nonchalantly up Broadway, as if he didn't have a care in the world. A
hundred feet or more behind him was Bob Dugan, one of Kenney's men. When
Weimar disappeared into the Subway station at Times Square, Dugan was
right behind him, and when the Austrian boarded the local for Grand
Central Station, Dugan was on the same train--on the same car, in fact.
But when they reached the station, things began to happen. Weimar left
the local and commenced to stroll up and down the platform, waiting
until a local train and an express arrived at the same time. That was
his opportunity. He made a step or two forward, as if to board the
express, and Dugan--not wishing to make himself too conspicuous--slipped
on board just as the doors were closing, only to see Weimar push back
and jam his way on the local!
Variations of that stunt occurred time after time. Even the detailing of
two men to follow him failed in its purpose, for the Austrian would
enter a big office building, leap into an express elevator just as it
was about to ascend, slip the operator a dollar to stop at one of the
lower floors, and be lost for the day or until some one picked him up by
accident.
So Cap Kenney called in four of his best men and told them that it was
essential that Weimar be watched.
"Two of you," he directed, "stick with him all the time. Suppose you
locate him the first thing in the morning at his house on Twenty-fourth
Street, for example. You, Cottrell, station yourself two blocks up the
street. Gary, you go the same distance down. Then, no matter which way
he starts he'll have one of you in front of him and one behind. The man
in front will have to use his wits to guess which way he intends to go
and to beat him to it. If he boards a car, the man in front can pick him
up with the certainty that the other will cover the trail in the rear.
In that way you ought to be able to find out where he is going and,
possibly, what he is doing there."
The scheme, thanks to the quick thinking of the men assigned to the job,
worked splendidly for months--at least it worked in so far as keeping a
watch on Weimar was concerned. But that was all. In the summer of 1915
the government knew precisely where Weimar had been for the past six
months, with whom he had talked, and so on--but the kernel of the nut
was missing. There wasn't the least clue to what he had talked about and
what deviltry he had planned!
Without that information, all the dope the government had was about as
useful as a movie to a blind man.
Washington was so certain that Weimar had the key to a number of very
important developments--among them the first attempt to blow up the
Welland Canal--that the chief of the Secret Service made a special trip
to New York to talk to Kenney.
"Isn't it possible," he suggested, "to plant your men close enough to
Weimar to find out, for example, what he talks about over the phone?"
Kenney smiled, grimly.
"Chief," he said, "that's been done. We've tapped every phone that
Weimar's likely to use in the neighborhood of his house and every time
he talks from a public station one of our men cuts in from near-by--by
an arrangement with Central--and gets every word. But that bird is too
wary to be caught with chaff of that kind. He's evidently worked out a
verbal code of some kind that changes every day. He tells the man at the
other end, for example, to be at the drug store on the corner of
Seventy-third and Broadway at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon and wait
for a phone call in the name of Williams. Our man is always at the place
at the appointed hour, but no call ever arrives. 'Seventy-third and
Broadway' very evidently means some other address, but it's useless to
try and guess which one. You'd have to have a man at every pay station
in town to follow that lead."
"How about overhearing his directions to the men he meets in the open?"
"Not a chance in the world. His rendezvous are always public places--the
Pennsylvania or Grand Central Station, a movie theater, a hotel lobby,
or the like. There he can put his back against the wall and make sure
that no one is listening in. He's on to all the tricks of the trade and
it will take a mighty clever man--or a bunch of them--to nail him."
"H-m-m!" mused the chief. "Well, at that, I believe I've got the man."
"Anyone I know?"
"Yes, I think you do--Morton Maxwell. Remember him? Worked on the
Castleman diamond case here a couple of years ago for the customs people
and was also responsible for uncovering the men behind the sugar-tax
fraud. He isn't in the Service, but he's working for the Department of
Justice, and I'm certain they'll turn him loose on this if I ask them
to. Maxwell can get to the bottom of Weimar's business, if anyone can.
Let me talk to Washington--"
And within an hour after the chief had hung up the receiver Morton
Maxwell, better known as "Mort," was headed toward New York with
instructions to report at Secret Service headquarters in that city.
Once there, the chief and Kenney went over the whole affair with him.
