unaided; and he tore away the remnant of mud-guard which _Uncle Sam_ had
sacrificed in his role of combination engine and paddle-wheel.
"You've got the wires all tangled up in your spokes," Tom said; "you
look like a--a wreck. What do you want with those old sticks of
shingles? How are you off for gas--you--you old tramp?"
_Uncle Sam_ did not answer.
"Anyway, you're all right," Tom panted; "only my arm is worse than your
old mud-guard. We're a pair of---- Can't you speak?" he added breathing
the deadly fatigue he felt and putting his foot upon the pedal.
"What--do--you--say? Huh?"
And then _Uncle Sam_ answered.
"Tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r---- Never mind your arm. Come
ahead--hurry," he seemed to say.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
"WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO--"
Swiftly along the sun-flecked road sped the dispatch-rider. In the
mellow freshness of the new day he rode, and the whir of his machine in
its lightning flight mingled with the cheery songs of the birds, whose
early morning chorus heartened and encouraged him. There was a balm in
the fragrant atmosphere of the cool, gray morning which entered the soul
of Tom Slade and whispered to him, _There is no such word as fail._
Out of the night he had come, out of travail, and brain-racking
perplexity and torturing effort, crossing rushing waters and matching
his splendid strength and towering will against obstacles, against fate,
against everything.
As he held the handle-bar of _Uncle Sam_ in that continuous handshake
which they knew so well, his right arm felt numb and sore, and his
whole body ached. _Uncle Sam's_ big, leering glass eye was smashed, his
mud-guard wrenched off, and dried mud was upon his wheels. His rider's
uniform was torn and water-soaked, his face black with grime. They made
a good pair.
Never a glance to right or left did the rider give, nor so much as a
perfunctory nod to the few early risers who paused to stare at him as he
sped by. In the little hamlet of Persan an old Frenchman sitting on a
rustic seat before the village inn, removed his pipe from his mouth long
enough to call,
"_La côte?_"
But never a word did the rider answer. Children, who, following the good
example of the early bird, were already abroad, scurried out of his way,
making a great clatter in their wooden shoes, and gaping until he passed
beyond their sight.
Over the bridge at Soignois he rushed, making its ramshackle planks
rattle and throw up a cloud of dust from between the vibrating seams.
Out of this cloud he emerged like a gray spectre, body bent, head low,
gaze fixed and intense, leaving a pandemonium of dust and subsiding
echoes behind him.
At Virneu an old housewife threw open her blinds and seeing the dusty
khaki of the rider, summoned her brood, who waved the tricolor from the
casement, laughing and calling, "_Vive l'Amerique!_"
Their cheery voices and fraternal patriotism did cause Tom to turn his
head and call,
"_Merci. Vive la France!_"
And they answered again with a torrent of French.
The morning was well established as he passed through Chuisson, and a
clock upon a romantic, medieval-looking little tower told him that it
lacked but ten minutes of five o'clock.
A feeling of doubt, almost of despair, seized upon him and he called in
that impatient surliness which springs from tense anxiety, asking an old
man how far it was to Dieppe.
The man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in polite confession
that he did not understand English.
In his anxiety it irritated Tom. "What _do_ you know?" he muttered.
Out of Chuisson he labored up a long hill, and though _Uncle Sam_ made
no more concession to it than to slacken his unprecedented rate of
speed the merest trifle, the difference communicated itself to Tom at
once and it seemed, by contrast, as if they were creeping. On and up
_Uncle Sam_ went, plying his way sturdily, making a great noise and a
terrific odor--dogged, determined and irresistible.
But the rider stirred impatiently. Would they ever, _ever_, reach the
top? And when they should, there would be another hamlet in a valley,
another bridge, more stupid people who could not speak English, more
villages, more bends in the road, still other villages, and
then--another hill.
It seemed to Tom that he had been travelling for ten years and that
there was to be no end of it. Ride, ride, ride--it brought him nowhere.
His right arm which had borne that tremendous strain, was throbbing so
that he let go the handle-bar from time to time in the hope of relief. It
was the pain of acute tiredness, for which there could be no relief but
rest. Just to throw himself down and rest! Oh, if he could only lay that
weary, aching arm across some soft pillow and leave it there--just leave
it there. Let it hang, bend it, hold it above him, lay it on _Uncle
Sam's_ staunch, unfeeling arm of steel, he could not, _could_ not, get
it rested.
