Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, Fall 1941

The Cablegram by T. S. Stribling

When is a smuggler not a smuggler? Psychologist Poggioli gets a lesson in psychology.

In the course of his evasions over the telephone, Mr. Henry Poggioli, investigator in criminal psychology, said apologetically—

“Mr. Slidenberry, my work here in Miami is purely theoretic, and if I devote any time to practical crimes... ”

“But this is theoretic,” pressed the voice in the receiver earnestly. “The Stanhope is due in today and we want you to go aboard with us and—”

“If the trouble is aboard a ship it must be smuggling,” surmised the scientist. “I am really no expert as a baggage searcher.”

“Oh, it isn’t that at all. It’s an A. J. P. A. cablegram.”

“Let’s see — that’s the American Jewelers’ Protective Association?”

“Right you are, Doctor, and the trouble is we can’t quite decode it.”

There was something whimsical in the Miami customs force receiving a cablegram which they could not decode. Mr. Poggioli smiled over the telephone as he suggested—

“If you have it by you would you like to read it to me over the wire?”

“M-m... we’d a lot rather you’d come down to the docks, but if you think you can decode the thing right off... ”

Came a pause, and after about a half minute interval the voice began again:

“Here it is:

“What is it you don’t understand?” inquired the psychologist.

“Feathers — do you know what feathers means?”

“I don’t know what any of it means.”

“The rest is simple. Barberry means a diamond smuggler. Stanhope is the name of a ship that will dock here in half an hour. The 36-B is his cabin number. The rest is just plain English. If we capture him J. Dugmore Lampton wants the reward offered by the American Jewelers’ Protective Association.”

“What about the consular reports?”

“Don’t know yet. I set a clerk to looking up the reports for 1915. We keep them in the attic of the customs house in goods boxes. This is the first time anybody ever had any reason to refer to them.”

“You don’t suppose consular reports could be another code word?”

“No; we suspected that at first. We searched through all the codes, but ‘consular reports’ seems to have no meaning beyond just — you know, the actual reports themselves.”

“That’s an extraordinary detail of your telegram,” Poggioli admitted after a pause. “It creates a kind of puzzle as to the sender of the message.”

“How’s that?”

“That he should not only quote the consular reports, but he is so familiar with them he actually refers to a particular page.”

“The man is probably in the consular service himself,” returned the customs officer.

“That doesn’t alter anything. Every consul knows that the consular reports are never read, are never filed away properly and are seldom even preserved. Really, Mr. Slidenberry, your cablegram is not only puzzling, it is enigmatic.”

“Really, Doctor,” interposed the inspector, “we wish you’d come down here yourself and see—”

“I think I will; yes, I’ll come. But while I’m on the way down, please cable Belize and get a report on J. Dugmore Lampton. I would like to know something more about a man who refers in a cablegram to a particular page in the American consular reports.”

Fifteen minutes later a group of three uniformed men met Mr. Poggioli’s taxi at pier 26. Captain Slidenberry gripped the arrival’s hand.

“She’s just swinging in now, Dr. Poggioli,” he said gratefully. “Come on inside. The passengers will be down immediately.”

“Now, as I said,” cautioned the psychologist, “I am utterly inexperienced in searching baggage.”

Slidenberry held up a hand.

“The boys will take care of that.”

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“Well, I want you to look over the passenger who occupies cabin 36-B and tell me if he is the type of man who would hide his diamonds in his baggage, or drop them in the pocket of some fellow passenger to be retrieved later — or would he wrap his gems in meat and feed them to his pet dog?”

Poggioli smiled and shook his head.

“There may be some physiological index to classify the different types of smugglers; they say it’s true of murderers. I haven’t gone into the matter yet.”

“How would you like to make your headquarters here and measure all the smugglers we arrest?”

“I’ll think that over. By the way, you cabled for the information about J. Dugmore Lampton?”

“Certainly, but I don’t see how that information can aid us here?”

“Well, don’t you think it queer to quote a consular report?”

