Chapter IX: The Munitions Campaign

The conference over the blue prints in Ambassador Von Bernstorff's rooms in Washington was followed by months of seeming inaction on the part of Germany's paid agents. While war held its dreadful sway over Europe and armies battled, some for right and in defense of a broken kingdom, the others for territory and conquest at the behest of a war-mad ruler, the manufacture of munitions for the warring nations and especially the Allied armies received an impetus which started their humming with feverish activity.

During this time the A.T.R. Munitions plant was erected near New York. Machinery of the latest type was installed, and experienced and competent labor employed. In the offices of the company, of which L.E. Marquis was president, long conferences were held with representatives of the French Government over plans received from Paris calling for French "75's" and "155's" in unstinted numbers. French gold went into the safes of the company and French names were signed to the mortgages and various documents necessary to the fulfillment of contracts involving millions of dollars and indirectly millions of lives. That Imperial Germany was linked with this industry in any way would have been unbelieveable, that the A.T.R. Munitions Company could be lending aid to Germany while manufacturing arms for the French Army was inconceivable, to any but those acquainted with the depths of treachery to which it was possible for Imperial Germany to descend.

The plans from Paris received the O.K. of the president of the company and its directors. They were given into the hands of one man--true, the company's secretary--but the man who had conferred with Ambassador Von Bernstorff in Washington, months before--J.S. Slakberg, smooth, suave, ingratiating, agent of the Imperial German Government and its war-crazed Kaiser!

A week or so after the final plans of the French Government had been approved by the directors of the Munitions works, Slakberg found occasion to call upon Captain Franz von Papen, Military Attache of the German Embassy in his office at 60 Wall Street, New York. That his visit was not unexpected was indicated by the obvious impatience with which the little group gathered in Von Papen's office awaited his coming. About the polished table sat Captain Karl Boy-Ed, German Naval Attache, Dr. Heinrich Albert, Von Papen and Ambassador Von Bernstorff.

Brief greetings were exchanged at Slakberg's entrance. No time was wasted in arriving at the gist of his business.

"Your report on the A.T.R. factory?" queried Von Bernstorff.

"Work has commenced at the A.T.R. Munitions works," Slakberg announced.

"Yes?" The little group unconsciously awaited the rest of his report in tense silence.

The silence of the room was now the silence of consternation.

Over Von Bernstorff's countenance a look of anger blotted out the expression of puzzlement that had followed Slakberg's announcement. Von Papen glared at the speaker.

"_Himmel!_ For the French!"

The sinister smile which disfigured Slakberg's face did not waver.

"Yes. For the French. I am doing all in my power to see that the shells reach their purchasers as quickly as possible. Wait a minute----" He waved a deprecating hand as Boy-Ed pushed his chair back and sprang to his feet angrily. "I have done exactly as I planned to do. I have changed the plans of the shells. Employees of the A.T.R. Munitions works are now laboring night and day to produce shells that will be sold to the French Government--but the shells will fit only German guns!" He glanced around triumphantly. "Is my report approved?"

Smiles of satisfaction swept about the group. Von Bernstorff extended his hand.

"It is good work, Slakberg, and will mean great things."

Slakberg smiled smugly. "Greater perhaps than your Excellency imagines," he answered. "In the first place, it will deprive the French of some million shells of various sizes upon which they are depending. In the second place it breaks the entire embargo which the British have placed about Germany."

"But how did you accomplish it?"

"As soon as the plans were signed, they were turned over to me for safe-keeping," he smiled. "I have put them where they will be safe--forever, I tore them up. Then I placed in the safe in their stead the plans which were sent me from Berlin, drawn to the scale of German guns of nearly the same calibre. I forged the necessary signatures and acknowledgments. It was very simple. It is impossible that they suspect anything wrong. So now," he concluded, "those shells will be rushed to the French front at the earliest possible dates. They will be hoarded for the big French drive. So I learned in conference. The French drive will turn into a German drive. The French will try to use the shells. They will not fit. They will have to fall back. Our men will rush forward. In the hasty retreat the French will be compelled to leave the ammunition behind. The rest will be simple. Imperial Germany will bring up her guns to find ammunition of all calibres waiting for them. Ammunition made in America, paid for by France, shipped in spite of British interference and embargoes--for Germany!"

