On Secret Service

by William Nelson Taft

  II

  THE MINT MYSTERY

  "Mr Drummond! Wire for Mr. Drummond! Mr. Drummond, please!"

  It was the monotonous, oft-repeated call of a Western Unionboy--according to my friend Bill Quinn, formerly of the United StatesSecret Service--that really was responsible for solving the mysterywhich surrounded the disappearance of $130,000 in gold from thePhiladelphia Mint.

  "The boy himself didn't have a thing to do with the gold or the findingof it," admitted Quinn, "but his persistence was responsible forlocating Drummond, of the Secret Service, just as he was about to starton a well-earned vacation in the Maine woods. Uncle Sam's sleuths don'tget any too much time off, you know, and a month or so in a part of theworld where they don't know anything about international intrigues anddon't care about counterfeiting is a blessing not to be despised.

  "That's the reason the boy had to be persistent when he was pagingDrummond.

  "The operative had a hunch that it was a summons to another case and hewas dog tired. But the boy kept singing out the name through the trainand finally landed his man, thus being indirectly responsible for thesolution of a mystery that might have remained unsolved for weeks--andincidentally saved the government nearly every cent of the one hundredand thirty thousand dollars."

  * * * * *

  When Drummond opened the telegram [continued Quinn] he found that it wasa summons to Philadelphia, signed by Hamlin, Assistant Secretary of theTreasury.

  "Preston needs you at once. Extremely important," read the wire--and, asDrummond was fully aware that Preston was Director of the United StatesMint, it didn't take much deduction to figure that something had gonewrong in the big building on Spring Garden Street where a large part ofthe country's money is coined.

  But even the lure of the chase--something you read a lot about indetective stories, but find too seldom in the real hard work of tracingcriminals--did not offset Drummond's disappointment in having to deferhis vacation. Grumbling, he gathered his bags and cut across New York tothe Pennsylvania Station, where he was fortunate enough to be able tomake a train on the point of leaving for Philadelphia. At the Mint hefound Director Preston and Superintendent Bosbyshell awaiting him.

  "Mr. Hamlin wired that he had instructed you to come up at once," saidthe director. "But we had hardly hoped that you could make it so soon."

  "Wire reached me on board a train that would have pulled out of GrandCentral Station in another three minutes," growled Drummond. "I was onmy way to Maine to forget all about work for a month. But," and his facebroke into a smile, "since they did find me, what's the trouble?"

  "Trouble enough," replied the director. "Some hundred and thirtythousand dollars in gold is missing from the Mint!"

  "What!" Even Drummond was shaken out of his professional calm, not tomention his grouch. Robbery of the United States Treasury or one of thegovernment Mints was a favorite dream with criminals, but--save for thememorable occasion when a gang was found trying to tunnel underFifteenth Street in Washington--there had been no time when the schemewas more than visionary.

  "Are you certain? Isn't there any chance for a mistake?"

  The questions were perfunctory, rather than hopeful.

  "Unfortunately, not the least," continued Preston. "Somebody has madeaway with a hundred and thirty thousand dollars worth of thegovernment's money. Seven hundred pounds of gold is missing and thereisn't a trace to show how or where it went. The vault doors haven't beentampered with. The combination of the grille inside the vault is intact.Everything, apparently, is as it should be--but fifty bars of gold aremissing."

  "And each bar," mused Drummond, "weighs--"

  "Fourteen pounds," cut in the superintendent.

  Drummond looked at him in surprise.

  "I beg your pardon," said Preston. "This is Mr. Bosbyshell,superintendent of the Mint. This thing has gotten on my nerves so that Ididn't have the common decency to introduce you. Mr. Bosbyshell was withme when we discovered that the gold was missing."

  "When was that?"

  "Yesterday afternoon," replied the director. "Every now and then--atirregular intervals--we weigh all the gold in the Mint, to make surethat everything is as it should be. Nothing wrong was discovered untilwe reached Vault Six, but there fifty bars were missing. There wasn'tany chance of error. The records showed precisely how much should havebeen there and the scales showed how much there was, to the fraction ofan ounce.

  "But even if we had only counted the bars, instead of weighing each oneseparately, the theft would have been instantly discovered, for thevault contained exactly fifty bars less than it should have. It was thenthat I wired Washington and asked for assistance from the SecretService."

  "Thus spoiling my vacation," muttered Drummond. "How many men know thecombination to the vault door?"

