Molly Brown's College Friends Part 27

"They are on this coach, just three seats down.--Good boy, not to jump out of your skin! Now I am going to show you my sketch of the woman before and after. See, there is no doubt about her! You walk to the smoker and on the way back get a good look at her face and I bet you will be convinced."

Jeffrey Tucker did as he was bid, giving Madame Misel such a casual look that he aroused no suspicion in her mind.

"Gee! This is great! I'd rather bag some of these spies than do big hunting in the African Jungle. Now, most wise of all female detectives, what do you advise? We must act quickly."

"I think you should take the conductors, both train and Pullman, into your confidence, and then send telegrams to New York to have the spies met with the proper reception. You can telegraph Bobby, I mean my father, if you think it best, and he can get in cahoots with the Secret Service people in New York. Bobby is the kind of man who doesn't let things go wrong. When he bores a hole in the mountain it comes out on the opposite side just exactly where he meant it to,--when he swings a bridge across a river it stays swung,--there is no giving way of supports and undermining from washings,--Bobby knows. If you telegraph him, he'll have detectives there all right and they will have the necessary warrants and handcuffs, too."

"Well then, Bobby it is!" and Jeffrey Tucker quickly took Mr. Kean's address. Next the conductors were interviewed, and those good Americans quickly complied with any and every request. A long and explicit telegram was written to the gentleman who did not let mistakes happen, another one sent to the chief of police, in case Mr. Kean should not be at home to receive the telegram, (Jeffrey Tucker being the kind of man who did not let mistakes occur, either,) and then there was nothing to do but sit quietly in the Pullman and wait for the train to steam into New York.

It seemed to Judy to be hours and hours, although the time certainly pa.s.sed pleasantly with the friends she made on the train. She and Mr.

Tucker talked to everybody except the two sporty looking individuals, and they would have had the audacity to talk with them if they had been given the slightest encouragement. But the Misels kept their backs studiously turned to their fellow travelers and did not court sociability.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ARREST

"Suppose they get off at Manhattan Junction and go to the Hudson Terminal instead of the big Pennsylvania Station!" panted Judy, her eyes shining with excitement and her fluffy hair standing on end as though an electric shock had gone through her system.

"Who is giving the game away now?" teased her new friend. "I thought of that and warned the chief when I telegraphed him. If they do get off there, I'll get off, too, and you can go on to the other station where your father will meet you."

"Not much I will! I'm going to keep my eye on that lavender spot until I see those wrists with something on them besides gold bracelets. You see, I feel responsible for this pair, having been the one to introduce them to Wellington society. If they get off at Manhattan Junction, so do I.

Bobby will understand! He would have no use for me if I didn't see it through."

"I believe you are a real patriot, Mrs. Brown."

"Of course I am! But one thing sure I am not going to give my husband to the cause, and my father, and then let these mean spies go Scot-free.

Now my dear friend and sister-in-law Molly,--Mrs. Edwin Green,--is so good that she can't believe anyone can be bad. She is just as patriotic as I am but she can't believe in the perfidy of Germany and the Germans.

I truly believe she would not have the heart to nab these wretches even if she could not deny their guilt. Molly is an angel herself and I fancy maybe her angelic qualities do rub off some even on the worst characters. She may have helped this Madame Misel some, who knows? But I am going to help her even more by letting her get a taste of real punishment."

"And I am going to do my best to help you help her," laughed Mr. Tucker.

"We are nearing Manhattan Junction now and I do not see our friends making ready to get off."

The pair sat quietly while the train stopped for a moment for pa.s.sengers to change for the downtown station. Judy and Mr. Tucker were on the alert to leave the train if they saw the slightest movement on the part of the Misels, but the latter sat in evident certainty of their disguise not having been penetrated.

"Now the curtain is to go up in a moment!" cried Judy. "I have never been in such a stew of expectation!"

The train had entered its under-water tunnel and in what seemed hardly a minute they found themselves in the Pennsylvania Station. Jeffrey Tucker, true to his nature, must a.s.sist the old lady from Louisiana and the mother and child, but this time he a.s.sisted them by calling the porter and, with a generous tip, put them in his hands. He had other and more urgent fish to fry.

"There's Bobby!" cried Judy. "They have let him through the gates!"

So they had, and others, also. Mr. Robert Kean was eagerly scanning the windows of the coaches as they slowly pa.s.sed in review. By his side were several alert looking men in plain clothes and near them were some bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned policemen.

