Changing their Direction
"Crikey! What a do! What a performance! Who'd have thought it?"
gasped the huge Stuart, flinging himself back on the seat in the
compartment and staring out of the window as the train moved away from
the station. "Henri, you're a wizard, a conjuror, a most mysterious
and clever individual. 'Pon my word, I looked at you as you boarded
the train, and if I'd been a German official, one of these
thick-headed, beer-drinking tubs of fellows, always on the look-out for
aliens and enemies, I'd have failed to spot you."
"Magnificent!" ventured Jules, rubbing his hands and moving his limbs
in a most unladylike fashion, in such masculine manner, in fact, that
the cautious Henri, ever on the look-out for something which might
attract the attention of enemies swarming about them, immediately
pounced upon him.
"That's not right," he said; "no girl would sit like that, Jules, and
you know it. Indeed, who should know it better than you, who, up to
the outbreak of this war, were a regular lady's man? You've studied
the fair sex, my boy, and now's the time to take advantage of that
study."
Stuart guffawed. The whole adventure was so droll, so full of little
incidents which tickled his mirth and which prompted laughter, that it
was as much as he could do to keep his big, healthy features steady.
And, seeing that they were in a compartment by themselves, why not make
merry? For during the last two hours their actions had had to be
serious enough in all conscience, and, indeed, the big Englishman spoke
only the truth when he said that Henri had behaved like a perfect
wizard. Stumbling down the platform, that ridiculously small Homberg
hat only partially covering thin wisps of white hair--artificially
whitened, let us explain, with the aid of some chalk--upon a head which
if it were not bald, looked as if it ought to be so, Henri had acted
the role of a feeble, querulous, short-sighted, and somewhat arrogant
old gentleman to the life. He had snarled at his daughter--or his
wife, whichever Jules was supposed to be, and, from the obvious youth
of the young lady, probably she was the former. He had snapped at the
big, beefy attendant who came behind him, and, reaching the train and
making an effort to clamber aboard it--a none too easy performance on
Continental railways--he had stumbled even more, had contrived to get
into a position half-within and half-without the carriage, and had
there stuck firmly, become jammed, as it were, a position which roused
the wrath of the old gentleman still higher, which set him snarling at
his lady companion, and caused him to throw a fiery imprecation at his
attendant. It caused the officious station-master to hasten forward,
and then, at the sight of this arrogant and somewhat important old
gentleman, to bow obsequiously and assist his entrance to the carriage.
Yes, altogether it was a splendid addition to their adventures.
"It's enough to make a cat laugh," said Stuart. "But here we are; and
well now, I'm just wondering what our friend--sorry, your friend,
Henri!--the manager of the sugar factory, will be saying just about
this moment? Of course he'll learn that someone has entered his
quarters."
Learn it, indeed! At that very moment the portly individual in
question was in the centre of his bedroom, surveying the contents of a
box which had been sadly depleted. He was rubbing the grizzly locks
beside one ear, pondering deeply, staring through big goggles at the
box, and trying to understand what had happened.
"But no," he said aloud; "I have not taken the things. Then who? And
see this--my best suit of clothes has gone, my hat, and the goggles I
placed on this chest last evening."
He made a movement towards the bell, and then dashed back, and once
more came to an abrupt halt, pausing with feet far apart, with eyes
peering into the distance, with wrinkled forehead, and with one hand
still rubbing his grizzly locks.
"But, a thousand thunders! Then what does this mean?" he demanded, so
loudly that a clerk dashed in from the adjacent office and asked what
had happened. "Happened, indeed! Then see here, my Fritz, this box of
clothing has been pilfered. My clothes are gone--my best suit of
clothes--my hat, and what more I cannot say. Who, then, can have paid
my quarters a visit?"
It puzzled the clerk also. For a while the two discussed the question
in the most animated and Teutonic manner. Then a brilliant idea seized
upon the brain of the clerk--an idea which sent a hot flush from the
top of his head to the soles of his somewhat flat feet.
"That party of soldiers who came here a little time ago," he cried;
"those prisoners who broke out of Ruhleben--who else, mein Herr
Winterborgen--who else can have wanted such clothing, such disguises?
Listen, there were three of them; now say what clothing you are
missing."
When a further investigation was made of the losses which the portly
manager had sustained, the incriminating fact was discovered that,
besides his best suit of clothes and Homberg hat, a woman's dress and a
man's had been purloined. That sent the manager flying to the
telephone, and in due course of time set the police officials at the
nearest police station bustling. Within half an hour a car dashed up
to the gates of the sugar factory, and the most important and imposing
of individuals commenced an official investigation on the spot. This
investigation, sternly carried out, weighed every point so very
closely, and went with so much minuteness into every little incident,
that it set the unfortunate manager perspiring, and, indeed, after a
while, made him begin to wonder whether he himself were a party to the
theft which he had suffered, or a party to assisting the fugitives.
