CHAPTER XII--THROUGH DANGEROUS WATERS

There were a number of people aboard ship whom Ruth Fielding had not met, of course; some whom she had not even seen. And this was not to be wondered at, for the feminine members of the supply unit were grouped together in a certain series of staterooms; and they even had their meals in a second cabin saloon away from the hospital units.

She looked, for some moments, at the huge shoulders of the man who had spoken in German, hoping he would turn to face her. She had not observed him since coming aboard the ship at Philadelphia.

It seemed scarcely possible that this could be Legrand, the man who she had come to believe was actually responsible for the fire in the Robinsburg Red Cross rooms. If he was a traitor to the organization--and to the United States as well--how dared he sail on this ship for France, and with an organization of people who were sworn to work for the Red Cross?

Was he sufficiently disguised by the shaving of his beard to risk discovery? And with that peculiar, sharp, barking voice! "A Prussian drill master surely could be no more abrupt," thought Ruth.

As the ship in these dangerous waters sailed with few lamps burning, and none at all had been turned on upon the main deck, it was too dark for Ruth to see clearly either the man who had spoken or the person hidden by the wraps in the deck chair.

She saw the spotlight in the hand of an officer up the deck and she hastened toward him. The passengers were warned not to use the little electric hand lamps outside of the cabins and passages. She was not mistaken in the identity of this person with the lamp. It was the purser.

"Oh, Mr. Savage!" she said. "Will you walk with me?"

"Bless me, Miss Fielding! you fill me with delight. This is an unexpected proposal I am sure," he declared in his heavy, English, but good-humored way.

"'Fash not yoursel' wi' pride,' as Chief Engineer Douglas would say," laughed Ruth. "I am going to ask you to walk with me so that you can tell me the name of another man I am suddenly interested in."

"What! What!" cried the purser. "Who is that, I'd like to know. Who are you so suddenly interested in?"

She tried to explain the appearance of the round-shouldered man as she led the purser along the deck. But when they reached the spot where Ruth had left the individuals both had disappeared.

"I don't know whom you could have seen," the purser said, "unless it was Professor Perry. His stateroom is yonder--A-thirty-four. And the little chap in the deck chair might be Signor Aristo, an Italian, who rooms next door, in thirty-six."

"I am not sure it was a man in the other chair."

"Professor Perry has nothing to do with the ladies aboard, I assure you," chuckled the purser. "A dry-as-dust old fellow, Perry, going to France for some kind of research work. Comes from one of your Western universities. I believe they have one in every large town, haven't they?"

"One what?" Ruth asked.

"University," chuckled the Englishman. "You should get acquainted with Perry, if his appearance so much interests you, Miss Fielding."

But Ruth was in no mood for banter about the man whose appearance and words had so astonished her. She said nothing to the purser or to anybody else about what she had heard the strange man say in German. No person who belonged--really _belonged_--on this Red Cross ship, should have said what he did and in that tone!

He spoke to his companion as though there was a settled and secret understanding between them. And as though, too, he had a power of divination about what the German U-boat commanders would do, beyond the knowledge possessed by the officers of the steamship.

What could a "dry-as-dust" professor from a Western university have in common with the person known as Signor Aristo, who Ruth found was down on the ship's list as a chef of a wealthy Fifth Avenue family, going back to his native Italy.

It was said the Signor had had a very bad passage. He had kept to his room entirely, not even appearing on deck. _Was he a man at all?_

The thought came to Ruth Fielding and would not be put away, that this small, retiring person known as Signor Aristo might be a woman. If Professor Perry was the distinguished Legrand what was more possible than that the person Ruth had seen in the deck chair was Mrs. Rose Mantel, likewise in disguise?

"Oh, dear me!" she told herself at last, "I am getting to be a regular sleuth. But my suspicions do point that way. If that woman in black and Legrand robbed the Red Cross treasury at Robinsburg, and covered their stealings by burning the records, would they be likely to leave the country in a Red Cross ship?

"That would seem preposterous. And yet, what more unlikely method of departure? It might be that such a course on the part of two criminals would be quite sure to cover their escape."

She wondered about it much as the ship sailed majestically into the French port, safe at last from any peril of being torpedoed by the enemy. And Professor Perry had been quite sure that she was safe in any case!

