Chapter 14

PUZZLES AND PLANS

Chief Fleck had spent a sleepless night trying to put two and two together. Instead of the answer being “four” as it should have been each time he completed his figuring the result was “zero.” Time and again he mustered the facts into columns, only to succeed in puzzling himself the more.

Two German spies, the Hoffs, had set out together in their motor on their usual mysterious Wednesday mission. Two other persons, two of his most intelligent operatives, Thomas Dean and Jane Strong, had set out on a motorcycle to shadow them.

What had happened?

Otto Hoff had returned to his apartment on foot, hours before his usual time, seemingly much perturbed about something.

Frederic Hoff had arrived back at the apartment, also on foot, some hours later than usual, and the motor had not been returned to its usual garage. Frederic Hoff had appeared to be unusually elated about something.

Thomas Dean was in a doctor’s home somewhere up the Hudson with a broken arm and a bad scalp wound and was unable to tell what had become of either Miss Strong or the motorcycle.

Jane Strong had arrived home in a taxicab half an hour before Frederick Hoff, apparently unhurt but in a most peculiar condition of mind. When Chief Fleck had called her on the ’phone she had refused to answer any questions. The best he could get out of her was a promise that she would come to his office in the morning.

From this situation Fleck’s shrewd and experienced mind had been wholly unable to make any satisfactory deductions. That something unforeseen and unusual had happened to the Hoffs he was certain. It was the first time on a Wednesday that they had not returned together. Whatever it was that had happened it had depressed old Otto and had been a cause of elation to Frederic. What could it have been? That was the poser.

Coupled with this was the annoying fact of Jane Strong’s sudden reticence. Hitherto he had found her at all times ready and eager whenever he called on her—ready to do anything he asked her, or to tell him everything. Why had she suddenly balked? He recalled that Dean had hinted, and Carter, too, that the girl was becoming interested in the younger of the Germans, yet he scouted the possibility of Jane having gone over to the enemy’s side. A girl of her stock, living with her parents, with a brother fighting in France, never could be guilty of disloyalty, even if she were in love. Yet how was her disinclination to talk to be accounted for? After he had received a report that she was at home he had waited, expecting her to call him up. When she had not done so, he had called her. She had been positively curt and decisive. She had nothing to say to him, she had replied, at present. Dean was safe. She would come to his office in the morning. There was nothing for him to do but to await her arrival.

He was expecting Carter, too. He had sent him to Nyack the evening before as soon as he had learned of Dean’s whereabouts. Carter was to find out everything that Dean had learned and report as soon as he could. It was Carter who arrived first.

“Dean doesn’t know what happened to him, nor where the girl went,” said Carter. “They had lost the Hoffs’ trail at the Garrison ferry, as he told you over the ’phone. They had to wait there half an hour for another boat. They scouted around West Point, and nearly three hours afterward they picked up the trail heading toward New York. About ten miles south of West Point they were clipping along a mountain road when something happened. Dean is not sure whether he hit a stone in the road or whether an automobile struck them. He was knocked unconscious and didn’t remember anything more until he came to and found the doctor setting his arm.”

“Who took him to the doctor’s?”

“It was a couple, the doctor said, who explained that they had found Dean lying in the road under his wrecked motorcycle. The doctor could not remember what the couple looked like. Said he had been too busy looking after the injured man. I did worm out of him, though, that the man had left two hundred dollars with him to take care of Dean.”

“That’s funny,” said the chief.

“It sure is,” said Carter. “Looks like hush money to me. What does the girl say?”

“Nothing yet,” said Fleck. “She wouldn’t talk at all last night, but she’s coming here at ten.”

“That’s funny,” said Carter. “Why wouldn’t she talk?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Fleck decisively, “but I am going to find out. Do you really suppose that she has fallen in love with young Hoff?”

Carter shook his head.

“Dean thought so, and I know that Dean was in love with her himself, but I don’t know. I’d bank on that girl somehow, even if she is in love.”

“There she comes now,” said the chief as he heard the door of the outer office open.

