Grace Harlowe with the American Army on the Rhine

“About what?” demanded Grace politely.

“About what is to be done.”

“Very good. I will leave Marie in your hands. She is badly shaken up and should be put to bed at once.”

“That’s her affair,” observed the supervisor, beginning to get control of her nerves. “Are you going?”

Grace nodded and stepped out into the hall, where she found Elfreda awaiting her, and together they hurried away.

“Absolutely unfeeling,” declared Grace heatedly. “She will make that girl put herself to bed, and Marie can scarcely stand.”

“Tell me about it,” urged Miss Briggs.

“I know nothing at all about it except that the building fell in on us. I assisted Marie and the major out, the latter having received a bang on the head that completely knocked him out. By the way, do you know a Chinaman who carries a red birthmark on the left side of his face?”

“I do not,” returned J. Elfreda, elevating her chin a little. “I do not associate with those animals.”

“Be sensible, Elfreda.”

“Why do you ask?” demanded Elfreda.

“I have my reasons. Some queer doings in Coblenz; and the end is not yet.”

“Do – do you think the Boches blew up the dump?”

“I cannot say that. My natural impression, of course, is that they did. I was asking the major about Miss Marshall about the time the blow-up occurred, and he suggested that I ask Captain Boucher, intimating that if the captain would talk he would give me information that would amaze me.”

“H – m – m – m! That sounds interesting. He will talk to you, all right. Every one does. Oh, look at the canteen!” she cried when they came within sight of the wrecked building. A squad of men, with an officer in charge, were at work, clearing away and salvaging such of the supplies as had not been destroyed.

“Here, Mrs. Gray, I am glad you have come over. What are we to do with this stuff?” demanded the officer.

“I am not in charge, Lieutenant. Mrs. Smythe is the supervisor.”

“Then why isn’t she here attending to her duties?”

Grace said she could not answer for that.

“I would suggest, sir, if you will, that you have the supplies taken on a truck to the Number Two Canteen. To-morrow the supervisor can make such disposition of them as she sees fit.”

“Very good. I commission you to take charge of removing and caring for the goods. You are under orders.”

Grace saluted and asked the officer to order a truck to the scene, which he promptly did. Grace then got to work. Her salvaging was thorough. There were many boxes of chocolate bars that had been crushed, in some instances to powder. These she had carefully removed, saving every possible grain of the sweets for melting over. Observing that she was handling the situation properly, the officer went away.

After two hours of hard work the supplies were collected and loaded on the truck. Grace thanked the men who had worked so well for her, and climbing to the seat of the truck, rode with it to its destination. The Number Two Canteen was located some distance from the scene of the explosion, but it had suffered the loss of most of its windows just the same, as had many of the buildings in Coblenz.

Number Two Canteen being open, Grace informed the worker in charge that the supplies were to be left there until Mrs. Smythe gave orders for their distribution. Grace then started for home.

Reaching her billet Grace tapped on the door of Mrs. Smythe’s room, wishing to report what had been done. The supervisor bade her enter.

“Oh, I beg pardon,” exclaimed Grace, observing that Mrs. Smythe was not alone.

A well-groomed man, wearing a vandyke beard, slightly gray, rose and extended a hand to the Overton girl.

“Mrs. Gray, I believe.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered. “And you?”

“I am Dr. Karl Klein. Being the guest of my home it is well that we should know each other. I trust you are quite comfortable.”

“Thank you. I am sure that I shall be after I have had opportunity to compose myself.” A sudden aversion to this suave German fairly overwhelmed Grace Harlowe. He jarred on her, aroused a feeling of antagonism that would not down. He was altogether too smooth, too polite and courteous for a Hun, was the reason that Grace felt that way.

“Mrs. Smythe – you will pardon me, sir – acting upon the orders of an officer, I had the supplies, such of them as we were able to salvage, removed to Number Two Canteen, where they are to be held awaiting your orders.”

“What! You gave orders over my head?” demanded the woman sternly.

“I acted under the orders of an officer, Madame.”

“You will return at once, take the things back where they were, pile them up and have a guard placed over them.”

“I think you are mistaken, Mrs. Smythe,” answered Grace sweetly, though there was little sweetness in her heart at that moment. She had been humiliated before Doctor Klein, and even though he were an enemy, the cut was felt keenly.

