Part 4

At Hamburg there was assurance of ability to discharge cargo. No sooner had the ship tied up than its long-restrained personnel of officers and crew availed themselves of the freedom of shore leave. As the afternoon wore on, the vessel was deserted with the exception of the Italian second mate and a few members of the crew. Gard stuck to his desk in the purser's cabin. It was from this point of vantage that he became aware of 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 a second 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, señor. If you will be so good as to step this way."

Whereupon he led the strangers to the cabin, where he knew Gard to be at 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 action of the mate.

The special agent was taken entirely by surprise. The possibilities of such 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 the reshipment of the cargo."

Whereupon he presented letters from the Mexican government showing him to be its agent in London. His companion he introduced as Mr. Sanchez, Mexican consul at Hamburg, whereupon the three dropped into Spanish and continued the conversation. Gard presented letters he had found in the ship's office and addressed to these gentlemen. He took it that these letters were from the Mexican consul at Odessa. They evidently asked the men to whom they were addressed to do what they could toward expediting the 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 in six days."

"I have had the very devil of a time," said the special agent, introducing the rasp of an occasional Russian consonant into his Spanish as he had heard it done for two months by the man whose rôle was being thrust upon him. "I want to run over to Warsaw for a few days. Do you not think, gentlemen, that I have earned this brief vacation?"

Whereupon McKay and Sanchez agreed to attend to all details, making it necessary only that the supposed Egeloff should be in Hamburg on the day of sailing. So was Gard relieved of the difficulty and danger of a sustained masquerade and so was he able again to get in touch with America. As a matter of fact he hurried to Paris. There he found Coleman, whom he had known before, in charge of the Paris branch of his own service.

"Dress me up like a white man," he told Coleman. "Lead me up to something that human beings eat. Take me out where I may try the experiment of attempting to be a gentleman again. I am by no means sure I can do it. Four days from now talk to me about cipher messages, but not until then."

But when Gard returned to Hamburg it was understood that he should use the old confederate cipher for any messages that he might be able to send. This is a simple and always efficient cipher made up of a square of the letters of the alphabet. One begins by writing the twenty-six letters 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 the letters in order. The third line begins with C, the fourth with D, and so on until Z is reached. Any amateur may build up his square of letters in this way.

There must be a secret key word which is known to the senders and the receivers. The keyword is written out repeatedly and the message is written beneath it. Instead of using the letters of the message, the letters of the keyword are used. This is the first puzzling translation. The message as it then appears is taken to the square of letters. In writing it as it is ultimately to be sent, its letters are found in the top line of the square and also in the perpendicular line that runs down its side. The lines of letters that radiate from these margins, one horizontally and one perpendicularly, meet at some point within the square. The letter upon which they meet is used in the message. No one in the world without his square of letters and without the keyword can read this message.

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

Gard hurried back to Hamburg just in time to sail on the _Esmiranga_. He was not sure but that the big Russian would communicate with the Mexican representatives and approached the situation he had developed with no little misgiving. It appeared that his conclusion that the Russian had made a getaway with much swag was correct. He was warmly received by both McKay and Sanchez and the ship got away with but one difficulty facing the special agent. The Mexican consul was returning to his native land aboard it.

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

It was because of these considerations that the apparently genial disposition of the supposed purchaser of munitions of war proved a disappointment to Señor Sanchez. This Russian was evidently no sailor. He took to his cabin as soon as the _Esmiranga_ took to sea. His sea manners were also far from Latin for he answered with guttural oaths any inquiries that were made as to the condition of his health. He seemed to have gone on a mad debauch and insisted that a constant procession of highballs be sent to his stateroom. He cut Señor Sanchez dead when he met him on the deck. Caramba! A beast of a man was this, to be shunned as the plague!

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

To be sure. The representative of the Mexican government which was to pay 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 the American battleships in southern seas when the _Esmiranga_ was not much more than half-way across the Atlantic. He amused himself writing messages 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 of the approach of a shipload of ammunition of American origin destined to Huerta, upon whom the screws were just then being put for insulting the Stars and Stripes. So it was evident that if this ammunition were allowed to land, it might be used against American troops, who were at any moment to be thrown into Mexico.

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

The wireless of the _Esmiranga_ sputtered out a message which, when interpreted in accordance with the confederate cipher and the keyword of "Russian whiskers," conveyed the information that the vessel was approaching the Mexican coast and that her intention was to steam under the very noses of the American dreadnoughts into port. The facts were reported to Washington, where the alternative of seizing the port was sternly 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 San Juan de Ullao; into those streets frequented by the sacred scavenger buzzard of the Aztecs; beneath the walls of the ancient parochial church beside the Plaza de la Constitución where the first American boy was destined to die at the hands of a sniping priest; into the gate city that had known Cortez and Maximillian, and had loaded the galleons of Spain with more silver and gold than had ever before been amassed anywhere in the history of the world.

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

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

IV

THE SUGAR SAMPLERS

"Mr. Gard," said the chief, "I take it you would like to earn the stipend the Government pays you."

