Ruth spent one night in Lyse, where she went to the pension patronized by a girl friend from Kansas City, Clare Biggars. She was obliged to have somebody assist her in dressing and disrobing, but she was in no pain. Merely she was warned to keep her shoulder in one position and she wore her arm in a black silk sling.
“It is quite the fashion to ‘sling’ an arm,” said Clare, laughing. “They should pin theCroix de Guerreon you, anyway, Ruth Fielding. After what you have been through!”
“Deliver us from our friends!” groaned Ruth. “Why should you wish to embarrass me? How could I explain a war cross?”
“I don’t know. One of the Kansas City boys was here on leave a few weeks ago and he wore a French war cross. I tried to find out why, but all he would tell me was that it was given him for a reward for killing his first ten thousand cooties!”
“That is all right,” laughed Ruth. “They make fun of them, but the boys are proud of being cited and allowed to wear such a mark of distinction, just the same. Only, you know how it is with American boys; they hate to be made conspicuous.”
“How about American girls?” returned Clare slyly.
That evening Ruth held a reception in the parlor of the pension. And among those who came to see her was a little, stiff-backed, white-haired and moustached old gentleman, with a row of orders across his chest. He was the prefect of police of the town, and he thought he had good reason for considering the “Mademoiselle Americaine” quite a wonderful young woman. It was by her aid that the police had captured three international crooks of notorious character.
Off again in the morning, this time by rail. In the best of times the ordinary train in France is not the most comfortable traveling equipage in the world. In war time Ruth found the journey most abominable. Troop trains going forward, many of them filled with khaki-uniformed fighters from the States, and supply trains as well, forced the ordinary passenger trains on to side tracks. But at length they rolled into the Gare du Nord, and there Helen and Jennie were waiting for the girl of the Red Mill.
“Oh! She looks completely done up!” gasped Helen, as greeting.
“Come over to the canteen and get some nice soup,” begged Jennie. “I have just tasted it. It is fine.”
“‘Tasted it!’” repeated Helen scornfully. “Ruthie, she ate two plates of it. She is beginning to put on flesh again. What do you suppose Colonel Henri will say?”
“As thoughhewould care!” smiled Jennie Stone. “If I weighed a ton he would continue to call mepetite poulet.”
“‘Chicken Little!’ No less!” exclaimed Helen. “Honest, Ruthie, I don’t know how I bear this fat and sentimental girl. I—I wish I was engaged myself so I could be just as silly as she is!”
“How about you, Ruthie?” asked Jennie, suspiciously. “Let me see your left hand. What! Has he not put anything on that third finger yet?”
“Have a care! A broken shoulderbone is enough,” gasped Ruth. “I am looking for no other ornament at present, thank you.”
“We are going to take you to Madame Picolet’s,” Helen declared the next minute, as they left the great train shed and found a taxicab. “You would not disappoint her, would you? She so wants you with her while you remain in Paris.”
“Of course,” said Ruth, who had a warm feeling forthe French teacher with whom she had been so friendly at Briarwood Hall. “And she has such a cosy and quiet little place.”
But after Ruth had rested from her train journey, Madame Picolet’s apartment did not prove to be so quiet a place. Besides Helen Cameron and Jennie Stone, there were a lot of other young women whom Ruth knew in Paris, working for the Red Cross or for other war institutions.
Of all their clique, Ruth had been the only girl who had worked right up on the battleline and had really seen much of the war. The visitors wanted to know all about it. And that Ruth had been injured by a Hun bomb made her all the more interesting to these young American women who, if they were not all of the calibre of the girl of the Red Mill, were certainly in earnest and interested in their own part of the work.
The surgeons had been wise, perhaps, in advising Ruth to take boat as soon as possible for the American side of the Atlantic. The Red Cross authorities gave her but a few days in Paris before she had to go on to Brest—that great port which the United States had built over for its war needs.
Helen and Jennie insisted on going with her to Brest. Indeed, Ruth found herself so weak that she was glad to have friends with her. She knew, however, that there would be those aboard theAdmiral Pekhard, the British transport ship to which she was assigned, who would give her any needed attention during the voyage.
Up to the hour of sailing, Ruth received messages and presents—especially flowers—from friends she was leaving behind in France. Down to the ship came a boy from a famous florist in Paris—having traveled all the way by mail train carrying a huge bunch of roses.
“It’s from Tom,” cried Helen excitedly, “I bet a penny!”
“What a spendthrift you are, Helen,” drawled Jennie. But she watched Ruth narrowly as the latter opened the sealed letter accompanying the flowers.
“You lose,” said Ruth cheerfully, the moment she saw the card. “But somebody at the front has remembered me just the same, even if Tom did not.”
“Well!” exclaimed Tom’s sister, “what do you know aboutthat?”
“Who is the gallant, Ruthie?” demanded Jennie.
“Charlie Bragg. The dear boy! And a steamer letter, too!”
Helen Cameron was evidently amazed that Tom was not heard from at this time. Ruth had kept to herself the knowledge that Tom was going to the aviation camp and expected to make hisfirst trip into the air in the company of his friend, the American ace. This was a secret she thought Helen would better not share with her.
After she had opened Charlie Bragg’s letter on the ship she was very glad indeed she had said nothing to Helen about this. For along with other news the young ambulance driver wrote the following:
“Hard luck for one of our best flying men. Ralph Stillinger. You’ve heard of him? The French call him an ace, for he has brought down more than five Hun machines.
“I hear that he took up a passenger the other day. An army captain, I understand, but I did not catch the name. There was a sudden raid from the German side, and Stillinger’s machine was seen to fly off toward the sea in an endeavor to get around the flank of the Hun squadron.
“Forced so far away from the French and American planes, it was thought Stillinger must have got into serious trouble. At least, it is reported here that an American airplane was seen fighting one of those sea-going-Zeppelins—the kind the Hun uses to bomb London and the English coast, you know.
“Hard luck for Stillinger and his passenger, sure enough. The American airplane was seen to fall, and, although a searching party discoveredthe wrecked machine, neither its pilot nor the passenger was found.”
Charlie Bragg had no idea when he wrote this that he was causing Ruth Fielding, homeward bound, heartache and anxiety. She dared tell Helen nothing about this, although she read the letter before theAdmiral Pekharddrew away from the pier and Helen and Jennie went ashore.
