The next morning when Gregory and his society manner strolled into the customhouse in New York he found the place buzzing. Evidently the instructions from Washington had been such as to make the entire force fear for their jobs unless the smuggling combination was broken up quickly. It didn't take Joe very long to get the details. They weren't many and he immediately discarded the idea of possible collusion between the buyers of the stones abroad. It looked to be a certainty on the face of it, but, once you had discovered that, what good did it do you? It wasn't possible to jail a man just because he bought some jewels in Europe--and, besides, the orders from Washington were very clear that the case was to be handled strictly from this side--at least, the final arrest was to be made on American soil, to avoid extradition complications and the like. So when Joe got all the facts they simply were that some valuable jewels had been purchased in Europe and had turned up in America, without going through the formality of visiting the customhouse, anywhere from six weeks to three months later. "Not much to work on," grumbled Gregory, "and I suppose, as usual, that the chief will be as peevish as Hades if we don't nab the guilty party within the week." "It's more than possible," admitted one of the men who had handled the case. Gregory studied the dates on which the jewels had been purchased and those on which they had been located in this country for a few moments in silence. Then: "Get me copies of the passenger lists of every steamer that has docked here in the past year," he directed. "Of course it's possible that these things might have been landed at Boston or Philadelphia, but New York's the most likely port." When the lists had been secured Gregory stuffed them into his suit case and started for the door. "Where you going?" inquired McMahon, the man in charge of the New York office. "Up to the Adirondacks for a few days," Gregory replied. "What's the idea? Think the stuff is being brought over by airplane and landed inland? Liners don't dock upstate, you know." "No," said Gregory, "but that's where I'm going to dock until I can digest this stuff," and he tapped his suit case. "Somewhere in this bunch of booklets there's a clue to this case and it's up to me to spot it. Good-by." Five days later when he sauntered back into the New York office the suit case was surprisingly light. Apparently every one of the passenger lists had vanished. As a matter of fact, they had been boiled down to three names which were carefully inscribed in Joe's notebook. "Did you pick up any jewels in the Catskills?" was the question that greeted him when he entered. "Wasn't in the Catskills," he growled. "Went up to a camp in the Adirondacks--colder'n blazes. Any more stuff turn up?"