“Mm... ye-es... queer enough, but what is the connection between a diamond smuggler at this end of the line and a man quoting the reports at the other?”

“I have no idea. That’s what we want to see. When anything seems queer, Mr. Slidenberry, that is merely a psychologic signal that it has connections with something we do not understand. In any crime queerness may very well be a clue.”

The psychologist’s theory was interrupted by cabin boys streaming down the gangplank of the Stanhope bringing luggage and arranging it in alphabetical piles. Captain Slidenberry went aboard to the window of the ship’s purser and asked who occupied room 36-B. The purser ran his finger down the passenger list.

“Dr. Xenophon Quintero Sanchez — what’s the matter with Dr. Sanchez?”

“That’s what we are trying to find out, Purser.”

“His bags will be in the S pen, sir.”

Slidenberry was searching among the S’s for the initials X.Q.S. when a cabin boy came up and touched his cap.

“Excuse me, sir, but the passenger in 36-B asks if you will please come to his cabin?”

The inspector became suspicious at once.

“What’s the point in that? Why doesn’t he bring down his keys?”

“His bags are not down yet,” explained the boy. “He sent me to ask if you would please examine them in his cabin.”

Slidenberry lifted an eyebrow at Poggioli, and the two men started aboard the Stanhope. When they reached stateroom 36-B Slidenberry tapped on the door, and a man’s voice called—

“Enter, señor, and pardon my occupation.”

The shutter swung open and Poggioli saw a heavy man of dark complexion and dissipated features sitting on his bunk apparently cutting up his wardrobe with a pair of scissors. Two or three garments already were in pieces, and he was taking out the lining of a coat. The two visitors stood looking at the queer sight.

“Are you a tailor, Mr. Sanchez?” inquired Slidenberry.

The heavy man on the bunk made a deprecatory gesture.

“A kind of analytic tailor, señores. I am preparing to make my declaration in customs.”

“Just how?” inquired the inspector dryly. “Are you trying to reduce the value of your wardrobe?”

“I am trying to find out what my portmanteau contains, señores.”

“Don’t you know already?” asked Slidenberry in a brittle voice.

“I do not,” stated Sanchez sharply. “I know what I put in my baggage, but what others have slipped into it I have no way of knowing except by some such method as this.” He jabbed his shears into a garment.

As Mr. Poggioli viewed this irrational scene there seemed a touch of something familiar in the old Latin’s somber face. He stood trying to recall where he had met the man while Slidenberry went on with his astonished questioning.

“Do you mean some one has slipped something in your bags?”

“That’s what I mean, señor.”

“Why didn’t you find out before the Stanhope entered customs?”

“Because I did not want to sit in my cabin all day long to make sure nothing else was added. I wanted to go to my meals, take the air, sleep.”

Slidenberry looked at the old man intently, then glanced at Poggioli, said, “Pardon us a moment,” and drew the psychologist outside the cabin.

“Crazy,” he said in an undertone, “or do you think it’s a hoax?”

“Our cablegram shows there is a reality to it somewhere, so I would mark out insanity.”

“But if it’s a hoax why didn’t he select a more reasonable falsehood?”

“You know, the fact that it’s unreasonable is an argument for its truth,” pointed out Poggioli — “that is, if he really isn’t insane.”

“That somebody actually planted dutiable goods of value in his bags?”

Poggioli shrugged.

“But whoever did would lose money on it,” went on Slidenberry. “His reward would be only a part of the value of the goods smuggled. He would certainly lose half of his investment even if his scheme worked.”

“This can’t be simply a trick to get a reward,” agreed Poggioli at once. “There is something... something else—” The scientist drew out a cigaret and tapped it on his thumbnail. “You know — I’ve seen that old man before!”

“Something criminal?” asked Slidenberry hopefully.

“Must have been, if I remember him.”

“Good, good.” The inspector nodded. He turned back into the cabin. “Dr. Sanchez,” he began, “I want to ask you pointblank: Have you any diamonds to declare?”

