The sea coast echo., 1908-03-14
TRIANGULAR ESPIONAGE.
How Three Spoilers Worked Together In
a Railroad Case.


Under the old loose system that pre-
vailed on most of the Southern and
Western roads" said veteran passen-
ger conductor of this city, the .spotter
was virtually necessity, but the trouble
about him was that he could never be
relied upon with absolute certainty to tell
the truth. He knew his popularity and
prestige with his employers on the NUM-
Der of cases he worked up, and If he
couldn't catch a conductor knocking
down he was only too apt to manufac-
ture little circumstantial evidence and
report the poor fellow anyhow. Of
course, am speaking of the average
spotter, and no doubt there were plenty
of exceptions to the rule, but that was
the great defect of the system, and, IN
cidentially, it reminds me of a curious
little story.
Back in the eighties continued the
veteran, "a tip was one day given to
well-known and very popular conductor
on certain line leading out of New
Orleans that a spotter of considerable
note in the North had been put on his
train, with instructions to investigate
him thoroughly. This conductor was
big, jovial fellow, fond of good clothes,
good sport and good living, and, while
there was no evidence of anything
wrong. he had fallen under suspicion on
general principles The company Off
cials were persuaded he was living tar
beyond his means, and inferred that he
must be helping himself to the cash,
but all prior efforts to get line on him
had failed ignominiously, and for that
reason the expert sleuth had been inn
ported from the North and told to go to
the bottom of the case, if it took SIX
months. When the conductor heard that
spy had been put on his train he was
highly indignant, and also alarmed. He
reasoned that the fellow would be es-
pecially anxious to sustain his reputation
as thief catcher, and was, in all prob
ability, fully prepared to fake up case
in the event that he discovered no evil
dence. To protect himself against such
vancouver he quietly telegraphed to a
big detective agency in Chicago and en-
gagged first-class operative to spot the
spotter Both men went on duty at
about the same time, the spotter taking
the role of a commercial traveller who
had frequent business up and down the
road. He watched the conductor, the
Chicago detective watched him, and the
conductor sized them both up and
chuckled in his sleeve.
Nov comes the funny part of the
yarn. The double watch had been in
progress only few days when treach-
erous brakeman went to the general sup
erintendent and told him the whole
story. The superintendent was pretty
wise person, himself SO he said nothing
but simply engaged an entirely new man
and set him to watching the two spies.
The triangular game went on for sew
eral weeks then the conductor was
summoned to headquarters. He carried
his detectives report with hiri and was
staggered when the superintendent
showed him two others. The original
spoilers report exonerated the conduc-
tor; the Chicago mans report agreed
| exactly with the spoilers, arf the last
spy asserted fatty that the tNo other
men had stood in together, SO as 70
please all hands and save trouble. That
disgusted one road with spoilers, and the
| superintendent swore he would never
employ another. The conductor, by the
way. retained his job. Orleans
Timcs-Democrat