Chapter 11

THE PURSUIT

Masked by an enormous pair of motor goggles and further shielded from recognition by a cap drawn down almost over his nose, Thomas Dean in a basket-rigged motorcycle impatiently sat awaiting the arrival of Jane Strong at a corner they had agreed upon the evening before. He had been particularly insistent that Jane should be on hand at a quarter before eight. He had learned by judicious inquiries that always on Wednesdays—at least on the Wednesdays previous—the Hoffs had started off on their mysterious trips at eight sharp. His intention was to get away ahead of them and pick them up somewhere outside the city limits.

Jane had promised that she would be on hand promptly. Once more he looked impatiently at his watch. It lacked just half a minute of the quarter, but there was no sign of his fellow operative. The only person visible in the block was a boy strolling carelessly in his direction. With a muttered exclamation of annoyance Dean restored his watch to his pocket, debating with himself how long he ought to wait and whether or not he had better wait if she did not appear soon. Very possibly, he realized, something entirely unforeseen might have detained her or have prevented her coming. Perhaps her family had doubted her story that she was going off on an all-day motor trip with a friend? Maybe their suspicions had been aroused by his having reported sick? He had almost decided to go on alone when he observed that the boy he had seen approaching was standing beside the motorcycle.

“Good morning, Thomas,” said the boy, a little doubtfully, as if not quite sure that it was he.

Dean gasped in astonishment. The boy’s voice was the voice of Jane. Laughing merrily at his amazement and discomfiture, she climbed into the seat beside him, asking:

“How do you like my disguise?”

“It’s great,” he cried. “You fooled me completely, and I was expecting you.”

“When Chief Fleck said I ought to disguise myself for fear that the Hoffs already suspected me, I happened to remember these clothes. I had them once for a play we gave in school.”

“But you don’t even walk like a girl.”

Jane laughed again.

“I practised that walk for days and days. When I first put on this suit my brother hooted at the way I walked. He said no girl ever could learn to walk like a boy. I made up my mind I’d show him.”

“But your hair,” protested Dean, almost anxiously. Even if he was just now assuming the humble rôle of chauffeur he still was an ardent admirer of such hair as Jane’s, long, black and luxurious.

“Tucked up under my cap,” laughed the girl, “and for fear it might tumble down, I brought this along. It’s what the sailor boys call a ‘beanie,’ isn’t it?”

As she spoke she adjusted over her head a visorlike woolen cap that left only her face showing.

“But your mother—didn’t she wonder about your wearing those clothes?”

“She was in bed when I left. All she caught was just a glimpse of me in Dad’s dust coat, and that came to my ankles. I wore it until I was a block away from the house. Will I do?”

“You can’t change your eyes,” said Dean boldly, that is boldly for a chauffeur, but he knew that Jane knew he wasn’t a chauffeur except by choice, so that made it all right.

“I couldn’t well leave them behind. I understood that I was to have a lot of use for my eyes to-day.”

“Yes, indeed, you very likely will.”

“Do you know I hardly recognized you at first and was almost afraid to speak? I had expected to find you in a car. What was the idea of the motorcycle?”

“It was Chief Fleck’s suggestion. The Hoffs will be motoring. People in a car seldom pay any attention to motorcyclists. If we were to follow them in a motor they’d surely notice it. Last week they managed to dodge the people the Chief assigned to trail them. Maybe as two dusty motorcyclists we’ll have better luck.”

“I hope so. Where do you intend waiting to pick them up?”

“Getty Square in Yonkers is the best place. Everybody going north goes that way. I can be tinkering with the machine while you keep watch for them. They will not be apt to suspect a pair of Yonkers motorcyclists. There’s no danger of missing them.”

“Did you tell the Chief about seeing Mr. Hoff in that uniform?”

“Of course. He did not seem even surprised. Some one had reported to him already that there was a German going about in British uniform.”

“What had he heard? What was the man doing?” questioned Jane anxiously. Even though she believed Frederic Hoff an alien enemy, even though she was all but sure that he was a murderer, she kept finding herself always hoping for something in his favor. He seemed far too nice and entertaining to be engaged in any nefarious, underhanded, despicable machinations. Yet she had seen him masquerading as a British officer. She could not doubt the evidence of her own eyes.

“What happened was this,” continued Dean. “A woman—one of the society lot—was driving down Park Avenue day before yesterday morning in her motor. It had been raining, and the streets were muddy. At one of the crossings a British officer stopped to let the car pass. One of the wheels hit a rut, and his uniform was all splashed with mud. He burst into a string of curses—_German_ curses.”

