She tapped her message.
"Anything for Ex-x?" The long silence that followed was finally broken by the clatter of the instrument.
"Nothing."
Dixie sank back in the chair. Her message had gone through hours before, certainly by this time Grant should have received it and answered.
But the instrument was clicking again—calling for Exeter.
"Ex—ex—exexexex—ex—exexex."
"O.K. Ex—go ahead," Dixie tapped in an agony of impatience. The sounding key snapped back.
"Hello Ex—thought I'd tell you—wire trouble between here and New York. Ought to clear up soon."
The instrument ceased its clatter. Dixie settled back, hopeful—and yet hopeless. Now there was no means of knowing. Her communication had been cut off. She could only wait—wait—with the teeth of anxiety gnawing at her heart. Wait, while all through the northern states, Imperial Germany's reservists were hurrying to their stations. Wait—while out at the main camp, Heinric von Lertz and Madam Stephan were giving orders that would cause rebellion to flare at the first word from Von Papen.
But Dixie brightened a bit as she caught at the cheerful thought that Von Papen's message could not come through until the wires were opened—still when the wires were opened, Von Papen's wire might come through and Grant would not be there to stop the resultant activity.
Hour by hour dragged endlessly as the night wore on. Dixie sat by the telegraph key, waiting. Call after call sent through Buffalo brought back the answer:
"Wire not clear yet. Working on it."
The moon dimmed, and the chill air of night made her huddle closer in the chair and shiver. Would the night never end and the call she was waiting for come?
As the dawn lightened the dingy interior of the station it showed Dixie Mason with tumbled, towsled head fallen sleepily on one shoulder.
The staccato clicking of the telegraph sounder broke into the quiet of the room. It started Dixie from her sleep. For one bewildered moment she glanced at the instrument before her and then on the alert reached for the key to answer the call that was coming through for Exeter.
"O.K. Ex." She waited tensely for the answer.
Suddenly a shadow fell across the doorway and Dixie started violently. "Here you! What're you doing at that telegraph instrument?" The rough voice of the station agent sent a chill of fear through her. "You don't know nothing about them things. Get out of here!"
He pushed her roughly aside and seated himself at the table to take the message that in spite of nervousness and sudden fright seemed to burn itself into her brain. It was for Heinric von Lertz!
"Proceed at once!""F.V.P."
"Proceed at once!"
"F.V.P."
Von Papen! Dixie clutched at the station agent's arm as he started for the door with the message.
"Don't deliver that!" she begged. "Please—don't deliver it yet."
"Don't deliver a telegram?" the agent glared at her uncomprehendingly. "What's the matter with you? Want me to lose my job?"
"But if that telegram meant trouble—if it meant danger for our country?"
"It's a telegram and it's got to be delivered," he answered stubbornly.
Dixie's hand reached for her Secret Service Commission, then dropped. She had seen the station agent with Von Lertz and Dollings on various occasions. If he were an accomplice—which was very likely—her commission would profit her nothing and probably would work harm to her cause. She turned with an effort and laughed.
"I was just fooling," she apologized.
"Poor way to fool," grumbled the station agent, and slammed the door.
Dixie watched him shuffle across the dusty road and intercept Von Lertz and Madam Stephan as they left the hotel. She saw a hurried conference over the yellow slip of paper follow. As she watched them the telegraph instrument began to clatter once more. The station agent was across the street. This time she would not be thwarted.
"O.K. Ex," she signalled rapidly, and the answer came through.
"Randolph Bruce,"Exeter—(delayed)."Arriving 6:40"Grant."
"Randolph Bruce,
"Exeter—(delayed).
"Arriving 6:40
"Grant."
Dixie dragged herself weakly out of the office and sat down for a moment. Grant was coming at six forty! It was six ten now. She jumped to her feet. There was no time for unnecessary rejoicing. There was too much to be done.
The station agent shuffled into the station again and seating himself at the table began to take the orders that were clattering in over the wire. Dixie waited no longer.
The town boasted one garage. The garage owner, industriously cleaning a thick veneer of dust from a car, started suddenly at a light touch on his shoulder. The boyish figure standing in the doorway was very business-like.
"I want every car you have got."
The garage owner stared, "What for?"
"There's a special train coming in at six forty with a lot of men and they will have to have cars." Dixie slipped a hand into a pocket and brought out her Secret Service Commission.
"Here's the reason," she said. "And listen to me, because I want you to get this straight." For a few moments she conversed with him in low tones.
"It's all right. I'll have them there," he assured her finally and Dixie hurried away on the road leading to the camp.
The special train bearing Grant and his men slid into the station and came to a smooth standstill, and as the first men jumped to the platform, the garage owner stepped up to them.
"I have a message for Harrison Grant." Grant was pointed out to him. "Mr. Grant," he said, stepping over to where the detective stood, "A Secret Service man gave me an order a little while ago, he wasn't any more'n a boy. He says to be sure to raid that undertaking shop across the way and then go on to the main camp in the gorge."
Thanking his informant Grant called his men around him and issued quick, incisive orders. Leaving Cavanaugh and Stewart to oversee the raiding of the undertaking shop, he selected his men and loaded them into the waiting machines. Soon the streets of Exeter resounded with the roar of speeding automobiles, whirling through in a cloud of dust to the mountains beyond and the camp that lay in the gorge.
Time was too short for the Secret Service to catch up all the tangled threads of this plot. While the waiting automobiles whirled Grant's men to the camp in the gorge, the station master was telephoning frantically to Von Lertz. And a short half hour later their big automobile was grinding its way southward carrying Madam Stephan and her partner in intrigue away from the scene of thefiasco.
Up on the Canadian border, mounted troops, summoned from twenty barracks by the Chief and Grant, rushed to protect the passes, tunnels and bridges, and throw a line of soldiery along the frontier.
Out at the camp the headquarters were suddenly surrounded and under cover of guns in the hands of Grant's men the reservists were herded together and placed under arrest. Leaving them in the hands of his men, Grant started out to look about the camp. He found the powder house and supply depots hidden deep in the gorge, and as he stood and wondered at the hugeness of this plot which had been foiled just in time, his gaze wandered from one object to another. Suddenly it centered on a little figure lying just below him beside a boulder. It was a boy deep in the sleep of sheer exhaustion. He stepped down the hillside and stopped beside the boulder.
"Poor youngster," he muttered, "I'd better take him in, it's damp here."
As he stooped and lifted the sleeping form, the cap slipped from the boyish head and a mop of curly hair waved loose. Grant gasped. The sleepy dark eyes opened and looked into his. Suddenly a hand sought to pull the coat which had fallen open together. But it was too late. Grant had caught sight of the Secret Service star.
"Dixie Mason!" Grant breathed. "In the Service? Oh Dixie—" and his arms closed about her a little tighter than was necessary although Dixie Mason lay still.
While Harrison Grant stood holding Dixie Mason in his arms with the cares of the world, the troubles, the strain, slipping away from him, in the great relief of his discovery, many, many miles away the first seeds were being sown for a plot that equalled the one they had just quelled.
