On Secret Service

by William Nelson Taft

  IX

  A MATCH FOR THE GOVERNMENT

  "I wonder how long it will take," mused Bill Quinn, as he tossed aside acopy of his favorite fictional monthly, "to remove the ethicalrestrictions which the war placed upon novels and short stories? Did youever notice the changing style in villains, for example? A decade or soago it was all the rage to have a Japanese do the dirty work--for thenwe were taking the 'yellow peril' rather seriously and it was reflectedin our reading matter. The tall, well-dressed Russian, with a sinisterglitter in his black eyes, next stepped upon the scene, to be followedby the villain whose swarthy complexion gave a hint of his Latinancestry.

  "For the past few years, of course, every real villain has had to haveat least a touch of Teutonic blood to account for the varioustreacheries which he tackles. I don't recall a single novel--or a shortstory, either--that has had an English or French villain who is foiledin the last few pages. I suppose you'd call it the _entente cordiale_ ofthe novelists, a sort of concerted attempt by the writing clan to dotheir bit against the Hun. And mighty good propaganda it was, too....

  "But, unfortunately, the detective of real life can't always tell bydetermining a man's nationality whether he's going to turn out to be acrook or a hero. When you come right down to it, every country has aboutthe same proportion of each and it's only by the closest observationthat one can arrive at a definite and fact-supported conclusion.

  "Details--trifles unnoticed in themselves--play a far larger part in thefinal denouement than any preconceived ideas or fanciful theories. Therewas the case of Ezra Marks and the Dillingham diamonds, for example...."

  * * * * *

  Ezra [continued the former Secret Service operative, when he had easedhis game leg into a position where it no longer gave him active trouble]was all that the name implied. Born in Vermont, of a highly puritanicalfamily, he had been named for his paternal grandfather and probably alsofor some character from the Old Testament. I'm not awfully strong onthat Biblical stuff myself.

  It wasn't long after he grew up, however, that life on the farm began topall. He found a copy of the life of Alan Pinkerton somewhere and readit through until he knew it from cover to cover. As was only natural ina boy of his age, he determined to become a great detective, and drifteddown to Boston with that object in view. But, once in the city, he foundthat "detecting" was a little more difficult than he had imagined, andfinally agreed to compromise by accepting a very minor position in thePolice Department. Luckily, his beat lay along the water front and hegot tangled up in two or three smuggling cases which he managed tounravel in fine shape, and, in this way, attracted the attention of theCustoms Branch of the Treasury Department, which is always on thelookout for new timber. It's a hard life, you know, and one whichdoesn't constitute a good risk for an insurance company. So there arealways gaps to be filled--and Ezra plugged up one of them very nicely.

  As might have been expected, the New Englander was hardly ever addressedby his full name. "E. Z." was the title they coined for him, and "E. Z."he was from that time on--at least to everyone in the Service. Thepeople on the other side of the fence, however, the men and women wholook upon the United States government as a joke and its laws as hurdlesover which they can jump whenever they wish--found that this Mark wasfar from an easy one. He it was who handled the Wang Foo opium case inSan Diego in nineteen eleven. He nailed the gun runners at El Paso whenhalf a dozen other men had fallen down on the assignment, and there wereat least three Canadian cases which bore the imprint of his latentgenius on the finished reports.

  His particular kind of genius was distinctly out of the ordinary, too.He wasn't flashy and he was far from a hard worker. He just stuck aroundand watched everything worth watching until he located the tip hewanted. Then he went to it--and the case was finished!

  The chap who stated that "genius is the capacity for infinite attentionto details" had Ezra sized up to a T. And it was one of thesedetails--probably the most trifling one of all--that led to his moststartling success.

  Back in the spring of nineteen twelve the European agents of theTreasury Department reported to Washington that a collection of uncutdiamonds, most of them rather large, had been sold to the Germanrepresentative of a firm in Rotterdam. From certain tips which theypicked up, however, the men abroad were of the opinion that the stoneswere destined for the United States and advised that all German boats becarefully watched, because the Dillingham diamonds--as the collectionwas known--had been last heard of en route to Hamburg and it was to beexpected that they would clear from there.

  The cablegram didn't cause any wild excitement in the TreasuryDepartment. European agents have a habit of trying to stir up trouble inorder to make it appear that they are earning their money and then theyclaim that the people over here are not always alert enough to followtheir tips. It's the old game of passing the buck. You have to expect itin 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 tomail out the stereotyped warnings based upon it, a report filtered infrom Wheeling, West Virginia, that one of the newly made coalmillionaires in that section had invested in some uncut diamonds aslarge as the end of your thumb. The report came in merely as a routinestatement, but it set the customs authorities to thinking.

