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We had not seen it, for our prolonged stay in the Mexican cabaret had, for the time being at least, superseded the interest which had taken us into the Vanderveer in the first place to look at the ticker.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.”
“Exactly. Well—this case goes far beyond even that,” pursued Burke with another glance around. “I need not ask you fellows if I can trust you. We understand each other.” He lowered his voice even more. “The secret that has been stolen is the wireless control of aeroplanes and aerial torpedoes. They use a gyroscope in it—and—oh—I don’t know anything much about mechanics,” he added floundering hopelessly, “but I do know about crime and criminals, and there is some big criminal at work here. That’s in my line, even if I don’t know much about science.”
“Where were the plans stolen?” asked Kennedy. “Surely not from the Government itself in Washington?”
“No,” answered Burke. “They were stolen out on Long Island, at Westport. Colonel Sinclair, the retired army engineer, had a model——”
“Colonel Sinclair?” broke in Kennedy, in turn surprised.
“Yes. You know him?”
Burke looked at Craig for a moment as if he were positively uncanny, and perhaps knew all about what the Secret Service man was about to say, even before he had said it.
Kennedy smiled.
“Not personally,” he replied. “But I have run across him in connection with a case which I am interested in. I understood that he was a friend of a Madame Valcour who has just been discovered dead up at the Vanderveer. It is a most mysterious case. She——”
“Madame Valcour?” interrupted Burke, now in turn himself surprised. “What sort of looking woman was she?”
Kennedy described her briefly, and ran over as much of the case as he felt it prudent to talk about at present.
“She’s one of the very persons I’m trying to get a line on!” ejaculated Burke. “There’s a sort of colony of Latin-Americans out there, across the bay from Sinclair’s. Sinclair knew her—had been automobiling and motor-boating with her. And she’s dead, you say?”
Kennedy nodded.
“Only my old friend the coroner, Dr. Leslie, stands in the way of saying how and by what,” he confirmed impatiently. “What do you know about her?”
Burke had fallen into a study.
“I suspected some of those people out there at Seaville,” he resumed slowly. “I found out that when they are in the city they usually drop in at that Mexican cabaret down the street.”
“We have just come from it,” interjected Kennedy.
“There seemed to be hardly any of them left out at Seaville,” went on Burke. “If any of them has pulled off anything, they have all come to New York for cover. My people at Washington hurried me up to Westport first, and after I looked over the ground I saw nothing to do but come back to New York to watch these Mexicans. I am told they make a sort of rendezvous out of this cabaret.”
“That’s strange,” considered Kennedy thoughtfully.
“Whom did you meet in the cabaret?” asked Burke.
“We just went in, like any other sightseers,” replied Craig. “There was a Señora Ruiz, dancing there——”
“Yes,”
