An atmosphere of suspicion arose like a dank fog, and every man looked askance at his neighbor--for he knew in his heart that that neighbor might be the man; might be spending of nights money that found its way into his pockets from the huge sums Germany was reported to have placed in America to hamper America's preparations for war. Some man, some _men_, were hampering the work in that plant; it was a patent fact. Some men who had passed the inspection of government investigators and who wore the guise of honest American working-men had sold their souls to the German devil. Every honest man in that plant knew that when he sat down to eat his lunch at noon he was eating in the presence of traitors and spies.... It was not a condition calculated to soothe. The work of sabotage was skilfully performed, as if by the black enchantments of an evil magician. Its results were there, but none could say how or by whose hand. Again and again Potter demanded results of the men of the Secret Service, but they gave no results. "There must be suspects," Potter declared, vehemently. "Whom do you suspect?" "Everybody," said Downs, who was in command. "I suspect first those men who have the most unimpeachable antecedents. It is a safe rule in these days to suspect the man who is above suspicion. The Germans are thorough. It looks as if they had caused their agents to be _born_, and reared them for thirty years for this work.... Mr. Waite, the man who is planning and carrying out this business in Detroit is a great man." "He's got you beaten?" "We'll get him," said Downs. "But meantime he is putting off by months the manufacture and delivery of aeroplanes." It was not alone the work done under that roof that went awry. Machines and tools were manufactured for the business of machining motors in a score of plants in Detroit--and they must be tools of a marvelous delicacy and exactitude.... What percentage of them were delivered in a useless condition will never be known, for it was a matter upon which the Signal Corps imposed secrecy. "There's an army of spies in Detroit," a manufacturer declared to Potter. "Every plant is full of them--and how can we prevent it? Detroit was made to their order. Our growth has compelled us to scour the earth for labor, and we have imported labor by the excursion-train. In ten years half a million strangers have come to Detroit.... They haven't been watched. In some countries, I'm told, the police have the _dossier_ of every citizen. In America the commissioner of police of a great city probably hasn't the _dossier_ of the chief of the force. My plant is full of spies, your plant is full of spies, and before God I see no remedy for it or protection against it." "I was confident of delivering motors in November," Potter said. "Maybe now I can make deliveries in January.... If that isn't equal to a victory in a pitched battle, then I'm an imbecile."