Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 167: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Atlantic Takes a Hand foolishly and weaved forward toward the forecastle, disappearing within its dark door with a whoop and a stumble. Young fol- lowed him grimly, never more than three feet behind. They were not in the fore- castle more than five minutes, only long enough to change into dungarees, and then Schwartz reappeared and mounted the lad- der to the bridge. Young was still behind him, but stopped on the deck, for it was Schwartz’s trick at the wheel, and the ship was about to get under weigh. Nevertheless, the detective’s eyes followed the other into the chart house, observing every fumbling motion with which Schwartz tested the engine-room tele- graphs, pawed into the flag locker, unlocked the wheel and opened the binnacle. Pre- occupied as Willett was with the responsi- bility of getting his ship under weigh, he could not fail to miss the expression of chagrin and bewilderment that gradually spread over the detective’s countenance. After the ship got under weigh Young dived back into the crew’s quarters. “Searching Schwartz’s bunk and clothes, I'll be bound,” Willett muttered to himself, and glanced at the man intent at the wheel. A faint grin was. playing about the cor- ners of Schwartz’s lips. He had the air of a man who has done a good job, and knows a joke of which the point will be destroyed if others learn its secret. Despite his uncertain step a few minutes before, the captain saw he was steering a hair-line. Many quartermasters can, of course, even when their tongues are thick with liquor. A good helmsman steers automatically. Yet this time Willett suspected that Schwartz could have walked as straight as he steered if he had wished to combat the effects of liquor by the force of his will. He had walked unsteadily for a purpose. Willett was not altogether surprized when there came a knock at his door late that night and Young slipped inside. “T gotta get your help, Captain,” he an- nounced unceremoniously. Willett looked up with a mute question. “Oh, he came aboard with the goods, all right,’ the detective confessed. “‘We were thick as thieves in Paris. He was trying to get me ossified all the time, and finally I let him slip away, after tipping off another man to watch him. He went straight to the’ Rue de la Paix, to the jeweler that’s been handling the stones, and after he was gone 149 our man found out he’s gotten an emerald. Just one stone, square-cut and big as your thumbnail. The duty on it’s more than enough to make it worth while to send a man who brings back nothing else. He had it in his vest pocket when he came down on the train with me. I know, because I fell against him and felt it through the cloth. In the boat coming aboard I saw him slip it into his hand. And now it’s gone.” The detective swallowed painfully. “Captain, I wasn’t a foot from him the whole time,” he cried wildly. ‘He changed his clothes in my sight. I know he didn’t hide it going up to the bridge, but he must have! I’ve been over every foot with a fine tooth comb, felt every inch of it, shook out every signal flag, searched his clothes, his bunk, every part of the forecastle. He took a shower when he come off watch, and I went through the clothes he wore. I’m too old a hand to be fooled by hollow shoe heels, shaving soap and hidden pockets. He hasn’t got it in his mouth, either. And the worst of it is, I think he knows I’m a customs man. He’s been grinnin’ at me!” “Welle” Willett interrupted curtly. ‘“‘You’ve got to let me search the ship, that’s all!” “Thought you had searched it, from what you said. Won’t you pick up this emerald when he tries to take it ashore in the States, anyhow? No good to get it now, that I see. It’s no crime for a sailor to buy jewels. If you knew where it is, he’d just declare it unless you pinched him smuggling it ashore.” The detective shook his head in misery. ““He’s too slick, Captain. There’s a mil- lion ways of getting a stone off after we dock. Toss it intoa barge. Drop it overside with a buoy. There’s a big organization waiting for him in New York, you under- stand, that can afford to spend thousands on the job. If he was carrying it himself as I ex- pected I might be able to watch him, but once it’s hidden my instructions are to get it the minute our declarations are in. He won’t admit he’s got it unless he’s compelled to, and a declaration after seizure by the customs makes him liable to a fine. But you understand I can’t watch him every second the whole cruise!” ‘“‘“Maybe he’s got an accomplice in the crew,’”’ Willett suggested, chiefly for the sake of saying something. COMiicloOoe (©