Page:The web (1919).djvu/278

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on the following day was taken to the office of the Special Agent in charge, and there questioned for two hours, without his disclosing anything of importance. K—— finally told his story, and from this point on the plot quickly unravels.

He was born near Hanover, Germany, emigrated to America at the age of sixteen, settled in New York, married, and was naturalized at the age of twenty-two. Three children blessed his union. He was a stone-mason by trade for ten years after his marriage; then he entered the contracting line and continued in it for some eighteen years, later removing to East Orange, N. J., where for some five years he operated a saloon and road house, later retiring from business and removing to West Hoboken, N. J.

After a severe siege of rheumatism, he was ordered by his physician to Mount Clemens, Michigan, early in the spring of 1918. At that resort he came in contact with two very affable gentlemen, "Fred B. Grant" and "Jack Connel." They made a lavish display of wealth and finally were successful in getting him to ask where these large amounts came from, whereupon Grant, who was the spokesman of the two, told K—— he was a wealthy coal operator of West Virginia and that he had a special system of playing the races. After taking K—— behind one of the buildings at Mount Clemens, he swore him to secrecy, and "let him in" on his get-rich-quick plan.

The party left Mount Clemens and went to the Vendome Hotel, Newport, Ky. They took K—— to a supposed pool-room and in less than a week he had won upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars in bets, whereupon the proprietor of the pool-room told him that he could not withdraw this money, under the laws of the State of Kentucky, unless he had an equal amount on deposit in the State. K—— told his daughter in Hoboken that he must have twenty-five thousand dollars to complete a business deal. He put up some of the money himself, and she secured the rest by a loan from the Empire Trust Co. Again the shuttle moved back to Cincinnati, where he arrived on Monday, August 5, 1918, and the League came to his rescue. K—— was now convinced that he was marked for a victim, and he did all he could to help land his supposed friends. All these were taken and the prisoners were held in $15,000 bond. They were notorious confidence men!

The pool-room was found with its complete telephone and telegraph outfit, which was not connected with any outside line. The money which Kaiser saw in this pool-room was paper cut from a New York Telephone directory to the size