June 27, 2023 • 31 mins
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Espionage adventures, Covert operations, Thrilling missions, International intrigue, Spy thriller, Government agents, Undercover work, Secret intelligence, Political espionage, Intriguing conspiracies, High-stakes espionage, Intelligence gathering, Hidden identities, Espionage secrets, Political thrillers, Spy network, Secret missions, Classified operations, Intrigue and suspense, Government secrets
Espionage adventures, Covert operations, Thrilling missions, International intrigue, Spy thriller, Government agents, Undercover work, Secret intelligence, Political espionage, Intriguing conspiracies, High-stakes espionage, Intelligence gathering, Hidden identities, Espionage secrets, Political thrillers, Spy network, Secret missions, Classified operations, Intrigue and suspense, Government secrets
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Chapter eleven lost one hundred thousand dollars. I stopped on my way here to
night and laid in a supply ofsomething that I don't often use, chewing
gum, said Bill Quinn, formerlyof the Secret Service, as he settled
back comfortably to enjoy an evening's chat. There are some professional reformers who maintain
(00:25):
that the great American habit of silentlyworking the jaws over a wad of chewing
gum is harmful in the extreme.But if you'll look into the matter,
you'll find that agitators of that typewant you to cut out all habits except
those which they are addicted to.Personally, I'm not a habitual worshiper at
(00:48):
the shrine of the Great God Gum, but there's no use denying the fact
that it does soothe one nerves occasionally. Incidentally, it has other uses,
as Elmer Allison discovered not very longago. Yes, I inquired, sensing
the fact that Quinn had a storyup his sleeve and was only awaiting the
(01:11):
opportunity to spring it. Didn't youmention a Post office case in which a
watt of gum played a prominent role. That's the one, said the former
government operative, easing his wounded leginto a less cramped position. Here have
a couple of sticks, just toget the proper atmosphere, and I'll see
(01:34):
if I can recall the details.For some reason that's hard to define,
Quinn went on after he had peeledtwo of the dun colored sticks and commenced
work on them. Krooks in general, and amateur krooks in particular, seemed
to regard the United States mails asparticularly easy prey. Possibly they figure that,
(01:57):
as millions of dollars are handled bythe Post Office Department every year,
a little here and there won't bemissed. But if they knew the high
percentage of mail robberies that are solved, they wouldn't be so keen to tackle
the game. Lifting valuables once theyhave passed into the hands of Uncle Sam's
(02:19):
postman is a comparatively easy crime tocommit. There are dozens of ways of
doing it, methods which range allthe way from fishing letters out of a
post box with a piece of stringand a hairpin to holding up the mail
car in a deserted portion of arailroad track. But getting away with it
(02:39):
is, as our Yiddish friends say, something else again, the annals of
the Postal Inspection Service are filled withincidents which indicate that the high cost of
living is down around zero compared tothe high cost of crime when said crime
is aimed at the mail. Thereare scores of men in Atlanta, Leavenworth
(03:04):
and other federal prisons whose advice wouldbe to try murder, forgery, or
arson rather than attempt to earn adishonest living by stealing valuable letters. The
majority of persons realize that it paysto register their money and ensure their packages,
because once this precaution has been attendedto, the government exercises special care
(03:27):
in the handling of these and makesit extremely difficult for krooks to get anywhere
near them. If a registered letterdisappears, there is a clean cut trail
of signed receipts to follow, andsomebody has to bear the burden of the
loss. But even with these precautions, the registered section is looted every now
(03:49):
and then. One of the biggestcases of this kind on record was that
which occurred in Columbus, when letterswith an aggregate value of one hundred thousand
dollars just vanished into thin air.Of course, they didn't all disappear at
one time, but that made itall the more mysterious, because the thefts
(04:12):
were spread out over a period ofsome five or six weeks, and they
went on just as regularly as clockwork, in spite of the precautions. To
the contrary. The first of thelosses, as I recall, it,
was a shipment of ten thousand dollarsin large bills sent by a Chicago bank
(04:32):
to a financial concern in Columbus.When working on that single case, of
course, the officials of the departmentwere more or less in the dark as
to the precise place that the disappearanceshad taken place, in spite of the
fact that there were the usual signedslips indicating that the package had been received
(04:54):
at the Columbus post office. Butclerks who were in a hurry sometime sign
receipts without being any too careful tocheck up the letters or packages to which
they refer, a highly reprehensible practice, but one which is the outgrowth of
the shortage of help. It wasquite within the bounds of possibility, for
(05:16):
example, for the package to havebeen abstracted from the Chicago office without the
loss being discovered until Columbus checked upon the mail which was due there.
But a week or ten days latercame the second of the mysterious disappearances,
another envelope containing bills of large denomination, this time en route from Pittsburgh to
(05:41):
Columbus. When a third loss occurredthe following fortnight, the headquarters of the
Postal Inspection Service in Washington became distinctlyexcited, and every man who could be
spared was turned loose. In aneffort to solve the problem, orders were
given to shadow all the employees whohad access to the registered mail, with
(06:03):
a view to discovering whether they hadmade any change in their personal habits,
whether they had displayed an unusual amountof money within the past month, or
whether their family had shown signs ofexceptional prosperity. It was while the chief
was waiting for these reports that ElmerAllison blew into Washington unexpectedly and strolled into
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the room in the big gray stonetower of what was then the Post Office
Department building with the news that hehad solved the poison pen case in Kansas
City and was ready to tackle somethingelse. The Chief, to put it
mildly, was surprised and inquired whyin the name of the seven hinges of
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Hades. Allison hadn't made his reportdirectly to the office by mail. That
was a pretty important case. ChiefElmer replied, I didn't want to take
any chances of the findings being lostin the registered mail. Then, grinning,
he continued, I understand you've beenhaving a bit of trouble out in
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Columbus. Who told you about that? Growled the Chief. Oh you can't
keep things like that under your hat, even if you do succeed in keeping
them out of the papers. RetortedAllison, A little bird tipped me off
to it three weeks ago, andand you determined to leap back here as
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soon as you could so that youwould be assigned to the case. Eh,
you guessed at Chief. I wantedto try at the Columbus affair,
and I was afraid I wouldn't getit unless I put the matter personally up
to you. How about it?As it happens, you lost about two
(07:53):
days of valuable time in coming here. Instead of wiring for further instructions from
Kansas City. The Chief told himI had intended taking you off that anonymous
letter case by noon tomorrow, whetheryou'd finished it or not. For this
is a far more important detail.Somebody's gotten away with fifty thousand dollars so
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far, and there's no pardon me, sir, but there's a wire which
has just arrived from Rogers in Columbus. Thought you'd like to see it at
once, and the Chief Secretary LadyYellow slip face upward on his desk.
Allison, who was watching closely,saw a demonstration of the reason why Official
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Washington maintained that the chief of thePostal Inspection Service had the best poker face
in the capital. Not a musclein his countenance changed as he read the
telegram, and then glanced up atAllison, continuing his sentence precisely where he
had been interrupted. Reason to supposethat the thief is going to stop there
(09:03):
This wire from Rogers, the postmasterat Columbus announces the loss of a fourth
package of bills fifty thousand this time. That's the biggest yet, and it
brings the total deficit up to onehundred thousand dollars. Rogers says that the
banks are demanding instant action and threateningto take the case to headquarters, which
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means that it'll spread all over thepapers. Congress will start an investigation,
some of us will lose our officialheads, and in the mix up,
the man who's responsible for the losseswill probably make a clean getaway. Then,
with a glance at the clock whichfaced his desk, there's a train
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for Columbus in twenty minutes, Allison, can you make it. It's less
than ten minutes to the station,replied the operative. That gives me plenty
of leeway. Well move and movefast, snapped the chief. I'll wire
Columbus that you've been given complete chargeof the case, but try to keep
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it away from the papers as longas you can. The department has come
in for enough criticism lately without complicatingthe issue from the outside. Good luck,
and Allison was out of the dooralmost before he had finished speaking.
Alison reached Columbus that night, butpurposely delayed reporting for work until the following
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morning. In the first place,there was no telling how long the case
would run, and he felt thatit was the part of wisdom to get
all the rest he could in orderto start fresh. The poison pen puzzle
hadn't been exactly easy to saw,and his visit to Washington, though brief,
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had been sufficiently long for him whoabsorbed some of the nervous excitement which
permeated the department. Then too,he figured that Postmaster Rogers would be worn
out by another day of worry,and that both of them would be better
for a night's undisturbed sleep. Nineo'clock the next morning, however, saw
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him seated in one of the comfortablechairs which adorned the postmaster's private office.
Rogers, who did not put inan appearance until ten, showed plainly the
results of the strain under which hewas laboring. For he was a political
appointee who had been in office onlya comparatively short time, a man whose
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temperament resented the attacks launched by theopposition, and who felt that publication of
the facts connected with the lost onehundred thousand dollars would spell ruin both to
his own hopes and those of thelocal organization. Alison found that the chief
had wired an announcement of his comingthe day before, and that Rogers was
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almost pitifully relieved to know that thecase was in the hands of the man
who had solved nearly a score ofthe problems which had risen in the service
during the past few years. Howmuch do you know about the case inquired
the postmaster. Only what I learnedindirectly and from what the chief told me
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was Allison's reply. I understand thatapproximately one hundred thousand dollars is missing from
this post office. Here Rogers instinctivelywinced as he thought of the criticism which
this announcement would cause if it weremade outside the office. But I haven't
any of the details. Neither havewe, unfortunately, was the answer.
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If we had had a few morewe might have been able to prevent the
last theft. You know about that, of course, the fifty thousand dollars.
Yes, the chief told me thatyou had wired well. That incident
is typical of the other three.Banks in various parts of the country have
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been sending rather large sums of moneythrough the mails to their correspondence here.
There's nothing unusual in that at thistime of the year. But within the
past five or six weeks there havebeen four packages or rather large envelopes of
money which have failed to be accountedfor. They ranged all the way from
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ten thousand dollars the first loss,to the fifty thousand dollars which disappeared within
the past few days. I purposelydelayed wiring Washington until we could make a
thorough search of the whole place,going over the registry room with a fine
tooth comb, thus warning every manin it that he was under suspicion,
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muttered Allison. What was that?Rogers inquired? Nothing, nothing at all,
just talking to myself. Far froma good habit, But don't mind
it. I've got some queer ones. You didn't find anything, of course
in the building, No, nota thing. But I thought it best
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to make a thorough clean up herebefore I bothered Washington with a report.
What about the men who've been workingon the case up to this time?
Now one of them has been ableto turn up anything that could be dignified
by the term clue, as Ibelieve you detectives call it. Yes,
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that's the right word, agreed theoperative. At least all members of the
Detective story Writers Union employ it frequentlyenough to make it fit the case.
What lines have Boyd and the othermen here been following at my suggestion they
made a careful examination into the privatelives of all employees of the Post Office,
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including myself. Rogers answered a bitpompously. I did not intend to
evade the slightest responsibility in the matter. So I turned over my bank book,
the key to my safe deposit vault, and even allowed them to search
my house from cellar to garret.Was this procedure followed with respect to all
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the other employees in the building.No, only one or two of the
highest personal friends of mine, whomI could trust and keep silent. I
didn't care to swear out search warrantsfor the residences of all the people who
work here. And that's what itwould have meant if they had raised any
objection and their cases. The investigationwas confined to inquiries concerning their expenditures in
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the neighborhood, unexpected prosperity, andthe like, with what result none at
all. From all appearances, thereisn't a soul in this building who has
had ten cents more during the pastsix weeks than he possessed in any like
period for two years back. DidBoyd or any of the other department operatives
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asked to see the plans of thepost office? Inquired Allison, taking another
tack, though, what the plansof the post office? The blueprint prepared
at the time that the building waserected. No, why should they I
thought they might have been interested init. That's all, was Allison's answer,
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But anyone who knew him would havenoted that his tone was just a
trifle too nonchalant to be entirely truthful. By the way, added the operative,
Might I see it the blueprint?Yes, you will probably find it
in a safe, if you'll havesome one look it up. I'll be
(17:17):
back in half an hour to examineit, said Alison. Meanwhile, I'll
talk to Boyd and the other menalready on the ground and see if I
can dig anything out of what they'vediscovered. But Boyd and his associates were
just as relieved as Rogers had beento find that the case had been placed
in Allison's hands. Four weeks andmore of steady work had left them precisely
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where they had commenced, several milesback of that point, as one of
them admitted, for three more stuntshave been pulled off right under our eyes.
The personal as well as the officialrecord of every man and woman in
the Columbus Post Office had been goneover with a microscope without the slightest result.
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If the germ of dishonesty was present, it was certainly well hidden.
We'll try another and more powerful lens, Allison stated as he turned back to
the postmaster's private office. By theway, BOYD, have you or any
of your men been in the servicemore than four years? No, I
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don't think any of us has.What's that got to do with it?
Not a thing in the world asfar as your ability is concerned. But
there is one point that every oneof you overlooked because you never heard of
it. I'm going to try itout myself now, and I'll let you
know what develops with that. Allisonturned and sauntered back into Rogers's office.
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There, spread upon the desk wasthe missing blueprint, Christ and dusty from
disuse. First time you ever sawthis, eh, Allison inquired of the
postmaster the first time I even knewit was there? Admitted that official.
How'd you know where to find it? I didn't. But there's an ironclad
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rule of the department that plans ofthis nature are to be kept under lock
and key for just such emergencies asthis. But I guess your predecessor was
too busy to worry you with details. Rogers grunted. It was an open
secret that the postmaster, who hadpreceded him had not been any too friendly
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to his successor. Alison did notpursue the subject, but spread the plan
upon the unoccupied table so that hecould examine it with care. If you'll
be good enough to lock that door, Postmaster erected, I'll show you something
else about your building that you didn'tknow, but I don't want anybody else
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coming in while we're discussing it.Puzzled but feeling that the government detective ought
to be allowed to handle things inhis own way, Rogers turned the key
in the lock and came over tothe table where Allison stood. Do you
see that little square marked with awhite star and the letter, l asked
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Elmer, Yes, what is it? What is this large room next to
it, counted the operative. Whythat's the Registry room, precisely and concealed
in the wall, and a spotknown only to persons familiar with this blueprint
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is a tiny closet or lookout.That's what the L means, and that's
the reason that there's a strict ruleabout guarding plans of this nature very carefully.
You mean to say that a placehas been provided for supervision of the
Registry division, A room from whichthe clerks can be watched without their knowledge
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exactly, and such a precaution hasbeen taken in practically every post off is
of any size in the country.Only the older men in the service know
about it, which is the reasonthat neither Boyd nor any of his men
asked to see this set of plans. The next step is to find the
key to the lookout and start inon a very monotonous spell of watchful waiting.
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You have the bunch of master keys, of course, yes, they're
in the safe where the plans werekept. Just a moment and I'll get
them. When Rogers produced the collectionof keys, Alison ran hurriedly over them
and selected one which bore on thehandle a small six pointed star, corresponding
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to the mark on the blueprint.Want to go up with me and investigate
the secret chamber, he inquired.I certainly do, agreed Rogers. But
there's one point where this room won'thelp us in the slightest How did the
thief get the mail containing the moneyout of the building. You know the
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system that maintains in the registry room. It's practically impossible for a sheet of
paper to be taken out of there, particularly when we are on guard as
we are. Now. That's true, Alison admitted, But it's been my
experience the problems which appear the mostpuzzling are, after all, the simplest
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of explanation. You remember the Philadelphiamint robbery, the one the Drummond solved
in less than six hours. Thismay prove to be just as easy there.
Allison was wrong, dead wrong,as he had to admit some ten
days later, when worn with thestrain of sitting for hours at a time
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with his eyes glued to the ventilatorwhich masked the opening to the lookout,
he finally came to the conclusion thatsomething would have to be done to speed
things up. It was true thatno new robberies had occurred in the meantime,
but neither had any of the oldones been punished. The lost one
hundred thousand dollars was still lost,though the department, with the aid of
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the Treasury officials, had seen thatthe banks were reimbursed. The decoy letter
thought, Allison is probably the oldestdodge in the world, But who knows,
it may work again in this case, provided we stage manage it sufficiently
carefully, with the assistance of thecashier of one of the local banks,
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Elmer arranged to have a dummy packageof money forwarded by mail from New York.
It was supposed to contain thirty fivethousand dollars in cash, and all
the formalities were complied with precisely asif thirty five thousand dollars bills were really
inside the envelope instead of as manysheets of blank paper carefully arranged. On
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the morning of the day the envelopewas due to reach Columbus, Allison took
up his position close to the grilland the lookout. His eyes strained to
catch the slightest suspicious movement below.Hour after hour passed uneventfully until almost immediately
below him he saw a man dropsomething on the floor. Two envelopes had
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slipped from his hands, and hestooped to pick them up. That was
all, but what carried a thrillto the operative in the lookout was the
fact that one of the envelopes wasthe dummy sent from New York, and
that when the man straightened up,he had only one of the two in
his hands. The dummy had disappeared. Allison rubbed his eyes and looked again.
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No, he was right the postalclerk had in some manner disposed of
the envelope supposed to contain thirty fivethousand dollars, and he was going about
his work in precisely the same wayas before. Wait a minute, Allison
argued to himself, there's something missingbesides the envelope. What is it.
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A moment later he had the clueto the whole affair. The jaws of
the clerk, which Allison had previouslyand subconsciously noted were always hard at work
on a wad of gum, nowwere at rest for the first time since
the operative had entered the lookout.The chew gum and the dummy packet had
disappeared at the same time. Itdidn't take Elmer more than thirty seconds to
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reach Rogers's office, and he enteredwith a startling announcement that an envelope containing
thirty five thousand dollars had just disappearedfrom the registry room. What, demanded
the postmaster, How do you knowI haven't received any report of it.
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No, and you probably wouldn't forsome time, Elmer retorted, But it
happens that I saw it disappear,then you know where it is. I
can lay my hands on it andprobably the rest of the missing money inside
of one minute. Let's pay avisit to the registry room before entering the
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section. However, Allison took theprecaution of posting men at both of the
doors. After I'm inside, hedirected, don't allow anyone to leave on
any pretext whatever, and stand readyfor trouble in case it develops. Come
on, mister Rogers. Once inthe room devoted to the handling of registered
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mail, Allison made directly for thedesk under the lookout. The occupant regarded
their approach with interest, but apparentlywithout a trace of anxiety. I'd like
to have that letter supposed to containthirty five thousand dollars which you'd dropped in
the floor a few moments ago,Elmer remarked, in a quiet, almost
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conversational tone. Except for a suddenstart, the clerk appeared the picture of
innocence. What letter he parried?You know what? One, snapped Allison,
dropping his suave manner and moving hishand significantly toward his coat pocket.
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Will you produce it or shall I? I don't know what you're talking about,
stammered the clerk. No, well, I'll show you, and the
operative's hands flashed forward, and therewas a slight click as a pair of
handcuffs snapped into place. Now,mister Rogers, you'll be good enough to
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watch me carefully, as your evidencewill probably be needed in court, I'll
show you as simple and clever ascheme as I've ever run across. With
that, Allison dropped to the floor, wormed his way under the table desk,
tugged at something for a moment,and then rose, holding five large
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envelopes in his hands. There's yourlost one hundred thousand dollars, he explained,
and a dummy packet of thirty fivethousand dollars to boot. Thought you
could get away with it indefinitely,a he inquired of the handcuffed clerk.
If you'd stopped with that one hundredthousand dollars, as you'd probably intended to
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do, you might have. Butthat extra letter turned the trick too bad.
It contained only blank paper, andhe ripped the envelope open to prove
his assertion. But but I don'tunderstand, faltered Rogers. How did this
a man work it right under oureyes? He didn't, declared Allison.
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He tried to work it right undermine, but he couldn't get away with
it. The plan was simplicity itself. He'd slip an envelope, which he
knew contained a large sum of money, out of the pile as it passed
him. He hadn't signed for them, so he wasn't taking any special risk,
drop it on the floor, stoopover, and if he was,
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and being watched, attach it tothe bottom of his desk with a wad
of chewing gum. You boasted thatyou went over the room with a fine
toothed comb, But who would thinkof looking on the underside of this table.
The idea, of course, wasthat he'd wait for the storm to
blow over, because the letters couldremain in their hiding place for months if
(30:23):
necessary, and then start on alifelong vacation with his spoils as capital.
But he made the error of overcapitalization. And I very much fear that
he'll put in at least ten yearsat Leavenworth or Morgantown. But I'd like
to bet he never choose another pieceof gum. That continued Quinn, as
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he tossed another pink wrapper into thewaistebasket. I consider the simplest and cleverest
scheme to beat the government that Iever heard of, better even than Cochrane's
plan in connection with the robbery ofthe Philadelphia Mint, because it didn't necessitate
any outside preparation at all. Theright job, a piece of gum,
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and there you are. But youmay be sure that whenever an important letter
disappears nowadays, one of the firstplaces searched by the postal inspection operatives is
the lower side of the desks andtables. You can't get away with a
trick twice in the same place.End of Chapter eleven.
Chapter eleven lost one hundred thousand dollars. I stopped on my way here to
night and laid in a supply ofsomething that I don't often use, chewing
gum, said Bill Quinn, formerlyof the Secret Service, as he settled
back comfortably to enjoy an evening's chat. There are some professional reformers who maintain
(00:25):
that the great American habit of silentlyworking the jaws over a wad of chewing
gum is harmful in the extreme.But if you'll look into the matter,
you'll find that agitators of that typewant you to cut out all habits except
those which they are addicted to.Personally, I'm not a habitual worshiper at
(00:48):
the shrine of the Great God Gum, but there's no use denying the fact
that it does soothe one nerves occasionally. Incidentally, it has other uses,
as Elmer Allison discovered not very longago. Yes, I inquired, sensing
the fact that Quinn had a storyup his sleeve and was only awaiting the
(01:11):
opportunity to spring it. Didn't youmention a Post office case in which a
watt of gum played a prominent role. That's the one, said the former
government operative, easing his wounded leginto a less cramped position. Here have
a couple of sticks, just toget the proper atmosphere, and I'll see
(01:34):
if I can recall the details.For some reason that's hard to define,
Quinn went on after he had peeledtwo of the dun colored sticks and commenced
work on them. Krooks in general, and amateur krooks in particular, seemed
to regard the United States mails asparticularly easy prey. Possibly they figure that,
(01:57):
as millions of dollars are handled bythe Post Office Department every year,
a little here and there won't bemissed. But if they knew the high
percentage of mail robberies that are solved, they wouldn't be so keen to tackle
the game. Lifting valuables once theyhave passed into the hands of Uncle Sam's
(02:19):
postman is a comparatively easy crime tocommit. There are dozens of ways of
doing it, methods which range allthe way from fishing letters out of a
post box with a piece of stringand a hairpin to holding up the mail
car in a deserted portion of arailroad track. But getting away with it
(02:39):
is, as our Yiddish friends say, something else again, the annals of
the Postal Inspection Service are filled withincidents which indicate that the high cost of
living is down around zero compared tothe high cost of crime when said crime
is aimed at the mail. Thereare scores of men in Atlanta, Leavenworth
(03:04):
and other federal prisons whose advice wouldbe to try murder, forgery, or
arson rather than attempt to earn adishonest living by stealing valuable letters. The
majority of persons realize that it paysto register their money and ensure their packages,
because once this precaution has been attendedto, the government exercises special care
(03:27):
in the handling of these and makesit extremely difficult for krooks to get anywhere
near them. If a registered letterdisappears, there is a clean cut trail
of signed receipts to follow, andsomebody has to bear the burden of the
loss. But even with these precautions, the registered section is looted every now
(03:49):
and then. One of the biggestcases of this kind on record was that
which occurred in Columbus, when letterswith an aggregate value of one hundred thousand
dollars just vanished into thin air.Of course, they didn't all disappear at
one time, but that made itall the more mysterious, because the thefts
(04:12):
were spread out over a period ofsome five or six weeks, and they
went on just as regularly as clockwork, in spite of the precautions. To
the contrary. The first of thelosses, as I recall, it,
was a shipment of ten thousand dollarsin large bills sent by a Chicago bank
(04:32):
to a financial concern in Columbus.When working on that single case, of
course, the officials of the departmentwere more or less in the dark as
to the precise place that the disappearanceshad taken place, in spite of the
fact that there were the usual signedslips indicating that the package had been received
(04:54):
at the Columbus post office. Butclerks who were in a hurry sometime sign
receipts without being any too careful tocheck up the letters or packages to which
they refer, a highly reprehensible practice, but one which is the outgrowth of
the shortage of help. It wasquite within the bounds of possibility, for
(05:16):
example, for the package to havebeen abstracted from the Chicago office without the
loss being discovered until Columbus checked upon the mail which was due there.
But a week or ten days latercame the second of the mysterious disappearances,
another envelope containing bills of large denomination, this time en route from Pittsburgh to
(05:41):
Columbus. When a third loss occurredthe following fortnight, the headquarters of the
Postal Inspection Service in Washington became distinctlyexcited, and every man who could be
spared was turned loose. In aneffort to solve the problem, orders were
given to shadow all the employees whohad access to the registered mail, with
(06:03):
a view to discovering whether they hadmade any change in their personal habits,
whether they had displayed an unusual amountof money within the past month, or
whether their family had shown signs ofexceptional prosperity. It was while the chief
was waiting for these reports that ElmerAllison blew into Washington unexpectedly and strolled into
(06:27):
the room in the big gray stonetower of what was then the Post Office
Department building with the news that hehad solved the poison pen case in Kansas
City and was ready to tackle somethingelse. The Chief, to put it
mildly, was surprised and inquired whyin the name of the seven hinges of
(06:48):
Hades. Allison hadn't made his reportdirectly to the office by mail. That
was a pretty important case. ChiefElmer replied, I didn't want to take
any chances of the findings being lostin the registered mail. Then, grinning,
he continued, I understand you've beenhaving a bit of trouble out in
(07:11):
Columbus. Who told you about that? Growled the Chief. Oh you can't
keep things like that under your hat, even if you do succeed in keeping
them out of the papers. RetortedAllison, A little bird tipped me off
to it three weeks ago, andand you determined to leap back here as
(07:32):
soon as you could so that youwould be assigned to the case. Eh,
you guessed at Chief. I wantedto try at the Columbus affair,
and I was afraid I wouldn't getit unless I put the matter personally up
to you. How about it?As it happens, you lost about two
(07:53):
days of valuable time in coming here. Instead of wiring for further instructions from
Kansas City. The Chief told himI had intended taking you off that anonymous
letter case by noon tomorrow, whetheryou'd finished it or not. For this
is a far more important detail.Somebody's gotten away with fifty thousand dollars so
(08:16):
far, and there's no pardon me, sir, but there's a wire which
has just arrived from Rogers in Columbus. Thought you'd like to see it at
once, and the Chief Secretary LadyYellow slip face upward on his desk.
Allison, who was watching closely,saw a demonstration of the reason why Official
(08:39):
Washington maintained that the chief of thePostal Inspection Service had the best poker face
in the capital. Not a musclein his countenance changed as he read the
telegram, and then glanced up atAllison, continuing his sentence precisely where he
had been interrupted. Reason to supposethat the thief is going to stop there
(09:03):
This wire from Rogers, the postmasterat Columbus announces the loss of a fourth
package of bills fifty thousand this time. That's the biggest yet, and it
brings the total deficit up to onehundred thousand dollars. Rogers says that the
banks are demanding instant action and threateningto take the case to headquarters, which
(09:28):
means that it'll spread all over thepapers. Congress will start an investigation,
some of us will lose our officialheads, and in the mix up,
the man who's responsible for the losseswill probably make a clean getaway. Then,
with a glance at the clock whichfaced his desk, there's a train
(09:50):
for Columbus in twenty minutes, Allison, can you make it. It's less
than ten minutes to the station,replied the operative. That gives me plenty
of leeway. Well move and movefast, snapped the chief. I'll wire
Columbus that you've been given complete chargeof the case, but try to keep
(10:13):
it away from the papers as longas you can. The department has come
in for enough criticism lately without complicatingthe issue from the outside. Good luck,
and Allison was out of the dooralmost before he had finished speaking.
Alison reached Columbus that night, butpurposely delayed reporting for work until the following
(10:37):
morning. In the first place,there was no telling how long the case
would run, and he felt thatit was the part of wisdom to get
all the rest he could in orderto start fresh. The poison pen puzzle
hadn't been exactly easy to saw,and his visit to Washington, though brief,
(10:58):
had been sufficiently long for him whoabsorbed some of the nervous excitement which
permeated the department. Then too,he figured that Postmaster Rogers would be worn
out by another day of worry,and that both of them would be better
for a night's undisturbed sleep. Nineo'clock the next morning, however, saw
(11:20):
him seated in one of the comfortablechairs which adorned the postmaster's private office.
Rogers, who did not put inan appearance until ten, showed plainly the
results of the strain under which hewas laboring. For he was a political
appointee who had been in office onlya comparatively short time, a man whose
(11:41):
temperament resented the attacks launched by theopposition, and who felt that publication of
the facts connected with the lost onehundred thousand dollars would spell ruin both to
his own hopes and those of thelocal organization. Alison found that the chief
had wired an announcement of his comingthe day before, and that Rogers was
(12:05):
almost pitifully relieved to know that thecase was in the hands of the man
who had solved nearly a score ofthe problems which had risen in the service
during the past few years. Howmuch do you know about the case inquired
the postmaster. Only what I learnedindirectly and from what the chief told me
(12:26):
was Allison's reply. I understand thatapproximately one hundred thousand dollars is missing from
this post office. Here Rogers instinctivelywinced as he thought of the criticism which
this announcement would cause if it weremade outside the office. But I haven't
any of the details. Neither havewe, unfortunately, was the answer.
(12:52):
If we had had a few morewe might have been able to prevent the
last theft. You know about that, of course, the fifty thousand dollars.
Yes, the chief told me thatyou had wired well. That incident
is typical of the other three.Banks in various parts of the country have
(13:16):
been sending rather large sums of moneythrough the mails to their correspondence here.
There's nothing unusual in that at thistime of the year. But within the
past five or six weeks there havebeen four packages or rather large envelopes of
money which have failed to be accountedfor. They ranged all the way from
(13:39):
ten thousand dollars the first loss,to the fifty thousand dollars which disappeared within
the past few days. I purposelydelayed wiring Washington until we could make a
thorough search of the whole place,going over the registry room with a fine
tooth comb, thus warning every manin it that he was under suspicion,
(14:03):
muttered Allison. What was that?Rogers inquired? Nothing, nothing at all,
just talking to myself. Far froma good habit, But don't mind
it. I've got some queer ones. You didn't find anything, of course
in the building, No, nota thing. But I thought it best
(14:26):
to make a thorough clean up herebefore I bothered Washington with a report.
What about the men who've been workingon the case up to this time?
Now one of them has been ableto turn up anything that could be dignified
by the term clue, as Ibelieve you detectives call it. Yes,
(14:48):
that's the right word, agreed theoperative. At least all members of the
Detective story Writers Union employ it frequentlyenough to make it fit the case.
