THE BROWN PORTFOLIO
No one passing with the crowds that thronged Fifth Avenue at all hours
would have singled out the great stone house that stood flush with the
sidewalk near Fifty-second Street. Its great doors with their outer
gates of iron bars were flanked on each side by anemic box trees which
bravely struggled for a living amid the dust and grime of the city. Its
closely curtained windows presented an impression of cold aloofness.
To the passerby there was nothing to indicate that its air of ancient
respectability was but assumed. It's door swung into an entrance hall
whose gloomy grandeur was lightened by the subdued light of wall
brackets with colored shades. Broad stairs led to the upper floors. At
one side of the hall beautifully panelled oak doors opened into a long
room, whose wall, hung with tapestry and great paintings, and giant
fireplace gave to the interior an air of baronial splendor.
Amid this quiet luxury and display of royal grandeur the German
government had established its headquarters for the system of espionage
it had introduced into a peaceful country. This room was the meeting
place of the chief agents of the German government. To it came Von
Lertz of the susceptible heart, most recently lost to Dixie Mason;
here came Boy-Ed and Von Papen, Von Rintelen of many disguises and
Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, for conferences with Dr.
Albert, paymaster for the Kaiser's spy army in America. And that their
movements might be directed with greatest secrecy and expediency
wireless messages were received here direct from Nauen, Germany,
through the huge antennae which could be stretched upward from the
chimney of the house and through the great detectors concealed behind
the massive oil paintings adorning the walls.
The room was quiet save for the continuous shuffle of papers slipping
and sliding into neat piles under the quick hands of Dr. Albert and
the crackling of the log in the fireplace, now almost smoldering into
ashes. He laid the reports from spies in all parts of the country
into one pile. The most important of these were carried in the brown
portfolio which lay on the table and which he kept continually in his
possession.
[Illustration: Portfolio secured from Dr. Albert containing documents
relating to official German intrigue]
Now he thrust into it a report from Captain Franz von Papen,
suggesting that a shipment of liquid chlorine which had been ordered
by the Allies be stopped by blowing up the factories in which it was
being manufactured. Thus the Germans would be given a new advantage
in the field by an absolute monopoly of this gas. This report was
followed by another from the same source calling the doctor's attention
to the possibility of obtaining the patents of the Wright aeroplane
by trickery, cheating the Wright brothers out of the result of years
of labor, and cornering the aeroplane market in America. A quietly
personal letter from Von Rintelen advising him of the various aliases
and describing the disguises under which he intended to travel for
the next few weeks; documents regarding the Embargo Conference, with
its membership of misguided Americans, conceived and designed to
bring political influence to bear upon the munitions industry, thus
enabling Germany to obtain all the arms it needed and the Allies
none; letters and reports on crop conditions, telegrams suggesting
means by which Germany could handle the various U-boat controversies
in a way to blind the Administration and yet commit murder on the
high seas, plans for buying newspapers and the dissemination of spy
propaganda--prospectuses, plans and other matters of importance which
came daily to the hands of this mysterious, seemingly all-seeing
financial agent of the German Government, were slipped into the brown
portfolio.
He started suddenly as the panelled doors creaked open to admit a
visitor. His piercing eyes turned to a person advancing toward him
jauntily, but with an air of familiarity that was disarming. In a
moment the look of alarm on; Albert's face changed to one of relief as
he recognized his visitor and nodded curtly.
"Ah Von Rintelen, glad to see you. In the future kindly have yourself
announced."
"As what? Would it make it any easier to have Smith, or Gates or
Levinsky or some such personage announced? Would it make this place
easier of access to me?" Von Rintelen swung his cane over the back of a
chair, hung his hat over the same piece of furniture and stood rolling
his immaculate chamois gloves from his hands. This done, with a care
and precision that seemed to make each movement a ceremony, he removed
the brown Van Dyke beard that had adorned his countenance, and stood
revealed to his confrere in his true personage. Stepping to Albert's
side he said in lowered tones:
"You say you are glad to see me; you may feel differently when I tell
you the news I bring."
Albert turned quickly.
"Good or bad?"
"Bad," answered Rintelen. He reached into his pocket and brought out a
slip of paper, unfolding it as he held it for Albert to read.
Dr. Albert glanced over it, then frowned, inquiringly.