The palm of his hand tingled with a kind of irritating feeling like
chilblains, and he must be continually removing one or other hand from
the bar so that he could reach one with the other. It did not help him
keep his poise. If he could only scratch his right hand once and be done
with it! But it annoyed him like a fly.
Up, up, up, they went, and passed a quaint, old, thatch-roofed house.
Crazy place to build a house! And the people in it--probably all they
could do was to shrug their shoulders in that stupid way when asked a
question in English.
He was losing his morale--was this dispatch-rider.
But near the top of the hill he regained it somewhat. Perhaps he could
make up for this lost time in some straight, level reach of road beyond.
Up, up, up, plowed _Uncle Sam_, one lonely splinter of shingle still
bound within his spokes, and his poor, dented headlight bereft of its
dignity.
"I've an idea the road turns north about a mile down," Tom said to
himself, "and runs around through----"
The words stopped upon his lips as _Uncle Sam_, still laboring upward,
reached level ground, and as if to answer Tom out of his own
uncomplaining and stouter courage, showed him a sight which sent his
faltering hope skyward and started his heart bounding.
For there below them lay the vast and endless background of the sea,
throwing every intervening detail of the landscape into insignificance.
There it was, steel blue in the brightening sunlight and glimmering here
and there in changing white, where perhaps some treacherous rock or bar
lay just submerged. And upon it, looking infinitesimal in the limitless
expanse, was something solid with a column of black smoke rising and
winding away from it and dissolving in the clear, morning air.
"There you are!" said Tom, patting _Uncle Sam_ patronizingly in a swift
change of mood. "See there? That's the Atlantic Ocean--that is. _Now_
will you hurry? That's a ship coming in--see? I bet it's a whopper, too.
Do you know what--what's off beyond there?" he fairly panted in his
excitement; "do you? You old French hobo, you? _America!_ That's where
_I_ came from. _Now_ will you hurry? That's Dieppe, where the white[2]
is and those steeples, see? And way across there on the other side is
America!"
For _Uncle Sam_, notwithstanding his name, was a French motorcycle and
had never seen America.
[2] Dieppe's famous beach.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A SURPRISE
Down the hill coasted _Uncle Sam_, bearing his rider furiously onward. A
fence along the wayside seemed like a very entanglement of stakes and
pickets. Then it was gone. A house loomed up in view, grew larger, and
was gone. A cow that was grazing in a field languidly raised her head,
blinked her eyes, and stood as if uncertain whether she had really seen
something pass or not.
They were in the valley now and the sea was no longer discernible. On
they rushed with a fine disdain for poor little Charos, whose village
steeple appeared and disappeared like a flash of lightning. The road was
broad and level and _Uncle Sam_ sped along amid a cloud of dust, the
bordering trees and houses flying away behind like dried leaves in a
hurricane. The rider's hair was fluttering like a victorious emblem, his
eyes fixed with a wild intensity.
"We'd get arrested for this in America," he muttered; "we--we should
worry."
It was little _Uncle Sam_ cared for the traffic laws of America.
Around the outskirts of Teurley they swept and into the broad highway
like a pair of demons, and a muleteer, seeing discretion to be the
better part of valor, drove his team well to the side--far enough, even,
to escape any devilish contamination which this unearthly apparition
might diffuse.
They had reached a broad highway, one of those noble roads which
Napoleon had made. They could not go wrong now. They passed a luxurious
chateau, then a great hotel where people haled them in French. Then they
passed an army auto truck loaded with mattresses, with the bully old
initials U. S. A. on its side. Two boys in khaki were on the seat.
"Is the _Texas Pioneer_ in?" Tom yelled.
"What?" one of them called back.
"He's deaf or something," muttered Tom; "we--should worry."
On they sped till the road merged into a street lined with shops, where
children in wooden shoes and men in blouses shuffled about. Tom thought
he had never seen people so slow in his life.
[Illustration: DOWN THE HILL COASTED UNCLE SAM BEARING TOM FURIOUSLY
ONWARD.]