“What is that you say?”

“That, so far as I am concerned, the supplies will remain where they are for the rest of the night. It undoubtedly will rain before morning and the supplies will be ruined if left out. Furthermore, I acted under the orders of an American officer. It is true that you are my superior, but he is the superior of both of us.”

“You dare to disobey my orders?” shouted the supervisor.

“If you choose to so construe it, yes, but with no intention of being impertinent or disobedient. I beg to remind you that you have your remedy, should you feel that I am guilty of insubordination. It is your privilege to report me. I bid you good-night.”

Grace bowed to the doctor, and turning on her heel walked from the room.

“Whatever is the matter with you?” demanded Elfreda when Grace walked into their quarters. “You are as pale as the proverbial ghost.”

“Matter? J. Elfreda, I never was so humiliated in my life. Madame is furious because I had the supplies removed under the orders of the lieutenant.”

“Take it easy now, Loyalheart,” soothed Miss Briggs. “Let her do her worst, which can be no more than reporting you.”

“That is just the trouble. After a time our superiors will begin to believe that where there is such a smudge there must be at least a few coals if not a real fire. Who and what is this man?”

“What man do you refer to?”

“Doctor Klein.”

“Beyond the fact that he is our landlord, I have no information about him. Why?”

“I do not trust him. There is something queer about the man.”

“Perhaps it is you who are queer, Loyalheart. I call the doctor a most courteous gentleman for a Hun.”

“Exactly! That is what I mean – in part. He is too courteous for his kind. Furthermore, my intuition tells me that there is something wrong with him. I seem to be getting into a perfect maze of contradicting elements. I wish I did not have such an imagination. I see more mystery everywhere since we came to Coblenz than I can express in words. How is Marie? I was so upset over the way Madame went at me that I forgot to ask.”

“Asleep when I went in to inquire. I don’t believe she is much hurt. My advice to you is to get into bed and go to sleep. You are worn out and your nerves are upset, which is not surprising when one considers that you fell out of the skies the day before yesterday.”

“At least my equilibrium was upset,” grinned Grace. “Yes, I will turn in, but I know I shall have bad dreams to-night, and that our friend the doctor will be the principal character in them. To add to my troubles I presume I shall be called upon for an explanation to-morrow. Madame is certain to report me, nor do I blame her so very much in the circumstances. Good-night. Do you know, I don’t think you are much of a lawyer or you wouldn’t let your one and only client get into such perplexing situations.”

“Thank you. I agree with you on the main issue. What I should do is to have a commission in lunacy appointed for you and then browbeat them into believing that you are an unsafe person to be allowed to remain at large.”

“Good-night,” laughed Grace, getting into bed. “Please don’t blow out the gas in your excitement.” Elfreda was trying to do this very thing. “In my craziest moods, I never was so afflicted that I tried to put out the gas by blowing it out.”

Grace was soon asleep, but hers was not a wholly restful night, dreaming as she did of plots against herself and her country, in which Molly Marshall, Won Lue and Mrs. Chadsey Smythe were inextricably entangled, with Doctor Klein as the chief figure in the conspiracy.

CHAPTER XVIII

GRACE GETS A CLUE

“CAPTAIN, is it proper to ask if the Huns blew up the ammunition dump?” asked Grace next morning upon chancing to meet Captain Boucher on the paved plaza facing the river.

“If you will put your question in a form that I can answer I will do so,” was the smiling reply.

“Was the explosion last evening an accident, sir?” Grace came back at him quick as a flash.

“It was not an accident, Mrs. Gray,” he replied gravely, then burst out laughing. “You are the quickest-witted person I ever knew or heard of. Have you made any headway in the matter I spoke to you about?”

“Do you know a Chinaman, belonging to the labor battalion, who wears a hideous birthmark on his left cheek?” she questioned in reply.

“Can’t say that I do. Why?”

“Merely that I would suggest your making his acquaintance. I think perhaps you may find him worth while.”

“Cultivating or watching?” asked the Intelligence officer, regarding her keenly.

“The latter.”

“Thank you. What is his name?”

“I have not heard. I will find out if you wish.”

The officer nodded.

“Who is Miss Marshall, if I am permitted to ask? I know it seems an impertinence on my part to question an officer, but I want to know,” declared the Overton girl laughing. “I believe that is quite a common excuse with women for asking questions, but it is comprehensive.”

The captain glanced about them and invited Grace to sit down with him on a bench. The air was quite chill, but the view up and down the river was an attractive one.

“What I am about to say is strictly confidential. I am giving it to you for your own guidance, now that you belong to our Intelligence Department.”

“Strange, sir, that I have not heard of that.”

“Yes, you are a member. To return to the subject, Molly Marshall is one of the cleverest operators in the Secret Service.”

“A spy?”

The captain shrugged his shoulders.

“I never liked the word when applied to our own. She is an investigator and a brilliant operator. I shall be glad to have you know her, and assure you that you may trust her fully.”

“Thank you, but I do not believe I should care to trust any one in these confidential matters, unless I knew her pretty well. I should like to meet her, just the same, but she is not to know that I am doing anything in the investigating line, if you will be so good as to keep that fact confidential.”

The captain promised, saying it was not generally customary for Secret Service operators with the army to know each other, as such an acquaintance opened the way for many errors of judgment.

“You are perfectly right in the position you take,” he added. “You possess all the makings of a brilliant operator yourself.”

Grace thanked him.

“As I have said before, I have no aspirations in that direction, at least not beyond the point that I can serve my country. Perhaps my woman’s curiosity in combination with my woman’s intuition is responsible for my being in it to the extent that I am. You will observe that I am not backward about paying my sex compliments. However, it will soon be ended and then we shall all return to our previous lives – if we can. How about you, sir, shall you continue in the Service?”

“I think not.”

Grace rose and, thanking the captain, said she must be on her way to the canteen at Number Two. On her way she encountered a Chinaman and told him if he should see Won Lue to send him to the canteen. Rather to her amazement Won was waiting for her when she arrived there.

Won shook hands with himself and smiled broadly.

“You may be able to help us here to-day, Won. Are you working?”

The Chinaman shook his head negatively. “You savvy plidgin?” he asked.

“No.”

“Me savvy plenty plidgin, a-la. Plidgin all fly away. No more plidgin.”

Grace understood his meaning. The pigeon-flying came to an end when the army reached the Rhine, for there the enemy agents could work more directly and without much danger of being caught. That was what they were doing at that very moment.

“Oh! I knew there was something I wished to ask you. Do you know a Chinaman with a red mark on his left cheek, so?” She ran a hand over her cheek.

Won chuckled delightedly, though what there was in her question to amuse him, Grace could not imagine.

“You savvy Yat Sen? Me savvy Yat Sen plenty much. What me do?”

“Thank you. I savvy Yat Sen, too. Please clean the place, scrub the floors nice and clean before Mrs. Smythe gets here.”

“Me savvy Slith,” volunteered Won with a grimace.

“Why the ‘a-la,’ Won?” asked Elfreda who came in at this juncture.

“That is a Chinese round-off, as it were,” Grace informed her. “Have you seen the supervisor this morning?”

Elfreda said she had not, for Marie had said that Mrs. Smythe went out rather early. Grace suddenly decided to go home, and asked Elfreda to remain at the canteen to meet the supervisor.

“Tell her I was obliged to return to our billet for a few moments,” requested Grace. “She cannot be angrier than she will naturally be, in any event.”

Grace, nodding to Elfreda, hurried away.

“I wonder what that child is up to now?” Miss Briggs muttered. “I have learned one thing about Grace Harlowe, and that is that she seldom does anything that hasn’t a well-defined motive behind it. I suppose that is the proper way to arrange one’s life. She should have been a lawyer.”

Reaching her billet, Grace entered the house quietly and went to her room, apparently without having attracted attention to herself. As she passed the doctor’s rooms she heard voices there. The voices were not loud, but were audible enough to enable her to distinguish those of at least one man and a woman, though it was her impression that there were two men in the room. Now that she was in her own room the voices were borne to her ears even more distinctly than when she had been passing through the hallway.

“I believe Miss Marshall is in there,” muttered the Overton girl after several moments of listening. The conversation was being carried on in German, most of it being understandable to Grace. It was only when they lowered their voices that she failed to catch what was being said. Yet, for all that, she did not know what they were talking about, though at times the inference was suggestive of certain things.

