VI
A MATTER OF RECORD
"What was that you mentioned last week--something about the record ofKreisler's 'Drigo's Serenade' reminding you of the capture of some one?"I asked Bill Quinn one summer evening as he painfully hoisted his gameleg upon the porch railing.
"Sure it does," replied Quinn. "Never fails. Put it on again so I canget the necessary atmosphere, as you writers call it, and possibly I'llspill the yarn--provided you guarantee to keep the ginger ale flowingfreely. That and olive oil are about the only throat lubricants leftus."
So I slipped on the record, rustled a couple of bottles from the icebox, and settled back comfortably, for when Quinn once started on one ofhis reminiscences of government detective work he didn't like to beinterrupted.
"That's the piece, all right," Bill remarked, as the strains of theviolin drifted off into the night. "Funny how a few notes of music likethat could nail a criminal while at the same time it was saving thelives of nobody knows how many other people--"
* * * * *
Remember Paul Weimar [continued Quinn, picking up the thread of hisstory]. He was the most dangerous of the entire gang that helped vonBernstorff, von Papen, and the rest of that crew plot against the UnitedStates at a time when we were supposed to be entirely neutral.
An Austrian by birth, Weimar was as thoroughly a Hun at heart as anyonewho ever served the Hohenzollerns and, in spite of his size, he was asslippery as they make 'em. Back in the past somewhere he had been adetective in the service of the Atlas Line, but for some years beforethe war was superintendent of the police attached to theHamburg-American boats. That, of course, gave him the inside track inevery bit of deviltry he wanted to be mixed up in, for he had made ithis business to cultivate the acquaintance of wharf rats, dive keepers,and all the rest of the scum of the Seven Seas that haunts the docks.
Standing well over six feet, Weimar had a pair of fists that came inmighty handy in a scuffle, and a tongue that could curl itself aroundall the blasphemies of a dozen languages. There wasn't a water frontwhere they didn't hate him--neither was there a water front where theydidn't fear him.
Of course, when the war broke in August, 1914, the Hamburg-American linedidn't have any further official use for Weimar. Their ships were tiedup in neutral or home ports and Herr Paul was out of a job--for at leastten minutes. But he was entirely too valuable a man for the Germanorganization to overlook for longer than that, and von Papen, inWashington, immediately added him to his organization--with blanketinstructions to go the limit on any dirty work he cared to undertake.Later, he worked for von Bernstorff; Doctor Dumba, the Austrianambassador; and Doctor von Nuber, the Austrian consul in New York--butvon Papen had first claim upon his services and did not hesitate topress them, as proven by certain entries in the checkbook of themilitary attache during the spring and summer of 1915.
Of course, it didn't take the Secret Service and the men from theDepartment of Justice very long to get on to the fact that Weimar wasaltogether too close to the German embassy for the safety and comfort ofthe United States government. But what were they to do about it? Weweren't at war then and you couldn't arrest a man merely because hehappened to know von Papen and the rest of his precious companions. Youhad to have something on him--something that would stand up incourt--and Paul Weimar was too almighty clever to let that happen.
When you remember that it took precisely one year to land thisAustrian--one year of constant watching and unceasing espionage--youwill see how well he conducted himself.
And the government's sleuths weren't the only ones who were after him,either.
Captain Kenney, of the New York Police Force, lent mighty efficient aidand actually invented a new system of trailing in order to find out justwhat he was up to.
In the old days, you told a man to go out and follow a suspect and thatwas all there was to it. The "shadow" would trail along half a block orso in the rear, keeping his man always in view, and bring home a fullaccount of what he had done all day. But you couldn't do that withWeimar--he was too foxy. From what some of the boys have told me, Ithink he took a positive delight in throwing them off the scent, whetherhe had anything up his sleeve or not.