The important official, if he did not actually accuse the manager of
having aided the prisoners supposed to have purloined the articles of
clothing, inferred it certainly, glared at the unhappy man, browbeat
him in regular Germanic manner, and made him regret deeply that he had
ever called for police assistance.
"You'll be ready to report personally at the police station," he was
told. "Now I'll return and set a search in progress. Without doubt
the three men who broke out of Ruhleben have paid you a visit; for we
know already that they went to a farm farther back along the road and
obtained supplies of food. Since then we have lost all sight of them,
and it may very well be that they have been in hiding; and that may
mean," he added severely, as he stood above the unhappy manager and
glared down at him, "that someone has been providing a refuge for them,
some unpatriotic and treacherous individual, who, if discovered, will
certainly be shot in the morning--be shot in the cold, early morning,"
he added in unpleasant tones which did not fail to have their effect on
the man he was addressing. "Yes, Herr Winterborgen, this is an
important matter--so important, indeed, that for your own sake you will
see that you attend promptly when called for."
It was with a gasp of relief that the manager saw the car driven away
at furious speed, while he stood staring out of the window, mopping his
forehead with a handkerchief. His thoughts were still in a whirl, and
even then he could not shake from his mind the more than half belief
that in some unconscious way he had indeed, unwittingly and
unwillingly--for he was as good a patriot as anyone--aided the
runaways. In such a dilemma, feeling vexed and sore at his own loss,
and indignant at the cross-examination he had just suffered, it was but
natural that he should work himself up into a terrible passion, and
should turn the vials of his wrath upon the police inspector who had
treated him so brusquely. Yet in time, when his anger had died down,
he, like every other patriot in Germany, put his own personal
disadvantage aside for the sake of his beloved Fatherland. He sighed
deeply, and resumed his work with the pious wish that, if he had
suffered, his suffering might lead to the discovery and capture of the
men who had treated him so shamefully.
It is hardly necessary to narrate what followed after that interview
with the police inspector. How the car took him swiftly back to the
station, how the telephone was jingled, and how every possible official
within reasonable distance was informed of what had happened. The
station-master at the station where Henri and his friends had boarded
the train presently received a call.
"Yes, here, Inspector," he answered, politely enough, over the
telephone. "You are there and you want me--well I am here, what then?
Prisoners escaped from Ruhleben? Ah, yes, yes! I remember, the
rascals escaped perhaps a week ago, and have not been heard of since.
Have I seen them here? Pooh! If I had, you know as well as I do that
I would have apprehended them. What's that you say? They have been to
the station? You ask if I have seen three suspicious people--a man,
perhaps an old man, in a dark-blue, well-cut suit, wearing a Homberg
hat and goggles, a girl, and a man of whose appearance you have no
knowledge? Come now, that's a conundrum! I have seen many such
people."
He began to get rather angry at the cross-examination of the police
inspector--an examination, let us add, far less severe than that
inflicted upon the manager of the sugar factory, but he listened awhile.
"You may have seen many such people," he heard over the telephone, "but
all together, Herr Station-master--three all together--an oldish man,
not big, perhaps bald, with goggles; a girl, and another man of
uncertain appearance. Think now; not a very great number of people
travel on the railway nowadays unless they are soldiers; think, have
you not had such passengers?"
The station-master did think, think violently one may say, for it was
well to be on the best terms possible with the police. A
station-master might be a most important individual, very important
indeed in his own estimation, but an inspector of the police in Germany
was an important individual both in his own estimation, which was
undoubted, and also in that of the public.
"Hold on one little moment; three people such as you describe--one an
oldish man, a girl, and a third, a man with no description--have I seen
such people getting on a train together? Why, wait!"
The scene as the aged and snappy old gentleman clambered aboard the
train that morning suddenly occurred to the station-master, only to be
put aside in an instant; for it seemed impossible that he could have
been an impostor. The girl, too, looked so natural, so feminine, so
absolutely genuine, and yet----
"Wait though, was it a girl?" the station-master asked himself, for it
flashed across his stolid brain that the movements of the lady in
question had not been, after all, entirely feminine. Now that he
thought about the matter he remembered that at the moment when the
three were boarding the train the lady had shown a most extraordinary
degree of agility. She had clambered like a cat aboard the carriage,
and had given a heave to the old gentlemen which disclosed a degree of
strength somewhat peculiar in a woman. Yes, he was sure of it now, of
course the thing was strange--it was not a woman, he felt sure.
