That night Walsh and Murphy watched Captain Bode’s house in a New Jersey suburb, while Sterett and Fenelly covered Wolpert’s house nearby. Both men reported at their respective piers for work the next morning, and both were invited by the detectives to come over to headquarters “to consult with us in a little waterfront investigation we were carrying on.” Senff went to the North German Lloyd piers to call on Becker. The guard at the pier-head put through a telephone connection, and Senff told Becker he wanted to see him on an urgent matter. Presently Becker appeared at the pier gates, and through the bars Senff whispered: “Von Kleist wants to see you. Trouble—” Becker returned in an instant with his hat and came to headquarters. A little later in the day the net caught Schmidt, and after a year and a half of waiting we had rounded up in twenty-four hours five promising prisoners.
Von Kleist, we knew, was not altogether reliable; Bode was positively robust in his denial of any knowledge of the affair. Becker, a thin blond youth, made a complete confession. Yes, he had made the bomb containers—several hundred of them, under Schmidt’s orders. He had filled them with chlorate of potash and sulphuric acid at the Scheele laboratory and had seen Captain Wolpert take them away. At that moment Wolpert, a hulking red figure, who had been conversing fairly freely, shut up tight, and refused to answer further questions. Becker acknowledged that he had made the Kirkoswald bomb, and added that the later cases were larger than that.
“Captain Wolpert,” I said, “don’t you think you’re doing Germany more harm than good by doing this sort of thing?”
“Damn it!” he exploded. “I gave it up June first. But you’ve got to do what those bull-headed fellows tell you, haven’t you?”
“Did you know Robert Fay, Captain?” I asked.
“Yes—I met him one time in Schimmel’s office with Rintelen,” he replied.
“You mean von Rintelen?” I asked, using the aristocratic prefix which Rintelen had assumed.
“No!” bellowed Wolpert. “Not von, damn him—Rintelen!”
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