Ruth Fielding In the Red Cross; Doing Her Best For Uncle Sam

There was close connection between the two criminals, who had come from America on the Red Cross steamship, Legrand and José, with whatever was going on between the Chateau Marchand and the Germans. Werwolf, or despatch dog, Ruth was confident that the creature that ran by night across the shell-racked fields was trained to spy work.

Who was guilty at the chateau? That seemed to be an open question.

Henriette’s declaration that it was not the Countess Marchand, strengthened the suspicion already rife in Ruth’s mind that the old servant, Bessie, was the German-lover.

The latter was known to José, one of the crooks from America. She might easily be of the same nationality as José – Mexican. And the Mexicans largely are pro-German.

José and Legrand were already under suspicion of a huge swindle in Red Cross stores. It would seem that if these men would steal, it was fair to presume they would betray the French Government for money.

It was a mixed-up and doubtful situation at best. Ruth Fielding intuitively felt that she had hold of the ends of certain threads of evidence that must, in time, lead to the unraveling of the whole scheme of deceit and intrigue.

It was still light enough on the upland for the girls to see some distance along the road ahead. Henriette drove the car slowly as they approached the wide gateway of the chateau.

Ruth distinguished the flutter of something white by the gate and wondered if it was the “werwolf” or the old serving woman. But when she called Henriette’s attention to the moving object the French girl cried, under her breath:

“Oh! It is the countess! Look you, Mademoiselle Ruth, perhaps she will speak to us.”

“But there’s something with her. It is a dog,” the American girl declared.

“Why that is only Bubu, the old hound. He is always with the countess when she walks out. He is a greyhound – see you? It is foolish, Mademoiselle, to connect Bubu with the werwolf,” and she shrugged her plump shoulders.

Ruth paid more attention to the dog at first than she did to the lady who held the loop of his leash. He wore a dark blanket, which covered most of his body, even to his ears. His legs were long, of course, and Ruth discovered another thing in a moment, while the car rolled nearer.

The thin legs of the slate-colored beast were covered with mud. That mud was not yet dry. The dog had been running at large within the last few minutes, the girl was sure.

CHAPTER XXIII – RUTH DOES HER DUTY

The query that came sharply to Ruth Fielding’s mind was: Without his blanket and off his leash, what would Bubu, the greyhound, look like in the gloaming? The next moment the tall old lady walking by the observant dog’s side, raised her hand and nodded to Henriette.

“Oh, Madame!” gasped the French girl, and brought the car to an instant stop.

“I thought it was my little Hetty,” the countess said in French, and smiling. “Hast been to Lyse for the good father?”

“Yes, Madame,” replied the girl.

“And what news do you bring?”

The voice of the old lady was very kind. Ruth, watching her closely, thought that if the Countess Marchand was a spy for Germany, and was wicked at heart, she was a wonderfully good actress.

She had a most graceful carriage. Her hair, which was snow white, was dressed most becomingly. Her cheeks were naturally pink; yet her throat and under her chin the skin was like old ivory and much wrinkled. She was dressed plainly, although the cape about her shoulders was trimmed with expensive fur.

Henriette replied to her queries bashfully, bobbing her head at every reply. She was much impressed by the lady’s attention. Finally the latter looked full at Ruth, and asked:

“Your friend is from the hospital, Hetty?”

“Oh, yes, Madame!” Henriette hastened to say. “She is an Americaine. Of the Red Cross.”

“I could imagine her nativity,” said the countess, bowing to Ruth, and with cordiality. “I traveled much with the count – years ago. All over America. I deem all Americans my friends.”

“Thank you, Madame,” replied Ruth gravely.

At the moment the stern-faced Bessie came through the little postern gate. She approached the countess and stood for a moment respectfully waiting her mistress’ attention.

“Ah, here is the good Bessie,” said the countess, and passed the serving woman the loop of the dog’s leather leash. “Take him away, Bessie. Naughty Bubu! Do you know, he should be punished – and punished severely. He had slipped his collar again. See his legs? You must draw the collar up another hole, Bessie.”

The harsh voice of the old woman replied, but Ruth could not understand what she said. The dog was led away; but Ruth saw that Bessie stared at her, Ruth, curiously – or was it threateningly?

