William Johnston

“ Distorted though the man’s face was with such bitter frightfulness, she recognized him, not as any one she knew, but merely as one of the tenants in the same apartment building.
“It’s one of the people next door,” she said to herself and in verification of her identification, as he approached the building, the young man cast a swift glance over his shoulder, and then, as if satisfied that he was unobserved, dashed hurriedly in at the entrance.
Jane, more than ever wrought up with fear and dread of she knew not what, sprang hastily into bed and drew the covers about her shoulders. ”

“ Was he about to strip the mask from himself and his activities at last, and in the face of it all expect her, Jane Strong, to admit that she loved him?
“Here in your country,” he went on placidly, “women forced by economic conditions have been driven from home into business, into politics, into office-holding, even into war activities. Longing for the clinging arms of little children they are striving to forget in assuming some part in the affairs that belong properly to men. But to the true woman love must ever mean more than duty, more than country. Those are words for men. ”

“ 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 impassable 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? ”

“ It is amazing how much information on any given subject any one—even a wholly inexperienced person like Jane Strong—can acquire within a few days when one’s mind is set resolutely to the task. It is much more amazing how much one can learn when aided and abetted by an experienced chauffeur, or more properly speaking a mysterious and cultured secret service operative, masquerading as an automobile driver.
Who Thomas Dean was, why he was in the secret service, and what his real name was, were questions that kept perpetually puzzling Jane. ”

“ A boy is delighted at knowing the toughest boy in the neighborhood. A girl’s ambitions always are to know girls “nicer” than she is. The average girl emerges into womanhood with her eyes blinded, uninformed on the affairs of life, business, politics, untrained in anything useful or practical, knowing more of romance and history than she does of present-day facts.
If Chief Fleck had understood how really inexperienced Jane Strong actually was, it is a question whether he would have ventured to entrust so important a mission to her as he had done. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Above and beyond his love for her she understood that he held sacred what he conceived to be his duty, his misguided duty to his erring country. It was too late now for regrets, for repentance, too late for her to do anything but to try to serve her country, cost her what it might, yet anxiously she awaited Chief Fleck’s reply to her question.
“Wouldn’t I shoot them all on sight, gladly, the damned spies,” he responded. “That’s the great trouble with this country, Miss Strong. We’re too soft-hearted and chivalrous. The Germans realize that war and sentiment have no place together. ”

“ Take my word for it, Miss Strong, that what I am asking you to do is right. I’ve two daughters of my own. The thing I’m urging you to do I’d be proud and honored to have either of them do if they could. There is no one else in the world but you that can do this particular thing. A word to a single living soul and you’ll end your usefulness. You must not even tell any one you have talked with me. See Mr. Fleck. He’ll explain everything to you. Promise me you’ll see him.”
“I promise,” Jane found herself saying, even against her better judgment, won over by the man’s insistence. ”

“ As she hastened to don her hat and coat she was almost overwhelmed by a revulsion of feeling. Two days ago the world about her had seemed a carefree, pleasant, even if sometimes boresome place. Now she shudderingly saw it stripped of its mask and revealed for the first time in all its hideousness, a place of murders and spying and secret machinations. People about her were no longer more or less interesting puppets in a play-world. ”

“ Suicide!
Jane was certain that it was no suicide. She remembered the curious thud she had heard from around the corner, like a body falling to the pavement. She recalled that it must have been at least ten minutes before the other man reappeared, time enough to have placed the revolver in the dead man’s hand, time enough even to have removed all possible means of identification from the man’s clothing. ”

“ She pictured to herself the other brave soldiers in the great ships in the Hudson. She remembered the evil plotters with their death-dealing bombs, striving to bring about a ghastly end for them all before they might strengthen the lines of the Allies. She thought, too, of those humanity-defying U-boats, forever at their devilish work, guided to their prey by crafty, spying creatures right here in New York, more than likely by the very people next door. ”

“ You must pledge yourself to breathe no word of what you are doing or are asked to do to a living soul. Everything that we may tell you is to be buried forever from everybody. No one is to be trusted. The minute one other person knows your secret it will no longer be a secret. Can we depend upon you?”
“You may absolutely depend on me,” said Jane slowly and soberly. “I give you my word. I have been eager for ever so long to do something to help, to really help. My father is doing all he can to aid the government. He’s on the Shipping Board.”
Mr. Fleck nodded. ”

“ With still half an hour to kill, she went into a little specialty shop to examine some knitting bags displayed in the window.
“Why don’t you knit as all the other girls are doing?” was her father’s constant suggestion every time she asserted her desire to be doing something in the war.
“There’s no thrill in knitting,” she would answer. “Fix it, Dad, so that I can go to France as a Red Cross nurse or as an ambulance driver, won’t you? I want some excitement.”
Always he had refused to consent to her going, insisting that France in wartime was no place for an untrained girl. ”

