It was July before Potter Waite saw Detroit again for more than a few
hours. His business lay in Washington, and in Washington he remained. It
was his privilege to hear from the gallery the most momentous utterance
ever to issue from the New World when Mr. Wilson guided this country down
into the abyss of war. Later he met on equal terms with the great
automobile minds of the country when they were called together to give to
their flag the dearly bought knowledge of motor construction which was
their most precious possession. He saw his own motor placed before him,
and waited in a sort of white glow of eagerness for what would be the
outcome of that herculean labor performed by two men called to give to
America the motor needed for her mighty air fleets. That moment when he
saw his year's work had not been in vain was one of the splendid moments
of his life, for his motor had been the basis upon which those engineers
had worked, and from it they developed the perfect thing.
In July he came home, not empty-handed. The honor of receiving the first
contract had been awarded to the Waite Motor Company and Potter carried
it, a sacred treasure, buttoned against his breast.
Then began in earnest the conversion of an enormous wing of the Waite
Motor Company's plant to the production of that wonderful and delicate
mechanism which was to drive America through the air to victory. It began
in secrecy and silence. The part of the plant undergoing the change might
have vanished from the world, for all the news that issued from it. It was
guarded as the vaults of the national Treasury are not guarded, by a
little army of government men trained in the arts of vigilance.
"But," said the chief of them to Potter, "we can work with a sweet
confidence that Germany has her men inside. We've investigated every
employee to his birth--we think--but I'll bet my hat more than one spy is
planted there.... So we trust nobody.... There are German spies and then
there are German spies."
Potter looked a question.
"Well," said the chief, "there's the ordinary spy that the country's full
of. I can catch you one in half an hour if you want him.... And there are
the spies who do the real work--and I'd give a year of my life for every
one of them I could lay hands on.... The garden variety of spy is a
comic-supplement fellow. Tell you how to spot him. Go and stand in a hotel
lobby and read a letter. If you feel somebody breathing on the back of
your neck, turn around and grab--and you've got your man. It's part of the
technique--to breathe on the back of your neck. They're drilled in it like
the army is in the goose step. The German is constructed by nature to be
obvious. If he's a spy he acts like a spy--as he conceives a spy to be....
There was the fellow we caught trying to blow up a mighty important
railroad bridge. Lieutenant in the navy. He disguised himself as a bum;
let his beard grow and rubbed grime on his hands. Then he took him his
little bomb in a suit-case and went out to do his day's work. Now did he
ride to that railroad bridge on a freight, or back in a day coach on a
slow train? Not him! He bought a section on the Millionaires' Special--six
days' beard and all. Of course we spotted him, and I asked him why the
devil he boarded that sort of train in such a get-up. He looked me over
supercilious and says, says he: 'I'm a gentleman. You couldn't expect me
to ride second class.'"
Potter laughed. "They're not all like that, though," he said.
"You bet they aren't," said the chief, with compressed lips. "You had some
experience, didn't you?"
"They tried to blow up the shop," Potter said, briefly.
"We've got to act as if we knew they were going to try to blow up _this_
shop.... Your German-Americans in Detroit have been pretty well-behaved."
"Yes," said Potter. "There was any quantity of talk before April sixth. I
imagine they've quieted down now. Personally I've thought it was just talk
and a natural sympathy."
"Ninety per cent. of the Germans in this country wish we would hang the
other ten per cent. so they could live in peace. But we can't forget the
other ten per cent. They're bad, and they mean business. It's hard to make
folks believe it, though. Somehow Americans don't take spies and that sort
of thing seriously. It looks sometimes as if they didn't take war
seriously."
"Yes," said Potter. "There wasn't any big wave of excitement when war was
declared. The people took it complacently. They don't realize."
"They won't realize until some morning's paper is full of lists of the
dead."
"Out here we have a sort of attitude that seems to say, 'Well, we've gone
to war, but we aren't going to get hurt.'"
"It isn't my job to wake them up. I'll be busy keeping information from
getting _out_ of this place--and gentlemen with bombs from getting in."
"And my job," said Potter, gravely, "is to make motors.... To make motors
quickly," he said, his voice coming to life, his eyes awakening to a glow
of enthusiasm. "It's a fine job--the best job in the world. Some day the
air of France will be dark with American 'planes, and I'll have helped. I
can almost see it--hundreds and thousands of aeroplanes with their noses
pointed toward Berlin, and nothing on God's footstool to stop them. Enough
of them to drive the German out of the air and keep him out.... And then
we'll play with him from the air.... A barrage of American aeroplanes
behind the German lines--imagine that!--cutting them off, smashing their
communications! All we've got to have is _enough_--and the war's over."
The Secret Service man looked at Potter quietly. "You're not taking this
war so placidly," he said.
Potter did not smile. "It will come," he said. "Gradually we're finding
out we have a country--and that we love our country. Wait till you see
this American people awake and on the job. I don't take it placidly,
because the thing was shoved down my throat. I was kicked awake." He
turned away and went into the office that he occupied now more often
twelve hours a day than eight. Here he remained until noon in constant
conference with railroad man, engineer, steel representative, or machinery
man come to explain delay in delivery or to promise beyond possibility of
performance. At noon he drove down-town to the club for lunch.