Slakberg regarded his audience, complacently, pleased at the evidences of pleasure they displayed.

During his recital Von Papen had reached for a check book. And now with its hastily inked signature scarcely dry he handed a check to Slakberg.

"In token of our Fatherland's esteem," he smiled.

The conference, supremely satisfactory to those who had shared its secrets, ended. It had a double sequel however.

Von Lertz, Germany's unofficial man of all work was still captive to the charms of Dixie Mason and still ignorant that she was of the Secret Service and assigned to the work of gaining all information possible by means of her feminine wiles. Von Lertz, with characteristic egotism, failed to realize that he was but a tool in her hands. The afternoon following the conference in Von Papen's office, he called upon her.

Dixie winsomely made him welcome. Mamette, with white teeth shining out of the dusky blackness of her face, relieved him of his overcoat. And in his joy at being in Miss Mason's presence once more, Von Lertz carelessly neglected to remove from his overcoat pocket a report he had brought for Dr. Albert. Over his shoulder Dixie nodded meaningly to Mamette, the faithful. The negro maid, coached by Dixie, had become almost indispensable in the carrying out of Dixie's schemes to successful climaxes, Von Lertz's coat, taken carefully into an alcove off the hall was hung up carefully--after Mamette had removed the report from the pocket. And the report was carefully replaced in the pocket after Mamette in painful scrawls had copied its message.

As soon as the door had closed behind Von Lertz, Dixie hurriedly scanned the copy which Mamette proudly handed her.

It's notation read:

"Report for Dr. Albert.

"Everything is working out to our satisfaction at the A.T.R. Munitions factory.

"J.S.S."

"Oh, Mamette," Dixie called after studying the report for a moment or two. "Get me out some clothes to wear. I'm going to the A.T.R. Munitions factory to look for employment. Hurry!"

German efficiency had tripped itself again. It had not been enough for Dr. Heinrich Albert to receive in person the report of J.S. Slakberg in the offices of Captain Von Papen. It had not been enough that months before he had lost a portfolio containing hundreds of just such papers as this--a portfolio which had allowed the Secret Service to block the schemes of Imperial Germany in a dozen different directions throughout the United States. To the spies of Imperial Germany the Americans were only "Idiotic Yankees," not capable of understanding or fathoming the machinations of Germany, and so the reports continued to be in writing with the result that now Dixie Mason was profiting by one and was preparing to start for the A.T.R. Munitions works in search of employment--and incidentally all the information she could possibly pick up.

The calm of the recent months had not deceived the Secret Service. To them it was but the treacherous calm of a sea after a storm. Smooth and disarming on its surface, but underneath the boiling of the undertow.

The second sequel of Slakberg's visit to the office of Von Papen was the result of a similar slip by Imperial Germany. Its opening scene was laid in the office of the Criminology Club a day or so after Slakberg's visit.

Grant was hastily running over the afternoon paper. Near him lounged Stewart and Cavanaugh.

"Anything doing?" asked Stewart lazily, nipping the end from a cigar and preparing to light it.

Grant shook his head in negation. "Nothing much. The A.T.R. Munitions Company have started work on a big war order for France. J.S. Slakberg, secretary of the company says that all records are to be broken for production." He paused with a puzzled expression. "Slakberg" he repeated turning to the operatives.

"Have you heard that name before?"

"Not I," said Cavanaugh, from the depths of the leather lounge.

"Not guilty," said Stewart.

"Well I have, but I can't remember now just where." Grant's reflections were interrupted by a knock on the door. "See who's there will you, Stewart?"

The door was opened to admit a young man of business-like appearance.

"Good evening, Mr. Grant. I'm the cashier of the ---- Bank."