“I don’t know,” said the old man, still scissoring away. “That’s what I’m trying to find out for you.”

“Do you think somebody hid diamonds in your trunk and clothes?”

“I have no idea what they hid — diamonds possibly.”

Slidenberry gave a brief smile.

“Suppose you let me help you hunt. I’ve a knack at that sort of thing.”

Dr. Sanchez straightened and held up a prohibitory hand.

“Not as you are, señor, please,” he said with a dry smile.

“Not as I am — what do you mean?”

“I mean, señor, not with your coat and vest and trousers on, if you please.”

The customs officer stared in amazement.

“Are you suggesting that I undress myself to inspect your—”

Poggioli interposed—

“He means he is afraid you will put something in his bags and then arrest him for having it.”

Slidenberry looked at Poggioli, tapped his forehead and shook his head slightly.

“Listen, Señor Sanchez,” reasoned Poggioli, “no matter what Mr. Slidenberry should plant in your trunk he could not arrest you for it. You have declared that you don’t know what your baggage contains. All he could do would be to confiscate anything illegal he discovered or let you pay the duty on it and keep it yourself. Either way he would lose and you would go free.”

Sanchez nodded.

“That is the legal theory — but if he slipped something in my pocket and I walk off the ship carrying goods on which I have paid no duty, I go to jail. That has happened to me many times, señor.”

The psychologist was astonished and incredulous.

“You don’t mean to tell me the customs officers themselves—”

Sanchez interrupted—

“Certainly, señor; there is no tyranny so inescapable and so difficult to prove as that of the police department.”

“But why should the customs officers themselves wish to—” Poggioli broke off, studying the old man’s almost remembered face.

Dr. Sanchez shrugged, then spoke in a bitter voice—

“If I were a North American, señor, I would not only tell you my story; I would also tell the newspapers and the radio broadcasters, but we Latin-Americans—” he spread his palms sardonically — “feel somewhat differently about our private affairs.”

“In my opinion,” interposed Slidenberry dryly, “you handle not only your private affairs with the greatest reticence, but the truth also. The idea of a customs officer planting something in the baggage of a traveler! It was never done in the history of American customs.”

The old man bristled at such an insult, but the dawning quarrel was interrupted by the voice of a cabin boy paging Captain Slidenberry. The officer stepped outside to call the boy, and Poggioli followed curiously.

As the messenger came up, the inspector turned to Poggioli and asked sharply:

“What do you think of him now? Is he crazy, or is he just a hopeless liar?”

Poggioli shook his head.

“If he really has been framed—”

“Framed, the devil! Did you ever hear of customs men framing a casual traveler?”

“I never did, but it is the most probable explanation of this riddle.”

“You don’t mean it has really happened?”

“I do because the old man doesn’t insist on it. If he were a simple liar he would have gone on with a long cock-and-bull story to prove what he said was the truth, but he simply says it’s so.”

Slidenberry shook his head.

“You may believe it for psychological reasons if you want to, but I’m a customs man. No such thing ever happened on the face of the earth!”

The messenger boy came running up the deck and delivered a parcel. Slidenberry signed for it and opened it.

“Oh,” he ejaculated, “the clerk has found the consular reports at last. Let me see; what was the page?” He drew out his cablegram and consulted it. “1125 and 6.”

The inspector turned through the pages until he found his citation, then stood looking at it blankly.

Poggioli glanced over his shoulder, then drew in his breath.

“Oh — that man!” he ejaculated.

The inspector turned sharply.

“That man? What man?”

“Read there at the bottom of the page.”

Slidenberry read with an uncomprehending expression,

“Of course! Of course! Of course!” shouted Poggioli in amazed remembrance. “Dr. Sanchez is the Magnificent Pompalone — or once was. Heavens, yes, I remember him now!”

Slidenberry looked around.

“Who is he — or was he?”

“Why he’s an ex-dictator of Venezuela.”

“Is what he says true?”

“I suppose it is. In fact, I’m sure it is.”