In the interior of a fortune telling emporium in Hopewell, Va., sat a woman in the garb of a gipsy fortune teller. Her features were cold and heavy, her eyes piercing, and her voice when she spoke, belied with guttural accents the garb of the southern people she had donned.
"Minna," she called, and as the tapestries that hung the room were pushed aside by a maid, she spoke quickly:
"Telegraph Von Papen to send me a good man at once for dangerous work."
The maid bowed.
"Yes, Baroness," she answered, and disappeared.
Chapter XI.
THE BURNING OF HOPEWELL, VIRGINIA.
After all, Imperial Germany possessed a lumbering sense of the theatrical. It had realized that the little newborn town of Hopewell, Virginia, sheltered hundreds of men drawn from the laboring classes, uneducated, ignorant save of the work they were paid for, foreign to a large extent, and among these men were those in whose minds ran the superstitious strain which breeds faith in the occult and fortune-tellers. In the hands of a clever fortune-teller these men might be made to talk, without realizing that they were giving away information to the hidden enemy of America. This was the explanation of the presence of Baroness Theresa Verbecht in Hopewell as arbitress of destinies, in the guise of Madam LaVere, Mystic. In one of the myriad clap-boarded shacks of Hopewell she ladled out the mysteries of the future and the well-known facts of the present with lavish hand, and drank in all the information she could glean by clever questioning and suggestion, from the superstitious who passed in never-ending lines through the doors of her emporium of mystery.
Hopewell held much of interest for Germany. Little more than a year before its site had been unploughed fields over which the winds blew in broad sweeps bending the green grasses in soft undulations and bobbing the heads of wildflowers that dotted the fields. Soon with war's shadows growing deeper over Europe the call had come from the Allies for explosives. The fields had been cleared and a great guncotton factory spread its broad stretches over the ground where the wildflowers had bobbed. And about the factory sprang up a town, or rather a half a mile from the factory, for guncotton is a thing to be respected whether in the maw of a cannon or in the making.
The town was a hit and miss affair, a similitude of western towns which sprang up over night in the days of gold rushes. Its streets, a crowded mass of unpainted shacks, lean-tos, and tents; cheap hotels,sub rosagambling places, in fact all the attributes of the town of mushroom growth peopled with the polyglot population of a manufacturing town of America, the melting pot of the races.
The day that Madam Stephan and Von Lertz, fleeing from Exeter, realized that the plot which they had maneuvered to what seemed unquestionable success, had failed, Franz von Papen received a telegram from Madam LaVere.
"Everything O.K. Send me good man for dangerous work."
"Everything O.K. Send me good man for dangerous work."
The telegram so tersely worded meant more than words could convey. It meant that after weeks of work Baroness Verbecht had learned as much as possible about the guncotton factory, its orders, its guards, its shipments and its most vulnerable points.
A week passed before the Baroness received a reply in any form. Then one morning the tapestry curtains of her fortune telling parlor parted to admit none other than the sanctimonious J.B. Dollings. Dollings had closed up his undertaking establishment in Exeter with what might have seemed undue haste to those unacquainted with his reasons for seeking other parts.
"Captain Von Papen regrets the delay in complying with your telegraphed request," Dollings assured the Baroness, who showed a tendency to be a little angered over the time lost. "Canada was engaging his attention to such an extent that he could find no one to send here, but now that I have arrived——" he smiled an ingratiating smile, and the frown on the face of the Baroness faded a little, "I am ready for anything your Highness may suggest."
"It is well," she answered briefly, "we will lose no more time."
During the week the ring of conspirators was completed by the arrival of Madam Stephan and Von Lertz in Richmond, upon orders received from Von Papen that they be at hand and ready to assist in operations in case they were needed in bringing the plot for the destruction of Hopewell to a successful climax.
Dixie Mason, returning to her apartment after the strenuous days of activity in Exeter was apprised of their presence in Richmond by the discovery of a note from Von Lertz.
"Dear Miss Mason—" the note ran in Von Lertz's angular hand, "I hope this finds you at home and rested after your southern trip. The Madame and I are now in Richmond, Va., where I would like to have you join us as soon as possible. It may be that your eager wish to help us, expressed when I last saw you, can be granted here. Von Lertz."
"Lovely!" commented Dixie with a smile. "Dear Von Lertz, you have given me an unexpected pleasure." She addressed the far distant agent of Germany with an irony altogether lost. Then she bounced up with an activity purely characteristic. "Mamette, help me pack again. I'm on my way to Richmond."
Mamette appeared in the doorway, an expression of genuine anxiety on her dusky countenance. "My land! Miss Dixie! Ain't you ever going to stay home and rest?"
Dixie laughed. "No rest for me, with these German agents running around loose through the country. Be sure and put my Panelphone in the bag."
Mamette's eyes rolled till the whites of them gleamed. "You mean that new thing you kin hear through the wall with?"
"That's what I mean, but hardly through the wall, Mamette, just through a door or any high sounding surface. It's simply a super-developed telephone without any wires that the Chief invented," but seeing that this explanation was somewhat over Mamette's head, Dixie stopped abruptly. "Hurry, Mamette, please, if I can catch this train today I'll be in Richmond tomorrow morning."
The Baroness and Dollings had worked out the plan carefully for the destruction of the guncotton factory, although their preparations had of necessity been somewhat hasty.
"I've been careful," the Baroness told Dollings "to gain my information only in snatches and bits from munition workers who have come here to have their fortunes told. The fools do not realize that they tell me more than I tell them and none have suspected that they are being questioned. I have learned that the plant is least guarded between midnight and 2 o'clock in the morning. That will be the best time, then, for you to plant your bomb. I will take you to a point near the guncotton plant and leave you there. Then I will proceed at once to Richmond to join Von Lertz and Madam Stephan. Report to me there at the hotel." With a caution gained by long experience in plotting they covered each detail and arranged for any possible and unforeseen happenings to their own satisfaction.
Early one morning before the darkness and chill of night had lifted they climbed into an automobile and drove to the point agreed upon. There Dollings left the Baroness and she drove off through the black of the night to report to Von Lertz in Richmond.
The yards of the guncotton plant were surrounded by an underbrush which in the quietness of the night made a silent approach somewhat difficult. Dollings, however, crept forward as noiselessly as was within his power. A heavy detonating bomb concealed in his coat, made progress somewhat perilous. He had almost reached the fence. Suddenly his coat caught on an entangling thorn bush. As his next movement loosened it the bush cracked back with a distinct snap! Dollings stopped.
"Halt!" a challenge rang out in the night.
The guard ran toward the sound. There was little chance for escape. He had seen the shadowy form of Dollings skulking through the under-growth. Dollings clambered to his feet in a desperate dash for freedom but the flash of a rifle spat through the darkness and he felt a sharp pain in his leg. Crashing about, stumbling, tripping, fighting his way, he limped on, clinging to the bomb in his coat.
The rifle spoke again and this time Dollings dropped the bomb with an oath as the bullet passed through his wrist. A little closer and it would have exploded the bomb and he would have given up his life. Dollings did not want to die yet. He dropped the bomb, dodging and leaping, pain fighting at his throat in an endeavor to make him shriek, he plunged into the darkness of the night and escaped.