Grant motioned him to sit down but he declined. "No, I won't stay, my errand will just take a moment. If you will remember, some time ago you asked us to allow you to see any checks that Franz von Papen issued on our bank. Here is one that I think will interest you." He slipped a check from his pocket and handed it to Grant.

"To J.S. Slakberg," Grant read. "Five thousand dollars!"

"There's your Slakberg again," observed Cavanaugh.

"Yes," said Grant, slowly studying the endorsement of the check. "Now I've got him. Or at least his writing. He's the same merry little forger we trailed all the way from Chicago to Berlin on the Weymouth case--and then they refused extradition. Call a taxi. I'm going to the A.T.R. plant."

Work at the A.T.R. Munition plant was booming. Slakberg had cause for satisfaction as he stood in the doorway of one of the shell loading rooms watching the trucks loaded with shells rumbling past. And the room was filled with the rumble and roar of activity as men and women worked at high speed, pitiably ignorant that they were laboring in reality not for France but for scheming, conniving, treacherous Germany.

As a rack of shells clattered past him, Slakberg's thin lips curled back in a smile of satisfaction. "Poor fools," he muttered, "they think they are working for France." He rubbed his hands and turned away. "But for Germany--and they don't know it."

He crossed the factory yard to the power house and entered its semi-darkness, peering about. No one was in sight, but at his low whistle a figure emerged from behind a dim hulk of machinery and came toward him. It was the chief electrician.

Slakberg bent toward him with a leer. "How's the safety contrivance working?" he asked. The electrician stared at him for a moment and then laughed.

"Oh you meant the sparker--to blow up the plant?"

"Careful," warned Slakberg, "and only if necessary, always remember that."

"Certainly, I know that, only if necessary," the electrician repeated as though the words were part of a lesson he had been compelled to memorize. "As long as we can keep the plant running along the lines it is running now, everything is fine--that's right isn't it?"

"Quite right, but if anything happens, any trouble blows up and Von Papen says the plant must go, we must be prepared."

"You can count on me." The electrician held out an instrument resembling the spark plug of an automobile. "This is all we need. I've connected a dead wire in the loading room to this switch. If the plant is to be blown up, all that will be necessary will be for me to put this plug in a light socket in that room, then come back here and throw the switch. The minute the switch is thrown a streak of fire will shoot out from the spark plug. It will ignite the explosive dust with which the room is filled. The factory will be blown to pieces."

Slakberg smiled appreciatively. A moment later he left the power house. The building in which were the offices stood some distance from the factory. He followed the gravelled pathway to his office and there, after closing the door carefully, went to the safe and pulled out a roll of blue prints. They were the specifications for the shells now being turned out by the factory. To him they meant the destruction perhaps of the French Army. He started nervously from his revery as an office boy entered.

"Mr. Slakberg, Mr. Marquis wants to see you and says for you to bring the plans."

Slakberg picked up the plans and followed the boy slowly out. The request was a little unusual and a shadow of fear crossed his face as he entered the office of the president. A moment later he was looking into the inquiring eyes of Harrison Grant and the fear had returned to his face to stay. Grant's steely eyes stared into the shifty eyes below him seeking to evade his look. "Do not trouble to introduce us," Grant said slowly to Mr. Marquis who had risen, "I think Mr. Slakberg and I have met before. In case he does not remember the occasion I will seek to call it to his memory later. Just now Slakberg, I would like those plans--in the name of the Secret Service." Slakberg seemed to shrivel up before him. An ashy pallor swept his face. He tried to smile jauntily but the pitiable effort was distorted into a snarl.

The sudden convulsive movement with which he gripped the plans with the evident intention of destroying them was thwarted as Grant caught his wrist in a paralyzing grip and removed them from his limp hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Slakberg," he remarked calmly. "Perhaps you can explain a few little points about these plans to Mr. Marquis and myself. As I understand it these plans were drawn in Paris?"

"Yes--yes, of course," Slakberg returned somewhat weakly.

