THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS
At last they had reached their goal, the place which the two spy
suspects undoubtedly had been in the habit of visiting regularly every
week for months past.
Sheltered by a great rock and the underbrush about it, Jane, with Fleck
and Thomas Dean, peered eagerly out at a dingy, weather-beaten frame
structure which neighborhood gossip had told them was the sheltering
place of the “Friends of the Air.” In its outward appearance at least,
Jane decided, it was disappointingly unmysterious. It looked to her
merely like a cheap summer boarding-house that had gone long
untenanted. There was a two-story main building, cheaply constructed
and almost without ornament, sadly crying for new paint, and the usual
outbuildings found about such places in the more remote country
districts.
Still from Chief Fleck’s manner she was certain that he regarded their
achievement in locating the place as of the highest importance. They
had run their two automobiles noiselessly up the lane leading from the
main road until they were perhaps half a mile distant from the house
and then had concealed them in the woods near-by, being careful to
obliterate all traces of the wheel tracks where they had left the lane.
Making a détour among the trees they had reached their present position
not more than three hundred yards away from the buildings. They had
carried the rifles with them, and these now were close at hand, hidden
under the log on which the three of them were sitting. Carter, with the
other men, under Fleck’s orders, had divided themselves into scouting
parties and had crept away through the woods to study their
surroundings at still closer range while the waning afternoon light
permitted.
At first glance one might have been inclined to believe the buildings
untenanted. There seemed to be no one stirring about the place, and
some of the unshuttered windows on the second floor were broken. The
only indications of recent occupation were a pile of kegs at the rear
of the house and near-by a heap of freshly opened tin cans. Near one of
the larger outbuildings, too, was a pile of chips and sawdust.
“There does not seem to be any one about,” whispered Jane. “What do you
suppose they do here?”
“I can’t imagine yet,” said Fleck with an impatient shake of his head.
“The fact that this house is important enough for the Hoffs to visit
once a week makes it important for us to cautiously and carefully
investigate everything about it. It may be a secret wireless plant away
off here in the woods where no one would think of looking for it. It
might be a bomb factory where their chemists manufacture the bombs and
explosives with which they are constantly trying to wreck our munition
plants and communication lines. Perhaps it is just a rendezvous where
their various agents, the important ones engaged in their damnable work
of destruction, come secretly to get their orders from the Hoffs and to
receive payment for their hellishness accomplished.”
“It’s all so funny, so perfectly absurd,” said Jane with a nervous
little laugh.
“Absurd,” cried Fleck indignantly, “what do you mean? It’s frightfully
serious.”
“Of course, I understand,” Jane hastened to say. “I was just thinking,
though, how funny we are here in America, especially in the big cities.
We know nothing whatever about our neighbors, about the people right
next door to us. In one apartment we’ll be doing all we can to help win
the war, and in the apartment next door the people will be plotting and
scheming to help Germany win, and it is only by accident we find out
about it. Take my own father and mother. They haven’t the slightest
suspicion of the people next door. They would hardly believe me if I
told them the Hoffs were German spies. They see them every day in the
elevator. Young Mr. Hoff has been in our apartment several times. My
mother has met him and talked with him. I was just thinking how amazed
and horrified she will be when she hears about it and learns what I
have been doing.”
“You are perfectly right,” said Fleck soberly. “We are entirely too
careless here in America about our acquaintances and neighbors. We know
that we are decent and respectable, and we’re apt to take it for
granted that everybody else is. We don’t mind our neighbors’ business
enough. Nobody in a New York apartment house ever bothers to know who
his neighbors are or what their business is, so long as they present a
respectable appearance. I know New York people who live on the same
floor with two ex-convicts and have lived there for three years without
suspecting it. We should have here in America some system of
registration as they have in Germany. Tenants and travelers ought to be
required to file reports with the police, giving their occupation and
other details. If that plan were in use here enemy spies would lack
most of the opportunities we have been giving them.”
“Yes,” said Dean, “you are right. I’ve lived in Germany. Over there a
crook of any sort can hardly move without the police knowing it. Their
system certainly has its good points.”
“It surely has,” Fleck agreed. “If the Prussians’ character were only
equal to their intelligence they would be the most wonderful people in
the world, but they are rotten clear through. They have no conception
of honor as we understand it. Only the other day I read of a Prussian
officer who led his men in an attack on a chateau, guiding them by
plans of the place he had made himself while being entertained in the
chateau as a guest before the war.”
“Don’t you think any of them have a sense of honor?” asked Jane in a
troubled tone.