Aroused by the shots the guards were gathering at the point of the sudden alarm. The ground was being examined closely, guards walked back and forth beating about in the underbrush. In a moment the bomb was discovered, dropped where Dollings had left it in his flight.
The discovery of the blood spattered bomb and the attempt upon the factory was reported at once. A message went to Washington. From Washington a message went to Harrison Grant at the Criminology Club. And Harrison Grant having received the message lost no time in getting to Hopewell. The Secret Service needed him there.
When Dixie Mason arrived in Richmond the day after the attempt on Hopewell, she went directly to the hotel at which Madam Stephan and Von Lertz were registered. It was the hottest part of the day and the hotel lobby was deserted. Dixie asked for the proprietor. Showing him her Secret Service Commission she took him into her confidence to the extent of making him understand that she wanted a room next to the one occupied by Madam Stephan, and that she did not wish her name to appear on the register.
"It can be arranged, very easily," he assured her.
Dixie was gracious in her thanks. "But you had better make a card entry of my name so that in case I am forced to come in contact with either Von Lertz or Stephan, I can have an alibi."
"The clerk will take the blame," smiled the proprietor.
Very shortly Dixie was installed in a room next to Madam Stephan's. A door connecting the rooms was locked and bolted—on Madam Stephan's side, but this fact was of no concern to Dixie. She had brought out the Panelphone and examined its delicate mechanism; attached the batteries which gave it the telephonic electrical connection necessary to the transmission of sound, and then by means of a vacuum cup had fastened it to the door. By this device each sound within the next room would be intensified sufficiently for her to hear every word of any conversation carried on.
She placed the receiver at her ear. The low murmur of voices which she had heard a moment before now was magnified so that each sound reached her with a clarity allowing no chance for mistakes.
Madam Stephan was speaking. Her usually well-modulated voice carried an acid quality, an angry sarcasm that conveyed a deep displeasure.
"Your little plan of taking my place seems to have failed, Baroness. Your endeavor to worm your way into Von Papen's favor through Von Lertz has not met with the success you aspired to." There was a sudden rustle of a newspaper being straightened out, then the caustic tones of the Madame cut the silence once more. "Spy Fails in Attempt Against Guncotton Plant," she read. "Believed to have been injured by guard! A very good start, Baroness, for your operations in America. Three months in Hopewell and this is what you have accomplished!"
The deep tones of the Baroness resounded into the little instrument at Dixie's ear.
"Perhaps it is as much as you have done."
"Is it? At least I've covered my tracks. The newspapers haven't announced my failures! And suppose they track your spy to your fortune telling emporium? What then?"
"You are jumping at conclusions."
"On the contrary, I am giving the police and the Secret Service of this country credit for having a little sense. And if a few others who are working in the interests of Germany would do the same thing there would not be so many failures in our plans. If you could dispose of a little of this egotism with which you all are overburdened you would be of more use. You think because you are Prussian that all the rest of the world are idiots, because your blood does not flow in their veins."
Her voice had risen to an uncautious degree but it was cut short by the opening of a door in the room.
"You've said enough. Stop it at once!" It was Von Lertz's voice, angry, but low and self-possessed. "Can you not understand that this is no place for——"
"But——" Madam Stephan broke in, ineffectively, for Von Lertz brushed aside her expostulation.
"—personalities. If the Baroness had failed it is not her fault, nor the fault of the man she sent to do the work. If the plan failed, it failed, and that's all there is to it. Now I have wired him in code to proceed at once on Instruction Number Four. I must ask you to let the greatness of the cause we represent overshadow any private feelings that may arise."
"My dear Von Lertz——" but Dixie had slipped the Panelphone from the door and was packing it in her travelling bag. She had heard enough to realize that there were other places at which her services were more needed than here. Hopewell was still in danger. What was this Instruction Number Four which had been telegraphed the spy to proceed on? She must learn, but the conviction that only in Hopewell could she gain this information hurried her to an attempt to reach there as soon as possible. The next train for the little town did not leave until late at night. The distance was short so Dixie decided to make the trip by automobile. With little trouble she rented one.
Harrison Grant upon his arrival in Hopewell had taken up the work of tracing the culprit who had so nearly caused the destruction of the plant. Taking up the clue from the spot where the bomb had been found and accompanied by the Captain of the guard he had followed his blood-stained trail steadily to the door of Madam LaVere's Fortune Telling Parlor.
"This is the place we want," he announced softly to the Captain. "Don't knock. Just open the door and make a rush for it."
The Captain turned the handle of the door.
"It's locked," he announced laconically. Grant reached out and rapped sharply.
A moment's silence followed and then they heard a slow shuffle growing nearer. The key clicked in the lock and the door was opened by the pasty-faced Minna, the Baroness' maid. She stared at them dully.
Grant attempted to step into the hall, but the maid barred the way.
"The Madame's not home."
"No? Well, never mind. We'll come in anyway," and though she attempted to shove the door shut, Grant pushed her aside and followed by the Captain entered the dingy room. The maid watched them in angry silence.
"Where's the man that's in this house?" asked Grant suddenly.
The maid stared stupidly, "Man? What man?"
"Yes, the man who came here wounded. Where is he?"
She shook her head and lied ponderously.
"I don't know no—"
"Stop your lying. Where is he? There's part of the bandage that was on him." Grant pointed to a pile of rags in the corner. "Now come through. We haven't any time to waste."
But the maid shook her head in dogged silence. In an effort to frighten her out of it, the Captain and Grant settled down to a cross-examination, calling patience to their aid and overcoming the exasperation which only defeated their purpose. It was growing late. Suddenly Grant raised his head questioningly and glanced at the Captain. At the same time a gleam of satisfaction crossed the face of Minna, the maid.
A man had run past the shack shouting. Sounds of confusion drifted in to the dingy shack, and then Grant sniffed the air with a look of alarm and looked at the Captain. His anxiety was reflected there. A glance down the crooked street confirmed their worst suspicions. The town was on fire!
As soon as their knock had come on the door of the fortune telling house, Minna had done a little guerilla work and ascertained that the visitors were none she wished to see. Her assumed slowness and stubborness had given Dollings ample time to escape through the back door of the house where he had taken refuge the night before and down littered alleys despite the handicap of painful wounds. His failure of the night before had left him with a strong determination to make good at the job to which he had been assigned. In his pocket reposed a tiny book of numbered instructions. Instruction Four was marked. It was the one he was to carry out, according to Von Lertz's order:
"Remember that a north wind will blow a fire toward the guncotton plant and that Hopewell is a town of shacks. If necessary fire the town!"
All day a brisk breeze had been blowing from the north. All things were auspicious now as night had fallen and he crept along piles of lumber and hid in the shadows.
