Ruth heard from Clare Biggars and the other girls at the Lyse Hospital
on several occasions; but little was said in any of their letters
regarding Mrs. Mantel, and, of course, nothing at all of the woman's two
friends, who Ruth had reason to suspect were dishonest.
She wondered if the prefect of police had looked up the records of
"Professor Perry" and the Italian commissioner, the latter who, she was
quite sure, could be identified as "Signor Aristo," the chef, and again
as "José," who had worked for the Red Cross at Robinsburg.
France was infested, she understood, with spies. It was whispered that,
from highest to lowest, all grades of society were poisoned by the
presence of German agents.
Whether Rose Mantel and her two friends were actually working for the
enemy or not, Ruth was quite sure they were not whole-heartedly engaged
in efforts for the Red Cross, or for France.
However, her heart and hands were so filled with hourly duties that Ruth
could not give much thought to the unsavory trio. Rose Mantel, the woman
in black, and the two men Ruth feared and suspected, must be attended to
by the proper authorities. The girl of the Red Mill had done quite all
that could be expected of her when she warned the police head at Lyse to
be on his guard.
Her work in the hospital and supply room engaged so much of her time
that for the first few weeks Ruth scarcely found opportunity to exercise
properly. _Madame, la Directrice_, fairly had to drive her out of the
hospital into the open air.
The fields and lanes about the town were lovely. Here the Hun had not
seized and destroyed everything of beauty. He had been driven back too
quickly in the early weeks of the war to have wreaked vengeance upon all
that was French.
Clair was the center of a large agricultural community. The farmers
dwelt together in the town and tilled the fields for several miles
around. This habit had come down from feudal times, for then the farmers
had to abide together for protection. And even now the inhabitants of
Clair had the habit of likewise dwelling with their draft animals and
cattle!
The narrow courts between the houses and stables were piled high with
farm fertilizer, and the flies were a pest. The hospital authorities
could not get the citizens to clean up the town. What had been the
custom for centuries must always be custom, they thought.
The grumbling of the big guns on the battlefront was almost continuous,
day and night. It got so that Ruth forgot the sound. At night, from the
narrow window of her cell, she could see the white glare over the
trenches far away. By day black specks swinging to and fro in the air
marked the observation balloons. Occasionally a darting airplane
attracted her to the window of her workroom.
Clair was kept dark at night. Scarcely the glimmer of a candle was
allowed to shine forth from any window or doorway. There was a motion
picture theater in the main street; but one had to creep to it by guess,
and perhaps blunder in at the door of the grocer's shop, or the wine
merchant's, before finding the picture show.
By day and night the French aircraft and the anti-aircraft guns were
ready to fight off enemy airplanes. During the first weeks of Ruth
Fielding's sojourn in the town there were two warnings of German air
raids at night. A deliberate attempt more than once had been made to
bomb the Red Cross hospital.
Ruth was frightened. The first alarm came after she was in bed. She
dressed hurriedly and ran down into the nearest ward. But there was no
bustle there. The ringing of the church bells and the blowing of the
alarm siren had not disturbed the patients here, and she saw Miss
Simone, the night nurse, quietly going about her duties as though there
was no stir outside.
Ruth remembered Charlie Bragg's statement of the case: "If they get you
they get you, and that's all there is to it!" And she was ashamed to
show fear in the presence of the nurse.
The French drove off the raider that time. The second time the German
dropped bombs in the town, but nobody was hurt, and he did not manage to
drop the bombs near the hospital. Ruth was glad that she felt less panic
in this second raid than before.
Thinking of Charlie Bragg must have brought that young man to see her.
He came to the hospital on his rest day; and then later appeared driving
his ambulance and asked her to ride.
The red cross she wore gave authority for Ruth's presence in the
ambulance, and nobody questioned their object in driving through the
back roads and lanes beyond Clair.
The country here was not torn up by marmite holes, or the chasms made by
the Big Berthas. Such a lovely, quiet country as it was! Were it not for
the steady grumbling of the guns Ruth Fielding could scarcely have
believed that there was such a thing as war.
