The Stolen War-Secret. Arthur B. Reeve
“Private dining-rooms upstairs?” inquired Kennedy nonchalantly of the waiter as he came around again for orders.
“Yes,” he replied. “There’s a little party on up there in one of them tonight.”
Our friend Neumeyer and his guest had left some time before, and now there seemed to be little reason why we should stay.
“We have gained an entrée, anyhow,” observed Kennedy, moving as if he were going.
He rose, walked over to the door and out into the hall. Down the staircase we could hear floating snatches of conversation from above. In fact it seemed as if in several of the dining-rooms there were parties of friends. One was particularly gay, and it was easy to conjecture that that was the party of which Señora Ruiz was the life.
Craig rejoined me at the table quickly, having looked about at practically all the private dining-rooms without exciting suspicion.
“It’s all very interesting,” he observed to me. “But although it has added to our list of acquaintances considerably, I can’t say this visit has given us much real information. Still you never can tell, and until I am ready to come out in what I call my ‘open investigation,’ these are acquaintances worth cultivating. I have no doubt that Valcour and Sinclair would have been welcomed by that Ruiz party, and certainly from their actions it can not be that it is generally known yet that Valcour is dead.”
“No,” I agreed.
I had been going over in my mind the names of those we had met and the names I had heard mentioned. Not once had any one said the name of Morelos.
“There has been no one of the name of Morelos here,” I suggested to Craig.
“No,” he answered with a covert glance around. “And I did not make any inquiries. You may have noticed that all these people here seem to be supporters of the Government. I was about to inquire about him once when it suddenly occurred to me that he might be connected with the rebels, the Constitutionalists. I thought it would be discretion to refrain from even mentioning his name before these Federals.”
“Then perhaps Sinclair is playing the game with both factions,” I conjectured hastily, adding, “and Valcour was doing the same—is that what you mean?”
“The dancing has begun again,” he hinted to me, changing the subject to one less dangerous.
I took the hint and for a few moments we watched the people in the sensuous mazes of some of the new steps. Intently as I looked, I could see not the slightest evidence that any one in the cabaret knew of the terrible tragedy that had overtaken one of the habitués.
As I watched I wondered whether there might have been a love triangle of some kind. It had all been very unconventional. Had the Bohemian Valcour come between some of these fiery lovers? I could not help thinking of the modern dances, especially as Valcour must have danced them. I could almost imagine the flash of those tango-slippers and her beautiful ankle, the swaying of her lithe body. What might she not do in arousing passions?
Speculate as I might, however, I always came back to the one question, “Who was the mysterious Señor Morelos?”
I could think of no answer and was glad when Kennedy suggested that perhaps we had seen enough for one night.
III. The Secret Service
CHAPTER III
THE SECRET SERVICE
WE HAD scarcely turned down the street when I noticed that a man in a slouch-hat, pulled down over his eyes, was walking toward us.
As he passed I thought he peered out at us suspiciously from under the shelter of the hat.
He turned and followed us a step or two.
“Kennedy!” he exclaimed.
If a fourteen-inch gun had been fired off directly behind us, I could not have been more startled. Here, in spite of all our haste and secrecy, we were followed, watched—even known.
Craig had wheeled about suddenly, prepared for anything.
For an instant we looked at the man, wondering what to expect next from him.
“By Jove! Walter!” exclaimed Kennedy, almost before I had time to take in the situation. “It’s Burke of the Secret Service!”
“The same,” greeted a now familiar voice. “How are you?” he asked joining us and walking slowly down the street.
“Working on a case,” replied Kennedy colorlessly, meantime searching Burke’s face to discover whether it might be to our advantage to take him in on the secret.
“How did you come here?”
We had turned the corner and were standing in the deserted street near an electric light. Burke unfolded a newspaper which he had rolled up and was carrying in his hand.
“These newspaper fellows don’t let much get past them,” he said with a nod and a twinkle of his eye toward me. “I suppose you have seen this?”
He handed us a “war” extra.
We had not seen it, for our prolonged stay in the Mexican cabaret had, for the time being at least, superseded the interest which had taken us into the Vanderveer in the first place to look at the ticker. In the meantime an enterprising newspaper had rushed out its late edition with an extra.
Across the top of the page in big red-ink letters sprawled the headline:
WAR SECRETS STOLEN
The news account, in a little box at the bottom of the page where it had evidently been dropped in at the last moment, was also in red. It was meager, but exciting:
Plans which represent the greatest war secret of the Government have been stolen, it was learned today semi-officially in Washington.
The entire machinery of the Secret Service has been put into operation to recover the stolen documents.
Just what the loss is could not be learned by our correspondent from any one in authority, but the general activity of both the Secret Service and the War College seems to confirm the rumors current in the capital tonight.
As nearly as can be ascertained, it is believed that the information, if it has fallen into the hands of the Mexican Government, may prove particularly dangerous, and, while official Washington is either denying or minimizing the loss, it is reported indirectly that if the truth were known it would arouse great public concern.
That was all. Only pressure of time and the limited space of the box in which the news appeared had prevented its elaboration into a column or two of conjecture.
“What were the plans?” both Craig and I asked almost together as we read the extra. “Is that what brings you to New York?”
Burke leaned over to us excitedly and though there was no possibility of being overheard whispered hoarsely—
“I couldn’t have met any one I’d rather see just at this very moment.”
He regarded us frankly a few seconds, then queried—
“You remember that case we had where the anarchist used wireless?”
“Yes,” replied Kennedy, “telautomatics—exploding bombs at long range by Hertzian wave impulses.”