“He cursed in German?” cried Jane.

“Sure,” said Dean. “On the impulse of the moment he forgot his rôle and revealed his true self—an arrogant Prussian officer.”

“What did the woman do?”

“Reported him to the first policeman she met, but by that time he had vanished, of course.”

“What did Chief Fleck think about it?”

“He didn’t seem to take the story seriously.”

“Do you suppose it could have been Mr. Hoff?”

“It must have been he, or one of his gang, at any rate. I don’t see why the Chief does not order his arrest at once. He is far too dangerous to be at large.”

“There’s no real evidence against him yet,” protested Jane, “not against the young man, at least.”

“Didn’t we both see him in British uniform?”

“Yes,” admitted the girl.

“Well, that’s proof, isn’t it? A man with a German name in British uniform in wartime can’t be up to any good.”

“Still we have no actual evidence against him. We don’t know what he was doing.”

“I’d arrest him then for murder and get the evidence that he is a spy afterward. It would be easy to fasten the murder of K-19 on him. There’s no doubt that he did that.”

“Has a witness been found?” asked Jane with a quick catch of the breath. Somehow she never had been able to persuade herself that the man next door, whatever else he might be, had really committed that brutal murder.

“No, there’s no actual witness, but it could be proved by circumstantial evidence. K-19, the man whose work you took up, had instructions to shadow young Hoff to his home. At two in the morning he relieved another operative. At three you yourself saw him shadowing Hoff.”

“I saw two men on the sidewalk,” corrected Jane. “One of them was Frederic Hoff. I did not see the other distinctly enough to identify him. I saw no murder. I merely saw the two of them run around the corner.”

“Look here,” said Dean sharply, not wholly succeeding in suppressing a note of jealousy in his tones, “I believe you are trying to shield Frederic Hoff. What is he to you? Has he won you over to his side?”

“You’ve no right to say such things to me,” cried Jane, nevertheless coloring furiously. “I’ve seen the man only three or four times. I am working just as hard as you are to prove that he is a German spy, if he is one. I am only trying to be fair. I know nothing that convicts him of murder. Any testimony I could give would not prove a single thing.”

“Certainly not, if that’s the way you feel about it,” snapped Dean.

After that they rode along together in silence, each busy with thoughts of their own. Dean was cursing himself for having let his enthusiasm to be of service to his government lead him into such circumstances. He felt that his chauffeur’s position handicapped him in his relations with Jane, to whom he had been strongly attracted from the beginning. The son of a distinguished American diplomat, he had been educated for the most part in Europe. Friends of his father, when he had offered his services to the government, had convinced him that his knowledge of German and French would make him most useful in the secret service. Reluctantly he had consented to take up the work, and as he had gone further and further into it and had realized the vast machinery for surreptitious observation and dangerous activity that the German agents had secretly planted in the United States, he had become fascinated with his occupation—that is, until he met Jane Strong.

His association with her under present circumstances was fast becoming unbearable. Even though he was aware that she knew he was no ordinary chauffeur, he loathed the necessity of having to wear his mask in the presence of her family. He wanted to be free to come to see her, to send her flowers and to go about with her. For him to take any advantage of their present intimate relations to court her seemed to him little short of a betrayal of his government, yet at times it was all he could do to keep from telling her that he adored her. Love’s sharp instincts, too, had made him realize that Jane was already beginning to be attracted by the handsome young German whom they were seeking to entrap, and the knowledge of this fact filled him with helpless rage and jealousy.

Jane, too, angered and insulted at first by Dean’s outburst, had been endeavoring to analyze her own conduct. Candor reluctantly compelled her to admit that each time she met Frederic Hoff she had found herself coming more and more under his spell. He had a wonderful personality, talked entertainingly and ever exhibited an innate gallantry toward women in general, and herself in particular, which Jane had found delightfully interesting. Though she had undertaken wholeheartedly to try to get evidence against him, she was forced to admit to herself now that she was secretly delighted that there had been nothing damaging found as yet, so far as he was concerned, beyond the one fact that he had been in British uniform.