From a nearby shack a lighted lamp shed its glow through an uncurtained window. Dollings sneaked close to the house. The room was empty. In a corner of the plot a clothespile rested against the side of the house. He grasped the unwieldy piece and in a moment more had thrust the pole through the window and knocked the lighted lamp to the floor. A light of triumph glinted in his evil eyes as, not daring to wait to see the result of his handiwork, he hobbled hurriedly away. He heard a scream and looking back saw a black cloud of smoke, billowing out of the window. In a few moments the thin walls of the shack had burst into bright flame and the hastily formed bucket brigade of Hopewell was laboring in vain to check the rapid progress of the fire. The tent next door caught fire, the wind blew the cinders about and they fell on other shacks and the devouring terror spread rapidly to the southward, fanned by the brisk wind—southward to the guncotton factory.
The bright glare of the burning town lighted up the figure of a limping traveller, who stopped now and then to gaze back at it with a grunt of satisfaction.
The devastation caused by German spies who razed the town of Hopewell, Va.
Harrison Grant and the Captain abandoned their cross-examination in the greater need of helping fight the fire that had broken out in Hopewell. It took no trained mind to grasp the peril that threatened the town. All its little population was out and fighting but they were powerless. The elements were fighting against them, and the lack of proper fire protection.
Minna, the maid, was handcuffed and turned over to an officer, while Grant hurried away with the Captain. "Where is the powder house?" he shouted at him above the rising confusion, and the Captain called back, "The nearest one's at the quarry."
"Good, take me to it."
Grant could see that Hopewell was doomed. The flames leaped onward in their work of destruction. While frightened mobs fought at the banks to recover their savings, looters appeared, and added their terror to that of the flames as they rushed on to what seemed the inevitable doom of the thing that had given Hopewell its life—the guncotton plant.
If the factory could be saved Hopewell might rise again, but if those scorching flames reached the great stores of guncotton there would be no plant, no Hopewell, not even a survivor—only devastation, which would mean success to Imperial Germany's plot.
Grant racing toward the powder house with a growing army of men following him, shouted orders as he went. He had reached the door and unlocked it. Appointing several men hastily to accompany him, he rushed in.
"Get the dynamite and detonators," he ordered.
With quick precision the men leaped to obey him, and then followed him back again to the scene of conflagration. The flames were gaining swift headway. Lives had been lost where people in frantic endeavor to save their few possessions had braved the fiery terror. The down town section of the small city was in ruins. The flames had reached the outskirts and were nearing the guncotton factory.
Grant stationed his men in this part.
"String those wires here," he shouted, dashing among them as they struggled to obey his orders. "Hurry! That's it," he called, lending a hand to a man whose fingers worked clumsily, "Now attach them to the detonators. Work fast boys. The fire is catching up to us! How's the dynamite?"
Above the roar of the steadily approaching flames the answer came back.
"All wired up. Ready to blow up as soon as the plungers are attached."
"Any caps to them?"
"Fulminate of mercury on every one."
"All right. Rush it. Let me know the minute you're ready!"
A moment of waiting followed, then a man shouted:
"All ready, sir!"
Grant looked back at the swiftly rushing flames, then turned to the men.
"Now boys. Each man to a detonator," he shouted. "When I say the word explode the dynamite!"
There was a rush of dark figures in the glow of light. An order cut the air—then from the distance came a tremendous roar that dwarfed the noises of the night as the outskirts of Hopewell rose into the air. Great masses of wreckage fell about the men. Clouds of smoke and dust blackened the night air and stifled the onlookers, then the flames showed through once more—but this time they faced a gaping ditch of earth so wide that they could not cross. The guncotton factory was saved! Harrison Grant turned with a smile to the Captain of the guard, while wild cheers burst from the frantic citizens.
Dixie Mason had made good speed toward Hopewell for the greater part of the distance. The car had run steadily until just as she came in sight of the columns of smoke clouds of burning Hopewell and realized that Instruction Number Four had undoubtedly been carried to a successful conclusion, her heart sank at the sound of a whistling rush of air from the rear wheel. She stopped the machine and jumped down to inspect the hopelessly flattened wheel. With grim determination she dragged out heavy tools from beneath the seat of the machine and set to work to repair the damage as best she could, her mind running mechanically to the disaster that had befallen Hopewell. So this was Instruction Number Four!
At the sound of crackling in the bushes Dixie turned apprehensively. The haggard figure of a man which dragged itself into a road was one to inspire horror. He stared wildly for a moment and then lurched forward toward her. Dixie instinctively reached for the heavy wrench for protection but he shook his head.
"I won't hurt you," he called hoarsely. "I'm in trouble. I want you to take me to Richmond, little girl."
Dixie shook her head. "I'm not going to Richmond."
"But you can!" His voice rose in the intensity of his plea. "A hundred dollars if you will get me there. I can't wait for trains. I'll raise the price. A hundred and fifty if you'll get me there."
Dixie leaned over and stared at him for a moment by the glow of the automobile lights. Surely she had seen this man before, despite the haggard appearance, the roughness, the dirt and grime and blood-stained bandages. Was this Dollings, the sanctimonious undertaker of Exeter? A recognition of him lighted her eyes for a moment. She cast a glance back at the smoke clouds darkening the sky and the glow of flames from Hopewell. Instruction Number Four! This was the man to whom Von Lertz had sent the message to proceed on Instruction Number Four!
Dixie turned to the machine.
"I can't hurry—and put this tire on too."
"Then you'll take me to Richmond?"
"If you can help me get this tire on."
"I can't help much, but I can hold the tire for you."
Dixie nodded. She rolled out the extra tire and the work progressed. Now and then Dixie reached in her pocket, and one less intent on the work in hand would have caught the sound of a racheted surface being opened. But Dollings' senses dulled by pain and anxiety did not notice.
The tire was on the wheel. Dixie rolled out the old tire to place it in position and gave it to Dollings to hold. He leaned on it, his gaze turned up the road toward the burning town. Dixie gazed up toward the rising column of smoke and sparks too, and thought of the destruction and sorrow and suffering it meant. Then very quietly she crept forward toward Dollings. His hands rested close together on the tire. He was not noticing her. She leaned over the tire and with a sharp snap slipped the handcuffs about his wrists. Dollings sprang at her with a snarl but faced the steeling glitter of a revolver.
"Put that tire back on the machine!" she ordered tersely.
He hesitated. "Go on," she urged, "And if there is any doubt in your mind about this gun holding real bullets I'll show you that it does."
He obeyed her grudgingly and with real difficulty. If Dixie felt a tinge of pity shoot through her she had but to let her thought revert to Hopewell and Instruction Number Four and Dollings' part in it to stifle it.
"Now get into the driver's seat and take the wheel. You can drive. I know it. I've seen you drive up in Exeter, you know." She smiled a little at the bewildered glance he cast on her for a moment, then resumed her orders. "Drive to Hopewell! And remember what I said about this gun."
Dollings drove the car into Hopewell with Dixie Mason holding the revolver. Circling through the fire devastated city they reached the group of cheering men just as the ditch had been blown up that saved the guncotton plant.
Above the roar of the men Harrison Grant heard a shrill little voice that made his heart backfire for an instant.
"Oh, Harrison Grant!" He turned and looked up into the glad eyes of Dixie Mason. "See what I've brought you," she said, pointing at the cringing figure of the now completely cowed Dollings. She was standing on the running board of the car.