"Your lead sounds ominous," said the young special agent, who had a free and easy way with him even at the Washington headquarters. "If I say yes, you will hand me a large piece of hard work. If I say no, I will be courting discharge. I select the lesser of two evils. I confess to a desire to earn my money."

"It is like this," said the chief. "We suspect that there is a leak in the collection of sugar duties. You know the possibilities. If a ship comes to port with 10,000 tons of sugar from Cuba, it pays duty that depends on the purity of the cargo. If that sugar is graded at 92 per cent. pure it gets in a half cent a pound cheaper than if it is graded 96 per cent. pure. The difference in duty received by the Government on such a cargo might, theoretically, amount to $100,000."

"If I catch three ships," mused Gard half to himself, "I have earned my salary for the rest of my life and won't have to work any more."

"I wouldn't just say that," responded the chief; "but if you saved the Government half a cent a pound on all the sugar imported, you would bring into the coffers a round two million a year. That would be a fair accomplishment for a somewhat amateurish detective."

"Sustained by the flattery of my superior," said Gard. "I am ready to rush into any mad undertaking. What are the orders?"

"You will be assigned to one of the great sugar ports. We do not even know that any fraud is being practised. You are to find out. If there is fraud you are to determine the method of it. The criminals, particularly the big ones, are to be apprehended. The Government would like to know how these frauds may be prevented in future. The work need not be completed to-morrow or next day. You may have any amount of help. But we must know that sugar duties are honestly paid."

It was a week later that William H. Gard sent in his card to Henry Gottrell, president of the Continental Refining Company, one of the greatest importers of raw sugar in the nation. According to this card Gard was a writer of magazine stories. He had explained in asking for an interview that he was assigned to write an article on "sugar ships," which should be a yarn of color and romance in a setting of fact.

When the special agent entered the office of President Gottrell, large and florid and radiating geniality, he found his plan of approach somewhat interfered with by the presence of a third party. Seated at the elbow of the refiner was one of the most striking young women he had ever seen. Corn-colored hair gone mad in its tendency to curl made a perfect frizzle about her face. A flock of freckles, each seemingly in pursuit of its fellow just ahead, were hurdling the bridge of a somewhat pug nose. Blue eyes that danced and a mouth that responded to the racing thought of an active brain gave life to the face. And as she arose the slightest movement of her slim, well-rounded form suggested fast work on a tennis court.

Henry Gottrell presented his daughter.

"She always looked like a Swede," said the big man, "so we call her Thelma."

"And Mr. Gard," she bubbled forth, "I have so wanted to know what a writer did when he goes for an interview. May I stay and see?"

"It will destroy the romantic illusion if you do," said Gard. "Are you willing to pay the price?"

"I can't believe that," she said. "Do let me see how it is done! Don't leave out a single thing."

"The interviewer begins," said the special agent, "by seating himself, as I am doing, in an uncomfortable chair which has been arranged with the idea in mind of preventing him from staying too long. The gentleman being interviewed always reaches into the right-hand drawer of his desk, as your father is doing, and produces a box of very excellent cigars. Then the interviewer explains the idea that is on his mind that requires elucidation. Has the man being interviewed anything on hand, already prepared, that covers the ground. Maybe he has made a speech at a convention, or something of that sort. The idea is to save labor for both. Mr. Gottrell is now looking for the report of his testimony before the committee on tariff revision. He will probably produce three reprints that will contain much matter that I want. I ask if he will provide a conversational escort to conduct me over one of his sugar ships, if I may talk to his captains. He agrees. You see him doing it. The interview is at an end. The foundation has been laid for a romance on 'sugar ships,' the same having a background of fact."

"That is splendid," exclaimed Miss Gottrell, "because it does so easily a thing that looks so hard. It does not spoil an illusion at all. It is wonderfully clever."

It was in this way that Special Agent Gard got an opportunity to go most carefully over the docks, through the warehouses, into the ships of the Continental Refining Company. It was in this way that he was enabled to ask many questions that might have aroused suspicion had he been there in any other guise than that of a writing man. It was in this way that he was able to observe rather carefully every process of the transfer of a cargo of sugar through the customs house at which the Federal Government takes its toll.

All the time the special agent was looking for a clue--was bringing an incisive mind to bear upon the problem of the course the sugar took and the possibility of fraud at each step. He spent days observing the methods of the weighers. He watched every detail of the transfer of cargo from ship to warehouse. He loafed about the sheds where the samples were taken--a process in which he took a vast interest.

Here the samplers, Government employees, ran their little hollow tubes through the mesh of the sacks that contained sugar. The tubes went in empty but came out full of that which was within. This constituted the sample for a given sack. Each sample was made into a little package, carefully labeled, and went to the Government laboratory to be tested. The duty on the sugar coming in was charged according to the degree of purity of these samples.

It was here that Billy Gard picked up his first clue. He noticed a peculiarity about the methods used by the samplers in inserting their tubes into the sacks. They were always run along the side of the sack and never plunged into its very heart. Tobin, the little consumptive, sampled in this peculiar way, as did the hammer-handed Hansen of the every-ready scowl. Yet it would be easier to take the sample out of the middle of the bag. Why did the samplers skim near the edge?

