Ezra was patiently waiting for one of three boats. Which one, he didn't
know--but by the process of elimination he had figured to a mathematical
certainty that one of them ought to carry two uncut diamonds which were
destined never to visit the customs office. Little by little, through
the months that had passed, he had weeded out the ships which failed to
make port at the time the diamonds arrived--calculating the time by the
dates on which the stones appeared elsewhere--and there were only three
ships left. One of them was a North German Lloyder, the second belonged
to the Hamburg-American fleet, and the third possessed an
unpronounceable Welsh name and flew the pennant of the Llanarch line.
As it happened, the two German ships ran into the teeth of the gale and
were delayed three days in their trip, while the Welsh boat missed the
storm entirely and docked on time.
Two days later came a message from Washington to the effect that two
diamonds, uncut, had been offered for sale in Philadelphia.
"Have to have one more month," replied Marks. "Imperative! Can
practically guarantee success by fifteenth of January"--for that was the
date on which the Welsh ship was due to return.
"Extension granted," came the word from Washington. "Rely on you to make
good. Can't follow case any longer than a month under any
circumstances."
Marks grinned when he got that message. The trap was set, and, unless
something unforeseen occurred, "E. Z." felt that the man and the method
would both be in the open before long.
When the Welsh ship was reported off quarantine in January, Marks
bundled himself into a big fur coat and went down the bay in one of the
government boats, leaving instructions that, the moment the ship docked,
she was to be searched from stem to stern.
"Don't overlook as much as a pill box or a rat hole," he warned his
assistants, and more than a score of men saw to it that his instructions
were carried out to the letter.
Beyond exhibiting his credentials, Marks made no effort to explain why
the ship was under suspicion. He watched the deck closely to prevent the
crew from throwing packages overboard, and as soon as they reached dock
he requested all officers to join him in one of the big rooms belonging
to the Customs Service. There he explained his reasons for believing
that some one on board was guilty of defrauding the government out of
duty on a number of uncut diamonds.
"What's more," he concluded, at the end of an address which was
purposely lengthy in order to give his men time to search the ship, "I
am willing to stake my position against the fact that two more diamonds
are on board the ship at this moment!"
Luckily, no one took him up--for he was wrong.
The captain, pompous and self-assertive, preferred to rise and rant
against the "infernal injustice of this high-handed method."
Marks settled back to listen in silence and his fingers strayed to the
side pocket of his coat where his pet pipe reposed. His mind strayed to
the thought of how his men were getting along on the ship, and he
absent-mindedly packed the pipe and struck a match to light it.
It was then that his eye fell upon the man seated beside him--Halley,
the British first mate of the steamer. He had seen him sitting there
before, but had paid little attention to him. Now he became aware of
the fact that the mate was smoking a huge, deep-bowled meerschaum pipe.
At least, it had been in his mouth ever since he entered, ready to be
smoked, but unlighted.
Almost without thinking about it, Marks leaned forward and presented the
lighted match, holding it above the mate's pipe.
"Light?" he inquired, in a matter-of-fact tone.
To his amazement, the other started back as if he had been struck, and
then, recovering himself, muttered: "No, thanks. I'm not smoking."
"Not smoking?" was the thought that flashed through Marks's head, "then
why--"
But the solution of the matter flashed upon him almost instantly. Before
the mate had time to move, Marks's hand snapped forward and seized the
pipe. With the same movement he turned it upside down and rapped the
bowl upon the table. Out fell a fair amount of tobacco, followed by two
slate-colored pebbles which rolled across the table under the very eyes
of the captain!
"I guess that's all the evidence we need!" Marks declared, with a laugh
of relief. "You needn't worry about informing your consul and entering a
protest, Captain Williams. I'll take charge of your mate and these
stones and you can clear when you wish."
X
THE GIRL AT THE SWITCHBOARD
"When you come right down to it," mused Bill Quinn, "women came as near
to winning the late but unlamented war as did any other single factor.
"The Food Administration placarded their statement that 'Food Will Win
the War' broadcast throughout the country, and that was followed by a
whole flock of other claimants, particularly after the armistice was
signed. But there were really only two elements that played a leading
role in the final victory--men and guns. And women backed these to the
limit of their powerful ability--saving food, buying bonds, doing extra
work, wearing a smile when their hearts were torn, and going 'way out of
their usual sphere in hundreds of cases--and making good in practically
every one of them.
"So far as we know, the Allied side presented no analogy to Mollie
Pitcher or the other heroines of past conflicts, for war has made such
forward steps that personal heroism on the part of women is almost
impossible. Of course, we had Botchkareva and her 'Regiment of Death,'
not to mention Edith Cavell, but the list is not a long one.
"When it is finally completed, however, there are a few names which the
public hasn't yet heard which will stand well toward the front. For
example, there was Virginia Lang--"
"Was she the girl at the switchboard that you mentioned in connection
with the von Ewald case?" I interrupted.
"That's the one," said Quinn, "and, what's more, she played a leading
role in that melodrama, a play in which they didn't use property guns or
cartridges."
* * * * *
Miss Lang [continued Quinn] was one of the few women I ever heard of
that practically solved a Secret Service case "on her own." Of course,
in the past, the different governmental detective services have found it
to their advantage to go outside the male sex for assistance.
There have been instances where women in the employ of the Treasury
Department rendered valuable service in trailing smugglers--the matter
of the Deauville diamonds is a case in point--and even the Secret
Service hasn't been above using women to assist in running
counterfeiters to earth, while the archives of the State Department
would reveal more than one interesting record of feminine co-operation
in connection with underground diplomacy.
But in all these cases the women were employed to handle the work and
they were only doing what they were paid for, while Virginia Lang--
Well, in the first place, she was one of the girls in charge of the
switchboard at the Rennoc in New York. You know the place--that big
apartment hotel on Riverside Drive where the lobby is only a shade less
imposing than the bell-boys and it costs you a month's salary to speak
to the superintendent. They never have janitors in a place like that.
Virginia herself--I came to know her fairly well in the winter of
nineteen seventeen, after Dave Carroll had gone to the front--was well
qualified by nature to be the heroine of any story. Rather above the
average in size, she had luckily taken advantage of her physique to
round out her strength with a gymnasium course. But in spite of being a
big woman, she had the charm and personality which are more often found
in those less tall. When you couple this with a head of wonderful hair,
a practically perfect figure, eyes into which a man could look and,
looking, lose himself, lips which would have caused a lip stick to blush
and--Oh, what's the use? Words only caricature a beautiful woman, and,
besides, if you haven't gotten the effect already, there's nothing that
I could tell you that would help any.