Meanwhile activities at the front had been progressing in a decisive

manner, although familiarity with the progress and its significance was

restricted to an exclusive class, consisting of certain officers and an

army of industrious workers, who might be classed as the moles of modern

warfare.

The latter were the engineers and workmen whose occupation at times was

a good deal like that of a miner. It had been their duty to tunnel,

tunnel, tunnel, until you'd think the whole of the country in this

vicinity must be a system of underground passages that would almost

rival the catacombs of Rome.

This tunneling, or sapping, was one of the most important forms of

strategy in the war. Undoubtedly in future years, remnants of many of

these underground passages, preserved for their value as historical

curiosities, will be inspected by thousands of tourists visiting the

scenes of the world's greatest conflict.

Vimy Ridge, near the end of the historic fight at that long elevation of

earth, was a veritable human anthill. The work of opposing armies in

their efforts to undermine each other is an exceedingly interesting, if

terrible, operation, and Vimy Ridge furnished an excellent illustration

of this.

Early in the fight for possession of the hill the tunneling began. At

the beginning of this narrative, when Private Irving Ellis and "Second

Looie Tourtelle" were scouting in No Man's Land, this boring of the

elongated mole on the earth's surface was as much of a fencing contest

as a sword battle between two seventeenth century Frenchmen. The

Germans held the hill, had taken possession of it and intrenched

themselves on the eastern slope as one of the strongholds of their

advanced positions in France. The Canadians and the British in

attempting to dislodge the invaders, found themselves at a considerable

disadvantage. There seemed to be only one way to overcome this

difficulty without a great slaughtering of the forces of the Allies.

This was by boring under the hill, mining it with trinitrotoluol,

touching off the explosive with electric sparks and blowing the

fortified mound into Kingdom Come.

Who first started the undermining process may never be known, unless

both kept records of dates and doings along this line. It is probable,

however, that it was begun by the Canadians, for the opposing army had

not as great incentive for haste as had the Allies. Moreover, they did

not have to go back so far to start their tunnels, and their

subterranean operations were more of defensive than offensive character.

Statements from authoritative sources since the close of the war

indicate that this tunneling contest was somewhat of a "diving" nature.

It was a contest of depth as well as progress. The Allied engineers

began operations at a certain level and went forward. As they advanced

they listened. It was like an American Indian putting his ear to the

ground to listen for the approach of distant enemy horsemen, or a

physician examining the chest of a patient with a stethoscope for

"unfriendly" sounds in the heart and lungs. The engineers carried a

sort of subterranean stethoscope to detect the approach of enemy

tunnelers. The instant they heard sounds of Prussian engineers boring

their way to meet the sappers of the Allies, they stopped operations and

went back to a new starting point and began over again, this time on a

lower level. This process was repeated many times, the Prussians ever

planning to get near enough to the Canadian sappers to enable them to

stop their subterranean operations with high explosives, and the Allied

tunnelers purposing to plant enough trinitrotoluol under Vimy Ridge to

blow it sky-high.

Meanwhile, Private Irving Ellis, in preparation for the greatest event

of his young career, was oblivious to all these activities, which were

destined to culminate in one of the biggest sensations of the war. He

knew in a vague way that something was going on under the ground at the

front. He had heard more or less reliable trench gossip to this effect

and had enough real information to assure him that there was something

behind it. Moreover, it was reasonable, to one of modern warfare

training, to suspect very extensive sapping activities in positions of

this kind. However, he would have been greatly astonished if an

intimation had come to him of how his own preparations for a plunge from

the skies were converging in point of time with the preparations of the

Canadians for blowing up Vimy Ridge.

At last the occasion arrived for the carefully planned departure by

night of the "boche spy" with his tattooed message camouflaged in a

"spasm of cubist art," as it was characterized by the architectural

draftsman who helped copy it on Irving's left forearm. The latter sat

in the rear seat of the aeroplane from which he had taken his lessons in

dropping from the sky and which was specially fitted up with an

elaborate parachute mechanism of the latest and most approved

development.

Apparently it was an important occasion in aircraft activities aside

from Irving's scheduled stunt, for a large squadron of machines was

preparing for flight at the same time. Probably a big raid was about to

be made on the boche lines or some important ammunition or supply

station of the enemy, the boy reasoned. But no information was

volunteered to him on this subject and he asked none, for it had nothing

to do with his affair. He was merely to watch for his opportunity, pick

his own time for taking "French leave," signal the pilot by an agreed

touch on the shoulder, "put up his umbrella," and depart.

Irving had more than one good cause to feel elated at the manner in

which circumstances had shaped themselves for an all-around success of

his venture up to the present time. And not the least of these was the

presentation to him, a few hours before his flight over the boche lines,

of a second lieutenant's commission. Accompanying this was a note from

Col. Evans wishing him the "best of good fortune," and concluding thus:

"You will take your leave in the same rank that Hessenburg might have

taken his, namely, as a second lieutenant, if your shrewd interpretation

of developing events had not intervened. If you have any reasonable

degree of success in this big venture of yours--and I'm sure you

will--I'll guarantee you a first lieutenancy, and it will take only a

continued exhibition of the good sense and judgment that I have seen in

you up to date to bring you eventually a captain's commission."

"It's 'Second Looie Ellis' now," Irving mused, as he took his seat in

the rear cockpit, strapped himself in, buckled about his waist, chest

and shoulders the parachute harness, and waited for the pilot to start

the motor that would send them away off on a wild night trip through the

air over a wilder scene of human slaughter and with one of the wildest

spy-plans in view that ever put thrills into the records of

international secret service agents.

*CHAPTER XXI*

*THE BLOWING UP OF VIMY RIDGE*

The aeroplane in which Lieut. Ellis made his "get-away" flight was

equipped with two machine guns, one for the pilot and one for the gunner

in the rear cockpit. While practicing the art of parachute descent,

Irving also acquired some practical knowledge of the use of a machine

gun in the air, not with the idea of engaging an enemy plane in battle,

but in order that he might put up an appearance of being skilled in sky

fighting if it became advisable for him to make such pretense in order

to avert suspicion as to the motive of his "escape." In other words, he

must be careful not to create a suspicion that there was collusion

between him and the pilot.

The parachute was folded compactly and deposited in a cylindrical

chamber behind the rear seat. The mechanism by means of which this aero

life-preserver was put in operation may be described as follows:

Directly in front of the parachute container was a device which, when

put in action, effected the release of the giant "umbrella." In front

of this device was a compressed-air reservoir. Within easy reach of the

person occupying the rear seat was a ratchet-lever, which, when pulled,

threw the seat back to an angle of about forty-five degrees and jerked

open the compressed-air reservoir. The opening of this reservoir put the

release machinery into action, and this in turn threw out of the

containing chamber the compactly folded parachute, which automatically,

on being released, spread out and encompassed a great volume of

resisting atmosphere. This powerful resistance, acting like a hurricane

in a tent, caused the occupant of the rear cockpit to be jerked along

the slanting back of his seat out into the vast expanse of empty space.

One great beauty of this device, when used for exhibition purpose, was

the fact that if it failed to work, the aviator retained his seat as

comfortably as if nothing had happened. As a life-saver, of course,

this peculiarity had little or no value, inasmuch as a flyer in distress

would be lost if the parachute failed to pull him out of his seat.

Before each of his experiments, Irving had tested the "sky-umbrella"

with a dummy heavier than himself in order to be certain that there was

no danger of ripping the silken cloth. A slight tear produced by the

strain on the parachute while he was being dragged from his seat might

become larger during the descent and cause him to fall with sufficient

shock to seriously injure or kill him. This was really the only

considerable danger in the whole performance, but it was one that needed

to be guarded against very carefully.

Up flew the aeroplane with graceful sweep and joined the flock of two

score other "night birds" that were starting out on a raid. The flight

to the front lines was quickly made and without incident of note. In

fact, not an enemy plane arose in the air to oppose the attacking

squadron until the leading flyers were directly over No Man's Land,

brilliantly illuminated with the fireworks of battle, and then something

happened that must have thrilled every aviator who witnessed it,

accustomed though he was almost daily to thrills that make the life of a

soldier on land or a Jackie of the navy seem like a tame existence in

comparison.

Suddenly there was an upheaval of earth almost directly below him,

followed by another and another in quick succession; then a regular

concert of upheavals in almost a straight line, and a very long line at

that, evidently, even to a pair of eyes looking down from a great height

in the air. There was a magnitude in the scene that could not be

mistaken, although the ridge of land that was visible only a few moments

before looked like little more than an elongated anthill.

"My goodness!" Irving exclaimed, though the noise of the motor and the

propeller and the rush of air about him made it impossible for him to

hear himself. "My goodness! they've actually blown up Vimy Ridge."

The machine swept on with the flock of mechanical war-birds, on over No

Man's Land and past the enemy front lines. Meanwhile Irving gazed down,

fascinated by the scene far, far below. It was a scene of the most

diminutive dwarfs now. The trenches looked like little more than pen

scratches on a dim-colored sheet, certainly not more than chalk marks,

of no particular color, on a "faded blackboard." And the people--the

soldiers! Yes, he could see them now, in large numbers. They looked

like ants--no, let's not understate it,--they looked like mice, small

mice, however; and they arose--on the Canadian side--out of the "chalk

marks" and dashed forward, a very short distance, it seemed, only a few

inches or feet at the most, but they chopped off their steps so short

that they appeared just to creep along. Irving was astonished at the

clearness of the night scene under the battle's illumination.

But they made it finally, up the side of the hill, if indeed any hill

remained, and into the crater--Irving could see an altered condition

following the trinitrotoluol explosions, and concluded that there must

be a long, a very long, crater--miles of it--in the place of Vimy Ridge.

They were cheering like mad--Irving knew it, though he could not hear a

voice. Yes, into the crater they went, a myriad of insects, or wee

animals,--they had possession of it--the enemy seemed not to offer any

resistance. They were whipped, thoroughly--they knew it. Tons and tons

of high explosive planted under that ridge had blown it to the sky.

"No, it didn't, either," Irving mused with a smile of "altitude

amusement." "It was only a flash in the pan. Not a pebble came half as

high as we are, and the sky is hundreds of miles--umph! How much higher

is it? My! if the world could only get up here and look at itself, I

wonder if things wouldn't go a little differently. No, I'm afraid not!

There'd always be somebody then trying to grab a bigger slice of the

moon than he's entitled to.

"But what am I thinking about? My head must be getting giddy. That

won't do a bit. I'm on very serious business. The bombing planes are

hovering over the rear line trenches and dropping their flower-pots on

'em. The anti-aircraft guns are getting busy, too. There went one

right ahead of us. They're getting our range. And here comes a fleet

of German planes to meet us. Well, it won't be safe to wait very long,

and it won't be fair to my pilot. Just as soon as we get well beyond

that third trench there, I'll take my plunge."

Irving set himself fixedly as if about to make a mighty leap or a

pistol-shot start in a foot race. As a matter of fact, he was going to

do nothing of the kind. Only a sort of passive effort was required of

him, and yet, his nerves had never been more tense. He put his right

hand on the release lever and leaned forward, his left hand almost

touching the pilot, and looked down over the side of the car, then off

toward the approaching enemy squadron, then at the camouflaged positions

of the belching anti-aircraft guns, then here and there at the exploding

shells in the midst of the invading fleet, then back again at the ground

scene directly below.

Suddenly he leaned farther forward and slapped his hand smartly on the

pilot's shoulder. The latter nodded and turned the nose of the sky

machine downward. This was Irving's cue. He leaned back and pulled the

release lever as far as it would go.

*CHAPTER XXII*

*BEHIND THE GERMAN LINES*

The "escape" was successful in every respect. The boy rocked to and fro

all the way down, like a cork on a billowy sea. Down, down he went, the

scene continuing, in the glare of innumerable lights of the battle,

almost as bright as day. Irving could see clearly where he was going,

although it was just beyond the zone of blazing activities. Between the

chosen landing place and the fighting terrain was a small belt of

timber, but the surroundings were lighted so brilliantly that the

general character and lay of the land could be determined even from a

height of several thousand feet.