Grant walked up to the car with a smile at Dixie. Dollings drew back with a snarl of hatred as Grant touched him on the shoulder.
"Seems to me you and I have met before," said the president of the Criminology Club, "But I can't just place you."
"Don't you remember?" Dixie laughed, leaning toward him. "It's Dollings, our good-natured undertaker from Exeter. He dealt in caskets up there you know, but the boxes they came in held guns instead of coffins. A very nice man if he had stuck to his trade, but changing it got him into trouble. You'd better search him."
Dollings helpless, cowed, beaten, was beyond resistance. Their careful search revealed that, after all, the destruction of Hopewell was but an item compared with the general plan of which Dollings was an agent. With an exclamation, Grant turned over a paper to Dixie Mason, to read.
"Here Dixie, this is your case, and here's a little lexicon of destruction that may be helpful to you."
Dixie took the paper and studied it, horror whitening her face. On it was written:
"Blow up plants atHopewellWilmingtonChesterWest PhiladelphiaActonDetroitWindsor."
"Blow up plants at
HopewellWilmingtonChesterWest PhiladelphiaActonDetroitWindsor."
As she looked into Grant's face, he smiled down at her.
"After all, Hopewell has had its advantages," he said.
"How?" she questioned.
Grant pointed to Dollings. "It has caused the arrest of this man, and will either cause Imperial Germany to change all its plans or give the Secret Service a chance to guard against the attempts on the places named on this list. It may do even more——"
Dixie looked at him thoughtfully.
"If it could only awaken America to the danger that is growing here in her very heart," she said earnestly, "then indeed the destruction here would not have been in vain."
And though Harrison Grant and Dixie Mason, and all the members of the great organization they represented knew that the danger of Germany's intrigues was a vast, far-reaching, fast growing one, even they did not know the immensity of it. While they exulted over the partial failure of one of those schemes of destruction, Von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Dr. Heinrich Albert were at work on still another—and greater one.
In the rooms of the Hohenzollern Club they set in conversation one afternoon.
"Von Papen, Count Von Bernstorff complains constantly about the regular shipment of troops and supplies from Canada," said Albert turning to the military attache. "What are we to do about it? He has asked me several times for a plan."
Von Papen blew a line of smoke rings into the air thoughtfully, and broke the ashes from his cigar. Then he spoke.
"Make another attempt to blow up the Welland Canal, and this time succeed." The last word broke ringingly on the still air of the room as Albert and Boy-Ed leaned toward him expectantly.
"And if it does succeed?"
Von Papen shrugged his shoulders.
"If it does, it will stop one of the great avenues of transportation. It will cause Great Britain to ask America how a military enterprise against Canada was allowed to be set on foot in the neutral territory of the United States. And about that time Germany's propagandists will start working. And if we can't stir up a war between the United States and Great Britain out of the muddle, we're almost as stupid as these idiotic Yankees!"
Dr. Albert with gleaming eyes reached out a hand to Von Papen.
"Von Papen, you have a master mind," he said.
Chapter XII.
THE WELLAND CANAL CONSPIRATORS
Between Port Colborne on Lake Erie and Dalhousie, less than twenty-seven miles distant, on the shore of Lake Huron is a straight, narrow stretch of water which occupies a place in the winning of the world war second only to that of the English Channel. This waterway is the greatest part of the explanation of Canada's ability to keep the stream and volume of troops and supplies pouring steadily across the ocean to England and France. By means of it the troops of the provinces bordering on the Great Lakes, as well as the supplies of those of the United States which are accessible to the inland waterways, have been carried rapidly and cheaply to the ocean port of Montreal, without overtaxing the carrying capacity of the railroads of the Dominion. It is the Welland Canal, constructed and maintained by Canada to overcome the obstructions to navigation between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, afforded by the rapids and the famous falls of Niagara River.
From the early days of the war, from the time when its importance to the mobilization of Canada's resources become apparent, the Welland Canal as an objective of an underhanded attack was constantly in the minds of the army of spies and plotters maintained in America by the Imperial German Government. Its locks, constructed to raise the largest of lake vessels to the 327-foot elevation in the levels of the two lakes, offered a tempting mark for a charge of dynamite. The destruction of one of the gates would cripple the canal and render it useless for months, thus impeding greatly the extension of the help which Canada was giving Great Britain. The placing of a charge of explosive in one of the gates would be a matter of but little risk, as it could be easily done from the American side where the Canadian guards, respecters of the rights of neutral nations, could not interrupt the conspirators.
Yet there were serious objections to carrying out a plot to destroy the canal, which occurred to Johann von Bernstorff, the shrewd and cautious ambassador of the Imperial German Government at Washington, and director of the Kaiser's spy army in America. When Captain Franz von Papen first mentioned a scheme for using dynamite on one of the locks of the canal, Count Von Bernstorff, voiced his objections, and laid down the conditions upon which he would consent to such a plot in these words:
"You have impetuously fostered a plan which is fraught with the greatest menace to which our country might be called upon to face, Captain. It is the possibility of the United States entering the war on the side of the Allies. The destruction of the canal might well lead to serious complications between the United States and the Dominion of Canada in which the national honor of the Yankees might be brought into question. Let such a question be raised and the entry of the United States against Germany in the war would be inevitable. Damage within its own borders the United States will assimilate, but a threatened stain on the national honor of the country will arouse every American to a pitch of fury which nothing can withstand.
"The discovery of the perpetrators under such conditions would be a foregone conclusion. With you or anyone of the others you have mentioned active in the plot, the trail would lead directly to this Embassy and the result would be the making of the one foe Imperial Germany cannot conquer—an aroused America. Come to me when you have explosives acquired through sources which cannot be traced, and when you have men who have never been associated with those who are connected with Imperial Germany. Then, and then only, will you receive the required permission to proceed."
That was early in the fall of 1914. Captain Von Papen did not inform his chief that he already had men at Niagara Falls, prepared with explosives and directions, awaiting the word from him to go on their message of destruction. Von Papen had gone to Von Bernstorff without the faintest suspicion that the scheme would be refused the sanction of the Ambassador. Instead, he had expected congratulations for having conceived such a mighty blow as the first act of the secret warfare which had been decreed for America by the Kaiser's command. So the plan was abandoned, but Captain Von Papen kept it in mind as being a scheme which would some day be available for his peculiar talents.
That time had now arrived. Caustic comments regarding the failure of the Kaiser's forces in America to lessen exports to the Allies, had become frequent in communications received from the Berlin offices. Particular references had been made to the large amount of supplies which were being shipped from Canada, references so particular in fact, that they might have been construed into a direct order to attack the Welland Canal. So it was that at the second time when the Welland Canal was discussed it was Von Bernstorff who first mentioned it, but in Von Papen he found a ready listener and one eager for the permission which was given.
"It is with reluctance that I give you permission to proceed," said Von Bernstorff. "Success will mean a great set-back to the Allies, but I fear the consequences. Supplies are necessary to England and France, but with all the available supplies which America could send to them, Germany would still be the victor. It is the man power of America we must fear."
