Von Igel was gruffly directing the attendant to make the stranger specify his mission when the door burst open, and in dashed Joseph A. Baker, of the Department of Justice, and Federal Agents Storck, Underhill and Grgurevich.
"I have a warrant for your arrest!" shouted Baker. Von Igel jumped for the doors of the safe, which stood open. Baker sprang simultaneously for von Igel, and the two went to the floor in battle. The German was overpowered, and the attendant cowed by a flash of revolvers.
"This means war!" yelled von Igel. "This is part of the German Embassy and you've no right here."
"You're under arrest," said Baker.
"You shoot and there'll be war," said von Igel, and made another frantic attempt to close the safe doors. A second skirmish ended in von Igel's removal to a cell, while the agents took charge of the documents. The collection was a rare catch. It contained evidence which supplied the missing links in numerous chains of suspected German guilt, and the matter was at once placed in the safe keeping of the Government.
One letter was dated Berlin, February 4, 1916, and addressed to the German Embassy in Washington. It reads:
"In future all Indian affairs are to be exclusively handled by the committee to be formed by Dr. Chakravarty. Dhirendra Sarkar, and Heramba Lal Gupta, which latter person has meantime been expelled from Japan," ...
(Gupta was at that moment between the walls of the Japanese politician's house.)
... "thus cease to be independent representatives of the Indian Independence Committee existing here.
"(Signed) Zimmermann."
The Embassy on March 21, 1916, wrote von Igel as follows: