The Apartment Next Door Part 13

"He wasn't trying to escape," she angrily retorted. "Look--quick--mind your prisoners."

He turned just in time to see the Germans behind him lowering their arms. In another second they would have been on his back. At the sight of his brandished revolver, their arms were quickly raised again.

Meanwhile Fleck's men, guided by Jane's light, were laying about them with their rifles clubbed. The plotters were at a disadvantage in not realizing how few there were in the attacking party. Fleck's announcement that the house was surrounded had both deceived and disheartened them. When three of their number had been knocked senseless to the floor the others surrendered and joined the group that stood with hands up.

To Fleck's amazement it was Frederic Hoff who led in the surrender.

"Watch that young Hoff," he whispered to Carter. "I can't understand his giving up so easily. It may be only a ruse on his part."

"Perhaps he's afraid the girl will be hurt," whispered Carter, but Fleck was not there to hear him, having dashed forward to where old Otto was still fighting desperately.

Somehow in the melee the old man had again got hold of a revolver, and just as Fleck seized him he fired again. The bullet, aimed at Fleck, left him unharmed, but found a mark in Thomas Dean, who with a little gurgling cry, fell forward at Jane's feet. Carter turned at once to guard the prisoners, as Fleck, with a cry of rage, felled old Hoff to the floor, harmless for the present at least.

Sending one of his men to the other rooms in search of lamps Fleck soon had all the prisoners safely shackled, both hand and foot, none of them offering any resistance. Investigation showed that old Hoff in falling had struck his head in such a way that his neck was broken, killing him instantly. The three who had been clubbed were not seriously injured, and as soon as they revived were shackled as the others had been.

Jane, seeing Dean collapse, had turned to aid him and for some time had been bending over him, trying to revive him. He had opened his eyes, looked up into her face and had tried to say something, and then had collapsed, dying right before her eyes.

"Take the Hoffs' car outside," Fleck directed some of his men, "and bring up our two cars at once. Carter and I'll guard the prisoners until you get back. There's a county jail only a few miles away. The sooner we get them there the better it will be. It won't take any court long to settle their fate. They got Dean, didn't they?"

"Yes," said Jane, getting up unsteadily from the floor, "I think he's dead."

Fleck bent to examine the body of his aide, feeling for the pulse.

"Too bad," he murmured. "That last bullet of old Hoff's got him, but he died in a good cause."

Jane, brushing away the tears that came welling unbidden into her eyes, turned now for the first time since his surrender to look at Frederic.

She had expected as she looked at him lying there shackled on the floor to read in his expression humiliation at his plight, grief at the failure of his effort to aid Germany, possibly reproach for her in having aided in entrapping him. To her amazement there was nothing of this in his face.

As he lay there on the floor he was observing her with a tender look of love, and in his eyes what was still more puzzling was an unmistakable expression of triumph and happiness.

CHAPTER XVII.

SOMETHING UNEXPECTED.

Bewildered by the rapidity with which such a succession of terrifying events had taken place, Jane sank dazedly into a chair, trying her best to collect her thoughts, as she looked about on the recent scene of battle. All of the German plotters had been overcome and captured. There, dead on the floor, lay the arch conspirator, old Otto Hoff, his clammy face still twisted into a savage expression of malignant, defiant hate.

And there, too, a martyr to the country's cause, lay Thomas Dean. A sob of pity rose in Jane's throat as she thought of him, and the great tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks. He was so young, so brave, so fine. Why must Death have come to him when there was yet so much he might have done? With his talent and education, with his wonderful spirit of self-sacrifice, he might have gone far and high. Regretfully, she recalled that he had loved her, and with kind pity in her heart she reproached herself for not having been able to return to this fine, clean, American youth the affection she had inspired in him.

Thomas Dean, she told herself, was the type of man she should have loved, a man of her own people, with her own ideals, a man of her country, her flag, and yet-- There on the floor, not a dozen feet away from her, shameful circlets of steel girdling both his wrists and his ankles, lay the one man for whom she knew now she cared the most in all the world, the man she had just betrayed into Chief Fleck's hands.

Bitterly she reproached herself for not having tried to induce Frederic to escape. In mental anguish she pictured him--the man she loved--standing in the prisoner's dock in some courtroom, branded as a spy, as a leader of spies, charged with an attempt to slaughter the inhabitants--the women and children--of a sleeping, unprotected city. With growing horror it came to her that in all probability she herself would be called on to testify against him. It might even be her evidence that would result in his being led out before a firing squad and put to an ignominious death.