Cottrell and Gary and the other men who had been engaged in shadowing
the elusive Weimar were called in to tell their part of the story, and
every card was laid upon the table.
When the conference concluded, sometime after midnight, the chief turned
to Maxwell and inquired:
"Well, what's your idea about it?"
For a full minute Mort smoked on in silence and gazed off into space.
Men who had just met him were apt to think this a pose, a play to the
grand stand--but those who knew him best realized that Maxwell's alert
mind was working fastest in such moments and that he much preferred not
to make any decision until he had turned things over in his head.
"There's just one point which doesn't appear to have been covered," he
replied. Then, as Kenney started to cut in, "No, Chief, I said
_appeared_ not to have been covered. Very possibly you have all the
information on it and forgot to hand it out. Who does this Weimar live
with?"
"He lives by himself in a house on Twenty-fourth Street, near Seventh
Avenue--boards there, but has the entire second floor. So far as we've
been able to find out he has never been married. No trace of any wife on
this side, anyhow. Never travels with women--probably afraid they'd talk
too much."
"Has he any relatives?"
"None that I know of--"
"Wait a minute," Cottrell interrupted. "I dug back into Weimar's record
before the war ended his official connection with the steamship company,
and one of the points I picked up was that he had a cousin--a man named
George Buch--formerly employed on one of the boats.
"Where is Buch now?" asked Maxwell.
"We haven't been able to locate him," admitted the police detective.
"Not that we've tried very hard, because the trail didn't lead in his
direction. I don't even know that he is in this country, but it's likely
that he is because he was on one of the boats that was interned here
when the war broke."
Again it was a full minute before Maxwell spoke.
"Buch," he said, finally, "appears to be the only link between Weimar
and the outer world. It's barely possible that he knows something, and,
as we can't afford to overlook any clue, suppose we start work along
that line. I'll dig into it myself the first thing in the morning, and I
certainly would appreciate any assistance that your men could give me,
Chief. Tell them to make discreet inquiries about Buch, his appearance,
habits, etc., and to try and find out whether he is on this side. Now
I'm going to turn in, for something seems to tell me that the busy
season has arrived."
At that Maxwell wasn't far wrong. The weeks that followed were well
filled with work, but it was entirely unproductive of results. Weimar
was shadowed day and night, his telephones tapped and his mail examined.
But, save for the fact that his connection with the German embassy
became increasingly apparent, no further evidence was forthcoming.
The search for Buch was evidently futile, for that personage appeared to
have disappeared from the face of the earth. All that Maxwell and the
other men who worked on the matter could discover was that Buch--a young
Austrian whose description they secured--had formerly been an intimate
of Weimar. The latter had obtained his appointment to a minor office in
the Hamburg-American line and Buch was commonly supposed to be a stool
pigeon for the master plotter.
But right there the trail stopped.
No one appeared to know whether the Austrian was in New York, or the
United States, for that matter, though one informant did admit that it
was quite probable.
"Buch and the big fellow had a row the last time over," was the
information Maxwell secured at the cost of a few drinks. "Something
about some money that Weimar is supposed to have owed him--fifteen
dollars or some such amount. I didn't hear about it until afterward, but
it appears to have been a pretty lively scrap while it lasted. Of
course, Buch didn't have a chance against the big fellow--he could
handle a bull. But the young Austrian threatened to tip his hand--said
he knew a lot of stuff that would be worth a good deal more money than
was coming to him, and all that sort of thing. But the ship docked the
next day and I haven't seen or heard of him since."
The idea of foul play at once leaped into Maxwell's mind, but
investigation of police records failed to disclose the discovery of
anybody answering to the description of George Buch and, as Captain
Kenney pointed out, it is a decidedly difficult matter to dispose of a
corpse in such a way as not to arouse at least the suspicions of the
police.
As a last resort, about the middle of September, Maxwell had a reward
posted on the bulletin board of every police station in New York and the
surrounding country for the "apprehension of George Buch, Austrian, age
about twenty-four. Height, five feet eight inches. Hair, blond.
Complexion, fair. Eyes, blue. Sandy mustache."
As Captain Kenney pointed out, though, the description would apply to
several thousand men of German parentage in the city, and to a good many
more who didn't have a drop of Teutonic blood in their veins.
