Fay and Scholz made some experiments with the chlorate of potash and
Fay decided it was not strong enough to serve his purpose. He then
determined to try dynamite. Again he wished to avoid suspicion and
this time, after consultation with Kienzle, he recalled Bronkhorst
down at the Lusk Sanatorium in New Jersey. Bronkhorst, in his work
as superintendent of the grounds at the sanatorium, was occasionally
engaged in laying water mains in the rocky soil there, and for this
purpose kept dynamite on hand. Fay got a quantity of dynamite from
him. Later, however, he decided that he wanted a still more powerful
explosive.
Again he applied to Kienzle, and this time Kienzle got in touch
with Siebs direct. By prearrangement, Kienzle and Siebs met Fay
underneath the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge, and there Siebs
was introduced to Fay. They walked around City Hall Park together
discussing the subject; and Fay, not knowing the name of what he was
after, tried to make Siebs understand what explosive he wanted by
describing its properties. Siebs finally realized that what Fay had in
mind was trinitrotoluol, one of the three highest explosives known.
Siebs finally undertook to get some of it for him, but pointed out to
him the obvious difficulties of buying it in as small quantities as he
wanted. It was easy enough to buy chlorate of potash because that was
in common commercial use for many purposes. It was also easy to buy
dynamite because that also is used in all kinds of quantities and for
many purposes. But trinitrotoluol is too powerful for any but military
use, and it is consequently handled only in large lots and practically
invariably is made to the order of some government. However, Siebs had
an idea and proceeded to act on it, and without any delay.
He went back to the Whitehall Trading Company, where he had desk room,
and saw his fellow occupant, Carl Wettig. Wettig had been engaged in a
small way in a brokerage business in war supplies, and had even taken a
few small turns in the handling of explosives. He agreed to do what he
could to fill the order.
Carl Wettig was the weak link in Fay’s chain of fortune. He did
indeed secure the high explosive that Fay wanted, and was in other
ways obliging. But he got the explosive from a source that would have
given Fay heart failure if he had known of it, and he was obliging for
reasons that Fay lived to regret. Siebs made his inquiry of Wettig on
the 19th of October. The small quantity of explosives that he asked
for aroused Wettig’s suspicions, and as soon as he promised to get it
he went to the French Chamber of Commerce near by and told them what
he suspected and asked to be put in touch with responsible police
authorities under whose direction he wished to act in supplying the
trinitrotoluol.
From that moment Fay, Siebs, and Kienzle were “waked up in the morning
and put to bed at night” by detectives from the police department
of New York City and operatives of the Secret Service of the United
States. By arrangement with them Wettig obtained a keg containing
twenty-five pounds of trinitrotoluol, and in the absence of Fay
and Scholz from their boarding house in Weehawken, he delivered it
personally to their room and left it on their dresser. He told Siebs he
had delivered it and Siebs promptly set about collecting his commission
from Fay.