On Secret Service

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  [Cover Illustration: On Secret Service,William Nelson Taft]

  ON SECRET SERVICE

  [Decoration]

  ON SECRET SERVICE

  _Detective-Mystery Stories Based on Real Cases Solved By Government Agents_

  BY WILLIAM NELSON TAFT

 

  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON

  * * * * *

  ON SECRET SERVICE

  Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America

  * * * * *

  CONTENTS

  PAGE

  I. A FLASH IN THE NIGHT 1

  II. THE MINT MYSTERY 15

  III. THE YPIRANGA CASE 28

  IV. THE CLUE ON SHELF 45 42

  V. PHYLLIS DODGE, SMUGGLER EXTRAORDINARY 57

  VI. A MATTER OF RECORD 73

  VII. THE SECRET STILL 88

  VIII. THE TAXICAB TANGLE 103

  IX. A MATCH FOR THE GOVERNMENT 118

  X. THE GIRL AT THE SWITCHBOARD 133

  XI. "LOST--$100,000!" 149

  XII. "THE DOUBLE CODE" 164

  XIII. THE TRAIL OF THE WHITE MICE 180

  XIV. WAH LEE AND THE FLOWER OF HEAVEN 195

  XV. THE MAN WITH THREE WIVES 210

  XVI. AFTER SEVEN YEARS 225

  XVII. THE POISON-PEN PUZZLE 239

  XVIII. THIRTY THOUSAND YARDS OF SILK 254

  XIX. THE CLUE IN THE CLASSIFIED COLUMN 268

  XX. IN THE SHADOW OF THE CAPITOL 283

  XXI. A MILLION-DOLLAR QUARTER 298

  XXII. "THE LOOTING OF THE C. T. C." 313

  XXIII. THE CASE OF MRS. ARMITAGE 328

  XXIV. FIVE INCHES OF DEATH 343

  ON SECRET SERVICE

  I

  A FLASH IN THE NIGHT

  We were sitting in the lobby of the Willard, Bill Quinn and I, watchingthe constant stream of politicians, pretty women, and petty officeseekers who drift constantly through the heart of Washington.

  Suddenly, under his breath, I heard Quinn mutter, "Hello!" and,following his eyes, I saw a trim, dapper, almost effeminate-looking chapof about twenty-five strolling through Peacock Alley as if he didn'thave a care in the world.

  "What's the matter?" I inquired. "Somebody who oughtn't to be here?"

  "Not at all. He's got a perfect right to be anywhere he pleases, but Ididn't know he was home. Last time I heard of him he was in Seattle,mixed up with those riots that Ole Hanson handled so well."

  "Bolshevist?"

  "Hardly," and Quinn smiled. "Don't you know Jimmy Callahan? Well, it'sscarcely the province of a Secret Service man to impress his face uponeveryone ... the secret wouldn't last long. No, Jimmy was working on theother end of the Seattle affair. Trying to locate the men behind themove--and I understand he did it fairly well, too. But what else wouldyou expect from the man who solved that submarine tangle in Norfolk?"

  Quinn must have read the look of interest in my face, for he continued,almost without a pause: "Did you ever hear the inside of that case? Oneof the most remarkable in the whole history of the Secret Service, andthat's saying a good deal. I don't suppose it would do any harm to spillit, so let's move over there in a corner and I'll relate a few detailsof a case where the second hand of a watch played a leading role."

  * * * * *

  The whole thing started back in the spring of 1918 [said Quinn, who helddown a soft berth in the Treasury Department as a reward for a game legobtained during a counterfeiting raid on Long Island].

  Along about then, if you remember, the Germans let loose a lot ofboasting statements as to what they were going to do to American shipsand American shipping. Transports were going to be sunk, commercecrippled and all that sort of thing. While not a word of it got into thepapers, there were a bunch of people right here in Washington who tookthese threats seriously--for the Hun's most powerful weapon appeared tobe in his submarines, and if a fleet of them once got going off thecoast we'd lose a lot of valuable men and time landing them.

  Then came the sinking of the _Carolina_ and those other ships off theJersey coast. Altogether it looked like a warm summer.

