THE ARREST
"Suppose they get off at Manhattan Junction and go to the Hudson
Terminal instead of the big Pennsylvania Station!" panted Judy, her eyes
shining with excitement and her fluffy hair standing on end as though an
electric shock had gone through her system.
"Who is giving the game away now?" teased her new friend. "I thought of
that and warned the chief when I telegraphed him. If they do get off
there, I'll get off, too, and you can go on to the other station where
your father will meet you."
"Not much I will! I'm going to keep my eye on that lavender spot until I
see those wrists with something on them besides gold bracelets. You see,
I feel responsible for this pair, having been the one to introduce them
to Wellington society. If they get off at Manhattan Junction, so do I.
Bobby will understand! He would have no use for me if I didn't see it
through."
"I believe you are a real patriot, Mrs. Brown."
"Of course I am! But one thing sure I am not going to give my husband to
the cause, and my father, and then let these mean spies go Scot-free.
Now my dear friend and sister-in-law Molly,--Mrs. Edwin Green,--is so
good that she can't believe anyone can be bad. She is just as patriotic
as I am but she can't believe in the perfidy of Germany and the Germans.
I truly believe she would not have the heart to nab these wretches even
if she could not deny their guilt. Molly is an angel herself and I fancy
maybe her angelic qualities do rub off some even on the worst
characters. She may have helped this Madame Misel some, who knows? But I
am going to help her even more by letting her get a taste of real
punishment."
"And I am going to do my best to help you help her," laughed Mr. Tucker.
"We are nearing Manhattan Junction now and I do not see our friends
making ready to get off."
The pair sat quietly while the train stopped for a moment for passengers
to change for the downtown station. Judy and Mr. Tucker were on the
alert to leave the train if they saw the slightest movement on the part
of the Misels, but the latter sat in evident certainty of their disguise
not having been penetrated.
"Now the curtain is to go up in a moment!" cried Judy. "I have never
been in such a stew of expectation!"
The train had entered its under-water tunnel and in what seemed hardly
a minute they found themselves in the Pennsylvania Station. Jeffrey
Tucker, true to his nature, must assist the old lady from Louisiana and
the mother and child, but this time he assisted them by calling the
porter and, with a generous tip, put them in his hands. He had other and
more urgent fish to fry.
"There's Bobby!" cried Judy. "They have let him through the gates!"
So they had, and others, also. Mr. Robert Kean was eagerly scanning the
windows of the coaches as they slowly passed in review. By his side were
several alert looking men in plain clothes and near them were some
brass-buttoned policemen.
"You go out first," whispered Mr. Tucker to the impatient Judy, who
looked like a hunting dog straining at the leash. "I'll bring up the
rear in case of a bolt."
The Misels got up quickly and without any delay moved towards the door.
They seemed perfectly unconcerned, the woman patting her curls and hat
into shape and Misel actually having the hardihood to cast an ogling
glance at Judy. That young woman returned his admiring look with a saucy
toss of her head, entering into the game with her usual vim.
One hug for Bobby and a whisper in his ear:
"The handsome dame in lavender and the lout in checks!"
He in turn handed the information on to the plain clothes men, who were
ready with their bracelets not made of gold.
The arrest was made so quietly that the mother and child who were in the
midst of it never did know what was going on, and the old lady from
Louisiana took her serene way right by the handcuffed Madame Misel
without knowing that that lady had had an addition made to her bangles.
Misel was inclined to give some little trouble. When he realized they
were trapped, he started back into the chair car, but was met in a head
on collision by Jeffrey Tucker, who had a few football tricks left over
from his not so far distant youth.
"Get out of my way! You fool!" cried the enraged Misel.
"Softly, my friend! The exit is the other way," purred the redoubtable
Mr. Tucker, at the same time putting up his guard, seeing the foreigner
was about to spring upon him. "Madame has gone out by the door behind
you."
Bang! Misel's fist shot out, but Jeffrey Tucker was a match for any
ordinary boxer, having practiced that manly art to keep up with his
daughters who always put on the gloves to settle any difficulty, and, as
they expressed it, to let off steam when the family atmosphere got too
thick. He dodged the blow, holding his guard ready for the next.
Before the furious creature could recover himself after having given the
empty air such a drubbing, the detectives approached him from the rear
and in a twinkling he was overcome.
"What does this mean?" he asked, attempting an air of dignity.
"You shall have to come and find out!" was the laconic reply deigned him
by the grim policeman who had him in charge.
"Mr. Kean, I am sorry to tell you, but your daughter will have to come
to the police court to tell what she knows of these persons," said the
leader of the plain clothes men.
"I'm not sorry! I want to see it through!" cried Judy.
"And so, we are to thank you for this indignity," hissed Madame.
"Thank me or the picturesque garden by your cottage--whichever you
choose. It is a stirring thing to creep in that lovely garden on a
romantic night and suddenly to see a poor lame man who has won the
sympathy of the community, come springing out in running togs and have
him beat Douglas Fairbanks and George Walsh in his jumping. Then to have
the gentle, courteous Madame Misel boldly state that Wellington is
composed of blockheads,--all in perfect German, too, which was a strange
language for such good Frenchmen to employ in the bosom of the family."
"Judy, I wouldn't say any more!" said her father, but his eye was
twinkling as he tucked his daughter's hand under his arm.
Mr. Tucker and Mr. Kean met as long lost friends. They were what Judy
called soul brothers from the first. The old train conductor stopped to
exchange greetings with his one-time acquaintance. He was loud in his
praise of the young lady who had scared them all to death by jumping on
the rear end of the moving train. He said nothing of the scolding he
had given her before he found out she was Bob Kean's daughter.
The sketch book was convincing evidence that the sporty couple were no
other than Monsieur and Madame Misel. Judy told her story well to the
chief, showing the clever sketches taken before and after.
While they were at the police court, a long distance message was
received from Wellington with the news that the flitting of the spies
had been discovered by the detectives sent there on the case.
"It would have been too late if you had not been so wide awake," the
chief informed Judy.
"And I could have done nothing if Mr. Tucker had not taken hold,"
declared Judy.
"Why, my dear Mrs. Brown, you would have found some other way, I am
sure. You do not come of a breed that lets accidents happen."
The Misels turned out to be pure Prussian, with not one drop of the
blood of Alsace in their veins. Their name was Mitzel and they had many
crimes to answer for. They had been on the stage prior to the war and
the man was a noted acrobat and prestidigitator; the woman had traveled
with her husband and assisted him in his work on the stage, being the
hypnotized lady, the Herodian mystery, the disappearing spirit, the
person who got tied up in the chest and had a sword run through
her,--anything, in fact, that is usually required of the assistant in
such a business. They were employed to act as spies and to disseminate
all the German propaganda in their power.
Misel, or Mitzel, was to have insinuated an anti-draft spirit at Exmoor,
the male college near Wellington. Also to influence the girls at
Wellington, who in their turn were to influence their brothers and
sweethearts.
"Oh, Bobby! Only suppose we had not gone out that night in search of
adventure!" cried Judy, when she was safe under her mother's wing.
"Why don't you just suppose you had never been born?" boomed the
delighted Bobby. "When you were once born you were sure to be out
hunting adventure. You are made that way, eh, Mother?"
"Yes, I am afraid she is," sighed that tiny lady. "You and Judy are
exactly alike."
"Do you mind?" asked her big husband humbly.
"No, I would not have either one of you different. But I fancy Kent and
I are in for lives of anxiety."
"Well, he likes us the way we are, too," declared Judy, blushing.
"Well, I have two things to say:" declared Mr. Kean, giving a mighty
yawn, "I am glad I let you have a Parisian education if with it you can
make clever enough sketches to catch these German spies; and the other
is, that it is high time we were all of us in bed."
Madame Mitzel, before she was sentenced to the imprisonment that she so
richly deserved, requested an interview with Judy, which was granted,
although Judy was most reluctant.
"I can't bear to see her again! She looked like a snake caught in a
net."
"I--want--you--to tell--Mrs. Green--that--I--am sorry for--her
to--know--about me--That is all! If--I could--have--had a woman--like
that--to--be--my friend--in my--youth--I would have--been different."
She spoke in the faltering manner she had used at Wellington, one she
employed in speaking English, and then she plunged into voluble German,
so rapid that Judy could hardly follow her:
"But you! You have outwitted me and I cannot but admire you for it, but
I hate you with all my heart."
"That is all right! I'd rather have your hate than your love! I'll tell
Molly, though."
Before we leave the Misels, or Mitzels, for good, I must tell you that
the shipment of paint arrived at Wellington as the mysterious dealer
had informed Monsieur Jean Misel it would. One of the Secret Service
men remained in Wellington to receive it. It was light grey, as was
promised; at least, it was marked light grey on the outside of the
six large cans. On opening these cans, which I can assure you the
detective did with the utmost caution, many things besides paint were
disclosed,--in fact, there was no paint there at all. He found various
chemicals, necessary for the making of the modern bomb; poisons of all
sorts, and innocent looking little vials containing deadly germs. Those
six cans if let loose on the unsuspecting community would have caused as
much damage as the imps in Pandora's box.
Even Molly had to confess that the Misels were not very good persons,
and when her husband gave her to understand that her own little Mildred
and Dodo might have been poisoned by polluted water had the foreigners
accomplished all they no doubt intended to with some of those bottled
germs, the young mother came to the conclusion that they were not only
not very good but they were extremely wicked, and perhaps just
imprisonment was too mild a punishment to be meted out to them.