"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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.sengers who would ordinarily travel second cla.s.s, 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 d.a.m.ned 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 pa.s.sed, 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 unp.r.o.nounceable 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 circ.u.mstances."

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 a.s.sistants, 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-a.s.sertive, 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 a.n.a.logy 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."