  "Only two," replied the superintendent. "Cochrane, who is the officialweigher, and myself. Cochrane is above suspicion. He's been here for thepast thirty years and there hasn't been a single complaint against himin all that time."

  Drummond looked as if he would like to ask Preston if the same could besaid for the superintendent, but he contented himself with listening asBosbyshell continued:

  "But even if Cochrane or I--yes, I'm just as much to be suspected ashe--could have managed to open the vault door unseen, we could not havegotten inside the iron grille which guards the gold in the interior ofthe vault. That is always kept locked, with a combination known to twoother men only. There's too much gold in each one of these vaults totake any chance with, which is the reason for this double protection.Two men--Cochrane and I--handle the combination to the vault door andopen it whenever necessary. Two others--Jamison and Strubel--are theonly ones that know how to open the grille door. One of them has to bepresent whenever the bars are put in or taken away, for the men who canget inside the vault cannot enter the grille, and the men who canmanipulate the grille door can't get into the vault."

  "It certainly sounds like a burglar-proof combination," commentedDrummond. "Is there any possibility for conspiracy between"--and hehesitated for the fraction of a second--"between Cochrane and either ofthe men who can open the grille door?"

  "Apparently not the least in the world," replied Preston. "So far as weknow they are all as honest as the day--"

  "But the fact remains," Drummond interrupted, "that the gold ismissing."

  "Exactly--but the grille door was sealed with the official governmentalstamp when we entered the vault yesterday. That stamp is applied only inthe presence of both men who know the combination. So the conspiracy, ifthere be any, must have included Cochrane, Strubel, and Jamison--insteadof being a two-man job."

  "How much gold did you say was missing?" inquired the Treasuryoperative, taking another tack.

  "Seven hundred pounds--fifty bars of fourteen pounds each," answeredBosbyshell. "That's another problem that defies explanation. How couldone man carry away all that gold without being seen? He'd need a dray tocart it off, and we're very careful about what goes out of the Mint.There's a guard at the front door all the time, and no one is allowed toleave with a package of any kind until it has been examined and passed."

  A grunt was Drummond's only comment--and those who knew the SecretService man best would have interpreted the sound to mean studiousdigestion of facts, rather than admission of even temporary defeat.

  It was one of the government detective's pet theories that every crime,no matter how puzzling, could be solved by application of common-senseprinciples and the rules of logic. "The criminal with brains," he wasfond of saying, "will deliberately try to throw you off the scent. Thenyou've got to take your time and separate the wheat from the chaff--thefalse leads from the true. But the man who commits a crime on the spurof the moment--or who flatters himself that he hasn't left a single cluebehind--is the one who's easy to catch. The cleverest crook in the worldcan't enter a room without leaving his visiting card in some way orother. It's up to you to find that card and read the name on it. An
dcommon sense is the best reading glass."

  Requesting that his mission be kept secret, Drummond said that he wouldlike to examine Vault No. Six.

  "Let Cochrane open the vault for me and then have Jamison and Strubelopen the grille," he directed.

  "Unless Mr. Bosbyshell opened the vault door," Preston reminded him,"there's no one but Cochrane who could do it. It won't be necessary,however, to have either of the others open the grille--the door wastaken from its hinges this morning in order the better to examine theplace and it hasn't yet been replaced."

  "All right," agreed Drummond. "Let's have Cochrane work the outercombination, then. I'll have a look at the other two later."

  Accompanied by the director and the superintendent, Drummond made hisway to the basement where they were joined by the official weigher, aman well over fifty, who was introduced by Preston to "Mr. Drummond, avisitor who is desirous of seeing the vaults."

  "I understand that you are the only man who can open them," said thedetective. "Suppose we look into this one," as he stopped, as if byaccident, before Vault No. 6.

  Cochrane, without a word, bent forward and commenced to twirl thecombination. A few spins to the right, a few to the left, back to theright, to the left once more--and he pulled at the heavy doorexpectantly. But it failed to budge.

  Again he bent over the combination, spinning it rapidly. Still the doorrefused to open.

  "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to help me with this, Superintendent,"Cochrane said, finally. "It doesn't seem to work, somehow."

  But, under Bosbyshell's manipulation, the door swung back almostinstantly.

  "Nothing wrong with the combination," commented Preston.

  Drummond smiled. "Has the combination been changed recently?" he asked.

  "Not for the past month," Bosbyshell replied. "We usually switch all ofthem six times a year, just as a general precaution--but this has beenthe same for the past few weeks. Ever since the fifteenth of last month,to be precise."

