Part 12

The secretary of the Northern Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association was a most courteous young Virginian bearing the name of Randolph. The special agent knew the secretary was a Southerner as soon as he met him. The former had originated in Baltimore. After the manner of Southerners the two discussed names and families. The special agent knew a great deal about the Randolph family. In fact, he said, his family had married into the Randolphs in one of its branches. The lines were followed until it seemed that the men might well believe that they were cousins several times removed. Incidentally they had started to be friends in the way most accredited among Southerners.

Gard delivered his note from President Van Dorn and took great pains to explain the position of the Canadian Northwest Timber Company. He made it clear that his people were on the eve of playing a large part in the paper pulp world. He wanted to ask Randolph's advice about certain matters and he wanted to get in touch with some enterprising young man who knew the manufacturers. To such a young man he might offer an enviable business opportunity. In the meantime he would like a copy of the membership list of the association.

It developed that there was but one such list in existence. It had to be dug up from the association's safe and copied. But the secretary was friendly to this one-time Southerner, now of the north woods; he was a young man who knew the manufacturers, and who would take a look at a business opportunity; he had the note of instruction, somewhat indefinite to be sure, from the president of the association.

Gard secured his list of members. As fast as a taxicab could carry him, he was away to his office, from which requests for prices of paper were dispatched to every firm on the list, in the name of the New York publisher who was helping the Government.

That night the special agent dined with President Van Dorn and other men high in the counsels of the Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association. His position was explained and regrets were generally expressed that he might not be present at the meeting. Only the constitution stood in the way. There was no other reason why one so vitally interested in the welfare of the manufacturers should not be a member. Information of a most exhaustive nature should be given him. Even the minutes of the meeting and copies of addresses should be put at his disposal. He should meet all present.

So Agent Gard loafed about the Waldorf for four days. He was regarded, not merely as a master of finance who was the equal of any of the manufacturers attending the convention, but as the man of them all who held the whip hand. Morning and night he cultivated these men, talked business with them, asked them questions. They told him all that went on in the convention, allowed him to read its minutes. He was the most courted man at the hotel when the word got well circulated that he was the pulp king of the Canadian Northwest.

Gard, of course, had an average number of acquaintances scattered about the country and many of these knew of his association with the Department of Justice. In a New York hotel there is always a chance of meeting friends from any place in the world. Gard was therefore not surprised, on the evening of the manufacturers' banquet which brought the convention to a close, to pass in a corridor two old-time friends, men whom he had known in college. They hailed him vociferously as "Gard, old man." It was against just such an emergency that he had used his own name.

The special agent was at the time going in to dinner with Randolph, the secretary, and a member from Buffalo. Nothing would have come of this chance greeting had it not been that a paper manufacturer was standing beside the two friends of Gard when the latter passed. One of these young men turned to the other and asked:

"What is Gard doing now? I haven't seen him since I left college."

"He is with the Department of Justice," said the second friend. "He is a special agent, a detective working on big trust investigations."

And the manufacturer heard it all. He immediately communicated his information to President Van Dorn. That official lost his urbane equanimity and fluttered about in much confusion, consulting with others in authority. He did not approach Gard, and that young man was all unsuspicious that anything had gone wrong until the time came for after-dinner speeches.

"Before we proceed with the toasts on the program," said President Van Dorn, who was master of ceremonies, "I should like to call the attention of the members present to one matter not regularly scheduled. We have all met, during the week, Mr. Gard, of the Canadian Northwest. Mr. Gard has furnished many of us with facts that seemed to be vital to the interests of wood pulp business. We, in exchange, have given to Mr. Gard much information with relation to the pulp and paper business. I should like to present Mr. Gard to this gathering, if I may."

President Van Dorn paused and looked expectantly in the direction of the young man in question. The situation was such that Gard was required to arise and receive the introduction and, as he expected, make a bit of a speech. He rose to his feet.

"This, gentlemen," continued Van Dorn, "is Mr. Gard. As the representative of the Canadian Northwest Timber company you have unbosomed yourselves to him. He is, in reality, a detective of the Department of Justice. You, gentlemen, are under investigation. Will Mr. Gard be so good as to tell us whether or not we are a trust in restraint of trade?"

The young representative of Uncle Sam was taken completely by surprise. He had gone so far with his work without being suspected that he had thought he would get all the way through. But he had all the time discounted the possibility of being found out and was therefore entirely prepared.

"I plead guilty as charged," he said, bowing profoundly and grinning somewhat sheepishly and boyishly. "You, gentlemen, have been, as we say in sleuth circles, 'roped.' You have told your secrets to the investigator unknowingly.

"I most humbly apologize for the imposition. I was working under instructions. Unless it can be shown that your association is in restraint of trade nothing will come of the investigation. If you are a conspiracy you will deserve what you get.

"If I may be pardoned for talking shop I will tell you just your position with relation to the Government. What the Department of Justice wants to do with such people as you is to go to you frankly and ask you to lay your cards on the table--to open your books to the examination of our experts. Before this is done it is sometimes wise to get a look behind the screens before the stage is set for the play. I have been taking that peep.

"Four days ago, for instance, I secured a list of the membership of this association. That night, in the name of a certain newspaper publisher, letters were written to every member asking for quotations of prices. The price lists are in the mail by this time and coming back to us. Now, if there is a great similarity in those prices, suspicion will be aroused. It is better that this and other tests be put upon manufacturers before they are aware that an investigation is on.

"But now we are in the open. To-morrow I will call upon the association to produce its books. It need not respond to that call, but if it is honest there is no reason why it should not. It may be that I will ask individual members to show their accounts and correspondence. In the end we will be very well acquainted. I trust that we may then be as friendly as we have been during your convention and my deception. I will now bid you good-night."

Gard's work "under cover" was completed. It was but an incident in the relations between a great industry and the Government. The next week the books of the association were thrown open to the Government. President Van Dorn, whose factory was the largest of them all, volunteered access to his records and others followed suit. So was an era of fair dealing inaugurated.

This all happened years ago. The fidelity with which the special agent laid the basis of his deception is proved by the fact that many of these manufacturers are now getting their pulp from the Canadian Northwest. The name of Gard does not, however, appear among the list of officers of any of the companies supplying pulp. The young man is probably now off on the trail of some other real or suspected violator of the Federal statutes, meeting new emergencies, gaining new experiences, playing a modest but not unimportant part in the big and vital affairs of the nation.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Uncle Sam Detective, by William Atherton Du Puy