Of course, Stillinger’s passenger might not have been Tom Cameron. Yet Tom had been going to the aviation field expecting to fly with the American ace. And the fact that Tom had allowed her, Ruth, to sail without a word of remembrance almost convinced the girl of the Red Mill that something untoward had happened to him.
It was a secret which she felt she could share with nobody. She set sail upon the venturesome voyage to America with this added weight of sorrow on her heart.
Tom landed from a slowly crawling military train at a place some miles behind the actual battleline and far west of the sector in which his division had been fighting for a month. This division was in a great rest camp; but Tom did not want rest. He craved excitement—something new.
In a few hours an automobile which he shared with a free-lance newspaper man brought him to a town which had been already bombarded half a dozen times since Von Kluck’s forced retreat after the first advance on Paris.
As Tom walked out to the aviation field, where Ralph Stillinger’s letter had advised his friend he was to be found, all along the streets the American captain saw posters announcingCave Voûteéwith the number of persons to be accommodated in these places of refuge, such number ranging from fifteen to sixty.
The bomb-proof cellars were protected by sandbags andwere conveniently located so that people might easily find shelter whenever the German Fokkers orTaubenappeared. Naturally, as the town was so near the aviation field, it was bound to be a mark for the Hun bombing planes.
Sentinels were posted at every street corner. There were three of the anti-aircraft .75‘s set up in the town. Just outside the place were the camps of three flying escadrilles, side by side. One of these was the American squadron to which Ralph Stillinger, Tom’s friend, was attached.
Each camp of the airmen looked to Tom, when he drew near, like the “pitch” of a road show. With each camp were ten or twelve covered motor-trucks with their tentlike trailers, and three automobiles for the use of the officers and pilots.
Tom had not realized before what the personnel of eachéquipéwas like. There were a dozen artillery observers; seven pilots; two mechanicians to take care of each airplane, besides others for general repair work; and chauffeurs, orderlies, servants, wireless operators, photographers and other attachés—one hundred and twenty-five men in all.
Tom Cameron’s appearance was hailed with delight by several men who had known him at college. Not all of his class had gone to the Plattsburg officer’s training camp. Several werehere with Ralph Stillinger, the one ace in this squadron.
“You may see some real stuff if you can stay a day or two,” they told the young captain of infantry.
“I suppose if there is a fight I’ll see it from the ground,” returned Tom. “Thanks! I’ve seen plenty of air-fights from the trenches. I want something better than that. Ralph said he’d take me up.”
“Don’t grouch too soon, young fellow,” said Stillinger, laughing. “We’re thirty miles or so from the present front. But in this new, swift machine of mine (it’s one of the first from home, with a liberty motor) we can jump into any ruction Fritzie starts over the lines in something like fifteen minutes. I’ll joyride you, Tommy, if nothing happens, to-morrow.”
It was not altogether as easily arranged as that. Permission had to be obtained for Ralph to take his friend up. The commander of the squadron had no special orders for the next day. He agreed that Ralph might go up with his passenger early in the morning, unless something interfered.
The young men were rather late turning in, for “the crowd” got together to swap experiences; it seemed to Tom as though he had scarcely closed his eyes when an orderly shook him and told himthat Lieutenant Stillinger was waiting for him out by Number Four hangar—wherever that might be.
Tom crept out, yawning. He dressed, and as he passed the kitchen a bare-armed cook thrust a huge mug of coffee and a sandwich into his hands.
“If you’re going up in the air, Captain, you’ll be peckish,” the man said. “Get around that, sir.”
Tom did so, gratefully. Then he stumbled out into the dark field, for there were no lights allowed because of the possibility of lurking Huns in the sky. He ran into the orderly, the man who had awakened him, who was coming back to see where he was. The orderly led Tom to the spot where Stillinger and the mechanician were tuning up the machine.
“Didn’t know but you’d backed out,” chuckled the flying man.
“Your grandmother!” retorted Tom cheerfully. “I stopped for a bite and a mug of coffee.”
“You haven’t been eating enough to overload the machine, have you?” asked Stillinger. “I don’t want to zoom the old girl. The motor shakes her bad enough, as it is.”
“Come again!” exclaimed Tom. “What’s the meaning of ‘zoom’?”
“Overstrain. Putting too much on her. Oh, there is a new language to learn if you are going to be a flying man.”
“I’m not sure I want to be a flying man,” said Tom. “This is merely a try-out. Just tell me what to look out for and when to jump.”
“Don’t jump,” warned Stillinger. “Nothing doing that way. Loss of speed—perte de vitessethe French call it—is the most common accident that can happen when one is up in the air in one of these planes. But even if that occurs, old man, take my advice andstick. You’ll be altogether too high up for a safe jump, believe me!”
They got under way with scarcely any jar, and with tail properly elevated the airplane was aimed by Ralph Stillinger for the upper reaches of the air. They went up rather steeply; but the ace was not “zooming”; he knew his machine.
There is too much noise in an airship to favor conversation. Gestures between the pilot and the observation man, or the photographer, usually have to do duty for speech. Nor is there much happening to breed discussion. The pilot’s mind must be strictly on the business of guiding his machine.
With a wave of his hand Stillinger called Tom’s attention to the far-flung horizon. Trees at their feet were like weeds and the roads and waterways like streamers of crinkled tape. The earth was just a blur of colors—browns and grays, with misty blues in the distance. The human eye unaided could not distinguish many objects as far asthe prospect spread before their vision. But of a sudden Tom Cameron realized that that mass of blurred blue so far to the westward, and toward which they were darting, must be the sea.
The airplane mounted, and mounted higher. The recording barometer which Tom could easily read from where he sat, reached the two-thousand mark. His eyes were shining now through the mask which he wore. His first perturbation had passed and he began actually to enjoy himself.
This time of dawn was as safe as any hour for a flight. It is near mid-day when the heat of the sun causes those disturbances in the upper atmosphere strata that the French pilots callremous, meaning actually “whirlpools.” Yet these phenomena can be met at almost any hour.
The machine had gathered speed now. She shook terrifically under the throbbing of the heavy motor—a motor which was later found to be too powerful for the two-seated airplanes.
At fifty miles an hour they rushed westward. Tom was cool now. He was enjoying the new experience. This would be something to tell the girls about. He would wire Ruth that he had made the trip in safety, and she would get the message before she went aboard theAdmiral Pekhard, at Brest.
Why, Brest was right over there—somewhere!Vaguely he could mark the curve of miles upon miles of the French coast. What a height this was!
