"He also kept her jacket as a memento of the affair, turning the hatchet over to me for my collection. Under it you will find a copy of the wire he sent the chief." Curious, I went over and read the yellow slip framed beneath the weapon: Opium smuggled in coffins. American, at head of ring, dead. Gang broken up. Opium seized. What next? MARKS. "Didn't wait long for another assignment, did he?" I inquired. "No," was the response. "When you're working for Uncle Sam you come to find that excitement is about the only thing that keeps your nerves quiet. Sometimes, as in Marks's case, it's the thrill of the actual combat. But more often it's the search for a tangible clue--the groping in the dark for something you know exists but which you can't lay your hands on. That was the trouble with the Cheney case...." XV THE MAN WITH THREE WIVES One of the first things to strike the eye of the visitor who enters the library-den of William J. Quinn--known to his friends and former associates in the United States Secret Service as "Bill"--is a frame which stands upon the mantel and contains the photographs of three exceptionally pretty women. Anyone who doesn't know that this room is consecrated to relics of the exploits of the various governmental detective services might be pardoned for supposing that the three pictures in the single frame are photographs of relatives. Only closer inspection will reveal the fact that beneath them appears a transcript from several pages of a certain book of records--the original of which is kept at the New York City Hall. These pages state that.... But suppose we let Quinn tell the story, just as he told it one cold November night while the wind was whistling outside and the cheery warmth of the fire made things extremely snug within. * * * * * Secret Service men [said Quinn] divide all of their cases into two classes--those which call for quick action and plenty of it and those which demand a great deal of thought and only an hour or so of actual physical work. Your typical operative--Allison, who was responsible for solving the poison-pen puzzle, for example, or Hal Preston, who penetrated the mystery surrounding the murder of Montgomery Marshall--is essentially a man of action. He likes to tackle a job and get it over with. It doesn't make any difference if he has to round up a half dozen counterfeiters at the point of a single revolver--as Tommy Callahan once did--or break up a gang of train robbers who have sworn never to be taken alive. As long as he has plenty of thrills and excitement, as long as he is able to get some joy out of life, he doesn't give a hang for the risk. That's his business and he loves it.