Reinforcements were being rushed forward from points farther in the

rear. Irving could see a wave of men advancing toward the lighted area.

It looked as if attempts were being made to retake the hill, or what was

left of it. Undoubtedly the enemy had lost heavily as a result of the

volcanic explosions and the need of reserves was pressing at the front.

Irving landed right in the midst of a company of advancing men. The

lieutenant called a halt and remained long enough to make inquiry as to

the meaning of the parachute descent. The boy replied in fairly good

German that he was a spy in the service of the emperor, and asked to be

directed to regimental, divisional or army headquarters. The officer

assigned a sergeant to accompany the "arrival from the sky" and, after a

tramp of more than an hour over a highway on which they had to dodge

camions and autos and motorcycles and troops almost as watchfully as one

must dodge heavy traffic in a warehouse district in a large city, they

arrived at a small town where they found a brigadier general's

headquarters in what had formerly been the chief municipal building of

the place.

Lieutenant Ellis was taken in charge here by an intelligence attache,

who, observing the Canadian uniform worn by the boy, questioned him as

to his identity and mission. Irving was greatly pleased, as the

conversation progressed, to find that he understood almost everything

his inquisitor said and could answer intelligibly all the questions put

to him. The conversation, freely translated into English, was as

follows:

"Who are you?"

"My name is Hessenburg. I am a second lieutenant in the Canadian army.

But I am a Prussian sympathizer and the bearer of a message from agents

of Emperor William working secretly for him on the other side of the

Atlantic ocean."

"To whom is the message addressed?"

"I don't know. It is in cipher."

"Then how are you going to find the person to whom it should be

delivered?"

"I was informed that any high officer in the German army, from brigadier

general up, could tell me what to do the instant he heard my story."

"How did you get past the Canadian and German lines without being

captured; or did you surrender in battle?"

"No, although that was my plan at first. I managed to get into the air

service temporarily and dropped with a parachute, from an aeroplane in

the midst of a big battle after we got over on this side."

The intelligence attache uttered a guttural something that sounded like

an oath. From the tone and facial expression accompanying it, Irving

mentally translated the ejaculation into the much milder, "You don't say

so!"

"That's true," interposed the sergeant who accompanied Irving from the

scene of his descent. "I saw him come down. The lieutenant of my

company ordered me to bring him here."

"If all this is true, I suppose you'll have to see the general," the

attache concluded. "Just wait here and I'll find out how long you'll

have to wait. You say your message is important?"

"I haven't read it," the spy answered; "but I was informed that it was

very important. I think you'd better help me get it to him as soon as

possible."

The attache left Irving and his companion seated on a long bench in the

orderly room and entered the adjutant's office. A few minutes later he

came out again and announced that the message was "on its way to the

general" and an order to "come in" would probably come out in a short

time.

The "short time" was more than two hours, however. The brigadier

general had been napping. Ordinarily his night repose might fittingly

have been called sleep, but the taking of Vimy Ridge rendered any such

peaceful term inappropriate. It is probable, indeed, that there were

naps for few German officers of whatever rank, attached to that sector,

on the night of the great battle on the Canadian front. At any rate,

this officer was one of the few, and he awoke at break of day. One of

the first matters brought to his attention was the arrival of a spy from

America with an important message.

"Bring him in," he ordered.

A minute later Irving was standing before a very burly and very fierce

looking individual in the uniform of a high commanding officer and

saluting him with an appearance of self-confidence, in spite of a most

provoking nervousness that unexpectedly seized him.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

*OFF FOR BERLIN*

Irving Ellis recovered his composure and his nervousness left him in

full control of his faculties as he answered the first question put to

him by the brigadier general. It was a very simple question, thus:

"You are Second Lieutenant Hessenburg of the Canadian army?"

"I am."

"But a subject of Kaiser Wilhelm?"

"No, I am not," Irving replied. "I'm a subject of Great Britain, for my

father was naturalized in Canada. But my sympathies are over here and

when I am old enough, you'll find my citizenship where it ought always

have been."

"There, I got a little truth into my bunch of lies," Irving interpolated

to himself. "My citizenship will be where it always ought to have been,

and was, and is, and always will be, as long as I live--in the United

States. I spoke with a double tongue and satisfied my own conscience at

the end. Oh, I can see that I'm going to be some prevaricator before

this adventure is finished. Really, it never occurred to me before, but

a spy must have the biggest imagination on earth to be successful.

However, it's a good cause, that's some consolation."

Before the boy finished this soliloquy, the brigadier general was asking

another question:

"And you were sent here by some of our agents in Canada?"

"Yes."

"With a message?"

"Yes."

"Let me see it."

Irving took off his coat and rolled up his left shirtsleeve, exposing to

view the "cubist art" tattooing recently pricked into the skin with

sharp pointed needles and aniline dye. The brigadier general gazed at

it with deep interest two or three times; then looked into the spy's

face and said:

"You're all right. You must go to Berlin at once."

He contemplated the hieroglyphic oddity a minute longer and then said:

"My curiosity is keen to know how you got over here."

"I flew over," Irving replied.

"How could you manage that? Were you in the air service?"

"Yes, during the last few weeks. I was out with a pilot last night and

slipped away with a parachute in the heat of the battle."

It was the brigadier general's turn now to utter something of the

explosive character of an oath. As Irving's schooling and recent drill

in the Teutonic tongue did not comprehend such ultra-rhetorical figures

of speech, he did not get the full significance of the expletive.

But it was evident that the officer's outburst was anything but an

expression of anger. Admiration popped into his eyes and spoke out of

them in "violent harmony" with his oath. But this overflowing

endorsement of the spy's activities was suddenly interrupted by a change

of manner that caused Irving a little uneasiness as a new thought took

possession of the burly military man's mind.

"What do you suppose they think about you now over in the Canadian

lines? They're onto you now, aren't they? If we want you to return on

another mission over there, you've spoiled the game by your manner of

escape, haven't you? How could you explain it if they put you on the

grill?"

"That'll be very easy," Irving replied. "I waited for the right

conditions. We got into a fight with a couple of German planes and it

was looking pretty bad for us. Then a shell from an anti-aircraft gun

exploded so near to us that it seemed impossible for us to have escaped

serious damage. Well, two seconds later I saw the pilot was having

trouble with his engine; so I concluded it was time for me to take my

departure."

The look of gleeful admiration returned to the officer's face.

"You handled it well, very well," he said, with a disagreeable, gloating

laugh.

Irving's sentiments, however, were of much different nature. He was

thoroughly disgusted with his own "string of falsehoods," as he

characterized the stories he had told to the intelligence attache and

the brigadier general.

"I know very well that a spy is a personified fib, pure and simple," he

told himself with a reflective compression of his lips. "I don't think

it's any worse than that, and I don't think the stories I told were any

worse than fibs. A spy is just a misrepresentation walking around on

two feet. If he doesn't tell a single fib, it's his business to make

the enemy think he's something he isn't. If he does this for a bad

cause, he's a bad man; if he does it for a worthy cause, he's a good

man, not because he fibs, but because of the cause he misrepresents. So

long as he doesn't misrepresent the cause, he ought to be all right.

Still, the world will admire him more if he's smart enough to get what

he wants without telling any downright li--fibs like the ones I told.

I'm going to see if I can't get along hereafter without fibbing."

Irving worked this reasoning out in his mind as the conversation with

the officer proceeded. He was much relieved also on finding that he was

able to answer all succeeding questions without resorting to any gross

misstatements of facts. At last the brigadier general closed the

interview by saying:

"I'll excuse you for the time being. Meanwhile I'll communicate with my

superior officers and you'll wait under orders of the adjutant for

instructions from me."

Irving returned to the orderlies' room. He had not eaten breakfast and

informed an officer of the hungry condition of his stomach. This

resulted in his being turned over to an orderly who conducted him to the

officers' mess, where he was served with a very good meal.

"I guess I'm in right," he mused. "They give me the best feed and show

me considerable attention. The auspices are good. Hope I can keep

things coming my way, and I'll get what I'm after."

About an hour after breakfast, the adjutant summoned Irving into his

office and spoke to him, thus:

"We have just received orders to send you to Berlin. Are you ready to

go?"

"I haven't any luggage to pack," the spy answered.

"You will be supplied with what you need," the adjutant continued. "You

will also be accompanied by a young lieutenant who is recovering from

wounds received at the front and who has been granted home leave for a

month or two. He lives in Berlin. He will be here soon and go with you

to the train."

An hour later Irving was on a troop train, speeding away to the

northeast, away from the still thundering battle front and toward the

objective city of his secret-service aims, hopes, plans and patriotic

ambition.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*IN BERLIN*

Berlin!

The name was well worth the exclamation. If Irving did not utter it

aloud, he thought it in the "tone of voice" in which it appears here.

He had ridden more than half of the preceding day, all night and well

into another day with a companion in whom he was able to find little of

sympathetic interest. The fellow, an infantry lieutenant, about 30

years old, was a cold-eyed, emotionless individual and about as cruelly

boastful Prussian as one would care to meet. There was no fate too

frightful for an English soldier in his opinion, and all other Allies

fighting on the side of the British ought to be reduced to vassalage and

forced to pay tribute to the House of Hohenzollern.

Irving tried for a while to engage in intelligent conversation with him,

but at last found this impossible and decided to encourage him along the

line of least resistance with the view of obtaining as much information

from him as his prejudiced mind was capable of giving. By discounting

every thing uttered with a burst of passion or with sneer of contempt or

tone of bravado and by watching for inadvertent admissions, Irving

gleaned enough to convince him that the central allies were not nearly

as confident of winning the war as they wished the outside world to

believe.

Lieutenant Ellis was a good enough spy not to confine his observations

to the one supreme purpose of obtaining a list of enemy agents in Canada

and the United States. He saw at once, after landing with his parachute

in the boche lines, that he could be of great service to the cause for

which the Allies were fighting by gathering a fund of information

regarding the man power, supplies, ammunition and the general attitude

of the people in the kaiser's country. By the time he reached Berlin,

he felt considerably compensated for the uncongeniality of his traveling

companion during the trip.

They took a horse-cab--there were no automobile taxis in evidence--and

were driven at a very sleepy gait to a high-class hotel in

Friederichstrasse. The horse behind which they rode looked as if he

might have had a full meal of oats and corn some time before the war.

There was little in the scenes through which they passed that impressed

Irving as bearing any indications of the ravages of war, except perhaps

the scarcity of automobiles and the lack of that spick-and-span

condition for which the streets of Berlin had long been famous. The boy

spy was unable to discover any quality of excellence at all superior to

that of Buffalo, N.Y., in general appearance.

The hotel he found well furnished, decorated and supplied with rugs.

The rooms taken by Irving and his companion were all that a

"particular," if not fastidious, guest would demand. True, a girl

operated the elevator, but the young spy had learned, through letters

from his cousin, that Canadian girls went much farther than this in

their patriotic efforts, sharing not a little in the heavy labors of

munition shops and the general industries.

Irving's companion, whose name was Fritz Vollmer, spoke a few words to

the clerk in an undertone, and the clerk nodded knowingly, as if to

indicate that everything was all right.

"An old friend o' mine," Lieut. Vollmer remarked as they walked toward

the elevator. "I just told him you were all right in spite of your

uniform, that you'd been a spy over in the enemy's country and hadn't

had time to change your clothes since you got through the lines. You

won't be bothered about room rent or any other expenses here. Those

will be taken care of. You're not to change your uniform until after

you've had a session at intelligence headquarters."

"When will that be?" Irving inquired.

"This afternoon some time," was the answer. "I'll go over and make

arrangements and then come back and go with you. Meanwhile we'll go out

and have some lunch."

