The Girl from Alsace Part 15

Stewart started to give some additional information about the family, but restrained himself.

The inspector looked at them both keenly for a moment, scratching his bearded chin reflectively. Then he took a rapid turn up and down the shed, his brow furrowed in thought.

"I shall have to ask you both to disrobe," he said, at last, and as Stewart started to his feet in hot protest, he added, quickly, "I have a woman who will disrobe Madame."

"But this is an outrage!" protested Stewart, his face crimson. "This lady is my wife--I won't stand by and see her insulted. I warn you that you are making a serious mistake."

"She shall not be insulted. Besides, it is necessary."

"I don't see it."

"That is for me to decide," said the other bluntly, and he put his whistle to his lips and blew two blasts.

A door at the farther end of the shed opened and a woman entered. She was a matronly creature with a kind face, and she smiled encouragingly at the shrinking girl.

"Frau Ritter," said the officer in German, "you will take this lady into the office and disrobe her. Bring her clothing to me here--all of it."

Again Stewart started to protest, but the officer silenced him with a gesture.

"It is useless to attempt resistance," he said, sharply. "I must do my duty--by force if necessary. It will be much wiser to obey quietly."

The girl rose to her feet, evidently rea.s.sured by the benevolent appearance of the woman.

"Do not worry, Tommy," she said. "It will be all right. It is of no use to argue with these people. There is nothing to do but submit."

"So it seems," Stewart muttered, and watched her until she disappeared through the door.

"Now, sir," said the officer, sharply, "your clothes."

Crimson with anger and humiliation, Stewart handed them over piece by piece, saw pockets turned out, linings loosened here and there, the heels of his shoes examined, his fountain-pen unscrewed and emptied of its ink. At last he stood naked under the flaring light, feeling helpless as a baby.

"Well, I hope you are satisfied," he said, vindictively.

With a curt nod, the officer handed him back his underwear.

"I will keep these for the moment," he said, indicating the little pile of things taken from the pockets. "You may dress. _Your_ clothes, at least, are American!"

As he spoke, the woman entered from the farther door, with a bundle of clothing in her arms. Stewart turned hastily away, struggling into his trousers as rapidly as he could, and cursing the careless immodesty of these people. Sullenly he laced his shoes, and put on his collar, noting wrathfully that it was soiled. He kept his back to the man at the table--he felt that it would be indecent to watch him scrutinizing those intimate articles of apparel.

"You have examined her hair?" he heard the man ask.

"Yes, Excellency."

"Very well; you may take these back."

Not until he heard the door close behind her did Stewart turn around.

The officer was lighting a cigarette. The careless unconcern of the act added new fuel to the American's wrath.

"Perhaps you will tell me the meaning of all this?" he demanded. "Why should my wife and I be compelled to submit to these indignities?"

"We are looking for a spy," replied the other imperturbably, and addressed himself to an examination of the things he had taken from Stewart's pockets--his penknife, his watch, the contents of his purse, the papers in his pocket-book. He even placed a meditative finger for an instant on the two tiny metal clips which had come from the Cook ticket.

But to reconstruct their use was evidently too great a task even for a German police agent, for he pa.s.sed on almost at once to something else.

"Very good," he said at last, pushed the pile toward its owner, and opened the pa.s.sport, which he had laid to one side.

"That pa.s.sport will tell you that I am not a spy," said Stewart, putting his things angrily back into his pockets. "That, it seems to me, should be sufficient."

"As far as you are concerned, it is entirely sufficient," said the other. "One can see at a glance that you are an American. But the appearance of Madame is distinctly French."

"Americans are of every race," Stewart pointed out. "I have seen many who look far more German than you do."

"That is true; but it so happens that the spy we are looking for is a woman. I cannot tell you more, except that it is imperative she does not escape."

"And you suspect my wife?" Stewart demanded. "But that is absurd!"

He was proud of the fact that he had managed to maintain unaltered his expression of virtuous indignation, for a sudden chill had run down his spine at the other's careless words. Evidently the situation was far more dangerous than he had suspected! Then he was conscious that his hands were trembling slightly, and thrust them quickly into his pockets.

"The fact that she joined you at Aachen seemed most suspicious," the inspector pointed out. "I do not remember that you mentioned her during your conversation with the ladies in the train."

"Certainly not. Why should I have mentioned her?"

"There was perhaps no reason for doing so," the inspector admitted.

"Nevertheless, it seemed to us unusual that she should have come back from Spa to Aachen to meet you, when she might, so much more conveniently, have gone direct to Brussels and awaited you there."

"She has explained why we made that arrangement."

"Yes," and through half-closed eyes he watched the smoke from his cigarette circle upwards toward the lamp. "Conjugal affection--most admirable, I am sure! It is unfortunate that Madame's appearance should answer so closely to that of the woman for whom we are searching. It was also unfortunate that you should have met at the Kolner Hof. That hotel has not a good reputation--it is frequented by too many French whose business is not quite clear to us. How did it happen that you went there?"

"Why," retorted Stewart hotly, glad of the chance to return one of the many blows which had been rained upon him, "one of your own men recommended it."

"One of my own men? I do not understand," and the officer looked at him curiously.

"At least one of the police. He came to me at the Hotel Continental at Cologne to examine my pa.s.sport. He asked me where I was going from Cologne, and I told him to Aix-la-Chapelle. He asked at which hotel I was going to stay, and I said I did not know. He said he would like to have that information for his report, and added that the Kolner Hof was near the station and very clean and comfortable. I certainly found it so."

The officer was listening with peculiar intentness.

"Why were you not at the station to meet your wife?" he asked.

"I did not know when she would arrive; I was told that the trains were all running irregularly," answered Stewart, prouder of his ability to lie well and quickly than he had ever been of anything else in his life.

"But how did she know at which hotel to find you?" inquired the officer, and negligently flipped the ash from his cigarette.

Stewart distinctly felt his heart turn over as he saw the abyss at his feet. How would she have known? How _could_ she have known? What would he have done if he had really had a wife waiting at Spa? These questions flashed through his head like lightning.

"Why, I telegraphed her, of course," he said; "and to make a.s.surance doubly sure, I sent her a postcard." And then his heart fell again, for he realized that the police had only to wire to Cologne to prove that no such message had been filed there.

But the officer tossed away his cigarette with a little gesture of satisfaction.

"It was well you took the latter precaution, Mr. Stewart," he said, and Stewart detected a subtle change in his tone--it was less cold, more friendly. "The wires were closed last night to any but official business, and your message could not possibly have got through. I am surprised that it was accepted."