Uncle Sam Detective, Page 4

  III

  A FIASCO IN FIREARMS

  It is here set down for the first time that Special Agent Billy Gard ofthe United States Department of Justice trod the deck of the good Germanship _Esmiranga_ and smoked many Mexican cigarettes on that historicmorning in April, 1914, when she approached the port of Vera Cruz,loaded to the gunwales with ammunition for the Huertistas, andprecipitated the landing of American marines.

  Also it was here first told that it was the hand of Billy Gard thatlighted the match that ignited the powder that caused the explosion thatkept Yankee fighting men in Mexico for many months and the big Americansister republics on the verge of war. For the action of the head of thegovernment of a hundred million of people, the orders extended to themilitary, the shuttling of battleships and transports, were based uponmysteriously received messages from this young representative of theUnited States, who through a combination of chance and design foundhimself strangely placed in the center of a web of circumstance.

  It had all started in a New York hotel six months before. It was notentirely out of keeping with what was to follow that a huge andbewhiskered Russian should have staged the prologue of what was later toassume something of the nature of an international farce. But it wassuch a man, registering himself as G. Egeloff, pronouncing some of hisindifferent English with the explosiveness of Russia and some of it withthe lilting softness of Latin America, who created a scene in aManhattan hotel and thus first introduced the whole matter. He hadarrived but a moment before, dusty, disheveled, empty handed. The roomclerk had suggested that it was the custom of the hotel that guestswithout baggage should pay in advance. Then had come the explosionaccompanied by oaths in four languages.

  The man with the whiskers called upon all to witness that this indignityhad been placed upon him, G. Egeloff, the representative of rulers ofnations, the bearer of credentials, the possessor of enough money in hisone vest pocket to buy the hotel in question and turn it into a barracksfor his peons.

  Whereupon he produced from the vest pocket in question a draft on theMexican treasury for the neat sum of three million dollars in gold,signed by none other than Victoriano Huerta himself. At which signal theentire hotel staff salaamed profoundly, the man who swore was escortedto the best suite and the house detective telephoned to the specialagents of the Department of Justice.

  Billy Gard was forthwith sent out to determine the legitimacy of themission of this strange representative of turbulent Mexico.

  In three days he knew that Egeloff was in touch with thoserepresentatives of the Huerta regime with whom the Department of Justicewas already acquainted and whose activities centered about a certainMexican boarding house just off Union square. He also knew that theRussian had called up from his hotel room certain manufacturers ofmunitions whose factories were in Hartford and that representatives ofthose firms had visited him.

  Gard had drawn the conclusion that the Russian was buying ammunition forthe Mexican government. Since the United States was denying clearance toships with such cargoes destined to either faction to the controversy tothe south, it was necessary that all the facts be ascertained.

  But it developed that the strong current of the plans of the man fromMexico ran through Valentines, that outfitter of revolutionists anddealer in second-hand and out-of-date war material. Valentines based hisoperations upon the principle that the discarded munitions ofprogressive nations are plenty good enough for use in Latin-America andthat the purchase of all such, no matter how antiquated, offers a goodopportunity for profit. Hardly a warlike venture in the tumultuous landsto the south has run its course within recent years without leaningheavily upon Valentines.

  Knowing this, Gard was particularly anxious to find out what wastranspiring within when, on a murky Saturday night, he followed theRussian and three of his Mexican associates through the narrow lanes ofthe lower East Side, beneath its clanging elevated, and to the sidedoor of Valentines, within which they disappeared.

  He had previously reconnoitered the surroundings. He knew thatValentines had taken great care in guarding the privacy of hisestablishment. The dark back room in which his conferences were held hadbut one entrance, which was from the main establishment. The area-wayupon which its single window looked faced the wall of a printing house,broken by but three or four small windows, as is so often the case withthese blank surfaces. Gard had made note of the fact that one of thesewindows was opposite and above that in the back room of Valentines. Hehad gained admission to the printing house and had viewed the adjoiningpremises from this high window.

  A single possibility presented itself. This was that Valentines mightleave his curtain up and that Jane Gates might help with the case.