  One afternoon the Chief sent for Callahan, who'd just come back fromtaking care of some job down on the border, and told him his troubles.

  "Jimmy," said the Chief, "somebody on this side is giving those damnHuns a whole lot of information that they haven't any business getting.You know about those boats they've sunk already, of course. They'reonly small fry. What they're laying for is a transport, another_Tuscania_ that they can stab in the dark and make their getaway. Thepoint that's worrying us is that the U-boats must be getting theirinformation from some one over here. The sinking of the _Carolina_proves that. No submarine, operating on general cruising orders, couldpossibly have known when that ship was due or what course she was goingto take. Every precaution was taken at San Juan to keep her sailing asecret, but of course you can't hide every detail of that kind. She gotout. Some one saw her, wired the information up the coast here and theman we've got to nab tipped the U-boat off.

  "Of course we could go at it from Porto Rico, but that would meanwasting a whole lot more time than we can afford. It's not so much aquestion of the other end of the cable as it is who transmitted themessage to the submarine--and how!

  "It's your job to find out before they score a real hit."

  Callahan, knowing the way things are handled in the little suite on thewest side of the Treasury Building, asked for the file containing theavailable information and found it very meager indeed.

  Details of the sinking of the _Carolina_ were included, among them thefact that the _U-37_ had been waiting directly in the path of thesteamer, though the latter was using a course entirely different fromthe one the New York and Porto Rico S. S. Company's boats generallytook. The evidence of a number of passengers was that the submarinedidn't appear a bit surprised at the size of her prey, but went aboutthe whole affair in a businesslike manner. The meat of the report wascontained in the final paragraph, stating that one of the Germanofficers had boasted that they "would get a lot more ships in the sameway," adding, "Don't worry--we'll be notified when they are going tosail."

  Of course, Callahan reasoned, this might be simply a piece of Teutonicbravado--but there was more than an even chance that it was the truth,particularly when taken in conjunction with the sinking of the _Texel_and the _Pinar del Rio_ and the fact that the _Carolina's_ course was soaccurately known.

  But how in the name of Heaven had they gotten their information?

  Callahan knew that the four principal ports of embarkation fortroops--Boston, New York, Nor
folk, and Charleston--were shrouded in amantle of secrecy which it was almost impossible to penetrate. Somemonths before, when he had been working on the case which grew out ofthe disappearance of the plans of the battleship _Pennsylvania_, he hadhad occasion to make a number of guarded inquiries in naval circles inNew York, and he recalled that it had been necessary not only to showhis badge, but to submit to the most searching scrutiny before he wasallowed to see the men he wished to reach. He therefore felt certainthat no outsider could have dug up the specific information in the shortspace of time at their disposal.

  But, arguing that it had been obtained, the way in which it had beenpassed on to the U-boat also presented a puzzle.

  Was there a secret submarine base on the coast?

  Had some German, more daring than the rest, actually come ashore andpenetrated into the very lines of the Service?

  Had he laid a plan whereby he could repeat this operation as often asnecessary?

  Or did the answer lie in a concealed wireless, operating uponinformation supplied through underground channels?

  These were only a few of the questions which raced through Callahan'smind. The submarine base he dismissed as impracticable. He knew that the_Thor_, the _Unita_, the _Macedonia_, and nine other vessels had, at thebeginning of the war, cleared from American ports under false paperswith the intention of supplying German warships with oil, coal, andfood. He also knew that, of the million and a half dollars' worth ofsupplies, less than one-sixth had ever been transshipped. Therefore,having failed so signally here, the Germans would hardly try the samescheme again.

  The rumor that German officers had actually come into New York, wherethey were supposed to have been seen in a theater, was also ratherfar-fetched. So the wireless theory seemed to be the most tenable. Buteven a wireless cannot conceal its existence from the other stationsindefinitely. Of course, it was possible that it might be located onsome unfrequented part of the coast--but then how could the operatorobtain the information which he transmitted to the U-boat?

  Callahan gave it up in despair--for that night. He was tired and he feltthat eight hours' sleep would do him more good than thrashing aroundwith a problem for which there appeared to be no solution; a problemwhich, after all, he couldn't even be sure existed.