"Hold!" he shouted down the telephone. "I have them!"
"You have them!" came the excited answer. "You have taken the three?
You have got those prisoners?"
"No, no, no! I did not say I had taken them. I have got to the bottom
of the mystery. Those three you mention boarded a train here this
morning, a train going westward."
It was the turn of the inspector to shout down the telephone, to shout
a peremptory order, to inform the station-master that he was coming
immediately; and there followed at the station a close questioning of
the station-master, followed by frantic telegrams and telephone
messages which were sent down the line in pursuit of the train on which
Jules and Henri and Stuart were travelling.
"Now we have them securely, thanks to my promptness and energy," said
the police inspector, as he adjusted his glasses and pocketed his
notebook--yes, pocketed his notebook, for that familiar object, part
and parcel of every constable in Great Britain, is likewise an
important part of the equipment of German policemen. It was with a
flourish that the man pushed it into the short tail of his tunic, then
he hitched his belt a trifle tighter, expanded his manly chest, and set
his helmet at just the slightest rakish angle. He was a "dog" indeed,
this police Inspector, wonderfully pleased with himself, bursting with
self-importance, and as arrogant as they make them.
"You will see," he coughed, turning upon the station-master; "we shall
have them, thanks to the telegrams I have sent. And then, my friend,
what will they think of us at the central station? Of me, and this
brilliant capture?"
"You!" exclaimed the station-master, somewhat taken aback; "of you,
Inspector! But wait a moment. It is true that you have sent those
telegrams off, and that, thanks to them, the runaways may be captured,
but I----"
"May be captured?" thundered the inspector; "as if indeed they were not
already in the hands of my subordinates. But proceed."
"I was about to add, to suggest, may I say? that, after all, in
carrying out your duties you have been largely assisted by my
promptness in remembering that three such persons as you described had
actually boarded a train at this station. Consider for a little while:
your description was, after all, not too elaborate--a little vague,
absolutely deficient in the case of one of the fugitives. Is it not
due in some small measure to my acumen that you are on the track of
these people? Come now, Inspector, be fair. If there is honour to be
won, apportion it out, and do not forget the assistance you have
received from others."
It was curious that, at that very moment, there should arrive at the
station, brought there in the police officer's car, which he had sent
to the sugar factory for that purpose, the manager whose office Henri
had so lately entered. The poor fellow was shaking with trepidation,
with fear of what was to happen; and if his thoughts had been vague
before, and not a little muddled, if terror of the law had somewhat
disconcerted him, and upset his equilibrium during and after his
cross-examination, terror of the future had made him now little more
than a babbling idiot--an object, indeed, for the contemptuous glances
of the police inspector and for his gibes and sallies.
"So," he said, standing over the portly figure of the little man, as he
came from the motor-car and stumbled down the platform, "so, you have
obeyed, Herr Winterborgen, you are here to identify the three whose
return in captivity we are waiting. That is good, and certainly you
will be able to tell us that they are the individuals."
The manager held his hands up, expostulating weakly. There were tears
in his eyes, tears of fear, of rage, and of anguish.
"But, identify them," he cried, almost shrieked indeed, "identify the
three who purloined garments from my office? But no, it is impossible;
for hear me, Inspector, I never saw those individuals; not once, to my
knowledge, have I ever set eyes on them."
But if he expected pity or leniency, he might just as well have
appealed to the wooden pillar which supported the roof of the platform.
The huge police inspector was adamant, inflexible, unmoved, and
surveyed the trembling figure of his victim with cold eyes which
glinted cruelly. Very slowly, he slid one broad hand back into the
short tail of his tunic, extricated his notebook with a flourish, and,
opening it and producing a pencil, called upon the station-master to
bear witness to the words uttered.
"Mark the words of this Herr Winterborgen," he said. "'Not to my
knowledge,' he states, has he seen these three individuals; and yet,
mark this again, he was able to describe their appearance fully, to
describe the clothes they wore, their sex, and their possible
destination."
By then the eyes of the manager were almost starting out of his head,
and he was gaping and gasping with amazement at the story to which he
listened. Never before, indeed, had he imagined that anyone--let alone
a police inspector, a pillar of the law--could have invented such a
story, could have produced such a lying fabrication. The words stunned
his ears, and he felt more than ever that he was hopelessly involved in
circumstances which would end in nothing less than his utter downfall.
Nor did the hour which passed ere the train came to the station relieve
him of his fears or make him any the happier. For even if the
fugitives were captured--and it seemed more than likely that they would
be brought to the station in the train then approaching--their coming
could result in nothing but further embarrassment, for he would be
expected to identify them definitely, and if he did that he well knew
that difficulties would become greater.
