"Hurry up and search her! We don't want to keep the boat any longer than we have to."
Less than a minute later the matron thrust her head out of the door long enough to report: "We found 'em—the pearls. She had 'em in the front of her dress."
Gregory was up the gangplank in a single bound. A moment later he was knocking at the door of Mrs. Dodge's stateroom. The instant the knob turned he was inside, informing Phyllis that she was under arrest on a charge of bringing jewels into the United States without the formality of paying duty. Of course, the lady protested—but the Atlantic sailed, less than ten minutes behind schedule time, without her.
Promptly at twelve the phone on the desk of the chief of the Customs Division in Washington buzzed noisily.
"Gregory speaking," came through the receiver. "My time's up—and I've got the party you want. Claims to be from Cleveland and sails under the name of Mrs. Mortimer C. Dodge—first name Phyllis. She's confessed and promises to turn state's evidence if we'll go light with her."
"That," added Quinn, "was the finish of Mrs. Dodge, so far as the government was concerned. In order to land the whole crew—the people who were handling the stuff on this side as well as the ones who were mixed up in the scheme abroad—they let her go scot-free, with the proviso that she's to be rushed to Atlanta if she ever pokes her nose into the United States again. The last I heard of her she was in Monaco, tangled up in a blackmail case there.
"Gregory told me all about it sometime later. Said that the first hunch had come to him when he studied the passengers' lists in the wilds of the Adirondacks. Went there to be alone and concentrate. He found that of all the people listed, only three—two men and a Mrs. Dodge—had made the trip frequently in the past six months. The frequency of Mrs. Dodge's travel evidently made it impracticable for her to use different aliases. Some one would be sure to spot her.
"But it wasn't until that night on Riverside Drive that the significance of the data struck him. Each time she took the same boat on which she had come over! Did she have the same stateroom? The phone call to MacPherson established the fact that she did—this time at least. The rest was almost as obvious as the original plan. The jewels were brought aboard, passed on to Phyllis, and she tucked them away somewhere in her stateroom. Her bags and her person could, of course, be searched with perfect safety. Then, what was more natural than that her maid should accompany her on board when she was leaving? Nobody ever pays any attention to people who board the boat at this end, so Alyce was able to walk off with the stuff under the very eyes of the customs authorities—and they found later that she had the nerve to place it in the hands of the government for the next twenty-four hours. She sent it by registered mail to Pittsburgh and it was passed along through an underground "fence" channel until a prospective purchaser appeared.
"Perfectly obvious and perfectly simple—that's why the plan succeeded until Gregory began to make love to Alyce and got the idea that Mrs. Dodge was going right back to Europe hammered into his head. It had occurred to him before, but he hadn't placed much value on it....