"You go out first," whispered Mr. Tucker to the impatient Judy, who looked like a hunting dog straining at the leash. "I'll bring up the rear in case of a bolt."

The Misels got up quickly and without any delay moved towards the door.

They seemed perfectly unconcerned, the woman patting her curls and hat into shape and Misel actually having the hardihood to cast an ogling glance at Judy. That young woman returned his admiring look with a saucy toss of her head, entering into the game with her usual vim.

One hug for Bobby and a whisper in his ear:

"The handsome dame in lavender and the lout in checks!"

He in turn handed the information on to the plain clothes men, who were ready with their bracelets not made of gold.

The arrest was made so quietly that the mother and child who were in the midst of it never did know what was going on, and the old lady from Louisiana took her serene way right by the handcuffed Madame Misel without knowing that that lady had had an addition made to her bangles.

Misel was inclined to give some little trouble. When he realized they were trapped, he started back into the chair car, but was met in a head on collision by Jeffrey Tucker, who had a few football tricks left over from his not so far distant youth.

"Get out of my way! You fool!" cried the enraged Misel.

"Softly, my friend! The exit is the other way," purred the redoubtable Mr. Tucker, at the same time putting up his guard, seeing the foreigner was about to spring upon him. "Madame has gone out by the door behind you."

Bang! Misel's fist shot out, but Jeffrey Tucker was a match for any ordinary boxer, having practiced that manly art to keep up with his daughters who always put on the gloves to settle any difficulty, and, as they expressed it, to let off steam when the family atmosphere got too thick. He dodged the blow, holding his guard ready for the next.

Before the furious creature could recover himself after having given the empty air such a drubbing, the detectives approached him from the rear and in a twinkling he was overcome.

"What does this mean?" he asked, attempting an air of dignity.

"You shall have to come and find out!" was the laconic reply deigned him by the grim policeman who had him in charge.

"Mr. Kean, I am sorry to tell you, but your daughter will have to come to the police court to tell what she knows of these persons," said the leader of the plain clothes men.

"I'm not sorry! I want to see it through!" cried Judy.

"And so, we are to thank you for this indignity," hissed Madame.

"Thank me or the picturesque garden by your cottage--whichever you choose. It is a stirring thing to creep in that lovely garden on a romantic night and suddenly to see a poor lame man who has won the sympathy of the community, come springing out in running togs and have him beat Douglas Fairbanks and George Walsh in his jumping. Then to have the gentle, courteous Madame Misel boldly state that Wellington is composed of blockheads,--all in perfect German, too, which was a strange language for such good Frenchmen to employ in the bosom of the family."

"Judy, I wouldn't say any more!" said her father, but his eye was twinkling as he tucked his daughter's hand under his arm.

Mr. Tucker and Mr. Kean met as long lost friends. They were what Judy called soul brothers from the first. The old train conductor stopped to exchange greetings with his one-time acquaintance. He was loud in his praise of the young lady who had scared them all to death by jumping on the rear end of the moving train. He said nothing of the scolding he had given her before he found out she was Bob Kean's daughter.

The sketch book was convincing evidence that the sporty couple were no other than Monsieur and Madame Misel. Judy told her story well to the chief, showing the clever sketches taken before and after.

While they were at the police court, a long distance message was received from Wellington with the news that the flitting of the spies had been discovered by the detectives sent there on the case.

"It would have been too late if you had not been so wide awake," the chief informed Judy.

"And I could have done nothing if Mr. Tucker had not taken hold,"

declared Judy.

"Why, my dear Mrs. Brown, you would have found some other way, I am sure. You do not come of a breed that lets accidents happen."

The Misels turned out to be pure Prussian, with not one drop of the blood of Alsace in their veins. Their name was Mitzel and they had many crimes to answer for. They had been on the stage prior to the war and the man was a noted acrobat and prestidigitator; the woman had traveled with her husband and a.s.sisted him in his work on the stage, being the hypnotized lady, the Herodian mystery, the disappearing spirit, the person who got tied up in the chest and had a sword run through her,--anything, in fact, that is usually required of the a.s.sistant in such a business. They were employed to act as spies and to disseminate all the German propaganda in their power.

Misel, or Mitzel, was to have insinuated an anti-draft spirit at Exmoor, the male college near Wellington. Also to influence the girls at Wellington, who in their turn were to influence their brothers and sweethearts.