Ruth Fielding felt as though she needed a cup of tea more than she ever
had before in her life. And Clare Biggars had her own tea service in her
room at the pension. Ruth had inquired for Clare and learned that this
was a free hour for the Kansas girl. So Ruth and Henriette Dupay drove
to the boarding-house; for to get a good cup of tea in one of the
restaurants or cafés was impossible.
Her relief at learning the wounded American in the hospital was not Tom
Cameron was quite overwhelming at first. Ruth had come out to the car so
white of face that the French girl was frightened.
"Oh! Mam'zelle Fielding! It is that you haf los' your friend?" cried the
girl in the stammering English she tried so hard to make perfect.
"I don't know that," sighed Ruth. "But, at least, if he is wounded, he
was not brought here to this hospital."
She could not understand how that letter had been found in the pocket of
the young man she had seen in the hospital ward. Tom Cameron certainly
had written that letter. Ruth would not be free from worry until she had
heard again from Tom, or of him.
The pension was not far away, and Ruth made her friend lock the car and
come in with her, for Clare was a hospitable soul and it was lunch time.
To her surprise Ruth found Clare in tears.
"What is the matter, my dear girl?" cried Ruth, as Clare fled sobbing to
her arms the moment she saw the girl of the Red Mill. "What can have
happened to you?"
"Everything!" exploded the Kansas girl. "You can't imagine! I've all but
been arrested, and the Head called me down dreadfully, and Madame----"
"Madame Mantel?" Ruth asked sharply. "Is she the cause of your troubles?
I should have warned you----"
"Oh, the poor dear!" groaned Clare. "She feels as bad about it as I do.
Why, they took her to the police station, too!"
"You seem to have all been having a fine time," Ruth said, rather
tartly. "Tell me all about it. But ask us to sit down, and _do_ give us
a cup of tea. This is Henriette Dupay, Clare, and a very nice girl she
is. Try to be cordial--hold up the reputation of America, my dear."
"How-do?" gulped Clare, giving the French girl her hand. "I _am_ glad
Ruth brought you. But it was only yesterday----"
"What was only yesterday?" asked Ruth, as the hostess began to set out
the tea things.
"Oh, Ruth! Haven't you heard something about the awful thing that
happened here? That Professor Perry----"
"Ah! What about him?" asked Ruth. "You know what I wrote you--that I had
heard there was trouble in the Supply Department? You haven't answered
my letter."
"No. I was too worried. And finally--only yesterday, as I said--I was
ordered to appear before the prefect of police."
"A nice old gentleman with a white mustache."
"A horrid old man who said the _meanest_ things to dear Madame Mantel!"
cried Clare hotly.
Ruth saw that the Western girl was still enamored of the woman in black,
so she was careful what she said in comment upon Clare's story.
All Ruth had to do was to keep still and Clare told it all. Perhaps
Henriette did not understand very clearly what the trouble was, but she
looked sympathetic, too, and that encouraged Clare.
It seemed that Mrs. Mantel had made a companion of Clare outside of the
hospital, and Ruth could very well understand why. Clare's father was a
member of Congress and a wealthy man. It was to be presumed that Clare
seemed to the woman in black well worth cultivating.
The Kansas girl had gone with the woman to the café of the Chou-rouge
more than once. Each time the so-called Professor Perry and the Italian
commissioner, whose name Clare had forgotten--"But that's of no
consequence," thought Ruth, "for he has so many names!"--had been very
friendly with the Red Cross workers.
Then suddenly the professor and the Italian had disappeared. The head of
the Lyse hospital had begun to make inquiries into the working of the
Supply Department. There had been billed to Lyse great stores of goods
that were not accounted for.
"Poor Madame Mantel was heartbroken," Clare said. "She wished to resign
at once. Oh, it's been terrible!"
"Resign under fire?" suggested Ruth.
"Oh--you understand--she felt so bad that her department should be under
suspicion. Of course, it was not her fault."
"Did the head say _that_?"
"Why, he didn't have to!" cried Clare. "I hope _you_ are not suspicious
of Madame Mantel, Ruth Fielding?"
"You haven't told me enough to cause me to suspect anybody yet--save
yourself," laughed Ruth. "I suspect that you are telling the story very
badly, my dear."
"Well, I suppose that is so," admitted Clare, and thereafter she tried
to speak more connectedly about the trouble which had finally engrossed
all her thought.
The French police had unearthed, it was said, a wide conspiracy for the
diversion of Red Cross supplies from America to certain private hands.
These goods had been signed for in Mrs. Mantel's office; she did not
know by whom, but the writing on the receipts was not in her hand. That
was proved. And, of course, the goods had never been delivered to the
hospital at Lyse.
The receipts must have been forged. The only point made against Mrs.
Mantel, it seemed, was that she had not reported that these goods, long
expected at Lyse, were not received. Her delay in making inquiry for the
supplies gave the thieves opportunity for disposing of the goods and
getting away with the money paid for them by dishonest French dealers.