  Jane Gates occupied a warm spot in the hearts of the special agents andthey were always particular that when they called upon her there was nopossibility of unpleasant experiences, and the way seemed clear here.She was a deaf girl, known among them as the Lily Maid, born without thesense of hearing but mistress of the inestimable difficulties of lipreading and the possessor of the nimblest set of fingers in the world,these latter earning her a place as copyist for the service. Her facewas of a cameo beauty, with a touch of pathos because of her isolation.She was the warm spot in the heart of the office but, as its very spiritwas the untangling of riddles, she had found opportunity to help in anovel way in several difficult cases through her ability at lip reading.

  By prearrangement Jane Gates, on this Saturday night, was awaiting atthe office not half a dozen blocks away a possible call from Billy Gard.Barrett had a taxi at the front door and the expected summons broughthim to the publishing house in five minutes. Beneath a light in the hallGard told the deaf girl of the situation, for lip reading needs light.Soon they were in the gloom by the little window and the eager eyes ofthe Lily Maid were looking into the office opposite where the conferenceon munitions was going forward. Fortunately Valentines did not speakSpanish and an interpreter was necessary. The face of this man was inplain view not thirty feet away.

  Soon Jane Gates was repeating in the peculiar, hollow voice of those whodo not hear but have learned to form words with the lips:

  "Mauser ammunition--old Krupp rapid-fire guns--Seventy five--"

  Gard stepped beyond the range of view from the opposite window. Heturned a pocket flashlight on his own lips.

  "Try to find out how they are to be shipped," he instructed.

  "Could supply a total amounting to $750,000 in value," the girl repeatedafter the interpreter.

  "Delivered in thirty days--Brooklyn--how can you get clearance papers?"

  "We clear for Odessa," the interpreter's lips said. "The United Statesmust accept our claim of that destination. We know how to evade embargoregulations."

  Valentines had been walking nervously about the room. At this moment heapproached the window and pulled down the curtain that looked into thecourtyard. The work of the lip reader was at an end.

  "GARD TURNED A POCKET FLASHLIGHT ON HIS OWN LIPS: 'TRY TOFIND OUT HOW THEY ARE TO BE SHIPPED'"--_Page 54_]

  It was a month later when Gard had traced a consignment of ammunitionfrom the factory at Hartford to its place on a Brooklyn pier where itlay ready for shipment. It seemed the last of the American goods thatwere needed to complete the cargo of the Italian bark, _City of Naples_,that was ready to sail. It appeared that papers had already been takenout, that the manifests acknowledged the presence of great quantities ofwar munitions, but that the claim was made that the cargo was bought forSouth Russian dealers and bound for Odessa.

  Gard hurriedly ascertained that the United States would not refusepermission for the ship to sail. It was, however, anxious to keep intouch with its movements. Could the special agent find a way toaccompany her? Gard would try.

  Half an hour later a young Italian strolled down the pier just as thelast of the cargo was being taken aboard the _City of Naples_. He wasdressed in a well-worn, light-checked, somewhat flashy suit, a scarletvest, a flowing tie. His dark locks breathed forth od
ors of the lotionsof cheap barber shops. He walked nonchalantly aboard the Italian barkand went below.

  The vessel was just breaking loose from her moorings when the stowawaywas discovered. There had been great haste in her sailing and she wasmaking for the seas two hours ahead of her appointed time. The stowawaysurmised that there was every reason why her officers would fear delayand that, if he could remain below decks until she was under way, thevessel would not be stopped to put him ashore.

  It was from this situation that an unequal fight developed in whichthree sailormen sought to drag an unwilling youngster in a plaid suitfrom the hold to the deck that he might be put off the ship. But thefirst of the attacking force proved himself unfamiliar with the strategyof a lead with the left to make an opening for a swing with the right,and so this latter blow caught him on the chin and he went down and out.The second sailor was a squarehead and rushed his antagonist. Thestowaway ducked and the force of the Swede increased the severity of amighty jab with the right in the pit of the stomach, which happened atthe time to be unusually full, and the attacker crumbled with an agonyin his inwards. The stowaway grappled with the third man and showed anadditional knowledge of the science of the rough and tumble. He twistedone of that individual's hands behind him and pushed it up, using thefavorite jiu jitsu trick that American policemen have borrowed from theJapanese. In this way he had his man at his mercy.