“But, Mr. Poggioli, how is it possible—”

“Why, you see, a group of nations — America, England, France, Holland and some others — went into an agreement not to allow the ex-dictator to return to his country because he would start another revolution. That would upset business and cost everybody money and time. When I knew him the Dutch authorities were trying to keep him on Curaçao, but he got away during a storm.”

Slidenberry was amazed.

“Then there must be some truth in what he’s telling. I suppose the authorities got tired of following him about and just lodged him in jail on some charge or other as the easiest way to keep him.”

“Certainly. And what could be simpler than a customs offense?”

The inspector was moved at the old man’s trials.

“Well, I’m going back and tell him he has nothing to fear from me.”

The two men re-entered the stateroom and found Dr. Sanchez sitting on his bunk, which was scattered with small, snowy, harp-like designs. The old man said acridly—

“I trust, señores, my finding these hasn’t upset any plan you may have had to land me in prison.”

Slidenberry exclaimed automatically—

“Poggioli, there are the feathers!”

Dr. Sanchez laughed with brief irony.

“Officer, I declare these egret feathers. I don’t know how many there are.”

The inspector looked blankly at the ornaments.

“You can’t enter these in the United States; they are prohibited.”

“I know that, señor. It has always struck me as touchingly beautiful for the American people to be so considerate of the wild birds of Venezuela while they kept a Venezuelan imprisoned year after year for fear he might go home and upset their commerce.”

Slidenberry paid no attention to this.

“What are you going to do with your feathers? They can’t go ashore.” For answer the old man drew out his cigar lighter, snapped a flame and began applying it to the egrets one by one. The stench filled the cabin. Slidenberry watched the destruction rather blankly.

“Have you got any diamonds in your bags?” he asked after a space.

“That I don’t know,” said the ex-dictator.

“Well, since you have feathers, I suspect you have diamonds too.”

“Why? Do the two things go together?”

“So I’ve been informed.”

“If I fail to find them and you do find them, will I be put in prison as a smuggler?” inquired the old man.

“Of course not,” snapped the inspector. “If you actually help me search your bags for diamonds we’ll be partners in the matter, won’t we?”

With this agreement the two returned to the work in good earnest, rummaging through the trunks and the rest of the clothes. Slidenberry was more expert than the ex-dictator; he examined the trunks for false bottoms and double tops; he ran his fingers along the seams of the coats and trousers; he looked under the lining of Dr. Sanchez’ hat. In the midst of this work he pushed aside a stray envelope on the floor with the toe of his shoe. A faint tinkle made him stoop and pick it up. He opened the flap and looked inside.

“Here they are,” he said dryly.

Poggioli was astonished.

“You don’t mean they were thrown around loose like that!”

“That’s part of the technique,” returned the inspector, “hiding it right under our eyes.”

Dr. Sanchez watched this discovery impassively.

“What would you have done, señor,” he inquired, “if by chance I had picked up the envelope before you did?”

The customs officer had to think twice before he knew what the old man meant, then he exclaimed—

“You think I put them there!”

“Think?” snapped the old man in sudden wrath. “I know it! Do you imagine I would deliberately help you customs men land me in jail by attempting to smuggle so much as a pin into your country?”

Slidenberry studied the exiled Venezuelan—

“You and I started searching for these diamonds together, didn’t we?”

Sanchez nodded slowly and questioningly.

“You admitted you had them — or might have them — but neither of us knew where they were?”

“Si, señor — and what is your conclusion?” asked Sanchez in suspense.

“My conclusion is you have declared these diamonds and all that is required is for you to pay the normal duty on them and enter this country as a free man, señor.”

Poggioli interrupted.

“Look here,” he pointed out. “These diamonds were not mislaid in a chance envelope in the middle of the floor. That’s impossible.”

Slidenberry gave a short laugh.

“I know that, but under the circumstances I am going to rule arbitrarily that these diamonds were mislaid and found.”

The scientist turned to the passenger.

“Dr. Sanchez, how do you explain this envelope?”

