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

our Kaiser is far-reaching. Do your work well, and they will be on their knees begging us for peace."

"God helping me," said Frederic, "I will not fail in my duty to my country."

There was something magnificent in his manner as he spoke, something almost regal, and Fleck regarded him with a puzzled air. Who was he, this man who had been sent out from Germany on this mission--this man to whom even old Otto paid deference? Despite the assurance with which he had spoken Fleck had observed in Frederic an uneasiness, a watchfulness, that none of the others seemed to exhibit. He had the appearance of alertly listening, listening, for what? Fleck's first thought was that he might have overheard the little cry that Jane had inadvertently given, but he quickly dismissed this theory. If Frederic had heard that sound it would have alarmed him, and the look in his eyes now was one of expectancy rather than of fear.

Jane, too, was puzzled and distressed. With trembling hands she clutched at the sill of the window for support as she heard Frederic assent to old Otto's plans for him. Her estimate of his character made it seem incredible that he would willingly lend himself to this work of wholesale murder, yet she could no longer doubt the evidence of her own ears. With overwhelming force it came to her that this man who so readily agreed to such bloody, dastardly work as this, must undoubtedly be also the murderer of that K-19 whose body had been found just around the corner from her home. Bitterly she reproached herself that she had allowed herself to care for him. Shamedly she confessed to herself that she still loved him--even now.

"Your great work accomplished," Otto continued, "remember your orders. Forty miles due east of Sandy Hook there will be lying two great submarines, waiting to take you off--not U-boats, but two of our powerful, wonderful new X-boats, big enough to destroy any of their little cruisers that are patrolling the coast, fast enough to escape any of their torpedo boats. How important the war office judges your work you may realize from this--it is the first mission on which these new X-boats have been dispatched. They are out there now. We have had a wireless from them. They are waiting to convey six heroes back to the Fatherland, where the highest honors will be bestowed on them at the hands of our Emperor himself. Herr Captain and Comrades--"

He stopped abruptly, and there came into his face a pained look of surprise, of terror.

"Was is dass?" he cried in alarm.

One of Fleck's men in hiding out there in the shadow of the building had been seized by an irresistible desire to sneeze.

The terrifying suspicion that there had been some uninvited spectator outside, listening to their plotting, swept over the whole room. The whole company, hearing the sound that had alarmed old Hoff, arose as one man and stood tensed, stupefied with fear, gazing white-faced in the direction from which the sound had come.

Fleck, rudely brushing Jane aside, dropped back from the window and blew a sharp blast with a whistle. At the sound his men came running up with their rifles ready.

Inside, the man called Hans, seizing an electric torch, dashed to the door, and pulling it wide, rushed forth, his torch lighting the way before him. Before he even had time to see the men gathering there and cry an alarm, a blow from the butt of Carter's revolver stretched him senseless on the stoop.

"In the name of the United States I command you to surrender," cried Fleck, springing boldly into the open doorway, revolver in hand; "the house is surrounded."

Instantly all within the room was confusion. Some of those nearest the door, seeing behind Fleck the protruding muzzles of the guns, promptly threw up their hands in token of surrender. Others bolted madly for the front door, only to find their egress there blocked by the rifles in the hands of the guard that Fleck had had the foresight to station there.

Old Otto, the pallor of fear on his face giving away to an expression of demoniac rage, drew a revolver and aimed it straight at Fleck. Jane, who unbidden had followed the raiders as they entered and now was standing wide-eyed in the doorway watching the spectacle, was the only one to see that just as old Otto pulled the trigger his nephew, whether by accident or design, she could not tell, jostled his arm, sending the bullet wide of its mark.

"Come on, men," cried Fleck, advancing boldly into the room.

Eight of the Germans, piteously bleating "Kamerad" stood against the wall near the door, their hands stretched high above their heads.

"Guard these men, Dean," cried Fleck, as with Carter close at his side he dashed into the fray.

One man already lay senseless outside, eight had surrendered. Four had fled to the front of the house. That left only the two Hoffs and one other man against five of them. It was Fleck's intention to try to overpower the trio before the four who had fled returned to aid them. Jane, amazed at her own coolness, stood beside Dean, her revolver out, helping him guard the prisoners.

Frederic all the while had been standing by his uncle's side, strangely enough appearing to take little interest or part in the battle. Old Otto, though, despite his years, was fighting with vigor enough to require both the work of Fleck and Carter to subdue him. Vainly he struggled to wrench himself free from their grasp and use his revolver again. Fleck's strength pulling loose his fingers from the weapon was too much for him. As he felt himself being disarmed, in a frenzy he tore himself loose from both of them and seizing a chair, swung it with all his strength against the hanging lamp above the table that supplied the only light in the room.