"True enough," Maxwell was forced to admit, "but we can't afford to
overlook a bet--even if it is a thousand-to-one shot."
As luck would have it, the thousand-to-one shot won!
On September 25, 1917, Detective Gary returned to headquarters,
distinctly crestfallen. Weimar had given him the slip.
In company with another man, whom the detective did not know, the
Austrian had been walking up Sixth Avenue that afternoon when a machine
swung in from Thirty-sixth Street and the Austrian had leaped aboard
without waiting for it to come to a full stop.
"Of course, there wasn't a taxi in sight," said Gary, ruefully, "and
before I could convince the nearest chauffeur that my badge wasn't phony
they'd gone!"
"That's the first time in months," Gary replied. "He knows that he's
followed, all right, and he's cagy enough to keep in the open and
pretend to be aboveboard."
"Right," commented the Department of Justice operative, "and this move
would appear to indicate that something was doing. Better phone all your
stations to watch out for him, Cap."
But nothing more was seen or heard of Herr Weimar for five days.
Meanwhile events moved rapidly for Maxwell.
On September 26th, the day after the Austrian disappeared, one of the
policemen whose beat lay along Fourteenth Street, near Third Avenue,
asked to see the government detective.
"My name's Riley," announced the copper, with a brogue as broad as the
toes of his shoes. "Does this Austrian, this here Buch feller ye're
lookin' for, like music? Is he nuts about it?"
"Music?" echoed Maxwell. "I'm sure I don't know.... But wait a minute!
Yes, that's what that chap who used to know him on the boat told me.
Saying he was forever playing a fiddle when he was off duty and that
Weimar threw it overboard one day in a fit of rage. Why? What's the
connection?"
"Nothin' in particular, save that a little girl I'm rather sweet on
wurruks in a music store on Fourteenth Street an' she an' I was talkin'
things over last night an' I happened to mintion th' reward offered for
this Buch feller. 'Why!' says she, 'that sounds just like the Dutchy
that used to come into th' shop a whole lot a year or so ago. He was
crazy about music an' kep' himself pretty nigh broke a-buyin' those
expensive new records. Got me to save him every violin one that came
out.'"
"Um, yes," muttered Maxwell, "but has the young lady seen anything of
this chap lately?"
"That she has not," Riley replied, "an' right there's th' big idear.
Once a week, regular, another Dutchman comes in an' buys a record, an'
he told Katy--that's me gurrul's name--last winter that th' selections
were for a man that used to be a stiddy customer of hers but who was now
laid up in bed."
"In bed for over a year!" exclaimed Maxwell, his face lighting up. "Held
prisoner somewhere in the neighborhood of that shop on Fourteenth
Street, because the big Austrian hasn't the nerve to make away with him
and yet fears that he knows too much! Look here, Riley--suppose you and
Miss Katy take a few nights off--I'll substitute for her and make it all
right with the man who owns the store. Then I can get a line on this
buyer of records for sick men."
"Wouldn't it be better, sir, if we hung around outside th' store an' let
Katy give us the high sign when he come in? Then we could both trail him
back to where he lives."
"You're right, Riley, it would! Where'll I meet you to-night?"
"At the corner of Fourteenth Street and Thoid Av'nue, at eight o'clock.
Katy says th' man never gets there before nine."
"I'll be there," said Maxwell--and he was.
But nothing out of the ordinary rewarded their vigil the first night,
nor the second. On the third night, however, just after the clock in the
Metropolitan Tower had boomed nine times, a rather nondescript
individual sauntered into the music store, and Riley's quick eyes saw
the girl behind the counter put her left hand to her chest. Then she
coughed.
"That's th' signal, sir," warned the policeman in a whisper. "An' that's
the guy we're after."
Had the man turned around as he made his way toward a dark and
forbidding house on Thirteenth Street, not far from Fourth Avenue, he
might have caught sight of two shadows skulking along not fifty feet
behind him. But, at that, he would have to have been pretty quick--for
Maxwell was taking no chances on losing his prey and he had cautioned
the policeman not to make a sound.
When their quarry ascended the steps of No. 247 Riley started to move
after him, but the Department of Justice operative halted him.
"There's no hurry," stated Maxwell. "He doesn't suspect we're here, and,
besides, it doesn't make any difference if he does lock the door--I've
got a skeleton key handy that's guaranteed to open anything."
