The next day, Friday, two more articles got dictated, typed, and revised. The second one was delivered to Lon Cohen and the third one was locked in our safe. They carried the story through Election Day up to the end of the year, and while they had no names or addresses they had about everything else. I even got interested in them myself, and was wondering what was going to come next.
Lon’s bosses were glad to get them on Wolfe’s terms, including the surety protection against libel suits, but decided not to start them until Sunday. They gave them a three-column play on the front page:
HOW THE AMERICAN COMMUNISTS PLAY IT
THE RED ARMY IN THE COLD WAR
THEIR GHQ IN THE USA
There was a preface in italics:
The Gazette presents herewith the first of a series of articles showing how American Communists help Russia fight the cold war and get ready for the hot one if and when it comes. This is the real thing. For obvious reasons the name of the author of the articles cannot be given, but the Gazette has a satisfactory guaranty of their authenticity. We hope to continue the series up to the most recent activities of the Reds, including their secret meetings before, during, and after the famous trial in New York. The second article will appear tomorrow. Don’t miss it!
Then it started off just as Wolfe had dictated it.
I am perfectly willing to hold out on you so as to tell it in a way that will give Wolfe’s stratagem the best possible build-up, as you may know by this time, but I am now giving you everything I myself had at the time. That goes for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday up to 8:30 P.M. You know all that I knew, or you will when I add that the third article was revised Sunday and delivered to Lon Monday noon for Tuesday’s paper, that Weinbach’s final report on the stone verified the first one, that nothing else was accomplished or even attempted, and that during those four days Wolfe was touchier than I had ever known him to be for so long a period. I had no idea what he expected to gain by becoming a ghost writer for Mr. Jones and telling the Commies’ family secrets.
I admit I tried to catch up. For instance, when he was up in the plant rooms Friday morning I did a thorough check of the photographs in his desk drawer, but they were all there. Not one gone. I made a couple of other well-intentioned efforts to get a line on his script, and not a glimmer. By Monday I was grabbing the mail each time a delivery came for a quick look, and hoping it was a telegram whenever the doorbell rang, and answering the phone in a hurry, because I had decided that the articles were just a gob of bait on a hook and we were merely sitting on the bank, hoping against hope for a bite. But if the bite was expected in the form of a letter or telegram or phone call, no fish.