And then suddenly the airplane struck a whirlpool and dropped about fifty feet with all the unexpectedness of a similar fall in an express elevator. She halted abruptly and with an awful shock that set her to shivering and rolling like a ship in a heavy sea.
Tom was all but jolted out of his seat; but the belt held him. He turned, open-mouthed, upon his friend the pilot. But before he could yell a question the airplane shot up again till it struck the solid air.
“My heavens!” shouted Tom at last. “What do you callthat?”
“Real flying!” shouted Stillinger in return. “How do you like it?”
Tom had no ready reply. He was not sure that he liked it at all! But it certainly was a new experience.
Stillinger was giving his full attention to managing his aircraft now. They were circling in a great curve toward the north. This route would bring them nearer to the lines of battle. The pilot turned to his passenger and tried to warn him of what he was about to do. But Tom had recovered his self-possession and was staring straight ahead with steady intensity.
So Stillinger shut off the motor and the airplane pitched downward. A fifty-mile drive is a swift pace anywhere—on the ground or in the air; but as the airplane fell the air fairly roared past their ears and the pace must have been nearer eighty miles an hour.
The machine was pointing down so straight that the full weight of the two young men was upon their feet. They were literally standing erect. Stillinger shot another glance at his passenger. Tom’s lips were parted again and, although he could not hear it, the pilot knew Tom had emitted another shout of excitement.
The earth, so far below, seemed rushing up to meet them. To volplane from such a height and at such speed is almost the keenest test of courage that can be put upon a man who for the first time seeks to emulate the bird.
Nor is real danger lacking. If the pilot does not redress his plane at exactly the right moment he will surely dash it and himself into the earth.
While still some hundreds of feet from the earth, Stillinger leveled his airplane and started the motor once more. They skimmed the earth’s surface for some distance and then began to spiral upward.
It was just then that a black speck appeared against the clouded sky over the not-far-distant battleline. They had not been near enough to see the trenches even from the upper strata of air to which the airplane had first risen. There was a haze hanging over the fighting battalions of friend and foe alike. This black speck was something that shot out of the cloud and upward, being small, but clearly defined at this distance.
The morning light was growing. The sun’s red upper rim was just showing over the rugged line of the Vosges. Had they been nearer to the earth it would have been possible to hear the reveille from the various camps.
The whole sector had been quiet. Suddenly there were several puffs of smoke, and then, highin the air, and notably near to that black speck against the cloud, other bursts of smoke betrayed aerial shells. Stillinger’s lips mouthed the word, “Hun!” and Tom Cameron knew that he referred to the flying machine that hung poised over No Man’s Land, between the lines.
The aerial gunners were trying to pot the enemy flying machine. But of a sudden a group of similar machines, flying like wild geese, appeared out of the fog-bank. There must have been a score of them.
Taking advantage of the morning fog, which was thicker to the north and east than it was behind the Allied lines, the Germans had sent their machines into the air in squadrons. A great raid was on!
Out of the fog-bank at a dozen points winged the Fokkers and the smaller fighting airplanes. It was a surprise attack, and had been excellently planned. The Allies were ready for no such move.
Yet the gunners became instantly active for miles and miles along the lines. In the back areas, too, a barrage of aerial shells was thrown up. While from the various aviation camps the French and British flying men began to mount, singly and in small groups, to meet the enemy attack.
The raid was not aimed against the American sectors to the east. They were a long way fromthis point. Stillinger had flown far and was now nowhere near his own unit, if that should come into the fight.
Nor was he prepared to fight. He would not be allowed to—unless attacked. He had been permitted to take up a passenger, and after winging his way along the battle front to the sea, was expected to return to the aviation field from which he had risen.
Nevertheless, the machine gun in the nose of the airplane needed but to have the canvas cover stripped off to be ready for action. Tom Cameron’s flashing glance caught the pilot’s attention.
“Are we going to get into it?” questioned Tom.
“Don’t unhook that belt!” commanded Stillinger. “We can do nothing yet.”
“It’s a surprise,” said Tom. “We must help.”
“You sit still!” returned his friend. “I presume you can handle that make of gat?”
Tom nodded with confidence. Stillinger shot the airplane to an upper level and headed to the north of west, endeavoring to turn the flank of the farthest Hun squadron. Over the lines the yellow smoke now rolled and billowed. An intense air barrage was being sent up. They saw a German machine stagger, swoop downward, and burst into flames before it disappeared into the smoke cloud over No Man’s Land.
Stillinger knew he was disobeying orders; buthis high courage and the plain determination of his passenger to help in the fight if need arose, caused him to take a chance. It was taking just such chances that had made him an ace.
Yet, as the airplane swung higher and higher, yet nearer and nearer to the group of enemy machines nearest the sea, and as the bursts of artillery fire grew louder, it was plain that this was going to be a “hot corner.”
The rolling smoke and the fog hid a good deal of the battle. Suddenly there burst out of the murk a squadron of flying machines with the German cross painted on the under side of their wings. With them rose three French attacking airplanes, and the chatter of the machine guns became incessant.
There were eight of the enemy planes; eight to three was greater odds than Americans could observe without wishing to take a hand in the fight.
Stillinger shot his airplane up at a sharp angle, striving to get above the German machines. Once above them, by pitching the nose of his machine, the enemy would be brought under the muzzle of the machine gun which already Tom Cameron had stripped of its canvas covering.
They were between six and seven thousand feet in the air now. Without the mask, the passenger would never have been able to endure the rarifiedatmosphere at this altitude. Unused as he was to aviation, however, he showed the ace that he was an asset, not a liability.
The free-lance airplane was observed by the Germans, however, and three of the eight machines sprang upward to over-reach the American. It was a race in speed and endurance for the upper reaches of the air.
The fog-bank hung thickest over the sea, and the racing American airplane was close to the coastline. But so high were they, and so shrouded was the coast in fog, that Tom, looking down, could see little or nothing of the shore.
Suddenly swerving his airplane, Stillinger darted into the clammy fog-cloud. It offered refuge from the Germans and gave him a chance to manoeuvre in a way to take the enemy unaware.
The moment they were wrapped about by the cloud the American pilot shot the airplane downward. He no longer strove to meet the three German machines on the high levels. If he could get under them, and slant the nose of his machine sharply upward, the machine gun would do quite as much damage to the underside of the German airplane as could be done from above. Indeed, the underside of the tail of a flying machine is quite as vulnerable a part as any.
