The Great Spy System | Page 4

than that he should apply to one of the big
railroad men and should say to him something like this: 'I am in a
position to get you all the information you require. I am in a position to
tell you, beforehand, all that the government intends to try to do in
regard to railroad legislation. I will give you that information for a
price, and you need not pay me until the goods are delivered. Do you
think that there is one of the railroads that would not jump at the
opportunity?"
"No."
"Well, Mr. Carter, that is the guess I have made which I hesitated to
confide in you, only because it is nothing more than a guess. But my
own opinion is that the activities of Japan, through Baron Mustushimi,
are as great now as they were when you took that other case, but that
now the crafty fellow is biding himself and his men behind a local
employment of some kind, and is prepared to make it appear, in case he
is discovered, that the other information he gets-that which is of real
use to him is only the side issue, and that he is really employed by the
railroads, the coal barons, the packers, the oil interests, or by some
local industry which might be interested in spying upon the
government."
"Mr. President, you have hit the nail squarely on the head, there."
"I have thought it, likely."
"It is the gist of the whole thing, sir."
"I am glad that you agree with me, although of course I am sorry to

think that my own countrymen should deem it necessary to undertake
such a thing as spying upon the government."
"Men will do strange things where their pockets are concerned."
"Or their ambitions--yes."
"I don't suppose, Mr. President, that private conversations of yours
have been reported, of late, have they?"
"Not in the manner they were before, Mr. Carter ; but some of them
have been reported. Of course, now that I am wise as to what was done
before, I am careful not to talk where my face can be seen through a
window-of course I am careful to refrain from conversations with
others when I am where the motion of my lips may be observed; but
you must understand that such occasions do arise, in spite of me."
"Yes."
"And so I am convinced, as I have said before, that it is Mustushimi
who is behind it."
"And you have seen him?"
"I think so."
"Are there as many Japs hanging around the city as formerly?"
"I don't think so; not nearly."
"Mustushmii confessed to me, that other time, that he had two thousand
of them in the country; and that there were two hundred or more in this
city alone."
"Is it not possible that he has found the employment of men of other
nationalities to be advisable, now?" asked the President.
"I was just thinking of that; yes, sir, it is."

"I think that you will find that to be the explanation. Mr. Carter."
"Are there any final instructions that you would like to give me, sir?"
"I can think of nothing more now."
"Does anybody know that you sent for me?"
"No. I wrote the letter myself, and dropped it into a box with my own
hand."
"But of course I was seen to come here. If Mustushimi's system is
anything like as perfect as it was before, he already knows that I am
here."
"That, Mr. Carter, is why I showed some surprise when you came here
so openly."
"I did it purposely, Mr. President."
"Why?"
"Because I guessed at once why you wished to see me, although you
did not mention it in your letter--and because, now that I see I was right,
I want Mustushimi to know that I am on his trail."
"That strikes me as being a new method of pursuing a secret
investigation."
"It is, in one sense. But this case is different from any other."
"How so?"
"If Mustushimi has remained here, and we are practically certain that
he has done so, he has hedged himself around with safeguards so
perfectly that it would be difficult, if not next to impossible, to get a
trace of him by ordinary methods. If he did not suspect that I was
hereafter him, he would simply remain under cover as he is doing now,
taking no extra precautions. But if he believes that I am after him, he

will undertake some extra precautions at once, for he holds me in
wholesome respect, and it is by those very precautions that I will be
able to get first trace of him."
"That is an original way to look at it. Perhaps you are right. Put what do
you suppose