Ever since we had examined the Kirkoswald bomb we had had lines out to follow the sale of chlorate of potash and sulphuric acid—the ingredients of the bomb. We examined reams of sales’ records submitted by explosive and chemical manufacturers, traced dozens of reports from drug stores, and found nothing of consequence. Those two substances are widely and harmlessly used, and rarely purchased in small quantities by any individual whose intentions might excite suspicion. Under our rigid city explosives’ laws investigation of purchases was facilitated for us, but all the facility in the world could not help the case without anything to investigate. So passed September and a part of October, and just about the time when the bomb case was growing dull and the ship fires which were constantly occurring had almost found us calloused, the French Government, with traditional courtesy, helped us out again, and blew our sugar theory into many and small pieces.
The Fay Bomb Materials
Suit cases containing an atlas, two maps of the harbor, drawing instruments, tools, a wig and two false mustaches, a telescope bomb, and several packages of ingredients
Captain Martyn, the French military attaché in New York, telephoned to say that he thought we would be interested in a man who he believed was trying to buy some explosive. What kind? Trinitro-toluol, or “TNT,” one of the most violent propellants used in modern shell. Yes, we would be interested.
A war exporter, Wettig by name, had told Captain Martyn that a fellow with whom he shared office space had asked him to obtain a quantity of TNT—a small quantity, for trial purposes. The purchaser, who was known both as Paul Siebs and Karl Oppegaarde, and who lived at the Hotel Breslin, directed Wettig to deliver the material to a Jersey address and said he would then receive payment. On the axiom that a bomb in the hand is worth two in someone else’s, we were introduced to Wettig, and formulated with him a plan to follow the explosive. So on Thursday, October 21, Detective Barnitz accompanied Wettig to a “dynamite store” at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, where the latter bought some 25 pounds of TNT. The two returned to New York with their package. We looked up Mr. Oppegaarde and asked him what he proposed to do with his purchase. He said he really hadn’t the slightest idea: an acquaintance of his, a war broker named Max Breitung, had referred a certain Dr. Herbert Kienzle, a German clock-maker, to him as a likely person to obtain explosives. Dr. Kienzle had placed the order, had wanted it delivered at a garage in Main Street, Weehawken, to a man who bore the name of Fay, and who had assured Siebs that when he had it delivered he would be paid for his services. Further than that he knew nothing. Nobody seemed to know anything, although here was a considerable amount of vicious explosive in which five men were very much interested. We spent the rest of that day in looking up what we could of the players in this little game of “passing the TNT”—from Kienzle to Breitung to Siebs to Wettig to Fay.
Six men were assigned to the case: Murphy, Walsh, Fenelly, Sterett, Coy and Barnitz, and they most admirably stayed on the job. On Friday Detectives Barnitz and Coy took the explosive to the Weehawken garage. Fay was not there, but a man who was there told the detectives he lived at 28 Fifth Street, so the men from the Bomb Squad and their package called at the boarding house where Fay lived. Again he was not to be found, but our men had a chat with the landlady, who told them that Mr. Fay was a real nice gentleman who had lived there with his friend Mr. Scholz for a month, always paid his bills, subscribed to a magazine, and was working on inventions, or at least so she thought, because he used a table to draw plans on. Sociable, too—
They left the TNT for him. I ought to remind the reader that it is harmless unless confined or heated, and cannot be properly exploded without a proper detonating charge. It may have been a bit rough on the boarding house, but we had gone to deliver the goods to Fay; Wettig had told him they would be delivered (though not by whom) and we had to carry out the plan even though Fay was not at home.
At the same hour, across the Hudson Detectives Coy, Walsh and Sterett learned why Fay had not been receiving visitors, for they found him in Siebs’s company in the Hotel Breslin. Effacing themselves until the interview was over, they tailed Fay to the West 42nd Street ferry, then across the river to Weehawken, up the long hill to the town, and to his garage at 212 Main Street. In the early evening an automobile emerged from the garage, driven by Fay and containing another passenger, and wound out of town in a northerly direction along the Palisades. Behind it was a police car. North of Weehawken a few miles where the country is inhabited by installment-plan “villas,” moving-picture studios and scrub-oak trees, Fay stopped his car at the roadside and disappeared with the other man into the underbrush and then into the deeper woods. The police car waited until they returned, and followed them back to their boarding house, where the detectives took up a vigil outside.
A New York policeman has not the power of arrest in another state, and it began to look as though we might have to make an arrest in Jersey, so Chief Flynn assigned Secret Service Agents Burke and Savage to the case and they joined forces with us Saturday morning. Detectives Barnitz, Coy, Walsh, Sterett, Fenelly and Murphy were watching the house in Weehawken. About noon Fay and his companion appeared, and got aboard a Grantwood street-car. The Bomb Squad followed at a discreet distance to the point where the men had dodged into the woods the night before. Barnitz, who was in command, sent Sterett and Coy in after them. But nature was against us, for the fallen leaves carpeting the woods crackled under foot, and to snap a twig was to shout one’s presence through the clear air. Twice Fay turned sharply around and peered through the trees. The two detectives were nearly discovered on both occasions. They finally decided that it would be impossible to approach their men without alarming them, so they returned to the waiting automobile. The police party waited an hour or more, and then realized that Fay and his companion had evidently gone out the other side of the woods and so worked their way back to civilization.