Her mind had reverted, as she found it frequently doing, to Frederic
Hoff and the sealed packet he had entrusted to her. He had professed to
love her and had demanded that she trust him. Was it, she wondered, all
a base pretense on his part? Was he—for Germany’s sake—taking advantage
of her affection for him to make her the unwitting custodian of some
secret too perilous for him to carry about with him? Perhaps that
little parcel she was carrying in the bosom of her gown contained the
code he and his uncle used? Had it not been for Dean’s presence she
might have been tempted to take Fleck into her confidence and tell him
of the peculiar incident, though in spite of all she knew about him she
felt that Frederic Hoff’s feeling for her was real, and that toward her
he always would show only respect and honor, as he always had done
hitherto; and yet—
Before the chief had time to answer her question Dean with a whispered
“hist” pointed to a path in the rear of the buildings they were
watching. Behind the house two rugged hills, their sides of precipitous
rock so steep that they hardly afforded a foothold, came down close
together, making a V-shaped cleft through which a narrow path ran in
the direction of the river. Looking toward this cleft to which Dean was
pointing they now saw a group of workmen approaching the house.
All of them were in the garb of mechanics, yet as they approached in
single file down the path, the quick eye of the chief noted that they
were keeping step.
“They’ve all of them seen service,” he muttered to himself, “either in
prison or in the German army.”
Some of them carried kits of tools, and they walked with the air of
fatigue that results from a day of hard physical work. They seemed to
have no suspicion as yet that they were under observation, for as they
walked they chatted among themselves, the sound of their German
gutturals reaching the watchers, but unfortunately not distinctly
enough to be audible. Dean was busy counting them.
“There are fourteen,” he announced, “two more than we were expecting to
find here.”
“At what do you suppose they are working?” asked Jane curiously.
“Here comes Carter,” replied Fleck. “Perhaps he can tell us. His face
shows that he has learned something.”
Carter, crawling rapidly but silently through the underbrush,
approached breathlessly, his sweaty, begrimed countenance ablaze with
excitement.
“What’s up?” asked Fleck, as soon as he was within hearing.
“My God, Chief,” he gasped, “they’ve got three big aeroplanes out there
on a plateau overlooking the river—three of them all keyed up and ready
to start.”
“Friends of the Air,” muttered Fleck; “so that’s what it means.”
“They’ve evidently smuggled all the material up and built the three
planes right here,” Carter went on. “I watched them putting on the
finishing touches and testing the guy-wires. There is a machine shop,
too, rigged up in one of those outbuildings. The thing that gets me is
how they got the engines here. All the planes are equipped with
powerful new engines.”
“If there are traitors in the army and navy, why not in the aeroplane
factories, too?” suggested Fleck. “A spy in the shipping department
could easily change the label on even a Liberty motor intended for one
of Uncle Sam’s flying fields. Even when it didn’t turn up where and
when it was expected, it would take government red tape three months to
find out what had become of the missing motors.”
“These machines”—said Jane suddenly, “they must be the ‘wonder-workers’
old Mr. Hoff was always talking about.”
“And that last advertisement we read,” Dean reminded them, “announced
that the wonder-workers would be ready Friday. It looks as if we got
here not a minute too soon.”
“You bet we didn’t,” said Carter. “Every one of those three planes is
fairly loaded down with big bombs, scores of them.”
“To bomb New York,” said Fleck soberly; “that’s their plan. Zeppelins
for England, big guns to shell Paris, bombs from the air for New York.
It’s part of their campaign to spread frightfulness, to terrorize the
world. Undoubtedly that is the reason Berlin sent Frederic Hoff over
here, to superintend the destruction of the metropolis. There have been
whispers for months and months that the city some day was to be bombed,
but we never were able to discover their origin.”
“And not a single anti-aircraft gun or anything in the whole city to
stop them, is there?” cried Jane. “Wouldn’t it be terrible?”
Fleck smiled grimly.
“Any foolhardy German who tries to bomb New York from the air has a big
surprise coming to him—a lot of big surprises. The war department may
not have been doing much advertising, but it has not been idle.”
“Then we have some anti-aircraft guns!” cried Jane delightedly. “I
never heard anything about them.”
“That would be telling government secrets,” said Fleck, smiling
mysteriously, “but I’d just like to see them try it. I have sort of a
notion to let them start their bombing.”
“Oh, no, we mustn’t,” Jane insisted. “We mustn’t let those aeroplanes
ever start. Can’t we do something right away to cripple them?”
“There’s plenty of time,” the chief assured her. “It is best for us to
wait until after dark. The early morning would be ideal time for an
aerial attack on the city, when everybody is helpless and asleep.
