The Devil's Due

Written by Erle Stanley Gardner

Copyright 1931

Published in Argosy Weekly, May 23, 1931.
A freelance adventurer in diplomacy, Major Brane of California undertakes a mission to hijack a secret oriental treaty without knowing where it is or who has it and the penalty for failure is death. Complicating matters is that there are two versions of the treaty, one real and the other disastrously fake.