The gates of the car clanged shut and the train started slowly. Down the stairs to the street went the American, quietly and confidently, with the brown leather case under his arm. On the train, Dr. Albert, white of face, was bitterly calling on his German Gott to find his case for him!
The next day, and the next, and for many days thereafter, a few modest lines of advertising appeared in New York papers, saying that a brown leather case had been lost on an elevated train and that a small reward would be paid for its return. The advertisement stated that the case was of no value to anyone but the owner. The poor doctor did not dare call attention to his loss by sounding too loud an alarm, for he knew what was in the bag.
"Of no value to anyone but the owner!" Not to ninety-nine people out of a hundred, perhaps; but the hundredth man had the case, and he and his chief knew what to make of it.
On a windy morning in April, 1916, two American secret agents, dressed, as always, in civilian clothes, were walking down Wall Street toward number 60. From information obtained through the capture of several spies, they knew that in an office at 60 Wall Street a big, polite German, Wolf von Igel, was running an advertising agency that was not an advertising agency. They knew further that Wolf was one of the chief plotters, and that he kept many of the most important German plans locked in a big burglar-proof safe, on which was painted the Imperial German seal. Lastly, and this explains why the two agents were walking to his office at exactly that hour, they knew that some especially important plans would be in the safe and that another dangerous spy would be talking to von Igel. This piece of knowledge had come through one of the many underground ways which so puzzled the Germans. It may have been a "tip" from some American agent who was secretly working with the Germans to spy on them.
The Americans pushed open the door, hurried right past the clerk in the outer office, and entered the inner room. Von Igel, who was bending over a packet of papers, looked up.
"I'll trouble you for those papers, von Igel," said one of the Americans, stepping up to him.
The startled German shoved him back, leaped to the safe door, and slammed it shut. But before he had time to give the knob a twirl, the Secret Service men were upon him. In rushed the clerk, and for a few minutes the four men wrestled and struggled madly all around the little room. But the Americans were powerful, and they had help at hand. They threw the Germans down and sat on them to rest, while the frightened Germans protested.
"You have no right to do this," panted von Igel. "This is the property of the Imperial German Government, and cannot be broken into this way!"
"That'll be all right," answered one American. "You see it has been broken into."
The papers, seventy pounds of them, were packed up and taken away,—with the Germans. As the men were leaving the office, they met the other spy, who was just arriving. It did not take much persuasion to make him go along too.