In spite of Lieut. Vollmer's supercilious ways and boastful language,

the young boche officer evinced a deep personal interest in his

companion. But undoubtedly the reason for this was the daring and

romantic record that the young spy had behind him. And this record

necessarily obtruded itself so conspicuously in Irving's affairs right

now that the vainglorious Teuton could not subordinate it even when

picturing his own "high excellence." Therefore Lieut. Vollmer's

uncontrollable admiration for the venturesome youth whom he was

companioning was just a result of the over-awed condition of his own

mind.

They went out to a cafe in Friederichstrasse and ate a very modest

luncheon for which Vollmer paid fifteen marks. Then they returned to

the hotel, and Irving remained in his room while Vollmer went to

Wilhelmstrasse to announce the arrival of "the spy" and make

arrangements for presenting him to the proper official. The boy would

have been glad to go out and stroll through the streets of the capital

of the great war-making nation, but hesitated to do this because he

feared that his Canadian uniform might get him into needless difficulty.

An hour later Fritz returned and announced that he had found the proper

official to receive the spy's message. That official, he said, was

eager to meet the kaiser's daring agent, and would he please return with

Lieut. Vollmer at once?

Irving assented, and together they left the hotel. On the way the

Prussian officer thrilled the spy with patriotic fervor which he was

able to suppress only with great difficulty by informing him that the

United States had declared war against Germany a few days before.

"America will bitterly rue the day she took that action," Lieut. Vollmer

declared vengefully.

*CHAPTER XXV*

*THE READING OF THE CRYPTOGRAM*

It was a rather imposing structure with gray-stone front that Irving and

his companion entered in Wilhelmstrasse as the headquarters of the

globe-encircling spy system of the terrible German empire. They walked

through the doorway and passed down the cavernous corridor, with its

innumerable ramifications of mystery, secrecy, penetration. All of these

ramifications were by no means physical and evident to the inquisitive

eyes of the visitor from across the sea. Most of them, nearly all, in

fact, were pictured in the brain of Lieut. Ellis, who saw visions of

thousands of communicating branches reaching out into every part of the

civilized world.

The names of Bernstorf, Von Papen, Boy-Ed, and other former leading

agents of the kaiser in the United States flashed through his mind, and

he was curious to know what sort of men directed their activities from

central headquarters. It was not long before his curiosity was rewarded

with visual evidence.

Lieut. Ellis and Lieut. Vollmer walked up a broad flight of flagstone

steps to the second floor and into the waiting room of a large suite of

offices. There they were met by a girl of freshman high-school age, who

evidently served in the capacity of office boy.

"Have the office boys all been drafted for military service?" Irving

asked himself as his companion answered the girl's questions.

They were directed to wait a few minutes, which they accordingly did,

and in a quarter of an hour were ushered into the presence of a

mild-eyed man whose least prepossessing characteristic was the

undependability of the mildness of his gaze. Irving had not been long

in the room with him before he realized that the fellow's "gentleness"

was a carefully cultivated "attribute," schemed, plotted, and devised to

qualify him for the shrewdest and most subtle of government secret

service. He was a large man of good proportions, with a mustache that

stood out like a tooth-brush parted in the middle and a very fair and

well rounded face. Although he might have passed for thirty-five years

of age, Irving subsequently learned that he was nearly ten years older.

He answered to the title of "the baron," addressed familiarly by Lieut.

Vollmer.

"Here he is," said the latter, who seemed to think this was all the

introduction needed.

Irving bowed, and "the baron" bowed. There was no shaking of hands

between them.

"Very well," said the intelligence official, indicating thereby that the

announcer's duty was performed and that he might now retire. Vollmer did

as suggested by the manner of the receiving nobleman, and Irving and his

world-plotting host were alone.

"I have heard your story from Lieut. Vollmer," "the baron" began. "He

said you had a message tattooed on your arm. Let me see it."

Irving took off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeve and exhibited for

inspection the "cubist art cryptogram" on his left forearm. The

official gazed at it closely a minute or two; then said:

"Just wait a minute and I'll have it read."

He lifted a telephone receiver to his ear and called out a local number

through the transmitter. Presently he was talking to the desired

department.

"Send Kiehler and Joe Weber in here," he said.

Three minutes later two middle-aged men entered. Neither of them was of

striking appearance. In fact, each had a rather stolid look, but it was

not long before Irving realized that there was some real mechanical, if

not imaginative, ability underneath their apparent stupidity.

"Take this young man into your office and read that cipher message on

his arm," ordered "the baron."

The two cryptogram readers bowed and one of them requested Irving to

follow. They left the office and proceeded to another on the top floor

of the building.

It was a very light suite of rooms that Irving now found himself in.

One room particularly was supplied with the best of daylight

illumination through a skylight overhead. It reminded Irving of an

architectural drafting room. Half a dozen men were seated at as many

desks working as diligently over record and manuscript material before

them as so many college students "cramming" for a trigonometry or

chemistry exam. Irving was conducted to an unoccupied desk in a remote

corner of the room and there he and his two companions sat down and the

consultation began.

The two cryptologists, however, had little to say. They seemed to have

little interest in Irving save as to the cipher message he had brought

for them to translate. They exhibited no surprise when the boy spy

rolled up his sleeve and disclosed the manner in which he had conveyed

his message. They seemed to have become so accustomed to the discovery

of unusual things that nothing could astonish them. Stolidity of manner

was a term that fitted them exactly, but certainly not unqualified

stolidity. Irving felt almost as if their eyes burned right into his

arm.

They worked diligently for more than an hour over the boy's bared arm,

frequently jotting down characters on tabs of paper before them. At

last they finished and informed him that he might go.

"Go where?" Irving inquired.

Without answering, one of the men picked up the receiver of a telephone

and put it to his ear. He gave a number to the operator and soon he was

talking to someone. The waiting boy was sure that the person "at the

other end" was "the baron."

"Go back to the hotel and remain there for instructions," the man at the

'phone said presently, as he hung up the receiver.

Irving left the building, intending to take a cab to the hotel. He had

scarcely reached the street, however, when it suddenly occurred to him

that he had no money with him.

"I'll have to walk," he mused. "Well, it isn't very far and I can make

it easy before suppertime. But I wonder if I'll get through with this

uniform. Well, I'll use my nerve and see what happens."

He started out briskly, but observed as he went that he attracted

attention from a good many persons on the street, some of them soldiers.

Undoubtedly it was his nerve that got him through, but he could not

avoid several times turning his head with whatever nonchalance he could

command and stealing glances to the right and left and behind. After

looking back two or three times, he became curious regarding the purpose

of a middle-aged man in civilian clothes whom he had observed in front

of the intelligence building as he came out of the main entrance.

"I wonder if that fellow is following me?" he said to himself, a little

nervously.

He walked a few squares farther, then stopped and looked into a tailor

show-window. He remained there several minutes, really interested in the

display and the prices. With a kind of meditative look, he glanced down

the street, but could see nothing of his supposed shadower. Then he

moved on again, turned a corner, walked half a square, and suddenly

faced about as if he had made a mistake in his direction and must

retrace his steps.

The middle-aged man in civilian clothes, who was not more than a hundred

feet away, turned almost as suddenly as the boy in Canadian khaki had

turned and entered a cafe that he seemed about to pass.

"I'm being followed," muttered the spy with a real chill of alarm. "I

wonder what's up. Have they found something wrong with that message?

Did those cryptogram readers discover that the message had been tampered

with?"

*CHAPTER XXVI*

*FOLLOWED*

Irving walked on as if nothing unusual had occurred to disturb his peace

of mind, and yet nothing more disquieting perhaps had ever moved the

quakings of fear within him. If the man who had followed him could have

looked into the face of the young second lieutenant in khaki as the

latter passed the cafe, undoubtedly he would have seen there an

expression of countenance exceedingly interesting to him.

The day was now rapidly drawing to a close, and the damp April

atmosphere, chilly enough when the sun was at its zenith, was becoming

cold toward night. Irving had no overcoat. He had worn only a

flying-coat and "cover all," aside from his ordinary fair-weather

garments, on the night of his ascent in an aeroplane and descent with a

parachute, but he was not particularly uncomfortable even under present

conditions. Still, he felt that it would be much more pleasant within

four walls of a first class hotel, even though, as he suspected, the

management was burning coal under war emergency limitations. So he

hurried on, and did not slacken his pace until he was back at the

hostelry.

About a square from the hotel he turned and looked down the street to

see if the middle-aged man in citizen's clothes was still following him.

Yes, there he was, 200 feet back, sauntering with a long stride, which

rendered it possible for him to keep pace with the spy without an

appearance of haste. As the latter entered the lobby and walked toward

the elevator, he said to himself:

"I'll have to bluff it through. I'm not going to pretend ignorance of

the fact that I've been followed. But I mustn't appear to be afraid of

being watched. I must present the matter in a different light."

He knocked on the door of Vollmer's room, but received no response.

Then he went to his own room to wait until his guide returned.

"I'll have to wait for him before I can get any supper," he mused. "I'm

in a peculiar situation, and don't know exactly where I'm at. I think

I'll have to have a plain talk with him tonight, much as I hate to rest

any of my fortunes on his questionable goodwill."

Lieut. Vollmer returned at about 6 o'clock and announced without any

formal greeting that they would go out to supper. Irving picked up his

hat from the bed where he had thrown it on entering the room and

signified his readiness to go at once.

He was eager to begin conversation on the subject that interested him

most, but decided that he must await a favorable opportunity. His

companion had relapsed again into unsociable aloofness, and the walk of

three squares to the cafe where they had their luncheon was made without

the passing of a word between them.

The meal, too, was eaten almost as quietly. Irving made a few attempts

to draw his companion into conversation, hoping to lead up gradually to

the subject that was weighing rather heavily on his mind, but he failed

utterly. At last just as they were about to leave the restaurant, the

young German lieutenant altered the aspect of affairs very much by

saying:

"I'm going to leave you to your own devices now, Hessenburg. For

anything you want, get in touch with the baron; he'll give instructions

for taking care of you. They'll probably give you an army uniform and

send you to the front to fight for the fatherland. I'm on a leave of

absence and am going home to stay there until my leave expires."

Irving was stunned by this announcement from his uncongenial guide, who

was about to leave him unceremoniously in the lurch. He did not know

how to reply and so made no attempt to do so aside from the utterance of

a few conventionalities, such as, "I hope you'll enjoy your furlough,"

and "I thank you for the courtesies you have shown me."

Lieut. Vollmer did not return with Irving to the hotel, but gave him a

limp handshake out on the sidewalk, tossed a careless "aufwiedersehn" at

him and sauntered away. The deserted spy went back to his room and

passed an uncomfortable night, tormented with so many doubts of

conflicting nature that he soon found himself in a very nervous

condition. After he had lain awake an hour or two trying to clear up the

obscurities in his mind, he decided that the course of thinking that he

had permitted to sway him would result disastrously even if there was no

reason for him to feel apprehensive of the outlook.

"I must throw this out of my mind and get a good night's rest," he told

himself. "If my nerves are all shot to pieces tomorrow, it'll be folly

for me to attempt to get any satisfaction from the government officials.

They'll see there's something wrong, dead sure. I'm proving myself a

mighty poor spy, and ought to have stayed in the Canadian trenches. Of

course, I must expect to run into the most dangerous situations and

depend on my wits, bluff, and nerve--yes NERVE--to get me out. What if

I am under suspicion? If they have no goods on me, I'm safe enough so

long as I don't convict myself by a guilty manner. I must be mistaken

in my suspicion that they have found something wrong in that cubist art

message. They'd 'ave arrested me right away if they'd discovered the

change. I'll probably find everything all right tomorrow when I talk

with the baron. Why, he may even decorate me with an iron cross. Hope

it won't be too heavy to carry around, that's all. Or maybe they need

all the iron to make shells with and will give me a leather cross--no,

they need that for shoes; or a rubber cross--no, they need that to make

rubber heels so they can pussy-foot out in No-Man's-Land. There! I've

got my nerves in better shape; think I can go to sleep now, but I do

wonder why that middle-aged man in civilian clothes was following me. I

wonder if he wore rubber heels."