"Well, what of this? Is it not right that Germany should place bombs
on ships leaving American ports? I see here a list of ten or twelve
sugar vessels which are now at sea, with bombs in their cargoes due to
explode some time today. What of that? These are orders being carried
out."
Von Rintelen pointed.
"Read the last line again carefully, my friend. The _Cragside_ is
listed there and--the Cragside is still in port!"
For a moment of tense silence the plotters stared at each other,
consternation growing in the expression Albert bent upon Rintelen.
"What! And there are bombs in the _Cragside's_ hold?"
Von Rintelen nodded. "Five of them--sewed into sugar sacks. They are
due to explode any time now."
Dr. Albert paced the floor, hands folded behind him, a frown deepening
the lines of his face. He stopped and looked at Von Rintelen.
"And that means that the _Cragside_ will burn at her dock--"
Von Rintelen nodded again. "Naturally."
"And there will be an investigation. More of these infernal American
reporters asking questions and seeking to find the causes of things.
More Secret Service men running about, and with their keen perception,
certain to find these things we wished concealed! Who's mistake is
this?" Dr. Albert glared at Von Rintelen, annoyance fast growing into
anger as the danger of the situation took hold of him.
Von Rintelen shrugged his shoulders.
"No one's mistake. The agents were told to put bombs aboard sugar ships
to destroy as many sugar cargoes as possible. They obeyed orders.
The _Cragside_ sailed three days ago when the other ships left port.
Something went wrong, she returned for repairs, and is now in port as I
have just told you. And the bomb in her hold is due to explode today."
Albert stared at Von Rintelen fiercely. The thoughts which struggled
for words but were suppressed showed in his face at the nipping in the
bud of this well-planned plot. He took refuge in a hard-fought silence,
for Franz von Rintelen, special emissary and arch-plotter, owed no
recognition to Dr. Heinrich Albert. Von Rintelen had come to America
with a fund of fifty millions of dollars at his disposal and was
accountable to only one for the success or failures which followed the
use of the money for death and destruction and that man was--the Kaiser.
Von Rintelen picked up the beard which had disguised his features and
crossing to a low hung French mirror, carefully adjusted it. Picking up
his hat and cane and gloves, he turned to Albert.
"Sorry," he said. "Mistakes will occur, you know. Till we meet again,"
he bowed jauntily and in a moment the panelled doors closed behind him
and the great iron barred doors of the front entrance clanged, marking
his exit to Fifth Avenue. He was quickly lost in the hurrying crowds
outside.
Albert walked to the fireplace and stared gloomily into its fast dying
embers. "A happy day for Germany when he returns home," he muttered
moodily. "Mistakes, mistakes, nothing but mistakes."
The past twelve hours had been filled with puzzling anxiety for
Dixie Mason. Since the moment she had read the scribbled page from
the note-book of Heinric von Lertz in the dressing room of the Ten
Mile Mouse, her efforts had been spent on solving the mystery of its
meaning, for all it said, though Dixie was not at all misled by its
briefness into confusing brevity with innocence, was this:
Report for Von Lertz.
Fire bombs manufactured 400
Fire bombs delivered to agents for coming use 72
----
Balance 328
That was all. Where the bombs had been placed, when they would explode,
where it was intended others should be placed could not be told. It
had been with difficulty that Dixie in her preoccupation had retained
Von Lertz's attention on the ride home from the Ten Mile House the
night before. Her mind had been a seething mass of conjectures and
forebodings. And with them had been linked her knowledge of the
necessity for occupying Von Lertz's attention so that he would not
discover the loss of the report book. In this she had been successful,
and when he at last deposited her at the door of her apartment, it was
with a feeling of relief that she bid him good night.
Dixie in the quiet of her room chided herself for not being able to
make more of this report. She told herself that she had no right to
be one of the Secret Service if she could do no better than this, but
the information was meager--there was nothing to work on. Her smooth
forehead was furrowed by a frown of anxiety. For the fiftieth time she
read the report and then she shook her head.
"No use," she mused. "There's only one thing for me to do with this
and that is send it to Harrison Grant without his knowing who it came
from. He can start an investigation." She folded the page torn from the
book and slipped it into an envelope. Then in a painfully disguised
handwriting she directed it to Harrison Grant, at the Criminology Club.
She held up the envelope and surveyed the writing. "He doesn't know my
writing, but if he did he would never guess this was mine. Mamette!"
she called sharply.
