The Apartment Next Door by William Andrew Johnston (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

The spy who gets the messages each morning calls him up by 'phone, mentioning just the one word. From that Mr. Hoff knows just where to go, concealing the message in a book before agreed upon."

"The fifth book," interrupted Dean.

"Not always," explained Fleck. "It depends on whether there are five letters in the name telephoned. I have located and copied several more of the messages."

"But who gets the messages he leaves? Who takes them away from the bookshops?" asked Jane, mindful of her own failure in that respect.

"It's a girl, or rather two girls together, though possibly only one of them is in the plot. Very likely the other may not know what her companion is doing."

"To whom does this girl take them?"

"That is still a mystery," said the chief. "We have ascertained who the girl is, where she lives. Her actions have been watched and recorded for every hour in the twenty-four for the last three days, and yet we don't know what she does with these messages. Carter has a theory--tell us about it, Carter."

"In accordance with instructions," began Carter, as if he was making out a report, "I had operatives K-24 and K-11 shadow the party suspected. On two different occasions they followed her to a bookstore and back home again. She was accompanied on one occasion by her younger sister. Each time she went directly home and stopped there, neither she nor her sister coming out again, and no person visiting the apartment, but--"

"Here's the interesting part," interrupted Fleck.

"On both occasions within a couple of blocks of the bookstore she passed a man with a dachshund. She did not speak to the man, but each time she stopped to pet the dog."

"Was it the same man both times?" asked Dean.

"Apparently not," replied Carter, "but it may have been the same dog. Dachshunds all look alike."

"Go on," said the chief.

"Now my theory is that that girl was instructed to walk north until she met the man with the dog. I'll bet anything that code message went under the dog's collar. The next time she gets a message I'm going to get that dog."

"It seems preposterous," scoffed Dean.

"Rather it shows," said Fleck, "that these spies all suspect they are being watched, and that they resort to the most extraordinary methods of communication to throw off shadowers. They have used dachshunds before. There's a New England munition plant to which they used to send a messenger each week to learn how their plans for strikes and destruction were progressing. They put a different man on the job each time to avoid stirring up suspicion. At the station there would always be two children playing with a dachshund. The spy would simply follow them as if casually, and they would lead him to a rendezvous with the local plotters. Now, Miss Strong," he said, turning to Jane, "I brought you down here for two reasons. First, to give you an inkling of how important your task is, and second, to ask you to undertake still another task for us. Are you still willing to help?"

"More than ever," said the girl firmly.

"The one disappointment is that we are getting no evidence whatever to involve or incriminate young Hoff. To-morrow, while he and his uncle are away on their usual auto trip, I am going to have the apartment thoroughly searched."

Jane's face blanched. She recalled what a strain it had been on her nerves the day she watched on the roof while Dean installed the dictograph. She felt hardly equal to the task of ransacking desks and drawers.

"There will be no one at home but the old servant. She can be easily disposed of. It is imperative that the search be made at once. There is evidence that what they are planning--evidently some big coup--is nearing the time for its execution. We must find it out in order to thwart them. I have got to know what old Hoff meant by the 'wonder-worker!' He said that it was nearly ready. I suspect that it is some new engine of destruction. We must prevent any disaster to transports or munition factories, if that's what they have in mind."

"You think it's a bomb plot?" asked Jane.

"I don't know what it is. These empire-mad fools stop at nothing. Nothing is sacred to them, women, children, property. With fanatical energy and ability they commit murders, resort to arson, use poisons, foment strikes, wreck buildings, blow up ships, do anything, attempt anything to serve the Kaiser. Karl Boy-ed spent three millions here in America in two months, and Von Papen a million more. What for? Ten thousand dollars to one man to start a bomb factory, twenty-five thousand dollars to another to blow up a tunnel. Millions on millions for German propaganda was raised right here, and it is far from all spent yet. We've got to find out what the wonder-worker is and destroy it before it destroys--God knows what."

"Very well," said Jane with quiet determination, "I'll search their apartment."

"No, not that," said the chief, "I'll send some fake inspectors to test the electric wiring, and they'll do the searching. I do not know for sure that the Hoffs suspect you of watching them, but I'm taking no chances. It will be just as well for you and Dean to be out of the way to-morrow all day, so that you will have an alibi. Germany's secret agents are suspicious of everybody. They do not even trust their own people. What I want you and Dean to do is to try to follow the Hoffs and see where they go. I don't want to use the same persons twice to trail them as they may get suspicious."

"I can easily do that," said Jane, feeling relieved. "I'll tell Mother I want our car for all day."

"No, don't use your own car. They might recognize it. I'll provide another one. They gave two of my men the slip last week somewhere the other side of Tarrytown. Let's hope they are not so successful this time."

"But won't they recognize me?"

"Not if you disguise yourself with goggles and a dust coat. Dean can make up, too. He had practice enough at college, eh, Dean?"

Jane turned to look interestedly at Dean, who had the grace to color up. She was right then. He was a college man, working in the secret service not for the sake of the job but for the sake of his country.

"Of course I can disguise myself too," she said enthusiastically, a new zest in her work asserting itself, now that she knew her principal co-operator was probably in the same social stratum as herself.

"You can rely on us, Chief," said Dean, as they left the office together. "We'll run them down."

As they emerged into Broadway and turned north to reach the subway at Fulton Street, Dean, with a warning "sst," suddenly caught Jane's arm and drew her to a shop window, where he appeared to be pointing out some goods displayed there. As he did so he whispered:

"Don't say a word and don't turn around, but watch the people passing, in this mirror here--quick, now, look."

Jane, as she was bidden, glanced, at first curiously and then in recognition and amazement, at a tall figure reflected in the mirror, as he passed close behind her. It was a man in uniform. Regardless of Dean's warning she turned abruptly to stare uncertainly at the military back now a few paces away.

"Did you recognize him?" cried Dean.

"It--it looked like Frederic Hoff," faltered the girl.

"It was Frederic Hoff," corrected her companion, "Frederic Hoff in the uniform of a British officer, a British cavalry captain!"

CHAPTER IX THE PURSUIT

Masked by an enormous pair of motor goggles and further shielded from recognition by a cap drawn down almost over his nose, Thomas Dean in a basket-rigged motorcycle impatiently sat awaiting the arrival of Jane Strong at a corner they had agreed upon the evening before. He had been particularly insistent that Jane should be on hand at a quarter before eight. He had learned by judicious inquiries that always on Wednesdays--at least on the Wednesdays previous--the Hoffs had started off on their mysterious trips at eight sharp. His intention was to get away ahead of them and pick them up somewhere outside the city limits.

Jane had promised that she would be on hand promptly. Once more he looked impatiently at his watch. It lacked just half a minute of the quarter, but there was no sign of his fellow operative. The only person visible in the block was a boy strolling carelessly in his direction. With a muttered exclamation of annoyance Dean restored his watch to his pocket, debating with himself how long he ought to wait and whether or not he had better wait if she did not appear soon. Very possibly, he realized, something entirely unforeseen might have detained her or have prevented her coming. Perhaps her family had doubted her story that she was going off on an all-day motor trip with a friend? Maybe their suspicions had been aroused by his having reported sick? He had almost decided to go on alone when he observed that the boy he had seen approaching was standing beside the motorcycle.

"Good morning, Thomas," said the boy, a little doubtfully, as if not quite sure that it was he.

Dean gasped in astonishment. The boy's voice was the voice of Jane. Laughing merrily at his amazement and discomfiture, she climbed into the seat beside him, asking:

"How do you like my disguise?"

"It's great," he cried. "You fooled me completely, and I was expecting you."

"When Chief Fleck said I ought to disguise myself for fear that the Hoffs already suspected me, I happened to remember these clothes. I had them once for a play we gave in school."

"But you don't even walk like a girl."

Jane laughed again.

"I practised that walk for days and days. When I first put on this suit my brother hooted at the way I walked. He said no girl ever could learn to walk like a boy. I made up my mind I'd show him."

"But your hair," protested Dean, almost anxiously. Even if he was just now assuming the humble rôle of chauffeur he still was an ardent admirer of such hair as Jane's, long, black and luxurious.

"Tucked up under my cap," laughed the girl, "and for fear it might tumble down, I brought this along. It's what the sailor boys call a 'beanie,' isn't it?"

As she spoke she adjusted over her head a visorlike woolen cap that left only her face showing.

"But your mother--didn't she wonder about your wearing those clothes?"

"She was in bed when I left. All she caught was just a glimpse of me in Dad's dust coat, and that came to my ankles. I wore it until I was a block away from the house. Will I do?"

"You can't change your eyes," said Dean boldly, that is boldly for a chauffeur, but he knew that Jane knew he wasn't a chauffeur except by choice, so that made it all right.

"I couldn't well leave them behind. I understood that I was to have a lot of use for my eyes to-day."

"Yes, indeed, you very likely will."

"Do you know I hardly recognized you at first and was almost afraid to speak? I had expected to find you in a car. What was the idea of the motorcycle?"

"It was Chief Fleck's suggestion. The Hoffs will be motoring. People in a car seldom pay any attention to motorcyclists. If we were to follow them in a motor they'd surely notice it. Last week they managed to dodge the people the Chief assigned to trail them. Maybe as two dusty motorcyclists we'll have better luck."

"I hope so. Where do you intend waiting to pick them up?"

"Getty Square in Yonkers is the best place. Everybody going north goes that way. I can be tinkering with the machine while you keep watch for them. They will not be apt to suspect a pair