"Ha! At last it is signalled, this train," said the police inspector,
"and we shall soon know whether our friends have made this capture."
"Wait, though," the station-master cautioned him, coming from his
office at that moment; "this is a special and does not stop, but behind
it, only a few minutes intervening, there is another train, the
ordinary train, which stopped at the station down the line to which
your telegrams were forwarded, and where the fugitives will have been
surrounded. Stand back there!"
The three of them--the station-master, the police inspector, and the
trembling manager of the sugar factory--stood on the platform and
watched the train as it ran through the station at moderate speed; and
then, thinking nothing more of it, waited for that other one, the smoke
from the engine of which was already visible in the distance. Nor need
we describe how the inspector--determined upon a capture, confident,
indeed, that his telegrams had produced that result, and already
bursting with triumph and rehearsing the terrible things that he would
do to his captives--pounced upon the train, ran from carriage to
carriage, and eagerly interrogated the officials. Imagine his rage,
his mortification, his disappointment, when he was informed that no
such people as the three whose description he had sent could be found
upon the train going westward.
"Not search the train completely!" shouted an official whom he had
questioned, and who, being of sufficient rank himself and of equal
importance with the inspector, was not to be easily frightened. "How
then? Is a police inspector the only individual capable of searching
for spies and discovering them? Is everyone on the line a fool, then,
unless he be a policeman? You'll tell us soon that we don't know our
own business; as if, indeed, it were possible to miss three such people
as you described, or even one of them, particularly when one knows that
there were few passengers on the train in question."
It was of no use shouting back at the man; it was of no use engaging in
a wordy quarrel with him; and of little service to take note of the
covert smiles of the station-master and the sidelong winks he directed
at the manager of the sugar factory--a manager now wonderfully
transformed--the worthy Herr Winterborgen, who was even smiling.
Slowly, little by little, arrogance oozed out of every pore of that
perspiring police inspector, and presently he took himself off to his
car and drove furiously away, wishing that he had never had this case
to investigate, and that, wherever the escaping prisoners were, someone
would shoot them.
Meanwhile, let us glance into one of the carriages of that train--that
special which had bustled through the station while the inspector was
waiting. In one of the compartments sat an aged man, with a Homberg
hat of ridiculously small size pressed down over his temples, upon
which wisps of hair shone whitely in the sunlight--a man who looked
through big goggles at the scenery as it flashed by, and whose lips
were hidden behind a drooping moustache of iron-grey colour. Beside
him sat a girl, well-grown--masculine one would have almost said--with
laughing features, a girl who had spread herself out in the carriage,
and, lying back against the cushions, had placed her two feet on the
opposite seat, a most inelegant, unladylike, yet possibly comfortable
position. And beside them sat a big, bony, healthy individual, whose
face was shaded by a broad hat, yet not sufficiently shaded to hide the
wide grins which crossed it and denoted the utmost merriment. He was
rubbing his two big, strong hands together, laughing, chuckling, and
gazing every moment out of the window.
"My hat! My uncle! Crikey!" he exclaimed; "but that has really done
it! And what luck we have had, too. To think that we should have been
in a compartment which drew up near the signal station where that
message about us was shouted by the man in charge. I declare again
that you're a regular wizard, Henri, for how else could you have
arranged for the train to halt just in that position, and where, thanks
again to your knowledge of German, it allowed you at once to hear and
understand what was shouted. Let's have the words again."
The old and somewhat delicate-looking gentleman seated beside him
turned upon the big man an expansive smile, a mischievous smile, and,
pushing his goggles up on his forehead, burst into such a ripple of
laughter that his drooping moustache, which seemed so natural, fell
from its place, instantly transforming him. It was the jovial, yet
cautious, Henri enjoying this amazing adventure to the utmost.
"My boy," he said, as he reached for the moustache and carefully
adjusted it, "one moment while I take a glance at myself in the glass
over the seat. That's better, ain't it? Quite straight, and makes me
look the part to perfection. But what did that signalman shout, you
ask? Well, rather an important message, and these are the words as I
remember them: 'You'll stop at the station just beyond', he called to
the driver; 'there are police there waiting for you, for there's
information that there are three escaping prisoners from Ruhleben
amongst the passengers, in disguise of course. Understand? Well, pull
out and run through the tunnel.'"