"And naturally they have been in your possession all the time?"

"Certainly."

"Then," Harrison Grant raised his voice a little, "I must say, Mr. Slakberg, alias Curly, alias Weasel, that while you've done a very good little job of forgery here, you've forgotten one rather strong point. Will you please put on your hat and coat and come to the Criminology Club with Mr. Marquis and myself? I would like you to explain there just how these particularly Parisian plans happen to be made on parchment bearing a Berlin watermark!"

Slakberg's only answer was a desperate rush for the door, the success of which was speedily deterred by Grant and Marquis. His impotent curses faded into silence again as Grant drew out a pair of handcuffs and dangled them before him.

"It's a bit cold out," Grant said quietly, "Would you like handcuffs?"

Slakberg scowled. "I'll go peaceably."

So meekly did he submit to his enforced departure that although Grant saw him draw a cigar from his pocket, bite it off and then throw it away as though it were distasteful to him, he paid little attention to the action. The cigar rolled along the gravelled pathway and stopped near the door of the power house. In the doorway lounged the electrician. As Grant and Marquis and their captive disappeared around the corner the electrician picked up the discarded cigar.

Dixie Mason had been working in the factory since early afternoon as shell loader. The table at which she worked was near a window overlooking the factory yard. The events of the last afternoon had not escaped her. She had watched the departure of Slakberg with Harrison Grant and a feeling of relief that unconsciously she was being helped had stolen over her. But though Grant attached no importance to the cigar Slakberg had tossed aside, Dixie from her point of vantage soon was given the opportunity to.

Scarcely had the men disappeared around the corner of the building when she saw the electrician emerge from the doorway, and pick up the cigar. The act was natural and Dixie ordinarily would have thought nothing of it. Now her gaze hung on him curiously and then brightened into interest as she saw him break the cigar open. Something white appeared as the carefully wrapped weed was broken apart. She saw the electrician unroll a tiny slip of paper, read it hurriedly and then crumple it up.

Dixie, to all appearances overcome by sudden illness, left the loading room, slipped out of the door and across the yard to the power house. The electrician was gone but where he had stood was a tiny slip of crumpled paper which Dixie snatched at eagerly and read as she hurried out of the building. It contained three words.

"Warn Von Papen."

Dixie Mason did not return to the loading room. Instead she took up the trail of the disappearing electrician. She saw him enter a saloon. In a nearby drug store she induced the operator to put her on the same line just in time to hear the electrician receive orders to go to the hill on the edge of the town when darkness fell. Dixie waited feverishly for events to resume their progress. She did not know that in the Criminology Club they had Slakberg surrounded with the evidences of his guilt and his cross examination begun. All Dixie knew was that the electrician had been told to warn Von Papen and had been ordered to await further instructions on the hill at the edge of the town.

The day faded into dusk and the dusk into darkness. The lights from the munition factory blazed out into the night as the new shift took up its duties. At last Dixie saw the electrician emerge from the saloon. She took up the trail, a trail that seemed never-ending as he walked on and on away from the town. They came to a freight yard. Out of the darkness above the freight yard a hill loomed against the sky. The electrician stopped, and Dixie sought shelter very near him by a lumber pile. The night was very dark but suddenly the sky was lighted by a series of flashes. In their brightness, Dixie could see the electrician standing with pencil and paper in hand. The flashes stopped and the electrician moved over to a switch light which gleamed with red eye into the surrounding blackness. He was examining the paper closely by the dim light. The rumble of an approaching freight train broke the silence. The electrician tossed the paper aside and glanced up the track toward the slowly nearing engine and its string of box cars. Dixie saw him hurry up the track and she guessed his purpose. He was about to catch this train back to town.

The train passed and in the dim light she discerned his figure clinging to the side of a car. Then she hurried to the switch light and picked up the scrap of paper he had thrown aside. By the light she saw a series of Morse code dots and dashes which she translated:

"Blow up the factory at once!"