But flying in the fog was an uncertain and trying experience. Where the German airplaneswere, Stillinger could only guess. He shut off his engine for a moment that they might listen for the sputtering reports of the Hun motors.
It was then, to his, as well as to Tom Cameron’s, amazement, that they heard the stuttering reports of an engine—a much heavier engine than that of even a Fokker or Gotha—an engine that shook the air all about them. And the noise rose from beneath!
Stillinger could keep his engine shut off but a few seconds. As the popping of its exhaust began once more a bulky object was thrust up through the fog below. That is, it seemed thrust up to meet them, because the American plane was falling.
In half a minute, however, their machine was steadied. Tom uttered a great shout. He was looking down through the wire stays at the enormous bulk of an airship, the like of which he had never before seen close to.
Once he had examined the wreck of a Zeppelin after it had been brought down behind the French lines. These mammoth ships were being used by the Hun only to cross the North Sea and the Channel to bomb English cities. This present one must have strayed from its direct course, for it was headed seaward and in a southwest direction.
Taking advantage of the fog, it was putting tosea, having flown directly over the British or Belgian lines. While the fighting planes attacked the Allied squadrons of the air, thus making a diversion, this big Zeppelin endeavored to get by and carry on out to sea, its objective point perhaps being a distant part of the Channel coast of England.
Where it was going, or the reason therefore, did not much interest Ralph Stillinger and Tom Cameron. The fact that the great airship was beneath their airplane was sufficiently startling to fill the excited minds of the two young Americans.
Were they observed by the Huns? Could they wreak some serious damage upon the Zeppelin before their own presence—and their own peril—was apprehended by the crew of the great airship?
TheAdmiral Pekhardnosed her way out of the port just as dusk fell. She dropped her pilot off the masked light at the end of the last great American dock—a dock big enough to hold theLeviathan—and thereafter followed the stern lights of a destroyer. Thus she got into the roadstead, and thence into the open sea.
The work of the Allied and American navies at this time was such that not all ships returning to America could be convoyed through the submarine zone. This ship on which Ruth Fielding had taken passage for home was accompanied by the destroyer only for a few miles off Brest Harbor.
The passengers, however, did not know this. They were kept off the open decks during the night, and before morning theAdmiral Pekhardwas entirely out of sight of land, and out of sight of every other vessel as well. Therefore neither Ruth nor any other of the passengers was additionally worried by the fact that the craft was quite unguarded.
TheAdmiral Pekhardmounted a gun fore and aft, and the crews of these guns were under strict naval discipline. They were on watch, turn and turn about, all through the day and night for the submarines which, of course, were somewhere in these waters.
TheAdmiral Pekhardwas not a fast ship; but she was very comfortably furnished, well manned, and was said to be an even sailing vessel in stormy weather. She had been bearing wounded men back to England for months, but was now being sent to America to bring troops over to take the place of the wounded English fighters.
Ruth learned these few facts and some others at dinner that night. There were some wounded American and Canadian officers going home; but for the most part the passengers in the first cabin were Red Cross workers, returning commissioners both military and civil, a group of Congressmen who had been getting first-hand information of war conditions.
Then there were a few people whom the girl could not exactly place. For instance, there was the woman who sat next to her at the dinner table.
She was not an old woman, but her short hair, brushed straight back over her ears like an Americanized Chinaman’s, was streaked with gray. She was sallow, pale-lipped, and with a pair of very bright black eyes—snapping eyes, indeed. Shewore her clothes as carelessly as she might have worn a suit of gunnysacking on a desert island. Her eyeglasses were prominent, astride a more prominent nose. She was not uninteresting looking.
“As aggressive as a gargoyle,” Ruth thought. “And almost as homely! Yet she surely possesses brains.”
On her other hand at table Ruth found a kindly faced Red Cross officer of more than middle age, who offered her aid at a moment when a friend was appreciated. Ruth did very well with the oysters and soup; and she made out with the fish course. But when meat and vegetables and a salad came on, the girl had to be helped in preparing the food on her plate.
The black-eyed woman watched the girl of the Red Mill curiously, seeing her left arm bandaged.
“Hurt yourself?” she asked shortly, in rather a gruff tone.
“No,” said Ruth simply. “I was hurt. I did not do it myself.”
“Ah-ha!” ejaculated the strange woman. “Are you literal, or merely smart?”
“I am only exact,” Ruth told her.
“So! You didnothurt yourself? How, then?” and she glanced significantly at the girl’s bandaged arm.
“Why, do you know,” the girl of the Red Millsaid, flushing a little, “there is a country called Germany, in Central Europe, and the German Kaiser and his people are attacking France and other countries. And one of the cheerful little tricks those Germans play is to send over bombing machines to bomb our hospitals. I happened to be working in a hospital they bombed.”
“Ah-ha!” said the woman coolly. “Then you are merely smart, after all.”
“No!” said Ruth, suddenly losing her vexation, for this person she decided was not quite responsible. “No. For, if I were really smart, I should have been so far behind the lines that the Hun would never have found me.”
The black-eyed woman seemed to feel Ruth’s implied scorn after all.
“Oh!” she said, resetting her eyeglasses with both hands, “I have been in Paris all through the war.”
“Oh, then you’d heard about it?” Ruth intimated. “Well!”
“I certainly know all about the war,” said the woman shortly.
The girl of the Red Mill seldom felt antagonism toward people—even unpleasant people. But there was something about this woman that she found very annoying. She turned her bandaged shoulder to her, and gave her attention to the Red Cross officer.
Strangely enough, the queer-looking woman continued to put herself in Ruth’s way. After dinner she sought her out in a corner of the saloon where Ruth was listening to the music. The windows of the saloon were shaded so that no light could get out; but it was quite cozy and cheerful therein.
“You are Miss Fielding, I see by the purser’s list,” said the curious person, staring at Ruth through her glasses.
“I have not the pleasure of knowing you,” returned the girl of the Red Mill. “Can I do anything for you?”
“I am Irma Lentz. I have been studying in Paris. This war is a hateful thing. It has almost ruined my career. It has got so now that one cannot work in peace even in the Latin Quarter of the town. War, war, war! That is all one hears. I am going back to New York to see if I can find peace and quietness—where one may work without being bothered.”
“You are——?”
“An artist. I have studied with some of the best painters in France. But I declare! even those teachers have closed theirateliersand gone to war. I must, perforce, close my own studio and go back to America. And America is crude.”
