“I don’t get you.”
“You might as well have sent him a card saying, ‘I suspect you—Skedaddle.’”
“You think he’s taken fright?”
“I know it.... Your telephone.”
Downs called a number. “Look up the address in your records of a man named Harker,” he said into the receiver. “We want him. He just left the plant here.... Get him.”
He turned to Potter. “Now,” he said, “suppose you let me in on this. It’s rather in my line of work, you know.”
“I suppose I should have come to you at once—but I didn’t. Here’s what I’ve got.... I have reason to suspect that a man named William Cantor is the chief of the German agents in this section. I believe his real name is Adolf von Arnheim, and he is an officer in the German army—an aviator. One of his paymasters is a chauffeur named Philip who works for Herman von Essen. Last night I saw this Philip turn over funds to Harker and another man. There you are.”
“Good work. No time to ask how you got it. Where does this Cantor hang out?”
Potter gave the address of Cantor’s office. “I never did know what his business was.”
“Can we have a car—quick?”