  Maybe, he thought, drowsily, as he turned off the light--maybe theGerman on the U-boat was only boasting, after all--or, maybe....

  The first thing Jimmy did the next morning was to call upon the head ofthe recently organized Intelligence Bureau of the War Department--notthe Intelligence Division which has charge of censorship and thehandling of news, but the bureau which bears the same relation to thearmy that the Secret Service does to the Treasury Department.

  "From what ports are transports sailing within the next couple ofweeks?" he inquired of the officer in charge.

  "From Boston, New York, Norfolk, and Charleston," was the reply--merelyconfirming Callahan's previous belief. He had hoped that the groundwould be more limited, because he wanted to have the honor of solvingthis problem by himself, and it was hardly possible for him to cover theentire Atlantic Coast.

  "Where's the biggest ship sailing from?" was his next question.

  "There's one that clears Norfolk at daylight on Monday morning withtwelve thousand men aboard...."

  "Norfolk?" interrupted Callahan. "I thought most of the big ones leftfrom New York or Boston."

  "So they do, generally. But these men are from Virginia and NorthCarolina. Therefore it's easier to ship them right out of Norfolk--savestime and congestion of the railroads. As it happens, the ship they'regoing on is one of the largest that will clear for ten days or more. Allof the other big ones are on the other side."

  "Then," cut in Callahan, "if the Germans wanted to make a ten-strikethey'd lay for that boat?"

  "They sure would--and one torpedo well placed would make the _Tuscania_look like a Sunday-school picnic. But what's the idea? Got a tip thatthe Huns are going to try to grab her?"

  "No, not a tip," Callahan called back over his shoulder, for he wasalready halfway out of the door; "just a hunch--and I'm going to play itfor all it's worth!"

  The next morning, safely ensconced at the Monticello under the name of"Robert P. Oliver, of Williamsport, Pa." Callahan admitted to himselfthat he was indeed working on nothing more than a "hunch," and not avery well-defined one at that. The only point that appeared actually toback up his theory that the information was coming from Norfolk was thefact that the U-boat was known to be operating between New York and theVirginia capes. New York itself was well guarded and the surroundingcountry was continually patrolled by operatives of all kinds. It was thelogical point to watch, and therefore it would be much more difficult toobtain and transmit information there than it would be in the vicinityof Norfolk, where military and naval operations were not conducted on aslarge a scale nor with as great an amount of secrecy.

  Norfolk, Callahan found, was rather proud of her new-found glory. Foryears she had basked in the social prestige of the Chamberlin, theannual gathering of the Fleet at Hampton Roads and the military pomp andceremony attendant upon the operations of Fortress Monroe. But the warhad brought a new thrill. Norfolk was now one of the principal ports ofembarkation for the men going abroad. Norfolk had finally taken her rankwith New York and Boston--the rank to which her harbor entitled her.

  Callahan reached Norfolk on Wednesday morning. The _America_, accordingto the information he had received from the War Department, would clearat daybreak Monday--but at noon on Saturday the Secret Service operativehad very little more knowledge than when he arrived. He had found thatthere was a rumor to the effect that two U-boats were waiting off theCapes for the transport, which, of course, would have the benefit of theusual convoy.

  "But," as one army officer phrased it, "what's the use of a convoy ifthey know just where you are? Germany would willingly lose a sub. or twoto get us, and, with the sea that's been running for the past ten days,there'd be no hope of saving more than half the boys."

  Spurred by the rapidity with which time was passing and the fact that hesensed a thrill of danger--an intuition of impending peril--around the_America_, Callahan spent the better part of Friday night and allSaturday morning running down tips that proved to be groundless. A manwith a German name was reported to be working in secret upon someinvention in an isolated house on Willoughby Spit; a woman, concerningwhom little was known, had been seen frequently in the company of twolieutenants slated to sail on the _America_; a house in Newport Newsemitted strange "clacking" sounds at night.

  But the alleged German proved to be a photographer of unassailableloyalty, putting in extra hours trying to develop a new process of colorprinting. The woman came from one of the oldest families in Richmond andhad known the two lieutenants for years. The house in Newport Newsproved to be the residence of a young man who hoped some day to sell aphotoplay scenario, the irregular clacking noise being made by atypewriter operated none too steadily.