As he entered the building he saw young Matthews, a frail-bodied
millionaire whose hobby was mechanics, gesticulating in the center of an
interested group.
Will Kraemer saw Potter and beckoned to him. "Something new," he said.
"The aeroplane joyrider has come."
"What's that?"
"Hey, Matthews, tell it to Waite!"
Matthews was more than willing. He was angry, excited, but pleased to be
commanding so much attention. "Somebody swiped my hydro," he said.
"At last Matthews has won a first," laughed Eldredge. "First aeroplane to
be stolen in America."
"What's the joke?" Potter wanted to know.
"No joke.... You wouldn't think it was a joke if you saw my man Mullens.
Somebody hit him on the nose with a sledgehammer. Found him tied up in a
bundle and dumped in a corner, and blood all over the shop.... This
morning. Went down about nine o'clock to sort of look at things. Door was
locked. I thought Mullens was off on a bat, and then when I looked inside
and saw the machine was gone, I thought he'd gone crazy. He couldn't fly a
kite.... Machine clean gone. Then I heard a miawing in one of the lockers,
and there was Mullens, all in, with enough waste stuffed in his mouth to
choke an elephant. I yanked him out and turned him loose and asked him
what was the answer. He said he was reading the paper about ten last night
and somebody hammered on the door. Mullens opened it, and before he could
sniff the air he got that wallop on the nose. Next he knew a couple of
boys were sitting on him and stuffing waste in his mouth. They stuffed him
in the locker-room and shut the door, and then in a couple of hours he
heard them run the machine out, start the motor, and breeze off.... And
that's all. Just clean vanished, going straight up, as near as I can find
out. Nobody seems to have seen them or heard them. Not a darn trace....
Now wouldn't that get you?"
"Is this real stuff, Matthews? You aren't planting any sort of joke?"
"It's so dam real that I'll pay a little reward of five thousand bucks to
the boy that brings the machine back again," Matthews said.
"Hard luck," said Potter. "But why the devil should anybody steal an
aeroplane? A white elephant would be as easy to hide, and they couldn't
sell it. Get pinched the minute they tried that. I don't get the idea."
"Didn't somebody steal a jail once?" Eldredge asked.
"Did they leave anything behind?" Potter asked, "anything for the police
to smell of and run off on the trail?"
"We haven't found a burnt match that Mullens couldn't account for. It was
a clean job. They just appeared--and then--" He whistled and waved his
hand.
"What do the police have to offer?"
Matthews looked disgusted. "I don't think they believe I ever had an
aeroplane," he said.
"If 'planes get as common as automobiles," said O'Mera, who had strolled
up, "the police will have to have a flying squadron of Zeppelins outfitted
with enormous butterfly-nets. Some game that, eh? Chasing a stolen
aeroplane a few thousand feet above ground and snaffling it in a bug-net."
"You fellows are joshing me," Matthews complained. "You wouldn't be so
darn funny if somebody had run off with twenty thousand dollars of yours."
"Maybe the Kaiser's army of German reservists who were going to seize the
country have grabbed it?"
"You fellows make me sick," Matthews said, walking away in disgust,
followed by a laugh.
But Potter did not laugh; the thing was too bizarre, too weighted with
sinister possibilities. It was absurd to suppose the enemies of the
country had stolen that lone aeroplane, and yet what a weapon an aeroplane
would be in their hands!
"What do you think?" Kraemer asked.
Potter shook his head. "It's past me. But I don't like it."
They walked up-stairs together to the dining-room, discussing the thing.
At the table Kraemer suddenly changed the subject.
"Potter," he said, "I want to get into the second officers' training-camp.
It'll be starting sometime in a month or so."
"Fine!... Wish I could go, too."
Kraemer hesitated. "I'm afraid," he said, "they won't take me."
"Why not?"
"Well, our name is German--and Dad was born in Germany."
Potter looked at the table-cloth. "How does your father feel about it?" he
asked.
"Dad's an American, Potter. You never heard any of this pro-German guff
out of him.... The suggestion came from him. He says this is where
Americans with German parentage have to fish or cut bait. It's his notion
that we fellows have got to do more than the rest of you with
unimpeachable American antecedents. 'We've got to do our duty,' Dad says,
'and then we've got to double that.'"
"I wish they were all like him," Potter said.
"I want to go--worse than I've ever wanted anything.... Watts is gone and
so are La Mothe and Randall. Three of the old crowd."
"If there's anything I can do--or father can do--" Potter said.
"It's damn hard for a fellow to have to prove he's not a traitor.... How
would you feel?"
"Maybe I can help.... Training-camps for aviators are being opened up. I
think I can give you a fair start there. How would you like that?"
Kraemer's eyes glowed. "Potter," he said, "if you can get me past
I'll--give you my right arm when the country gets through using it."
A club attendant approached the table. "A man named Givens is asking to
see you, sir.... Says he works for you, and it's important, sir."
"Tell him I'll be right down," Potter said. Then to Kraemer, "I'll get the
papers from the Signal Corps for you so you can apply for admission. Let
you know as soon as they show up."