There’s generally a fog over the river and harbor, too, before sunrise
at this season of the year, and that might help them to mask their
movements. It would take an aeroplane less than an hour to reach the
city from here, so that there is no likelihood of their starting until
long after midnight. That gives us plenty of time, and besides we must
wait until the Hoffs arrive.”
“That will make two more—sixteen of them against our nine,” warned
Dean.
“We cannot help it how many of them there are,” said Fleck. “It is of
vital importance for us to know just what their plans are. It is
unlikely that they will post guards to-night in this secluded spot,
where they have been at work in safety for months. As soon as it is
dark we can smash the aeroplanes.”
“That will be easy,” said Carter. “I know something about aeroplanes.
Cut a couple of wires, and they are out of business. Sills, one of my
men, is posted on bombs, and he’ll know just how to fix the fuses to
render them useless.”
“What’s more,” said Fleck, “if I understand German thoroughness, they
will go over their final plans in detail to make sure that everything
is understood. The darkness will let us slip up closer to the house,
and we may be able to overhear what they say. Don’t forget, too, that
our main job is to catch the Hoffs red-handed.”
“That’s right,” said Dean. “They are the brains of the plot. These
other fellows are just workmen taking orders.”
“I’m puzzled,” said Fleck, “to know what they plan to do with the
aeroplanes after the bombing has taken place. There is not one chance
in a thousand of their being able to return here in safety without
discovery. It will be sure death for the aviators that take up those
machines.”
“Sure death!”
With a shudder Jane recalled what Frederic had said to her only a few
hours ago as they parted—that he was going away and might never return.
Was this what he had meant? Was he, Frederic, to be one of the
foolhardy three who proposed to forfeit their lives in this desperate
attempt to deal destruction from the air on a sleeping city, to wreck
innocent homes, to cripple and maim and destroy helpless babies and
women? She could not, would not believe it of him. That he had the
courage and daring to undertake such a perilous task she did not doubt.
She realized, too, that the controlling motive of all his actions was
his high sense of duty toward his country, and yet in spite of all that
she had learned about the plots in which she was enmeshed, her heart
refused to believe that he ever could bring himself to participate in
such wanton frightfulness. She recalled the spirit of mercy that he had
shown toward herself and Thomas Dean after the accident as contrasted
with the brutal indifference of his uncle. She kept hoping against hope
that something might happen to prevent his arriving here. Devoutly she
wished that she might awake and find that it was all a terrible
mistake, a hideous unreality, and that the “Friends of the Air” were
not in any way associated with the Hoffs.
Yet her reason told her it must all be true, terribly, infamously true,
and that he was one of them, perhaps the leader of them.
One by one the members of the various scouting parties had come
creeping in through the forest. All of them verified what Carter had
already reported. One man, more venturesome than the others, had even
dared to creep close up to the rear of the house and had seen through
the window the workmen, gathered about their supper of beer and
sausages, toasting the Kaiser with the unanimity of a set formality.
As the light waned, secured from observation by the undergrowth between
their position and the house, they sat there discussing plans of
action, selecting while the light still permitted the most advantageous
posts from which they could make a concerted rush on the plotters.
Fleck was insistent that they should do nothing to betray their
presence until after the Hoffs had arrived, and Dean once more voiced
his protest against Jane taking part in the attack. “I will be of far
more use than you with your crippled arm,” she resentfully insisted. “I
can handle a revolver as well as any man, and a rifle, too, if
necessary.”
“Dean is right,” Fleck decided. “It is no work for a woman. Here is an
automatic, Miss Strong. You will stay here until after we have rounded
them up. If we get the worst of it, which is not likely to happen, make
your way to the automobile and telephone the commandant at West Point.”
Reluctantly Jane assented. She realized that further protest was
useless. Fleck was in command, and his orders must be obeyed
unquestioningly if their plans for the capture of the plotters were to
be successfully carried out.
Presently they heard in the distance the sound of an automobile
approaching, and soon they could distinguish its lights as it
negotiated the rough, winding woodland road that led to the house. A
toot from the horn as it arrived brought the men within the house
tumbling out the front door with huzzas of greeting for their leaders,
and Fleck observed that all the men as they came out automatically
raised their hands in salute.
“Ex-German soldiers, every one of them,” he muttered.
As the Hoffs got out of the car a shaft of light from the opened front
door threw the figures of the new arrivals into sharp relief, and Jane
saw, with a shudder of terror, that Frederic was dressed in an
aviator’s costume. There was no longer any doubt left in her mind that
he was one of those going to certain death, and a dry sob choked her.
The Hoffs passed within the house, and the door was closed.
“Now,” cried Fleck, “to your stations, men. Each of you take a rifle.
You stay here, Miss Strong. Come on, Carter.”