Now, indeed, he must make some concession to the throngs moving back and
forth, and he slackened his speed, but only slightly.
"Dieppe?" he called.
"Dieppe," came the laughing answer from a passer-by, who was evidently
amused at Tom's pronunciation.
"Where's the wharves?"
Again that polite shrug of the shoulders.
He took a chance with another passer-by, who nodded and pointed down a
narrow street with dull brown houses tumbling all over each other, as it
seemed to Tom. It was the familiar, old-world architecture of the French
coast towns, which he had seen in Brest and St. Nazaire, as if all the
houses had become suddenly frightened and huddled together like panicky
sheep.
More leisurely now, but quickly still, rode the dispatch-rider through
this narrow, surging way which had all the earmarks of the
shore--damp-smelling barrels, brass lanterns, dilapidated ships'
figureheads, cosy but uncleanly drinking places, and sailors.
And of all the sights save one which Tom Slade ever beheld, the one
which most gladdened his heart was a neat new sign outside a stone
building,
Office of United States Quartermaster.
Several American army wagons were backed up against the building and
half a dozen khaki-clad boys lounged about. There was much coming and
going, but it is a part of the dispatch-rider's prestige to have
immediate admittance anywhere, and Tom stopped before this building and
was immediately surrounded by a flattering representation of military
and civilian life, both French and American.
To these he paid not the slightest heed, but carefully lowered _Uncle
Sam's_ rest so that his weary companion might stand alone.
"You old tramp," he said in an undertone; "stay here and take it easy.
Keep away," he added curtly to a curious private who was venturing a too
close inspection of _Uncle Sam's_ honorable wounds.
"What's the matter--run into something?" he asked.
"No, I didn't," said Tom, starting toward the building.
Suddenly he stopped short, staring.
A man in civilian clothes sat tilted back in one of several chairs
beside the door. He wore a little black moustache and because his head
was pressed against the brick wall behind him, his hat was pushed
forward giving him a rakish look which was rather heightened by an
unlighted cigar sticking up out of the corner of his mouth like a piece
of field artillery.
He might have been a travelling salesman waiting for his samples on the
veranda of a country hotel and he had about him a kind of sophisticated
look as if he took a sort of blasé pleasure in watching the world go
round. His feet rested upon the rung of his tilted chair, forming his
knees into a sort of desk upon which lay a French newspaper. The tilting
of his knees, the tilting of his chair, the tilting of his hat and the
rakish tilt of his cigar, gave him the appearance of great
self-sufficiency, as if, away down in his soul, he knew what he was
there for, and cared not a whit whether anyone else did or not.
Tom Slade paused on the lower step and stared. Then with a slowly
dawning smile supplanting his look of astonishment, he ejaculated,
"M-i-s-t-e-r _C-o-n-n-e_!"
The man made not the slightest change in his attitude except to smile
the while he worked his cigar over to the other corner of his mouth.
Then he cocked his head slightly sideways.
"H'lo, Tommy," said he.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SMOKE AND FIRE
Mr. Carleton Conne, of the United States Secret Service, had come over
from Liverpool _via_ Dover on a blind quest after an elusive spy. There
had been a sort of undercurrent of rumor, with many extravagant
trappings, that a mysterious agent of the Kaiser was on his way to
Europe with secrets of a most important character. Some stories had it
that he was intimately related to Bloody Bill himself; others that he
gloried in a kinship with Ludendorf, while still other versions
represented him as holding Mexico in the palm of his hand. Dark stories
floated about and no one knew just where they originated.
One sprightly form this story took, which had been whispered in New York
and then in Liverpool, was that a certain young lady (identity unknown)
had talked with a soldier (identity unknown) in the Grand Central
Station in New York, and that the soldier had told her that at his
cantonment (cantonment not identified) there was a man in a special
branch of the service (branch not mentioned) who was a cousin or a
brother or a nephew or a son or something or other to a German general
or statesman or something or other, and that he had got into the
American army by a pretty narrow squeak. There seemed to be a unanimity
of opinion in the lower strata of Uncle Sam's official family in
Liverpool that the soldier who had talked with the young lady was coming
over on the transport _Manchester_ and it was assumed (no one seemed to
know exactly why) that the mysterious and sinister personage would be
upon the same ship.
