GRACE GETS A CLUE
“Captain, is it proper to ask if the Huns blew up the ammunition dump?”
asked Grace next morning upon chancing to meet Captain Boucher on the
paved plaza facing the river.
“If you will put your question in a form that I can answer I will do
so,” was the smiling reply.
“Was the explosion last evening an accident, sir?” Grace came back at
him quick as a flash.
“It was not an accident, Mrs. Gray,” he replied gravely, then burst out
laughing. “You are the quickest-witted person I ever knew or heard of.
Have you made any headway in the matter I spoke to you about?”
“Do you know a Chinaman, belonging to the labor battalion, who wears a
hideous birthmark on his left cheek?” she questioned in reply.
“Can’t say that I do. Why?”
“Merely that I would suggest your making his acquaintance. I think
perhaps you may find him worth while.”
“Cultivating or watching?” asked the Intelligence officer, regarding
her keenly.
“The latter.”
“Thank you. What is his name?”
“I have not heard. I will find out if you wish.”
The officer nodded.
“Who is Miss Marshall, if I am permitted to ask? I know it seems an
impertinence on my part to question an officer, but I want to know,”
declared the Overton girl laughing. “I believe that is quite a common
excuse with women for asking questions, but it is comprehensive.”
The captain glanced about them and invited Grace to sit down with him
on a bench. The air was quite chill, but the view up and down the river
was an attractive one.
“What I am about to say is strictly confidential. I am giving it to
you for your own guidance, now that you belong to our Intelligence
Department.”
“Strange, sir, that I have not heard of that.”
“Yes, you are a member. To return to the subject, Molly Marshall is one
of the cleverest operators in the Secret Service.”
“A spy?”
The captain shrugged his shoulders.
“I never liked the word when applied to our own. She is an investigator
and a brilliant operator. I shall be glad to have you know her, and
assure you that you may trust her fully.”
“Thank you, but I do not believe I should care to trust any one in
these confidential matters, unless I knew her pretty well. I should
like to meet her, just the same, but she is not to know that I am doing
anything in the investigating line, if you will be so good as to keep
that fact confidential.”
The captain promised, saying it was not generally customary for
Secret Service operators with the army to know each other, as such an
acquaintance opened the way for many errors of judgment.
“You are perfectly right in the position you take,” he added. “You
possess all the makings of a brilliant operator yourself.”
Grace thanked him.
“As I have said before, I have no aspirations in that direction,
at least not beyond the point that I can serve my country. Perhaps
my woman’s curiosity in combination with my woman’s intuition is
responsible for my being in it to the extent that I am. You will
observe that I am not backward about paying my sex compliments.
However, it will soon be ended and then we shall all return to our
previous lives--if we can. How about you, sir, shall you continue in
the Service?”
“I think not.”
Grace rose and, thanking the captain, said she must be on her way to
the canteen at Number Two. On her way she encountered a Chinaman and
told him if he should see Won Lue to send him to the canteen. Rather to
her amazement Won was waiting for her when she arrived there.
Won shook hands with himself and smiled broadly.
“You may be able to help us here to-day, Won. Are you working?”
The Chinaman shook his head negatively. “You savvy plidgin?” he asked.
“No.”
“Me savvy plenty plidgin, a-la. Plidgin all fly away. No more plidgin.”
Grace understood his meaning. The pigeon-flying came to an end when
the army reached the Rhine, for there the enemy agents could work more
directly and without much danger of being caught. That was what they
were doing at that very moment.
“Oh! I knew there was something I wished to ask you. Do you know a
Chinaman with a red mark on his left cheek, so?” She ran a hand over
her cheek.
Won chuckled delightedly, though what there was in her question to
amuse him, Grace could not imagine.
“You savvy Yat Sen? Me savvy Yat Sen plenty much. What me do?”
“Thank you. I savvy Yat Sen, too. Please clean the place, scrub the
floors nice and clean before Mrs. Smythe gets here.”
“Me savvy Slith,” volunteered Won with a grimace.
“Why the ‘a-la,’ Won?” asked Elfreda who came in at this juncture.
“That is a Chinese round-off, as it were,” Grace informed her. “Have
you seen the supervisor this morning?”
Elfreda said she had not, for Marie had said that Mrs. Smythe went out
rather early. Grace suddenly decided to go home, and asked Elfreda to
remain at the canteen to meet the supervisor.
“Tell her I was obliged to return to our billet for a few moments,”
requested Grace. “She cannot be angrier than she will naturally be, in
any event.”
Grace, nodding to Elfreda, hurried away.
“I wonder what that child is up to now?” Miss Briggs muttered. “I have
learned one thing about Grace Harlowe, and that is that she seldom
does anything that hasn’t a well-defined motive behind it. I suppose
that is the proper way to arrange one’s life. She should have been a
lawyer.”
Reaching her billet, Grace entered the house quietly and went to her
room, apparently without having attracted attention to herself. As she
passed the doctor’s rooms she heard voices there. The voices were not
loud, but were audible enough to enable her to distinguish those of at
least one man and a woman, though it was her impression that there were
two men in the room. Now that she was in her own room the voices were
borne to her ears even more distinctly than when she had been passing
through the hallway.
“I believe Miss Marshall is in there,” muttered the Overton girl after
several moments of listening. The conversation was being carried on in
German, most of it being understandable to Grace. It was only when they
lowered their voices that she failed to catch what was being said. Yet,
for all that, she did not know what they were talking about, though at
times the inference was suggestive of certain things.
The conversation lasted for several minutes, then Grace heard the
doctor approaching the rear of his apartment, heard the bang of what
she took to be a trap door, then footsteps descending stairs.
“He is going down to the cellar. I suppose he has a right to do so if
he wishes, so why should I object or even be interested? Hark!”
Grace heard what she took to be voices in the cellar, though she was
positive that no one had accompanied the owner below.
“I was right. This is a house of mystery. There he comes!”
The German’s tread, as he ascended the stairs on his return to his
apartment, she noted, was very light and elastic for a heavy man. His
speech too, this morning, was quicker than when she had spoken with him
in Mrs. Smythe’s quarters, more incisive, more like that of a German
officer than a civilian.
“Perhaps he has been in the service as a surgeon,” murmured Grace in
explanation of the difference. “I wish I might get a peep into that
room, just for one little minute. Ah!” Grace caught her breath and held
it. The German doctor was speaking again, and what he said sent the red
blood pounding to Grace Harlowe’s temples.
“I am right or else I am terribly mistaken!” she exclaimed in a
troubled voice.