It was little to be wondered at that the wits of the fugitives were at
once set to work in lightning-like manner. If they were to escape,
indeed, and were to avoid the police officials waiting for them at the
station so near at hand, they must act instantly, must find some
loophole, must alter their plans completely. Already the train was
again in motion, for it had only pulled up for a few seconds, and, even
while they were debating the matter, were looking at one another
enquiringly, and were feeling already as if the case were hopeless, it
ran into the tunnel. It was then that Henri gripped his two companions
and spoke eagerly to them.
"Quick, to the end of the carriage," he said; "then hop out. It's
dark, so that no one can see us. On no account must we be seen on the
train when it has passed through the tunnel."
It was a fortunate thing for the trio that the train had been unable to
get up any great speed since it got into motion again after leaving the
signal station. It did little better than crawl into the tunnel, and,
seeing that the station at which it was destined to halt, and where the
police were waiting the fugitives, was only a short distance beyond,
the driver made no effort to hurry. Thus it followed that the drop
from the train was a matter of no great difficulty, particularly for
such active individuals as Henri, Jules, and Stuart. Crouching between
the wall of the tunnel and the passing train, they listened to it as it
rumbled away in the distance towards a mere dot of light which
disclosed the far end of the tunnel. Then that dot was of a sudden
blotted out of sight, and the rumbling became louder.
"What's that?" demanded Stuart. "Not gone off the rails, I hope, for
that will bring a pack of people into the place, and they'll find us."
"Another train has entered the tunnel, I think," came from Jules.
"Listen, now, and look! You can see sparks coming from the funnel."
"Then, why not?" demanded Henri, in a voice which trembled with
excitement. "Why not transfer ourselves to it? What matter if it is
going in the opposite direction, so long as it throws our pursuers off
the scent. Eh--what's the verdict?"
"That we snatch the goods the gods send us, and pile on to the new
train."
That, too, was a matter of extreme simplicity to the three. Only, had
the train been lighted, and had there been railway officials on it,
they would have been staggered, no doubt, and vastly moved at
witnessing the agility of these three unbidden passengers who now
joined it. Indeed, the extraordinary and unexpected, if not masculine,
agility of the lady would have simply and metaphorically floored any
German official. But there was none to see, in the first place,
because darkness flooded the scene; and, secondly, because no gaping
official was on this special. Reaching a carriage and ensconcing
themselves in a corner, Henri and his friends were presently whirled
from the tunnel and swept on over the ground they had so recently
covered, and in due course they ran through the station where the
inspector, the station-master, and the unfortunate manager of the sugar
factory were standing. Henri gave vent to an exclamation of
astonishment, and then to a loud chuckle, while of a sudden he gripped
his two friends by the arms and bade them lower their heads.
"It's all as clear as daylight now," he said. "I have been wondering
how on earth these Germans discovered our whereabouts and our
disguises; but that makes the whole matter perfectly transparent. The
manager of the factory spotted the fact that his office had been
entered, and that certain garments had been purloined. The police were
called in, and then the station-master gave information of our arrival,
and of our boarding the train. It's as clear as a pikestaff. Hurrah!
How we've nonplussed them!"
"And if the hue and cry is all up the line, what happens to us?" asked
Stuart, with a grim smile, some little time later, when the train had
whirled them perhaps a couple of dozen miles onward. "We can't go on
like this indefinitely. This train is bound to stop somewhere, and
when it stops we are up against the same old difficulty again.
Moreover, knowing our disguises, realizing that we have baffled them in
some way, the police will be telegraphing all over the country, and may
even guess that we are on this train. Common sense tells a fellow that
the whole scheme must be pitched overboard and a new plan entered upon."
It was indeed a serious difficulty, for at any moment the train which
carried them on so swiftly, so luxuriously one may say, might stop, and
twenty or more gaping officials might investigate it. For all Henri
and his chums knew, telegrams were already passing over the wires which
flashed beside them as they ran through the country--telegrams warning
officials, hungry for their capture, to be on the look-out, to be on
the qui vive for three individuals--an oldish man in delicate health,
his daughter, perhaps, and another, a big fellow, ostensibly an
attendant. Yet, whatever plans they may have thought out, whatever
intentions they may have had, were suspended for a while, seeing that
the train did not halt but ran on for quite a considerable time, indeed
until dusk had fallen. Nor was it until darkness had fallen and the
evening had passed that it finally ran into the outskirts of a large
town, where presently the brakes gripped the wheels, setting them
skidding over the metals, and soon bringing the carriages to a
standstill. Then the train began to back, and presently was brought to
rest in a siding.
"Out we go," said Henri. "No one has seen us up to date, and therefore
all we can say is that we have still plenty of chances of escaping; we
are no worse off than we were certainly, and perhaps we're better off.
At any rate, speaking personally, I've still every intention of
clearing out of Germany."