Chapter 24

THE DEADLY PHIAL

It was the famous physician, the man whose hate for Americans was so notorious, the man with whom they had already had unpleasant encounters, the man who had so often shot venomous looks at Frank and his comrades as they passed and yet who of late had worn an air so jubilant.

It was his house then to which this mysterious passage afforded secret entrance, that entrance which the Army Boys had felt sure was used by conspirators and assassins. What did it all mean?

The doctor approached one of the retorts in which some concoction was bubbling and examined it carefully, reducing the heat a little as he glanced at the thermometer. Then he walked over to a row of phials on one of the shelves and handled them almost caressingly. One of them he pressed with an almost rapturous gesture to his breast, at the same time breaking out in a strain of mingled eulogy and denunciation. The eulogy seemed to be for the phial, the denunciation for the "accursed Americans," which phrase Frank heard him repeat several times.

The doctor then replaced the phials on the shelf and picked up an evening paper printed in German that was lying on a chair. He looked over the headlines which ran all the way across the page, and indulged in a chuckle. He read the article through, then threw down the paper and walked to and fro in the room, rubbing his hands and evidently in the highest spirits.

The paper had been thrown down in such a way that Frank could plainly see the flaring headlines. They ran thus:

"MYSTERIOUS DISEASE STILL UNABATED More Americans Stricken."

This then accounted for the doctor's elation. Frank's eye glanced from the paper to the phial and back again to the paper.

Suddenly a terrible conviction struck him with the force of a blow.

At that moment a bell rang somewhere outside. The doctor stopped in his pacing, listened a moment, and then with a gesture of impatience strode to the door and passed out into the hall, closing the door after him.

Like a flash, Frank was in the room and had possessed himself of the mysterious phial. Then he was back again among his companions, who had gazed after him in wonder.

"Quick!" he directed as he closed the heavy door. "Back to the alley as fast as we can."

"What's the big idea, Frank?" asked Bart, as the boys hurried after their leader.

"Can't stop to talk about it now, old fellow. Tell you later what I think I've stumbled on. I think I know now what my hunch meant. I'm streaking it straight for headquarters as fast as my legs will carry me."

Bart saw how wrought up he was, and followed him without further questioning.

Straight to his captain Frank hastened and told his story. He had not finished before the captain sent out hastily for others higher in authority. Then Frank, often interrupted by excited questioning, narrated every detail of the night's discovery. The phial was handed over to the chief medical officer, and Frank, after hearty commendation, was bidden to hold himself ready for call at a moment's notice.

He hurried off to the barracks, where his comrades were eagerly awaiting him. To them he poured out all he knew and suspected.

That night and the next day witnessed busy scenes at the headquarters of the medical staff. The contents of the phial were analysed and justified Frank's suspicions. A force was organized in which the Army Boys were included to seize the arch-plotter. It would have been possible to have entered his house from the front, but the broad street on which it stood was a thoroughfare thronged with people at night, and in order to avoid possible riot and attempt at rescue it was deemed best to enter from the trap door in the alley.

As soon as it was fully dark, the detachment was set in motion. Sentries were posted on either side of the alley to prevent any one from entering, and one by one the arresting party swept down through the passage from the alley and they made their way, with Frank as guide, to the oaken door. Here they paused and listened.

Far from being empty, as on the night before, there were sounds in the room that amounted almost to tumult. Loud exclamations were interspersed with bursts of laughter. The main note seemed to be approval. Some one who aroused the enthusiasm of his hearers was speaking.

Slowly, very slowly, Lieutenant Winter, who was in charge, drew the door open by imperceptible degrees. It was the doctor himself who was holding forth, almost with frenzy. His gestures were wild and his words came so fast as to make his speech almost incoherent.

But the listeners caught enough from that wild torrent of words to know that their darkest suspicions were more than justified. The man was gloating over his wickedness, over the deaths that had already resulted, and the deaths he hoped to cause through his diabolical discovery.

He stopped at length, and others in the party had their turn. Here was something beyond what the raiding party had looked for. They had stumbled upon a nest of conspirators who, in their way, as the doctor in his, were deadly enemies of society in general and the Americans in particular.

Through this secret passage into the alley, for how long none of them knew, these desperate men had been going to and fro, avoiding attention and hatching in the doctor's office a plot that had kept the entire zone of the American Army of Occupation in a state of unrest. The proof was all-sufficient, and the conspirators were weaving the noose for their own necks.

The lieutenant lifted his hand, swung the door wide open, and, followed by his men, rushed into the room.