Uncle Sam, Detective

by William Atherton DuPuy

Gard delivered his note from President Van Dorn and took great pains to explain the position of the Canadian Northwest Timber Company. He made it clear that his people were on the eve of playing a large part in the paper pulp world. He wanted to ask Randolph's advice about certain matters and he wanted to get in touch with some enterprising young man who knew the manufacturers. To such a young man he might offer an enviable business opportunity. In the meantime he would like a copy of the membership list of the association.

It developed that there was but one such list in existence. It had to be dug up from the association's safe and copied. But the secretary was friendly to this one-time Southerner, now of the north woods; he was a young man who knew the manufacturers, and who would take a look at a business opportunity; he had the note of instruction, somewhat indefinite to be sure, from the president of the association.

Gard secured his list of members. As fast as a taxicab could carry him, he was away to his office, from which requests for prices of paper were dispatched to every firm on the list, in the name of the New York publisher who was helping the Government.

That night the special agent dined with President Van Dorn and other men high in the counsels of the Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association. His position was explained and regrets were generally expressed that he might not be present at the meeting. Only the constitution stood in the way. There was no other reason why one so vitally interested in the welfare of the manufacturers should not be a member. Information of a most exhaustive nature should be given him. Even the minutes of the meeting and copies of addresses should be put at his disposal. He should meet all present.

So Agent Gard loafed about the Waldorf for four days. He was regarded, not merely as a master of finance who was the equal of any of the manufacturers attending the convention, but as the man of them all who held the whip hand. Morning and night he cultivated these men, talked business with them, asked them questions. They told him all that went on in the convention, allowed him to read its minutes. He was the most courted man at the hotel when the word got well circulated that he was the pulp king of the Canadian Northwest.

Gard, of course, had an average number of acquaintances scattered about the country and many of these knew of his association with the Department of Justice. In a New York hotel there is always a chance of meeting friends from any place in the world. Gard was therefore not surprised, on the evening of the manufacturers' banquet which brought the convention to a close, to pass in a corridor two old-time friends, men whom he had known in college. They hailed him vociferously as "Gard, old man." It was against just such an emergency that he had used his own name.

The special agent was at the time going in to dinner with Randolph, the secretary, and a member from Buffalo. Nothing would have come of this chance greeting had it not been that a paper manufacturer was standing beside the two friends of Gard when the latter passed. One of these young men turned to the other and asked:

"What is Gard doing now? I haven't seen him since I left college."

"He is with the Department of Justice," said the second friend. "He is a special agent, a detective working on big trust investigations."

And the manufacturer heard it all. He immediately communicated his information to President Van Dorn. That official lost his urbane equanimity and fluttered about in much confusion, consulting with others in authority. He did not approach Gard, and that young man was all unsuspicious that anything had gone wrong until the time came for after-dinner speeches.