Barnitz thought and acted swiftly. He sent Sterett and Coy at once to New York to cover Dr. Kienzle, on the chance that Fay might get into communication with him—it was a long chance, but the only one that offered, for the men were now lost to us. Barnitz, Murphy, Fenelly and Walsh returned to Weehawken to watch Fay’s house. For two hours nothing happened to interest them, and Barnitz was beginning to wonder whether he would ever see his quarry again when an express wagon drove up and stopped at 28 Fifth Street. The driver presently trundled a trunk out of the house, swung it up into his wagon and drove off. The police car idled along behind him for a mile or so through the Weehawken streets, and the wagon stopped at another house. While the driver was indoors this time, Fenelly, who was roughly dressed and light of foot, slipped up behind the wagon, vaulted into the back of it, took one look at the trunk and rejoined the others. “There’s a plain calling-card on the trunk. It reads ‘Walter Scholz,’” he said. Again the expressman headed a small parade, which terminated when the detectives saw him leave the trunk in a storage warehouse. Barnitz dared not follow it there for fear of arousing suspicion, and he figured that the trunk would probably not be removed during the week-end at least. The detectives once more returned to the boarding house and resumed their tedious watch.
The evening passed, and there was no word either from Coy and Sterett or the lost men. Late fall evenings in Weehawken are cold. Some time after midnight two figures came up the street, and as they turned in to the boarding house we saw they were Fay and Scholz. Out of the shadows a moment later Sterett and Coy slipped up to the car—“I could have kissed ’em both,” Barnitz said afterward. They had covered the office of the Kienzle Clock Company at 41 Park Place, picked up Dr. Kienzle as he left the office, tailed him until five in the afternoon, and then saw him enter the lobby of the Equitable Building at 120 Broadway—where he met Fay and Scholz! The men conversed for a few moments, and Fay excused himself. He went to a telephone booth and closed the door. Sterett went into the next booth. Through the thin partition he heard Fay call the garage, ask whether a package had been delivered to him there, then say “it hasn’t, eh?” and hang up the receiver. He rejoined Scholz and Kienzle and the three went to a Fulton Street restaurant to dine. The detectives went to the restaurant but did not dine, and when the Germans left, and Kienzle parted from the others, they tailed Fay and Scholz to Grand Central Palace, saw them appropriate two young women, dance with them, pledge them in a few drinks, and finally leave them and return to Weehawken.
That trunk episode made us uneasy. It might have meant that they had been frightened and were going to disappear, and it certainly signified their intention of moving. We decided to force the issue, and accordingly in the small hours of Sunday morning we directed Wettig, of whom, of course, Fay had no suspicions, to call at Fay’s house later in the forenoon to arrange to test the TNT. From the automobile, which was parked at the street-corner some distance from the house, the detectives saw Wettig enter, and in a few moments saw him come out-of-doors with Fay and Scholz. They strolled to the street-car line, allowed two cars to pass unsignalled, and then, suddenly, hailed a third. It had closed doors, and when Murphy, Fenelly, and Coy, seeing the men climbing aboard, tried to reach the car themselves, the doors had slammed in their faces and the car was on its way. Somewhere in the shuffle Walsh had been mislaid—he had been last seen up the block covering an alley which led back of the boarding house. There was no time to pick him up, and the automobile followed the car to Grantwood and the now familiar woods. At times the car was out of sight of the pursuers, and they fully expected to lose their men again. But from far in the rear they saw the car stop opposite the woods. The doors snapped open, and the first person to set foot on the ground was Walsh. The second and third were Fay and Scholz, and the last, Wettig. Walsh had seen them climb aboard in Weehawken, and had promptly sprinted for the next corner ahead, where he caught the car! That was good shadowing technique.
The Germans slipped into the protection of the underbrush immediately. Barnitz was not disposed to let them get away again, so he spread out his forces so as to follow the party and finally surround it, and the Bomb Squad, the Secret Service and two members of the Weehawken police entered the wood and wove a circle about their victims. As they closed in they saw Fay enter a little shack in the depth of the brush, and bring out a package, from which he took a pinch of some material and placed it on a rock. With a nice new hammer he dealt the rock a sharp blow, there was a loud report, and the handle snapped in his hand. The detectives closed in at once, and Barnitz said, “You’re under arrest!”
“Who is in charge of you all?” Fay asked.
“I am,” Barnitz replied.
“Well, I will tell you that I am not going to be placed under arrest,” Fay announced. “If I am, great people will suffer! You will surely have war. It cannot be—it is impossible. I will give you any amount of money if you will let me go.”
This was good news, not for its financial content but because we had no previous evidence against this man Fay save that he had TNT in his possession. Here he was, trying to confirm our suspicions.
“How much will you give me?” Barnitz parleyed.
“All you want—any amount!”