Standing awkwardly just inside the entrance, uneasy in surroundings of
luxury and manifestly apprehensive of club servants in livery, stood a
young man with a knee quite torn from his trousers, with a hat that would
never again be fit for service, with a face that appeared to have come
into contact with emery-paper, and with a general accumulation of dirt on
his clothes.
"Why, Givens," said Potter, "what's wrong? Are you hurt?"
"No, sir," said Givens, "not hurt to speak of, but shook up. I--I knew you
would be here, Mr. Waite, so I busted right in. I thought you ought to
know right off."
"Yes," said Potter, impatiently.
"I'm one of the office messengers," Givens said. "We use motor-cycles--"
"I know who you are. What has happened?"
"I was to stop at twelve o'clock to get a package of drawin's or somethin'
from Hammond and Green, the engineers. I got them all right, and started
for the plant. Went up Woodward to the Boulevard and across. You know
where the Boulevard goes under the railroad? Well, right there a machine
came up behind me and bumped me. I went down pretty hard. Sort of knocked
out for a minute. When I scrambled up I looked all over for that package,
but I couldn't find it any place. It couldn't have fell anywhere out of
sight, for I was right under the railroad. There wasn't any sewer openin's
or anythin'.... Somebody must 'a' swiped it. I hunted good, and then I
come down here as fast as I could. The motor-cycle wasn't hurt any."
"What was in the package? What drawings?"
"I don't know, sir."
Potter called an attendant. "Show this man the wash-room and help him
brush up," he said. Then he stepped quickly into a telephone-booth and
called the plant.
"Mr. Withers," he said to the switchboard-operator, and presently the
chief of the Waite mechanical engineers answered the telephone.
"This is Potter Waite. What drawings were you getting from Hammond and
Green this noon?"
"A set of blue prints of Buildings G and F."
"A complete set?"
"Yes, showing machinery placed, shafting, conveyers--everything."
"Thank you," said Potter, and hung up the receiver.
Givens was waiting, a trifle more presentable.
"You're sure there's no chance you overlooked the package anywhere?"
Potter asked.
"No, sir. I think it was a plant, Mr. Waite, that's what. I think them men
in that machine knocked me over apurpose to swipe them drawin's."
"I'm inclined to agree with you. Better go home and get fixed up. Need a
new suit, won't you? Buy it and give the bill to me."
"Thank you, Mr. Waite," Givens said, and limped away.
Potter drove at once to the office. As he entered he met Downs, the Secret
Service man, coming down the stairs.
"Come up to the office, please," Potter said. "Something in your line, I
guess."
Potter closed the door and motioned to a chair. "A messenger bringing
drawings of the buildings we're changing over was knocked down on his way
out this noon, and the blue prints taken away from him." He gave the
incident to Downs as Givens had given it to him. "By the way," he added,
"a mighty strange thing happened last night. An aeroplane was stolen."
"Saw it in the paper," said Downs.
"I've been wondering," Potter said, "if there was any connection between
the two thefts. Seems far-fetched, but these are far-fetched days. Who
would steal an aeroplane, and what in thunder would he steal it for?"
"An aeroplane is a mighty useful toy," said Downs.
"A mighty conspicuous toy."
"I'm not so sure. Easy to hide in some out-of-the-way place. That machine
worries me more than the loss of those blue prints. That's a sort of
warning we ought to be thankful for, though it doesn't tell us much we
didn't feel pretty sure of. We're working on the certainty that they'll
try to interfere with this plant, and they've verified it for us.... But
that aeroplane.... We can watch the employees, and we can do a pretty good
job of guarding the plant on the ground, but how in thunder, Mr. Waite,
are we going to stop anybody from flying over the top of it some night and
dropping a ton or so of explosive on the roof? There's a German with
something pretty close to genius running things hereabouts.... You've
probably eaten dinner with him," Downs said, with a chuckle.
"Eh? You mean you suspect some one?"
"I mean that I don't, worse luck. What I mean is that the fellow who ought
to be suspected is probably above suspicion. He's somebody you know well
and meet every day. The kind of man who would have the enterprise to think
of stealing an aeroplane is mighty apt to be the man you invite to
dinner."
"You'll have me suspecting everybody I know."
"While you are making motors for the Signal Corps," said Downs, soberly,
"that's exactly what you _must_ do. So far as your work is concerned,
treat every living soul as if you knew he was a German spy."
"It seems as if a thing as big as a hydro-aeroplane ought to be found,"
Potter said.
"It's got to be found," said Downs. "Not only for the protection of the
industrial plants in Detroit, but think of the danger it throws over the
ship-canal at the Flats and the channel into Lake Erie. They could even
work east as far as the Welland. An aeroplane and a few tons of explosive
could come pretty close to bottling up the commerce of the Lakes, Mr.
Waite.... And I've a notion that's the big game.... Our ore comes down the
Lakes. Stop the ore and you stop the steel-mills. Then what?"
"I guess," said Potter, slowly, "that we're really in the war at last."
"The country will wake up some morning to a dazing realization of it,"
Downs said, as one states a fact which he dreads but knows to be
inevitable.