The conversation lasted for several minutes, then Grace heard the doctor approaching the rear of his apartment, heard the bang of what she took to be a trap door, then footsteps descending stairs.

“He is going down to the cellar. I suppose he has a right to do so if he wishes, so why should I object or even be interested? Hark!”

Grace heard what she took to be voices in the cellar, though she was positive that no one had accompanied the owner below.

“I was right. This is a house of mystery. There he comes!”

The German’s tread, as he ascended the stairs on his return to his apartment, she noted, was very light and elastic for a heavy man. His speech too, this morning, was quicker than when she had spoken with him in Mrs. Smythe’s quarters, more incisive, more like that of a German officer than a civilian.

“Perhaps he has been in the service as a surgeon,” murmured Grace in explanation of the difference. “I wish I might get a peep into that room, just for one little minute. Ah!” Grace caught her breath and held it. The German doctor was speaking again, and what he said sent the red blood pounding to Grace Harlowe’s temples.

“I am right or else I am terribly mistaken!” she exclaimed in a troubled voice.

CHAPTER XIX

A VOICE AND A FACE

“I MUST see who leaves this house!” decided the Overton girl, glancing about her perplexedly. “The window!”

Quietly raising it she crawled through, then pulled it down with the least possible noise. A path that led past the side of the house extended back to the next street. Out through this Grace ran, then down one block and out to the main street, where she took up a position in a shop across the way, from whose windows she could command a good view of the front of the house in which she and Elfreda lived.

Grace kept her vigil for the better part of an hour, but no one emerged. She was getting restive, and the shop people now and then regarded her curiously.

“This will never do,” thought Grace. “I am making myself too conspicuous. I believe I will move to the next shop.” She did so, stopping at a place several doors below. Grace had been there but a few moments when the door of the doctor’s house opened and Doctor Klein stepped out and walked rapidly down the street in her direction. He halted when opposite the store and strode across toward it. She saw him heading, as she thought, for the shop, and boldly stepped out.

“Ah, Madame Gray,” greeted the doctor. “I observed you waiting in the store and I came right over. Perhaps you were waiting for me?”

“Perhaps I was.” She smiled pleasantly. “I would ask how the maid Marie is.”

“Sleeping when I saw her last. I too have been indisposed and have been sleeping for the last two hours,” volunteered the doctor, his keen, twinkling eyes regarding her shrewdly.

Grace smiled, but not by the slightest expression of face or eyes did she show that she knew him to be telling an untruth.

“The maid is suffering from shock, nothing more. She should be able to resume her duties before the day is done.”

“I am glad to hear that, Doctor. I am going on to the canteen. Are you going in that direction?”

The doctor smiled, bowed, and, taking the outside of the walk, stepped briskly along beside her. They chatted of the occupation by the American troops, Grace taking the opportunity to say she hoped the inhabitants would not take advantage of the leniency of the invaders lest the Americans put heavy restrictive measures upon them that might prove burdensome.

“Our people are kindly disposed, but they are quite likely to be savage when imposed upon or deceived,” she added.

“Ah! They are like my own countrymen, whose hearts are tender, Frau Gray, but those hearts are breaking to-day. We are very sad and full of humility. Yes, I have said that we were wrong, but that is not the fault of the German people. It is Wilhelm and his war lords who should be blamed.”

“Oh, Doctor, you forget! Did you not have an army in the field?”

“Most certainly.”

“And they were Germans, several millions of them. Is it not so?”

He bowed profoundly.

“Then why blame it all on the man who, like a coward, has run away and left you to work out your own salvation? The German nation – the whole nation – was behind the Kaiser in this wicked war – wicked so far as Germany was concerned. If I may say so without offense, the trouble – one of the shortcomings, I should say – with your people is that they are not good sportsmen. They are unsportsmanlike losers. Instead of standing up like men and confessing that they were wrong and that they are whipped, they prate about the spirit of Germany being unbroken, and then whimper like spoiled children because the victor says they must pay for breaking his windows!”

“You are very severe on my people.”