As Jane entered she faced the two men almost defiantly. She too had had a sleepless night. Although she herself had been physically uninjured in the accident the shock to her nerves had left her unstrung, and besides she had been bothering all through the dark hours as to how much of what had happened in the last few hours it was her duty to tell to Chief Fleck.

As her personal relations with Frederic Hoff and her feelings toward him had in no way affected her sense of duty she felt that it was unnecessary for her to report the declaration of love he had made to her. Surely an affair that involved only the heart was her own property so long as she faithfully reported anything and everything that might lead to the exposure of the Hoffs’ plots. She could not see that it was any of Chief Fleck’s business, nor her country’s either, if Frederic Hoff had fallen in love with her. At any rate it would be utterly impossible for her to make any statement about her own feelings toward him. Even in her own heart and mind she was not quite sure what they were. From the first his forceful personality had had great charm for her. His obvious interest in her she had found delightful and flattering. When she recalled how gallantly he had insisted on remaining to rescue Dean and herself, even before he knew her identity, she was filled with admiration for him. Yet always matched against all that she found lovable in him was the knowledge that he was a German, a traitor, a spy, perhaps a murderer, and at times she felt that she hated him with a hatred that never could be overcome.

“Well,” said Fleck, studying her countenance, “what have you to tell us?”

“How is Dean?” she asked. “Will he live?”

Fleck and Carter exchanged glances. Was she, they wondered, really concerned in the handsome young chauffeur’s welfare, or had she merely put the question to gain time in framing what she was going to say?

“I just left him,” said Carter, in response to an almost imperceptible nod from the chief; “he’s all right except for a scalp wound and a broken arm.”

“I’m glad,” said the girl impulsively.

“What happened to him?” asked Carter.

“Don’t you know? The Hoffs’ automobile hit us and overturned the motorcycle.”

“The Hoffs’ car!” cried Fleck and Carter together.

“Yes, I thought you knew.”

“Tell us everything,” demanded Fleck. “Where did it happen? Did they run you down purposely?”

“I don’t think so; in fact I am sure they didn’t. It was entirely accidental.”

“Where did it happen? All Dean could remember was that you had picked up their trail about ten miles south of West Point. He could not tell how the accident occurred. He didn’t even mention the Hoffs or seem to suspect that they were anywhere near at the time.”

“I don’t think he saw their car at all,” Jane explained. “I caught just a glimpse of it before we were crashed into. We were on a mountain road going down a steep hill when their motor shot out of a deep cut just as we were passing.”

“What happened then?”

“I must have been stunned for a moment or two. When I regained my senses the Hoffs’ car had stopped, and Frederic was backing the car to where the accident had happened. His uncle was storming at him for stopping. He wanted Frederic to go on and leave us there, but Frederic wouldn’t do it, and they quarrelled. Frederic won out by pointing out that two bodies lying at the entrance would arouse suspicion.”

“At the entrance to what?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say. I think I could find the place again.”

“We’ve got to find it,” said Carter.

“Indeed we have,” Jane agreed, “and quickly, too. I fear we are going to be too late. Old Mr. Hoff seemed to be in terrible haste and spoke of their plans being nearly completed.”

“Go on,” said Fleck quietly, “tell us the rest.”

“Frederic Hoff stayed behind to pick us up, and the old man went off on the motorcycle. I heard them talking about his taking a train at the nearest station.”

“What did young Hoff do when he found it was you lying there?”

“He seemed surprised and startled.”

“What did he say?”

Jane colored and hesitated. There rose in her mind the picture of his tall figure bending over her, with anguish in his eyes, with expressions of endearment on his lips. She could not, she would not tell them what he had said.

“He asked if I was hurt.”

“Is that all?”

Again she blushed and hesitated.

“That’s all.”

“Did he not seem amazed at finding you there? Did he not ask you to account for your presence there?”

“No,” said the girl, firmly, “he didn’t.”

“Didn’t he question you at all?”

“No,” she insisted, “he was busy getting Dean into the car. He was unconscious, and it looked as if he was badly hurt.”

“Queer, mighty queer,” muttered Carter to himself.

“Didn’t he ask you who Dean was?” questioned Fleck.

“I explained that he was our chauffeur. He may have known him by sight at any rate.”

“Go on.”

