After all, the Mystery Was Easily Explained; The Mystery as to the identity of the man behind the operations of the liquor-smugglers. The explanation of the whole situation was unfolded by Captain Folsom several nights later at the Temple home. He had come from New York City at the invitation of Mr. Temple, whose curiosity was aroused by the tales of the boys, and who wanted to hear a connected account of events. In this matter, Captain Folsom was willing to oblige, more especially by reason of the aid given the government forces by the boys.

J. B. McKay was the Man Higher Up. Higginbotham was his agent. This man, one of the wealthiest realty operators in New York, was a born gambler. He could never resist the impulse to engage in a venture that would bring him big returns on his investment. In his realty operations, this 227 quality had earned him the name of “Take a Chance” McKay.

When the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution was adopted—the prohibition amendment—he watched developments. He felt certain that liquor smuggling would spring up. In this he was not mistaken. New York became a vast center of the traffic.

And as he beheld the great sums made by the men bringing liquor into the country in defiance of the law, the thought came to McKay of how these individual operators might be united by a strong and ruthless man, their methods improved, and a vast fortune made by the man in control. Thereupon he set about obtaining this control.

It was McKay, said Captain Folsom, who organized the motor truck caravan which brought liquor across the Canadian border into Northern New York to a distributing center, a night’s run to the South, whence it was sent across the land by express as china and glassware from a china and glassware manufactory. This factory was mere camouflage. A plant did exist, but it was nothing more than a storage warehouse at which the motor trucks unloaded their cargoes.

Police protection was needed, of course, and police protection McKay obtained. The factory so-called 228 was in the open country, on the outskirts of a tiny village. The local authorities were bribed. All along the route from Canada, money was liberally spent in order to prevent interference from police. Big cities en route were avoided. The Highway of Grease (“grease” meaning bribery) led around all such, for in them usually the police were incorruptible.

It was McKay, too, who organized the airplane carriage of liquor from Canada to points outside New York City and to Stamford, Conn. One of his planes only recently, explained Captain Folsom, had fallen in a field near Croton-on-Hudson, with a valuable cargo of liquor aboard after a night’s flight from Canada.

But it was in organizing the importation of liquor from the Bahamas that McKay reached his heights. He had assembled a fleet of old schooners, many of which had seen better days and lacked business, commanded by skippers who were in desperate need of money, and he had taken advantage of their necessity by making what to them were tempting offers. Some boats he had purchased outright, others chartered for long periods.

These boats would work their way up the Atlantic coast to specified points on the Jersey and Long Island coastlines. Then they would discharge their 229 cargoes, and men waiting alongshore with trucks would carry the liquor to distributing points.

More recently, Captain Folsom added, McKay had begun to utilize radio. To avoid the employment of more than a minimum force of men, was his primary object. In the first place, big crews made a steady drain in wages. Likewise, there was an added danger of mutiny when large crews were employed. The men were bound to realize that, inasmuch as he was violating the law, he could not appeal for legal retaliation in case they should seize a vessel and dispose of it and its contents. Therefore, he decided to depend on trusty skippers, whom he paid well, and skeleton crews whom the skippers and mates could control.

Thus the radio-controlled boats, which were really not boats at all, came into existence. And for their control, the station on Long Island was established and two others, in isolated spots on the Jersey coast, were in process of construction when the end came. At the time of Higginbotham’s discovery by the boys and their interference in McKay’s schemes, McKay was absent in New Jersey, personally superintending the construction of the plants.

Higginbotham, in fleeing from the Brownell place, had neglected some damaging correspondence which would have betrayed McKay’s identity as the controlling 230 power in the liquor smuggling ring. He had fled to his employer, and told him of the danger.

At the time, McKay had standing offshore an Eagle boat, built for submarine chasing during the World War, but which two years earlier the United States government had sold during a period of reduction of expenses. This boat he had kept in the Bahamas, but recently had brought North. He intended to use it to protect liquor runners as escort, the assumption being that, thinking it one of themselves, other boats of the “Dry Navy” would leave the vessels alone.

How he had obtained possession of the naval uniforms for his men Captain Folsom did not know. However, the doughty captain assumed McKay probably had bought discarded uniforms in some manner, or else had had them made on order.

When Higginbotham reached him with the news, after working his way through Brooklyn and New York in disguise, having lain hidden several days in order to avoid the first heat of the search which he knew would be made for him, McKay had decided to go to the Brownell place in the sub chaser. He figured its appearance would disarm the suspicions of the guards left by Lieutenant Summers, and that his men in uniform would get close enough before their identities were discovered to carry the place 231 without force. Their superior numbers would compel surrender on the part of a handful of guards.

Such proved to be the case. One of the guards, however, escaped and, making his way to the Hampton radio station, had sent out the call which brought the Nark to the scene just as McKay was making his escape.