Page:The web (1919).djvu/240

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at sunrise. Mr. S—— was visited at his office by an A. P. L. man, who did not make himself known. He was very much exercised over the fact that the place of his business was known. He requested that his personal and business relations should not be linked up together. Mr. P—— is still in business in New York, no doubt waiting for the next war.

Northern New Jersey was the field for many reports of mysterious signal lights along the seacoast. Most of these stories had small foundation, but at least one of these would have come to something had not the Armistice cut off the investigation. In this case, operators were sometimes out for hours watching for the flashlights, and once a squad of military reserves lay on watch practically all night around a suspect's house. They discovered night signaling with a search-light and calcium-light at different places over the Northeastern part of Bergen County, and there seemed to be evidence of a system of signaling extending from the Hudson River in New Jersey, across Bergen County up into the Ramapo Mountains and the Greenwood Lake district in New York. The observers used surveying transits for spotting the lights, and by means of this instrument, were able to obtain the angles of the lights. These angles were then plotted, and the inter-*section points gave approximately the location of the light. This work resulted in the location of three individuals, but at about this time the Armistice ended the signals and the apparent necessity for watching them. There had been discovered, however, some real foundation for a signal light scare in this district.

Ridgewood had another strange case—a German who claimed to be so sick that he could not live long—who wanted to go back home in order to die in the dear old Fatherland. Medical examination showed that he probably would die sometime, but the A. P. L. examination led to the refusal of his passports, it being believed that he might carry something to Germany besides fatal disease.

Newark, the capital of Northern New Jersey Division, had a very baffling pro-German case where it was difficult to find anything on which a legal prosecution could be brought. The facts were such as resulted in the social