On Secret Service

for Mr. Drummond! M

Quinn, formerly of the United States Secret Service-that really was responsible for solving

Secret Service, just as he was about to start on a well-earned vacation in the Maine woods. Uncle Sam's sleuths don't get any too much time off, you know, and a mo

y had to be persistent wh

rough the train and finally landed his man, thus being indirectly responsible for the solution of a mystery that might have rem

he found that it was a summons to Philadelphia, si

ston was Director of the United States Mint, it didn't take much deduction to figure that something had g

Drummond's disappointment in having to defer his vacation. Grumbling, he gathered his bags and cut across New York to the Pennsylvania Station, where he was fortu

come up at once," said the director. "But we h

her three minutes," growled Drummond. "I was on my way to Maine to forget all about work for

. "Some hundred and thirty thousand do

sury or one of the government Mints was a favorite dream with criminals, but-save for the memorable occasion when a gang wa

Isn't there any ch

e perfunctory, ra

s money. Seven hundred pounds of gold is missing and there isn't a trace to show how or where it went. The vault doors haven't been tampered w

," mused Drum

s," cut in the

oked at him

t. This thing has gotten on my nerves so that I didn't have the common decency to int

was

erything is as it should be. Nothing wrong was discovered until we reached Vault Six, but there fifty bars were missing. There wasn't any chanc

ould have been instantly discovered, for the vault contained exactly fifty bars less than it sh

red Drummond. "How many men know t

r, and myself. Cochrane is above suspicion. He's been here for the past thirt

he same could be said for the superintendent, but he co

n to two other men only. There's too much gold in each one of these vaults to take any chance with, which is the reason for this double protection. Two men-Cochrane and I-handle the combination to the vault door and open it whenever necessary. Two others-Jamison and Strub

there any possibility for conspiracy between"-and he hesitated for the fraction

d," replied Preston. "So far as we kn

Drummond interrupted, "t

esterday. That stamp is applied only in the presence of both men who know the combination. So the conspi

missing?" inquired the Treasury

man carry away all that gold without being seen? He'd need a dray to cart it off, and we're very careful about what goes out of the Mint. The

Service man best would have interpreted the sound to mean studious

ry to throw you off the scent. Then you've got to take your time and separate the wheat from the chaff-the false leads from the true. But the man who commits a crime on the spur of the moment-or who flatters himself that he hasn't left a single clue

t secret, Drummond said that he wo

me and then have Jamison and Stru

uld do it. It won't be necessary, however, to have either of the others open the grille-the door was tak

Cochrane work the outer combination, then.

ment where they were joined by the official weigher, a man well over fifty, who was i

em," said the detective. "Suppose we look into this one

. A few spins to the right, a few to the left, back to the right, to the left

ation, spinning it rapidly. S

with this, Superintendent," Cochrane said,

anipulation, the door swu

h the combination,

he combination been cha

six times a year, just as a general precaution-but this has been the same f

or to the grille had been taken from its hinges, to facilitate the

d the detective. "The place loo

s morning, to be carefully w

ed up there along the side of the g

ll. "I'll have the men

t the door of the grille be placed in its usual position, and Cochrane

ways stays?" inquired

handle, and I thought you just want

elp you with it-but we better slip our coats off, for it look

eyes were fixed, not upon the entrance to the grille, but on the middle of Cochrane's back, and, when the opportunity offered an instant later

d he made a quick gesture to Preston that he

tor. "We won't bother you any more. You might ask

ing only to secure hi

ing?" inquired Preston.

t that the solution to the mystery is so simple as to be almost absurd. By the way, hav

These vaults aren't new, you know, and I dare say you'd fi

t certainly mean a shortage of gold in other sections of the

ounce

ng mis

undred pounds from this

n't find the duplicates of these scratches anywhere else in

, they stacked them-at the superintendent's direction-a

are usually arranged

one to put his hand through. Therefore, as we are somewhat pressed for space, we stack them up right

e door of the grill

ted it a moment b

he floor and the ceiling so that it might not become jammed. The combination and the u

act when you came in

wa

made his way upstairs with a smile which seemed to say that his

use the telephone, and, calling the Philadelphia office of the Secret Service,

people employed in the Mint?" Drummond inquire

ducing a typewritten list f

before three o'clock-and bring some news with me, too," and the opera

pointed to two-thirty when Drummond returned, accompan

ered anything?"

be positive until I've talked to him. You might have the superi

ide of the room. As soon as he had entered, two of the other Secret Service men ranged themselv

h the seven hundred pounds of gold that you too

" stammered

nient the government will be with you. I know how you got the bars out of the grille-a piece of bent wire was sufficient to dislodge them from the top of the pile near

you try a job of this kind you better attend to all these details yourself-and it needed only one look at your suspenders this morning to see that they were a good deal wider and heavier than necessary. That long coat you are in the

in the basement of your house on Woodland Avenue. So I suspect you've bee

o save half of a twenty-year sentence-which at your age mean

eared to have aged ten years while Drummond was speaki

urt to see that your sentence isn't any heavier than necessary. It's worth that muc

"But how in the name of Heaven di

hrane, accompanied by the three Secre

of the way in which the gold had been taken from the grille-knocked down from the top of the pile with a piece of wire and pulled under the door of the grille. That

he grille door an excuse to get him to shed his coat-though I did want to see whether the door came all the way down to the floor-and I noted that his suspenders were very broad a

served in the basement of Cochrane's house, and one of my men located the

, only to be stopped by Director Prest

nterrupted this morning," re

er him. "If Cochrane had really gotten away w

the telegraph boy who persisted in paging Drummond is the one who was really responsibl

ion. In rapidity of action, I mean. Don't gover

ls to land his man-even though the trail leads into the realms of royalty, as in the Ypiranga case. That happened