“Seems to me I have heard that said before,” sniffed Ruth. “Although my acquaintance amongartists has been small. Do you expect to find perfect peace and quietness in the United States?”
“I do not expect to find the disturbance that is rife in Paris,” said Irma Lentz shortly. “This war is too unpopular in the United States for more than a certain class of the people to be greatly disturbed over what is going on so far away from home.”
Ruth looked at her amazedly. The artist seemed quite to believe what she said. Aside from some few pro-Germans whom she had heard talk before Ruth Fielding had left the United States, she had heard nothing like this. It was what the Germans themselves had believed—and wished to believe.
“I wonder where you got that, Miss Lentz,” Ruth allowed herself to say in amazement.
“Got what?”
“The idea that the war—at least now we are in it—is unpopular at home. You will discover your mistake. I understand that even in Washington Square they know we are fighting a war for democracy. You will find your friends of Greenwich Village—is that not the locality of New York you mean?—are very well aware that we are at war.”
“Perfect nonsense!” snapped Irma Lentz, and she got up and flounced away.
“Now,” thought the girl of the Red Mill, verymuch puzzled, “I wonder just what and who she is? And has she been in Paris all through the war and has not yet awakened to the seriousness of the situation? Then there is something fundamentally wrong with Irma Lentz.”
She might not have given the strange woman much of her attention during the voyage, however, for Ruth did not like unpleasant people and there were so many others who were interesting, to say the least, on board the ship, if a little incident had not occurred early the next morning which both surprised Ruth and made her deeply suspicious of Irma Lentz.
The girl could not sleep very well because of pain in her shoulder and arm. Perhaps she had tried to use the arm more than she should. However, being unable to sleep, she rose at dawn and rang for the night stewardess. She had already won this woman’s interest, and she helped Ruth dress. The girl left her stateroom and went on deck, which was free to the passengers now.
As she passed through a narrow way behind the forward deck-house on the main deck, she heard a sudden explosion of voices—a sharp, high voice and one deeper and more guttural. But the point that held Ruth Fielding’s attention so quickly was that the language used was German! There was no doubting that fact.
There certainly should be nobody using thatlanguage on this British ship carrying Americans to the United States! That was Ruth’s first thought.
She walked quietly to the corner of the house and peered around it. The morning was still misty and there were few persons on deck save the gangs of cleaners. Backed against a backstay, and facing the point where the girl of the Red Mill stood, was Irma Lentz, in mackintosh and veil.
The strange woman was talking angrily with a barefooted sailor in working clothes. He was bareheaded as well as barefooted, and his coarse shirt was open at the throat displaying a hairy chest. He possessed a mop of flaxen hair, and his countenance was too Teutonic of cast to be mistaken.
Besides, like the woman, he was speaking German in a most excited and angry fashion.
In school Ruth Fielding and her classmates had taken German just as they had French. Jennie Stone often said she had forgotten the former language just as fast as she could and had felt much better after it was out of her system.
But the girl of the Red Mill seldom forgot anything she learned well. She had not used the German language as much as she had French. Nevertheless she remembered quite clearly what she had learned of it.
The seaman who was talking so excitedly to Irma Lentz, and whom Ruth overheard on the deck of theAdmiral Pekhard, used Low German instead of the High German taught in the educational institutions. Ruth, however, understood quite a little of what was said.
“Stop talking to me!” Miss Lentz commanded, breaking in upon what the man was saying.
“I must tell you, Fraulein——”
“Go tell Boldig. Not me. How dare youspeak to a passenger? You know it is against all ship rules.”
“Undt amIde goat yedt?” growled the man, in anger and in atrocious English, as the young woman swept past him. Then in his own tongue—and this time Ruth understood him clearly—he added: “Am I to work in that fireroom while you and Boldig live softly? What would become of me if anything should happen?”
Fortunately the woman did not come Ruth’s way. She whisked out of sight just as the tramp of a smart footstep was heard along the deck. An officer came into sight.
“Here, my man, this is no part of the deck for you,” he said sharply. “Stoker, aren’t you? Get back to your quarters.”
The flaxen-haired man stumbled away. He almost ran, it seemed, to get out of sight. The officer passed Ruth Fielding, bowing to her politely, but did not halt.
The girl of the Red Mill was greatly disturbed by what she had seen and overheard. Yet she was not sure that she should speak to anybody about the incident. She let the officer go on without a word. She found a chair on a part of the deck that had already been swabbed down, and she sat there to think and to watch the first sunbeams play upon the wire rigging of the ship and upon the dancing waves.
The ocean was no novelty to Ruth; but it is ever changeable. No two sunrises can ever be alike at sea. She watched with glowing cheeks and wide eyes the blossoming of the new day.
She was not a person to fly off at a tangent. No little thing disturbed her usual calm. Had Helen been there, Ruth realized that her black-eyed girl chum would have insisted upon running right away to somebody in authority and repeating what had been overheard.
There was just one circumstance which kept Ruth from putting the matter quite aside and considering it nothing remarkable that two people should be speaking German on this British ship. That was her conversation the evening before with Irma Lentz, the artist.
The woman had made a very unfavorable impression on Ruth Fielding. Any person who could speak so callously of the war and wartime conditions in Paris, Ruth did not consider trustworthy. Such a woman might easily be connected with people who favored Germany and her cause. Then—her name!
Ruth realized that one of the greatest difficulties that Americans, especially, have to meet in this war is the German name. Many, many people with such names are truly patriots—are American to the very marrow of their bones. On the other hand, there are those of German name whoare as dangerous and deadly as the moccasin. They strike without warning.
In this case, however, Irma Lentz, it seemed to Ruth, had given warning. She had frankly displayed the fact that her heart was not with her country in the war. After what Ruth had been through it annoyed her very much to meet anybody who was not whole-heartedly for the cause of America and the Allies.
She thought the matter over most seriously until first breakfast call. By that time there had appeared quite a number of the passengers. The more seriously wounded had all the second cabin, so those passengers who could get on deck were like one big family in the first cabin.
As the sea remained smooth, the party gathered at breakfast was almost as numerous as that at dinner the night before. Irma Lentz did not appear, however; but Ruth’s Red Cross friend was there to give her such aid at table as she needed.
“What would you do,” she asked him in the course of the meal, “if you heard two people speaking German together on this ship?”
He eyed her for a moment curiously, then replied: “You cannot keep these stewards from talking their own language. Some of them are German-Swiss, I presume.”
“Not stewards,” Ruth said softly.
“Do you mean passengers? Well, I speak German myself.”
“And so do I. At least, I can speak it,” laughed the girl of the Red Mill. “But I don’t.”
“No. Ordinarily I never speak it myself—now,” admitted the man. “But just what do you mean, Miss Fielding?”
“I heard two people early this morning speaking German in secret on deck.”
“Some of the deckhands?”
“One was a stoker. The other was one of our first cabin passengers.”
The Red Cross man’s amazement was plain. He stared at the girl in some perturbation, at the same time neglecting his breakfast.
“You tell me this for a fact, Miss Fielding?”
“Quite.”
“Have you spoken to the captain—to any of the officers?”
“To nobody but you,” said Ruth gravely. “I—I shrink from making anybody unnecessary trouble. Of course, there may be nothing wrong in what I overheard.”
“But a passenger talking German with a stoker! What were they saying?”
“They appeared to be quarreling.”
“Quarreling! Who was the passenger? Is he here at table?” the Red Cross man asked quickly.
“Do you think I ought to point him out?” Ruth asked slowly. “If it is really serious—and I asked for your opinion, you know—wouldn’t it be better if I spoke to the captain or the first officer about it?”
“Perhaps you are right. If it was a merely harmless incident you observed it would not be right to discuss it promiscuously,” said the man, smiling. “Don’t tell me who he is, but I do advise your speaking to Mr. Dowd.”
Mr. Dowd was the first officer, and he presided at the table on this morning as it was now the captain’s watch below. Ruth had been careful to say nothing which would lead her friend to suspect that the passenger she mentioned was a woman.
“Yes,” went on the Red Cross officer firmly, “you speak to Mr. Dowd.”
But Ruth did not wish to do that in a way that might attract the attention of any suspicious person. The woman, Irma Lentz, had mentioned another person who seemed to be one of the queer folks. “Boldig.” Who Boldig was the girl of the Red Mill had no idea. He might be passenger, officer, or one of the crew. She had glanced through the purser’s list and knew that there was no passenger using that name on theAdmiral Pekhard.
Even if Miss Lentz was out of sight, this otherperson, or another, might be watching the movements of the passengers. Ruth did not, therefore, speak to the ship’s first officer in the saloon. She waited until she could meet him quite casually on deck, and later in the forenoon watch.
Dowd was a man not too old to be influenced and flattered by the attentions of a bright young woman like Ruth Fielding. He was interested in her story, too, for the Red Cross officer had not been chary of spreading the tale of Ruth’s courage and her work in the first cabin.
“May I hope the shoulder and arm are mending nicely, Miss Fielding?” Mr. Dowd said, smiling at her as she met him face to face near the starboard bridge ladder.
“Hope just as hard as you can, Mr. Dowd,” she replied merrily. “Yes, I want all my friends towillthat the shoulder will get well in quick time. I haven’t the natural patience of the born invalid.”
He laughed in return, and turned to get into step with her as she walked the deck.
“You lack the air of the invalid, that is true. Remember, I have had much to do with invalids in the time past. Although now we do not see many of the people who used to think there was something the matter with them, and whose physicians sent them on a sea voyage to get rid of them for a while.”
“Yet you do have some queer folks aboard, even in war time, don’t you?” she asked.
“Why, bless you!” said the Englishman, “everybody is more or less queer—‘save thee and me.’ You know the story of the Quaker?”
“Surely,” rejoined Ruth. “But now I suppose most of your queer passengers may be spies, or something like that.”
She said it in so low a tone that nobody but the first officer could possibly hear. He gave her a quick glance.
“Meaning?” he asked.
“That I am afraid I am going to make you place me right in the catalogue of ‘queer folks.’”
“Yes?”
His gravity and evident interest encouraged her to go on. Briefly she told him of what she had overheard that morning at daybreak. And this time she did not refuse to identify clearly the woman passenger who had talked so familiarly with the flaxen-haired stoker on the afterdeck.
Ruth Fielding was not a busybody, but the peculiar attitude of the woman, Irma Lentz, toward America’s cause in the World War and what she had overheard on deck that morning, as well as the advice the Red Cross officer had given her, urged the girl to take Mr. Dowd, first officer of theAdmiral Pekhard, fully into her confidence.
He listened with keen interest to what the girl had to say. He was sure Ruth was not a person to be easily frightened or one to spread ill-advised and unfounded tales. Useless suspicions were not likely to be born in her mind. She was too sane and sensible.
The chance that there were actually spies aboard theAdmiral Pekhardwas by no means an idle one. In those days of desperate warfare between the democratic governments of the world and the autocratic Central Powers, no effort was neglected by the latter to thwart the war aims of the former.
To deliberately plan the destruction of this ship, although it was not, strictly speaking, a war ship, was quite in line with the frightfulness of Germany and her allies. Similar plotting, however, had usually to do with submarine activities and mines.
That German agents were aboard theAdmiral Pekhardwith the intention of bringing about the wrecking of the ship was, however, scarcely within the bounds of probability. Notably because by carrying through such a conspiracy the plotters must of necessity put their own lives in jeopardy.
No group of German plotters had thus far shown themselves to be so utterly unregardful of their own safety.
Ruth believed Irma Lentz to be quite bitter against the United States and its war aims; but she could not imagine the self-styled “artist” to be on the point of risking her personal safety on behalf of America’s enemies.
These same beliefs influenced Mr. Dowd’s mind; and he said frankly:
“It may be well for us to take up the matter with Captain Hastings. However, I cannot really believe that German spies would try to sink the ship, and so endanger their own safety.”
“It does not seem reasonable,” Ruth admitted. “Nor do I mean to say I believe anything like that is on foot. I do think, however, that thewoman and that seaman, or stoker, or whatever and whoever he is, should be watched. They may purpose to do some damage to theAdmiral Pekhardafter she docks at New York.”
“True. And you say there is a third person—a man named Boldig? His name is not on the passenger list.”
“That is so,” admitted Ruth, who had read the purser’s list.
“I’ll scrutinize the crew list as well,” said Mr. Dowd, thoughtfully. “Of course, he may not use that name. I remember nothing like it. Well, we shall see. Thank you, Miss Fielding. I know Captain Hastings will wish to thank you in person, as well.”
Ruth did not expect to be immediately called to the captain’s chartroom or office. Nor was her mind entirely filled with thoughts regarding German spies.
