"Big boat." Rintelen nodded his head with satisfaction. "How long would it take to load that boat in such a way as to make it capsize?"
"Twelve hours'll do it."
"All right, start in the morning. See that everything heavy is piled on one side, so that it will overturn the minute the hawsers are loosened. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly."
"Very well." Rintelen looked hastily around to see that he was not watched, then rose cautiously. "I shall expect you to be working for Imperial Germany in the morning!"
But when morning came, there were others at work also, not for Imperial Germany, but for the Stars and Stripes of the United States of America—Harrison Grant and the members of the Criminology Club, seeking to ferret out the trouble they knew to exist about the docks, seeking to learn what this German contamination was which they felt sure was gnawing apart the bonds that held the shipowners and the 'longshoremen in unison. But it was a hard task.
More than that, the doomed freight shipments of automobiles already had reached their lighters and were starting down the river, while concealed behind the freight cars were two of Rintelen's paid agents, waiting for the time to strike.
And that time came. Far out into the river swung the lighter. The workmen were gathered at the other end of the long, traveling track. Everything was clear. Hurriedly, the spies ran to the end of the freight cars, where they had been blocked and snubbed. Quickly the ropes were loosed. The brakes were released. A few quick movements of a pair of pinch bars and the cars had been started toward the river. And in a moment more—
A resounding, crashing splash, which seemed to echo from one side of the Hudson to the other. The boxcars, with their precious autos, had been sent, careening and bobbing, to the bottom of the river, and already a spy was on his way to a telephone to report:
"Hello, Mr. Gates? Those cars have been accounted for."