Ruth saw the professor when they landed. The Italian chef she did not see at all. Nor did Ruth Fielding see anybody who looked like Mrs. Rose Mantel.

"I may be quite wrong in all my suspicions," she thought. "I would better say nothing about them. To cause the authorities to arrest entirely innocent people would be a very wicked thing, indeed."

Besides, there was so much to do and to see that the girl of the Red Mill could not keep her suspicions alive. This unknown world she and her mates had come to quite filled their minds with new thoughts and interests.

Their first few hours in France was an experience long to be remembered. Ruth might have been quite bewildered had it not been that her mind was so set upon the novel sights and sounds about her.

"I declare I don't know whether I am a-foot or a-horseback!" Clare Biggars said. "Let me hang on to your coat-tail, Ruth. I know you are real and United Statesy. But these funny French folk----

"My! they are like people out of a story book, after all, aren't they? I thought I'd seen most every kind of folk at the San Francisco Fair; but just nobody seems familiar looking here!"

Before they were off the quay, several French women, who could not speak a word of English save "'Ello!" welcomed the Red Cross workers with joy. At this time Americans coming to help France against her enemies were a new and very wonderful thing. The first marching soldiers from America were acclaimed along the streets and country roads as heroes might have been.

An old woman in a close-fitting bonnet and ragged shawl--not an over-clean person--took Ruth's hand in both hers and patted it, and said something in her own tongue that brought the tears to the girl's eyes. It was such a blessing as Aunt Alvirah had murmured over her when the girl had left the Red Mill.

She and Clare, with several of the other feminine members of the supply unit were quartered in an old hotel almost on the quay for their first night ashore. It was said that some troop trains had the right-of-way; so the Red Cross workers could not go up to Paris for twenty-four hours.

Somebody made a mistake. It could not be expected that everything would go smoothly. The heads of the various Red Cross units were not infallible. Besides, this supply unit to which Ruth belonged really had no head as yet. The party at the seaside hotel was forgotten.

Nobody came to the hotel to inform them when the unit was to entrain. They were served very well by the hotel attendants and several chatty ladies, who could speak English, came to see them. But Ruth and the other girls had not come to France as tourists.

Finally, the girl of the Red Mill, with Clare Biggars, sallied forth to find the remainder of their unit. Fortunately, Ruth's knowledge of the language was not superficial. Madame Picolet, her French teacher at Briarwood Hall, had been most thorough in the drilling of her pupils; and Madame was a Parisienne.

But when Ruth discovered that she and her friends at the seaside hotel had been left behind by the rest of the Red Cross contingent, she was rather startled, and Clare was angered.

"What do they think we are?" demanded the Western girl. "Of no account at all? Where's our transportation? What do they suppose we'll do, dumped down here in this fishing town? What----"

"Whoa! Whoa!" Ruth laughed. "Don't lose your temper, my dear," she advised soothingly. "If nothing worse than this happens to us----"

She immediately interviewed several railroad officials, arranged for transportation, got the passports of all viséed, and, in the middle of the afternoon, they were off by slow train to the French capital.

"We can't really get lost, girls," Ruth declared. "For we are Americans, and Americans, at present, in France, are objects of considerable interest to everybody. We'll only be a day late getting to the city on the Seine."

When they finally arrived in Paris, Ruth knew right where to go to reach the Red Cross supply department headquarters. She had it all written down in her notebook, and taxicabs brought the party in safety to the entrance to the building in question.

As the girls alighted from the taxis Clare seized Ruth's wrist, whispering:

"Why! there's that Professor Perry again--the one that came over with us on the steamer. You remember?"

Ruth saw the man whose voice was like Legrand's, but whose facial appearance was nothing at all like that suspected individual. But it was his companion that particularly attracted the attention of the girl of the Red Mill.

This was a slight, dark man, who hobbled as he walked. His right leg was bent and he wore a shoe with a four-inch wooden sole.

"Who is that, I wonder?" Ruth murmured, looking at the crippled man.

"That is Signor Aristo," Clair said. "He's an Italian chef I am told."

Signor Aristo was, likewise, smoothly shaven; but Ruth remarked that he looked much like the Mexican, José, who had worked with Legrand at the Red Cross rooms in Robinsburg.