In vain she marshalled the circumstances about him, trying to make herself hate him. He was a German, she told herself. He was an enemy of her country. He lived with a man who had been proved to be a spy. He surreptitiously associated with American naval officers. The dictograph told her that nightly his uncle and he in the seclusion of their home toasted America’s arch enemy, the German Kaiser. More than likely, too, her reason told her, he was a murderer. She ought to hate, to loathe, to despise him, and yet she didn’t. She liked him. Whenever he approached she could feel her heart beating faster. She looked forward after each meeting with him to the time when she would see him again. What, she wondered, could be the matter with her? Assuredly she was a good patriotic American girl. Why couldn’t she hate Frederic Hoff as she knew he ought to be hated?

She was still puzzling over her unruly heart when they reached Getty Square, and Dean brought the motorcycle to a stop in one of the side streets overlooking Broadway. Dismounting, he looked at his watch and made a pretense of tinkering with the engine, while Jane kept a sharp lookout on the main thoroughfare, by which they expected the Hoffs to approach. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, more than half an hour they waited, anxiously scanning each car as it passed.

“I can’t understand it,” said Dean. “They should have been here at least twenty minutes ago. I am going to ’phone Carter. He will know what time they started.”

He had hardly entered an adjacent shop before Jane, still keeping watch, saw the Hoffs’ car flash by, going rapidly north. Quickly she sprang out and ran into the store. Dean saw her coming and left the telephone booth, his finger on his lips in a warning gesture.

“Don’t bother to ’phone,” cried the girl, misunderstanding his meaning—and thinking only that he was trying to prevent her naming the Hoffs. “Come, let’s get started.”

Without speaking he hurried from the store and got the motorcycle under way.

“Have they passed?” he whispered then.

“Just a moment ago.”

Silently he gathered up speed, racing in the direction the Hoffs’ car had gone, not addressing her again until perhaps two miles from Getty Square they caught up with it close enough to identify the occupants, whereupon he slowed down and followed at a more discreet interval.

“Be careful about speaking to me when there’s any one about,” he warned Jane, almost crossly. “Those clothes make you look like a boy, and your walk is all right, but your voice gives you away. Did you see that clerk in the store look at you when you spoke to me? I tried to warn you to say nothing.”

“I’ll be careful hereafter,” said Jane humbly, still depressed by her recent estimate of herself. “I forgot about my voice.”

Mile after mile they kept up the pursuit without further exchange of conversation. As they passed through various towns along the road Dean purposely lagged behind for fear of attracting attention, but always on the outskirts he raced until he caught up close enough again to the car to identify it, then let his motorcycle lag back again. Thus far the Hoffs had given no indication of any intention to leave the main road.

As the cyclists, far behind, came down a long winding hill on which they had managed to catch occasional glimpses of their quarry, Dean, with a muttered exclamation, put on a sudden burst of speed. At a rise in the road he had seen the Hoffs’ car swing sharply to the left. Furiously he negotiated the rest of the hill, arriving at the base just in time to see them boarding a little ferry the other side of the railroad tracks. While he and Jane were still five hundred yards away the ferryboat, with a warning toot, slipped slowly out into the Hudson.

In blank despair they turned to face each other. The situation seemed hopeless. They dared not shout or try to detain the boat. That surely would betray to the Hoffs that they were being followed. Despondently Dean clambered off the motorcycle and crossed to read a placard on the ferryhouse.

“There’s not another boat for half an hour,” he said when he returned. “They have gained that much on us.”

“Perhaps we can pick up their trail on the other side of the river,” suggested Jane. “There are not nearly so many cars passing as there would be in the city.”

“We can only try,” said Dean gloomily.

“At least we know where to pick up their trail the next time.”

“Damn them,” cried Dean, “I believe they suspect that they may be followed and time their arrival here so as to be the last aboard the ferryboat. That shuts off pursuit effectually. They make this trip every week. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have not fixed it with the ferry people to pull out as soon as they arrive. A two-dollar bill might do the trick. I’d give five thousand right now if we were on the other side of the river. It’s the first time—the only time I’ve ever failed the Chief.”

“Never mind,” said Jane consolingly, “why can’t we be waiting for them at the other side next week when they come up here? They’re not apt to suspect motorcyclists they meet up here with having followed them.”

“Perhaps next week will be too late.”

“I wonder where they are headed for,” said the girl, looking across at the rapidly receding boat. “Why, look! What are those buildings over there?”

“That’s West Point,” Dean exclaimed, noting for the first time where they were.

“West Point!” she echoed in amazement.

What mission could the Hoffs have that would take them to the United States Government military school was the question that perplexed them both. Could it be that the web of treachery and destruction the Kaiser’s busy agents were weaving had its deadly strands fastened even here—at West Point?