  Inside the vault Drummond found that, as Preston had stated, the door tothe grille had been taken from its hinges, to facilitate the work of themen who had weighed the gold, and had not been replaced.

  "Where are the gold bars?" asked the detective. "The place looks like ithad been well looted."

  "They were all taken out this morning, to be carefully weighed," wasPreston's reply.

  "I'd like to see some of them stacked up there along the side of thegrille, if it isn't too much trouble."

  "Surely," said Bosbyshell. "I'll have the men bring them in at once."

  As soon as the superintendent had left the room, Drummond requested thatthe door of the grille be placed in its usual position, and Cochrane setit up level with the floor, leaning against the supports at the side.

  "Is that the way it always stays?" inquired the Secret Service man.

  "No, sir, but it's pretty heavy to handle, and I thought you just wantedto get a general idea of things."

  "I'd like to see it in place, if you don't mind. Here, I'll help youwith it--but we better slip our coats off, for it looks like aman's-sized job," and he removed his coat as he spoke.

  After Cochrane had followed his example, the two of them hung the heavydoor from its hinges and stepped back to get the effect. But Drummond'seyes were fixed, not upon the entrance to the grille, but on the middleof Cochrane's back, and, when the opportunity offered an instant later,he shifted his gaze to the waist of the elder man's trousers. Somethingthat he saw there caused the shadow of a smile to flit across his face.

  "Thanks," he said. "That will do nicely," and he made a quick gesture toPreston that he would like to have Cochrane leave the vault.

  "Very much obliged, Mr. Cochrane," said the director. "We won't botheryou any more. You might ask those men to hurry in with the bars, if youwill."

  And the weigher, pausing only to secure his coat, left the vault.

  "Why all the stage setting?" inquired Preston. "You don't suspect...."

  "I don't suspect a thing," Drummond smiled, searching for his own coat,"beyond the fact that the solution to the mystery is so simple as to bealmost absurd. By the way, have you noticed those scratches on the barsof the grille, about four feet from the floor?"

  "No, I hadn't," admitted the director. "But what of them? These vaultsaren't new, you know, and I dare say you'd find similar marks on thegrille bars in any of the others."

  "I hope not," Drummond replied, grimly, "for that would almostcertainly mean a shortage of gold in other sections of the Mint.Incidentally, has all the rest of the gold been weighed?"

  "Every ounce of it."

  "Nothing missing?"

  "Outside of the seven hundred pounds from this vault, not a particle."

  "Good--then I'll be willing to lay a small wager that you can't find theduplicates of these scratches anywhere else in the Mint." And Drummondsmiled at the director's perplexity.

  When the men arrived with a truck loaded with gold bars, they stackedthem--at the superintendent's direction--along the side of the grillenearest the vault entrance.

  "Is that the way they are usually arranged?" inquired Drummond.

  "Yes--the grille bars are of tempered steel and the openings betweenthem are too small to permit anyone to put his hand through. Therefore,as we are somewhat pressed for space, we stack them up right along theouter wall of the grille and then work back. It saves time and labor inbringing them in."

  "Is this the way the door of the grille ordinarily hangs?"

  Bosbyshell inspected it a moment before he replied.

  "Yes," he said. "It appears to be all right. It was purposely made toswing clear of the floor and the ceiling so that it might not becomejammed. The combination and the use of the seal prevents its beingopened by anyone who has no business in the grille."

  "And the seal was intact when you came in yesterday afternoon?"

  "It was."

  "Thanks," said Drummond; "that was all I wanted to know," and he madehis way upstairs with a smile which seemed to say that his vacation inthe Maine woods had not been indefinitely postponed.

  Once back in the director's office, the government operative askedpermission to use the telephone, and, calling the Philadelphia office ofthe Secret Service, requested that three agents be assigned to meet himdown town as soon as possible.

  "Have you a record of the home address of the people employed in theMint?" Drummond inquired of the director, as he hung up the receiver.

  "Surely," said Preston, producing a typewritten list from the drawer ofhis desk.

  "I'll borrow this for a while, if I may. I'll probably be back with itbefore three o'clock--and bring some news with me, too," and theoperative was out of the room before Preston could frame a singlequestion.

  As a matter of fact, the clock in the director's office pointed totwo-thirty when Drummond returned, accompanied by the three men who hadbeen assigned to assist him.

  "Have you discovered anything?" Preston demanded.

