PUZZLED
Whistler Morgan's three chums had by this time become somewhat
interested in the bearded man, who called himself Blake and who worked
in the laboratory of the Elmvale munition factory.
They were not at all as sure as Whistler seemed to be that the man was
an alien enemy, and dangerous; for one reason they did not know all that
Whistler had discovered up by the dam. It was only to Ensign MacMasters
that their leader had told of the water wheel under the rock.
Frenchy began to grin when he saw how Whistler hesitated about entering
the restaurant in Rivermouth.
"What's the matter? You so mad with that fellow that you won't eat at
Yancey's because he does?" he asked.
"I'd like to get in there," said Whistler, "without attracting his
attention and that of the man with him. I know he's the skipper of that
oil boat."
"How are you going to do that?" demanded Torry. "They'll spot our
blouses and caps in a minute."
"That's just it. Wish we didn't have 'em on," grumbled his friend.
"Good-_night_! We'd make a nice fumble, wouldn't we, if we didn't wear
the uniform? What would it be--a month in the brig on hard tack and
water?"
"Say!" murmured the eager Ikey Rosenmeyer, "there's a side door. I'll
call Abe, the waiter, out there and tell him. If those fellows have gone
into one of the booths----"
"Bully!" cried Torry. "Maybe he can sneak us into one next to 'em. How
about it, Whistler?"
"Just the thing," agreed Morgan, nodding his head emphatically.
Ikey ran down the alley beside the restaurant while his mates waited at
the corner. The side door was not used save by the restaurant help; but
Ikey insinuated himself in by that entrance and in half a minute poked
his head out of the door again and beckoned furiously to the other boys.
"Oi, oi!" he chuckled in high feather, when they joined him. "We are in
luck all right. Those fellows got a booth, and Abe is layin' the table
in the one next to it, this side, for us. Come on! They won't see us."
"If they take a look out of the curtains they will," declared Torry.
"Have a care, now, about talking," Whistler advised earnestly. "Say
nothing about boats or the sea. No whispering, remember! Talk right out
when you talk at all."
"All right, me lud," said Frenchy. "Anything else?"
"Yes," said Whistler grimly. "This is a Dutch treat. Every fellow pays
for his own eats. Last time we were in a restaurant you all wished the
check on to me."
At that his mates chuckled much. Each had excused himself and gone out
"just for a minute," and Whistler found himself, after waiting half an
hour, expected by the waiter to pay the whole score.
The four got into the booth the waiter had prepared for them, and
Whistler sat with his back against the partition dividing it from that
in which Blake and his companion sat. Between the clatter of dishes, the
waiter's calls to the order man, and the talking of his own friends,
Whistler could not hear much at first. But he knew the two men whom he
suspected were talking in English.
Of course they would not be unwise enough to speak in German. By this
time the German language when spoken in public places was beginning to
cause remark. Wise Germans, whether friendly or enemy aliens, were not
using it.
One of the voices Whistler heard in the other booth, however, was
distinctly German in its accent. This he was quite sure was the skipper
of the oil tender. The other man used perfect English.
"They would not be likely to select a man too obviously German for a big
part in any plot," thought Whistler. "And that Blake looks like a suave,
well educated fellow."
The latter man spoke low, too. The other had a bluff and coarse voice.
He was a typical old sea-dog in his way. Only, a German sea-dog!
"Are you going back there yet?" Whistler heard him ask.
"For just one thing. You know what that is, Braun."
"_Ach!_ Yes."
"My work is done there," said the man, Blake, with pride in his voice.
"Oh, it will be taken note of, don't fear."
"I bet you!" growled the other, in evident admiration. "Undt so she goes
oop, yes? Boom!"
"Sh!" warned the other. "Never mind any talk about it."
But the other was inclined to be voluble. Whistler thought the skipper
of the oil tender, Braun, had been drinking. "And when alcohol is in
the brain wit is very likely to move out," he muttered.
"Grand work!" he ejaculated. "_Ach_, yes! Undt there will be more grand
work when two-fifty is joined by the others."
"Sh!" warned Blake again. "You talk too much, Braun. The wise man keeps
a still tongue."
Ordinarily Whistler Morgan would have found nothing in this overheard
conversation to fan suspicion into a blaze. He quite realized this fact.
But what he had seen at Elmvale, and the presence of Blake on the oil
tender, led in his mind to but one conclusion.
Blake and his companion referred to the former's work in Elmvale. And
what was that work? Not merely the peaceful occupation of chemist in the
laboratory of the munition factory. He was convinced that Blake referred
to something entirely different when he said: "My work is done there."
Nor was Blake merely an inventor, hiding away the actual working model
of an invention until he could secure its patent, for instance. No,
indeed!