In a moment the curtain of her room was parted and a grinning black
face looked in on her. Mamette had been Dixie's maid for years; in
spite of her self-selected name smacking as she thought, of all that
was French and gay and fashionable, she was pure African.
"Mamette," Dixie repeated, "Take this letter down to the telegraph
office in the next block and have a messenger deliver it at once. Be
sure not to say who is sending it. Remember!"
"Yas'm!" Mamette's dark hand grasped the envelope which was startingly
white by contrast, and in a few minutes Dixie heard the door of the
apartment slam and knew that the report which she rightfully guessed
savored of intrigue boding ill for the peace of the land she served,
was on its way to Harrison Grant.
It reached him a half hour later by messenger, at his office.
It was Jimmy McAdams, shock haired, and dreamy eyed, who ambled in and
presented him with the message, and while he waited to see whether
Grant wished to send an answer, Jimmy made himself comfortable in the
depths of a leather chair with the nickel novel which never left him.
Grant frowned over the brief report which had been the cause of Dixie
Mason's dilemma. A triumphant chuckle from Jimmy aroused him. But the
chuckle was merely induced by the successful effort of Old King Brady
to capture the last of the counterfeiters as set forth between the
lurid covers of Jimmy's nickel thriller. Grant's glance rested on him
with tolerant amusement.
"Keep on reading that stuff, Jimmy, and you'll be a detective before
you know it."
Jimmy pulled himself into his present surroundings with obvious
effort. The eyes that met Grant's were still somewhat dreamy.
"What? Aw gee, Mr. Grant. I wish I was a detective! I bet I could be
one."
"And yet you don't know where this mysterious communication you just
brought me came from?"
"Aw gee! Mr. Grant. How'd I know it was mysterious? I carry so many
messages. How could I guess this one was goin' to be something
different. Anyway that ain't got nothin' to do with the kind of
detectin' I want to do. I want to be----"
"Look here Jimmy," Grant had risen and crossed over to the boy, "Why
don't you stop reading these nickel thrillers and put some of that
excess energy into the Boy Scouts?"
"Well, Mr. Grant, that ain't a bad idea. They been tryin' to get me to
join. But I want to be a detective."
Just how close he was to becoming a detective Jimmy did not know. A few
moments later he left the Club and betook himself to the "L" station
for the train that would take him back to his office.
Jimmy was followed into the car by a well-dressed, dark man of somewhat
foreign appearance who carried a brown portfolio. There was nothing
about him to arouse interest, but because he was the only other person
in the car Jimmy stared at him with a bored curiosity which would have
been disconcerting had the object of it not been in a somewhat drowsy
state. Jimmy watched his head nod, fall forward on his chest, and
jerked back only to allow it to go through the same performance again.
It was very interesting to Jimmy, and he was somewhat sorry when the
man jumped to his feet in confusion as the guard called a station and
hurried out to the platform. As the train started Jimmy noticed the
brown portfolio lying on the seat where the man had left it. He caught
it up and thrust his head out of the window.
"Hey, hey, mister! You left your valise!" Portfolios, valises--they
were all the same to Jimmy, the untravelled.
But the "L" train was pulling out. Behind, on the platform Jimmy could
see the man waving his arms and gesticulating wildly.
"Well you shouldn't have left it," Jimmy commented philosophically to
no one in particular, and immediately unbuckled the strap that held the
case closed. He glanced inside. For a moment disappointment was written
on his features, and then his eyes widened.
"Papers! German papers! Gosh I wonder if he's a spy!" Jimmy hesitated
and hurried out of the car.
He was strangely deaf to the shouts of the station guard, as he rushed
down the elevator steps, the newsdealer who endeavored to stop him at
the guard's earnest entreaties, enforced profanities, presented no
obstacle at all. A policeman, seeing the commotion, did his best to
slacken the pace Jimmy had set for himself but could do nothing but
follow the nimble-footed messenger.
Fifteen minutes later Jimmy dashed past Pat Hennessy at the door of the
Criminology Club and threw himself, panting and wild-eyed at Harrison
Grant.
"Mr. Grant!" he gasped. "Here's a whole valise full of German spies--I
mean German papers."
And then he turned with a look of despair as the cumbersome form of his
pursuer darkened the door. At the sight of Jimmy the ample-proportioned
guardian of the law stepped forward to lay a heavy hand upon him, but
Harrison Grant stopped him quietly.