“Herr Doctor, I have been on the western front, up on the lines, for many months, and I have seen much, too much ever to permit me to grow sentimental about ‘the poor German nation that had nothing to do with the war,’ that was opposed to the war, and refused to fight, but let the Kaiser fight it out all by himself.” Grace laughed, and her laugh took the sting out of her words, but they went home to the heart of the Herr Doctor, and his face reddened.

“I have admitted that our rulers were in error; I do not admit that the German people were at fault. They were forced into the war,” he answered stiffly.

“And forced out of it,” retorted Grace. “Pardon me, but I should not have said so much. When I hear Germans glibly throwing off their own responsibility for the wounding and killing of several million men I am inclined to be irritable. Suppose we drop the subject and not refer to it again. When did you leave the service, Doctor?”

“I – I – why, what made you think I had been in the service?” he parried.

“Your walk. You have been in the German army. At times you forget yourself and lapse into the goose-step. There I go again. That was too personal. I ask your pardon.”

“You are a keen woman, Frau Gray. I served my time in the army when a young man, as all good Germans have done – ”

Grace interrupted him with a merry laugh.

“Thank you for the compliment. Thank you for admitting the truth of all that I have said about the German people. Of course there is nothing personal, unless one chooses to assume it, in what I have said. We part on the best of terms, do we not, Herr Doctor?” urged Grace, pausing and extending her hand.

Doctor Klein bowed stiffly over it. He appeared to be somewhat dazed over her rapid-fire conversation.

Grace backed away and saluted. She was answered by the stiff military salute of the German officer. The doctor flushed as he realized that he had again been caught napping by a woman. The Overton girl smiled a guileless happy smile, and turning she walked rapidly away.

“Our fine doctor, clever as he thinks he is, has been checkmated,” she chuckled. “But watch your step, Grace Harlowe. When he thinks it over in his methodical German way he will be furious.”

Grace hurried on to her canteen, well satisfied with her morning’s work, but more perplexed than ever. She had been favored by a kind fate in meeting the doctor, had turned his attempted flanking movement into a defeat and had made him appear ridiculous. That was quite sufficient for one morning, yet Grace could not understand why only the doctor had emerged from the house, finally deciding that perhaps the other had gone out by the route that she herself had taken in leaving the house, through the yard in the rear.

When Grace reached the canteen, she found Elfreda very busy assisting in serving a crowd of doughboys, and Won Lue, wearing a happy smile, working like a beaver, assisting. She paused to observe for a moment or so, then stepped in.

“Has the supervisor not been in yet?” she asked.

Elfreda shook her head.

“I wonder why?”

“I shouldn’t worry my head about it were I in your place,” returned Miss Briggs briefly. “Miss Cahill and Miss O’Leary were here a few moments ago inquiring for you. They are located about four miles from here and find themselves very lonely. Miss Cahill said the only compensation about it is that they do not have to listen to the supervisor’s unpleasant remarks all day long. I am glad she has left us alone this morning. Anything doing over at the quarters?”

“Quiet. I walked down most of the way with the doctor and we had a delightful chat. That is, I enjoyed it. I am not so certain about his enjoyment.”

“Poor Doctor! Here, Buddy, don’t try to play tricks on me. I am a lawyer at home, and I am likely to use my legal knowledge to advantage if you try to slip a bar of chocolate in your pocket when you think I am not looking. Come across, please.”

The doughboy did so shamefacedly, while his companions laughed uproariously.

“Here! I don’t believe in taking candy from babies. Here are two pieces for you because you have promised to be good. This army has the biggest sweet tooth in the world,” she said, handing two bars of chocolate to the discomfited doughboy.

“I – I’m sorry,” muttered the doughboy.

“That is all right, Buddy. I was just making conversation, and you happened to furnish the makings. When you wish any more and haven’t the money to buy, come in just the same. If I am here you will get it, and if I am not ask for Mrs. Gray. She is even easier than I am.”

Grace, talking to a group of soldiers, overheard and smiled to herself. She was proud of Elfreda. The war had done wonders for the young lawyeress; it had made her more tolerant of her fellow man; it had filled her heart with a human sympathy that she had never known before; it had made her a womanly woman, at the same time sharpening her wits. Elfreda would turn her back on war and return to her profession a better and bigger woman mentally than when she had joined the colors. Grace’s heart was full of gladness as these thoughts filtered through her mind.