She dared not even look in his direction now. What must he be thinking about her? He had known that she loved him. In despair and doubt she wondered whether he could understand that she, too, had been influenced to perform her soul-wracking task by a sense of honor, of duty to her country equally as potent as that which had impelled him to partic.i.p.ate in this terrible plan to destroy New York. Why had she not informed him that his plans were known to the United States Government's agents? Surely she could have convinced him that his was a hopeless mission. The plot would have been successfully thwarted, and he would not be lying there in shackles, but, even though forced to flee, who knew, perhaps some day after peace had come, he might have been able to return for her. A great sob rose from her heart, but she stifled it back. She would be brave and true. She must be glad for those of her people that had been saved.

But her parents! What would they say? Her father and mother soon now must learn that she had been deceiving them day after day. How horrified and amazed they would be to learn that the chauffeur she had brought into the household was in reality a government detective, and that she, their daughter, had been a witness of his tragic death. What would they think when they learned about her part in this gruesome drama that had just been enacted? They, serene in their trust in her, supposing she was at the home of one of her girl friends, were peacefully asleep in their quiet apartment. How horror-stricken her mother would be if she could have seen her daughter at this moment, alone at midnight in a mountain shack, one girl among a band of strange men--and two men stretched dead on the floor.

And Frederic! Always her perturbed imaginings led back to Frederic, to the terrible fate that lay in store for him, to the awfulness of war that had put between them an impa.s.sable gulf of blood and guilt and treachery that, in spite of their love for each other, kept them at cross purposes and made them enemies. Why, she vaguely wondered, must governments disagree and start wars and make men hate and kill each other? What was it all for?

In the midst of her mental wanderings she became conscious that Fleck was speaking to Carter.

"I'll stay here with Miss Strong and the prisoners," he was saying. "While we are waiting for the men to return with the cars, you'd better make a search of the house."

"Why not wait until daylight for that?" suggested Carter.

"It is not safe," the chief objected. "To-night is the time to do it. A plot important enough to have the especial attention of the war office in Berlin must have many important persons involved in it. Somebody with money in New York, some influential German sympathizer, must have helped old Hoff set up these aeroplanes here and equip his shop. Some chemical plant supplied the material for those bombs. It must have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars to carry the plan to completion. Men rich enough and powerful enough to have put through this plot are powerful enough to be still dangerous. The minute word reaches the city that the plan has miscarried there will be some one up here posthaste to destroy or remove any damaging evidence we may have overlooked. Now is the time to do our searching."

"You're right, Chief," Carter admitted. "It would not surprise me if there is not a wireless plant here. I'll soon find out."

"Let me help," cried Jane.

Her nerves were suffering from a sharp reaction. All through the excitement of the attack she had remained calm and collected, but now she felt that if she remained another minute in the same room with the two bodies, if she stayed near that row of shackled prisoners, if she should chance to catch Frederic's eye, she either would burst into hysterical weeping or would collapse entirely. If only there was some activity in which she could engage it might serve to divert the current of maddening thoughts that kept overwhelming her. With something to do she might regain her self-control.

"Please let me help Mr. Carter," she begged.

"Certainly," said Fleck, "go ahead. You have earned the right to do anything you wish to-night."

Guided by the light of an electric torch Carter and she quickly made their way to the upper floor. In most of the rooms they found only cheap cots with blankets, evidently the sleeping quarters of the workmen, but in one of the rooms was a desk, and from it a ladder led to an unfinished attic. Boldly climbing the ladder and flashing their torch about they quickly located a high-powered wireless outfit. It was mounted on a sliding shelf by which it could be quickly concealed in a secret cupboard, but evidently the plotters had felt so secure from intrusion in their retreat that they had been in the habit of leaving it exposed.

"I thought we'd find it," said Carter exultantly. "It's an ideal location, up here in the mountains. I'd better smash it at once."

"Wait," warned Jane, thoughtfully, "they spoke of having received a wireless message from those dreadful X-boats lying there off the coast. If we could only find their code-book, perhaps--"

"Right," cried Carter, catching her idea at once.

Together they descended to the room below and began ransacking the desk, Jane holding the light while Carter examined the papers they found.

"Their system sometimes is bad for them," said Carter. "Here's a ledger with the names of all the men employed here and the amounts paid to each. And look," he went on excitedly, "look what the stupid fools have done with their German methodicalness--here are entries showing all the supplies they obtained, from whom they got them and what they cost. There's evidence here for a hundred convictions. We'll just take that book along."

There was one small drawer in the desk that was locked. Ruthlessly Carter smashed the woodwork and pried it open. Its only contents was a small parcel, a folded paper in a parchment envelope. Hastily he drew forth the paper and studied it intently.

"It's a code," he cried, "a naval code, evidently the very one they used to communicate with those boats. I'll wager the Washington people even haven't a copy of it. That's a great find. Come on, we've got enough for one night."

"Do any of the men in our party understand wireless?" asked Jane as they descended.

"Sure," said Carter, "Sills does. He used to be the radio man on a battleship."

"Couldn't he be left on watch here?" suggested Jane, "and try to signal those X-boats and keep them waiting until to-morrow night? Maybe by that time our--"

"I get you," cried Carter; "that's a good idea. Explain it to the Chief."

As Jane unfolded her plan, suggesting the possibility of sending American cruisers out to search for the X-boats after Sills had lured them by false messages to the surface, Fleck heartily approved of it.

"I'll leave Sills here with one other man to guard the house," he said. "We'll have to let poor Dean's body remain here for the present, too. We'll need all the room in the cars for the prisoners."

There was still much to be done. While some of the men were unceremoniously carrying out the shackled prisoners and piling them in the cars, others, under Carter's direction, crippled the three "wonder-workers" and dismantled them, carrying their dangerous cargo of bombs into the woods and concealing them.

None of the prisoners, since the moment the shackles had been put on, had uttered a word. Sullen silence held all of them unprotestingly in its grip. Even Frederic kept his peace, though from time to time his glance roved about, seeking Jane, and always in his eyes was a strange look, not of defeat, nor of shame, but rather of exultant triumph. Jane still dared not trust herself to look in his direction, but Fleck and Carter, too, observed curiously the expression in his eyes. Was he, they wondered, rejoicing over Dean's untimely end? Did he, with true Prussian arrogance, in spite of the failure of his plot, still dare to hope that with Dean out of the way, he might escape punishment and yet win Jane Strong? Even as they picked him up, the last of the prisoners, and put him in the rear seat of the chief's car, his eyes still sought for Jane.

It was long after midnight before the strange cavalcade left the mountain shack. Fleck's car led the way, with the chief himself at the wheel, and Jane beside him. Crowded on the rear seat were Frederic and two other prisoners, and standing in the tonneau, facing them with his revolver drawn in case they should make an attempt to escape in spite of their shackles, was Fleck's chauffeur. Carter was at the wheel of the second car with five prisoners and a man on guard, and the arrangement in the third car was the same. Six men and a girl to transport thirteen prisoners! Inwardly Fleck was congratulating himself on his forethought in having provided shackles enough to go around, for otherwise he surely would have had a perilous job on his hands.

As they rode down the mountain lane, Jane rejoiced at the darkness that hid her face, both from Fleck and from Frederic on the seat behind. Now that there was no activity to distract her maddening thoughts once more paced in turmoil through her brain. She loved this man, and she was leading him to disgrace and death. She hated and despised him. He was a treacherous, dangerous enemy of her country whom she had helped to trap, and she was glad, glad, glad. No, no! She wasn't glad. She loved him. He had given her that sealed packet and had charged her to keep it for him. He couldn't be all bad. Why must she love him? Her mind told her he was a criminal, an enemy, a spy, a murderer, yet her wilful heart insisted that she loved him. How strange life was! She and Frederic loved each other. Why could they not marry and be happy? Why was War? Why must nations fight? Why must people hate each other? Was the whole world mad? Was she going mad herself?

Slowly and carefully, Fleck, with his lights on full, had steered the automobile down the narrow roadway through the woods. He had just turned the car safely into the main road, and stopped to look back to see how closely the other cars were following. Suddenly from the wayside a dozen men in uniform sprang up, the glint of their guns made visible by the automobile lights.

"Halt," cried a voice of authority.

The one glimpse he had caught of the uniform had conveyed to Fleck the welcome fact that the party surrounding him were Americans--cavalry troopers.

"Chief Fleck," he announced, by way of identification. "Who are you?"

A tall figure in officer's clothes sprang up on the running board and peered into Fleck's face.

"Thank G.o.d, Chief," he said, "that it's you."

"Colonel Brook-White," cried Fleck in amazement, recognizing the voice as that of one of the officers in charge of the British Government's Intelligence Service in America. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to round up some bally German spies," explained Brook-White.

"I've beaten you to it," cried Fleck, with a note of triumph in his tone. "I've got them all here in shackles."

"Good," said Brook-White delightedly. "I was fearful I'd be too late. There was delay in getting a message to me. As soon as I had it, I tried to reach you and couldn't. I dared not wait but dashed up here in my car. I knew there were some American troopers camped near here, and I persuaded the commander to detail some of his men to help me. Did you really capture the Hoff chap, old Otto?"

"He's better than captured," said Fleck. "He's lying dead back there in the house."