But no soldier had been found upon the _Manchester_ who showed by his
appearance that he had chatted with a young lady. Perhaps several of
them had done that. It is a way soldiers have.
As for the arch spy or propagandist, he did not come forward and
introduce himself as such, and though a few selected suspects of German
antecedents were searched and catechised by Mr. Conne and others, no one
was held.
And there you are.
Rumors of this kind are always in circulation and the Secret Service
people run them down as a matter of precaution. But though you can run a
rumor down and stab it through and through you cannot kill it. It now
appeared that this German agent had sailed from Mexico and would land at
Brest--with a message to some French statesman. Also it appeared that he
had stolen a secret from Edison and would land at Dieppe. It had also
been reported that someone had attempted to blow up the loaded transport
_Texas Pioneer_ on her way over.
And so Mr. Carleton Conne, of the American Secret Service, quiet,
observant, uncommunicative, never too sanguine and never too skeptical,
had strolled on to the _Channel Queen_, lighted his cigar, and was now
tilted back in his chair outside the Quartermaster's office in Dieppe,
not at all excited and waiting for the _Texas Pioneer_ to dock.
He had done this because he believed that where there is a great deal of
smoke there is apt to be a little fire. He was never ruffled, never
disappointed.
Tom's acquaintance with Mr. Conne had begun on the transport on which he
had worked as a steward's boy, and where his observant qualities and
stolid soberness had attracted and amused the detective.
"I never thought I'd see you here," said Tom, his face lighting up to an
unusual degree. "I'm a dispatch-rider now. I just rode from Cantigny. I
got a letter for the Quartermaster, but anyway he's got to turn me over
to the Secret Service (Mr. Conne regarded him with whimsical attention
as he stumbled on), because there's a plot and somebody--a spy--kind
of----"
"A spy, kind of, eh?"
"And I hope the _Texas Pioneer_ didn't land yet, that's one sure thing."
"It's one sure thing that she'll dock in about fifteen minutes, Tommy,"
said Mr. Conne rising. "Come inside and deliver your message. What's the
matter with your machine? Been trying to wipe out the Germans alone and
unaided, like the hero in a story book?"
Tom followed him in, clumsily telling the story of his exciting journey;
"talking in chunks," as he usually did and leaving many gaps to be
filled in by the listener.
"I'm glad I found you here, anyway," he finished, as if that were the
only part that really counted; "'cause now I feel as if I can tell
about an idea I've got. I'd of been scared to tell it to anybody else. I
ain't exactly got it yet," he added, "but maybe I can help even better
than they thought, 'cause as I was ridin' along I had a kind of an
idea----"
"Yes?"
"Kind of. Did you ever notice how you get fool ideas when there's a
steady noise going on?"
"So?" said Mr. Conne, as he led the way along a hall.
"It was the noise of my machine."
"How about the smell, Tommy?" Mr. Conne asked, glancing around with that
pleasant, funny look which Tom had known so well.
"You don't get ideas from smells," he answered soberly.
In the Quartermaster's office he waited on a bench while Mr. Conne and
several other men, two in uniform and two that he thought might be
Secret Service men, talked in undertones. If he had been a hero in a
book, to use Mr. Conne's phrase, these officials would doubtless have
been assembled about him listening to his tale, but as it was he was
left quite out of the conference until, near its end, he was summoned to
tell of his capture of Major von Piffinhoeffer and asked if he thought
he could identify a close relation of that high and mighty personage
simply by seeing him pass as a total stranger.
Tom thought he might "by a special way," and explained his knowledge of
breed marks and specie marks. He added, in his stolid way, that he had
another idea, too. But they did not ask him what that was. One of the
party, a naval officer, expressed surprise that he had ridden all the
way from Cantigny and asked him if it were not true that part of the
road was made impassible by floods. Tom answered that there were floods
but that they were not impassible "if you knew how." The officer said he
supposed Tom knew how, and Tom regarded this as a compliment.
