ed plan. That person was a woman!"

"A woman!" Mr. Latham repeated, as if startled.

"Dere iss alvays wimmins in id," remarked Mr. Schultze
philosophically. "Go on."

Mr. Birnes was not at all backward about detailing the persistence
and skill it had required on his part to establish this fact; and
he went on at length to acquaint them with the search that had been
made by a dozen of his men to find a trace of the woman from the time
she climbed the elevated stairs at Fifty-eighth Street. He admitted
that the quest for her had thus far been fruitless, assuring them at
the same time that it would go steadily on, for the present at least.

"And now, Mr. Latham," he went on, and inadvertently he glanced at
Mr. Czenki, "I have been hampered, of course, by the fact that you
have not taken me completely into your confidence in this matter. I
mean," he added hastily, "that beyond a mere hint of their value I
know nothing whatever about the diamonds which Mr. Wynne had in the
gripsack. I gathered, however, that they were worth a large sum of
money--perhaps, even a million dollars?"

"Yah, a million dollars ad leasd," remarked Mr. Schultze grimly.

"Thank you," and the detective smiled shrewdly. "Your instructions
were to find where he got them. If there had been a theft of a
million dollars' worth of diamonds anywhere in this world, I would
have known it; so I took steps to examine the Custom House records
of this and other cities to see if there had been an unusual shipment
to Mr. Wynne, or to any one else outside of the diamond dealers,
thinking this might give me a clew."

"And what was the result?" demanded Mr. Latham quickly.

"My agents have covered all the Atlantic ports and they did not come
in through the Custom House," replied Mr. Birnes. "I have not heard
from the western agents as yet, but my opinion is--is that they were
perhaps smuggled in. Smuggling, after all, is simple with the
thousands of miles of unguarded coasts of this country. I don't know
this, of course; I advance it merely as a possibility."

Mr. Latham turned to Mr. Schultze and Mr. Czenki with a triumphant
smile. Diamonds in meteors! Tommyrot!

"Of course," the detective resumed, "the whole investigation centers
about this man Wynne. He has been under the eyes of my agents as no
other man ever was, and in spite of this has been able to keep in
correspondence with his accomplices. And, gentlemen, he has done it
not through th