  "That's what happens to most of the 'clues' that people hand you,"Callahan mused as he sat before his open window on Saturday evening,with less than thirty-six hours left before the _America_ was scheduledto leave. "Some fellows have luck with them, but I'll be hanged if Iever did. Here I'm working in the dark on a case that I'm not evenpositive exists. That infernal submarine may be laying off Boston atthis minute, waiting for the ship that leaves there Tuesday. Maybe theydon't get any word from shore at all.... Maybe they just...."

  But here he was brought up with a sudden jar that concentrated all hismental faculties along an entirely different road.

  Gazing out over the lights of the city, scarcely aware that he saw them,his subconscious mind had been following for the past three minutessomething apparently usual, but in reality entirely out of the ordinary.

  "By George!" he muttered, "I wonder...."

  Then, taking his watch from his pocket, his eyes alternated between apoint several blocks distant--a point over the roofs of the houses--andthe second hand of h
is timepiece. Less than a minute elapsed before hereached for a pencil and commenced to jot down dots and dashes on theback of an envelope. When, a quarter of an hour later, he found that thedashes had become monotonous--as he expected they would--he reached forthe telephone and asked to be connected with the private wire of theNavy Department in Washington.

  "Let me speak to Mr. Thurber at once," he directed. "Operative Callahan,S. S., speaking.... Hello! that you, Thurber?... This is Callahan. I'min Norfolk and I want to know whether you can read this code. You canfigure it out if anybody can. Ready?... Dash, dash, dash, dot, dash,dash, dot--" and he continued until he had repeated the entire series ofsymbols that he had plucked out of the night.

  "Sounds like a variation of the International Morse," came the commentfrom the other end of the wire--from Thurber, librarian of the NavyDepartment and one of the leading American authorities on code andciphers. "May take a little time to figure it out, but it doesn't lookdifficult. Where can I reach you?"

  "I'm at the Monticello--name of Robert P. Oliver. Put in a call for meas soon as you see the light on it. I've got something important to doright now," and he hung up without another word.

  A quick grab for his hat, a pat under his arm, to make sure that theholster holding the automatic was in place, and Callahan was on his waydownstairs.

  Once in the street, he quickened his pace and was soon gazing skyward atthe corner of two deserted thoroughfares not many blocks from theMonticello. A few minutes' consultation with his watch confirmed hisimpression that everything was right again and he commenced his searchfor the night watchman.

  "Who," he inquired of that individual, "has charge of the operation ofthat phonograph sign on the roof?"

  "Doan know fuh certain, suh, but Ah think it's operated by a man downthe street a piece. He's got charge of a bunch of them sort o' things.Mighty funny kinder way to earn a livin', Ah calls it--flashing on an'off all night long...."

  "But where's he work from?" interrupted Callahan, fearful that thenegro's garrulousness might delay him unduly.

  "Straight down this street three blocks, suh. Then turn one block to yo'left and yo' cain't miss the place. Electrical Advertisin' Headquartersthey calls it. Thank you, suh," and Callahan was gone almost before thewatchman could grasp the fact that he held a five-dollar bill instead ofa dollar, as he thought.

  It didn't take the Secret Service man long to locate the place hesought, and on the top floor he found a dark, swarthy individual bendingover the complicated apparatus which operated a number of the electricsigns throughout the city. Before the other knew it, Callahan was in theroom--his back to the door and his automatic ready for action.

  "Up with your hands!" snapped Callahan. "Higher! That's better. Now tellme where you got that information you flashed out to sea to-night bymeans of that phonograph sign up the street. Quick! I haven't any timeto waste."

  "_Si, si, senor_," stammered the man who faced him. "But I understandnot the English very well."

  "All right," countered Callahan. "Let's try it in Spanish," and herepeated his demands in that language.

  Volubly the Spaniard--or Mexican, as he later turned out tobe--maintained that he had received no information, nor had hetransmitted any. He claimed his only duty was to watch the "drums" whichoperated the signs mechanically.