One day, for example, you could have seen his big bulk swingingnonchalantly up Broadway, as if he didn't have a care in the world. Ahundred feet or more behind him was Bob Dugan, one of Kenney's men. WhenWeimar disappeared into the Subway station at Times Square, Dugan wasright behind him, and when the Austrian boarded the local for GrandCentral Station, Dugan was on the same train--on the same car, in fact.But when they reached the station, things began to happen. Weimar leftthe local and commenced to stroll up and down the platform, waitinguntil a local train and an express arrived at the same time. That washis opportunity. He made a step or two forward, as if to board theexpress, and Dugan--not wishing to make himself too conspicuous--slippedon board just as the doors were closing, only to see Weimar push backand jam his way on the local!
Variations of that stunt occurred time after time. Even the detailing oftwo men to follow him failed in its purpose, for the Austrian wouldenter a big office building, leap into an express elevator just as itwas about to ascend, slip the operator a dollar to stop at one of thelower floors, and be lost for the day or until some one picked him up byaccident.
So Cap Kenney called in four of his best men and told them that it wasessential that Weimar be watched.
"Two of you," he directed, "stick with him all the time. Suppose youlocate him the first thing in the morning at his house on Twenty-fourthStreet, for example. You, Cottrell, station yourself two blocks up thestreet. Gary, you go the same distance down. Then, no matter which wayhe starts he'll have one of you in front of him and one behind. The manin front will have to use his wits to guess which way he intends to goand to beat him to it. If he boards a car, the man in front can pick himup 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 awatch on Weimar was concerned. But that was all. In the summer of 1915the government knew precisely where Weimar had been for the past sixmonths, with whom he had talked, and so on--but the kernel of the nutwas missing. There wasn't the least clue to what he had talked about andwhat deviltry he had planned!
Without that information, all the dope the government had was about asuseful as a movie to a blind man.
Washington was so certain that Weimar had the key to a number of veryimportant developments--among them the first attempt to blow up theWelland Canal--that the chief of the Secret Service made a special tripto New York to talk to Kenney.
"Isn't it possible," he suggested, "to plant your men close enough toWeimar 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 thatWeimar's likely to use in the neighborhood of his house and every timehe talks from a public station one of our men cuts in from near-by--byan arrangement with Central--and gets every word. But that bird is toowary to be caught with chaff of that kind. He's evidently worked out averbal code of some kind that changes every day. He tells the man at theother end, for example, to be at the drug store on the corner ofSeventy-third and Broadway at three o'clock to-morrow afternoon and waitfor a phone call in the name of Williams. Our man is always at the placeat the appointed hour, but no call ever arrives. 'Seventy-third andBroadway' very evidently means some other address, but it's useless totry and guess which one. You'd have to have a man at every pay stationin 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--thePennsylvania or Grand Central Station, a movie theater, a hotel lobby,or the like. There h
e can put his back against the wall and make surethat no one is listening in. He's on to all the tricks of the trade andit 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 theCastleman diamond case here a couple of years ago for the customs peopleand was also responsible for uncovering the men behind the sugar-taxfraud. He isn't in the Service, but he's working for the Department ofJustice, and I'm certain they'll turn him loose on this if I ask themto. 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 MortonMaxwell, better known as "Mort," was headed toward New York withinstructions 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 shadowingthe elusive Weimar were called in to tell their part of the story, andevery card was laid upon the table.
When the conference concluded, sometime after midnight, the chief turnedto 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 thegrand stand--but those who knew him best realized that Maxwell's alertmind was working fastest in such moments and that he much preferred notto 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," hereplied. Then, as Kenney started to cut in, "No, Chief, I said_appeared_ not to have been covered. Very possibly you have all theinformation on it and forgot to hand it out. Who does this Weimar livewith?"
"He lives by himself in a house on Twenty-fourth Street, near SeventhAvenue--boards there, but has the entire second floor. So far as we'vebeen able to find out he has never been married. No trace of any wife onthis side, anyhow. Never travels with women--probably afraid they'd talktoo much."
"Has he any relatives?"
"None that I know of--"
"Wait a minute," Cottrell interrupted. "I dug back into Weimar's recordbefore 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 namedGeorge 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 hisdirection. I don't even know that he is in this country, but it's likelythat he is because he was on one of the boats that was interned herewhen the war broke."
