Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/86

Rh "Who are you doing this work for?" enquired the Colonel, bluntly. "You do not use these plates yourself, I know. Who employs you? And why are you thus engaged?" "Because I am a poor man, and I have no other means to get bread for my family," said the frightened Shelley.

The Chief looked about the poorly appointed apartment where this ingenious but miserable man toiled early and late to earn a sustenance for those he loved and was bound to provide for, and his heart was momentarily touched with sympathy for the misguided man before him, whom he was confident could not but be the tool of others more guilty than he was.

"Tell me who employs you, Shelley," urged the Chief, as he seized the unfinished plates and tools, and informed the worker that he was his prisoner, also.

And to the official's surprise poor Shelley informed him he was then at work for Fred Biebusch, By whom he had been employed at the west for a long time prior to his coming to New York. Shelley was then taken into custody, his counterfeit effects were secured, and Col. Whitley held him to answer in the future.

He subsequently voluntarily confessed the part he had taken in certain transactions in connection with Biebusch at the West. And Fred being then under arrest and his trial approaching, Shelley was sent to St. Louis as a witness against him. Several of the other Government witnesses had been bought up, and sent away by Biebusch. But this man, one of his old confederates in iniquity, he did not have the opportunity to tamper with. The Chief had sufficient testimony in reserve to corroborate the statements of Shelley, and when the latter showed himself in Court, it was too much for his old employer. He saw "the writing