"Well, there's no use telling the end of the story before the beginning. Make yourself comfortable and I'll see if I can recall the details of the case." * * * * * Remember Dr. Heinrich Albert? [Quinn inquired, after we had both stretched out in front of the open fire]. Theoretically, the Herr Doktor was attached to the German embassy in Washington merely in an advisory and financial capacity. He and Haniel von Heimhausen--the same counselor that the present German government wanted to send over here as ambassador after the signing of the peace treaty--were charged with the solution of many of the legal difficulties which arose in connection with the business of the big red brick dwelling on Massachusetts Avenue. But while von Heimhausen was occupied with the legal end of the game, Doctor Albert attended to many of the underground details which went unsuspected for many years. It was he, for example, who managed the bidding for the wireless station in the Philippines--the plan which permitted the German government to dictate the location of the station and to see to it that the towers were so placed where they would be most useful to Berlin. He undoubtedly worked with von Papen and Boy-Ed during the early years of the war--years in which this precious trio, either with or without the knowledge of Count von Bernstorff, sought by every means to cripple American shipping, violate American neutrality, and make a laughingstock of American diplomatic methods. What's more, they got away with it for months, not because the Secret Service and the Department of Justice weren't hot on their trail, but because the Germans were too cagy to be caught and you can't arrest a diplomat just on suspicion. During the months which followed the first of August, nineteen fourteen, practically every one of the government's detective services was called upon in some way to pry into the affairs of the embassy staff. But the brunt of the work naturally devolved upon the two organizations directly concerned with preventing flagrant breaches of neutrality--the Secret Service and the Department of Justice. Every time that Doctor Albert, or any other official of the German government, left Washington he was trailed by anywhere from one to five men. Every move he made was noted and reported to headquarters, with the result that the State Department had a very good idea of the names of the men who were being used to forward Germany's ends, even though it knew comparatively little about what was actually planned. The attaches were entirely too clever to carry on compromising conversations in the open, and their appointments were made in such a manner as effectually to prevent the planting of a dictaphone or any other device by which they might be overheard. The directions to the men who were responsible for the working of the two Services were: