A LETTER TO FRANZ
With the passing weeks Armand de la Tour had grown so much stronger that
now his mother and sister began planning to return with him to their own
country. As the surgeon offered no objections except a few lingering
cautions, the departure became a near prospect, and Lucy was more eager
than ever to see as much as possible of Michelle. She lost interest in
Franz and Herr Johann and resented their intrusion on her time and
thoughts.
“Michelle, there are such a lot of things I haven’t told you and that
you haven’t told me,” she said regretfully. “I wish we hadn’t bothered
so much with those everlasting Germans!”
They were taking their usual Sunday afternoon walk through the forest,
Lucy, Michelle, Bob and Larry. Armand had stayed at the hospital, saving
his strength for the journey to France.
At Lucy’s words Bob looked thoughtful. He had not yet told Lucy of
Elizabeth’s strange rendezvous. He did not know what to think of it
himself. Looking up at the sky, glimpsed through the evergreen boughs,
he remarked suddenly:
“Hello, it’s all clouded up. Looks like snow.”
“It does. We’d better start back,” said Larry, for they were far beyond
Franz’ clearing, on the other side of the road that wound through the
forest toward Badheim.
Michelle said, pondering over Lucy’s words, “Why cannot you come to
France, Lucy, before you go home? Surely we must see each other again.”
“Janet Leslie has invited you to England,” Lucy reminded her. “She is
crazy to know you, I’ve written of you so often. Couldn’t you come?”
Michelle shook her head in doubtful soberness. “That rests with _Maman_
and Armand. Money is scarce with us now, and we have not yet a home,
except the little house in Château-Plessis.”
“Oh, how I’d love to go back there!” cried Lucy, warmed to vivid
recollection. “Wouldn’t you love it, Bob? Though Château-Plessis doesn’t
mean to you quite what it does to me.”
“To me it means some rather bad days spent wondering what had become of
Father and you,” said Bob, still half-absorbed in thought, and
profoundly annoyed at heart that Franz’ schemes could so absorb him.
Larry broke in, “Leave off reminiscing a minute, will you? As Bob
remarked, it’s going to snow. In fact, it’s begun. Suppose we turn
back?”
As he spoke big flakes fell lightly on his overcoat sleeve, which he
held up for the others’ inspection. No wind stirred in the branches, but
the cloudy sky had darkened the forest almost to twilight.
“Well, what’s a snow-storm, anyway, Larry?” asked Lucy, unmoved. “It’s
rather nice here, I think, in this queer, dull light. We’re not three
miles from the hospital.”
The snowflakes were now falling steadily, seeming to pour down all at
once out of the heavens, as though emptied in bucketfuls.
“_Ma foi_, it is snowing hard!” exclaimed Michelle. “Captain Eaton is
right, Lucy. Let us go back.”
Lucy complied and the four turned in their tracks, the snowflakes
whirling thickly about them. A cold wind suddenly rose, driving bleakly
through the pines and changing the murmur of the green branches to a
dismal wail.
“Yes, he’s right,” agreed Lucy, smiling as she drew her cape close
around her. “A little snowstorm can go a long way in a German forest.
Bob, _will_ you tell me why you’re so preoccupied?” she asked, looking
with uneasy earnestness into her brother’s face. “You’ve spoken twice
since we’ve been out.”
“I’ll tell you,” said Bob, seeing no use in keeping Lucy in the dark
indefinitely. “It’s about that same stupid mystery. I wish Alan had
stayed here to ferret it out. Why did I ever dissuade him?”
“Go on, will you?” begged Lucy.
“All right. A couple of days ago I went to Coblenz to see——Phew!” He
stopped to plunge one hand into his collar. “This snow is getting down
my neck. Would you believe it could come down so thick all of a sudden?
Why, the sky was blue in spots when we started out.”
“Look here, Lucy, you know where that lodge of Herr Johann’s is, don’t
you? It must be near, for here’s the road you spoke of.” Larry paused
beside the winding forest track, looking along it and through the trees
on either side as well as the swirling snowflakes would permit.
“Yes, it’s near here,” said Lucy, “but why?”
“We’d better go there for shelter. The snow may stop and it may not.
We’re still two miles from home.”
“But, Larry,” protested Lucy, surprised, “it can’t hurt us. Why, how
often I’ve been out in snow-storms!”
“I know, it can’t hurt you, nor Miss Michelle, nor me. But it can hurt
Bob. His lungs were touched when he was frozen up in Archangel. The
surgeon himself told me he mustn’t risk any exposure.”
“Oh, Larry, what rot! I’m strong enough,” scoffed Bob.
But Lucy was an instant convert to Larry’s side. “He told me that, too.
What an idiot I am,” she said in one breath. Then, looking anxiously
around her, “Where would you say that hunting-lodge was, Michelle? I
know it’s near the road. If we follow along it——”
“I can find it,” said Michelle, starting confidently up the road. “It
was all fir and hemlock trees near it, except for a few birches. We must
be close to it, Lucy.”
“But it’s idiotic,” said Bob crossly. “Suppose it keeps on snowing?”
“Then you can stay there all night,” said Larry. “I’ll take the girls
home and come back. Why be stupid and risk a relapse? You know it’s cold
you have to fear—you and Alan both.”
Silenced, Bob followed the others along the road. At the end of ten
minutes Michelle cried out and pointed to the little lodge, showing
beyond the first fringe of birch and fir trees. Its roof and doorstep
were newly covered with snow. The door was padlocked and the red
curtains drawn.
“Too bad I haven’t the key Herr Johann offered me,” said Bob as they
approached the door.
Larry tugged at the padlock and twisted it, but in vain.
“Try the window,” Lucy suggested.
“Try giving the padlock a good kick,” said Bob. “That usually fetches
them.”
Larry stepped back and drove his heavy boot-heel in a sort of backward
swing against the side of the lock. The padlock snapped and flew off
into the snow. The bar was bent against the staple. Larry wrenched it
open and pushed wide the door. “Welcome, in the name of the Kaiser,” he
said, sniffing the cold, musty air. “A fire is about the first thing we
need.”
“There’s plenty of wood,” said Lucy, as the four entered the lodge and
shut the door. “Michelle and I saw the shadow of the flames and heard
them crackle while we were shivering in the snow outside. Ouf, I’m
almost frozen! It _has_ grown cold. Bob, I hope to goodness you haven’t
hurt yourself.”
“Not likely. Why, this would be a warm, enervating spring day in
Archangel. There’s the wood, in that bin.”
Bob had struck matches as he spoke, for the lodge, with curtains drawn,
was almost dark. He spied a candle on the rough wooden table in the
principal room where they stood, and, lighting it, held it up to survey
the surroundings. “Not much of a place,” he remarked. “There can’t be
but two rooms, altogether.”
“It’s rather nice, though, cozy, if German,” said Larry, throwing
pine-boughs on the broad stone hearth.
There was no other furniture in the room than the big table, four or
five massive chairs, cut from pine-trunks as rudely as if by Franz’ own
hands, and a couple of fox or wolf skins on the pine floor. There was a
smoky-beamed ceiling above the red-curtained leaded windows, and
trophies of the chase—stag-heads and rabbit skins, together with
weapons, shotguns, pistols and sabres—ornamented the unplastered walls.
Larry had kindled the fire, which now began to blaze with a great
cheerful light. Lucy drew aside one of the curtains to reveal the
hemlock trunks and the dull twilight of the storm.
“Sit down, everybody. We’re here for an hour or two,” said Larry,
dusting his sleeves over the hearth and looking rather pleased with his
handiwork. “It’s three o’clock. I don’t think it will snow all the
afternoon. It seldom does when it comes up in a flurry.”
“I think I’ll explore the other room,” said Bob, nodding toward the
closed door beside the hearth. “Herr Johann gave me a free hand, so it
can’t be called snooping. Not that I’d feel much scruple——”
“Wait a bit, Bob. Warm up first,” counselled Larry. He threw off his
overcoat and sank into a chair beside the girls, who were already drawn
up before the fire. He spoke casually, but Lucy discerned in his voice a
lingering anxiety for Bob and added her own persuasion.
“There’s no hurry, Bob. Look at that beautiful fire Larry’s made. It’s
worth breaking in here for.”
“I wonder what kind of talk has taken place before this hearth,” said
Michelle, watching the flames. She glanced about the room and added, “It
is very bare. They do not leave anything behind.”
“You may be sure of that,” said Bob. “Else he wouldn’t have invited me
here so confidently. Still, he must feel pretty sure by now that I’m not
coming. I’ll take a look around. Smarty-cats like Herr Johann sometimes
think too poorly of other people’s intelligence. That’s a German
failing.”
Lucy was so pleased with the rustic quaintness of the lodge interior,
with the leaping fire on the great hearth and the snowflakes falling
outside in the shadowy forest that she began to think that Herr Johann
might be excused for his oddities.
“I could almost believe that he comes here to hunt in winter,” she
declared, stretching her arms behind her head, her cape slipped from her
shoulders in the pleasant warmth. “If I had this lodge I shouldn’t be
able to keep away from it.”
“I’ll tell you now what I began back there in the forest,” proposed Bob,
at this remark. “I told you about my talk with Herr Johann——Did Lucy
tell you, Michelle? Well, the next day I went to Coblenz to see
Elizabeth, but she was out. Larry and I overtook her by accident,
followed her, and saw her meet Franz on one of the terraces of the Rhine
Embankment.”
“Meet Franz!” Lucy started up to lean forward, staring into Bob’s face.
“Then he’s all right! They did tell the truth!”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Bob demurred. “Either they are all
right or Elizabeth is all——”
“Bob!” Lucy caught her brother’s arm in shocked surprise. “Why, Bob, how
can you? You don’t suspect—Elizabeth?”
“No, I really don’t. Yet I have reason enough to. She wouldn’t explain
anything.”
“Because there was nothing to tell,” cried Lucy confidently. “Oh, now I
shan’t worry any more about Franz, if Elizabeth trusts him. Don’t you
see, Bob, what that means? Franz is just a disagreeable old German who
hates us because we won.”
“Hum, you’re easily convinced,” said Bob, staring into the fire. “I felt
for a moment the same way, but now when I think of Herr Johann——”
Bob met Larry’s eyes, lighted with a faint, mocking gleam, and fell
silent. Michelle said doubtfully:
“I, too, trust Elizabeth’s friendship for America. But Franz—no, I do
not trust him.”
“What in the world can they have to say to each other?” Lucy wondered,
thinking it over once more. “Where can she have met him first?”
Larry rose to throw pine-boughs on the fire and remarked, sitting down
again, “You’re rather easy, both of you.” He glanced at Lucy and Bob.
“All Franz’ and Herr Johann’s plotting and sneaking is forgotten at a
word from Elizabeth. I know she’s a good sort and fond of you, but,
after all, she’s a Boche. Couldn’t she be influenced by a clever rogue
among her fellow-countrymen? There’s not a doubt but that she’s in hand
and glove with Franz. Why, Lucy, didn’t we see her meet him by the
river? And, more than that, she begged us not to say a word to anyone.”
Lucy shook her head and still spoke confidently. “If she knows Franz and
is friends with him it is not to plot against the Allies. I know
Elizabeth better than you do, Larry. She’s honest. If she were our enemy
she would never have asked Bob to bring her from Berlin.”
“And suppose she wanted to get here for reasons of her own?” Larry
muttered under his breath. Aloud he said, “Germany is pretty well down
and out. Even those Germans who, like Elizabeth, didn’t favor the war,
might be persuaded they must work for her now.”
“Wouldn’t she tell you how she happened to know Franz, Bob?” Lucy asked,
almost pleadingly. “I’m sure she will if I ask her.”
“We caught up with her after she left Franz, but I didn’t have much time
to question her. And she looked as though she hoped I wouldn’t.”
“How did she behave, Captain Gordon, when she saw you?” asked Michelle.
“Did she look frightened?”
“No, she didn’t. Did you think so, Larry?”
“No,” Larry conceded. “She looked surprised and—well—uncomfortable.”
Bob got up and moved toward the door beside the hearth. “Let’s see
what’s in here, Larry,” he suggested, trying the door.
It opened, admitting him to a small bedroom, furnished as barely as the
rest of the lodge. It held a cot-bed, a table and chair, some wooden
pegs driven in the wall, from which hung a curtain covering some
clothing, and a few ornaments of skins and weapons.
“May we come?” asked Lucy, when Bob and Larry had entered.
“Yes, come along,” Bob called.
“Not much to see,” said Larry, drawing back the red curtain from the
single window. “Hello, it’s stopped snowing. Perhaps you won’t have to
spend the night here, Bob.”
“I never meant to,” said Bob, looking curiously about him.
The cot had two heavy blankets folded upon it, and a wolf-skin stretched
on the floor beside it. Several suits of clothing hung half-concealed
behind the folds of calico, and some dog-collars dangled from the wooden
pegs.
“I’m glad he took out the dogs,” said Larry, fingering a nail-studded
collar. “Johann von Eckhardt,” he read inside it. “That’s his name, all
right. I dare say he’s too proud of it to hide it. Bob, we ought easily
to find out all about him.”
“I’ve already written Dick Harding to ask him what he knows,” said Bob.
“He’s in the Intelligence Department now, and has tabs on a lot of them.
Look, here’s a uniform.”
He lifted the calico screen and revealed a Prussian officer’s grey
field-uniform, worn and faded, and stained with mud and rust. Beside it
hung a hunting dress like the one Herr Johann usually wore, and a heavy
fur-lined overcoat.
“He’s a colonel,” said Bob, touching the insignia on the blouse,
“colonel of artillery. This must be a mild sort of hunting compared to
what he’s done. Larry, I believe you’re right. Elizabeth stifled my
suspicions for a while, but they’re all coming back.”
“They’d better,” said Larry grimly.
“But not of Elizabeth!” cried Lucy hotly.
“All right, if you can explain it some other way,” said Larry. “Well,
there’s nothing else to see here.”
He and Bob approached the window. “Look, Larry, it’s clearing. There are
not more than two inches of snow on the ground. I think even my delicate
little feet can pick their way home now.”
Larry laughed, then pointed out through the woodland. “There’s the road,
see it, Bob? That’s Franz’ route when he takes his wood to Coblenz—or
elsewhere. He’s right under Herr Johann’s eye.”
“But old Johann doesn’t spend much time here, only an occasional visit,”
remarked Bob.
While the two young officers talked together Lucy and Michelle lingered
on the far side of the room, Lucy’s eyes on the grey uniform, her loyal
heart troubled by the sight of it, by the evidence of Herr Johann’s
profession. He was Franz’ master and Franz was Elizabeth’s friend. What
could be the explanation?
With restless fingers she touched the grey cloth, felt something in the
pocket, mechanically plunged in her hand and drew out a square, folded
paper.
“What is it?” asked Michelle, taking it from her.
Lucy, hardly thinking what she did, reached for the pockets of the
hunting-jacket hanging alongside. She felt swiftly in them and drew out
a gold clasp-knife, a seal ring and a letter addressed to Franz Kraft,
Badheim post-office, and postmarked Coblenz.
[Illustration: Lucy Read the Few Lines of German]
With a sensation of prying she slipped back the clasp-knife and the
ring, and was about to return the letter when the handwriting caught her
eyes and left her breathless, holding the letter in her hand. It was
Elizabeth’s writing. Michelle had carried the folded paper from the
uniform pocket over to Bob and Larry. Lucy snatched open Elizabeth’s
letter and read the few lines of German:
FRANZ KRAFT:
I have your message and will be without fail on the Embankment at
nightfall next Wednesday. From there you will take me to the place
we know, five miles south, on the opposite shore. May we meet with
success!
The crossing is what I dread, for French torpedo boats patrol the
river. Not that I have anything to fear, except that they should
follow us.
I will never forget your services.
ELIZABETH MULLER.
Hot and panting, Lucy crammed the letter inside her dress and turned
toward the window, as Michelle called to her to join the others.
