mysterious goings and comings and every sort of dark, secret midnight interview took place. After a long, long time the house of mystery was closed. The inspector was able from other information to tell the operatives what was the matter with his case—which is not reported in full. The inspector said: "Your elderly woman there is the mother of the younger woman, who is married to a worthless scamp, from whom she is seeking a divorce. They have a beautiful home in the mountains of the West, and that is where they go on the mysterious trips you have been noticing so long. Their trunks are filled with valuable papers, and when they finished discussing these, they put them back in the trunks. The little child is the son of the young woman. The reason they rented this isolated house and made a prisoner out of the child was because the father has been trying to kidnap the child. The mysterious chauffeur is the secretary of the ladies. When he enlisted for the war they found cause to weep on that account." The operative had been working on an ordinary society detective story instead of a plot against the United States.
Perhaps these very few random cases may serve to show the variety of the sixty thousand handled in Cleveland. What did it all mean for the safety and security of the United States? Who can measure it? That is a thing impossible. But that the good citizens of Cleveland appreciated what the A. P. L. has done may be seen from abundant local evidence. Under date of December 24 the Cleveland newspapers came out in open condemnation of the wave of crime then threatening the city. The Plain Dealer said very plainly:
The amazing boldness of bandits, burglars and miscellaneous
plug-uglies in Cleveland has finally stirred the city to an insistent
demand that something approaching war methods be
adopted in dealing with them. It is peculiarly irritating to
know that most, if not all, of the criminals are young men of
military age. While better men have been giving their lives
to free the world of the terror of Germanism, these stealthy
enemies have been staging a reign of terror of their own in a
modern American community. The American Protective
League has wisely placed its services at the disposal of the
police. All public spirited citizens should coöperate in every