That was the way Irving managed to induce sleep an hour or two before

midnight. He adopted the method very systematically and determinedly,

and it worked. But his slumber was not as undisturbed as he would have

had it, for he dreamed the most violent and mysterious of dreams

enlivened and peopled with aeroplanes and booming cannon and

minnenwerfers and parachutes and rubber-heeled secret service men who

followed him so softly, gently, stealthily that it seemed as if even the

thunder of battle was being toned down to zephyrs of inconsequential

ghostly conflict.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

*THE SPY'S DECISION*

Irving arose at daybreak next morning. In spite of his uneasy night, he

was much refreshed and felt confident that he had good command of his

nerves. This was an important reassurance, and the young spy decided

that he would not let it get away from him.

"I'll tie it down with a string of self-confidence and a knot of

determination," he told himself resolutely.

This way of putting the idea amused him a little and added to his

strength of purpose.

"First of all, how about breakfast?" he asked himself as he combed his

hair with a pocket comb which he carried with him and regarded the

puzzled wrinkling of his brow in the wash-room mirror.

"Well," he added, as he returned the comb to its case-and the case to

his pocket, "I guess I'll have to go without breakfast. Not a very

comfortable idea, either, but there seems to be no way out of it. That

fellow Vollmer seemed to take a malicious delight in forgetting every

one of my comforts. I wish I had something to do between now and 9 or

10 o'clock. I don't like to stroll around any more than is necessary in

this uniform."

But there seemed to be nothing for him to do except remain in his room

and wait for his wristwatch to tick several thousand seconds. It seemed,

too, as if all of these ticks hammered away right in the center of his

brain, always striking on the same pin-point spot and irritating his

nervous system almost beyond endurance. At 8:30 o'clock he decided to

wait no longer and grabbed his hat and hastened from the hotel. Without

making particular note of his surroundings, he set out at a brisk pace

for the building that contained the intelligence offices which he had

visited the day before.

Meanwhile he had forgotten all about the middle-aged man in civilian

clothes who had followed him through the streets. It had not occurred

to him that the fellow might return to the hotel and continue his

espionage next day. He had presumed that the man would make a report to

his superiors and the affair would be taken up again in some other

manner if, indeed, there should be any resumption at all of the

investigation.

"If I'm suspected of being a British spy, they'll probably arrest me

when I report back at the baron's office," he mused before leaving the

hotel.

After walking a square or two, Irving slowed his pace considerably,

realizing that it was still early and that he probably would have to

wait an hour or more for "the baron" after his arrival at the latter's

office if he continued to walk as rapidly as he had started. To "kill"

a little of the surplus time ahead of him, therefore, he stopped and

looked into several shop windows, the last being an "eat shop," which

teased his appetite not a little and caused him to feel that he could

chew a piece of army meat of the consistency of leather, or rubber, with

a good deal of relish at that moment.

The suggestion contained in the word rubber, for which there seemed to

be no appropriate reason in connection with a steaming breakfast,

revived his burlesque musings of the night before as he was drifting

away into a nervous slumber. The semi-dream pictures in his mind of a

government sleuth on rubber heels brought him back to his startling

experience of the previous day so suddenly that he turned almost

involuntarily and gazed in the direction from which he had come.

If he had been a person of superstitious susceptibility wandering

through a country cemetery in the ghostly moonlight, he could not have

been more apprehensively thrilled by what he saw. Half a square up the

street was the mysterious middle-aged man in civilian clothes who had

followed him from the intelligence building to the hotel.

"Gee! I must hustle along and get to the baron's office as soon as

possible," he decided as he quickened his steps. "I must bluff this

thing through as I never bluffed before. I must put the matter up to

him and find out what it means."

He hurried on more rapidly than the pace with which he started from the

hotel and did not slow up again until he reached the building in

Wilhelmstrasse for which he was headed.

He decided not to pretend to be ignorant of the fact that he was being

followed; indeed, he would have retraced his steps and accosted his

shadower if it had not seemed probable that such a course would have

been futile. So, just as he was passing through the pillared entrance,

he turned and looked again up the street.

Yes, there he was, 150 feet away, sauntering along as if his greatest

object in life was the sniffing of the damp April ozone. One look was

enough, and the shadowed spy entered the building and walked up the

flagstone stairway.

"I'm going to find out who that fellow is and what he's up to if such a

thing is possible," he resolved. "I'm going to put it up to the baron

right now and if I'm under suspicion I'll soon find out and, I hope,

drive the suspicion away."

The young spy was now exhibiting real qualities necessary to make a

successful army secret service man.

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

*MAKING PROGRESS WITH THE BARON*

Irving entered "the baron's" outer office and asked to see the big

intelligence official. To his surprise, that secret service dignitary

was in, and the caller was requested to wait a few minutes until he was

at leisure.

"Even the nobility are getting up early to help win the war," Irving

ruminated as he waited. "Well, that shows a good trait of character--if

they only had a good cause to fight for. I wonder if they really think

they have. I don't see how they can."

Presently he was informed by an office girl that "the baron" would see

him, and he entered the latter's private office. The big, usually

mild-eyed official looked at him rather sharply, he thought, but he

resolved not to be overawed by his dominating personality.

"I am here," he began, rather abruptly, but with a bow of seeming

respect, "to find out what is to become of me. I feel lost in this big

city. Lieut. Vollmer left me last night and informed me that if I wanted

anything, I should apply to you. In the first place, I should like to

have some breakfast."

"The baron" seemed to be amused by this speech. He did not, however,

indicate any particular concern over the hungry condition of the spy,

who had proved himself a daring and spectacular hero "in the service of

the fatherland." But he smiled and answered in reassuring tones:

"No breakfast? Ach himmel! You shall have all you can eat, and by the

time you have finished your breakfast, you'll realize how futile is the

English blockade."

"What kind of plans have you for me?" Irving asked, deeming it of no

advantage to enter into a discussion of conditions in Germany with a man

who undoubtedly would express only the most optimistic views. "I'm

getting impatient, I can't stand it to be idle. I want something to do."

"What do you want to do?" asked "the baron."

"Whatever I'm best fitted for. I hoped I'd been successful enough in

the venture just completed to warrant your keeping me in something of

the same line."

"Do you want to go back to Canada?"

"I'd thought some of that, but it doesn't seem practicable," Irving

replied. "You see, I'm an enlisted soldier now and would be sent back

to the front if I returned. But it seems to me that I might do some

good work in the United States."

"Yes, that's true, you might," "the baron" admitted, meditatively.

"I'll think that over."

"Meanwhile," Irving continued, "I'd like to get rid of this uniform. It

causes me no end of inconvenience. I'm constantly expecting to be

stopped on the street and questioned."

"Have you been stopped yet?"

"No, but I've been followed. I'd have gone out and walked around some

last evening, but was followed all the way from here to the hotel. The

same man followed me from the hotel here this morning."

"The baron" appeared to be genuinely surprised at this statement.

"I don't understand that," he said. "What kind of looking man was it

that followed you?"

"He was middle-aged and dressed in civilian clothes."

"I'll find out about this," "the baron" announced, pressing a button on

his desk.

An office messenger between 60 and 70 years old entered.

"Is Schoensiegel or Blau out there?" inquired "the baron."

"Blau is," replied the messenger.

"Send him in."

The messenger went out and a minute later an individual who might have

passed for an ordinary plain-clothes man of the police force entered.

"Blau," said the intelligence official, "this is Mr. Hessenburg, one of

our friends from America--Canada. He was with the Canadian army at the

front and broke away to bring us some important information. He's been

here only a couple of days, but has been followed on the street by

someone, not under orders from this office. I want you to go outside

and wait until he leaves, and then find out who it is that's following

him and why he's doing it. Maybe some other department or the police

are laboring under a misapprehension as to our friend's identity."

"Gans gewiss, Herr Hauptmann," said Blau, bowing himself out of the room

and indicating acceptance of his commission. The conversation was

resumed between the spy and "the baron."

"I'll provide you with a uniform and make you an attache of this office

for the present," the latter announced. "Later I'll take up your

suggestion for keeping you in this branch of the service and see what I

can do. The skill and daring of your achievements thus far deserves

recognition, I can say that much at least."

Irving was reassured and encouraged by these words. He was convinced

that "the baron" entertained no doubt regarding the genuineness of his

representations.

"Why not give me employment that will enable me to advance my efficiency

for further spy work?" the boy suggested.

"That's a good idea," declared the intelligence official with a look of

professional animation in his eyes. "I think I'll do that. As soon as

you get your uniform, report at this office and I'll have you assigned

to your new duties. Meanwhile I'll put you on the payroll and give you

an order for a month's salary in advance. Your bill at the hotel has

been taken care of, but from now on you'll pay that yourself. Lieut.

Vollmer was guilty of an inexcusable oversight when he left you without

money for your meals and other incidentals. I thought that was being

taken care of."

Irving thanked "the baron" for the interest shown in his welfare. Then

he took up the subject on which he had expected to make his strongest

play with the intelligence official.

"I want to speak to you now," he said, "about a matter that perhaps I

should have brought to your attention sooner. It's about the message on

my arm. I don't know what's in that message, but it may be that

Canadian officials have taken steps to render worthless the information

I brought to you. Would it be possible for them to render it of no

value to you if they knew the contents of the message I brought?"

The keen interest that "the baron" manifested instantly in these

suggestions indicated to Irving that he could hardly have broached a

subject that would command closer attention.

*CHAPTER XXIX*

*ORDERS FOR MONEY AND CLOTHES*

"It would not only be possible for the Canadian officials to nullify the

value to us of the message you brought, but that is exactly what they

would do if they found out the contents of that message."

This is the reply "the baron" gave to the question put to him by Irving

at the close of the preceding chapter. The spy put the question in

accord with a suggestion made by Col. Evans in the course of his

instructions behind the Canadian lines. The intent of this move was to

obviate suspicion that he had delivered a fake message when discovery

was made that the information it contained did not answer its professed

purpose.

"Have you any reason to believe that they discovered the nature of the

information you brought in that message?" asked the high Prussian

official after he had answered the spy's question.

"I'm afraid I have," the latter replied. "Why didn't they arrest you?"

"Because they didn't know where to find me. I was lost somewhere in the

Canadian army. They probably had no way of identifying me. However, they

must have made a search for me when they learned what had been going

on--maybe they're searching yet."

"Do you know what they learned that a message of this kind was being

brought over here?"

"I know enough to feel that there is grave danger that they made such a

discovery."

"How did you find that out?"

"This way: One of the boys in the company to which I belonged received a

letter from his cousin in Canada that told almost the whole story, and I

read the letter. That cousin told a long story about his going to

Toronto to visit some friends and getting sick while there. He was

taken to a hospital--_our_ hospital, by the way--and while he was

convalescing, he strolled out in the hall and saw the tattooing

operation on my arm. The two men who were doing the work saw him

standing there and gazing through the glass door, and they rushed out,

collared him, and dragged him into the laboratory. But he satisfied them

that he was merely a curious onlooker and they let him go.

"However, they had him watched, and after he left the hospital he was

followed everywhere he went. He communicated with government officials

and a week or two later the hospital was raided. This is all the

information the letter contained, but it is possible that they compelled

somebody to reveal the contents of the message that was tattooed on my

arm."

"Very possible," agreed "the baron," leaning forward with a look of hard

and harsh concern in his eyes. "And where were you in the meantime?"

"On my way on a transport for England. The spy in the hospital, I

suppose, did not observe me very closely. Fortunately I had my coat off

and perhaps he did not identify me as a soldier. At any rate, I was not

interfered with, and I am here."