"Just a minute, here, Tom. The boy's all right. I'll look after him. I
think he's got something here we really want. In any event I'll take
care of the bag, whatever it is--and if the boy is wrong I'll see that
it gets back to its owner."
The policeman pondered dubiously. "Well," he said finally, "I seen
the kid running with this brown thing and a man chasing him, and I
naturally thought something was wrong. But I'll leave him with you if
you say so, Mr. Grant."
Grant nodded and he left the room.
Jimmy buzzed at Grant excitedly, like an irritating mosquito.
"Open it up--please, Mr. Grant. It's full of German papers. A guy left
it on the 'L' train and I picked it up."
Harrison Grant, with thoughts of Jimmy and the Adventures of Old King
Brady, looked down at the youngster and laughed.
"Jimmy, it's a good thing I know you're a good boy or----" he had
opened the portfolio now and was drawing out its contents. He stopped
with a quick exclamation as his eyes rested on a letter.
"The spy correspondence of Dr. Heinrich Albert!"
As Harrison Grant was hastily running through the contents of the
brown portfolio with which Jimmy had so unceremoniously presented
him, the guests lounging about the parlors of the Ritz Carlton were
somewhat startled at the sudden entrance of a tall dark man. Caution
almost forgotten in the need for instant conference with his fellow
plotters, Albert had hailed the first taxi driver in sight and ordered
him to drive to the hotel at which Von Bernstorff the ambassador, was
stopping, as quickly as possible. Paying the driver as they arrived, he
had rushed into the lobby, had himself announced and impatiently fumed
while the elevator with a slow elegance unappreciated by the doctor,
carried him to the floor of Von Bernstorff's suite. A moment later
he was somewhat incoherently pouring his recital of events into the
interested ears of Von Bernstorff, Von Papen and Boy-Ed.
"I fell asleep. I've been doing much night work," this in a somewhat
apologetic tone which won no sympathy from his hearers, "and awoke only
when they called my station. I hurried out, forgetting my portfolio.
How I did it I do not know. It never leaves my side. That I should
have forgotten it now----" Albert threw himself into a chair and ran
his fingers through his hair excitedly. "The boy waved at me from the
window of the train," he went on. "I immediately telephoned to the
next station to have him stopped and the bag taken away from him. But
they say when he got there he slid past the guard, ran down the steps,
tripped up a newsdealer, got away from a policeman and then ran with
it."
Jimmy would have been surprised to know what importance was attached to
his actions of the past hour.
Von Bernstorff frowned. "He's probably taken it to the Secret Service,"
he cut in. "The result will be that sooner or later every scheme
outlined in that correspondence will be frustrated. It was careless,
Albert, exceedingly careless work. But we must concern ourselves with
the necessities of the moment."
A moment's pause ensued. "The consequences of this affair would be
staggering if the papers should fall into the right hands."
Von Bernstorff spoke. "Von Rintelen must leave the country at once.
He is not an attache or member of the Imperial German Embassy and
therefore is not protected by international law."
Von Rintelen bowed assentingly. What Von Bernstorff said was true, and
he rose.
"_Auf weidersehen_, Von Rintelen." Von Bernstorff held out his hand.
Von Rintelen bowed and shook the hand of each of the men with whom he
had been associated and with hurried expressions of farewell, left the
room to make preparations for flight from the country, flight that
ended for him at Falmouth, England, where he was detained and returned
to New York City. In February, 1918, Judge Howe of Vermont sentenced
him to imprisonment for his activities against the peace of the United
States.
After Von Rintelen's exit, Von Bernstorff turned once more to his
fiscal spy and Boy-Ed and Von Papen.
"As I said, we who are left must concern ourselves with the necessities
of the moment which seem to be pressing upon us. Dr. Albert, what was
the most important paper in the portfolio you carried?"
"Von Rintelen's report of the bombs placed on sugar ships."
Von Bernstorff smiled slightly.
"That may give us a clue! Are all the ships at sea?"
"Yes."
"Then if the papers are in the hands of the Secret Service----"
"They'll wireless the ships at sea," broke in Albert.
"Exactly." Bernstorff nodded matter-of-factly. "We can find out
speedily if they're in possession of our secrets and arrange our acts
accordingly. You, Von Papen, and Boy-Ed, get out the Long Island
automobile wireless and catch any messages that Sayville may send out
tonight. Where is Von Lertz?"