Yet Morgan could not imagine what that water wheel was for. To what end
could it have been placed under the rock on the edge of the
overflow-stream from the Elmvale Dam?
Whistler had little to say himself during that meal at Yancey's. He
heard nothing more from the next booth, for Blake seemed to manage the
half drunken skipper of the _Sarah Coville_ with better judgment. By and
by the two men left the restaurant.
"Say! are we going to follow them?" asked the excited Frenchy.
"Aw, you poor fish!" scoffed Torry. "Where'd we follow them to? Back to
that stinking oiler? And how would we follow them to sea? We haven't a
boat."
"That's so," Frenchy admitted, crestfallen.
"No good to try to keep tabs on them," admitted Phil. "I hope Ensign
MacMasters will pick up news of that boat again. Just think of his
chaser coming right in here and not seeing the oiler in the fog. Tough
luck!"
"Say!" queried Ikey, "what did you hear, Whistler?"
"Just about what you did," returned the older lad. "Nothing much."
"What are we going to do?" demanded Torry.
"Pay our bills and go to the train. It is almost time," said Whistler
rather grumpily.
And this they did. The train for Seacove came along in a few minutes.
The boys got aboard. Ikey ran ahead down the aisle of the car and got
into a seat by an open window. The first thing he did was to thrust his
head out of the window and look back along the platform as the train
started.
"Oi, oi!" he cried, under his breath. "Here he comes!"
"Here who comes?" demanded Al Torrance.
"The German spy," declared Ikey.
"Hush up!" commanded Frenchy. "Want everybody to hear you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Whistler.
"That man," said Ikey. "He got aboard. He went into the last car."
"You don't mean Blake?"
"That's who I mean," declared Ikey with conviction.
"Aw, he's crazy," scoffed Frenchy.
But Torry went back through the train after it was well under way and
the conductor had taken their tickets. He peered through the glass in
the door of the rear car.
He came back shaking his head and looking puzzled.
"He's there all right," he said to Whistler. "Bet he's going to Elmvale
instead of to sea again. What do you make of it?"
"Not a thing," grumbled Whistler. "I wish I knew what to do."
"Let's have him pinched," suggested the eager Frenchy.
"Not a chance! On what charge?" asked Torry. "Accuse him of being in
disguise because he wears that beard?" and he chuckled.
But to Whistler Morgan's mind it was no laughing matter. He was silent
all the way to Seacove. Torry suggested that they stay on the train to
Elmvale and see if Blake got off at that station.
"No," his friend said decidedly, "we can't do that. Our folks will be
worried about us if we don't report soon. Cap Bridger may have told
around town that we went off on the submarine chaser, and perhaps our
folks will think we've gone for good."
So they alighted at their station and left the mysterious Blake aboard
the train. Whistler hurried home to consult with his father. There was
nobody else in whom he had so much confidence; at least, nobody within
reach.
In this case, however, his father was not within reach. Dr. Morgan had
been called away to see a patient in the country. It was a call that
might keep him away from home all night. Whistler was greatly
disappointed.
He went down town again and hunted up Torry. He found his friend getting
into his father's car in front of the garage.
"I was just coming over to get you," Torry said. "D'you know, Whistler,
I feel just as nervous as a cat?"
"I guess that's what is the matter with me," Morgan confessed. "I'm
bothering my head about that fellow Blake."
"Me, too. Say! let's run over there."
"To Elmvale?"
"Yep. Pa's gone away----"
"So has my father," admitted Whistler.
"Well, neither of them can advise us, then," said Torry, practically.
"How about talking with somebody in Elmvale? The manager of the munition
works, for instance?"
"That's so! Mr. Santley. Say! let's 'phone him and see if he is at
home."
"But you can't say anything over the telephone about Blake, or about us
fellows thinking he is up to something wrong."
"We'll make an appointment with the manager," said Whistler, running
into the Torrance house.
He knew where the telephone was, the girl at central quickly gave him
the connection. A man answered the call.
"Is this Mr. Santley?" Whistler asked.
"It is. Who are you?"
Morgan told him who he was and asked if he could see the manager if he
drove right over to Elmvale in his friend's car.
"What for?"
"It has something to do with a man named Blake in the employ of the
factory," said Whistler plainly. "But I can say nothing more about it
over the 'phone."
"'Blake'?" repeated the voice at the other end, and Whistler thought
there was a startled note in it. "What about him?"
"I can only tell you when I see you."
"Come on, then!" exclaimed the man. "I shall wait here for you at my
office."
Whistler ran out of the house. Al was already at the steering wheel of
the car.
"What did he say?" he shouted.
"For us to come over," Whistler replied. "And somehow, Torry, I feel we
ought to hurry."
"You said it!" agreed the other and turned on the power.