Soon, to his relief, Mr. Conne took all the papers in the case and left
the room, beckoning Tom to follow him. Another man in civilian clothes
hurried away and Tom thought he might be going to the dock. It seemed to
him that his rather doubtful ability to find a needle in a haystack had
not made much of an impression upon these officials, and he wondered
ruefully what Mr. Conne thought. He saw that his arrival with the
papers had produced an enlivening effect among the officials, but it
seemed that he himself was not taken very seriously. Well, in any event,
he had made the trip, he had beaten the ship, delivered the message to
Garcia.
"I got to go down and turn my grease cup before I forget it," he said,
as they came out on the little stone portico again.
Several soldiers who were soon to see more harrowing sights than a
bunged-up motorcycle, were gathered about _Uncle Sam_, gaping at him and
commenting upon his disfigurements. Big U. S. A. auto trucks were
passing by. A squad of German prisoners, of lowering and sullen aspect,
marched by with wheelbarrows full of gray blankets. They were keeping
perfect step, through sheer force of habit. Another dispatch-rider (a
"local") passed by, casting a curious eye at _Uncle Sam_. A French child
who sat upon the step had one of his wooden shoes full of smoky, used
bullets, which he seemed greatly to prize. Several "flivver" ambulances
stood across the way, new and roughly made, destined for the front.
American naval and military officers were all about.
"We haven't got much time to spare, Tommy," said Mr. Conne, resuming
his former seat and glancing at his watch.
"It's only a second. I just got to turn the grease cup."
He hurried down past the child, who called him "M'sieu Yankee," and
elbowed his way through the group of soldiers who were standing about
_Uncle Sam_.
"Your timer bar's bent," one of them volunteered.
Tom did not answer, but knelt and turned the grease cup, then wiped the
nickel surfaces, bent and dented though they were, with a piece of
cotton waste. Then he felt of his tires. Then he adjusted the position
of the handle-bar more to his liking and as he did so the poor, dented,
glassless searchlight bobbed over sideways as if to look at the middle
of the street. Tom said something which was not audible to the curious
onlookers. Perhaps _Uncle Sam_ heard.
The local rider came jogging around the corner on his way back. His
machine was American-made and a medley of nickel and polished brass. As
he made the turn his polished searchlight, with a tiny flag perched
jauntily upon it, seemed to be looking straight at _Uncle Sam_. And
_Uncle Sam's_ green-besprinkled,[3] glassless eye seemed to be leering
with a kind of sophisticated look at the passing machine. It was the
kind of look which the Chicago Limited might give to the five-thirty
suburban starting with its load of New York commuters for East Orange,
New Jersey.
[3] The effect of water on brass is to produce a greenish, superficial
erosion.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
"MADE IN GERMANY"
"Now, Tommy, let's hear your idea," said Mr. Conne, indulgently, as he
worked his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. "I find
there's generally a little fire where there's a good deal of smoke.
There's somebody or other, as you say, but the trouble is we don't know
who he is. We think maybe he looks like someone you've seen. We think he
may have a patent ear." He looked at Tom sideways and Tom could not help
laughing. Then he looked at the mysterious letter with a funny,
ruminating look.
"What can we--you--do?" Tom ventured to ask, feeling somewhat squelched.
Mr. Conne screwed up his mouth with a dubious look. "Search everybody on
board, two or three thousand, quiz a few, that's about all. It'll take a
long time and probably reveal nothing. Family resemblances are all right
when you know both members, Tommy, but out in the big world--Well,
let's look this over again," he added, taking up the letter.
Tom knew that he was not being consulted. He had a feeling that his
suggestion about breed marks and personal resemblances was not being
taken seriously. He was glad that he had not put his foot too far in by
telling of his other precious idea. But he was proud of Mr. Conne's
companionable attitude toward him. He was proud to be the friend of such
a man. He was delighted at the thought of participation in this matter.
He knew Mr. Conne liked him and had at least a good enough opinion of
him to adopt the appearance of conferring with him. Mr. Conne's rather
whimsical attitude toward this conference did not lessen his pride.
"Let's see now," said the detective. "This thing evidently went through
Holland in code. It's a rendering."
It was easy for Tom to believe that Mr. Conne was re-reading the letter
just to himself--or to himself and Tom.