The men who had disposed of the supplies and had pocketed the money (or
so it was believed) were the man who called himself Professor Perry and
the Italian commissioner.
"And what do you think?" Clare went on to say. "That professor is no
college man at all. He is a well-known French crook, they say, and
usually travels under the name of Legrand.
"They say he had been in America until it got too hot for him there, and
he crossed on the same boat with us--you remember, Ruth?"
"Oh, I remember," groaned the girl of the Red Mill. "The Italian, too?"
"I don't know for sure about him. They say he isn't an Italian, but a
Mexican, anyway. And he has a police record in both hemispheres.
"Consider! Madame Mantel and I were seen hobnobbing with them! I know
she feels just as I do. I hate to show myself on the street!"
"I wouldn't feel that way," Ruth replied soothingly. "You could not help
it."
"But the police--ordering me before that nasty old prefect!" exclaimed
the angry girl. "And he said such things to me! Think! He had cabled the
chief of police in my town to ask who I was and if I had a police
record. What do you suppose my father will say?"
"I guarantee that he will laugh at you," Ruth declared. "Don't take it
so much to heart. Remember we are in a strange country, and that that
country is at war."
"I never shall like the French system of government, just the same!"
declared Clare, with emphasis.
"And--and what about Mrs. Mantel?" Ruth asked doubtfully.
"I am going over to see her now," Clare said, wiping her eyes. "I am so
sorry for her. I believe that horrid prefect thinks she is mixed up in
the plot that has cost the Red Cross so much. They say nearly ten
thousand dollars worth of goods was stolen, and those two horrid
men--Professor Perry and the other--have got away and the French police
cannot find them."
Ruth was secretly much disturbed by Clare's story. She believed that she
knew something about the pair of crooks who were accused--Rose Mantel's
two friends--that might lead to their capture. She was sure Henriette
Dupay and she had passed them with their stalled automobile on the road
to Lyse that morning.
In addition, she believed the two crooks were connected with those
people at the Chateau Marchand, who were supposed to be pro-German. Now
she knew what language she had heard spoken by José and the
hard-featured Bessie of the chateau, there by the wayside cross. It was
Spanish. The woman might easily be a Mexican as well as José.
Should she go to the prefect of police and tell him of these things? It
seemed to Ruth Fielding that she was much entangled in a conspiracy of
wide significance. The crooks who had robbed the Red Cross seemed lined
up with the spies of the Chateau Marchand.
And there was the strange animal--dog, or what-not!--that was connected
with the chateau. The werwolf! Whether she believed in such traditional
tales or not, the American girl was impressed with the fact that there
was much that was suspicious in the whole affair.
Yet she naturally shrank from getting her own fingers caught in the cogs
of this mystery that the French police were doubtless quite able to
handle in their own way, and all in good time. It was evident that even
Mrs. Mantel was not to be allowed to escape the police net. She had not
been arrested yet; but she doubtless was watched so closely now that she
could neither get away, nor aid in doing further harm.
As for Clare Biggars, she was perfectly innocent of all wrong-doing or
intent. And she was quite old enough to take care of herself. Besides,
her father would doubtless be warned that his daughter was under
suspicion of the French police and he would communicate with the United
States Ambassador at Paris. She would be quite safe and suffer no real
trouble.
So Ruth decided to return to Clair without going to the police, and,
after lunch, having delivered the bags of grain which had filled the
tonneau of the car, she and Henriette Dupay drove out of town again.
They were delayed for some time by tire trouble, and the French girl
proved herself as good a mechanic as was necessary in repairing the
tube. But night was falling before they were halfway home.
Ruth's thoughts were divided between the conspiracy, in which Mrs.
Mantel was engaged, and her worry regarding Tom Cameron. She had filed a
telegraph message at the Lyse Hospital to be sent to Tom's cantonment,
where he was training, and hoped that the censor would allow it to go
through. For she knew she could not be satisfied that Tom had not been
wounded until she heard from him.
The American girl's nerves had been shot through by the affair of the
early morning, when the note from Tom had been brought to her. What had
followed since that hour had not served to help her regain her
self-control.
Therefore, as Henriette drove the car on through the twilight, following
the road by which they had gone to Lyse, there was reason for Ruth
suddenly exclaiming aloud, when she saw something in the track ahead:
"Henriette! Look! What can that be? Do you see it?"
"What do you see, Mademoiselle Ruth?" asked the French girl, reducing
the speed of the car in apprehension.
"There! That white----"
"_Nom de Dieu!_" shrieked Henriette, getting sight of the object in
question.
The girl paled visibly and shrank back into her seat. Ruth cried out,
fearing the steering wheel would get away from Henriette.
"Oh! Did you see?" gasped the latter.
The white object had suddenly disappeared. It seemed to Ruth as though
it had actually melted into thin air.
"That was the werwolf!" continued the French girl, and crossed herself.
"Oh, my dear Mademoiselle, something is sure now to happen--something
very bad!"