  "No drum in the world could make that sign flash like it did to-night,"Callahan cut in. "For more than fifteen minutes you sent a variation ofthe Morse code seaward. Come on--I'll give you just one minute to tellme, or I'll bend this gun over your head."

  Before the minute had elapsed, the Mexican commenced his confession. Hehad been paid a hundred dollars a week, he claimed, to flash a certainseries of signals every Saturday night, precisely at nine o'clock. Themessage itself--a series of dots and dashes which he produced from hispocket as evidence of his truthfulness--had reached him on Saturdaymorning for the two preceding weeks. He didn't know what it meant. Allhe did was to disconnect the drum which operated the sign and move theswitch himself. Payment for each week's work, he stated, was inclosedwith the next week's message. Where it came from he didn't know, but theenvelope was postmarked Washington.

  With his revolver concealed in his coat pocket, but with its muzzle inthe small of the Mexican's back, Callahan marched his captive back tothe hotel and up into his room. As he opened the door the telephone rangout, and, ordering the other to stand with his face to the wall in acorner--"and be damn sure not to make a move"--the government agentanswered the call. As he expected, it was Thurber.

  "The code's a cinch," came the voice over the wire from Washington. "Butthe message is infernally important. It's in German, and evidently youpicked it up about two sentences from the start. The part you gave mestates that the transport _America_, with twelve thousand men aboard,will leave Norfolk at daylight Monday. The route the ship will take isdistinctly stated, as is the personnel of her convoy. Where'd you getthe message?"

  "Flashes in the night," answered Callahan. "I noticed that an electricsign wasn't behaving regularly--so I jotted down its signals and passedthem on to you. The next important point is whether the message iscomplete enough for you to reconstruct the code. Have you got all theletters?"

  "Yes, every one of them."

  "Then take down this message, put it into that dot-and-dash code andsend it to me by special messenger on one of the navy torpedo boatsto-night. It's a matter of life and death to thousands of men!" andCallahan dictated three sentences over the wire. "Got that?" heinquired. "Good! Get busy and hurry it down. I've got to have it in themorning."

  "Turn around," he directed the Mexican, as he replaced the receiver."Were you to send these messages only on Saturday night?"

  "_Si, senor._ Save that I was told that there might be occasions when Ihad to do the same thing on Sunday night, too."

  "At nine o'clock?"

  "_Si, senor._"

  Callahan smiled. Things were breaking better than he had dared hope. Itmeant that the U-boat would be watching for the signal the followingnight. Then, with proper emphasis of the automatic, he gave the Mexicanhis orders. He was to return to his office with Callahan and go abouthis business as usual, with the certainty that if he tried anyfoolishness the revolver could act more quickly than he. Accompanied bythe government agent, he was to come back to the Monticello and spendthe night in Callahan's room, remaining there until the next eveningwhen he would--promptly at nine o'clock and under the direction of anexpert in telegraphy--send the message which Callahan would hand him.

  That's practically all there is to the story.

  * * * * *

  "All?" I echoed, when Quinn paused. "What do you mean, 'all'? What wasthe message Callahan sent? What happened to the Mexican? Who sent theletter and the money from Washington?"

  "Nothing much happened to the Mexican," replied my informant, with asmile. "They found that he was telling the truth, so they just sent himover the border with instructions not to show himself north of the RioGrande. As for the letter--that took the Post Office, the Department ofJustice, and the Secret Service the better part of three months totrace. But they finally located the sender, two weeks after she (yes, itwas a woman, and a darned pretty one at that) had made her getaway. Iunderstand they got her in England and sentenced her to penal servitudefor some twenty years or more. In spite of the war, the Anglo-Saxon racehasn't completely overcome its prejudice against the death penalty forwomen."

  "But the message Callahan sent?" I persisted.

  "That was short and to the point. As I recall it, it ran something likethis: 'Urgent--Route of _America_ changed. She clears at daylight, buttakes a course exactly ten miles south of one previously stated. Bethere."

  "The U-boat was there, all right. But so were four hydroplanes and halfa dozen destroyers, all carrying the Stars and Stripes!"