She had, indeed, one topic of thought that harrowed her mind continually. It was that which kept her awake on this first night at sea, as much as did the dull ache in her injured shoulder.
Had she expressed the desire for her companionship, Ruth knew that Helen Cameron would have broken all her engagements in France and sailed on theAdmiral Pekhard. Her chum was torn, Ruth knew, between a desire to go home with the girl of the Red Mill and to stay nearTom. As long as Tom Cameron was in active service Helen would be anxious.
And did Helen know now what Ruth feared was the truth—that Tom had got into serious trouble with the flying ace, Ralph Stillinger—she would be utterly despairing on her brother’s account.
Ruth read over and over again her letter from the ambulance driver, Charlie Bragg, in which the latter had spoken of the tragic happening on the battle front—the accident to Ralph Stillinger and his passenger. Of course Ruth had no means of proving to herself that the passenger was Tom Cameron, but she knew Tom had been intending to take a flight with the American ace and that the active flying men were not in the habit of taking up passengers daily.
The American captain who had been lost with Ralph Stillinger was more than likely Tom Cameron. Ruth’s anxiety might have thrown her into a fever had it not been for this new line of trouble connected with the artist, Irma Lentz. Or, was she an artist?
The news that had reached Ruth just as she boarded theAdmiral Pekhardhad been most disquieting. Had her passage not been already arranged for and her physical health not been what it was, the girl surely would have gone ashore again and postponed her voyage home.
This would have necessitated Tom’s sister learning the news in Charlie Bragg’s letter. But better that, Ruth thought now, than that her own mind should be so troubled about Tom Cameron’s fate.
All manner of possibilities trooped through her brain regarding what had happened, or might have happened, to Tom. He might not, of course, have been the passenger-captain of whom Charlie Bragg wrote. But this faint doubt did not serve to cheer Ruth at all.
It was more than likely that Tom had shared Ralph Stillinger’s fate—whatever that fate was. The American ace’s airplane had been seen in battle with a Zeppelin. It had been seen to fall. Afterward the wreck of the airplane was found, but neither of the men—either dead or alive—was discovered.
That was the mystery—the unknown fate of the flying man and his passenger. The amazing fact of their disappearance caused Ruth Fielding anxiety and depression of mind.
She even thought of trying to get news by wireless of the tragic happening to the flying man and his companion. But when she made inquiry she learned that because of war measures no private message could be sent or received by radio. Such wireless news as the naval authorities considered well to distribute to the passengers of theAdmiralPekhardwas bulletined by the radio room door.
Later Ruth was sent for to attend the captain in his office. She found the commander of the ship to be a tight, little, side-whiskered Englishman with a large opinion of his own importance and an insular suspicion of Americans in general. This type of British subject was growing happily less—especially since the United States entered the war; but Captain Hastings was not so favorably impressed by Ruth Fielding and her story as his first officer had been.
“You know, Miss Fielding, I don’t wish to have any hard feelings among my passengers,” he said. He verged toward a slight cockney accent now and then, and he squinted rather unpleasantly.
“This is a serious accusation you bring against Miss Irma Lentz. I have seen her passport and other papers. She is quite beyond suspicion, don’t you know. I should not wish to insult her by accusing her of being an enemy agent. Really, Miss Fielding,” he concluded bluntly, “she seems to be much better known by people aboard than yourself.”
Ruth stiffened at the implied doubt cast upon her character. Here was a man who lacked all the tact a ship’s captain is supposed to possess. He was nothing at all like Mr. Dowd.
“I have not asked to have my status aboardyour ship tested, nor my reputation established, Captain Hastings,” she said quietly but firmly. “Had I not thought it my duty to say what I did to Mr. Dowd, I assure you I should not have put myself out to do so. But as you have—either justly or unjustly—judged the character of my information, you cannot by any possibility wish to know my opinion in this. There was scarcely need of calling me here, was there?”
She arose and turned toward the door of the chartroom, and her manner as well as her words showed him plainly that she was offended.
“Hoighty-toighty!” exclaimed the little man, growing very red in the face. “You take much for granted, Miss Fielding.”
“I make no mistake, I believe, in understanding that you do not consider my information to Mr. Dowd of importance.”
“Oh, Dowd is a young fool!” snapped the commander of theAdmiral Pekhard. “He is trying to stir up a mare’s nest.”
“Your opinion of me must be even worse than that you have expressed of your first officer,” tartly rejoined the girl. “If you will excuse me, Captain Hastings, I will withdraw. Really our opinions I feel sure would never coincide.”
“Wait!” exclaimed the captain. “I am willing to put one thing to the test.”
“You need do nothing to placate me, CaptainHastings,” declared Ruth. “I am quite, quite satisfied to drop the whole affair, I assure you.”
“It has gone too far, as it is, Miss Fielding,” declared Captain Hastings. “Dowd will not be satisfied if you do not have the opportunity of identifying the stoker you say you saw talking with Miss Lentz. And that, in itself, is no crime.”
“Then why trouble yourself—and me—about the matter any further?” asked Ruth, with a shrug, and her hand still on the knob of the door.
“Confound it, you know!” burst forth the captain, “it has to go on my report—on the log, you know. That fool, Dowd, insists. I want you to see the stokers together, Miss Fielding, as the watches are being changed at eight bells. If you can pick out the man you say you saw on the after deck, I will examine him. Though it’s all bally foolishness, you know,” added the captain in a tone that did not fail to reach Ruth Fielding’s ear and increased her feeling of disgust for the pompous little man, as well as her vexation with the whole situation.
She wished very much just then that she had not spoken at all to theAdmiral Pekhard’sfirst officer.
At ten minutes or so before noon a smart little sub-officer came to Ruth’s stateroom and asked her to accompany him to the engine-room, amidships. As a last thought the girl took a chiffon veil with her, and before she stepped into the quarters where all the shiny machinery was, she threw the veil over her head and face. It had suddenly been impressed on her mind that she did not care to have the man she had taken for a German identify her, even if she did him.
She found both Mr. Dowd and the commander of the steamship on this deck. The first officer came to Ruth in rather an apologetic way.
“I did not know,” he said gently, “that I was getting you into any trouble when I repeated what you told me to Captain Hastings. This is my very first voyage with him—and, believe me, it shall be my last!”
His eyes sparkled, and it was evident that he had found the pompous little commander muchto his distaste. The captain did not seek to speak to Ruth at all. He stood at one side as the stokers filed in from forward, ready to relieve those working in the fireroom below.