“ Jane asked eagerly, turning to Carter.
“Just K-22,” said the agent, “and all she knows about you is that you are K-19. That’s the way we work in the service mostly. The less one operative knows about another the better, for what you don’t know you can’t talk about.”
“Doesn’t she even know my name?” persisted Jane.
“She may have found it out for herself while she has been watching the Hoffs, but we didn’t tell her. Nobody in the service knows who you are except the Chief and myself—and of course K-27 will have to know if he takes the chauffeur’s job.” ”

“ Mr. Strong, as soon as they were alone, spoke enthusiastically about the young man, complimenting Jane on having discovered him, and as he did so a revulsion of feeling swept over her. For the first time she realized into what duplicity her work for the government was leading her. She had pledged her word to Chief Fleck that she would keep her activities an absolute secret even from her parents. Already she was deceiving them, bringing into the household an employee who really was a detective, a spy. ”

“ We seldom if ever arrest any of the spies we track down, but keep watching, watching, watching, hoping that sooner or later the master-spy will be betrayed into our hands.”
“You don’t think then,” said Jane disappointedly, “that old Mr. Hoff is one of the important spies.”
“We can’t tell yet. He may be just one of the cogs—perhaps what they call a control-agent. We don’t know yet. Germany has been building up her spy system forty years, and it is ingenious beyond imagination. Her codes are the most difficult in the world. ”

“ Again Jane noted their order—red—two small—one large—three small—two large. Again the laundress resorted to the glasses, and at last, apparently satisfied, began taking down the rest of the laundry and making ready to leave the roof. Trying to act as if she had just arrived, Jane stepped boldly forward.
“I wonder,” she said approaching the woman, “if you can tell me where I can find a good laundress.”
“Nicht versteh” said old Lena, eyeing her suspiciously and hostilely, and at the same time attempting to pass her with the basket of clothes. ”

“ Hoff was presented she hastened to include him in the invitation to luncheon.
“Have pity on a poor girl doomed to eat a lonely luncheon by her parent’s neglect,” urged Jane. “Really, you must come, both of you. Nice men to talk to are so scarce in these war times that I have no intention of letting you escape.”
“I’m in Kramer’s hands,” said Frederic Hoff gallantly, “but if he takes me to some wretched hotel instead of accepting such a charming invitation as this, my opinion of him as a host will be shattered.” ”

“ So intent was Jane on her study of the two men that her mother had to speak twice to her.
“Yes, mother,” she answered obediently, rising hastily as the hint of annoyance in her mother’s repeated remark brought her to a realization of having been addressed.
Letting her mother and Mrs. Starrett precede her in the doorway she paused to look back at the scene that had interested her so strongly. What could it mean? What was going on? How was she involved in it?
Her glance moved quickly from the watcher to the watched. The blond young man caught her eye. ”

“ Surely he could find no way of evading such a direct inquiry as this.
“Every man who believes in his own country,” he answered, modestly enough, yet with a curious reservation that puzzled her, “in times like these is doing his bit.”
She felt far from satisfied. If he was born in America, if he really was an American at heart, his replies would have been reassuring, but his name was Hoff. His uncle was a German-American, a proved spy or at least a messenger for spies. If her guest still considered Prussia his fatherland the answers he had made would fit equally well. ”

“ As in most New York apartment houses so in Jane’s home all the tenants were utter strangers to each other, one family not even knowing the names of any of the others. Occasionally, to be sure, one rather resentfully rode up or down in the elevator with some of the other tenants but always without noticing or speaking to them. Jane’s family had been living in the building for five years, and of the twenty other families they knew the names of only two, having learned them by accident rather than intention. About the people next door Jane now discovered that she really knew nothing at all. ”

“ Would it not be splendid, she thought, to go to France as a Red Cross nurse, to be over there in the middle of things, where something exciting was forever going on. Life—the only life she knew about, existence as the petted daughter of well-to-do parents in a big city—had, ever since the war had begun, seemed strangely flat and uninteresting. ”

“ She knew that they regarded themselves as supermen who could not be defeated. Her challenged American pride rose to battle. As she rode home she was sure now that more than she hated anything else in the world she hated Frederic Hoff, the spy, the German, who had dared to boast to her that they expected to win. ”

“ You must not fail. The biggest of those transports once belonged to Germany. You must teach these boastful Americans their lesson. That one boat you must destroy for certain. Beside the transports to-night lie five vessels of war, two battleships, three cruisers. Them you must destroy also, if there is time. To each transport, two bombs, to each warship, two bombs—twenty you carry. If all goes well, two you will have left. With these do what you will, a house, a church, it matters not—anything to spread the terror of Germany in the hearts of these money-grabbing Americans. ”

“ 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 impassioned 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? ”