Von Papen shook his head.
"I think he has an engagement with Miss Mason."
"Miss Mason? Who is she?" Von Bernstorff glanced up sharply, but
without waiting for reply went on, "he will have to break it. He must
help you. I will telephone him to get Wolff von Igel and help you."
Von Papen and Boy-Ed, bowing, left the room.
Bernstorff caught up the desk 'phone and rattled the hook impatiently.
He was answered in a moment, and as he gave the number of Von Lertz's
apartment, the girl at the switchboard smiled to herself in the privacy
of her corner, and made a double connection for the benefit of Dixie
Mason, who had been careful to plant her operatives in strategic
places. Dixie Mason, listening quietly, on the 'phone in her own little
boudoir heard Bernstorff call for Heinric von Lertz, and in a moment
caught Von Lertz's quiet answer. She heard Bernstorff's explanation of
his call and the story of the loss of the reports given in a few words.
"There is no time to waste, Von Lertz. All messages must be caught. Get
Wolff von Igel at once, and you two go out with Von Papen and Boy-Ed in
the machine."
"I will be with them in three quarters of an hour or sooner, if I can
make it," Von Lertz answered somewhat slowly. Dixie smiled broadly and
suppressed a girlish giggle. The reason for Von Lertz's hesitancy was
not hard to be guessed at.
But all hilarity disappeared the moment the receiver of her 'phone
slipped gently into its hook. It was lifted very shortly and the voice
of Dixie Mason, having called her number, was carried to the ear of the
Chief of the Secret Service. A quick conversation followed.
"I will have men at Harden's Corner. Did you get that? Harden's
corner," he spoke in final tones. "Give them the signal I have just
told them they would get from you. Everything straight? All right. Good
bye."
Dixie pushed the 'phone from her. "Mamette! Hurry! The motor togs!"
For the next half hour Dixie was extremely busy, and Mamette's services
had to be called upon to assist in the unusual toilette she was making.
Although Heinric von Lertz, calling shortly to convey his regrets at
the necessity of breaking his engagement with her for the motor trip
they had planned, found her entrancingly gowned in a dark negligee,
the door had hardly closed behind him, when the entrancing negligee
slipped to the floor and disclosed Dixie Mason in motor clothes of an
extremely mannish cut.
Calling directions into the bemuddled ears of Mamette, donning goggles
and cap at the same time, she hurried to the hall and into the
elevator. As the machine of Heinric von Lertz, carrying with him Von
Papen, and Boy-Ed, crossed the street intersection beyond on their way
to Long Island, Dixie Mason's car fairly leaped out of the driveway and
on to the road they were taking.
Across the city and over the bridge the big car with the small one
following at a discreet but never faltering distance, took its way.
At the bridge it was joined by the heavy wireless automobile carrying
Wolff von Igel and a driver. Then out on the broad Long Island road
with the course spreading smooth and straight before them. The
spies were looking for a point of vantage in the hills where their
wireless could be used to catch the messages going out from Sayville
to the sugar ships in danger. Dixie Mason was looking for a well
known intersection of roads, where a road came down from a hill and
cut sharply across the high road--a road well hidden except for its
intersection. Her sharp eyes travelling beyond caught a glimpse of the
white cross formed by the roads. Two long shrill wails followed by
three short ones pierced the air, above the steady drumming of the
heavy cars ahead.
The cars containing Von Lertz and Von Papen, Von Igel and his driver
dashed past the intersection of the road where a tall signpost bearing
the information that this was Harden's Corner reared itself. To the
men in the cars the sign meant nothing, but to Dixie Mason it meant
success or failure. A moment of suspense for her followed, and then a
machine dashed into the road between her car and the cars ahead. Dixie
slowed down. Her services were not needed now. The other Secret Service
operatives would complete her work for her, but hoping to see the
finish she drove on slowly.
The spies evidently not knowing they were followed had driven their
car up into a road leading to a hill overlooking the water. Von Papen
and Boy-Ed were making the necessary connection of the wireless that
would enable them to catch the messages at sea. Von Igel, with the
driver, was standing guard. Suddenly Von Igel uttered a warning shout.
Explanations were unnecessary. A glance below showed that they were
discovered. Von Lertz, followed by Von Papen, leaped into his machine
and swung into the road, followed by Von Igel in the wireless machine.