This was the message he had been told to receive! And he had gone to carry out its orders! Dixie racked her mind desperately for ideas. She must get back at once, or get a message. But how? There was no telephone near. No means of getting back. The train lumbering off into the darkness was now gaining speed every moment.

She remembered passing a motor service station down the road. If she could reach that she might still be able to interfere with the electrician's orders. She would telephone back to the factory--to Harrison Grant! One idea after another flew through her mind as she hurried over the endless labyrinth of tracks and down the rough road, but when she reached the little building, to her breathless inquiries the keeper shook his head. "No telephone here," he said, "there's one about a mile down the road."

"But I've got to get word back to town somehow," Dixie urged desperately. He shook his head as though dismissing the subject.

Then Dixie brought out her Secret Service Commission.

"Let me have a motorcycle, quick," she ordered. The man visibly impressed hurried inside.

A moment later he had brought out a motorcycle and was holding it in position.

Dixie clambered up on it. Slipping a bill into the man's hand she waved good-bye and amid a swirl of dust disappeared down the road. The throbbing of her engine grew steadier as with a set purpose she rushed on in the blackness to her errand of salvation.

While Dixie Mason sped over the dark and tortuous passes of the road to town; while the electrician she was seeking to outwit was being carried to the fulfillment of his evil intent by the freight train to which he clung, Harrison Grant and the president of the munitions works were listening to Slakberg's confession, wrung at last from him by a series of cleverly tendered questions. As in the past he had entrapped others, so the spy was being entrapped. His very simple plan, worked out so carefully and seemingly flawless, had rebounded to trip him up. He had worked out every detail, had forged perfectly, had overlooked nothing as he had thought, to be at last betrayed by the innocent appearing watermark of the parchment.

He was breaking down under the strain of the cross examination. Reluctantly the details had been wrung from him.

"We wanted munitions. We didn't care how we got them. If we could make America our unwilling ally, we were more than glad to do it. We knew that if we could get these shells to the Western front they would be saved for the French drive. And we knew that just as surely as that drive came, it would fail and our soldiers would rush through the French lines without danger from barrage to find the shells waiting for them--to open the way to Paris!" He stopped with a gasp.

They waited but he did not resume his talk.

"Is that all?" Grant interrogated.

Slakberg's gaze shifted.

"Yes, that is all," he lied painfully.

Grant turned to the president of the A.T.R. "Mr. Marquis, is your car downstairs?"

Marquis nodded.

"Good. We must get to the factory at once. The extent of this plot must be investigated. The shipment of shells must be stopped. America shall not be made party to such a crime as this!"

The freight train was bearing the electrician to his destination. It had reached the munition factory, and in the darkness he dropped from it and hurried to the power house. Near the doorway on a table lay a pile of electric light bulbs. He picked up a handful and sauntered across the yard and into the main loading room on an errand conspicuously innocent in appearance. But in his pocket was the tiny sparker which when affixed meant destruction of lives and property, the death or injury of the hundreds of women who worked about him innocent of the danger that hung over them.

He removed a globe from a socket and slipped in another. Several globes were replaced. At last he unscrewed a globe and in its place slipped the little sparker. His actions were unobtrusive. He glanced hastily around. No one noticed him or guessed at his errand, for the shell loaders were all intent on their work and the filling of the great order which had just come. Picking up the remaining globes he passed down the length of the room and out into the cool night air, toward the power house.

The buzz of a motorcycle being raced at high speed jarred on the quiet of the yard outside the factory. The electrician cast an annoyed glance in the direction of the rider. The machine stopped in front of the power house and Dixie Mason slipped from the seat. She saw the electrician cast a hurried glance at her over his shoulder and she hesitated. Was she too late to stop him from carrying out his plan whatever it was? Could she stop him? An attempt to stop the spy might fail, but she could at least warn the people of their danger.

She ran into the building. Past long lines of workers she dashed screaming in a shrill voice that echoed above the roar of machinery:

"Out! Out! Everybody!"