“Señor,” said the old man, “why does so simple a thing need any explanation? Captain Slidenberry comes into my room and throws a package of diamonds on my floor. He means to arrest me, but for some reason he has a change of heart—”

“Look here,” interrupted Slidenberry, “you know that’s a falsehood!”

“Slidenberry! Slidenberry!” protested the psychologist. “Maybe he actually believes what he says!”

“How can he? Either he or I—”

“No, not necessarily; some third person could have stepped in here and dropped the envelope; then each one of you would think the other did it.”

“What third person?”

“I don’t know — the man who sent the cable; another inspector besides yourself. You see, when the United States has pledged itself to keep Dr. Sanchez out of Venezuela, what easier method would there be than to keep him in jail?”

Slidenberry nodded, unconvinced, and cooled off.

“Well, at any rate I have agreed to let Sanchez go free when he pays the duty on these jewels. I stand by my agreement.”

As the inspector said this Poggioli poured some of the stones out in his palm and looked at them, at first casually, then with dawning astonishment and suspicion.

“Mr. Slidenberry,” said the scientist in an odd tone, “Dr. Sanchez didn’t bring these stones on this ship.”

“Why do you say that?” demanded the officer.

The criminologist handed over the jewels.

“Because they’re glass.”

The inspector received the sparkling bits incredulously, or at least with an excellent imitation of incredulity.

“Then I should say,” he diagnosed slowly, “that Dr. Sanchez was fooled in his purchase.”

Poggioli shook his head.

“No, an ex-dictator, an ex-millionaire, would hardly mistake paste for diamonds.”

“Then what is there to think?” demanded Slidenberry quite at sea.

“Well, if some third person didn’t bring the sack in here—”

“You mean I did?” cried Slidenberry, amazed.

“What else is there to think? Sanchez didn’t do it.”

“Look here,” cried Slidenberry, thrown for a moment on the defensive, “it’s absurd the idea of my doing such a thing! I couldn’t incriminate Dr. Sanchez with such brummagem as this! There’s no law against bringing glass into America!”

The old Latin-American himself shook his head slowly.

“I believe this is the most complicated plot that has ever been woven around me,” he said. “If it had been in a French port I would not have been surprised. Even the Dutch might have originated it; but for simple minded North Americans to hatch up anything so complicated — it amazes me.”

Suddenly Slidenberry tossed the envelope on the bunk.

“I’ve got it!” he announced triumphantly, turning to confront the psychologist with a grim smile. “I’ve got it now!”

“What is it?” inquired Poggioli.

“Why, that was a blind to throw us off the trail, of course. Now let’s get to work and find the real stones!”

As the inspector searched, Poggioli introduced himself to the dictator and recalled to him the matter of the murder in Curaçao. The old adventurer was immensely moved.

“Gracias a Dios that I should see that clever young American again before I die,” he cried. “The mystery you solved in that Godforsaken island, señor, was much darker than that which surrounds me now.”

The old man arose, embraced and kissed Poggioli in the affectionate Venezuelan manner.

“But still this is rather an oddly twisted case, Dr. Sanchez,” suggested Poggioli.

“Puh, nothing of the sort; simply a customs inspector trying to send me to jail with glassware!”

Poggioli looked puzzled.

“But why is he searching so thoroughly now?”

“To save his face, señor.”

“But, señor, look at him. That isn’t the psychology of a desultory search. It isn’t necessary to squeeze out your shaving cream to save his face. Then he found feathers in your room. He didn’t bring them in with him.”

“No-o. That is a queer thing, señor. Feathers — was the inspector expecting feathers?”

“Yes, he was. I’ll tell you the truth, señor; he had a cable from Belize instructing him to search you for feathers and diamonds.”

“Oh la! So those feathers were sewn into my military uniform in British America!”

“Or possibly on the voyage here. The cable could have been filed ahead of time to be sent later.”