"No doubt of that," returned the intelligence official rather absently;

"and you brought the message. Well, all we can do is remember the

circumstances you have just related and take them into consideration if

developments don't prove satisfactory. I'm glad you told me about this,

for it may prevent a lot of confusion. It wouldn't be well for you to

venture back into Canada with that picture on your arm. You'd be picked

up as a deserter, and the intelligence officers wouldn't be very slow

finding out that you were the fellow they've been hunting for ever since

the raid on that Toronto hospital. As a matter of fact, I doubt if you

can be of much use to us in any of the countries of our allied enemies

with that thing on your arm."

"I have an idea to remedy that," said Irving with a smile that suggested

something of a novelty in his mind.

"What is that?" asked "the baron."

"Peel this picture off and graft some new skin in its place."

The intelligence official laughed, but he was interested as well as

amused.

"That isn't a bad idea at all," he said. "On the whole I am inclined to

take you seriously. You seem to have a scientific turn of mind, and that

always appeals to an intelligent German. I'm going to put you to work

under the direction of a man who will give you a thorough tryout, and

we'll find out what you're good for. You seem to be ambitious and

intelligent and have a good record behind you. Go ahead now and show us

what you're worth."

This announcement and the accompanying instruction delighted the spy

beyond measure. If his recent experiences had not schooled him in the

very wise habit of self-restraint, his first joyful impulse might have

got him into trouble.

"Just wait a minute and I'll fix you up with an order for some money and

some clothes," said "the baron" after a few moments of silence.

He picked up a pen and busied himself filling out a form and writing a

note on a letterhead of the department. These he folded and placed hi

separate envelopes. The envelopes he addressed and handed to the spy.

"There, that's all today, I think," he said. "Whatever you need

hereafter will be taken care of by Mr. Herrmann. Inquire outside and

you'll be directed where to go to have this order cashed."

Irving thanked him and left the office. Ten minutes later he was

outside the building with a comfortable roll of bank-bills in his

pocket. As he started up the street with directions in his mind for

reaching the quartermaster's office, he saw Blau on the opposite

sidewalk and was reminded of the instruction given that intelligence

operative to shadow the young spy's shadower.

*CHAPTER XXX*

*BEFORE BREAKFAST*

Irving dismissed from his mind for the time being the mystery concerning

the middle-aged man in civilian clothes who had followed him through the

streets on two occasions. His fears regarding the incident were

dispelled, for he felt that Blau, the intelligence operative on the

opposite side of the street, would take care of that matter very

efficiently. Everything was coming his way now, and he in his mission

than he had felt at any other time walked alone; with greater confidence

of success since landing with his parachute.

It was a ten minute walk to the quartermaster's headquarters. At the

entrance of the building, his curiosity concerning the game of "shadow

chase shadow" which he presumed to be going on behind him was aroused by

a sudden reverting of his mind to the subject, and he turned and looked

down the street by which he had come. There was Blau, half a square

away, but the "middle-aged man in civilian clothes" was not in sight.

"I wonder if he got onto the fact that somebody was directed to watch

him," Irving mused. "But that ought not to have stopped him. He had

nothing to fear from an agent of another department if he was engaged in

legitimate government business."

The spy delivered his requisition for a soldier's uniform and was given

in turn an order on the supply house and directions how to reach it.

Then he left the building and took a car for the place where he was to

get his suit.

Blau took the same car, but the "shadow" he had been ordered to "shadow"

was not there unless he had disguised himself so successfully that

Irving was unable to recognize him. The operative appeared to be

somewhat puzzled, too, but he made no sign of recognition to the soldier

in enemy uniform, and the latter maintained a like pretense of

unacquaintance.

An hour later the spy was clad in a first lieutenant's uniform and on

his way back to the hotel. Blau kept within hailing distance of him,

but his shadowing seemed to be futile, for the "middle-aged man in

civilian clothes" had not appeared in any recognizable guise or

disguise. Indeed, Irving was certain that nobody except the operative

had followed him since he came out of the quartermaster's office and

started for the store-rooms.

The applicant for an army uniform was required to enlist for service in

the army before it could be supplied. Irving was not surprised at this,

but he was very much surprised by the kind of uniform given him. It

bore the insignia of a first lieutenant's rank.

"That's certainly generous on the baron's part," he said to himself. "I

don't understand it. I didn't read his note to the quartermaster, nor

the quartermaster's order. Maybe they would have afforded some

explanation. Maybe I shall have to earn my rank and meanwhile will go

about like an automobile for which a license has not been issued but

bears a tag 'license applied for.' Maybe that's my case here--first

lieutenant's commission applied for. It looks kind of irregular, but I

suppose 'the baron' knows his business. Anyway, mine is a special case

all around, however one looks at it."

When he filled out his enlistment papers, of course Irving signed the

name of Adolph Hessenburg, late of Toronto, Canada, and on the "history

sheet" that he had to fill out he entered data given him by the boy of

the original tattooed cubist-art message. Then he was granted the use

of a room where he discarded his Canadian uniform and put on his new

Prussian military disguise.

He felt that he was disguised now as he at no time had hoped to be since

planning his spy expedition into the heart of the kaiser's kingdom. He

surely must have the full confidence of the Prussian officials with whom

he had come into contact, or he would not have been elevated to the

military rank and position of trust that now were virtually his.

Irving was particularly pleased with the ease he had experienced in

picking up the idioms of the German language. He had an excellent

memory and scarcely a word or a phrase that was taught to him at school

or behind the Canadian lines, or that he had heard since landing with a

parachute on territory held by the Prussian armies, had failed to make a

lasting impression on his mind. Moreover, he was very quick to put

ideas together and in that way get their associated significance; so

that he skillfully "figured out" the meaning of not a few words that he

had never heard before they were used in conversation with him by "the

baron" and other persons with whom he came in contact. And he was

almost as quick and skillful in his use of those same words for the

expression of his own ideas.

After leaving the quartermaster's supply depot, Irving visited a

haberdashery and bought several suits of underwear, shirts, collars, and

socks, and then returned to the hotel. As he entered his room and

deposited his bundles on the bed a funny thing happened.

He stopped short--true, he could not have gone much farther without

falling over the bed, but nevertheless there was a decided "shortness"

to his "stop."

"My goodness!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand to his appetite region.

"I haven't had any breakfast yet."

Which being a sufficiently thrilling climax for the closing of a

chapter, we will carry the reader over in suspense to the next.

*CHAPTER XXXI*

*AT WORK IN THE SPY OFFICE*

Irving laughed and felt hungrier than ever. The humorous relaxation

afforded him great relief from the nervousness of his morning's

activities, which had been associated enough with doubt and apprehension

to make a coward run and a brave man extremely cautious.

"Well, that's a good one," the young pseudo-boche lieutenant continued

in soliloquy. "Here it's nearly 2 o'clock and I haven't eaten my

breakfast, and meanwhile I'd forgotten all about it. And I'm as hungry

as a bear. I wonder if the British blockade has left enough food in the

kaiser's kingdom, to fill up the vacuum inside of me. I think I'll go

and find out. That'll be worth-while information to carry back to the

Canadian commanders."

So out he went to a restaurant two squares away, where he had small

difficulty in getting all he wanted to eat, the only qualification being

that he had to pay prices so out of proportion to his income that he

instinctively began to figure out the financial problem of how to make

his salary carry him through to the end of the month.

"I'm starting out too swell," he concluded after several minutes'

reckoning. "I'll have to eat at cheaper restaurants and get a cheaper

room. That makes me think I don't know how much my room at the hotel is

going to cost me; but it's bound to be pretty steep. Anyway, I don't

care, so long as I can pull through on my salary. I don't want to carry

any of this money with me when I go back to the other side of No-Man's

Land."

Irving did not ask how much the hotel was charging for his room. He

merely announced that he would check out that evening after engaging

quarters in a comfortable rooming house in a semi-residence district

near the Tiergarten. Economy was not the only motive that caused him to

make this move. Being now in German uniform, he reasoned that he might

be able to throw off of his trail the "middle-aged man in civilian

clothes" who had been shadowing him, if he changed his living address

also. As a further precaution he made this change late in the evening.

Next morning he reported for duty at the office of "Mr. Herrmann" as he

had been instructed by "the baron" to do. Mr. Herrmann proved to be in

charge of a suite of offices in the intelligence building in which were

employed more than a hundred persons, most of them men, varying in ages

from 20 to 70. Irving, for want of detailed information regarding their

duties, classed them all as clerks, stenographers and typists at first

glance, and this in general was a very good classification, although

many of them performed special work that entitled them to ranking

positions of greater dignity. And he had not been employed there more

than two or three days when he learned that half of them held such

ranking positions together with salaries proportionate to the grades of

work they did.

"Can you operate a typewriter?" asked Mr. Herrmann after conducting the

new employe through one large and several smaller work-rooms under his

superintendence.

"With two fingers," Irving replied with a smile.

"Learned it at home, eh? Well, you won't need a lot of speed. I

understand your education in German is not very far advanced."

"Not very far," the spy replied.

"Can you read the script?"

"Yes, I can work it out. I know the letters, but they come to me rather

slowly."

"You'll make it all right after a few days' practice. I'm going to set

you at work first copying some translated cipher messages." (The boy's

heart began to thump eagerly, but the thumping became a weaker reflex

pattering as the superintendent continued.) "They don't amount to much.

We get masses of indifferent material from numerous sources, but we keep

it all carefully cataloged, indexed, and cross-indexed several times.

Any little insignificant item of information may be worth a good deal to

us at any time. That's one secret of the great value of the German spy

system. Now I'll leave you with this budget of communications and let

you work it out with your own intelligence. That's one way we have of

finding out what a man is worth."

Irving longed to ask him how he protected such an intricate system of

concentrated information from leaks that might be of value to the enemy,

but wisely refrained.

"I'll find that out by keeping my eyes and ears open," he told himself.

"I mustn't ask any questions except such as bear directly on my duties

and are calculated to promote my efficiency."

He sat down at the desk assigned to him and was soon diligently, eagerly

at work. His eagerness, however, was a well-camouflaged secret.

*CHAPTER XXXII*

*A STARTLING RECOGNITION*

For two weeks Irving continued his work in the record offices of the

great German espionage system. His experiences there during this time

were without special incident, except that they evolved before his mind

a continuous motion picture of scientific detail far more intricate,

comprehensive, and deep-reaching than he could ever have imagined.

There could be no doubt that "the baron," Mr. Herrmann, and the staff of

experts, clerks, stenographers, and typists looked upon the "parachute

hero" as a bona fide fatherland loyalist. The story of his "camouflaged

escape" by parachute from an enemy aeroplane to deliver a cryptic-code

message that he carried all the way from America had circulated among

them, and the glee with which they commented on his skill and success

indicated the intense feeling with which they, one and all, regarded the

cause for which the Teutonic race was fighting--the supremacy of the

empire founded by Prince Bismarck. Irving discovered also another

important human factor in this relation, namely, that the initiated

members of the great spy organization of the central powers could

discuss among themselves the secrets of their system without becoming in

the least gossipy; hence, the danger of their inadvertently dropping

hints of important state matters never intended for "outside ears" was

small indeed.

A more secretive group of employes it would be difficult to imagine.

Moreover, their secrets seemed to be grouped in sections and degrees.

And the most peculiar feature of the whole system, perhaps, was the fact

that few instructions were given, defining these sections and degrees.

Irving received none himself, and in all the time he was connected with

the bureau he learned of nobody else who had been told what, or what

not, to do or say in this regard.

"Here seems to be another instance of the requirement of instinctive

understanding," he told himself a good many times. "They seem to give

me credit of being an extremely intelligent fellow. Well, I hope I

exceed their estimate of me. If I do, they may find it necessary co

revise their system somewhat."

