“You can’t be too careful of those fellows,” Barth said. “There are a lot of fakes around. What’s he done to you?”
“This Scheele, he has a laboratory, where he has been doing work, making some things. I was his superintendent now for a long time, and he owes me several hundred dollars, but he does not pay me. I think von Igel ought to know about it, and perhaps Captain von Papen himself.”
“So do I,” said Barth. “I’ll see that it gets to him. What was it you were doing over there?”
Von Kleist was a chemist. Dr. Walter T. Scheele had been employing him in his laboratory at 1133 Clinton Street, Hoboken, in a factory which was ostensibly for the manufacture of agricultural chemicals. The real business they transacted was the manufacture of bombs. Ernest Becker, the chief electrician of the North German Lloyd liner Friedrich der Grosse, and Carl Schmidt, her chief engineer, had made the containers out of sheet metal. These Becker had delivered to Scheele, and up in the laboratory the containers had been filled with explosive. Becker would come then and take them away, and the bombs had been used to great advantage, von Kleist continued, in harassing the shipping. But what good did it do him, he asked Barth, if he got no pay for it?
“You wait,” returned the “secret agent.” “I’ll get you fixed up. I know a man who is close to von Igel, and I’ll have him meet you. If what you say is true, you certainly have something coming to you. Wait till I get this other man.”
A few days passed. Then von Kleist came again to Hahn’s restaurant, and was introduced to “Herr Deane,” who Barth said spoke no German, but was a good man in spite of the handicap. A trace of suspicion crossed the old chemist’s face, and Barth hastened to add: “We have to use all kinds of people to fool these stupid Yankees, see?” This bit of heavy satire reassured von Kleist, and he found Deane a likable person, who seemed interested in his case against Scheele. He went over the ground again. “If you want any more proof I’ll show you,” he concluded. “Come to my house.” “Deane” (who votes under the name of George D. Barnitz, of the Bomb Squad) joined Barth and accompanied von Kleist to his house at 1121 Garden Street, Hoboken, and out of the muddy back yard the old man dug up an empty bomb container, almost an exact duplicate of the “Kirkoswald” bomb! “There is one of them—and I have filled dozens like that,” he said.
“Let’s go for a ride,” Barth suggested. “We can go down to Coney Island and have supper—the hotel has opened up—and we’ll talk things over.” The old man felt very amiable towards his new friends, and was a talkative and appreciative guest. They dined at the Shelburne and later Barnitz wrote out a statement of von Kleist’s services as the latter outlined them. “This is just for the sake of regularity, you understand. I have to have a written report to give to the chief, or else you won’t get yours. You can sign this as your formal statement.”
“All right,” von Kleist agreed, and signed. “How long do you think it will be before I could get some money?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that part of it,” Barth said. “I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll all three go up to see the chief now—I want him to meet you anyhow, and you can supply any more facts that we may not have down.”
So they came up to my office—not von Igel’s. Barnitz and Barth said his expression changed when he entered headquarters and knew he had been betrayed. He said, “I see now why you have been so good to me.”