“You have a great head, señor; you think of every combination that can possibly exist. You catch the truth not in the Latin style of a burst of divination, but in the North American style of wearing her down by endless analysis, of making her surrender out of sheer boredom, Señor Poggioli.”

This somewhat dubious compliment was interrupted by Slidenberry. He arose from his search, stood balked in the middle of the cabin.

“You may go,” he said slowly, “I pass your trunks. I find nothing dutiable in them.”

The old man looked at him cryptically.

“I can go ashore free?”

“That’s what I said.”

Sanchez shrugged.

“Do you imagine I would fall into so obvious a trap as that, señor?” Slidenberry stared at the Latin.

“What the hell are you talking about now?”

Dr. Sanchez sighed wearily.

“You know very well. You find glassware; you say, ‘These are not his diamonds; I will find genuine diamonds.’ Well, I am as wary as you. I look at the glassware; I say to myself, ‘These are not his diamonds; I will be as clever as he is and avoid his genuine diamonds.’ ” The old man patted himself on the chest.

Slidenberry looked at him.

“I almost thank God I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“I’ll make myself clear. How easy it would have been for you to have hidden a real diamond in my trunk or toothpaste or clothes; then, when I step ashore, I will be searched and, la! caged up again.”

“Good Lord, you don’t think I’d plant a real diamond—”

“Think! I know it. Why would you make such a stir with paste if you did not intend to plant a real one?” The old man laughed.

Slidenberry looked at him.

“Really, our faith in each other is touching. All right, what do you intend to do if I can’t even clear your baggage and let you go ashore?”

“This,” said the old Venezuelan pungently. “By the strangest coincidence there is a man in my cabin whom I can trust. I am going to ask Señor Poggioli to take my money ashore, buy me a complete new outfit of clothes, bring them back here, let me dress and disembark from this ship in a virgin costume.”

With this the old man went to his trunk, drew out a canvas bag of specie, silver and gold, swung it toward Poggioli and set it clinking on a chair.

The psychologist looked at the old man in amazement.

“Why any such rigmarole as this, señor?” he asked curiously.

“Señor,” said Sanchez, “how can you ask me? You know how long I have sweated in prison on trumped-up charges. You would be wary too if you saw ahead of you one tiny glimpse of freedom.”

Poggioli stood pondering this new development when Slidenberry nodded him aside. When they were outside the cabin door the inspector whispered intently—

“Well, what do you make of that, Dr. Poggioli?”

“I think... I think that throws a new light on the subject,” answered the psychologist carefully.

“How?”

“This is a positive move. Don’t you see — up to this point his maneuvering has been negative and defensive; now it is for me to do something for him.”

“But, listen,” pressed the inspector, “don’t you see it works out just right for us? If he takes absolutely nothing ashore, he takes nothing ashore — does he? Now I believe he’s cracked — as you would say, got a complex, not to say a mania — on the subject of prisons. I suppose he has been driven to it by his experiences which you describe. So, if you don’t mind, I wish you would go get him an outfit and let him walk off the ship in his birthday clothes as far as anything he brought into this country is concerned.”

Poggioli could see why Slidenberry jumped at such an opportunity. He agreed to the plan, full of vague suspicion created by this new quirk of the ex-dictator. Dr. Sanchez handed him the bag of Venezuelan coins, gave him a money changer’s address in the Latin quarter of Miami and also a list of the shirt, suit and shoe sizes that he wore. The psychologist went ashore in an odd mood.

The money changer was in Miramar Street near the harbor. He ran a mere booth, arranged in the room of a private house, evidently one of those men who attend to the wants of his fellow Venezuelans before they learn the ways of American banks.

The fellow weighed the gold and silver coins in a pair of scales instead of counting them and gave Poggioli the exchange in American money.

An hour later the scientist took the clothes on board the Stanhope. Slidenberry had occupied his time by re-searching everything in the cabin, but without results. The whole affair would apparently remain an unsolved mystery, that is if it really were a mystery and not the maunderings of an unbalanced brain.