“Do you see him in that line, Miss Fielding?” whispered the first officer.
She scrutinized the men carefully. Early that morning she had had plenty of opportunity to get the appearance of the German who spoke to Irma Lentz photographed on her mind, and she knew at first glance that he was not in this group.
However, she took her time and scrutinized them all carefully. There was not a single flaxen-haired man among them, and nobody that in the least seemed like the man she had in mind.
“No,” she said to Mr. Dowd. “He is not here.”
“Wait till the others come up. There! The boatswain pipes.”
The shrill whistle started the waiting stokers down the ladder into the stoke-hole. In a minute or two a red, sweating, ashes-streaked face appeared as the first of the watch relieved came up into the engine room. This was not the man Ruth looked for.
One after another the men appeared—Irish, Swede, Dane, negro, and nondescript; but never a German. And not one of the fellows looked at all like the man Ruth expected to see. Dowdgazed upon her questioningly. Ruth slowly shook her head.
“Any more firemen or coal passers down there, boy?” Dowd asked the negro stoker.
“No, suh! Ain’t none of de watch lef’ behind,” declared the man, as he followed his mates forward.
“Well, are you satisfied?” snapped the thin voice of Captain Hastings.
“Not altogether,” Ruth bravely retorted. “It might be that the man was not a stoker. I only thought so because the officer who interrupted the conversation I overheard seemed to consider him a stoker. He sent the man off that part of the deck.”
“What officer?” demanded the captain, doubtfully. “An officer of the ship? One of my officers?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ha, you want to examine my officers, then, I presume?”
“Not at all,” Ruth said coldly. “I am not taking any pleasure in this investigation, I assure you.”
“It will be easy enough to find the officer whom Miss Fielding refers to,” said Mr. Dowd, interposing before Captain Hastings could speak again. “I know who was on duty at that hour this morning. It will be easily discovered whothe officer is. And if he remembers the man on deck——”
“Ah—yes—if hedoes,” said Captain Hastings in his very nastiest way.
Ruth’s cheeks flamed again. Mr. Dowd placed a gentle hand upon her sleeve.
“Never mind that oaf,” he whispered. “He doesn’t know how to behave himself. How he ever got command of a ship like this—well, it shows to what straits we have come in this wartime. Do you mind meeting me later abaft the stacks on deck? I will bring the men, one of whom I think may be the chap we are looking for. Of course he will remember if he drove a seaman or a stoker off the after deck this morning.”
Ruth did not see how she could refuse the respectful and sensible first officer, but she certainly was angry with Captain Hastings and she swept by him to the stairway without giving him another glance.
“It’s all bosh!” she heard him say to Mr. Dowd, as she started for the open deck.
Her dignity was hurt, as well as her indignation aroused. She was not in the habit of having her word doubted; and it seemed that Captain Hastings certainly did consider that there was reason for thinking her untruthful. She was more than sorry that she had taken the Red Cross man’sadvice and brought this matter to the attention of Mr. Dowd in the first place.
Yet the first officer was her friend. She could see that. He did not intend to let the matter rest at a point where Captain Hastings would have any reason for intimating that Ruth had not been exact in her statements of fact.
Of course, the girl of the Red Mill had not taken so close a look at the ship’s officer who had driven the stoker off the deck, as she had at the stoker himself. But she was quite confident she would know him. She had not seen him since, that was sure.
After half an hour or so Mr. Dowd came to the place where she sat sheltered from the stiff breeze that was blowing, with a uniformed man in toll. It was not the officer whom she had seen early in the morning.
“I quite remember seeing Miss Fielding on deck at dawn,” said the young fellow politely. “But I do not remember seeing any of the crew except those at work scrubbing down.”
“This was on the starboard run, Miss Fielding?” suggested Mr. Dowd.
“Yes, sir. It was right yonder,” and she pointed to the spot in question.
“It must be Dykman, then, you wish to see, Mr. Dowd,” said the under officer, saluting. “Shall I send him here, sir?”
“If you will,” Dowd said, and remained himself to talk pleasantly to the American girl.
After a time another man in uniform approached the spot. He was not a young man; yet he was smooth-faced, ruddy, and had a smart way about him. But his countenance was lined and there was a small scar just below his eye on one cheek.
“Mr. Dykman, Miss Fielding,” Dowd said. “Is Mr. Dykman the officer whom you saw, Miss Fielding?”
Dykman bowed with a military manner. Ruth eyed him quietly. He did not look like an Englishman, that was sure.
“This is the officer I saw this morning,” she said, confidently. She felt that she could not be mistaken, although she had not noted his manner and countenance so directly at the time indicated. He looked surprised but said nothing in rejoinder, glancing at Mr. Dowd, instead, for an explanation.
“We are trying,” said the first officer, “to identify a man—one of the crew—who was out of place on the deck here this morning during your watch, Mr. Dykman. About what time was it, Miss Fielding?”
“The sun was just coming up,” she said, watching Dykman’s face.
“There were various members of the deckwatch here then, sir,” Dykman said respectfully. “We were washing decks.”
“You came past here,” Ruth said quietly, “and admonished the man for standing here. You told him he had no business aft.”
The man wagged his head slowly and showed no remembrance of the incident by his expression of countenance. His eyes, she saw, were hard, and round, and blue.
“You intimated that he was a stoker,” Ruth continued, with quite as much confidence as before.
Indeed, the more doubt seemed cast upon her statement the more confident she became. She could not understand why this man denied knowledge of the incident, unless——
She glanced at Dowd. He was frowning and had reddened. But he was not looking at her. He was looking at Dykman.
“Well, sir?” he snapped suddenly.
“No, sir. I do not remember the occurrence,” the sub-officer said respectfully but with a finality there could be no mistaking.
“That will do, then,” said Mr. Dowd, and waved his hand in dismissal.
Dykman bowed again and marched away. Ruth watched the face of the first officer closely. Had he shown the least suspicion of her she would have said no more. But, instead, he looked ather frankly now that the sub-officer had gone, and demanded angrily:
“Now, what do you suppose that means? Are you positive you have identified Dykman?”
“He was the man who spoke to the stoker—yes.”
“Then why the—ahem! Well! Why should he deny it?”
“It seems to clinch my argument,” Ruth said. “There is something underhanded going on—some plot—some mystery. This Dykman must be in it.”
“By Jove!”
“Have you known the man long?”