The workers, ever conscious of the hazards under which they labored and alert for the slightest token of danger, left their work tables and rushed for exits, taking up the cry as they passed other workers. Dixie seeing that her warning was being obeyed ran back to the power house. The yard was filled with hurrying, shrieking, excited women. The electrician at the sound of shouting and confusion had stepped to the door. As he saw Dixie rushing toward him, he knew the success of his plans was frustrated.

He turned quickly to the switch. At the same moment, Dixie, knowing intuitively that this was his plan of destruction, threw her slight body at him and clung to him with a catlike tenacity, striving to stay the hand that was reaching for the switch. With a curse his great hand closed around her throat. Still she struggled but he held her now at a distance and leaned forward. She heard the switch jammed shut with a crackling contact. A second later the darkness without was pierced by a wild burst of flames, and the earth heaved and rocked with the impact of an earthquake. But Dixie Mason heard it only vaguely. She had fainted and was lying against the switch, one hand still in unconsciousness clinging to it as though the hope yet lived that she could prevent the awful catastrophe that had fallen.

Through the clouds of dust and smoke, through the crowds of injured workers, through debris piled high from which little tongues of flame were shooting, Harrison Grant reached the power house.

When Dixie returned to consciousness it was to find him bending over her. For one glad moment she recognized him.

She struggled to rise. "You!" she said, but Grant's voice, cold and unfriendly, dispelled the hopes that had risen within her.

"Yes. Miss Mason, I'm afraid you will have a somewhat difficult time in explaining your presence here beside the switch that has blown up the factory."

In spite of weakness Dixie straightened up. Her lips parted and she reached involuntarily toward the pocket that held her Secret Service Commission. But the impulse was checked, for the orders she had received months before flashed through her throbbing brain:

"Work into the trust of the Germans. Tell no one.

"W.J. Flynn."

"Why do you accuse me?" she asked.

"Miss Mason, what else could one do? We arrive in time to see the explosion, the workers running out, and----"

Dixie leaned forward.

"The workers, are they safe?" she asked eagerly.

"Most of them. Some are injured. I am glad you at least warned them."

"Thank you. Now would you mind releasing my hand?"

Grant looked at her in wonder. Would he ever fathom this mystery girl? Could it be possible that he had made a mistake? But in contraversion to this thought came the memory of her constant association with the Germans most active in promoting the interests of their government; her frequent appearances with Von Lertz and Madam Stephan. And what possible motive could have brought her to this scene and placed her in such a situation?

"Miss Mason, I can say nothing except that a watchman told me of having seen a girl running toward the power house a moment before the explosion came. I must put you under arrest. The evidence is absolute and I can do nothing else."

Dixie opened her lips, but the words were not spoken.

The sharp report of a gunshot put an end to their conversation. The sound of a low cry drifted in--then silence.

Grant stepped to the door and then hesitated.

"I'm very sorry Miss Mason," he said reaching in his pocket, "but I'm afraid this is necessary." Something glittered in his hands and Dixie heard the metallic clink of handcuffs. "I must see what is wrong outside--and I must be assured that you will remain here until I return."

Dixie held out her hands in silence. He snapped one manacle about her wrist. A strange sort of wonder possessed him that he should be thus shackling the hands of the girl who had so fascinated him in the past. She stood quietly while he attached the other cuff to the swinging door of the switchboard railing and then hurried outside.

Two hundred yards away stood a watchman and at his feet lay the body of a man.

As Grant reached his side the watchman reported briefly.

"I saw this fellow sneaking around. When I called to him to halt he started to run, so I shot."

Grant searched the body hastily with the help of his pocket flash and brought out the card of a German reservist.

It was enough. Imperial Germany had scored again, and in the usual manner, with death to innocent beings and appalling destruction of property.

He turned again to the power house where he had left his fair prisoner, but on the threshold he stopped in astonishment.

The power house was empty! One handcuff hung on the gate of the switchboard. A rubber glove lay on the floor. The other handcuff of the pair was gone and with it Dixie Mason!