Dr. Sanchez had Slidenberry stand completely outside the cabin while he changed his apparel from hat to shoes. Then he pointed to his baggage.

“That I am going to leave in bond, señores, until I get ready to sail from this country. Then I’ll search it myself and see what you planted in it at the last hour.”

The inspector shook his head.

“Crazy as bedlam,” he said, as he and Poggioli watched Sanchez go ashore.

After the ex-dictator had gone the different phases of the incident simmered in Poggioli’s mind. No two pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit together. Slidenberry, too, was curious, but he was relieved.

“That was a devil of a layout,” he said. “Egret feathers, glass diamonds. I suppose they really must have been planted by that J. Dugmore Lampton, after all — he was an English customs officer, and he was no doubt following precedent in the consular reports when he arranged for Sanchez to be seized at this end of the line.”

“Why did Sanchez wish that complete change of clothes?” pressed Poggioli, unsatisfied. “You know he could have worn ashore his shirt, undershirt, socks—”

“Oh, that was just his obsession, his craziness.”

“All right. Admit that. Then why did J. Dugmore Lampton quote the consular reports? As I said long ago, if he is a consul he knows those reports go in the discard the moment they are published. For Lampton’s memory to go back to 1915, and quote reports of that year, that isn’t human, Mr. Slidenberry.”

“Well, I’m not worrying about that end of the line,” the inspector laughed. “Sanchez is ashore and he took nothing with him.”

At this moment a Western Union boy came bicycling down the wharf and rounded into the inspector with a message.

Slidenberry looked at the enclosure, then puckered his brow and read aloud:

The two men stood holding this second cablegram between them, looking at it.

“Well,” said Slidenberry slowly, “so there was no J. Dugmore Lampton, or if there is one he is not expecting any reward after all—”

Poggioli burst out:

“My heavens! Of course, of course, that’s the solution of it!”

“What? What’s the solution of what?”

“The whole thing! There isn’t any Lampton. Dr. Sanchez himself sent that cablegram. Why didn’t I think of that at once? Of course he is the only man in the world who could quote year and page of consular reports as far back as 1915 because you see his name is mentioned in them. In fact, he was deported then. He would have no trouble at all remembering the date.”

“But there’s no sense to that!” cried Slidenberry. “What in the world would he want to make all this trouble for himself for?”

“He is like a sleight-of-hand performer; he wanted to center our attention on diamonds and feathers while he slipped something else past us. He wanted to make absolutely sure of it. I suppose he needs money for some new revolutionary undertaking.”

Slidenberry dropped his hands hopelessly.

“But, look, man, he didn’t go ashore with anything — nothing at all. Even his clothes are new!”

Poggioli laughed wryly.

“No-o, he didn’t, but I did.”

Slidenberry looked surprised.

“You... you went ashore — what with?”

“Why, his money, of course; I took that ashore, didn’t I?”

“But money can’t conceal diamonds and egret feathers!”

“Of course not, but you could take a five-bolivar piece, couldn’t you, and — come on, come on, let’s get to that money changer’s address and look into this thing.”

The two men hailed a taxi and whirled a few blocks to Miramar Street. When they reached the house, a very simple old householder met them.

“Where is that money changer, the one I traded with an hour or so ago?” hurriedly asked the psychologist.

The householder, who was an Ecuadorian, spread his hands.

“Señores, he gave up his room. He is gone. Did he cheat you? No, I hope not.”

“No, he didn’t cheat me! He smuggled dope — cocaine, I imagine — out of a ship down at the docks.”

“Are you Señor Poggioli?” asked the householder.

“Yes, I am. Why?”

“A very fine gentleman left with me a note and a little token. He said you would call and get it.”

“Well, give it to me!”

The Ecuadorian hustled away for a moment and returned with a note and a five-bolivar piece. The note said:

The souvenir was a very fight five-bolivar piece. Poggioli twisted it experimentally. It unscrewed and disclosed the fact that it was a small silver container. It was empty and had been cleaned thoroughly. Legally it proved nothing.