Gard took this question to the Government laboratory, but found no ready answer to it. He procured a typical sack of sugar and from it took two samples--one from the very heart and one from the outside rim. These he had tested in the laboratory. That from the middle of the bag showed a degree of purity 3 per cent. higher than that from the outside. The impurity, the report stated, was in the form of water.

Technical men were set to work to determine through many experiments the difference in the grade of the sugar in different parts of the bag. Finally it was established that raw sugar has a tendency to take up moisture, and that that portion of it which is exposed does so. The sugar near the outside came in contact with the air which contained moisture, while that on the inside did not. The refiners were, of course, aware of this tendency. But the important conclusion from the viewpoint of Billy Gard was that the Government samplers were doing their work in such a way as to favor the importers. Here might be a leak that was very important.

William H. Gard, special writer, that day disappeared from the sugar docks and was never seen again. Simultaneously with his disappearance the saloon of Jean Flavot, not a block and a half distant, acquired a new customer in the person of a roughly dressed young laborer who did not drink as heavily as some of his fellows, but was none the less willing to buy for others. But what was vastly more in his favor in the eyes of Flavot than even liberality was the fact that he spoke French. Mon Dieu, these rough Americans who knew not of the blandishments of absinthe and drank only the whisky! The resort keeper and the newcomer held them in common contempt.

The special agent had selected the resort of Jean Flavot as a basis of operations because it was the place most frequented by the samplers. He wanted, in the first place, to find out if these men had more money to spend than honest men of their salaries should have. The individual who makes illicit money usually spends it lavishly and it should therefore be easy to determine if the samplers were being paid to be crooked. And Gard, after two weeks of convivial association with them, was rather thrown back upon himself when he found that their carousals were always within their means and that money was scarce among them. They were evidently not being bribed.

That he might get on a more intimate basis with these samplers Gard went to work as a laborer on the docks, and there toiled for two months. He came to be most intimately one of them, was given every opportunity for observing their work, was even intrusted with certain valuable confidences when the men were sober and saw his way toward learning more by associating with them when they were in their cups.

His task was but half finished, however, when the maiden with the frizzy hair and the freckles came near upsetting the beans. The daughter of the president of the company had played through her childhood on the docks and about the warehouse and was not yet averse to climbing stacks of sugar sacks or descending into the hold of the ships. So it happened that she often visited the water front, and Gard had at first feared he might be recognized, but this fear wore away as the visits were repeated and no attention was paid to him.

But one busy day he was carting away the sacks of sugar that were being unloaded in packages of twenty or so, slung in ropes and lifted by mighty derricks, when Miss Gottrell strolled down the docks under a pink parasol and in the midst of an array of fluffy, spring ruffles such as make a healthy, wholesome girl outrival in beauty the orchids of the most tropically luxuriant jungle.

The special agent had always liked corn-colored hair and freckles on the nose and worshiped at the shrine of the physically fit. Besides which this girl had enthusiasm and intelligence and inspiration. And it was spring and he was a youngster shut off from his kind and lonesome. He had thought of her a lot of times since that day he had interested her by pretending to be something he was not. Now he rather resented it that she should be there and he a perspiring laborer, not daring to speak to her.

And just at that time something very startling happened. The great crane of the ship drew another load of sugar from the hold and swung it majestically over the dock. In doing so it described a great sweep in reaching the spot where it was to be deposited. In the midst of this sweep a single sack of sugar slipped from beneath the ropes and came hurtling out and down as though it were a projectile from a sling.

The pink parasol was standing unconsciously with its back turned directly in the course of the flying bag. The vision of spring beneath it was gazing away to where a sail was just taking the fresh breeze. Billy Gard and his truck were emerging from the shed for a new load of sugar. And here was a young man quick to act and with a training that enabled him to do so effectively.

Three strides and a leap into the air were all the time allowed. But this was enough to make it possible for him to tackle about the waist the catapulted sugar sack, much as he had often tackled the member of an opposing team who tried to go around his end in the old football days. To be sure, this end play was the fastest he had ever seen and resulted in a good spill, but it was a success. The pink parasol was uninjured.

Thelma Gottrell came to a realization of what had happened about the time Gard was getting himself to his feet. She ran to him spontaneously and would have helped him to rise had he shown the forethought to be a little slower.

"I do hope you are not hurt!" she began. "It was splendid--Oh! What? It is Mr. Gard, isn't it? How in the world--" She stopped in consternation. Billy Gard grinned foolishly.

"Don't give me away," he pleaded with her. "It is a very great secret and it would all be spoiled if you did. A writing man must have color, must know life, you know. Please don't spoil my chance by telling a single soul about it."

"Since you have probably saved my life," said she, "it would not be grateful of me to deny any wish of yours. But I will agree not to tell only on one condition. You must promise to come to me and let me hear all about it when it is over."

"I promise," said Gard.

"And you must let me say that I think you are wonderful to do the things you do, and that I thank you."

She placed her dainty glove in his grimy workingman's hand for a moment and was gone.

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