"Good," cried Brook-White. "He was infernally dangerous according to my advices--but Captain Seymour--where is he? Wasn't he working with you?"

"Captain Seymour?" cried Fleck in astonishment. "I never heard of him. Who's Captain Seymour?"

"He's one of my chaps," explained Brook-White. "Wasn't it he who steered you up here?"

"I should say not," said Fleck emphatically.

"Good Lord," cried the British colonel excitedly. "You don't suppose those b.l.o.o.d.y Boches got him at the last--after all he's been through? I hope he's safe."

"Don't worry, Colonel Brook-White," came the calm voice of Frederic Hoff from the rear seat. "Chief Fleck has me here safe in shackles with the other prisoners."

"G.o.d," cried Fleck, in astonished perplexity. "Is Frederic Hoff a Britisher--one of your men?"

"Rather," said Brook-White. "Chief Fleck, may I present Captain Sir Frederic Seymour, of the Royal Kentish Dragoons."

But Fleck was too busy just then to heed the introduction, or to pay attention to the muttered "Donnerwetters" of indignation that burst from the lips of his other prisoners.

Jane Strong had fainted dead away against his shoulder.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHAT THE PACKET CONTAINED.

"But," said Jane, "I can't understand it yet. How did you happen to be living with old Otto Hoff? How did you ever get him to trust you with his terrible secrets?"

Captain Seymour chortled gleefully. Now that he was arrayed in proper British clothes, once more comfortable in the uniform of his regiment and had his monocle in place and was with Jane again, everything looked radiantly different. Even his speech no longer retained its international quality but now was tinctured with London mannerisms.

"Oh, I say," he replied, "that was a ripping joke on the bally Dutchmen."

Jane eyed him uncertainly. He seemed almost like a stranger to her in this unfamiliar guise, though for hours she had been eagerly looking forward to his coming.

The exciting developments of the night before still were to her very puzzling. She recalled Frederic's identification of himself, and after that all was blank. When she had come to she had found herself in a motor being rapidly driven toward New York in the early dawn, with Carter as her escort. He had not been inclined to be at all communicative.

"Let the Captain tell you the story himself," said Carter. "He knows all the details."

"But when can I see him?" questioned Jane. "When," she hesitated, remembering the shameful bonds that had held him, "when will he be free?"

"He's as free this minute as we are," Carter explained. "It didn't take the Chief long to get the bracelets off, after Colonel Brook-White had identified him. There's a lot for the Captain to do still, but rest a.s.sured, he'll waste no time getting back to the city to see you."

"I hope not," sighed the girl.

She was too weary, too weak from the revulsion of feeling that had come on learning that her lover instead of being a dastardly spy was a wonderful hero, to make even a pretense at maidenly modesty. She wanted to see Frederic too much to care what any one thought.

Slipping into her home fortunately without arousing any of her family, she had gone to bed with the intention of getting a rest of an hour or two. Sleep, she was sure, would be impossible, for she felt far too excited and upset. Yet she had not realized how utterly exhausted she was. Hardly had her head touched the pillow before she was lost to everything, and it was long after noon when a maid aroused her to announce that Captain Seymour had 'phoned that he would call at three.

As she dressed to receive him, she was wondering how she should greet him. Blushingly she recalled the impa.s.sioned kiss he had pressed on her lips--why it was only yesterday. It had seemed ages and ages ago, so much had intervened. Mingled with a shyness that arose from her vivid memories was also a shade of indignation. Why had he not told her? Did he not trust her? She resolved to punish him for not taking her into his confidence by an air of coldness toward him. Certainly he deserved it.

Yet, when he arrived, so full of animation did he appear to be, that the lofty manner in which she greeted him apparently went unnoticed. He met her with a warm handclasp and anxious inquiries about how she felt after all the exciting events. Too filled with eagerness to know all the details of his adventures she had found it difficult to maintain her pose, and soon was seated cosily beside him, asking him question after question, all the while furtively studying him in his proper role. As Frederic Hoff she had thought him wonderfully handsome and masterful. As Captain Sir Frederic Seymour, in his regimental finery, he was simply irresistible.

"A joke?" she repeated. "Do explain, I'm dying to know all about it."

"It wasn't half as difficult a job as one might imagine, you know. Our censor chaps at home have got to be quite expert at reading letters, invisible ink and all that sort of thing. Hoff for months had been sending cipher messages to the war office in Berlin. He kept urging them to act on his all-wonderful plan for blowing up New York. They decided finally to try it and notified old Otto they were sending over an officer to supervise the job."

"What became of him? The officer they sent over?"

"Our people picked him off a Scandinavian boat and locked him up. They took his papers and turned them over to me. Clever, wasn't it?"