Adventure Magazine, Mid-September 1917 — page 121: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Vanished Plans not pursue the subject. Instead I asked, “But how did Maxwell get the plarts, and when did you first suspect him?” According to Colonel Levin’s statement, Maxwell had not entered the office until after the plans had been lost. Brock lit a cigaret and crossed his hands behind his head. “Well, Peel, I knew that some one had taken the plans; obviously they couldn’t disappear of themselves. Circumstances pointed to the colonel, but somehow I sus- pected Maxwell. He has naturally a dis- honest face, and his sickness, which I thought might be assumed, made him look more like a thief than ever. But I could think of no means by which he could have obtained the papers. “Then, you remember an envelope blew off the desk, and the clerk picked it up with the hand over whose arm the poncho was thrown. Ina flash the answer came to me. While the colonel was talking to Rawlins the wind blew the papers into a corner, and when he returned to look for them naturally they were gone. You know how short- sighted and excitable Levin is. When he didn’t see the papers, he no doubt began to wonder whether he had actually left them on the desk. ‘“‘The more he searched, the more excited and confused he became until, by the time he had finished the desk, he was completely in the air. Iam certain he thought he had examined every nook and corner of that room, and equally certain that he could almost have stepped on the papers without seeing them. The idea that he had lost them would take possession of his mind and completely dominate it. “Then he did the worst thing he could have done. He called in Maxwell and told him the papers were gone. Of course, the clerk, who knew their value, found them immediately. Now comes the curious fea- ture—Maxwell’s sickness. It was real and he had, as he said, come in with his hat and raincoat to ask permission to go home. But for that circumstance he would to-day be actually, if not potentially, an honest man. Those are the things which make cases of this kind baffling. “Without doubt Maxwell’s first impulse was to return the papers. Instead of doing so, he simply dropped his coat over them and said nothing. He-was committed to the crime. During the colonel’s absence 119 from the room, he hid them as he thought securely in his poncho, and seized the first opportunity of carrying them off. “His plan might have worked, and I might never have been lucky enough to dis- cover it but for one thing—his picking up — that envelope. As he did so I saw that he had something under his coat, something wrapped in blue paper.”’ “But why did you let him go, instead of exposing him then?” I asked somewhat puzzled, for it came back to me that Brock had suggested to the colonel that he excuse Maxwell. “He might have gotten away with the papers, and certainly the colonel would have been saved a peck of worry.” Brock smiled grimly. ‘Well the colonel may have had some of the worry coming to him, the way he has been messing up things, and then getting as mad as a hornet if you suggest that he is not the most alert man inthe Army. At any rate, it was for the good of the service. ‘““As for Maxwell, he never had a chance to get away. You remember I left the room, ostensibly to get my cigarets. In reality I went to put Malden, one of my men, on Maxwell’s track. Both he and the plans which he hid in the bed at his house, have been watched every moment since he left the building. For months we have _been trying to get at the bottom of the espionage which we knew was going on, and when I found that the clerk had stolen such important plans, I knew it was my chance. I knew that either he was a mem- ber of the gang, or he must get in touch with if to dispose of them. ‘Through him I might reach the man [I had been after. “The general at first suspected Colonel Levin also and had him watched, while I sent Segundo out to chum with Maxwell’s boy. Apparently he was not one of the gang, but shortly after leaving the hospital he got in touch with the Bazaar of the Ris- ing Sun crowd. Then I became a Zao, both for the purpose of watching the place and of keeping in touch with my agents. Nobody ever suspects one of these old Filipinos. “Matters simply came to a head sooner than I had expected—and luckily I found you at Clarke’s. I broke the vase to learn whether Haichi Kamura was still in the shop. Unconsciously anybody in the back room would look out on hearing a crash like that. There is a secret entrance to another store opening on the Escolta. COmicloo It was being C©