During the month of May, Huerta frequently met a member of the German Embassy at the Hotel McAlpin. Von Rintelen was clever enough not to negotiate in person, but he dined frequently with the Embassy member. Much of what had occurred at these conferences in the McAlpin was known to government agents, who had been concealed where they could take notes on the conversation. On June 1, 1915, General Huerta, with Jose Ratner, his "financial adviser," held a conference in the Holland House with a former Huertista cabinet minister, a son of the Mexican general, Angeles, and certain other personages who purposed to take part in the revolution for the sake of this world. One of the men present was a Carranza spy, and through him it became known that Huerta outlined that he had ten millions of dollars for immediate use in a plot to restore him to his former position, twice that sum in reserve, and that more would be forthcoming if necessary. Arms and ammunition, he said, would be shipped into Mexico secretly, supplies would be accumulated at certain border towns, and envoys had already been sent to incite desertion from the armies of Carranza and Villa. Rintelen did not know that the Carranzistas had sold out to the authorities. Rintelen had already purchased some $3,000,000 worth of arms and cartridges, and he was prepared to see the enterprise to a successful conclusion. Incidentally he was quietly supplying six other Mexican factions with funds in case Huerta's measure of success should prove too intoxicating. Because he was a figure of considerable international notoriety and indisputable news interest, the press had been following Huerta's movements with strict attention. Affairs at the border were not reassuring and there persisted the feeling that Huerta in the United States held promise of Huerta once more in Mexico. In July, his agent, Ratner, issued the following frank though apparently ingenious statement: "General Huerta and those of us associated with him are confident that the whole Mexican situation will be cleared up within ninety days. We believe that to rule the country is a one-man job. And in that time we expect that one man to come forward and unite the country. General Huerta does not care to indicate the man he has in mind, but he is from our viewpoint a true patriot, and naturally that excludes both Carranza and Villa. "General Huerta may or may not return to Mexico some day, and may or may not hold office there again. At present he is giving himself up wholly to an agreeable and home life in this city (New York)."