  "Mother of Jesus," came a roar from the doorway in most indifferentSpanish. "Where did you learn it all?"

  The stowaway looked up and saw the huge form of the bearded Russian whorepresented the government of Mexico standing there.

  "In the United States," he answered in Spanish. "Ah, they are wonderful,those Americans!"

  It should be remembered that Billy Gard, for it was he, had lived abroadwhen a boy with his father who was in the consular service. He hadlearned the languages of the Mediterranean almost before he spokeEnglish and was therefore much at home among its people. And because ofthis he had been able to become an Italian stowaway in half an hour at asecond-hand store in Brooklyn.

  "But why all this fighting?" asked the Russian.

  "I would go back to Italy, bon Italy," said the stowaway. "These pigs ofsailormen know not how homesick I am. They would put me ashore. I notgo. You see the result."

  "Well, you will not be put ashore now," said the Russian. "I happen tobe interested in this cargo, and I want no delay. You may come on deckwith me."

  It happened in this way that Billy Gard went to sea with a large cargoof Mexican ammunition, little believing that it would ever cross toEurope. Since he was aboard and might not be otherwise disposed of, theItalian captain set him to work as a clerk, and got much good serviceout of him on the ship's books before land was again sighted. Ithappened in this way, also, that he was given an opportunity to studyand cultivate G. Egeloff, but little came of it because of theall-sufficiency of that gentleman within himself.

  Gard was greatly surprised when the _City of Naples_ maintained hercourse straight across the Atlantic. Even more surprised was he when shepassed in at Gibraltar, ignored the ports of Spain, sailed past thetowns of her nativity in Italy and on to the east. Not until theDardanelles and the Bosphorus were passed was he convinced that she wasbound for the port for which she had cleared. But after six weeks at seashe reached Odessa, on the Black Sea, and there put into port.

  But at Odessa the unexpected happened. The authorities, being bytemperament suspicious and ever-vigilant of anarchistic plots, refusedto let the ship unload her cargo of ammunition. Egeloff stormed andswore and bribed, but all to no avail. The ammunition might not belanded.

  Billy Gard managed to get ashore and find his way to the Americanconsulate. From there he was able to make his report to the home officeand receive instructions that he was to remain with the ammunitioncargo.

  The special agent found his task comparatively easy here, and merely hadto wait for events to take their normal course. His chief interest wasG. Egeloff, who had remained a mystery to him despite a semi-friendshipthat had slowly grown up between them. He had attempted in vain to leadthe Russian into a discussion of his future plans in Mexico, and hadgrown to suspect that the gentleman had no such plans. At Odessa the bigman seemed impatient of delay, and, Gard thought, rather reckless of thedisposition of his charge.

  The representative of the United States had been contemplating the valueof the guns bought at Valentines and the figure of $750,000 which theLily Maid had caught from the lips of the interpreter. He knew that thepurchases at Hartford had not exceeded $100,000. He drew the conclusionthat this strange representative of the Indian head of a Latin-Americannation would probably give less than value for the $3,000,000 that hadbeen placed in his hands for the purchase of American munitions of war.

  The special agent was still attached to the _City of Naples_ as clerkwhen, after ten days of futile attempts at landing her cargo, she againturned her nose to the sea. She was two days out when he became assuredof a fact which he had suspected. The Russian was not aboard. The shippicked her course through the Mediterranean, out again past Gibraltar,but, instead of striking out toward Mexico as Gard had suspected shewould, she steered to the north and eventually came to anchor in theport of Hamburg on a windy morning in March.

  At Hamburg there was assurance of ability to discharge cargo. No soonerhad the ship tied up than its long-restrained personnel of officers andcrew availed themselves of the freedom of shore leave. As the afternoonwore on, the vessel was deserted with the exception of the Italiansecond mate and a few members of the crew. Gard stuck to his desk in thepurser's cabin. It was from this point of vantage that he became awareof an altercation on deck. An American voice was saying in English:

  "Mr. Egeloff; I want to see Mr. Egeloff."

  The second mate protested his inability to speak English, whereupon asecond voice repeated the request in Spanish, with no better result.Then of a sudden a great light seemed to break on the second mate.

  "Ah! Si, senor. If you will be so good as to step this way."

  Whereupon he led the strangers to the cabin, where he knew Gard to beat work, and, remembering that the supposed clerk spoke many languages,he turned the visitors over to him.

  "Mr. Egeloff?" asked the American, evidently misinterpreting the actionof the mate.

  The special agent was taken entirely by surprise. The possibilities ofsuch a situation had never presented themselves to him.

  "What if I am?" he asked cautiously.

  "I am McKay," said the American.

  "You have credentials, I suppose," said Gard.

  "Yes," answered that individual. "I am authorized to provide for thereshipment of the cargo."

  Whereupon he presented letters from the Mexican government showing himto be its agent in London. His companion he introduced as Mr. Sanchez,Mexican consul at Hamburg, whereupon the three dropped into Spanish andcontinued the conversation. Gard presented letters he had found in theship's office and addressed to these gentlemen. He took it that theseletters were from the Mexican consul at Odessa. They evidently asked themen to whom they were addressed to do what they could toward expeditingthe transshipment of the cargo.

  "We have all arrangements made," McKay volunteered. "The _Esmiranga_will take our stuff aboard immediately and is sailing for Vera Cruz insix days."

  "I have had the very devil of a time," said the special agent,introducing the rasp of an occasional Russian consonant into his Spanishas he had heard it done for two months by the man whose role was beingthrust upon him. "I want to run over to Warsaw for a few days. Do younot think, gentlemen, that I have earned this brief vacation?"

  Whereupon McKay and Sanchez agreed to attend to all details, making itnecessary only that the supposed Egeloff should be in Hamburg on the dayof sailing. So was Gard relieved of the difficulty and danger of asustained masquerade and so was he able again to get in touch withAmerica. As a matter of fact he hurried to Paris. There he foundColeman, whom he had known before, in charge of the P
aris branch of hisown service.

  "Dress me up like a white man," he told Coleman. "Lead me up tosomething that human beings eat. Take me out where I may try theexperiment of attempting to be a gentleman again. I am by no means sureI can do it. Four days from now talk to me about cipher messages, butnot until then."

  But when Gard returned to Hamburg it was understood that he should usethe old confederate cipher for any messages that he might be able tosend. This is a simple and always efficient cipher made up of a squareof the letters of the alphabet. One begins by writing the twenty-sixletters in a row, commencing with A. The second line begins with B,placed directly under the A of the first line, and followed by all theletters in order. The third line begins with C, the fourth with D, andso on until Z is reached. Any amateur may build up his square of lettersin this way.

  There must be a secret key word which is known to the senders and thereceivers. The keyword is written out repeatedly and the message iswritten beneath it. Instead of using the letters of the message, theletters of the keyword are used. This is the first puzzling translation.The message as it then appears is taken to the square of letters. Inwriting it as it is ultimately to be sent, its letters are found in thetop line of the square and also in the perpendicular line that runs downits side. The lines of letters that radiate from these margins, onehorizontally and one perpendicularly, meet at some point within thesquare. The letter upon which they meet is used in the message. No onein the world without his square of letters and without the keyword canread this message.

  So the home government was informed that Special Agent William H. Gardmight communicate with its ships by means of the confederate cipher andthat the keyword, rather strangely, was "Russian whiskers." The homegovernment transmitted this information to its battleships lying offMexico and their operators were instructed to pick up any wireless thatmight come to them out of the Atlantic.

  Gard hurried back to Hamburg just in time to sail on the _Esmiranga_. Hewas not sure but that the big Russian would communicate with the Mexicanrepresentatives and approached the situation he had developed with nolittle misgiving. It appeared that his conclusion that the Russian hadmade a getaway with much swag was correct. He was warmly received byboth McKay and Sanchez and the ship got away with but one difficultyfacing the special agent. The Mexican consul was returning to his nativeland aboard it.