Again it was a full minute before Maxwell spoke.
"Buch," he said, finally, "appears to be the only link between Weimarand 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 alongthat line. I'll dig into it myself the first thing in the morning, and Icertainly 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. NowI'm going to turn in, for something seems to tell me that the busyseason has arrived."
At that Maxwell wasn't far wrong. The weeks that followed were wellfilled with work, but it was entirely unproductive of results. Weimarwas shadowed day and night, his telephones tapped and his mail examined.But, save for the fact that his connection with the German embassybecame increasingly apparent, no further evidence was forthcoming.
The search for Buch was evidently futile, for that personage appeared tohave disappeared from the face of the earth. All that Maxwell and theother men who worked on the matter could discover was that Buch--a youngAustrian whose description they secured--had formerly been an intimateof Weimar. The latter had obtained his appointment to a minor office inthe Hamburg-American line and Buch was commonly supposed to be a stoolpigeon for the master plotter.
But right there the trail stopped.
No one appeared to know whether the Austrian was in New York, or theUnited States, for that matter, though one informant did admit that itwas quite probable.
"Buch and the big fellow had a row the last time over," was theinformation Maxwell secured at the cost of a few drinks. "Somethingabout some money that Weimar is supposed to have owed him--fifteendollars or some such amount. I didn't hear about it until afterward, butit appears to have been a pretty lively scrap while it lasted. Ofcourse, Buch didn't have a chance against the big fellow--he couldhandle a bull. But the young Austrian threatened to tip his hand--saidhe knew a lot of stuff that would be worth a good deal more money thanwas coming to him, and all that sort of thing. But the ship docked thenext day and I haven't seen or heard of him since."
The idea of foul play at once leaped into Maxwell's mind, butinvestigation of police records failed to disclose the discovery ofanybody answering to the description of George Buch and, as CaptainKenney pointed out, it is a decidedly difficult matter to dispose of acorpse in such a way as not to arouse at least the suspicions of thepolice.
As a last resort, about the middle of September, Maxwell had a rewardposted on the bulletin board of every police station in New York and thesurrounding country for the "apprehension of George Buch, Austrian, ageabout 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 toseveral thousand men of German parentage in the city, and to a good manymore who didn't have a drop of Teutonic blood in their veins.
"True enough," Maxwell was forced to admit, "but we can't afford tooverlook 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, theAustrian had been walking up Sixth Avenue that afternoon when a machineswung in from Thirty-sixth Street and the Austrian had leaped aboardwithout waiting for it to come to a full stop.
"Of course, there wasn't a taxi in sight," said Gary, ruefully, "andbefore I could convince the nearest chauffeur that my badge wasn't phonythey'd gone!"
"That's the first time in months," Gary replied. "He knows that he'sfollowed, all right, and he's cagy enough to keep in the open andpretend to be aboveboard."
"Right," commented the Department of Justice operative, "and this movewould appear to indicate that something was doing. Better phone all yourstations 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 thepolicemen 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 thetoes of his shoes. "Does this Austrian, this here Buch feller ye'relookin' 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 thatWeimar threw it overboard one day in a fit of rage. Why? What's theconnection?"
"Nothin' in particular, save that a little girl I'm rather sweet onwurruks 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 forthis Buch feller. 'Why!' says she, 'that sounds just like the Dutchythat used to come into th' shop a whole lot a year or so ago. He wascrazy about music an' kep' himself pretty nigh broke a-buyin' thoseexpensive new records. Got me to save him every violin one that cameout.'"
"Um, yes," muttered Maxwell, "but has the young lady seen anything ofthis 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' selectionswere for a man that used to be a stiddy customer of hers but who was nowlaid up in bed."
"In bed for over a year!" exclaimed Maxwell, his face lighting up. "Heldprisoner somewhere in the neighborhood of that shop on FourteenthStreet, because the big Austrian hasn't the nerve to make away with himand yet fears that he knows too much! Look here, Riley--suppose you andMiss Katy take a few nights off--I'll substitute for her and make it allright with the man who owns the store. Then I can get a line on thisbuyer of records for sick men."