"Bah! The American tin soldier!" sneered the military attache. "But you need not fear that the explosion will ever be traced to you. Neither Boy-Ed nor myself will take an active part. The necessary dynamite is already in our possession. Trustworthy men who have never been active in the interest of Germany will place it and explode it."
And Von Papen, scarcely waiting for the final words of warning from Von Bernstorff, hurried out to catch the train for New York. There he sought Paul Koenig, chief of detectives of the Hamburg American Steamship Line, the man who had procured the explosives and the men for the Welland plot. After listening to Von Papen's jubilant announcement that permission had been granted for the attack on the canal, Koenig broke in:
"It is good, I can no longer keep the dynamite in my offices. It must be taken some place else tonight. The boxes have been objects of suspicion since the night my men stole them from the barge in the river, and I dare not leave them there longer."
"There is no reason why we cannot take it to the Hohenzollern Club," answered Von Papen. "Four men can easily carry it in suit cases and from your office I will summon Boy-Ed and Heinric von Lertz."
No untoward incident interfered with the transfer of the dynamite. After it had been locked in the club safe the four men sat in the favorite corner of the military and naval aides, listening to a report of the plan for dynamiting one of the locks of the canal, from Koenig.
"Two of the men made a minute examination of the locks six years ago," Koenig said. "The examination was made with the full consent of the Canadian Government, at the time," and Koenig smirked over the thought, "the Hamburg American Line contemplated the establishment of a line of lake boats to be operated in connection with the trans-Atlantic line. I had the honor of forwarding the report, which contained much valuable information, to the Imperial German War Office."
"Back to the subject," interrupted Von Papen, impatiently, "what are the plans?"
"These men have selected three points in the canal which should be reached," continued Koenig, unabashed. "Men, experts in handling dynamite are already in Buffalo awaiting instructions. It is necessary only for some one authorized to go to them and give the orders to begin. They know what to do."
"In case any of them are captured?" asked Boy-Ed.
"They will keep their mouths shut," said Von Papen. "Each one is working for an exemption from military service, for they are all reservists. No punishment which can be inflicted will make them forget the punishment which Germany will mete out to all her slacker sons when the war is over."
"To success for his Majesty," said Von Lertz arising to his feet and reaching for one of the four seidels of beer which a waiter had placed on the table while Von Papen had been talking. He turned to face the large oil painting of the Kaiser which hung but a few feet from where he stood while Von Papen and Boy-Ed rose to their feet. Koenig, slower and clumsier, stumbled as he attempted to rise, staggered a few feet and then, regaining his equilibrium, smashed heavily into the frame of the portrait, knocking the picture askew.
A ladder was quickly brought, which Von Lertz mounted, attempting to straighten the portrait.
"His clumsiness has loosened one of the wires," he announced, then to Von Papen and Boy-Ed, "Franz, Karl, catch hold, we will take it down and have it fixed in a minute."
Struggling under the weight of the heavy frame they heard a choked exclamation from Koenig in his native tongue:
"Donnenrwetter, eine dictograph!"
The trio all but dropped the picture of the Kaiser in their haste to turn and gaze at the little object at which Koenig was pointing—a little instrument fastened to the blank wall which had been covered by the picture which they all knew had made audible, to anyone listening at the other end of wires, any conversation which had been held in the room.
Koenig was the first to recover from the dumbfoundment which the discovery occasioned. Despite the clumsiness he had shown but a few minutes before he sprung up the ladder with agility and busily traced the course of the wire, which had been concealed so cunningly behind the molding by operatives of the Secret Service. Then he quickly descended and carrying the ladder with him ran to the adjoining wall of the room where his keen eyes had shown him the wires ran into the plaster. Again he mounted the ladder and ripped angrily at the wire, pulling plaster away recklessly, finally tearing a hole large enough to expose the wires running upwards by means of a water pipe.
"The plumbers—when they were here for the leak in that wall—must have been Secret Service," jerked out Von Papen between savage fervid oaths, as the explanation of how the dictograph had been installed came to him.
"Quick. Upstairs and if you find anyone at the other end kill him before he has a chance to utter a word of what he has heard tonight," he ordered and then led the way to the stairs leading to the upper floors, a drawn automatic revolver in hand.
Koenig quickly traced the wires to the office room of an untenanted loft in a building adjoining the Hohenzollern Club. The door of the room was locked but gave way easily to the burly shoulders of Koenig. Matches quickly showed conditions which caused a general sigh of relief. Three chairs in the room, the table, the floor and every piece of furniture was covered with undisturbed dust, thick enough to be the accumulation of weeks.
"No one has been in here in months," said Boy-Ed, running his hand over the table and holding it up besmirched.
"Here are newspapers five months old," announced Von Lertz, picking up several from a corner and shaking the dust from them that he might read the date lines.
The evidence that this plotting of the evening could not have been overheard by the use of the dictograph was so conclusive that they stayed in the musty smelling room but a few seconds and then returned to the more comfortable quarters of the club room they had left so hurriedly. With the portrait of the Kaiser once more restored to its accustomed place, Von Papen delivered the final instructions.
"Boy-Ed, you will accompany me to Washington so that we can be with Count Von Bernstorff as surety to him that we are taking no active part. Koenig you stick closely to your accustomed business. Von Lertz you will go to Buffalo and assume charge. For the sake of precautions take Baroness Verbecht, Madam Stephan and Miss Mason with you. I have suggested Miss Mason because of the impression she has made upon the lucky whelp Harrison Grant, president of the Criminology Club. If he should happen to appear anywhere on the scene, a thing which it not unlikely, due to his infernal luck in being wherever he can harm us most, Miss Mason must do anything to keep him away from the canal the night of the day after tomorrow. The Baroness and Madam can care for any other men who are too intrusive. Ten o'clock of the second night from tonight is the hour for the destruction of the canal. We will be awaiting word of your success at the Imperial German Embassy in Washington. Good-night."
Koenig and Von Lertz accepted their dismissal and left the club together, but parted at the door, Koenig to go to the Sixth Avenue elevated station for a train to take him to less refined but more familiar resorts in lower Manhattan, and Von Lertz to hurry to the telephone booths in the Hotel Plaza. From a telephone there he pleaded in vain with Dixie Mason for permission to see her but a few minutes at once. He finally accepted her dictum that luncheon the following day would be the earliest possible moment at which she could meet him. He could not know that his voice had betrayed the fact to her that another Imperial German plot was pending and that she wanted her meeting with the spy to be in some public place where it would be possible to get word to the Secret Service at once of any information she might acquire.
So it was not by accident that Harrison Grant, president of the Criminology Club, was seated in an automobile just outside an entrance to one of Broadway's biggest hotels when Dixie Mason emerged the following day. To the passerby it would have seemed a chance meeting, extremely pleasurable to both.
"When did you take the dictograph out of the Hohenzollen Club?" she asked as he leaned out of the car to grasp her hand.
"Last night," was his answer.
"Last night? Why Heinric just assured me that he knew for a fact that the dictograph that was discovered had not been used in months."