What lines have Boyd and the othermen here been following at my suggestion they
made a careful examination into the privatelives of all employees of the Post Office,
(15:13):
including myself. Rogers answered a bitpompously. I did not intend to
evade the slightest responsibility in the matter. So I turned over my bank book,
the key to my safe deposit vault, and even allowed them to search
my house from cellar to garret.Was this procedure followed with respect to all
(15:37):
the other employees in the building.No, only one or two of the
highest personal friends of mine, whomI could trust and keep silent. I
didn't care to swear out search warrantsfor the residences of all the people who
work here. And that's what itwould have meant if they had raised any
objection and their cases. The investigationwas confined to inquiries concerning their expenditures in
(16:04):
the neighborhood, unexpected prosperity, andthe like, with what result none at
all. From all appearances, thereisn't a soul in this building who has
had ten cents more during the pastsix weeks than he possessed in any like
period for two years back. DidBoyd or any of the other department operatives
(16:30):
asked to see the plans of thepost office? Inquired Allison, taking another
tack, though, what the plansof the post office? The blueprint prepared
at the time that the building waserected. No, why should they I
thought they might have been interested init. That's all, was Allison's answer,
(16:55):
But anyone who knew him would havenoted that his tone was just a
trifle too nonchalant to be entirely truthful. By the way, added the operative,
Might I see it the blueprint?Yes, you will probably find it
in a safe, if you'll havesome one look it up. I'll be
(17:17):
back in half an hour to examineit, said Alison. Meanwhile, I'll
talk to Boyd and the other menalready on the ground and see if I
can dig anything out of what they'vediscovered. But Boyd and his associates were
just as relieved as Rogers had beento find that the case had been placed
in Allison's hands. Four weeks andmore of steady work had left them precisely
(17:44):
where they had commenced, several milesback of that point, as one of
them admitted, for three more stuntshave been pulled off right under our eyes.
The personal as well as the officialrecord of every man and woman in
the Columbus Post Office had been goneover with a microscope without the slightest result.
(18:07):
If the germ of dishonesty was present, it was certainly well hidden.
We'll try another and more powerful lens, Allison stated as he turned back to
the postmaster's private office. By theway, BOYD, have you or any
of your men been in the servicemore than four years? No, I
(18:30):
don't think any of us has.What's that got to do with it?
Not a thing in the world asfar as your ability is concerned. But
there is one point that every oneof you overlooked because you never heard of
it. I'm going to try itout myself now, and I'll let you
know what develops with that. Allisonturned and sauntered back into Rogers's office.
(18:57):
There, spread upon the desk wasthe missing blueprint, Christ and dusty from
disuse. First time you ever sawthis, eh, Allison inquired of the
postmaster the first time I even knewit was there? Admitted that official.
How'd you know where to find it? I didn't. But there's an ironclad
(19:22):
rule of the department that plans ofthis nature are to be kept under lock
and key for just such emergencies asthis. But I guess your predecessor was
too busy to worry you with details. Rogers grunted. It was an open
secret that the postmaster, who hadpreceded him had not been any too friendly
(19:45):
to his successor. Alison did notpursue the subject, but spread the plan
upon the unoccupied table so that hecould examine it with care. If you'll
be good enough to lock that door, Postmaster erected, I'll show you something
else about your building that you didn'tknow, but I don't want anybody else
(20:07):
coming in while we're discussing it.Puzzled but feeling that the government detective ought
to be allowed to handle things inhis own way, Rogers turned the key
in the lock and came over tothe table where Allison stood. Do you
see that little square marked with awhite star and the letter, l asked
(20:27):
Elmer, Yes, what is it? What is this large room next to
it, counted the operative. Whythat's the Registry room, precisely and concealed
in the wall, and a spotknown only to persons familiar with this blueprint
(20:49):
is a tiny closet or lookout.That's what the L means, and that's
the reason that there's a strict ruleabout guarding plans of this nature very carefully.
You mean to say that a placehas been provided for supervision of the
Registry division, A room from whichthe clerks can be watched without their knowledge
(21:14):
exactly, and such a precaution hasbeen taken in practically every post off is
of any size in the country.Only the older men in the service know
about it, which is the reasonthat neither Boyd nor any of his men
asked to see this set of plans. The next step is to find the
key to the lookout and start inon a very monotonous spell of watchful waiting.
(21:38):
You have the bunch of master keys, of course, yes, they're
in the safe where the plans werekept. Just a moment and I'll get
them. When Rogers produced the collectionof keys, Alison ran hurriedly over them
and selected one which bore on thehandle a small six pointed star, corresponding
(22:00):
to the mark on the blueprint.Want to go up with me and investigate
the secret chamber, he inquired.I certainly do, agreed Rogers. But
there's one point where this room won'thelp us in the slightest How did the
thief get the mail containing the moneyout of the building. You know the
(22:23):
system that maintains in the registry room. It's practically impossible for a sheet of
paper to be taken out of there, particularly when we are on guard as
we are. Now. That's true, Alison admitted, But it's been my
experience the problems which appear the mostpuzzling are, after all, the simplest
(22:47):
of explanation. You remember the Philadelphiamint robbery, the one the Drummond solved
in less than six hours. Thismay prove to be just as easy there.
Allison was wrong, dead wrong,as he had to admit some ten
days later, when worn with thestrain of sitting for hours at a time
(23:10):
with his eyes glued to the ventilatorwhich masked the opening to the lookout,
he finally came to the conclusion thatsomething would have to be done to speed
things up. It was true thatno new robberies had occurred in the meantime,
but neither had any of the oldones been punished. The lost one
hundred thousand dollars was still lost,though the department, with the aid of
(23:36):
the Treasury officials, had seen thatthe banks were reimbursed. The decoy letter
thought, Allison is probably the oldestdodge in the world, But who knows,
it may work again in this case, provided we stage manage it sufficiently
carefully, with the assistance of thecashier of one of the local banks,
(24:00):
Elmer arranged to have a dummy packageof money forwarded by mail from New York.
It was supposed to contain thirty fivethousand dollars in cash, and all
the formalities were complied with precisely asif thirty five thousand dollars bills were really
inside the envelope instead of as manysheets of blank paper carefully arranged. On
(24:25):
the morning of the day the envelopewas due to reach Columbus, Allison took
up his position close to the grilland the lookout. His eyes strained to
catch the slightest suspicious movement below.Hour after hour passed uneventfully until almost immediately
below him he saw a man dropsomething on the floor. Two envelopes had
(24:49):
slipped from his hands, and hestooped to pick them up. That was
all, but what carried a thrillto the operative in the lookout was the
fact that one of the envelopes wasthe dummy sent from New York, and
that when the man straightened up,he had only one of the two in
his hands. The dummy had disappeared. Allison rubbed his eyes and looked again.
(25:15):
No, he was right the postalclerk had in some manner disposed of
the envelope supposed to contain thirty fivethousand dollars, and he was going about
his work in precisely the same wayas before. Wait a minute, Allison
argued to himself, there's something missingbesides the envelope. What is it.
(25:40):
A moment later he had the clueto the whole affair. The jaws of
the clerk, which Allison had previouslyand subconsciously noted were always hard at work
on a wad of gum, nowwere at rest for the first time since
the operative had entered the lookout.The chew gum and the dummy packet had
disappeared at the same time. Itdidn't take Elmer more than thirty seconds to
(26:07):
reach Rogers's office, and he enteredwith a startling announcement that an envelope containing
thirty five thousand dollars had just disappearedfrom the registry room. What, demanded
the postmaster, How do you knowI haven't received any report of it.
(26:29):
No, and you probably wouldn't forsome time, Elmer retorted, But it
happens that I saw it disappear,then you know where it is. I
can lay my hands on it andprobably the rest of the missing money inside
of one minute. Let's pay avisit to the registry room before entering the
(26:52):
section. However, Allison took theprecaution of posting men at both of the
doors. After I'm inside, hedirected, don't allow anyone to leave on
any pretext whatever, and stand readyfor trouble in case it develops. Come
on, mister Rogers. Once inthe room devoted to the handling of registered
(27:15):
mail, Allison made directly for thedesk under the lookout. The occupant regarded
their approach with interest, but apparentlywithout a trace of anxiety. I'd like
to have that letter supposed to containthirty five thousand dollars which you'd dropped in
the floor a few moments ago,Elmer remarked, in a quiet, almost
(27:40):
conversational tone. Except for a suddenstart, the clerk appeared the picture of
innocence. What letter he parried?You know what? One, snapped Allison,
dropping his suave manner and moving hishand significantly toward his coat pocket.
(28:02):
Will you produce it or shall I? I don't know what you're talking about,
stammered the clerk. No, well, I'll show you, and the
operative's hands flashed forward, and therewas a slight click as a pair of
handcuffs snapped into place. Now,mister Rogers, you'll be good enough to
(28:26):
watch me carefully, as your evidencewill probably be needed in court, I'll
show you as simple and clever ascheme as I've ever run across. With
that, Allison dropped to the floor, wormed his way under the table desk,
tugged at something for a moment,and then rose, holding five large
(28:48):
envelopes in his hands. There's yourlost one hundred thousand dollars, he explained,
and a dummy packet of thirty fivethousand dollars to boot. Thought you
could get away with it indefinitely,a he inquired of the handcuffed clerk.
If you'd stopped with that one hundredthousand dollars, as you'd probably intended to
(29:11):
do, you might have. Butthat extra letter turned the trick too bad.
It contained only blank paper, andhe ripped the envelope open to prove
his assertion. But but I don'tunderstand, faltered Rogers. How did this
a man work it right under oureyes? He didn't, declared Allison.
(29:36):
He tried to work it right undermine, but he couldn't get away with
it. The plan was simplicity itself. He'd slip an envelope, which he
knew contained a large sum of money, out of the pile as it passed
him. He hadn't signed for them, so he wasn't taking any special risk,
drop it on the floor, stoopover, and if he was,
(30:00):
and being watched, attach it tothe bottom of his desk with a wad
of chewing gum. You boasted thatyou went over the room with a fine
toothed comb, But who would thinkof looking on the underside of this table.
The idea, of course, wasthat he'd wait for the storm to
blow over, because the letters couldremain in their hiding place for months if
(30:23):
necessary, and then start on alifelong vacation with his spoils as capital.
But he made the error of overcapitalization. And I very much fear that
he'll put in at least ten yearsat Leavenworth or Morgantown. But I'd like
to bet he never choose another pieceof gum. That continued Quinn, as
(30:48):
he tossed another pink wrapper into thewaistebasket. I consider the simplest and cleverest
scheme to beat the government that Iever heard of, better even than Cochrane's
plan in connection with the robbery ofthe Philadelphia Mint, because it didn't necessitate
any outside preparation at all. Theright job, a piece of gum,
(31:12):
and there you are. But youmay be sure that whenever an important letter
disappears nowadays, one of the firstplaces searched by the postal inspection operatives is
the lower side of the desks andtables. You can't get away with a
trick twice in the same place.End of Chapter eleven.
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