But it was not likely that Ruth would ride much with Charlie Bragg for
the mere pleasure of it. The young fellow drove at top speed at all
times, whether the road was smooth or rutted.
"Really, I can't help it, Miss Ruth," he declared. "Got the habit. We
fellows want always to get as far as we can with our loads before
something breaks down, or a shell gets us.
"By the way, seen anything of the werwolf again?"
"Mercy! No. Do you suppose we did really see anything that night?"
"Don't know. I know there was an attack made upon this sector two nights
after that, and a raid on an artillery base that we were keeping
particularly secret from the Boches. Somebody must have told them."
"The Germans are always flying over and photographing everything," said
Ruth doubtfully.
"Not that battery. Had it camouflaged and only worked on it nights. The
Boches put a barrage right behind it and sent over troops who did a lot
of damage.
"Believe me! You don't know to what lengths these German spies and
German-lovers go. You don't know who is true and who is false about you.
And the most ingenious schemes they have," added Charlie.
"They have tried secret wireless right here--within two miles. But the
radio makes too much noise and is sure to be spotted at last. In one
place telegraph wires were carried for several miles through the bed of
a stream and the spy on this side walked about with the telegraph
instrument in his pocket. When he got a chance he went to the hut near
the river bank, where the ends of the wire were insulated, and tapped
out his messages.
"And pigeons! Don't say a word. They're flying all the time, and
sometimes they are shot and the quills found under their wings. I tell
you spies just swarm all along this front."
"Then," Ruth said, ruminatingly, "it must have been a dog we saw that
night."
"The werwolf?" asked Charlie, with a grin.
"That is nonsense. It is a dog trained to run between the spy on this
side and somebody behind the German lines. Poor dog!"
"Wow!" ejaculated the young fellow with disgust. "Isn't that just like a
girl? 'Poor dog,' indeed!"
"Why! you don't suppose that a noble dog would _want_ to be a spy?"
cried Ruth. "You can scarcely imagine a dog choosing any tricky way
through life. It is only men who deliberately choose despicable means to
despicable ends."
"Hold on! Hold on!" cried Charlie Bragg. "Spies are necessary--as long as
there is going to be war, anyway. The French have got quite as brave and
successful spies beyond the German lines as the Germans have over here;
only not so many."
"Well--I suppose that's so," admitted Ruth, sighing. "There must be these
terrible things as long as the greater terrible thing, war, exists. Oh!
There is the chateau gateway. Drive slower, Mr. Bragg--do, please!"
They mounted a little rise in the road. Above they had seen the walls
and towers of the chateau, and had seen them clearly for some time. But
now the boundary wall of the estate edged the road, and an arched
gateway, with high grilled gates and a small door set into the wall
beside the wider opening, came into view.
A single thought had stung Ruth Fielding's mind, but she did not utter
it. It was: Why had none of the German aviators dropped bombs upon the
stone towers on the hill? Was it a fact that the enemy deliberately
ignored the existence of the chateau--that somebody in that great pile of
masonry won its immunity from German bombs by playing the traitor to
France and her cause?
Charlie had really reduced the speed of the car until it was now only
crawling up the slope of the road. Something fluttered at the
postern-gate--a woman's petticoat.
"There's the old woman," said Charlie, "Take a good look at her."
"You don't mean the countess?" gasped Ruth.
"Whiskers! No!" chuckled the young fellow. "She's a servant--or
something. Dresses like one of these French peasants about here. And yet
she isn't French!"
"You have seen her before, then," murmured Ruth.
"Twice. There! Look at her mustache, will you? She looks like a
grenadier."
The woman at the gate was a tall, square-shouldered woman, with a hard,
lined and almost masculine countenance. She stared with gloomy look as
the Red Cross ambulance rolled by. Ruth caught Charlie's arm
convulsively.
"Oh! what was that?" she again whispered, looking back at the woman in
the gateway.
"What was what?" he asked.
"That--something white--behind her--inside the gate! Why, Mr. Bragg! was it
a dog?"
"The werwolf," chuckled the young chauffeur.