With roaring exhausts they raced for the broad road that led to the
city. Behind them, swinging and swerving, thundered the car carrying
the Secret Service men.
Far away Dixie Mason, driving leisurely, heard the sounds of the race.
The hills resounded with the heavy echoes of the pounding machines.
As she reached the crest of the hill she saw them below her. A small
stream which was crossed by a bridge lay at the foot of the hill. As
Von Lertz struck the bridge his car leaped into the air, wavered a
moment and then crashed ahead, over the bridge and with a grinding of
brakes, up the side of the embankment. Then Dixie gave a cry of horror
as Von Igel's heavy car following struck the edge of the bridge as Von
Lertz's had done, but with less luck, for the car swerved, skidded,
swung about, and then striking the heavy cement railing of the bridge,
capsized, pinioning Wolff von Igel beneath it. A moment more and a
flame shot high into the air as the gasoline tank exploded. Von Lertz
and Von Papen worked madly, endeavoring to extricate Von Igel from the
wrecked car. She could not see the driver. Dixie peered beyond them. In
the distance she could see the car which should have carried her Secret
Service co-workers to the successful climax of this affair, stalled,
its erstwhile occupants working in vain endeavors to start it. Dixie
groaned. After all, it was up to her.
Well acquainted with the character of the men whose schemes she
combatted daily with a wit equal to theirs but with less resources to
forestall, she summoned her courage and thoughts to do her bidding.
Through fate, luck, she knew not what, her plan was endangered. And
then this same fate played into her hands.
As her car slid slowly down the hill, Von Papen spoke quickly to Von
Lertz.
"Do you know who this is coming down the hill?"
Von Lertz glanced up. "No, but we passed him back in town. Why?"
"We can use him--if he is all right. You and Boy-Ed take Von Igel in
your machine and get him to a hospital quick. I'll have to try a rather
dangerous stunt--work the Fifth Avenue wireless. It's risky but----"
Dixie had brought her machine to a standstill near the smoking wreck
of Von Igel's wireless machine. Her heart pounded madly as Von Papen
stepped toward her. Was fate favoring her? It seemed so!
She drew her cap down and adjusted her goggles more firmly as Von Papen
advanced. "We've had an accident here," he said, "I've got to get back
to town. Can you take me?"
Dixie nodded and opened the door. Von Papen stepped in and gave her
directions as to where he wished her to drive him--little knowing that
he was giving information to the woman representative of the Secret
Service!
"Turn into Fifth Avenue at Fifty-second Street and then start up-town.
Make it as fast as the law allows!" Captain Von Papen was snapping his
orders excitedly, but in a low voice. "I've got to get there to notify
the mother of the boy who has just been hurt. Understand?"
Dixie nodded. Her foot pressed the accelerator. A moment more and the
finger of the speedometer climbed to forty miles, then fifty and slowly
to sixty where it stayed until the outlines of the city began to show
against the western sky. Then Dixie slowed down to a speed which would
allow her to pass the policemen they began to encounter at intervals
without interference. She crossed over to Madison Avenue, and there
slowed down. Von Papen glanced out and around the machine nervously.
Evidently the way was clear, for he reached into his pocket and drew
out a bill which he pressed into the driver's hand. "Drive on, please,
no need to wait for me," he called, hurrying to the sidewalk.
Dixie nodded and started the machine. She crossed Fifth Avenue. Just
beyond the corner she stopped the car and jumped out. Scurrying to
the corner she watched Von Papen enter the house. It was Dr. Albert's
house, the huge Fifth Avenue mansion that German efficiency had turned
into a spies' nest from which to prey upon a country with which it
claimed to be on friendly terms and by whom it was trusted. Dixie Mason
glanced up at its close curtained windows. Somewhere inside was Von
Papen, gone there on an errand unknown to her but which she knew had
some bearing on the events of the afternoon. What was his mission?
In a moment the answer was given her. High up on the roof the slender
antennae of a wireless outfit was being raised. Higher and higher with
slim tentacles spreading as the machinery inside that controlled it was
operated.
There was no need for conjecture now. Dixie Mason knew the meaning
of Von Papen's mad rush to reach this house. It was to reach another
wireless depot from which messages could be caught and stopped. And
she had been the means of assisting him to his purpose! Dixie Mason
turned and ran to her car. A moment later she was breaking all traffic
regulations as she sped toward the Criminology Club with one idea in
mind--to reach Harrison Grant.
