C.
This announced the approaching trip for action.
Crowley’s scheme for “action” was this: Smith was to carry a suitcase full of dynamite and buy a ticket to St. Thomas, Ontario. Crowley was to carry a suitcase very similar in appearance, containing his travelling things, and was to buy a through ticket to Buffalo which would take him over the same route through Canada that Smith was to travel. This plan was actually worked out with one exception. Smith had a perfectly good imagination and a perfectly developed yellow streak in his courage. He still wanted the $300 monthly he was making and was determined to continue getting it, but he had no relish at all for the pictures conjured in his mind of what would happen to him if he were discovered in Canada with a suitcase full of dynamite. He showed the dynamite packed in the case to Crowley. Then he went out into the suburbs of Detroit, got rid of the dynamite and, from a night watchman on a brick building in course of construction, bought a half-dozen bricks with which he filled the suitcase. This Irishman was afterward discovered and readily recalled both Smith and the circumstances, as he had been both puzzled and amused at the idea of anybody buying bricks when he could easily have stolen them.
As they had arranged, Smith boarded the Michigan Central train at Detroit late Sunday afternoon on July the 4th, and took a seat in the day coach. Crowley, who did not walk with him but followed close behind, took the seat behind Smith. Each, of course, stowed his suitcase at his feet. In a few minutes Smith walked to the front end of the car for a drink of water, whereupon Crowley stepped out on the platform at the rear. Smith came back and took Crowley’s seat. Crowley returned and took Smith’s seat. Shortly after, the customs inspector came through the train with the conductor. His presence was the reason for this exchange of seats. As Crowley had a through ticket to Buffalo and would not leave the train, the customs inspector did not open his suitcase but simply pasted on it the through ticket label by which it would be identified by the other customs inspector who would board the train at Niagara Falls, when the train was about to reënter the United States at Buffalo. Hence the suitcase containing the supposed dynamite was not opened, and this was Crowley’s plan. Crowley’s own suitcase, now in the seat with Smith, was, of course, opened and examined. But it contained nothing but Crowley’s personal belongings. An hour or so later the stratagem was repeated and Smith and Crowley resumed their original seats and got possession of their original baggage. Smith dropped off the train at St. Thomas at about eleven o’clock that night and Crowley went on through to Buffalo.
Smith’s nerve was no better this time than it had been before. In St. Thomas he emptied the bricks out of his suitcase, bought some travelling things to replace them, and took the train on to New York. In the meantime, Crowley had been having his troubles with the anxious and irritated Germans in San Francisco. There was an interchange of messages based on his need for money and on a break in the chain of communication between him and Bopp. Von Brincken had been made very unhappy by Bopp, as the latter was in a furious rage over the failure of the earlier plot at Tacoma, and had accused Von Brincken of everything from embezzlement to treachery and had made his life so miserable that he was glad of an excuse to get out of San Francisco. The immediate occasion he made for his leaving was an opportunity he had to go to Tia Juana, Mexico, just across the border from California. As both Crowley and his representative Mrs. Cornell had been positively forbidden to communicate with Bopp, Crowley was at the moment considerably embarrassed by his inability to get in touch with headquarters. This explains the meaning of Mrs. Cornell’s message of July 2d, addressed to Crowley at Detroit:
Am trying to find him. Waited to hear from you.
W.
She did manage to reach Von Brincken just before he left for Mexico late the same day, again telegraphing Crowley:
He said: If you have plans go ahead with them. State amount required. Have been looking for results.
W.