They were bent over the paper Michelle had taken from Lucy’s hand, a
long, narrow map of the Rhine, from Cologne to Mayence, with about ten
miles of territory on each side.
“What is it?” asked Lucy, trying to speak naturally, not daring to raise
her eyes for fear of betraying her excitement.
“Just a map,” said Larry. “Nothing special on it, that I can see, except
these crosses, which might mean anything.”
He pointed to a dozen or more small, black crosses in ink, marking
various places along the river, towns or villages, or open country.
Sometimes the crosses were on one side of the river, sometimes on the
other, occasionally connected by a stroke of the pen.
“Probably a map he had during the war. I’ll stick it back in his coat,”
said Bob. He crossed the room and felt about in the other pockets but
returned empty-handed. “It’s half-past four and time to go home.”
“I’d better put out the fire,” said Larry, as they left the bedroom. “I
suppose Franz served under this von Eckhardt,” he remarked, kicking
apart the glowing embers. “Adelheid said her father left off soldiering
to become a woodcutter. That must have been owing to von Eckhardt’s
patronage.”
Lucy could hardly talk at all, her thoughts were in such a whirl of
bewilderment. Nothing much was clear to her except her determination to
keep Elizabeth’s letter secret until she could think out its meaning for
herself. Then she would either convince herself of the German woman’s
innocence or face her and demand the truth. But to show the letter now
to Bob’s suspicious eyes, to Larry’s openly accusing ones, to condemn
her old nurse on such hasty evidence—this she could not do.
But her heart throbbed with grief and anger, and she could not drive
Elizabeth’s face from her mind, that face whose truth and loyalty she
had believed in so entirely, and which seemed all at once to hold the
enemy’s sly duplicity.
“It can’t be true. It can’t, it can’t!” she told herself, as she
gathered her cape around her and felt the letter crackle from where she
had thrust it inside her dress.
“Come on,” said Larry, leading the way out. “I’ll put back the padlock
as best I can. Wonder what Herr Johann will think of our intrusion?”
“He’ll think we came to spy and didn’t get much out of it,” said Bob.
“Let’s cut across here, through the birches.”
The faint squeak of wheels on the new-fallen snow sounded ahead of them.
Larry glanced between the slender birch-trunks and, beyond the firs
bordering the road, caught sight of a wagon moving slowly in the
direction of Badheim.
“Someone’s coming along the road,” he said, putting out his hand to keep
back the others. “I think it’s old Franz himself.”
Lucy, stealing up to his side, saw the horse and donkey drawing the
wagon and gave a quick nod. “It’s Franz,” she said.
The woodcutter had come now almost abreast of where they stood. His
wagon was heavily loaded with bundles of fagots roped together and
partly sheltered by a tarpaulin cover. He drew rein and, jumping down
into the snow, walked on as though inspecting the road, across which
loose snow had drifted.
“No wonder he’s afraid of getting stuck,” said Bob. “His wagon’s
overloaded.”
“Why in the world does he come out in such weather, and almost at
nightfall?” murmured Larry, involuntarily moving nearer the road.
Franz had disappeared around the turn. Bob said suddenly:
“Larry, let’s have a look at one of his bundles of wood. Be quick and we
can manage it.”
He had no sooner spoken than by common consent he and Larry plunged
forward through the trees to the road. They ran to the wagon and, while
the donkey turned his head to watch them, from the neatly piled layers
of fagot-bundles chose one at the top, more easily pulled from beneath
the tarpaulin covering. In another minute they were back, ducking under
the trees and out of sight at the moment when Franz reappeared, plodding
along in the snow, head bent, and hands thrust in his pockets.
Michelle and Lucy waited breathless for Larry and Bob to rejoin them.
Franz climbed up on his seat, picked up his reins and went on slowly
down the road, the snow squeaking once more under the heavily loaded
wheels.
Bob and Larry laid down the fagot-bundle and Bob with his pocket-knife
cut the cords that bound the sticks together, while all eyes followed
his movements with eager intentness. The sticks fell apart and scattered
on the snow. There was nothing else in the bundle.
“One on us, Bob,” said Larry, gazing at the fagots rather sheepishly.