  "Let's have Cochrane up here first," Drummond smiled. "I can't bepositive until I've talked to him. You might have the superintendent in,too. He'll be interested in developments, I think."

  Bosbyshell was the first to arrive, and, at Drummond's request, took upa position on the far side of the room. As soon as he had entered, twoof the other Secret Service men ranged themselves on the other side ofthe doorway and, the moment Cochrane came in, closed the door behindhim.

  "Cochrane," said Drummond, "what did you do with the seven hundredpounds of gold that you took from Vault No. Six during the past fewweeks?"

  "What--what--" stammered the weigher.

  "There's no use bluffing," continued the detective. "We've got the goodson you. The only thing missing is the gold itself, and the sooner youturn it over the more lenient the government will be with you. I knowhow you got the bars out of the grille--a piece of bent wire wassufficient to dislodge them from the top of the pile nearest the grillebars and it was easy to slip them under the door. No wonder t
he seal wasnever tampered with. It wasn't necessary for you to go inside the grilleat all.

  "But, more than that, I know how you carried the bars, one at a time,out of the Mint. It took these three men less than an hour thisafternoon to find the tailor who fixed the false pocket in the front ofyour trousers--the next time you try a job of this kind you betterattend to all these details yourself--and it needed only one look atyour suspenders this morning to see that they were a good deal wider andheavier than necessary. That long coat you are in the habit of wearingis just the thing to cover up any suspicious bulge in your garments andthe guard at the door, knowing you, would never think of telling you tostop unless you carried a package or something else contrary to orders.

  "The people in your neighborhood say that they've seen queer bluishlights in the basement of your house on Woodland Avenue. So I suspectyou've been melting that gold up and hiding it somewhere, ready for aquick getaway.

  "Yes, Cochrane, we've got the goods on you and if you want to save halfof a twenty-year sentence--which at your age means life--come acrosswith the information. Where is the gold?"

  "In the old sewer pipe," faltered the weigher, who appeared to have agedten years while Drummond was speaking. "In the old sewer pipe thatleads from my basement."

  "Good!" exclaimed Drummond. "I think Mr. Preston will use his influencewith the court to see that your sentence isn't any heavier thannecessary. It's worth that much to guard the Mint against future lossesof the same kind, isn't it, Mr. Director?"

  "It surely is," replied Preston. "But how in the name of Heaven did youget the answer so quickly?"

  Drummond delayed his answer until Cochrane, accompanied by the threeSecret Service men, had left the room. Then--

  "Nothing but common sense," he said. "You remember those scratches Icalled your attention to--the ones on the side of the grille bars? Theywere a clear indication of the way in which the gold had been taken fromthe grille--knocked down from the top of the pile with a piece of wireand pulled under the door of the grille. That eliminated Jamison andStrubel immediately. They needn't have gone to that trouble, even if ithad been possible for them to get into the vault in the first place.

  "But I had my suspicions of Cochrane when he was unable to open thevault door. That pointed to nervousness, and nervousness indicated aguilty conscience. I made the hanging of the grille door an excuse toget him to shed his coat--though I did want to see whether the door cameall the way down to the floor--and I noted that his suspenders were verybroad and his trousers abnormally wide around the waist. He didn't wantto take any chances with that extra fourteen pounds of gold, you know.It would never do to drop it in the street.

  "The rest is merely corroborative. I found that bluish lights had beenobserved in the basement of Cochrane's house, and one of my men locatedthe tailor who had enlarged his trousers. That's really all there wasto it."

  With that Drummond started to the door, only to be stopped by DirectorPreston's inquiry as to where he was going.

  "On my vacation, which you interrupted this morning," replied the SecretService man.

  "It's a good thing I did," Preston called after him. "If Cochrane hadreally gotten away with that gold we might never have caught him."

  * * * * *

  "Which," as Bill Quinn said, when he finished his narrative, "is thereason I claim that the telegraph boy who persisted in paging Drummondis the one who was really responsible for the saving of some hundred andthirty thousand dollars that belonged to Uncle Sam."

  "But, surely," I said, "that case was an exception. In rapidity ofaction, I mean. Don't governmental investigations usually take a longtime?"

  "Frequently," admitted Quinn, "they drag on and on for months--sometimesyears. But it's seldom that Uncle Sam fails to land his man--even thoughthe trail leads into the realms of royalty, as in the Ypiranga case.That happened before the World War opened, but it gave the StateDepartment a mighty good line on what to expect from Germany."