"The impression we want him and the other worthies to get," responded Grant, and then to appease her curiosity, "since the day we installed it I knew that it might be discovered at any time and prepared for it. It might have nullified a great deal of information if they suspected anyone knew of conversations held in the Club. I was listening last night when Koenig fell against the picture and exposed the receiver. Newspapers, six months old, were in the corners of the room prepared for this emergency and we carefully scattered bags of dust which we had there over everything. We were descending the fire escape when they broke into the room."
"Then you have all the information I have gathered from Von Lertz," said Dixie well concealing the disappointment she felt. "You know that another attempt is to be made to dynamite the Welland Canal, and there is nothing I can do to help."
"We still need plenty of help, just of the peculiar kind you can give us," said Grant. "We only know that an attempt is to be made and that the dynamite has been procured. The canal is nearly twenty-seven miles long and to learn the place where the attempt is to be made would help us. Also an idea as to when the attempt is to be made."
"Then I have some information for you," smiled Dixie. "Heinric has just invited me to go to Buffalo with Baroness Verbecht, Madam Stephan and himself tonight. The Baroness and Madam are to entice any curious men away from their duties and I am to see that you discover nothing in case your luck should guide you to the spot."
"With such an inducement nothing can prevent me from reaching Buffalo tomorrow," said Grant.
"Bye-bye, then, until we meet there," answered Dixie and turned to re-enter the hotel.
A few moments later she had rejoined Heinric von Lertz in the dining room and was assuring him that the massage which he had suggested had all but vanquished her headache. Eagerly he extended an invitation to a matinee, dinner and then an auto ride to the railroad station in Jersey for the train to Buffalo, and was boyishly pleased when she accepted. Excusing himself, he telephoned brusque orders to Baroness Verbecht and Madam Stephan to join him at the train and then rejoined Dixie for the round of pleasure he had planned.
Arriving in Buffalo the party was driven to the Algonquin Hotel. As they paused at the desk for Von Lertz to register, a bellboy hurried up to Dixie.
"You dropped this, Miss," he asserted.
"Oh, I thank you," responded Dixie, accepting a dainty lace handkerchief she had never seen before, when she caught a significant gleam in the young man's eyes.
The bellboy turned away quickly to accept, nonchalantly, a tip which Von Lertz had extended. Without attracting the attention of the rest of her party, Dixie found an opportunity to stretch the handkerchief out. On the small piece of linen in the centre was written in pencil:
"Bearer of this will be constantly with me, and will keep careful watch for any messages from you. H.G."
"A trip to the Welland Canal is really nice in an auto."
It was the voice of Von Lertz which broke in upon the pleasant musings which the message had aroused.
"If that is intended for an invitation, there is nothing I would like better," responded Dixie quickly. "Will the Baroness and Madame accompany us?"
"They must remain here, for their work may begin any time," returned the spy and then escorted Dixie to a little roadster which he had procured.
There was but little conversation on the drive out. At the canal Von Lertz drove to three of the locks and carefully surveyed the surrounding land. As the inspection progressed his spirits rose rapidly.
"Good, good," he chuckled, half to Dixie and half to himself, "Koenig certainly knew what he was doing in selecting the men for this job."
On the return trip he chatted gaily, and seemed to be in no hurry to get back to the hotel, keeping the speed of the car well down to the road limit. Despite this, just as they entered the boundaries of Buffalo, a heavily goggled motorcycle policeman, blocked the road.
"Ten miles an hour's the limit on this road," he announced gruffly and Von Lertz brought the car to a surprised stop.
"Ten miles an hour?" demanded the angered spy, "why there isn't a car built that can stand that sort of a snail's pace."
"Ten miles an hour" reiterated the officer and Dixie recognized a ring on the finger of the hand extended toward Von Lertz. Quickly her hand dropped over the side of the car and for a moment her finger was busy writing in the dust which had collected there, while the now thoroughly incensed German volleyed a heated tirade at the policeman, who contented himself with repetitions of "ten miles an hour's the limit."
The attitude of the officer suddenly changed as Dixie's hand was withdrawn into the car and lay idle in her lap.
"Oh, all right, if you are going to get mad about it," he said and stepped aside peering intently at the side of the car on which Dixie was seated. Plainly written there were these words:
"Will send message boy by tonight. Watch hotel alley."
As the machine disappeared in the distance the motorcycle policeman raised his goggles and laughed. It was Harrison Grant.
But Heinric von Lertz did not know. Defying the rules of the road he was speeding toward the hotel, his good humor of a few minutes before dissipated by the dispute with Grant. Suddenly the speed of the car slackened but a few doors from the hotel.
"Do you know those two men?" demanded Von Lertz.
Dixie Mason turned in the direction he pointed. Baroness Verbecht and Madam Stephan were aiding Cavanaugh and Stewart of the Secret Service, both of them apparently intoxicated, into a taxicab standing at the curb. Stewart noticed Von Lertz pointing at them and waved a maudlin salute as he ordered the chauffeur to drive to a roadhouse on the outskirts of Buffalo in a thick loud voice.
"Do I know them?" retorted Dixie. "Do you know Harrison Grant?"
"Yes, the dog," muttered Von Lertz.
"Those are his two best men."
"Good," said Von Lertz, smiling happily, "I will commend Verbecht and Stephan in my report."
Dixie Mason smiled quietly. She had seen the method in which Secret Service operators acquired "business jags." She had watched operatives recklessly ordering drinks of every description and downing them in gulps, knowing that harmless substitutes had been served by another operative at the bar.
"You will have to excuse me," said Von Lertz as they entered the hotel. "I have to supervise arrangements. I will meet you in Verbecht's room at eight o'clock."
Dixie kept him well in sight as he turned away and as a result was able to send Harrison Grant the information that Von Lertz and three of Koenig's men had spent the afternoon attaching detonators to sticks of dynamite, by means of the operative in the guise of a bellboy. When she went to the room of Baroness Verbecht at the appointed hour she found Madam Stephan and the Baroness already there. Von Lertz entered a few moments later.
"You two here?" he demanded angrily of the female spies. "You left the two Secret Service men to their own devices."
"Not exactly," drawled Madam Stephan. "We left them, yes, but only after they had been tucked in bed in a drunken stupor. Both of them are so dead to the world that they would not awaken if they were sleeping on the top of the gates to lock fourteen tonight."
"Good, good," once more in good humor. "Everything has gone splendidly. I watched while Arth and Gerson left the hotel through the front entrance with bell boys carrying their suit cases loaded with dynamite. To guard against any suspicion they ordered a car for the railroad station. There another is awaiting them and they will make the canal in good time. Jacobson is still here. He will take out the stuff which is too big for suit cases. A car is awaiting him in the alley. He will go down the fire escape just in time to reach the canal at ten o'clock. The dynamite will have been placed and the wires run. A few seconds later—a muffled report and England will receive but little aid from Canada for many months to come. Is it not well planned?"
He paused for a moment to hear the words of praise from the three women, then continued.
"Come. You can see from here. Jacobson's things are already on the fire escape."
Baroness Verbecht and Madam Stephan crowded close to the window at which Von Lertz was standing, but Dixie Mason remained seated in her chair nervously knotting a bit of string she had found some place. Von Lertz quickly missed her and turned to look at her.