But already the message of warning to the sugar ships far out on the
ocean had been flashed from Sayville. The gigantic efforts of the
German spies to stop the messages had been to no purpose. Harrison
Grant upon finding the report of the bombs placed in the hold of
the sugar ships had stopped first to order the warning sent through
Sayville, and then calling Cavanaugh, Sisson and Stewart, had hurried
with them to the dock to warn the crew of the _Cragside_ of the bomb
in her hold, and prevent, if possible, a catastrophe. But as they
approached the dock the black clouds of smoke darkening the clear sky
told them they were too late. The _Cragside_ was a mass of flames and
the dock an inferno of smoke through which the wet rubber coats of
firemen gleamed. Huge streams of water played on the ill-fated vessel,
and the shouts and yells of excited dock hands mingled with the roar of
flames and water and the weird sirens of newly arriving fire engines.
There was little they could do there. Grant, sickened at the appalling
waste and the heartlessness of the crime, which they had been too late
to prevent, turned his footsteps slowly back toward the Club. Was there
no end to fiendishness which could concoct such acts as this? Would
the eyes of the people never be opened to the danger that stalked
abroad among them in the guise of friendship? Would this country, too,
be drawn into the war that was sapping the strength of the nations
and causing a depth of misery such as the world had never before
experienced? Grant wondered at it all, wishing that things were not as
they were, marveling that others would not see that peace could never
exist with a government which fawned and smiled and offered the hand
of friendship even as it planned acts too treacherous for an honorable
nation to conceive of.
He had stretched his weary limbs in the deep softness of the leather
couch in the lounging room of the Club. Doubtless he heard the sound of
a car drawn up to the curb before the Club. If he did he was too tired
to care who it was.
Dixie Mason still in her mannish auto togs signalled to Pat Hennessy at
the door of the Club.
"Tell Mr. Grant to come at once and bring his best men with him, I
think I can crowd three in here. Hurry, please!"
Hennessy was used to strange happenings. His affiliations with the
Criminology Club had accustomed him to the need of quick action and
now quick action seemed to be the desired thing. He disappeared into
the Club to re-appear in a moment with Grant and Cavanaugh and Stewart.
Grant peered into the machine at the slim figure of the driver.
"Who are you?" he asked sharply.
Dixie flashed her Secret Service commission, concealing the name.
"What else?" The secret sign of the service was given him as Dixie
raised her gauntletted hand. Without further questions he stepped in,
followed by Stewart. Cavanaugh clung to the running board.
A moment more and Dixie Mason's little car was speeding toward Fifth
Avenue, defying all law in general and policemen in particular in her
mad haste to reach the house Von Papen had entered.
She slowed down at the corner where she had stopped before and pointed
to the house. She spoke in a low voice and directed her speech at
Stewart. "In that house there, they are working the wireless!"
Grant jumped to the sidewalk. He gave his directions in low tones.
Dixie watched them seek for admittance at the door. She watched them
open the iron barred gate and then with a splintering crash force their
way into the house. She saw the butler that blocked their path fall
under someone's heavy blow. And then they disappeared into the darkness
of the gloomy reception hall.
Grant and his men strode to the panelled doorway opening into the great
room in which Dr. Albert received his guests and where the conferences
of the German plotters were held. From behind the heavy doors came the
crackle and splutter of a wireless apparatus.
Under the strength of the three men the doors burst inward. Inside of
the room, two men working the wireless rushed vainly toward the French
windows for escape, only to find themselves pinioned and helpless in
the handcuffs slipped on them by Grant and his operatives.
Cavanaugh and Stewart soon dismantled the wireless equipment and put
out of commission forever one of Germany's most dangerous weapons in
America, but Grant watching them knew that it was but one of many and
that for every blow thus dealt a dozen plots would spring up elsewhere.
While this evil festered in their midst the eyes of the Secret Service
must never close.
He left the operatives on guard and turned toward the street with his
captives.
"Good man--that fellow who brought us here," he mused as they stepped
out on the stone doorstep. "He's worth a special report to the Chief.
If it hadn't been for him--"
He stopped. Where the racer with its hooded, gauntletted driver had
been was vacancy! His mysterious informant was gone!