The degrees of secrecy Irving learned in the course of a week or more

were of a graduated character. For instance, he soon discovered that he

might talk about his own work to any and all other members of the force,

but all of them outside of his class would not discuss their work with

him. After he was advanced to the next higher grade of work he found,

as he had already had reason to suspect, that there were two degrees of

the great spy system within the "circumscribed freedom" of his

intelligence. This "freedom" was circumscribed by a prohibition,

forbidding him to discuss any spy subject to anybody outside the office

except on special direction from superior authority.

Irving progressed rapidly in his work. He exhibited such ready

comprehension of details and purposes that he was soon marked by the

entire office force as a "coming man" in the government secret service.

Undoubtedly his spectacular method of transit from the Canadian to the

German lines helped materially to boost along his growing reputation,

but it would also be unfair to put too much emphasis on this feat of

daring and skill. Irving really deserved much credit for innate

ability.

In his efforts to create a general feeling of satisfaction and

confidence in order to ward off any suspicions which might arise

regarding his purpose and motives, the young spy did a good many things

that almost caused in him a rebellious boiling over of patriotic

sentiment. He did much to perfect a filing system that had been

neglected because of illness of the man previously in charge, and

offered a number of suggestions for certain other efficiency

improvements which brought forth complimentary notice from

Superintendent Herrmann. But all the time, while doing these things,

Irving kept in mind the big purpose of his mission which outmeasured so

greatly in importance his services to the enemy that his feelings of

self-reproach for the aid he was incidentally giving the kaiser's spy

machine were short-lived.

Evidently it was the purpose of Mr. Herrmann to advance his spy pupil as

rapidly as possible. Undoubtedly he was under orders to do this from

"the baron." Although the reason for this method of procedure had not

been stated in so many words, the understanding seemed to be clear

enough that it was the purpose of the department to send him back to

America equipped for very important work at an early date.

Three weeks after he entered the office he began to accumulate the

information for which he had been sent. He then was given access to the

card-index system of the great world-spy organization. It was like a

city-library catalog, with references to files of interminable data

buried away in metal boxes in a large vault.

In his work with this catalog and files he was associated with a man

whose countenance was strangely familiar to him from the first. He

tried to assume that there was merely a resemblance in the face of this

man to that of some other man he had known on the Canadian front or at

home, but such assumption failed to satisfy him. He could not drive

away the feeling that he had met this fellow somewhere since he dropped

from the sky with a parachute behind the German battle lines, but

although he studied over the matter for hours while busy with his work

he was unable by such efforts to solve the mystery.

The solution came during a period of relaxation, as the solution of many

mysteries come. On the third day since his last advancement in the

service, while making entries on certain catalog cards, there recurred

to him a mental picture of his experiences with the unidentified man who

had shadowed him through the streets while he was still in Canadian

uniform. Two weeks before he had dismissed this incident from his mind,

being convinced that the man had given up his quest, whatever it was.

But the returned picture did not rest long peacefully in his mind. It

was followed closely by a thrill that almost made him drop the card that

he held in his hand. He looked quickly, almost involuntarily, at his

associate worker, who was bent over a task at his desk.

Irving knew at once that he was not mistaken. Before him was the

"middle-aged man in civilian clothes" who had shadowed him more than

three weeks before from the intelligence building to the hotel where he

was living and to other places in the city.

*CHAPTER XXXIII*

*A SURPRISING OFFER*

Emil Strauss was the name of Irving's coworker in the card index room.

One could hardly say that he was either an agreeable or a disagreeable

fellow. He had little to say. It was generally understood that he was

very efficient in his work and ranked as one of the leading, if not the

leading, experts in the department.

Strauss was not a typical Teuton in appearance. Irving thought he looked

as much like an Irishman as a German, that he might have passed for

either or a Swede. He was of medium height, somewhat slender of build,

and had a smooth, round face, out of which shone two piercing black

eyes--that is, they shone and pierced when the camouflage of heavy

eyelashes and eyebrows was lifted. Otherwise one would have noticed

almost everything else about him first.

There was no doubt in Irving's mind as to his identification, but he

caught not even a surreptitious glance of recognition from the fellow at

any time. He attended strictly and diligently to his own business, and

the spy did likewise from the moment of his recognition of the man. He

was determined his new associate should see no evidences of uneasiness

in him as a result of this development.

Three days elapsed after Irving's last advancement to the card-catalog

division, and still the conversations between him and his working

companion were of the "yea, yea, nay, nay" character. Finally, however,

the boy decided to attempt to draw Strauss into conversation. He did

this by reference to humorous incidents in the war as brought out in

cartoons and pointed paragraphs in Berlin newspaper and magazines.

He was somewhat surprised, and pleased also, to note that the

"middle-aged man in civilian clothes" did not meet his advances with

coldness or indifference. The fellow proved, indeed, to be much more

polite than it had at first seemed possible. He appeared to enjoy

Irving's palaver, for the youth was something of a wit, but preferred to

listen rather than talk himself. Finally, however, he grew more

communicative and manifested something of interest in his associate's

personal affairs.

"They're telling some great stories about you around here," he said one

day as they were preparing to go out for lunch. It was the first time

they had quit work for the noon hour at the same time. Usually Irving

went first and his companion went out after he returned, although

Strauss was virtually "his own boss" and came and went as he chose.

"Yes, they're a bunch of gossips around here," Irving replied with a

deprecating smile. "And you know what magnified stories gossips turn out

when their tongues get busy."

Strauss smiled mysteriously and said:

"Oh, for that matter we are all gossips, even the quietest of us

sometimes. All you have to do is to get us off on the subjects that we

are well informed about and you'll soon find out how our tongues can wag

at both ends."

"It's pretty hard for me to imagine your tongue wagging at both ends,"

Irving returned with more meaning in his mind than he expressed in his

tone of voice.

"Why?"

"Because you seem to enjoy listening more than talking."

"I am engaged in a secret business," Strauss explained, lifting his

shaggy brows slightly and darting a sharp glance at the other.

"Yes, so am I," Irving returned quickly. "But I like to talk."

"So I observe," said Strauss with veiled significance, which the boy did

not try to penetrate.

"Just to be sociable," the spy added by way of explanation and to

prevent the conversation from lagging.

But Strauss did not appear to be so talkatively eager. They were in the

locker and wash room during most of this exchange of words, and nothing

further was said between them until they were outside the building. The

catalog expert then spoke first.

"Where do you eat?" he asked.

"Oh, any place," Irving replied. "I've been in two or three restaurants

around here. There's a good one down in the next block."

"That suits me," said Strauss.

They walked along in silence half a square, and then the boy's

mysterious companion put to him the most inquisitive query that the spy

had listened to from this man since he became acquainted with him:

"When do you expect to go back to America?"

"Good!" Irving said to himself. "Sounds as if he's going to open up.

Maybe I'll get something out of him after all."

He little dreamed how much that something was going to be.

"I don't know," he answered aloud. "I haven't received any orders yet."

"You'd better begin to find out then," was the expert's advice uttered

in tones of startling sharpness. "I suppose you know it's up to you to

decide that matter yourself."

"Oh, yes, I suppose so," Irving replied with a matter-of-factness of

manner, which was anything but expressive of what was going on in his

mind. The fact is, he was a little disturbed by the last remark of his

companion.

"I'll have to undergo a surgical operation before I start back," he

added.

"What's that?" inquired Strauss. "Were you wounded?"

"No," Irving replied. "But I must get rid of a mark of identification

and go back as another person."

Strauss nodded a stoical sign of interest. They were now at the entrance

of the restaurant for which they were headed, and the conversation

ceased until they were seated at a table in one corner of the room and

well removed from other lunchers. After they had been served they

resumed their discussion of Irving's proposed operation in subdued

tones.

"It must be a curious growth on your body that you should have to remove

it in order to avoid identification," Strauss remarked as he spread a

"knife-end" of war-time "butter" on a piece of black bread.

"No, it isn't a growth," Irving replied. "It's that cubist art picture

on my arm."

"Oh, I see," Strauss grunted. "But," he added, "I don't just see how an

operation there is going to do you much good. What are you going to

have done--have your arm cut off?"

"No--have the skin peeled off."

"Ach," grunted the card-catalog expert. "That will leave a scar."

"Not if I have some other skin grafted in its place."

"Quite an idea. Where do you expect to get the other skin to graft

there?"

"From some part of my body," Irving replied.

"Ja wo-ohl," said the other slowly, with a suggestion of doubt in his

voice not contained in the phrase. "But that would leave a scar on your

body, and if some sharp fellow tried to identify you as the person who

brought that tattooed message ever here the scar might help him to

explain the disappearance of the picture on your arm."

"Yes, that's true," Irving agreed. "But the chance of anything of that

sort is small. Anyway, I'd have to find somebody who would give me a

section of his skin four inches by two."

"There are thousands of patriotic Germans who are willing to give their

lives for their country," reasoned the expert. "It ought not to be hard

to find somebody who would give a few inches of skin."

"You are very logical," the spy observed. "Perhaps there's somebody in

our office who would make such a sacrifice for his country."

"I'll do it myself," declared Strauss quickly.

In view of the fact that the latter appeared a few weeks previously to

have regarded him with very grave suspicion, Irving had to admit to

himself after this offer that the spy-cataloger was more of a mystery

than ever.

*CHAPTER XXXIV*

*SKIN GRAFTING*

"Your offer is very kind," Irving said with emphasis intended to express

warmth of feeling.

"No--patriotic," Strauss declared.

"No doubt of that," the spy admitted; "but a man can be patriotic and

kind at the same time, can he not?"

"Yes, but this is all patriotism."

"Very well, I'll accept your offer," Irving announced. "But I doubt if

Mr. Herrmann will allow it. You are a very valuable man in the office,

and the operation would surely make it necessary for you to lay off a

few days. He'll probably insist that an office boy or clerk or

stenographer make the patriotic sacrifice in your stead."

"That'll suit me--just so there is no delay in finding someone who's

willing," Strauss replied.

Irving proved to be correct in his prophecy of the probable attitude of

the superintendent toward the proposition. Mr. Herrmann objected

strenuously for the reason suggested by the spy and he took it on

himself to find a person who would supply the skin to be grafted. Two

days later he reported success and preparations for the operation were

begun.

But everybody connected with these preliminaries had an important lesson

to learn regarding the proper method for a layman to approach a matter

of science. None of them, of course, knew anything, except in a very

general way, about skin grafting. Irving had assumed that it was a

simple process, and, as a matter of fact, it is, if we accept the

principle of the simplicity of all things. But what startled him most

was the simplicity of the error he had fallen into.

Mr. Herrmann gave Irving a note to the superintendent of one of the city

hospitals and directed him to go there and make arrangements for the

operation. He was authorized to state that a young soldier who had lost

one of his legs in the first battle of the Marne had promised to furnish

the needed four-by-two inches of skin to replace the tattooed integument

on his arm.

The spy did as instructed and was turned over to a member of the

surgical staff. The latter listened to the boy's story and his

suggestions and then inquired:

"At what college of physicians and surgeons did you get your degree?"

Irving no doubt flushed like a schoolboy. He realized that the member

of the hospital staff was laughing at him, and this confused him more

than a veiled suspicion that he was a Canadian spy would have done.

"The college I graduated from was that of mother's home remedies," he

replied.

"I thought so," nodded the surgeon with a smile. "Let me see--you are

in the intelligence department, are you not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Doing important work, aren't you?'

"I believe so."

"Work that requires sharp wit?"

"Supposedly."

"Well, sharp wits never assume anything without some information to back

them up. Your ideas of skin grafting are a good deal like a child's. In

the first place we shan't need anybody to supply any skin. Sorry to

disappoint the young patriot with really commendable spirit of loyalty."

Irving looked his surprise.

"You'll supply all the skin we need," the surgeon continued.

"But it is important that there be no scars," Irving insisted.

"There won't be any, or so slight that they'll be hardly noticeable,"

was the surgeon's reassuring reply. "Let me explain the process to an

unscientific keen wit of the government's intelligence department."