"Wouldn't it be better, sir, if we hung around outside th' store an' letKaty give us the high sign when he come in? Then we could both trail himback 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 theMetropolitan Tower had boomed nine times, a rather nondescriptindividual sauntered into the music store, and Riley's quick eyes sawthe girl behind the counter put her left hand to her chest. Then shecoughed.
"That's th' signal, sir," warned the policeman in a whisper. "An' that'sthe guy we're after."
Had the man turned around as he made his way toward a dark andforbidding house on Thirteenth Street, not far from Fourth Avenue, hemight have caught sight of two shadows skulking along not fifty feetbehind him. But, at that, he would have to have been pretty quick--forMaxwell was taking no chances on losing his prey and he had cautionedthe policeman not to make a sound.
When their quarry ascended the steps of No. 247 Riley started to moveafter 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'vegot a skeleton key handy that's guaranteed to open anything."
Riley grunted, but stayed where he was until Maxwell gave the signal toadvance.
Once inside the door, which responded to a single turn to the key, thepoliceman and the government agent halted in the pitch-black darknessand listened. Then from an upper floor came the sound for which Maxwellhad been waiting--the first golden notes of a violin played by a masterhand. The distance and the closed doorway which intervened killed allthe harsh mechanical tone of the phonograph and only the wonderfulmelody of "Drigo's Serenade" came down to them.
On tiptoe, though they knew their movements would be masked by thesounds of the music, Riley and Maxwell crept up to the third floor andhalted outside the door from which the sounds came.
"Wait until the record is over," directed Maxwell, "and then break downthat door. Have your gun handy and don't hesitate to shoot anyone whotries to injure Buch. I'm certain he's held prisoner here and it may bethat the men who are guarding him have instructions not to let himescape at any cost. Ready? Let's go!"
The final note of the Kreisler record had not died away before Riley'sshoulder 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 thebed 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 hisrevolver. With a cry, the man nearest the bed dropped his arm and apistol clattered to the floor--the barrel still singing from the impactof the policeman's bullet. The second man, realizing that time wasprecious, leaped straight toward Maxwell, his fingers reaching for theagent's throat. With a half laugh Mort clubbed his automatic and broughtthe butt down with sickening force on his assailant's head. Then heswung around and covered the man whom Riley had disarmed.
"Don't worry about him, sir," said the policeman. "His arm'll be numbhalf 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 theseswine. They have the law on their side, anyway, because we broke in herewithout a warrant. I only want Buch."
When he had propped the young Austrian up in a comfortable chair in theFederal Building and had given him a glass of brandy to strengthen hisnerves--the Lord only knows that they'll have to do in thefuture--Maxwell got the whole story and more than he had dared hopedfor. Buch, following his quarrel with Weimar, had been held prisoner inthe house on Thirteenth Street for over a year because, as Maxwell hadfigured, the Austrian didn't have the nerve to kill him and didn't darelet him loose. Barely enough food was allowed to keep him alive, and theonly weakness that his cousin had shown was in permitting the purchaseof one phonograph record a week in order to cheer him up a little.
"Naturally," said Buch, "I chose the Kreisler records, because he's anAustrian 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 goingto 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 hemight be caught or killed. That would have meant no more money for themen who were guarding me and I was too weak to walk even to the windowto 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 hewas calling the Niagara police on the long-distance phone, giving adetailed 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'sevidence, indicted for violation of Section Thirteen of the Penal Code.
"Thus did a phonograph record and thirty pieces of silver--the thirtyhalf-dollars that Weimar owed Buch--lead directly to the arrest of oneof the most dangerous spies in the German service. Let's have Mr.Drigo's Serenade once more and pledge Mort Maxwell's health in gingerale--unless you have a still concealed around the house. And if you haveI will be in duty bound to tell Jimmy Reynolds about it--he's the ladthat holds the record for persistency and cleverness in discoveringmoonshiners."
On Secret Service Page 6
