Chapter I: A Secret Conference

The old gentleman passed the other two as if they were strangers. He jostled by them without so much as a glance. The most observing person in the throng then pouring out of the railway station, like a swarm of busy bees out of a colossal hive, would have detected no relation between them.

While passing the couple, nevertheless, the old gentleman said quickly to one of them, though scarce above his breath:

“Go to the new Willard. Register as directed, and get a suite, Wait there till I come.”

The man addressed heard him, but did not turn his head, nor evince the fact with the slightest change of countenance.

His companion, a natty, keen-eyed chap with a blond mustache twirled upward at the ends à la kaiser, appeared oblivious to what had occurred.

The scene of this trivial episode, which was far more portentous than one would suppose, having a bearing on no less tremendous an issue than the possible fate of a nation, was the new Union Station in the city of Washington, and the hour was two o’clock one fine afternoon in October.

The old gentleman hastened out with the throng into Massachusetts Avenue, seeking a trolley car and mingling with the crowd in a plebian sort of a way, as if business of no great importance had brought him to the nation’s capital.

He rode down Pennsylvania Avenue as far as Fourteenth Street, where he alighted and walked the remaining distance to the Treasury Building, entering one of the side doors with an air and display of interest often observed in the crowds of tourists to be seen in this vast building at that hour of the day. No observer would have supposed him other than a sight-seeing stranger, viewing Uncle Sam’s great money box and financial institution for the first time in his life.

Something like five minutes later, nevertheless, he entered one of the numerous offices without the ceremony of knocking, and blandly addressed a clerk who turned from his desk to see who had entered.

“I suppose Chief Welden is inside?” he said inquiringly.

“Yes, sir,” bowed the clerk. “I will take in your card, or name, if----”

“Don’t trouble,” interrupted the old gentleman, smiling. “I am his uncle. He is expecting me. I will go right in.”

He did not wait for an objection, had any been forthcoming, but opened a near door and walked into an adjoining private office. It was quite large and elaborately furnished. But the only occupant was an attractive, clean-cut man seated at a large, roll-top desk.

“Don’t rise, Welden,” said the old gentleman, after closing the door. “Have a look at my card. It will supply the needed link. Even you are not likely to recognize me.”

Chief Welden, then the head of the United States secret service, glanced at the card the speaker displayed for a moment and then coolly returned to his own pocket.

It bore the name of the celebrated New York detective--Nick Carter.

Chief Welden laughed.

“Gracious!” said he, pointing to a chair with one hand and extending the other. “No, indeed; I would not recognize you. You’re the limit, Nick, when it comes to giving one a surprise. Why did you come in this rig?”

“A summons direct from the nation’s chief executive, Welden, must be occasioned by something of vast importance,” Nick replied, drawing up a chair and cordially shaking hands with the treasury official. “It imposes corresponding circumspection upon one of my vocation. I decided to drop in here under cover and learn what is wanted of me.”

“I knew that the president had communicated with you and I was expecting you to show up during the day,” said Chief Welden, more gravely.

“I got the special-delivery letter this morning.”

“When did you arrive?”

“Half an hour ago.”

“Alone?”

“As you see,” said Nick evasively.

Chief Welden swung round in his swivel chair, so as to directly face the noted detective. There had been other times when the keen and clever men under his direction had been baffled by perplexing problems, resulting in an appeal to the famous New York detective; but judging from Welden’s expression at that moment, none could have been more important than that which had occasioned this summons of Nick Carter to Washington, an appeal direct from the president himself.

“I will tell you as briefly as possible what has occurred, Nick, and why it has been thought wise to employ you,” said Welden.

“Do so,” bowed the detective.

“To begin with, Carter, we have in the war department a young man named Harold Garland. He is about thirty, remarkably gifted along certain lines, and strictly reliable. Understand that at the outset; his integrity is above suspicion. I am absolutely sure of that.”

“Very good,” said Nick. “What about him?”

“He is a graduate from West Point, and is in the employ of the government as an expert engineer, in which capacity he is, as I have said, remarkably gifted. He unquestionably is without a peer in this country in his special line. He has an office in the war department, and I will presently send for him.”

“I shall be glad to meet him,” Nick observed.

“Now, to go back a little,” Chief Welden continued. “Something like eight months ago, Nick, I was informed by two of our secret-service agents abroad that foreign spies were known to be in Washington, said to be here on some secret mission, the nature of which was not definitely known. It was suspected, nevertheless, that they were here after information concerning elaborate coast defenses and fortifications contemplated by the government, which in some sections are under secret construction.”

“You received that information eight months ago?”

“Yes.”

“Were the reports verified? Were the spies identified?”

“Neither,” said Welden. “The suspicion could not be confirmed either here or abroad. The fact that the same report came at about the same time from two of our foreign agents, one then located in Vienna and the other in Paris, and there having been no communication between them, led me to give considerable credit to their report, much more than if there had been but one.”

