Several detectives had been detailed to work up the matter,
and one after another they had mysteriously disappeared, and
the Government had never succeeded in solving the mystery of
their taking off; and further, none of the officers had ever
been able to locate the head-quarters of the gang.
One fact had been established: large quantities of smuggled
goods had been carried into New York, and each week the
Government was swindled out of thousands of dollars of
revenue; and the illicit traffic had grown to such an extent
that a number of honest merchants had subscribed a large sum
of money which had been placed at the disposal of the
collector to be used as a fund for the breaking up of the
gang, who were ruining regular importers in certain branches
of trade and commerce.
Spencer Vance, although but a young man, had quite a
reputation as a detective. He had done some daring work in
running down a gang of forgers, and in the employ of a State
Government, he had been very successful in breaking up several
gangs of illicit whisky distillers. He was a resolute, cool,
experienced man, an officer who had faced death a hundred
times under the most perilous circumstances. and when
summoned upon the new duty he accepted the position readily.
By methods of his own he got upon the track of the workers;
the men who did the actual work of landing the contraband
goods.
The latter were not the really guilty men. They were not the
principals, the capitalists; but they were the employees who
for large pay ran off the coast, intercepted the steamers
carrying the contraband goods, and landed them within certain
assigned limits.
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