Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 September 1889 — The Detective’s Dodge. [ARTICLE]

The Detective’s Dodge.

The secret service division of the treasury department recently made a haul of counterfeiters in a clever manlier after as neat a piece of work as is usually encountered even in the modern novel. In that mysterious manner known only to trained agents of tn« service, it became known that two men, named Frederick Brodbeck and Chester Collins, were the owners of an apparatus for making bogus coin, and were turning out a quantity of crooked money, their headquarters being on a canal boat running up into the state from New York city. They carried on an ostensibly honest trade as freighters. The service agents in New York watched them pretty closely, and when the “Sinn,” which was the suggestive name of the craft, went up the canal to Boundout they laid a plan to capture the outfit. One agent —called for the purpose of the case Jones, since the service is shy about letting their men become known thereupon betook himself to Bondout, and arraying himself in a combination of rags that would disgrace a Jersey tramp, loafed around the "Sinn.” Catching the eye of Brodbeck, who posed as captain of the boat, he asked him when he was going back to New York. The reply was in two or three weeks. Jones then exhibited himself in all his wretchedness, and asked for a ride down, as he had, pointing to a pair of shoes artiscaily worn out, walked all the way from Troy. Brodbeck, not caring for intruders, refused to let him work hfs passage, as he desired, but finally gave him the job of pumbing out the boat, promising him ten cents with which the poor fellow could get something to eat. Jones pumped for two hours and was given twelve cents, including a nickel that was counterfeit. He came back the next day and hired out again, managing to keep around the boat for several days in this way, and receiving quite a large number of bad pieces. The boatman usually made inquiries as to whal he had done with the money, presumably to test its efficacy in passing. Jones nosed about a good deal, but was handicapped by the extreme watchfulneas of Brodbeck, Collins remaining in the cabin most of the time, so that all he obtained in the way of evidence was the bad money he had been paid 7 in return for his hard pumping, and occasional sniffs of the odor o ( melted leafl issuing from the cabin, which he was not allowed to enter. He was at work at the pump one day when a couple of the secret service up and told Brodbeck th it Jones was a crook from Troy and that they wanted him. and proposed to search the boat for stuff they thought he had hidden there. Brodbeck declared that there was nothing in the boat, but they searched it nevertheless and hauled from the cabin quite an outfit of counterfeiting apparatus. The partners claimed that Jones had smuggled them on board. They were taken down to New York, and upon examination made clean denials of all guilt* alleging that the name of their craft was the only sinful thing about them or their lives. Then Jones told his story in a simple, unaffected manner, and when he had finished he said that he had gone there as a secret service official and had been given bad money and had smelt it cooking. This unexpected revelation entirely broke up the pair, who remarked that the jig was up and made a complete confession.— Eif.