The countess turned again to speak to the two girls. “Old Bessie comes from America, Mademoiselle,” she explained. “I brought her over years ago. She has long served me.”

“She comes from Mexico, does she not?” Ruth asked quietly.

“Yes. I see you have bright eyes – you are observant,” said the countess. “Yes. Mexico was Bessie’s birthplace, although she is not all Spanish.”

Ruth thought to herself: “I could guarantee that. She is part German. ‘Elizabeth’ – yes, indeed! And does this lady never suspect what her serving woman may be?”

The countess dismissed them with another kindly word and gesture. Henriette was very much wrought up over the incident.

“She is a great lady,” she whispered to Ruth. “Wait till I tell my father and mother how she spoke to me. They will be delighted.”

“And this is a republic!” smiled Ruth. Even mild toadyism did not much please this American girl. “Still,” she thought, “we are inclined to bow down and worship a less worthy aristocracy at home – the aristocracy of wealth.”

Henriette ran her down to the town and to the hospital gate. Ruth was more than tired – she felt exhausted when she got out of the car. But she saw the matron before retiring to her own cell for a few hours’ sleep.

“We shall need you, Mademoiselle,” the Frenchwoman said distractedly. “Oh! so many poor men are here. They have been bringing them in all day. There is a lull on the front, or I do not know what we should do. The poor, poor men!”

Ruth had to rest for a while, however, although she did not sleep. Her mind was too painfully active.

Her thoughts drummed continually upon two subjects, the mystery regarding Tom Cameron – his letter to her found in another man’s pocket. Secondly, the complications of the plot in which the woman in black, the two crooks from America, and the occupants of the chateau seemed all entangled.

She hoped hourly to hear from Tom; but no word came. She wished, indeed, that she might even see Charlie Bragg again; but nobody seemed to have seen him about the hospital of late. The ambulance corps was shifted around so frequently that there was no knowing where he could be found, save at his headquarters up near the front. And Ruth Fielding felt that she was quite as near the front here at Clair as she ever wished to be!

She went on duty before midnight and remained at work until after supper the next evening. She had nothing to do with the severely wounded, of course; but there was plenty to do for those who had already been in the hospital some time, and whom she knew.

Ruth could aid them in simple matters, could read to them, write for them, quiet them if they were nervous or suffering from shell-shock. She tried to forget her personal anxieties in attending to the poor fellows and aiding them to forget their wounds, if for only a little while.

But she climbed to her cell at last, worn out as she was by the long strain, with a determination to communicate with the French police-head in Lyse regarding the men who had robbed the Red Cross supply department.

She wrote the letter with the deliberate intention of laying all the mystery, as she saw it, before the authorities. She would protect the woman in black no longer. Nor did she ignore the possibility of the Countess Marchand and her old serving woman being in some way connected with Legrand and José, the Mexican.

She lay bare the fact that the two men from America had been in a plot to rob the Red Cross at Robinsburg, and how they had accomplished their ends with the connivance (as Ruth believed) of Rose Mantel. She spared none of the particulars of this early incident.

She wrote that she had seen the man, José, in his character of the lame Italian, both on the steamship coming over, in Paris, and again here at Clair talking with the Mexican servant of the Countess Marchand. Legrand, too, she mentioned as being in the neighborhood of Clair, now dressed as a captain of infantry in the French army.

She quite realized what she was doing in writing all this. Legrand, for instance, risked death as a spy in any case if he represented himself as an officer. But Ruth felt that the matter was serious. Something very bad was going on here, she was positive.

The only thing she could not bring herself to tell of was the suspicions she had regarding the identity of the “werwolf,” as the superstitious country people called the shadowy animal that raced the fields and roads by night, going to and coming from the battle front.

It seemed such a silly thing – to repeat such gossip of the country side to the police authorities! She could not bring herself to do it. If the occupants of the chateau were suspected of being disloyal, what Ruth had already written, connecting José with Bessie, would be sufficient.

She wrote and despatched this letter at once. She knew it would be unopened by the local censor because of the address upon it. Communications to the police were privileged.

Ruth wondered much what the outcome of this step would be. She shrank from being drawn into a police investigation; but the matter had gone so far now and was so serious that she could not dodge her duty.

That very next day word was sent in to Ruth from the guard at the entrance whom she had tipped for that purpose, that the American ambulance driver, Monsieur Bragg, was at the door.

When Ruth hastened to the court the brancardiers had shuffled in with the last of Charlie’s “load” and he was cranking up his car. The latter looked as though it had been through No Man’s Land, clear to the Boche “ditches” it was so battered and mud-bespattered. Charlie himself had a bandage around his head which looked like an Afghan’s turban.

“Oh, my dear boy! Are you hurt?” Ruth gasped, running down the steps to him.

“No,” grunted the young ambulance driver. “Got this as an order of merit. For special bravery in the performance of duty,” and he grinned. “Gosh! I can’t get hurt proper. I bumped my head on a beam in the park – pretty near cracked my skull, now I tell you! Say! How’s your friend?”

“That is exactly what I don’t know,” Ruth hastened to tell him.

“How’s that? Didn’t you go to Lyse?”

“Yes. But the man in whose pocket that letter to me was found isn’t Tom Cameron at all. It was some one else!”

“What? You don’t mean it! Then how did he come by that letter? I saw it taken out of the poor chap’s pocket. Johnny Mall wrote the note to you on the outside of it. I knew it was intended for you, of course.”

“But the man isn’t Tom. I should say, Lieutenant Thomas Cameron.”

“Seems to me I’ve heard of that fellow,” ruminated the ambulance driver, removing his big spectacles to wipe them. “But I believe he is wounded. I’m sorry,” he added, as he saw the change in Ruth’s face. “Maybe he isn’t, after all. Is – is this chap a pretty close friend of yours?”

Ruth told him, somewhat brokenly, in truth, just how near and dear to her the Cameron twins were. Telling more, perhaps, in the case of Tom, than she intended.

“I’ll see what I can find out about him. He’s been in this sector, I believe,” he said. “I guess he has been at our headquarters up yonder and I’ve met him.

“Well, so long,” he added, hopping into his car. “Next time I’m back this way maybe I’ll have some news for you —good news.”

“Oh, I hope so!” murmured Ruth, watching the battered ambulance wheel out of the hospital court.

Henriette Dupay had an errand in the village the next day and came to see Ruth, too. The little French girl was very much excited.

“Oh, my dear Mademoiselle Ruth!” she cried. “What do you think?”

“I could not possibly think – for you,” smiled Ruth.

“It is so – just as I told you,” wailed the other girl. “It always happens.”

“Do tell me what you mean? What has happened now?”

“Something bad always follows the seeing of the werwolf. My grandmère says it is a curse on the neighborhood because many of our people neglect the church. Think!”

“Do tell me,” begged the American girl.

“Our best cow died,” cried Henriette. “Our – ve-ry – best – cow! It is an affliction, Mademoiselle.”

Ruth could well understand that to be so, for cows, since the German invasion, have been very scarce in this part of France. Henriette was quite confident that the appearance of the “werwolf” had foretold the demise of “the poor Lally.” The American girl saw that it was quite useless to seek to change her little friend’s opinion on that score.

“Of course, the thing we saw in the road could not have been the countess’ dog?” she ventured.

But Henriette would have none of that. “Why, Bubu’s blanket is black,” she cried. “And you know the werwolf is all of a white color – and so hu-u-uge!”

She would have nothing of the idea that Bubu was the basis of the countryside superstition. But the French girl had a second exciting bit of news.

“Think you!” she cried, “what I saw coming over to town this ve-ry day, Mademoiselle Ruth.”

“Another mystery?”

“Quite so. But yes. You would never, as you say, ‘guess.’ I passed old Bessie, Madame la Countess’ serving woman, riding fast, fast in a motor-car. Is it not a wonder?”

The statement startled Ruth, but she hid her emotion, asking:

“Not alone – surely? You do not mean that that old woman drives the countess’ car?”

“Oh, no, Mademoiselle. The countess has no car. This was the strange car you and I saw on the road that day – the one that was stalled in the rut. You remember the tall capitaine – and the little one?”

The shock of the French girl’s statement was almost too much for Ruth’s self-control. Her voice sounded husky in her own ears when she asked:

“Tell me, Henriette! Are you sure? The old woman was riding away with those two men?”

“But yes, Mademoiselle. And they drive fast, fast!” and she pointed east, away from the hospital, and away from the road which led to Lyse.

CHAPTER XXIV – A PARTIAL EXPOSURE

It was when Ruth was going off duty for the day that the matron sent for her to come to the office before going to her own cell, as the tiny immaculate little rooms were called in which the Red Cross workers slept.

Obeying the summons, Ruth crossed the wide entrance hall and saw in the court a high-powered, open touring car in which sat two military-appearing men, although neither was in uniform. In the matron’s room was another – a tall, dark young man, who arose from his chair the instant the girl entered the room.

“Monsieur Lafrane, Mademoiselle Fielding,” said the matron nervously. “Monsieur Lafrane is connected, he tells me, with the Department of Justice.”

“With the secret police, Mademoiselle,” the man said significantly. “The prefect of police at Lyse has sent me to you,” and he bowed again to Ruth.

The matron was evidently somewhat alarmed as well as surprised, but Ruth’s calm manner reassured her to some extent.

“It is all right, Madame,” the American girl told her. “I expected monsieur’s visit.”

“Oh, if mademoiselle is assured – ?”

“Quite, Madame.”

The Frenchwoman hurried from the office and left the girl and the secret agent alone. The latter smiled quietly and asked Ruth to be seated.

“It is from Monsieur Joilette, at Lyse, that I come, as I say. He informs me you have the logic of a man – and a man’s courage, Mademoiselle. He thinks highly of you.”

“Perhaps he thinks too highly of my courage,” Ruth returned, smiling.

“Not so,” proceeded Monsieur Lafrane, with rather a stern countenance, “for it must take some courage to tell but half your story when first you went to Monsieur Joilette. It is not – er – exactly safe to tell half truths to the French police, Mademoiselle.”

“Not if one is an American?” smiled Ruth, not at all shaken. “Nor did I consider that I did wrong in saying nothing about Mrs. Mantel at the time, when I had nothing but suspicion against her. If Monsieur Joilette is as wise as I think him, he could easily have found the connection between those two dishonest men from America and the lady.”

“True. And he did so,” said the secret agent, nodding emphatically. “But already Legrand and this José had made what you Americans would call ‘a killing,’ yes?” Ruth nodded, smiling. “They got away with the money. But we are not allowing Madame Mantel, as she calls herself – ”

“That isn’t her name then?”

“Name of a name!” ejaculated the man in disgust. “I should say not. She is Rosa Bonnet, who married an American crook four years ago and went to the United States. He was shot, I understand, in an attempt of his gang to rob a bank in one of your Western States.”

“Oh! And she came East and entered into our Red Cross work. How dreadful!”

“Rosa is a sharp woman. We believe she has done work for les Boches. But then,” he added, “we believe that of every crook we capture now.”

“And is she arrested?”

“But yes, Mademoiselle,” he said good-naturedly. “At least the police of Lyse were about to gather her in as I left this afternoon to come over here. But the men – ”

“Oh, Monsieur!” cried Ruth, with clasped hands, “they have been in this neighborhood only to-day.”

He shot in a quick: “How do you know that, Mademoiselle Fielding?”

She told him of the French girl’s visit and of what Henriette had said of seeing Legrand, the Mexican and Bessie riding away in a motor-car from the chateau.

“To be trusted, this girl? This Mademoiselle Dupay?”

“Oh, quite!”

“The scoundrels! They slip through our fingers at every turn. But we will have them yet. Surely they cannot escape us for long. There are too many looking for them – both of the secret police and of the army.”

“Then the woman, too! The old woman and that José may only be related. Perhaps she has nothing to do with – with – ”

“With what, Mademoiselle?” he asked, smiling across the table at her, and that grimly.

“Is there not spying, too? Don’t you think these people are in communication with the Germans?”

“Could you expect me to answer that query, Mademoiselle?” he returned, his eyes suddenly twinkling. “But, yes! I see you are vitally interested. And you have heard this old wives’ tale of the werwolf.”

He quite startled her then, for she had said nothing of that in her letter to the Lyse prefect of police.

“Some matters must be cleared up. You may be able to help, Mademoiselle. I have come to ask you to make a call with me.”

“A call? On the Dupays? I hope I have said nothing to lead you to suppose that they are not loyal. And they have been kind to me.”

“Quite so, Mademoiselle,” he rejoined again with gravity. “I would ask you to do nothing that will make you feel an atom of disgrace. No, no! A mere call – and you shall return here in an hour.”

Ruth knew it was a command as well as a request. She hurried for her wrap, for the evening was damp. But she did not remove her costume of the Red Cross.

As she came down to the waiting car she saw that she was peered at by several of the nurses. Some wind of what was going on evidently had got about the hospital.

Ruth ran down the steps and jumped into the car, the tonneau door of which was held open by the man with whom she had talked in the matron’s office. Instantly the engine began to purr and the car slipped away from the steps.

Lafrane bowed to Ruth again, and said, with a gesture, as though introducing her:

“My comrades, Mademoiselle Fielding. Be of good courage. Like myself, Mademoiselle, they admire the courage of les Americaines.”

Ruth could say nothing to that. She felt half stifled with seething emotions. Her heart beat rapidly. What was now going to happen to her? She had endured many strange experiences since coming to France; but she had to admit that she was not prepared for this occurrence.

The car shot through the tortuous roads swiftly. Suddenly she noted that they were taking the hilly road to the Dupay farm – the longer way. They mounted the hill toward the chateau gate.

A light flashed ahead in the roadway. The car was pulled down to a stop before the entrance to the Chateau Marchand. Another soldierly looking man – this one in uniform – held the lantern and pointed to the gateway of the estate. To Ruth’s surprise the wide gates were open.

The guard said something swiftly that the girl did not catch. The chauffeur manipulated the clutch and again the car leaped ahead. It turned directly into the private drive leading up to the chateau.

CHAPTER XXV – Quite Satisfactory

Ruth said nothing to Monsieur Lafrane, although she was startled. He had had no idea, then, of taking her to the Dupay farm. She was somewhat relieved by this discovery, although she was curious as to why she was being carried to the chateau.

It was plain that their visit was expected. The great front door of the old pile of masonry was wide open and a flaring, swinging lamp illuminated the entrance hall, the light shining far across the flagging before the door. As the girl had noted, there seemed no fear here at the chateau of German night raiders, while the village of Clair lay like a black swamp below the hill, not a lamp, even in the hospital, being allowed to shine from windows or doorways there.

“Will you come in, Mademoiselle?” said the leader of the expedition softly.

One of his companions got out, too, and him they left in the entrance hall, standing grim and silent against the wall like an added piece of ancient armor, of which there were several in sight, while the secret agent and Ruth entered an apartment on the right.

It was a library – a long and lofty room, paneled with carved oak and furnished in a wood quite as dark, the chairs and huge table being massive. There were a few fine old pictures; but the bookshelves were almost stripped of volumes. Ruth noted that but a few dozen remained.

The floor, too, was bare; yet by the stain on the boards she saw that once a huge rug must have almost covered the room. Everything remaining gave the apartment a stern and poverty-stricken air.

These things she noted at first glance. The countess was present, and it was the countess who attracted Ruth’s almost immediate attention.

She was quite as handsome and graceful as she had seemed when Ruth saw her walking in the road. But now she was angry, and her head was held high and her cheeks were deeply flushed. Her scant skirts swishing in and out of the candlelight, she walked up and down the room beyond the table, with something of the litheness of the caged tiger.

“And have you come back to repeat these things you have said about Bessie?” she demanded in French of the secret agent.

“But, yes, Madame la Countess. It is necessary that you be convinced,” he said respectfully.

“I cannot believe it. I resent your accusation of poor Bessie. She has been with me for twenty years.”

“It is so,” said the man gravely. “And we cast no reflection upon her faithfulness to you, Madame. But have you noted no change in her – of late?”

“Ah, who has not been changed by the war?” murmured the countess, stopping to look at them across the table. Then for the first time she seemed to apprehend Ruth’s presence. She bowed distantly. “Mademoiselle Americaine,” she murmured. “What is this?”

“I would ask the mademoiselle to tell you what she knows of the connection of your servant with these men we are after,” said the secret agent briefly. Then he gestured for Ruth to speak.

The latter understood now what she had been brought here for. And she was shrewd enough to see, too, that the French secret police thought the countess entirely trustworthy.

Therefore Ruth began at the beginning and told of her suspicions aroused against Legrand and José when still she was in America, and of all the events which linked them to some plot, aimed against France, although she, of course, did not know and was not likely to know what that plot was.