Who this captain was became perfectly clear through an odd happening two days later. On that day, January 2, 1915, Aucher telephoned to Ruroede at his office and made an appointment to meet him at a quarter of one. This meeting will doubtless remain forever memorable in Ruroede’s experience.
At twelve-thirty a whole flock of special agents left the office of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice in the Park Row Building. There were nine representatives of the Department in the group. When they got near Ruroede’s office they were joined by two others who had been shadowing Ruroede. They had located him at the Eastern Hotel, several blocks away, where he was at the moment with one of the German officers who planned to sail that day on the Norwegian Line steamer Bergensfjord with one of the false passports.
Shortly after one o’clock one of the special agents notified the group that Ruroede had returned to his office and then this operative, and one other, went to the Customs House and stationed themselves at a window opposite Ruroede’s office to wait for a signal which Aucher was to give when he had delivered the passport to Ruroede.
When Aucher met Ruroede in the latter’s office Ruroede’s son was present, but in a few moments the younger man took his leave, and his departure was noted by one of the agents outside. After a few minutes’ conversation Aucher handed Ruroede the missing passport and made his signal to the two men inside the Customs House window. These men reported to the main group on the street and thereupon the whole flock descended on Ruroede’s office and placed both Ruroede and Aucher under arrest.
They seized all of Ruroede’s papers before they took him away, including the passport which Aucher had just delivered to him. Aucher put up a fight against his brother officers, so as to make Ruroede believe that his arrest was genuine, but was quickly subdued and taken away. A few minutes later Ruroede also was taken from his office over to the offices of the Bureau of Investigation, but to another room than Aucher. Operatives were left behind in Ruroede’s office, and in a little while Ruroede’s son came in. He, too, was arrested and taken to still another part of the office of the Bureau.
Now there entered Ruroede’s office a stranger, who to this day does not know that he unwittingly gave the officers of the United States Government the information that Captain Von Papen was directly responsible for the passport frauds. This man entered while one of the operatives was busily gathering up the papers on Ruroede’s desk. He said he wanted to see Mr. Ruroede. The operative asked him what his business was, and he replied that he had a letter to give him; and answering an inquiry, he said this letter was given him by Captain Von Papen, to be delivered to Ruroede.
The operative calmly informed the caller that he was Mr. Ruroede’s son and that he could give the letter to him. The stranger refused, so the operative told him that his “father,” Ruroede, would be in in a few minutes. After the few minutes were up, he told the caller that he was sure that his “father” would not return after all, and that he had better go with him to where his “father” was. The stranger agreed and they left the office together, the operative taking him directly to the office of the Bureau of Investigation.
On the way, the stranger decided to give him the letter from Captain Von Papen, and also told him that he had come from Tokyo by way of San Francisco; that he was very anxious to get back to Germany; and that he was sorry he was not sailing on the boat leaving that day. He knew, he said, that Ruroede had a great many officers sailing on the ship that day, and asked if he thought the operative’s “father” could make an arrangement to start him to Germany, too. He gave as a reason for his urgency the fact that he had with him eight trunks which contained very important papers in connection with the war that should be delivered in Berlin without delay.
Upon arriving at the office of the Bureau of Investigation the operative excused himself for a moment and went into another room, where he concocted a plan with a fellow agent to pose as the senior Ruroede. The operative then brought the stranger in and introduced his confederate as his father. The stranger gave this agent of the Department his card which was printed in German and, which translated into English, read, “Wolfram von Knorr, Captain of Cruiser, Naval Attaché, Imperial German Embassy, Tokyo.”
But let us leave the guileless caller in the hands of the guileful agent of Justice for a few moments, returning to him a little later.