Riley grunted, but stayed where he was until Maxwell gave the signal to
advance.
Once inside the door, which responded to a single turn to the key, the
policeman and the government agent halted in the pitch-black darkness
and listened. Then from an upper floor came the sound for which Maxwell
had been waiting--the first golden notes of a violin played by a master
hand. The distance and the closed doorway which intervened killed all
the harsh mechanical tone of the phonograph and only the wonderful
melody of "Drigo's Serenade" came down to them.
On tiptoe, though they knew their movements would be masked by the
sounds of the music, Riley and Maxwell crept up to the third floor and
halted outside the door from which the sounds came.
"Wait until the record is over," directed Maxwell, "and then break down
that door. Have your gun handy and don't hesitate to shoot anyone who
tries to injure Buch. I'm certain he's held prisoner here and it may be
that the men who are guarding him have instructions not to let him
escape at any cost. Ready? Let's go!"
The final note of the Kreisler record had not died away before Riley's
shoulder hit the flimsy door and the two detectives were in the room.
Maxwell barely had time to catch a glimpse of a pale, wan figure on the
bed and to sense the fact that there were two other men in the room,
when there was a shout from Riley and a spurt of flame from his
revolver. With a cry, the man nearest the bed dropped his arm and a
pistol clattered to the floor--the barrel still singing from the impact
of the policeman's bullet. The second man, realizing that time was
precious, leaped straight toward Maxwell, his fingers reaching for the
agent's throat. With a half laugh Mort clubbed his automatic and brought
the butt down with sickening force on his assailant's head. Then he
swung around and covered the man whom Riley had disarmed.
"Don't worry about him, sir," said the policeman. "His arm'll be numb
half an hour from now. What do you want to do with th' lad in th' bed?"
"Get him out of here as quickly as we can. We won't bother with these
swine. They have the law on their side, anyway, because we broke in here
without a warrant. I only want Buch."
When he had propped the young Austrian up in a comfortable chair in the
Federal Building and had given him a glass of brandy to strengthen his
nerves--the Lord only knows that they'll have to do in the
future--Maxwell got the whole story and more than he had dared hoped
for. Buch, following his quarrel with Weimar, had been held prisoner in
the house on Thirteenth Street for over a year because, as Maxwell had
figured, the Austrian didn't have the nerve to kill him and didn't dare
let him loose. Barely enough food was allowed to keep him alive, and the
only weakness that his cousin had shown was in permitting the purchase
of one phonograph record a week in order to cheer him up a little.
"Naturally," said Buch, "I chose the Kreisler records, because he's an
Austrian and a marvelous violinist."
"Did Weimar ever come to see you?" inquired Maxwell.
"He came in every now and then to taunt me and to say that he was going
to have me thrown in the river some day soon. That didn't frighten me,
but there were other things that did. He came in last week, for example,
and boasted that he was going to blow up a big canal and I was afraid he
might be caught or killed. That would have meant no more money for the
men who were guarding me and I was too weak to walk even to the window
to call for help...."
"A big canal!" Maxwell repeated. "He couldn't mean the Panama! No,
that's impossible. I have it! The Welland Canal!" And in an instant he
was calling the Niagara police on the long-distance phone, giving a
detailed description of Weimar and his companions.
* * * * *
"As it turned out," concluded Quinn, reaching for his empty glass,
"Weimar had already been looking over the ground. He was arrested,
however, before the dynamite could be planted, and, thanks to Buch's
evidence, indicted for violation of Section Thirteen of the Penal Code.
"Thus did a phonograph record and thirty pieces of silver--the thirty
half-dollars that Weimar owed Buch--lead directly to the arrest of one
of the most dangerous spies in the German service. Let's have Mr.
Drigo's Serenade once more and pledge Mort Maxwell's health in ginger
ale--unless you have a still concealed around the house. And if you have
I will be in duty bound to tell Jimmy Reynolds about it--he's the lad
that holds the record for persistency and cleverness in discovering
moonshiners."
VII
THE SECRET STILL
"July 1, 1919," said Bill Quinn, as he appropriately reached for a
bottle containing a very soft drink, "by no means marked the beginning
of the government's troubles in connection with the illicit manufacture
of liquor.