  Uncut stones, you know, are hard to locate, either when they are beingbrought in or after they actually arrive. Their color is dull andslatelike and there is little to distinguish them from other and farless valuable pebbles. Of course, there might not be the slightestconnection in the world between the Wheeling diamonds and those of theDillingham collection--but then, on the other hand, there might....

  Hence, it behooved the customs people to put on a little more speed andto watch the incoming steamers just as carefully as they knew how.

  Some weeks passed and the department had sunk back into a state ofcomfortable ease--broken only occasionally by a minor case or two--whena wire arrived one morning stating that two uncut diamonds had appearedin New York under conditions which appeared distinctly suspicious. Theowner had offered them at a price 'way under the market figure, andthen, rather than reply to one or two questions relative to the historyof the stones, had disappeared. There was no record of the theft of anydiamonds answering to the description of those seen in Maiden Lane, andthe police force inquired if Washington thought they could have beensmuggled.

  "Of course they could," snorted the chief. "But there's nothing to proveit. Until we get our hands upon them and a detailed description of theDillingham stones, it's impossible to tell."

  So he cabled abroad for an accurate list of the diamonds which had beensold a couple of months earlier, with special instructions to includeany identifying marks, as it was essential to spot the stones before acase could be built up in court.

  The following Tuesday a long dispatch from Rotterdam reached thedepartment, stating, among other things, that one of the Dillinghamdiamonds could be distinguished by a heart-shaped flaw located justbelow the surface. That same afternoon came another wire from New Yorkto the effect that two rough stones, answering to the description of theones alluded to in a previous message, had turned up in the jewelrydistrict after passing through half a dozen underground channels.

  "Has one of the diamonds a heart-shaped flaw in it?" the chief inquiredby 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 achance. The odds were twenty to one against me, but I've seen these longshots win before. Now," ringing for Mahoney, his assistant, "we'll seewhat can be done to keep the rest of that collection from driftingin--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 thatChesbro case, the one in connection with--"

  "I know," cut in the ch
ief. "But that's pin money compared with thismatter of the Dillingham diamonds. Thousands of dollars are at stakehere, against hundreds there. Besides, if this thing ever leaks out tothe papers we'll never hear the last of it. The New York office isn't inany too strong as it is. Wire Marks to drop the trail of those silkhounds and beat it to New York as fast as he can. He'll find real workawaiting him there--something that ought to prove a test of thereputation he's built up on the other three borders. Hurry it up!"

  "E. Z." found the message awaiting him when he returned to his hotelthat night, and without the slightest symptom of a grouch grabbed thenext train for New York. As he told me later, he didn't mind in theleast dropping the silk matter, because he had put in the better part ofa 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 Yorkoffice 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 theonly ones we know about," said the man in charge of the New York office."The original Dillingham collection contained twenty-one roughstones--but whether the other seventeen have already been brought in orwhether the people who are handling them have shipped them elsewhere iswholly problematical. The chief learned about the heart-shaped flaw fromour man at Rotterdam, so that identifies one of the stones. But at thesame time it doesn't help us in the least--for we can't handle the casefrom this end."

  "Same rules as on the Coast, eh?" inquired Marks.

  "Precisely. You've got to tackle the other end of the game. No rummagingaround here, trying to pick up the trail that ends with the stone inMaiden Lane. As you know, this bunch is pretty well organized, wheelswithin wheels and fences on fences. You get something on one of them andthe rest of the crowd will perjure themselves black in the face to gethim off, with the result that your case will be laughed out of court andthe man you're really after--the chap who's running the stones underyour nose--is a thousand miles away with a grin on his face. You've gotto land him first and the others later, if the chief wants them. Thechances are, though, that he'll be well satisfied to have the goods onthe crook that's doing the main part of the work."

  "Well," drawled Marks, "I trust he gets his satisfaction. Got any ideason the matter?"

  "Nary an idea. The stones were sold abroad and presumably they wereheaded for Hamburg--which would appear to point to a German boat. Fourof them, supposedly--one of them, certainly--turned up here withoutpassing 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 thethinnest case he had ever tackled--a perfect circle of a problem,without the slightest sign of a beginning, save the one which wasbarred.

  Anxious as he was to make good, he had to concede that the department'spolicy of working from the other end of the case was the right course tofollow. He had heard of too many arrests that fell flat, too many wearyweeks of work that went for nothing--because the evidence wasinsufficient--not to realize the justice of the regulations thatappeared to hamper him.

