“‘Sleepers.’  Oh, we’ve broken that up, too.  No expressman would dare try it now.  I must confess this thing is beyond me, Craig.”

Kennedy made no answer.  Evidently there was nothing to do but to await developments and see what Herndon’s men reported.  We had been beaten at every turn in the game.  Herndon seemed to feel that there was a bitter sting in the defeat, particularly because the smuggler or smugglers had actually been in our grasp so long to do with as we pleased, and had so cleverly slipped out again, leaving us holding the bag.

Kennedy was especially thoughtful as he told over the facts of the case in his mind.  “Of course,” he remarked, “Mademoiselle Gabrielle wasn’t an actress.  But we can’t deny that she had very little that would justify Herndon in holding her, unless he simply wants a newspaper row.”

“But I thought Pierre was quite intimate with her at first,” I ventured.  “That was a dirty trick of his.”

Craig laughed.  “You mean an old one.  That was simply a blind, to divert attention from himself.  I suspect they talked that over between themselves for days before.”

It was plainly more perplexing than ever.  What had happened?  Had Pierre been a prestidigitator and had he merely said presto! when our backs were turned and whisked the goods invisibly into the country?  I could find no explanation for the little drama on the pier.  If Herndon’s men had any genius in detecting smuggling, their professional opponent certainly had greater genius in perpetrating it.

We did not see Herndon again until after a hasty luncheon.  He was in his office and inclined to take a pessimistic view of the whole affair.  He brightened up when a telephone message came in from one of his shadows.  The men trailing Pierre and Mademoiselle Gabrielle had crossed trails and run together at a little French restaurant on the lower West Side, where Pierre, Lang, and Mademoiselle Gabrielle had met and were dining in a most friendly spirit.  Kennedy was right.  She had been merely a cog in the machinery of the plot.

The man reported that even when a newsboy had been sent in by him with the afternoon papers displaying in big headlines the mystery of the death of Mademoiselle Violette, they had paid no attention.  It seemed evident that whatever the fate of the modiste, Mademoiselle Gabrielle had quite replaced her in the affections of Pierre.  There was nothing for us to do but to separate and await developments.

It was late in the afternoon when Craig and I received a hurried message from Herndon.  One of his men had just called him up over long distance from Riverledge.  The party had left the restaurant hurriedly, and though they had taken the only taxicab in sight he had been able to follow them in time to find out that they were going up to Riverledge.  They were now preparing to go out for a sail in one of Lang’s motor-boats and he would be unable, of course, to follow them further.