The surgeon lifted the spy's bared arm with his left hand and began his

explanation, indicating with one finger now and then the various moves

necessary as he described the process.

"With a razor," he said, "we will cut an outline around this hideous art

of yours. Then we'll peel off the atrocity and cremate it over an

alcohol flame. Next we'll peel a strip of the same length and

three-fourths of an inch wide just below here, leaving the upper end of

the strip attached and twisting it around so that it will lie midway

between the edges of the raw space where the tattooing was. Then we'll

cut under the skin along both sides to loosen it an inch or more back

and draw the loosened skin to the piece in the center and make a hair

suture. The reason we must run a strip of skin over the middle of the

raw area is because this area will be too wide for stretching the skin

at the sides over it. Skin that is stretched too tight will die. The

narrow raw place produced by the peeling of the strip down over the

wrist can be covered by pulling together the edges of the skin on both

sides after running the razor back under it a short distance. Quite

different from the process you imagined, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," Irving admitted.

"I bet you thought all that was necessary was to peel off a piece of

skin and lay it on the raw place after this cubist art picture had been

removed. Isn't that true?"

"Maybe--something of the kind. I hadn't thought it out in detail,"

Irving replied.

"Of course, you hadn't. You'd have been too scientific for a secret

service operative, wouldn't you?"

"Can't secret service people be scientific?" Irving inquired.

"What do you think about it?" asked the surgeon. "You ought to know

more about it than I do. But I'll tell you what my frank and

unscientific opinion in the matter is."

"What is it?"

"That government secret service is 1 per cent information and 99 per

cent bluff."

"That's a little strong on the side of the bluff," said the spy,

smiling.

"But there's something to it?"

"Yes."

"Now you need this much science to prevent your bluff from getting you

into trouble. When you attempt to bluff a scientific man be sure not to

bluff along the line of his knowledge and the line of your ignorance.

By the way, when do you want that operation performed?

"The sooner the better," Irving replied.

"How about now?"

This almost took the boy's breath away, but after a few minutes he

answered:

"That's all right, I suppose, but I'd better call up my office first and

tell the boss what's doing."

"Very well; here's a telephone. Call him up."

Irving did so and in a few minutes had authority to "go ahead and have

it over as soon as possible."

*CHAPTER XXXV*

*THE TAPPING ON THE WINDOW*

Irving slept under an anaesthetic during the operation. He objected at

first to the administration of ether, but the surgeon insisted.

"I don't want you to make any trouble," he insisted. "Remember you're

not a scientific youth and might do something ridiculous. If I'm going

to perform this operation you must take orders and obey them."

That settled it; Irving acquiesced. When he recovered consciousness he

found himself in a hospital bed with his left arm bandaged and feeling a

good deal like a limb of a tree, or anything else with a like degree of

life. He remained in bed until the next morning, when his arm was put

in a sling and he was permitted to move about as he pleased, although

directed to remain in the hospital. Two days later he was allowed to

leave the institution, but was instructed to return daily for

examination and redressing of the graft.

He returned at once to the intelligence office and reported the success

of the operation. The chief surgeon had informed him that his arm might

be taken out of the sling in about a week.

During this period Irving was in the office much of the time, although

he was able to be of little service with the use of only one arm.

Still, he found it possible to add a good deal to his knowledge of the

system of which the government was planning to make him an important

agent, and this was, on the whole, quite satisfactory to him.

The youthful spy's plans for carrying out his mission for the British

government had been developing rapidly since he became a member of the

staff in the German intelligence office. And not a little of this

development had been quite unforeseen by him. His original plans,

therefore, underwent considerable change as time and experience

advanced.

For instance, he decided not to attempt to make a list of names of

leading enemy agents in the United States and Canada to take back with

him. This had been his original purpose. He now regarded it as unwise,

unsafe. He would depend on his memory to retain a store of information

of this kind. So he watched and examined and probed and memorized,

going over the information he had accumulated many times in his leisure

hours in order to keep it fixed and unmistakable in his mind.

"I think I could go back to school and memorize history dates as I never

did before," he told himself one evening about a week after the

skin-grafting operation. "Gee! I never realized I had such a memory.

I can run off a string of dope as long as the tune the old cow died on,

just like saying the ABC's."

Irving had forgotten the "tune the old cow died on," but the expression

stuck in his mind as a relic of nursery days.

One of the divisions of service in the intelligence department that

interested the spy particularly was the telegraphic division. It came

as an intermediate grade in his course of instruction, and he was

required to learn to read the ticking of the telegraph instrument.

Fortunately, a few years before, he had learned the alphabet while

amusing himself with an amateur wireless outfit, and it now required

comparatively little time for him to develop a fair degree of

proficiency as a key-listener.

"You can never tell when it'll be greatly to your advantage to be able

to read the telegraph instrument," Mr. Herrmann explained. "In fact,

that may be one of your most important occupations in America--tapping

wires, for instance."

Indeed, the spy caught a number of messages of incalculable importance

while pursuing his studies in this division and made careful note of

them in his mental repository.

About a week later he had a novel "telegraphic" experience, which, in

turn, was to have an important bearing on his fortunes as a spy in the

enemy's country. The affair took place in the rooming house where he

was living. While he endeavored to get out in the evening, as a rule,

and mingle with citizens of all sorts and descriptions, in order to

absorb as much general information as possible, still he retired almost

every night in good season, and not infrequently went early to his room

to study, rehearse, memorize and plan. In this manner he endeavored to

improve every opportunity to make his excursion a success.

He had just finished one of these solitary sessions in which several

leading newspapers and magazines played an important part, and was about

to lay them aside and prepare for bed, when his attention was attracted

by a faint tapping sound. At first he gave little heed to it,

presuming, in a semi-conscious way, that it was occasioned by a

continuous breath of air and a tiny, loose pendant of some sort in the

exterior construction work of the house. But it continued in a

strangely familiar way and seemed to grow a little louder very

gradually.

Suddenly, Irving sat up straight and listened rigidly. Anyone observing

him in this attitude could not have failed to be impressed with the

feeling that an alarm of some character was thrilling his every nerve

center.

"My goodness!" was the exclamation that smothered itself within him.

"What in the world can that mean? Yes, no, yes--somebody is trying to

communicate with me. He's using the telegraphic signal. He's asking me

to answer, to indicate in some way that I am getting his message. He

says he's a friend. He knows I'm a British spy. But maybe it's a trap

to catch me. What shall I do? If he's a friend he surely ought to know

better than to expect me to make such an admission. But he says he has

important information. What--what in the world shall I do? I may be in

very great danger. Here is certainly the test of my life."

*CHAPTER XXXVI*

*A REVELATION*

"I have an important message for you. I am a French spy. I must get

this message to you. Answer me in some way. Heave a big yawn or clear

your throat and I'll know you hear me and get what I'm saying. I merely

want to make sure you are what I think you are. I don't dare reveal

myself to you for fear that I may be mistaken and you'd turn me over to

the government."

These words were tapped off, alphabetically, with a small instrument,

probably a pencil, on the window overlooking a court inclosed by the

building on three sides. After a pause of half a minute, following the

appeal just recorded, the dot-and-dash tapping continued thus:

"I am looking through the shade of your window and can see that you are

listening attentively; so you need not reply. Just continue to listen,

and I shall know everything is all right.

"When you leave for America you will be supplied with a message in

cipher, prepared by me, for a certain agent of the kaiser. That message

will bear the appearance of having been written by a friend of yours to

you, but it will contain information in invisible ink for your benefit

as a loyal agent of the Allies. This information will be of great value

to the Allies, supplying them with material for undermining the Teutonic

spy system in England, France, and America, which recently declared war.

"This is all. I merely wished to advise you of what you will find

written with invisible ink on the paper that will be placed in your

possession when you set out on your return to America."

The tapping ceased. Irving remained like a statue in his chair for

several minutes. Then he arose, went to the window and pulled the shade

aside. The court was dark, save for a solitary dim light out at the

entrance. He could just faintly discern the steel structure of the fire

escape near the window.

"That's the way he got up," he half muttered. "He stood there on that

landing while he tapped his message. I wonder who he is and how he

spotted me. He must be a very clever fellow. I really believe he's

what he represented himself to be; and yet, it may possibly be a trap to

catch me. However, I don't see what I can do except await

developments."

He went to bed and slept better than might have been expected under the

circumstances. But he had become so used to critical situations by this

time that he felt almost capable of sleeping peacefully on the "edge of

the earth" with a torpedo for a pillow.

Next day the mystery of the window-telegraph spy bothered him a good

deal, even more than it did immediately after the fellow had "dotted and

dashed" his message on the pane of glass.

"I wonder who he was?" he repeated many times. "I wonder if he's

somebody I'm in close touch with every day?"

The suggestion caused him to watch narrowly every person in the office

with whom he did business for the German government. But the more he

watched, the more unsatisfactory the situation became. He continued his

furtive outlook several days, but finally admitted to himself that the

prospect of his efforts solving the mystery was anything but bright.

Meanwhile the spy's preparations for a new excursion out into a broad

field of international espionage were rapidly drawing to a close. The

surgeon at the hospital who had performed the skin-grafting operation on

his arm pronounced it sufficiently well healed, first, to warrant taking

the limb out of the sling, and then, a week later, for the removal of

the bandage. There were a few slightly rough places here and there.

around the edges of the patch, and one small scar at the lower end of

the middle strip of skin where it had been twisted to cause it to lie

"right side out" through the middle of the larger patch and make the

latter complete by meeting the outer edges that had been undercut and

drawn to it.

All things considered, Irving was well pleased with the course of events

during his sojourn in the German capital. Although a number of

situations had developed with rather dangerous aspect, he had pulled

through all of them with apparent success. While he was still reporting

daily at the hospital for the dressing of his arm his lieutenancy

commission was acted upon in the war office and was delivered to him

through Mr. Herrmann.

At last the day arrived for a windup of the young spy's affairs in the

intelligence offices, and he was summoned into the presence of "the

baron" and Superintendent Herrmann. A third man also was present to

receive the young espionage student. He wore a navy uniform and was

introduced as Capt. Bartholf of the submarine service.

"You will go with Capt. Bartholf on board his boat," "the baron"

announced, addressing "Lieut. Hessenburg." "He will land you on the

coast of Spain and from there you will go to a German consul and devise

a method for getting you to Mexico and from there into the United

States.

"By the way," the high intelligence official remarked, suddenly

interrupting himself and addressing Superintendent Herrmann; "how about

that letter that was being prepared for Lieut. Hessenburg to take

along?"

"I'll see," replied Herrmann, as he started for the door.

"Bring Strauss in with you," "the baron" called after him. "I may want

to ask him some questions."

"Strauss!"

The name echoed in Irving's brain with a succession of significant

thrills. What did Strauss have to do with the preparation of the letter

he was to take with him? Was it possible--?

He did not finish the sentence in words, but the idea was there and

remained uppermost in his mind during the remainder of the session in

"the baron's" office. Presently Herrmann returned, accompanied by the

card-catalog expert, who carried an envelope of ordinary

business-correspondence size in one hand. This envelope he laid on the

desk in front of the intelligence chief.

The latter picked it up, looked keenly at Strauss and asked with like

sharpness of voice:

"This paper was prepared entirely by you, was it?"

"Yes," the cataloger answered.

"And it has been in no other person's hands at any time since you began

work on it?"

"No."

"And you vouch for the accuracy and thoroughness of its preparation?"

"Yes."

"That's all. You may retire."

Strauss left the room. "The baron" turned to Irving, handed him the

letter, and said:

"This innocent looking missive is of vast importance. It is addressed

in cipher to a very important person in America who is high in the

confidence of the United States government. You have learned how to read

this cipher and will work it out for yourself. That is all. Good-by. I

wish you a continuation of the success that has been yours in a

remarkable degree heretofore."