“We stopped at the house of the first doctor we came to and left Dean there, and then Mr. Hoff brought me on home in the car. At the ferry he put me into a taxi.”

“What did you talk about on the trip home?” asked Fleck suspiciously. “Didn’t he try to pump you?”

“We hardly talked at all. He seemed concerned only in getting me home without its becoming known that I had been in an accident.”

“Is that all?” asked the chief. She could see by his manner that he mistrusted her, that he felt that she was keeping something back.

“We hardly exchanged a dozen words,” she insisted.

Fleck shook his head in a puzzled way.

“I can’t understand it at all,” he said. “Old Otto is a common enough type of German, painstaking, methodical, stupid, stubborn, ready to commit any crime for Prussia, but the young fellow is of far different material. He has brains and daring and initiative. He is far more alert and more dangerous. I cannot understand his finding you there and not trying to discover what you were doing.”

“I can’t understand that either,” Jane admitted.

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” the chief continued, “that Frederic Hoff is the real conspirator, the head of the plotters.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Jane quickly. “What did you find out when you searched the apartment yesterday?”

She felt certain from the manner in which he spoke that he must now have some damning evidence of Frederic Hoff’s guilt. He was not in the habit of making decisions without proof.

“We found,” said Fleck, his keen eyes fixed on her face as if trying to read her innermost thoughts, “a British officer’s uniform hanging in Frederic Hoff’s closet, proof positive that he is a dangerous spy.”

“And,” said Carter, pointing to the two clippings lying on Fleck’s desk, “in the old man’s waste-paper basket we found those.”

Jane picked up the clippings and examined them curiously.

“What are they?” she asked, looking from one to the other; “cipher messages of some sort?”

“We think so,” said Carter. “We don’t know yet.”

“I’ve noticed these peculiar advertisements often,” said Jane, studying the clippings, “but I never thought of connecting them with the Hoffs. I wonder—” Fleck and Carter had their heads together and were talking in low tones.

“I wonder,” said the chief, “what young Hoff is up to. He must have known the girl was there to spy on him. I can’t understand his not quizzing her.”

“He’s a cagey bird,” Carter replied. “They are both of them expert at throwing off shadowers. Both of them know, I think, they are being watched.”

“Oh, listen,” interrupted Jane, all excitement. “I believe I can read this cipher. The number of letters in the word in big type at the beginning of the advertisement is the key. See, this word here is ‘remember’—that has eight letters. Read every eighth word in this advertisement. I’ve underlined them.”

Fleck took the paper quickly from her hand and he and Carter bent eagerly over it to see if her theory was correct.

REMEMBER

Please, that our new paste, Dento, will _stop_ decay of your teeth. Sound teeth are _passports_ to good health and comfort. No good _business_ man can risk ill health. It is _closely_ allied with failure. The teeth if not _watched_ are quickly gone.

USE DENTO

A genuine, safe, pleasing paste for the teeth, prepared and sold only by the Auer Dental Company, New York.

“Stop passports business, closely watched,” repeated Fleck aloud. “That certainly makes sense and fits the facts, too. In the last few days we have drawn the net closely around a gang of supposed Scandinavians who have been busy supplying passports to suspicious-looking travelers. Let’s see the other advertisement.”

Excitedly the three of them read it together as Fleck underscored every fourth word.

DON’T

Forget it is _imperative_ for one and _all_ to use cleansing _agents_ on teeth that _leave_ no bad results. “_Ship_ more of that _wonder_-working paste immediately. _Workers_, employers, wives, all _ready_ to commend it. _Friday’s_ supply gone,” writes a druggist, to whom a big shipment was made last week.

USE DENTO

A genuine, safe, pleasing paste for the teeth, prepared and sold only by the Auer Dental Company, New York.

“Imperative all agents leave ship. Wonder-workers ready Friday,” read Fleck. “That’s surely a message, a warning to Germany’s agents to get off some ship or ships before they are destroyed. You, Miss Strong, have heard old Otto talk about the wonder-workers, whatever they are, being nearly ready. I guess he means bombs—bombs to blow up American transports. This message says they will be ready Friday.”

“And to-morrow’s Friday,” said Jane.