"

"Of course. A very few faked ones would do all they wanted--say two
or three per cent. My goodness, Merriman, it's a clever scheme; they
deserve to win. But they're not going to." Again he laughed delightedly.

Merriman was thinking deeply. He had recovered his composure, and had
begun to weigh the idea critically.

"They mightn't empty the brandy themselves at all," he said slowly.
"What's to prevent them running the faked props to the firm who plants
the brandy?"

"That's true," Hilliard returned. "That's another idea. My eyes, what
possibilities the notion has!"

They talked on for some moments, then Hilliard, whose first excitement
was beginning to wane, went back to his room for some clothes. In a few
minutes he returned full of another side of the idea.

"Let's just work out," he suggested, "how much you could put into a
prop. Take a prop say nine inches in diameter and nine feet long. Now
you can't weaken it enough to risk its breaking if it accidentally
falls. Suppose you bored a six-inch hole down its center. That would
leave the sides one and half inches thick, which should be ample. What
do you think?"

"Take it at that anyway," answered Merriman.

"Very well. Now how long would it be? If we bore too deep a hole we
may split the prop. What about two feet six inches into each end? Say a
five-foot tube?"

"Take it at that," Merriman repeated.

"How much brandy could you put into a six-inch tube, five feet long?"
He calculated aloud, Merriman checking each step. "That works out at
a cubic foot of brandy, six and a quarter gallons, fifty pints or four
hundred glasses-four hundred glasses per prop."

He paused, looked at his friend, and resumed:

"A glass of brandy in France costs you sixpence; in England it costs you
half-a-crown. Therefore, if you can smuggle the stuff over you make a
profit of two shillings a glass. Four hundred glasses at two shillings.
There's a profit of 40 pounds per prop, Merriman!"

Merriman whistled. He was growing more and more impressed. The longer he
considered the idea, the more likely it seemed. He listened eagerly
as Hilliard, once again excitedly pacing the room, resumed his
calculations.

"Now you have a cargo of about seven thousand props. Suppose you assume
one per cent of them are faked, that would be seventy. We don't know
how many they have, of course, but one out of every hundred is surely a
conservative figure. Seventy props means 2,800 pounds profit p