Irving took "the baron's" offered hand and then left the office

accompanied by Capt. Bartholf. As he went the name of Strauss continued

to ring in his head, together with this startling conviction:

The catalog expert was the French spy who had tapped the "telegraph

message" on his window at the rooming house!

*CHAPTER XXXVII*

*THE SUBMARINES*

Lieut. Ellis of the Canadian army, alias Lieut. Hessenburg of the German

army, had quite enough to think about as he left the office of "the

baron" in company with the submarine commander. Out in the reception

room the latter took leave of him, saying, "Meet me at the Kaiserhof at

9 o'clock tomorrow morning"; then the youthful spy, with a

counter-spying commission from the enemy, went to his desk and began to

make arrangements for his departure.

Mr. Herrmann selected from the office force a former soldier who had

lost one arm, and to him Irving made a brief statement of the work he

had been doing so that his successor might continue where he had left

off. For a short time he debated in his mind whether to go to those of

his fellow workmen with whom he had been more intimately associated and

bid them farewell, but he decided that this would not be in harmony with

the "community conduct" of the officials and employes of the bureau. In

fact, he had observed little in the association of the office that had

suggested real community life. Everybody connected with the

intelligence bureau seemed either to have been born with a cold

furtiveness of manner or to have developed an espionage attitude of this

sort in the atmosphere of the greatest spy system the world had ever

known.

However, he disliked very much to leave the place for the last time

without passing at least an "aufwiedersehen" to the one person there who

he felt certain was a friend of the great cause of human liberty for

which the allied nations were fighting. But Strauss seemed disposed to

ignore him if possible. He passed several times near the expert's desk,

but the latter pored more diligently than ever over his work. Once

Irving caught his eye and attempted to pass him a look of intelligent

meaning, but Strauss turned away quickly, and Irving left the building

without saying good-by to one of the occupants.

"A very cold-blooded business," he told himself. "My! I'm glad to be

out of there. I'm afraid I'm not built along cold enough lines for a

spy even in behalf of a great and meritorious cause. That fellow

Strauss is an ideal spy. He must be the best any nation ever produced.

He certainly has worked himself into a powerful position of confidence

with the enemy. But that was some chance he took when he tapped that

message on my window. I wonder if he expected me to discover who he was

after he told me he was the fellow that prepared the letter that was to

be given to me. And when he assured the baron that nobody else had had

the letter in his possession, nobody else remained for me to suspect.

Well, he must know now that I spotted him; but he surely exhibited

extremely wise caution when he refused to recognize even a significant

look from me. Good-by, Mr. Strauss, or whatever your name is. You were

too shrewd to let me shake your hand, and cold judgment tells me you

were right. I hope after the war is over I may take a trip to Europe

and look you up. But, judging from the way you looked at me, or avoided

looking at me, I'm afraid you'd take advantage of the opportunity to

give me a calling down such as few people have ever received. I'd

probably feel the knives of your sarcasm making ridiculous mince meat

out of me."

Next morning, promptly at the appointed hour, Irving was at the

information desk of the Kaiserhof, asking for Capt. Bartholf. The

latter was in his room waiting for the young intelligence officer. Two

hours later, arrangements having been made for the transfer of baggage,

the captain and the lieutenant were on board a train and headed for one

of the principal submarine ports of the German coast.

The trip was uneventful, except that it afforded Irving an opportunity

to make a study of the character of an official representative of the

policy of ruthlessness of the military government of Germany. Capt.

Bartholf was a fit exponent of this policy and exceedingly efficient

because of the intelligence with which he could disguise the barbarous

nature of his ideas. Hours before they reached the port of their

destination, the spy was convinced that an enemy who fell into the

clutches of this sub-sea commander might as well toss hope to the

fishes.

"I don't believe he'd take a prisoner if he could help it," Irving mused

as a climax to his conclusions. "I'd never surrender to a man like him

if I knew in advance what kind of fellow he was. It'd be a finish fight

even though there were no hope in it for me."

They arrived at the seaport in the evening and took rooms at a hotel.

Two days they remained in this city. The captain explained the delay by

saying that he was awaiting orders to start on a raiding cruise.

Finally the orders arrived, and he announced that they would go on board

at once.

Half an hour later they were at the docks, where a dozen U-boats were

lined up, some of them taking in provisions and oil, or undergoing

inspection and minor repairs. Irving's eyes were busy with new objects

of interest at this submarine harbor, for he had never before seen an

undersea craft. Eagerly he took in the scene, regarding the various

objects with more than the calculating interest of an international spy;

and while in the act of boarding the vessel in which he was about to

take his first submarine trip, he almost forgot, as the romantic thrill

of the experience went through him, that he was surrounded by enemies in

whose hands his life would be worth only a volley of rifle balls if his

real identity were revealed to them.

*CHAPTER XXXVIII*

*"KAMERAD!" AGAIN*

"Shut off the power."

Irving was in the conning tower with Capt. Bartholf and Lieut. Voltz of

U-31 when the latter, who was at the periscope, gave the foregoing order

through the speaking tube.

They had been out all night and half the preceding day, running much of

the time on the surface of the ocean in order to make the best possible

speed. Irving had not a clear idea where they were, but presumed that

they must have passed a considerable distance beyond the western end of

the English channel.

Lieut. Voltz gazed again into the glass of the periscope after giving

his order to the engineer. He had had his hand on the lever at his

right and with this had turned the periscope tube so that his eye could

sweep the horizon. Now, however, he had discovered something, and he no

longer moved the lever except occasionally little more than a hair's

breadth in order to keep the object of interest in view. After a few

moments of further careful examination and reference to the telemeter

attachment to determine the distance away of the discovered object, he

called again into the speaking tube.

"Go down four fathoms."

Then turning to Capt. Bartholf, he said:

"There are two vessels about five knots a little south of west from

here. One is probably a convoy."

"Run about three knots closer and take another peep," the captain

ordered. "Did 17 and the 23 sight them also?"

"I think so. Seventeen just went under."

Irving understood this question and answer to refer to two other U-boats

that accompanied No. 31 on this trip. Meanwhile the latter submerged to

the depth ordered by Lieut. Voltz.

Twenty minutes later the periscope was again a few feet out of the water

with the lieutenant's eye glued to the glass and his right hand working

the lever.

"Let me have a look," said the commander.

He gazed a minute into the glass and then said:

"I'm going to try to get that convoy first and then the other, which

appears to be a hospital ship."

Irving shuddered.

The order was again given to submerge. The lieutenant seemed to be

doing all the work of lookout, pilot and operating master, for he was

busy at the steering wheel, periscope, and speaking tube almost

simultaneously much of the time. All these were within easy reach from

one position. The "sub" arose several times near enough to the surface

to enable the lieutenant or the captain to take a peep at the

prospective prey, and then down again it would go. At last, under

direction from the captain, the lieutenant gave this order through the

speaking tube:

"Have the men slide a torpedo into one of the forward tubes."

Eager to witness this operation, Irving sprang to the stairway and was

soon down on the lower deck. There he saw several members of the crew

remove the safety attachment from the nose of a sixteen-foot

phosphor-bronze torpedo, which was seventeen or eighteen inches in

diameter, and slide it into a tunnel-like hole in the midst of a maze of

operating machinery. A minute or two later the order was given to

"shoot," and out it went, under initial propulsion from a compressed air

engine.

Then the order to submerge was given again, and away they went southward

at full speed under three fathoms of water. Ten minutes afterward the

periscope peeped up over the surface of the sea once more, and Capt.

Bartholf had his eye glued eagerly to the glass.

A moment later he gave a yelp of delight, and Irving knew that a hit had

been scored.

"We've hit 'em both fine!" the commanding officer exclaimed. "One of

the other boats must have fired a torpedo about the same time we did.

Both of those ships are going down."

It was not regarded safe to show the hulks of the submarines above the

water yet, however, for fear lest the convoy hit one or more of them

with a shell as a last living act of revenge. But they did not have to

wait long, however, for the doomed vessels sank rapidly.

Then all three submarines showed themselves on the surface and Irving

was delighted to observe that apparently all of the sailors, soldiers

and nurses that had been on the hospital ship and the convoy were now in

lifeboats, which were being rowed with frantic desperation away from the

U-boat-infested spot.

"Follow them up and let's see what they look like," Capt. Bartholf

ordered, with a kind of gloating glee.

All three captains seemed to be of like mind, for all three U-boats took

the same course and ran up close to the crowded lifeboats. Several

officers and members of the crew of each of the submarines appeared on

the outer deck to view the results of their uncontested victory.

Suddenly there came from one of the boats a call that thrilled and

chilled Irving with a sense of awed familiarity.

"Kamerad!"

Where had he heard that cry in that tone of voice before? He could not

decide on the moment, and yet he was apprehensive of an unpleasant

discovery.

The captain of U-31 determined to investigate and ordered the lifeboat

from which the hail proceeded to come alongside. The occupants could do

nothing more sensible than obey. As it approached a young man with an

empty left sleeve arose and repeated his appealing cry, and Irving

almost dropped in his tracks.

The one-armed fellow was Adolph Hessenburg, alias Tourtelle, the former

Canadian lieutenant of the tattooed cubist art cryptogram. Undoubtedly

he was being sent to England to be held there for a determination of his

fate after information had been received regarding the success or

failure of his substitute spy's mission within the German lines.

*CHAPTER XXXIX*

*"ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN"*

If anybody had observed the precipitation with which Irving dived down

the hatchway of U-31 a moment or two after he recognized the "cubist art

spy," there is no doubt that the observer would have been impressed with

the mystery of the proceeding. As it was, all of his boche companions

on the outer deck were too much interested in seeking an explanation of

the "kamerad" cry from the midst of a boatload of enemy soldiers and

sailors to give attention to anything less than the explosion of a bomb

on their own vessel.

Irving meanwhile picked up a sou'wester that he found on the lower deck,

put it over his head so that it partly covered, shaded, and hence

considerably disguised his face, and then returned to the outer deck.

True, the weather was not stormy, but the air was chilly and the

"cloudburst hood" added considerably to his comfort.

The real Hessenburg had been assisted on board and was being questioned

by Captain Bartholf. Irving heard the latter ask him his name, and then

suddenly something happened which the trembling spy has ever since

declared undoubtedly saved his life and some very important information

for the Allies.

What caused the sudden lurch of the submarine was not subsequently

disclosed. Possibly one of the men below, accidentally or thoughtlessly

moved a lever or wheel that resulted in a momentary spasm of mechanical

action. At any rate, all on the outer deck were dancing around for

several seconds to preserve their balance, and one of them was not as

successful as the others. That was Hessenburg, who was thrown violently

against the low railing so that he struck his head on one of the iron

standards or posts.

Evidently he was seriously injured, for he did not attempt to rise. The

pallor of his face and the glassy look in his eyes indicated that he had

fainted. He was carried below and restoratives were administered to

him, but these did not bring back more than barely enough life to

reassure his caretakers that the concussion on his head was probably not

fatal.

* * * * *

The run from the scene of the sinking of the British hospital ship and

convoy to the Spanish coast was made in about eighteen hours, and before

noon of the day following, Irving was landed on a bleak and desolate

spot on the Bay of Biscay. Meanwhile, he had thankfully observed the

slowness with which the former "cubist art spy" recovered. Although he

found it necessary several times to be at the bedside of the patient,

the latter showed no signs of recognition; indeed, he at no time before

Irving was put ashore indicated that he had fully recovered from the

stupor which followed the shock of his fall.

The story of how Irving found his way to a Spanish settlement and

subsequently got in touch with a British consulate and thence again with

the Canadian army is of little interest compared with the thrilling

events heretofore narrated. Suffice it to say that in due time success

met his efforts to get back with the Canadians, who retained unshakable

possession of Vimy Ridge, and that the information he was able to turn

over to his superior officers brought him recognition and honors from

very high sources.

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