  Gard realized that, as the confidential representative of Huerta, hecould not with impunity have anything to do with Sanchez, as thatvolatile Latin would immediately lead him into much talk of Mexican menand conditions. Gard knew almost nothing about Mexico City and could noteven sustain a casual conversation on that subject.

  It was because of these considerations that the apparently genialdisposition of the supposed purchaser of munitions of war proved adisappointment to Senor Sanchez. This Russian was evidently no sailor.He took to his cabin as soon as the _Esmiranga_ took to sea. His seamanners were also far from Latin for he answered with guttural oaths anyinquiries that were made as to the condition of his health. He seemed tohave gone on a mad debauch and insisted that a constant procession ofhighballs be sent to his stateroom. He cut Senor Sanchez dead when hemet him on the deck. Caramba! A beast of a man was this, to be shunnedas the plague!

  The captain and the wireless operator were the only individuals withwhom this disagreeable shipmate had anything to do. To the captain itwas made plain that a delicate situation existed off Mexico. The shipsof those pigs of Americans were blockading Vera Cruz. They mightblockade but they had no right to stop a German ship bound for thatport. But he must talk to his principals in Mexico. There was thewireless of the _Esmiranga_, and there was his secret cipher which noYankee could read. Might the operator handle his messages?

  To be sure. The representative of the Mexican government which was topay handsomely for the transportation of the cargo aboard the_Esmiranga_ might do entirely as he wished.

  So it transpired that Special Agent Billy Gard began talking to theAmerican battleships in southern seas when the _Esmiranga_ was not muchmore than half-way across the Atlantic. He amused himself writingmessages much as a man passes the time of a voyage in playing solitaire.So it happened that the United States Government had all the details ofthe approach of a shipload of ammunition of American origin destined toHuerta, upon whom the screws were just then being put for insulting theStars and Stripes. So it was evident that if this ammunition wereallowed to land, it might be used against American troops, who were atany moment to be thrown into Mexico.

  Yet the United States might not prevent a German ship from entering theharbor at Vera Cruz. The only method of stopping that ammunition was toseize the port and customs house and thereby come into possession of thecargo if it were disembarked.

  The wireless of the _Esmiranga_ sputtered out a message which, wheninterpreted in accordance with the confederate cipher and the keyword of"Russian whiskers," conveyed the information that the vessel wasapproaching the Mexican coast and that her intention was to steam underthe very noses of the American dreadnoughts into port. The facts werereported to Washington, where the alternative of seizing the port wassternly faced. Orders were given to act.

  The next day American marines went, some to glory and some to death,past that most tragic spot in all America, the fortress prison of SanJuan de Ullao; into those streets frequented by the sacred scavengerbuzzard of the Aztecs; beneath the walls of the ancient parochial churchbeside the Plaza de la Constitucion where the first American boy wasdestined to die at the hands of a sniping priest; into the gate citythat had known Cortez and Maximillian, and had loaded the galleons ofSpain with more silver and gold than had ever before been amassedanywhere in the history of the world.

  But the _Esmiranga_ did not come in to discharge her ammunition that itmight fall into the hands of the Americans. Instead, it haunted Mexicanwaters for a while as a creature of unrest, uncertain where to land.Finally it put into Mobile, where its captain was left at a stillgreater loss, for the supposed Mexican gun-runner went ashore and wasseen no more. Sanchez, the Mexican consul, left by train for his nativeland. Huerta, in the madness of his career, extended no instructions.

  The ultimate disposition of the _Esmiranga's_ cargo completes the recordof another of those fiascos in the game of pandering to revolutionistsin Latin America. The outcast cargo knocked about the Caribbean for awhile like a party dressed up and no place to go. The constitutionalistscame into possession of Tampico and sought a way to deal with thecaptain of the _Esmiranga_, who was still unpaid for transporting hiscargo and willing to listen to almost any proposition. But theconstitutionalists bought no pigs in pokes and insisted on anexamination of the cargo. Probably they had themselves bought ofValentines and knew the nature of his stock in trade. They found a wayto open some of the boxes and there discovered such an array of antiquearmament that even they scorned its use. Valentines and the Russian whocame to New York to buy for Huerta had taken no pains to give thatwarlike gentleman the value of even a portion of his money.