  "No," he thought, as he half dreamed over a pipe-load of tobacco, "thecase seems to be impregnable. But there must be some way to jimmy intoit if you try long enough."

  His first move was the fairly obvious one of searching the newspaperfiles to discover just what ships had docked during the ten daysprevious to the appearance of the stones in Wheeling. But this lednowhere, 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 smallervessels had landed within that time.

  Just as a check upon his observations, he examined the records for theweek preceding the first appearance of the diamonds in New York. Hereagain he ran into a snag, but one which enabled him to eliminate atleast half of the vessels he had considered before. However, there stillremained a sufficient number to make it impossible to watch all of themor even to fix upon two or three which appeared more suspicious than theothers.

  The information from abroad pointed to the fact that a German boat wascarrying the diamonds, but, Marks figured, there was nothing in theworld to prevent the stones from being taken into England or France orItaly and reshipped from there. They had turned up in the United States,so why couldn't they have been slipped through the customs of othercountries just as easily?

  The one point about the whole matter that appeared significant to himwas that two stones had been reported in each case--a pair in Wheelingand another pair in New York. This evidence would be translated eitherto mean that the smugglers preferred to offer the diamonds in smalllots, so as not to center suspicion too sharply in their movements, orthat the space which they used to conceal the stones was extremelylimited.

  Marks inclined to the latter theory, because two stones, rather thanone, had been offered in each instance. If the whole lot had been runin, he argued, the men responsible would market them singly, rather thanin pairs. This would not detract in the slightest from the value of thestones, as it isn't easy to match rough diamonds and thus increase theirmarket value.

  Having settled this matter to his own satisfaction and being convincedthat, as not more than two stones were being run in at one time, itwould take at least eight more trips to import the entire shipment,"E. Z." settled down to a part of the government detective's work whichis the hardest and the most necessary in his life--that which can bestbe characterized by the phrase "watchful waiting."

  For weeks at a time he haunted the docks and wharves along the New Yorkwater front. His tall, angular figure became a familiar sight at everylanding place and his eyes roamed restlessly over the crowds that camedown the gangplank. In a number of instances he personally directed thesearching of bags and baggage which appeared to be suspicious. Save forlocating a few bolts of valuable lace and an oil painting concealed inthe handle of a walking stick which was patently hollow, he failed toturn up a thing.

  The only ray of hope that he could glimpse was the fact that, since hehad been assigned to the case, four more stones had been reported--againin pairs. This proved that his former reasoning had been correct andalso that the smugglers evidently intended to bring in all of thetwenty-one stones, two at a time. But when he came to catalog the hidingplaces which might be used to conceal two articles of the size of thestones already spotted, he was stumped. The list included a walkingstick, the heels of a pair of women's shoes, two dummy pieces of candyconcealed in a box of real confections, a box of talcum, a bag ofmarbles, the handle of an umbrella, or any one of a number of othertrinkets which travelers carry as a matter of course or bring home ascurios or gifts.

  Finally, after two solid months of unproductive work, he boarded themidnight train for Washington and strolled into the chief's office thefollowing morning, to lay his cards on the table.

  "Frankly," he admitted, "I haven't accomplished a thing. I'm as far frombreaking into the circle as I was at the beginning, and, so far as I cansee, 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 ordo you want me to drop the matter entirely--to confess that the CustomsService has been licked by a single clever smuggler?"

  "Not at all!" and Marks's tone indicated that such a thought had neverentered his head. "I want the Service to stick with the case and I wantto 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 sufficientto be dignified by the term 'clue'--will take weeks and probably monthsto run to earth. I don't see another earthly trail to follow, but Iwould like to have time to see whether this one leads anywhere."

  "All right," agreed the chief, fully realizing what "E. Z." was upagainst and not being hurried by any pressure from the outside--for thecase had been carefully kept out of the n
ewspapers--"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, "becausethat's all the case is worth to us. Your time is valuable and we can'tafford to spend a year on any case--unless it's something as big as thesugar frauds. Stick with it until New Year's, and if nothing newdevelops before then we'll have to admit we're licked and turn you looseon something else."

  "Thanks, Chief," said Marks, getting up from his chair. "You can dependupon my doing everything possible in the next three months to locate theleak and I surely appreciate your kindness in not delivering anultimatum that you want the smuggler or my job. But then I guess youknow 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 bebecause 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 takemore than one man to finish it. A whole bunch of people always clutterup the place and get you tangled in their pet theories and personalideas. What I would like, though, is to be kept in close touch with anyfurther developments concerning stones that appear later on--where theyare located--their exact weight and diameter, and any other facts thatmight indicate a possible hiding place."