"Why you poor child," he said coming to her, "you appear all unstrung. There is not a thing to worry about."
"I know there isn't," responded Dixie with a twisted smile, "but it is almost unbelievable to me that at last we have done something without Harrison Grant knowing of it. I feel apprehensive for some reason. Are you sure there is no one in the hallway?"
"Why this is most unlike you, Miss Mason," responded Von Lertz. "But come see for yourself and relieve your worry."
He threw the door open and gave Dixie's arm a little re-assuring squeeze and she gazed up and down the long empty corridors.
"I believe I am making myself nervous with this old string," she said, ruefully casting it from her onto the floor.
"At least you know there is no one spying," said the German as he turned back into the room.
His voice would have lost the confidence it expressed as he continued to pour assuring words into her ears, if he could have known of a happening in the corridor. Scarcely had he drawn the door shut, when the door of the room across the corridor opened and a bellboy, who a moment before had been crouching inside with his eye at the keyhole, emerged. Stooping quickly to pick up the string which Dixie had thrown away he sped noiselessly down the corridor to the elevators.
But Von Lertz did not know, and continued to enlarge upon the efficacy of the precautions which had been taken, and how impossible it was for the Secret Service to have learned anything of the present plot. As he was talking a knock came on the door and a bellboy, the same one who had taken Dixie's piece of string from the floor of the corridor, put his head in:
"Did you ring, sir?" he asked, "No, sir? I am sorry."
The door was closed but a message had been delivered. To Dixie Mason the appearance of the bellboy at the door meant that her bit of string had reached Grant and had been understood. On the string she had tied knots spaced to the dots and dashes of the Morse code spelling out the following message:
"Lock fourteen. Ten o'clock. Watch alley."
"In a moment Jacobson will be starting," said Von Lertz moving toward the window.
Dixie accepted his unspoken invitation and moved to his side at the window and gazed down into the rapidly darkening alley. A moment after she had taken her position a figure emerged onto the fire escape, and it did not take the whispered words of the spy standing next to her to identify it as Jacobson. The dynamiter gathered up two large packages which were already on the platform outside his window and then made his way gingerly to the ground by way of the frail steel stairway. An automobile crept up to him out of the shadows of the building. Jacobson got in. The car began to move forward out of the alleyway and Dixie Mason became filled with a fearful dread. Suppose her message had not been understood and no watch had been placed on the alley?
But, no. A figure suddenly launched itself from the kitchen loading platform onto the running board of the car. A second appeared from the garbage cans, and the glint of a revolver could be seen in his hand, as he vaulted into the vacant seat by the driver. The car came to a sudden halt and a terrific struggle ensued in the tonneau. The struggle was short lived however. A revolver shot, the flash of which showed it to be in the air, and Jacobson was a prisoner.
"Look, look, isn't that Harrison Grant," gasped Von Lertz clutching Dixie's arm as another figure appeared in the alley running toward the car.
"Anyone hurt here?"
It was a call from the running figure which made his identification as the president of the Criminology Club a certainty.
Von Lertz who had been cursing fervidly as he gazed into the alleyway suddenly, affrightedly, became aware of his own precarious position.
"Quick, we must get out of here," he uttered hoarsely and led the way through the door to the corridor. There was no one but a bellboy to be seen, bearing a tray with a pitcher of water. Had Von Lertz been less occupied he might have recognized him as the same one who had been to the room a short time before, and had he stopped a little he would have seen that the tray concealed from view a wicked automatic revolver which was clutched tightly in the right hand of the hotel servant. The bellboy gazed blankly past the German spies directly at Dixie Mason who was in the rear. A slight shake of her head caused the boy to step back against the wall to permit free passage for the party.
Von Lertz led the women out of the hotel by devious routes which finally emerged into the open through a side door onto a darkened street.
"Remain here," he whispered, "while I get a car."
The three women stood in the shadow of the building, Madam Stephan and Baroness Verbecht whispering together in frightened voices. Dixie Mason was startled a trifle by a subdued voice from the shadows directly in back of her.
"Operative 523, Miss Mason," said the voice, "shall I arrest the party?"
"No," answered Dixie Mason without turning her head, "Von Lertz is of more value to us at large as a means of keeping tabs on the Imperial German spies."
So it was that Von Lertz was not molested when he returned with a high powered touring car driven by a competent looking chauffeur.
"I told him Miss Mason and I were eloping," he whispered, "and that you two were friends of hers going along as witnesses. He is willing to drive us clear to New York."
Intent only upon getting away from the Secret Service, Von Lertz forgot for the time being that Count Von Bernstorff, Dr. Albert with Captain Von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed were awaiting word from him that the canal had been dynamited successfully. More than an hour had elapsed since the arrest of Jacobson before Von Lertz remembered this matter and he ordered all speed to the nearest telegraph station. There it took him some time to prepare the message and it was nearly midnight before it was delivered at the Imperial German Embassy in Washington.
The quartet of the Kaiser's arch conspirators had been waiting impatiently. All of Von Bernstorff's fears in regard to the plot had been aroused when the time passed and no message was received. When the telegram did arrive he was at his private telephone answering a call which had been received a few minutes before.
"Why it's from Ithaca," exclaimed Von Papen who had torn open the yellow envelope, "My God, it says 'failed.' What can it mean?"
"It means this gentlemen," came the cold voice of Von Bernstorff from the doorway, "that at the present moment a demand is being made upon Imperial Germany for your recall from the United States. I have just received information that Jacobson was arrested as he was leaving the hotel, that Koenig's other men were arrested at the canal in the act of placing the dynamite. It means that the Secret Service had full information of the plot, that you have been outwitted straight through."
"They couldn't have known," interposed Von Papen. "It is some more of the infernal luck of Harrison Grant."
"They did know," said the Imperial German Ambassador, "for already a conference has been called at the State Department. That can mean but one thing—that your part and that of Boy-Ed is known. It is certain that your recalls as attaches of the Embassy will be made. You had been warned. There is nothing I can do. Oh, how could you have made such blunders!"
Von Papen did not answer for a moment. Nor Boy-Ed. Nor Albert. Then Von Papen with a growl, turned to his superior.
"We did the best we could. That is all anyone can do. And we have not failed yet. We may be recalled, but when we go, I promise you, that we will leave a reign of terror behind such as no country has ever experienced."
Chapter XIII.
THE REIGN OF TERROR
Captain Franz von Papen, and Captain Karl Boy-Ed were spending their last hours in America as attaches of the Imperial German Embassy, in conference with the German Ambassador in the Embassy at Washington. The discovery of their attempt to dynamite the Welland Canal had caused the action by the United States Government which Count Von Bernstorff had predicted. A demand had been made upon the German Government for their recall as accredited representatives of the Kaiser, and Imperial Germany had no choice in the matter. The request, styled in diplomatic language but in reality a demand which brooked no denial, was acceded to and already Von Bernstorff had received notice of the cancellation of their appointments as military and naval attaches, respectively, to the Washington Embassy.