Show true tru detective e S satorv y vance wynn tin it 0 public ledger r the spy plot that failed ithe IT T WAS during the early days or of the world war that a rough look ing man who posed as a bel belgian ian began to frequent one ot of the branches of the carnegie library in pittsburgh ue he was wag poorly dressed wore a scraggly beard and seemed to have bave all of the time in the world usually he went to the reference department of the library and spent hours in reading books that had bad reference to america ue he paid particular attention to the maps and one night was seen to bs be tracing some of these from one of the geographical works in the library miss frances langfitt the assistant librarian noticed the man and her suspicions were aroused so while the fellow spied around the shelves the young woman did a little spying on her own account night after night she sat there with a green shade over her eyes apparently engrossed la in her work but in reality keeping tabs upon the belgian who was not a belgian Del gian one night she watched him replace a book on the shelf and when ailien lie he had departed she hastened over to that part of the library and obtained possession of this particular part ic book it contained a coastwise map and gae evidence of having been traced before the next day had bad dawned the patriotic young woman had informed the department of justice of her suspicions of the man who had been visiting the library Oper operative atlie henry that will have to be his name for the purpose of this article was placed on the case at once ile he traced the man and found that he was a stranger in the city he located the house where he had a room and discovered he be was going by the name of jacob harmon barmon the fellow must have sensed the fact that he was being followed because he ceased his visits to the library about the same time an undersized man with a decidedly german accent began to frequent the library when interrogated he gave the name dame of emil mayer this man pursued pretty nearly the same tactics as the other but a on 13 t the b e surf surface e there did not seem to be any connection between tho the two one day he was followed to his room and later in his absence a search was made of his effects there was nothing absolutely criminal but the detectives did find a number of pa papers and tracings in themselves they seemed meaningless but if it were possible to put them together they might have meant much at all events the work of shadowing harmon and mayer continued without interruption two and two were put together and the conclusion of the authorities was that the library had been made the rendezvous of german spies for nearly a year of course it goes without saying that there was nothing in the library that was not open to the public at any time but the conviction grew that harmon and mayer were doing the preliminary work which was afterwards verified by bolder and more audacious men who stole into navy yards a and n d laid the foundations tor for destroying plants operative henry had bad several conversations with miss langfitt and lie compared this with the reports which were brought in as a result of the shadowing of the two germans up to this point they had neer ne er been found together in the meanwhile an attempt was made to learn something of the previous history of the two met men one of them it was learned had been visiting a number of seacoast towns in new england and it was also alleged that he had not complied with the alien enemy re registration istra laws one night united states agents started to follow the two men and then for the first time they joined one another in a little back back baom room in the northwestern pai part of pittsburgh they sat at a table and produced pro deuced a coastwise map which they began to study that was the signal for or the detectives tec tives the subjects were arrested and in twenty four hours had been placed in a detention camp what became of them no one will tell the mystery has gone into that limbo which Is the repository of so many war secrets but to this day there are persons in pittsburgh wb who 0 are arc satisfied that the timely discovery of the librarian cut oft air tile the connection between these men and tile the german war office borvice |