from the interned liner. With true Teutonic plodding thoroughness he assembled the parts, only to discover that one of the pieces he was certain he had packed, because it would be impossible to get a substitute in Mexico, was missing. He searched his baggage, re-examined the parts, consulted his lists, and to his astonishment and amazement learned that one of the most important features of his instrument was missing. A closer inspection of his baggage showed that it had been opened.
Some one—perhaps it is not necessary to say who, but some one who evidently knew his scheme—had entered his baggage and removed such an essential part of the machine that it could not be used in Mexico unless the part was imported from the United States. And by this time the United States was at war with Germany. This man tried through many agents to get this part from the North; but at the time I left Mexico City, in September, 1917, he was still seeking the missing link.
Some one was just a little bit more clever than he; and that some one must have been an enemy.
Perhaps it was some one in the United States Department of Justice, perhaps some one in the British; or it might have been some one in the New York detective service. It really does not matter who did the work; but it has meant a great deal to the United States to have it impossible for this German subject to erect his wireless station in Mexico.