“I see the point,” Nick nodded.

“We were not able to verify it, nevertheless, nor have we since succeeded in doing so. Nor have our agents abroad been able to add to the meager information obtained at the time. Under such circumstances, of course, having no confirmation of their reports, the matter became a little stale after eight months.”

“Naturally,” Nick allowed.

“But it was brought up again very vividly three days ago,” Chief Welden pointedly added.

“How so?”

“I will explain in a nutshell.”

“I’m all attention.”

“For nearly a year, now, Garland has been collaborating with Captain Arthur Backas, a naval officer now stationed in Annapolis, and who also is a recognized expert along engineering lines.”

“I know him by name,” Nick bowed.

“For the past year these two government engineers have been secretly and exclusively at work on plans for elaborate coast-line defenses and fortifications extending from Chesapeake Bay to Sandy Hook. It is one section of a vast and for the most part secret coast-defense system contemplated by the government, and the first steps in the construction of which have already been taken.”

“I follow you, Welden.”

“And you know, of course, that secrecy is one of the absolute requirements in such work,” Chief Welden proceeded. “There is no occasion for me to enlarge upon that. Secrecy is imperative to adequate protection. If other nations were to learn----”

“I know all about that, Welden,” Nick interposed, checking him with a gesture. “It goes without saying. Come to the point.”

“That may be done with few words,” Chief Welden replied. “Last Friday, three days ago, Garland had occasion to confer with Captain Backas about a very important part of their mutual plans, and he went to Annapolis for that purpose.”

“I see.”

“He took the plans with him in a leather portfolio. He spent most of the day with Captain Backas, returning alone to Washington in the early evening. He was met at the Union Station by two young women, one the only daughter of Senator Barclay, the other a Miss Verona Warren, an intimate friend of Miss Barclay, and with whom Garland is deeply in love. The girls knew he was to arrive from Annapolis at seven o’clock, and they met him with Senator Barclay’s touring car, driven by his chauffeur. They at once took Garland to his apartments, where they dropped him and returned home.”

“Garland, I infer, brought back the plans taken to Annapolis,” Nick observed.

“He put them in the portfolio before leaving the office in which he had talked with Captain Backas. Their conference had been strictly private. The portfolio did not leave Garland’s hands from that time until he entered his apartments in the Grayling, where he has a safe in which to lock them. He opened the portfolio to inclose a memorandum relating to the plans--and found them gone.”

“The plans?”

“Yes. The portfolio contained, instead, a quantity of blank paper resembling them in size and thickness.”

“I disagree with you,” said Nick, after listening with scarce a change of countenance. “You have made one wrong statement.”

“Namely?”

“You said the portfolio did not leave Garland’s hands after he had placed the plans in it,” said Nick. “It did leave them, Welden, or there could not have been a substitution of worthless paper for such tremendously important plans.”

Chief Welden smiled and nodded.

“That goes without saying,” he admitted. “As a matter of fact, Nick, it was not the same portfolio.”

“The whole business had been substituted?”

“Exactly. The substituted portfolio was so like his own, however, that he did not detect the difference until after he had opened it,” said Welden. “His own was nearly new and his name was written with ink on the inside of a flap that closes it, and which is secured with two small straps and buckles. There was no name in the substituted portfolio. It was slightly defaced, moreover, so like his own that he detected no difference.”

“Which plainly denotes that whoever turned the trick, or planned and directed the job, was perfectly familiar with Garland’s portfolio,” said Nick.

“That is obvious, of course,” Chief Welden agreed.

Nick Carter took up the matter as if it were merely a petty theft, instead of one threatening the nation. No need to tell him, nevertheless, of the terrible danger from further construction in accord with the stolen plans, or of the vast expense and innumerable difficulties in changing them, they presumably having been made to the best advantages discernible to the expert government engineers in charge of that part of the work. One scarce could conceive of a more serious and possibly far-reaching loss.

Nick gazed at Chief Welden for a moment, then asked tersely:

“Any clew?”

“None, so far,” was the reply.

“You suspect it was the work of the spies mentioned?”

“Naturally.”

“Who is on the case?”

“Several of my best men,” said Welden. “I have talked with the president, who is much disturbed by the matter, and we realize that these men may be known by sight and that they are connected with the secret service. We have thought wise, therefore, to employ you on the case, assuming that you are not known and can work to greater advantage. There is this much to it, Carter,” he forcibly added: “Those plans must be recovered. They must be found before copies can be made, or----”

“One moment,” Nick interposed. “I appreciate all that is involved. It is bad, terribly bad, but I will do my best to meet the situation. Send for Garland. I wish to question him.”

“I think I can answer any questions that----”

“You won’t do,” Nick again interrupted. “I might ask questions that you could not possibly answer. I shall want them answered. Send for Garland. I wish to talk with him.”

Chief Welden turned to his desk and rang for the clerk in the outer office.