“Now, why in thunder is he in such a rush to carry wood to Badheim—or
Coblenz—to-day?”
“I give it up,” said Bob disgustedly. “Let’s go home.”
In silence the four crossed the road and continued their way through the
forest, which was now bathed in twilight shadows. Lucy was too lost in
unhappy pondering over the letter hidden in her dress to give much
thought to Franz’ afternoon wanderings. She longed to confide in
Michelle, but still hesitated, hating to hear someone else accuse
Elizabeth of what she herself refused to believe. She was roused from
her reverie by hearing Larry say:
“That’s it. That’s what we’re afraid of. The Germans who have lost
everything with the fall of the monarchy and who despise the new
government, are combining—so we think—with the Bolsheviki. Anything to
harass the Allies and delay the peace, do you see? They don’t look
further ahead than that, with German obtuseness. I thought of you, Bob,
when I heard the rumor, because of your theories about the Bolshies that
Alan would never listen to, and I believe that you have been right all
the time.”
“Alan’s an idiot,” said Bob crossly. His leg was hurting him but he
tried not to limp. “I wish he were here to settle with Franz now. He
needn’t bother with any theories—just face him down until he tells the
truth.”
“Well, we might do that much ourselves.”
“Yes, but I’m always held back by a lingering feeling that we’d find out
only half the truth that way. To learn it all we must wait and watch.
But Alan would never think that out. He’d go for Franz and Herr Johann
as if he were hunting rabbits. It’s lots easier on the temper.”
“Hang on to your temper, we’re almost home,” said Larry, guessing the
pain that Bob tried not to show. “About the German government, Bob; they
say it’s still pretty wobbly. If anyone nips the German pro-Bolsheviki
in the bud it will be the Allies. And we’d better go to it.”
“Berlin was riotous enough when Alan and I came through,” said Bob. “We
were shot at from all directions.”
“No wonder Elizabeth wanted to leave,” remarked Larry.
Lucy glanced up at him, still keeping her troubled silence. Larry asked,
disapprovingly:
“What’s the matter with you, anyway, Lucy? Do you think you’re a jolly
companion to-day? I’d as soon take a walk with a dumb animal.”
“Thanks,” said Lucy, shaking off her gloomy preoccupation with an
effort. “Talk to Michelle, can’t you?”
Larry glanced behind him at Michelle and shook his head in
discouragement. “She looks as solemn as you do. Bob, I thought nurses’
aides were sent here to cheer up the patients. If this goes on they’ll
all have a relapse.”
“You are not a patient, Captain Eaton,” smiled Michelle. “On the
contrary, it is you whom we expect to cheer us. I am sorry to look so
serious. I was thinking that this week I go away to France, and that
before leaving I would like well to understand these strange
happenings.”
Bob said with conviction, “Michelle, before this week’s over, I promise
you’ll know it all. I’m as sick of floundering as you are. I’m going to
plunge in and fish out Franz’ secret.”
“Only, don’t go in over your head,” advised Larry. “You’re flying
against the wind when you face that wily old Johann. Hello, I’ve lost my
simile.”
“Never mind, it’ll do, and the advice is fine,” said Lucy. With a sigh
she added, “Bob got safely out of Archangel only to run into a nest of
Boches and try to——”
“—smoke them out,” finished Larry. “But what are you afraid of, Lucy,
except of their eluding us? We’ve got the upper hand. Don’t you know we
won the war?”
“Sometimes I have to remind myself of it,” declared Lucy soberly. “It’s
a queer mixture we live in now—neither war nor peace. I hate that old
Franz and never look at him if I can help it, but I go every day to see
Adelheid and can’t but like her, poor little thing.” All at once, as
they neared the hospital clearing, she asked, “Are you on duty all day
to-morrow, Larry?”
“No, in the afternoon I’m free. Why?”
“Nothing at all. Don’t say anything,” said Lucy quickly, with a nervous
earnestness that made Larry stare at her almost with anxiety.
“What are you up to, anyhow?” he demanded.
“Something that you’ll have to be up to with me,” said Lucy with sudden
resolution.