"Of course, there's been a whole lot in the papers since the Thirst of
July about people having private stills in their cellars, making drinks
with a kick out of grape juice and a piece of yeast, and all that sort
of thing. One concern in Pittsburgh, I understand, has also noted a
tremendous and absolutely abnormal increase in the demand for its
hot-water heating plants--the copper coils of which make an ideal
substitute for a still--but I doubt very much if there's going to be a
real movement in the direction of the private manufacture of alcoholic
beverages. The Internal Revenue Department is too infernally watchful
and its agents too efficient for much of that to get by.
"When you get right down to it, there's no section in the country where
the art of making 'licker' flourishes to such an extent as it does in
eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. Moonshine there is not
only a recognized article of trade, but its manufacture is looked upon
as an inalienable right. It's tough sledding for any revenue officer who
isn't mighty quick on the trigger, and even then--as Jimmy Reynolds
discovered a few years back--they're likely to get him unless he mixes
brains with his shooting ability."
* * * * *
Reynolds [continued Quinn, easing his injured leg into a more
comfortable position] was as valuable a man as any whose name ever
appeared in the Government Blue Book. He's left the bureau now and
settled down to a life of comparative ease as assistant district
attorney of some middle Western city. I've forgotten which one, but
there was a good reason for his not caring to remain in the East. The
climate west of the Mississippi is far more healthy for Jimmy these
days.
At the time of the Stiles case Jim was about twenty-nine, straight as an
arrow, and with a bulldog tenacity that just wouldn't permit of his
letting go of a problem until the solution was filed in the official
pigeonholes which answer to the names of archives. It was this trait
which led Chambers, then Commissioner of Internal Revenue, to send for
him, after receipt of a message that two of his best men--Douglas and
Wood, I think their names were--had been brought back to Maymead,
Tennessee, with bullet holes neatly drilled through their hearts.
"Jim," said the Commissioner, "this case has gone just far enough. It's
one thing for the mountaineers of Tennessee to make moonshine whisky and
defy the laws of the United States. But when they deliberately murder
two of my best men and pin a rudely scribbled note to 'Bewair of this
country' on the front of their shirts, that's going entirely too far.
I'm going to clean out that nest of illicit stills if it takes the rest
of my natural life and every man in the bureau!
"More than that, I'll demand help from the War Department, if necessary!
By Gad! I'll teach 'em!" and the inkwell on the Commissioner's desk
leaped into the air as Chambers's fist registered determination.
Reynolds reached for a fresh cigar from the supply that always reposed
in the upper drawer of the Commissioner's desk and waited until it was
well lighted before he replied.
"All well and good, Chief," he commented, "but how would the army help
you any? You could turn fifty thousand men in uniform loose in those
mountains, and the odds are they wouldn't locate the bunch you're after.
Fire isn't the weapon to fight those mountaineers with. They're too
wise. What you need is brains."
"Possibly you can supply that deficiency," retorted the Commissioner, a
little nettled.
"Oh, I didn't mean that you, personally, needed the brains," laughed
Reynolds. "The pronoun was used figuratively and collectively. At that,
I would like to have a whirl at the case if you've nothing better for me
to do--"
"There isn't anything better for anyone to do at the present time,"
Chambers interrupted. "That's why I sent for you. We know that whisky is
being privately distilled in large quantities somewhere in the mountains
not far from Maymead. Right there our information ends. Our men have
tried all sorts of dodges to land the crowd behind the stills, but the
only thing they've been able to learn is that a man named Stiles is one
of the ruling spirits. His cabin is well up in the mountains and it was
while they were prospecting round that part of the country that Douglas
and Wood were shot. Now what's your idea of handling the case?"
"The first thing that I want, Chief, is to be allowed to work on this
absolutely alone, and that not a soul, in bureau or out of it is to know
what I'm doing."
"Easy enough to arrange that," assented the Commissioner, "but--"
"There isn't any 'but,'" Reynolds cut in. "You've tried putting a number
of men to work on this and they've failed. Now try letting one handle
it. For the past two years I've had a plan in the back of my head that
I've been waiting the right opportunity to use. So far as I can see it's
foolproof and I'm willing to take all the responsibility in connection
with it."