  "You'll get that, all right," promised the chief. "And I trust thatyou'll develop a red-hot trail of your own before January first."

  With that Marks shook hands and started back to New York, fairly wellpleased with the results of his trip, but totally disgusted with thelack of progress which he had made since leaving Buffalo.

  Early in October a message from Washington informed him that a couple ofuncut diamonds had turned up in Cincinnati, stones which answered to thedescription of a pair in the Dillingham collection.

  Around the 10th of November another pair was heard from in Boston, andanyone who was familiar with Marks and his methods would have noted atightening of the muscles around his mouth and a narrowing of his eyeswhich always indicated that he was nearing the solution of a difficulty.

  After receiving the November message he stopped haunting the wharves andcommenced 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 boatscarrying passengers who would ordinarily travel second class, togetherwith a considerable amount of freight.

  When the first day of December dawned, Marks drew a deep-red circlearound the name of the month on his calendar and emitted a prayerfuloath, to the effect he'd "be good and eternally damned if that monthdidn't contain an unexpected Christmas present for a certain person." Hemade no pretense of knowing who the person was--but he did feel that hewas considerably closer to his prey than he had been five months before.

  Fate, as some one has already remarked, only deals a man a certainnumber of poor hands before his luck changes. Sometimes it gets worse,but, on the average, it improves. In Ezra Marks's case Fate took theform of a storm at sea, one of those winter hurricanes that sweepacross the Atlantic and play havoc with shipping.

  Ezra was patiently waiting for one of three boats. Which one, he didn'tknow--but by the process of elimination he had figured to a mathematicalcertainty that one of them ought to carry two uncut diamonds which weredestined never to visit the customs office. Little by little, throughthe months that had passed, he had weeded out the ships which failed tomake port at the time the diamonds arrived--calculating the time by thedates on which the stones appeared elsewhere--and there were only threeships left. One of them was a North German Lloyder, the second belongedto the Hamburg-American fleet, and the third possessed anunpronounceable Welsh name and flew the pennant of the Llanarch line.

  As it happened, the two German ships ran into the teeth of the gale andwere delayed three days in their trip, while the Welsh boat missed thestorm entirely and docked on time.

  Two days later came a message from Washington to the effect that twodiamonds, uncut, had been offered for sale in Philadelphia.

  "Have to have one more month," replied Marks. "Imperative! Canpractically guarantee success by fifteenth of January"--for that was thedate on which the Welsh ship was due to return.

  "Extension granted," came the word from Washington. "Rely on you to makegood. Can't follow case any longer than a month under anycircumstances."

  Marks grinned when he got that message. The trap was set, and, unlesssomething unforeseen occurred, "E. Z." felt that the man and the methodwould both be in the open before long.

  When the Welsh ship was reported off quarantine in January, Marksbundled himself into a big fur coat and went down the bay in one of thegovernment 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 hisassistants, and more than a score of men saw to it that his instructionswere carried out to the letter.

  Beyond exhibiting his credentials, Marks made no effort to explain whythe ship was under suspicion. He watched the deck closely to prevent thecrew from throwing packages overboard, and as soon as they reached dockhe requested all officers to join him in one of the big rooms belongingto the Customs Service. There he explained his reasons for believingthat some one on board was guilty of defrauding the government out ofduty on a number of uncut diamonds.

  "What's more," he concluded, at the end of an address which waspurposely lengthy in order to give his men time to search the ship, "Iam willing to stake my position against the fact that two more diamondsare 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 rantagainst the "infernal injustice of this high-handed method."

  Marks settled back to listen in silence and his fingers strayed to theside pocket of his coat where his pet pipe reposed. His mind strayed tothe thought of how his men were getting along on the ship, and heabsent-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 therebefore, but had paid little attention to him. Now he became aware ofthe 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 besmoked, but unlighted.

  Almost without thinking about it, Marks leaned forward and presented thelighted 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, andthen, recovering himself, muttered: "No, thanks. I'm not smoking."

  "Not smoking?" was the thought that flashed through Marks's head, "thenwhy--"

  But the solution of the matter flashed upon him almost instantly. Beforethe mate had time to move, Marks's hand snapped forward and seized thepipe. With the same movement he turned it upside down and rapped thebowl upon the table. Out fell a fair amount of tobacco, followed by twoslate-colored pebbles which rolled across the table under the very eyesof the captain!

  "I guess that's all the evidence we need!" Marks declared, with a laughof relief. "You needn't worry about informing your consul and entering aprotest, Captain Williams. I'll take charge of your mate and thesestones and you can clear when you wish."