In an instant the room was in darkness. The four from the front, rushing back to aid their comrades in answer to old Otto's cries, found themselves unable to distinguish friend from foe. Fleck's men dared not use their weapons in the darkness. Back and forth through the room the opposing forces struggled, the air thick with cries and muttered oaths, the sound of blows making strange medley with the rapid shuffling of feet.

Jane, remembering the electric torch that had been carried by the man Carter had struck down, felt her way to the door and retrieved it from his senseless fingers. Returning, she flashed it about the room, endeavoring to assist Fleck by its light. As she let the beam fall on Frederic she heard a muttered curse at her side and turned to see Thomas Dean aiming his revolver directly at the younger Hoff. With a quick movement she thrust up his arm, and the bullet buried itself in the wall above his head.

"What are you trying to do," snapped Dean; "help that damned spy to escape?"

"He wasn't trying to escape," she angrily retorted. "Look--quick--mind your prisoners."

He turned just in time to see the Germans behind him lowering their arms. In another second they would have been on his back. At the sight of his brandished revolver, their arms were quickly raised again.

Meanwhile Fleck's men, guided by Jane's light, were laying about them with their rifles clubbed. The plotters were at a disadvantage in not realizing how few there were in the attacking party. Fleck's announcement that the house was surrounded had both deceived and disheartened them. When three of their number had been knocked senseless to the floor the others surrendered and joined the group that stood with hands up.

To Fleck's amazement it was Frederic Hoff who led in the surrender.

"Watch that young Hoff," he whispered to Carter. "I can't understand his giving up so easily. It may be only a ruse on his part."

"Perhaps he's afraid the girl will be hurt," whispered Carter, but Fleck was not there to hear him, having dashed forward to where old Otto was still fighting desperately.

Somehow in the melee the old man had again got hold of a revolver, and just as Fleck seized him he fired again. The bullet, aimed at Fleck, left him unharmed, but found a mark in Thomas Dean, who with a little gurgling cry, fell forward at Jane's feet. Carter turned at once to guard the prisoners, as Fleck, with a cry of rage, felled old Hoff to the floor, harmless for the present at least.

Sending one of his men to the other rooms in search of lamps Fleck soon had all the prisoners safely shackled, both hand and foot, none of them offering any resistance. Investigation showed that old Hoff in falling had struck his head in such a way that his neck was broken, killing him instantly. The three who had been clubbed were not seriously injured, and as soon as they revived were shackled as the others had been.

Jane, seeing Dean collapse, had turned to aid him and for some time had been bending over him, trying to revive him. He had opened his eyes, looked up into her face and had tried to say something, and then had collapsed, dying right before her eyes.

"Take the Hoffs' car outside," Fleck directed some of his men, "and bring up our two cars at once. Carter and I'll guard the prisoners until you get back. There's a county jail only a few miles away. The sooner we get them there the better it will be. It won't take any court long to settle their fate. They got Dean, didn't they?"

"Yes," said Jane, getting up unsteadily from the floor, "I think he's dead."

Fleck bent to examine the body of his aide, feeling for the pulse.

"Too bad," he murmured. "That last bullet of old Hoff's got him, but he died in a good cause."

Jane, brushing away the tears that came welling unbidden into her eyes, turned now for the first time since his surrender to look at Frederic.

She had expected as she looked at him lying there shackled on the floor to read in his expression humiliation at his plight, grief at the failure of his effort to aid Germany, possibly reproach for her in having aided in entrapping him. To her amazement there was nothing of this in his face.

As he lay there on the floor he was observing her with a tender look of love, and in his eyes what was still more puzzling was an unmistakable expression of triumph and happiness.

CHAPTER XVII SOMETHING UNEXPECTED

Bewildered by the rapidity with which such a succession of terrifying events had taken place, Jane sank dazedly into a chair, trying her best to collect her thoughts, as she looked about on the recent scene of battle. All of the German plotters had been overcome and captured. There, dead on the floor, lay the arch conspirator, old Otto Hoff, his clammy face still twisted into a savage expression of malignant, defiant hate.

And there, too, a martyr to the country's cause, lay Thomas Dean. A sob of pity rose in Jane's throat as she thought of him, and the great tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks. He was so young, so brave, so fine. Why must Death have come to him when there was yet so much he might have done? With his talent and education, with his wonderful spirit of self-sacrifice, he might have gone far and high. Regretfully, she recalled that he had loved her, and with kind pity in her heart she reproached herself for not having been able to return to this fine, clean, American youth the affection she had inspired in him.

Thomas Dean, she told herself, was the type of man she should have loved, a man of her own people, with her own ideals, a man of her country, her flag, and yet--

There on the floor, not a dozen feet away from her, shameful circlets of steel girdling both his wrists