with the passing weeks armand de la tour had grown so much stronger that now his mother and sister began planning to return with him to their own country. as the surgeon offered no objections except a few lingering cautions, the departure became a near prospect, and lucy was more eager than ever to see as much as possible of michelle. she lost interest in franz and herr johann and resented their intrusion on her time and thoughts.
“michelle, there are such a lot of things i haven’t told you and that you haven’t told me,” she said regretfully. “i wish we hadn’t bothered so much with those everlasting germans!”
they were taking their usual sunday afternoon walk through the forest, lucy, michelle, bob and larry. armand had stayed at the hospital, saving his strength for the journey to france.
at lucy’s words bob looked thoughtful. he had not yet told lucy of elizabeth’s strange rendezvous. he did not know what to think of it himself. looking up at the sky, glimpsed through the evergreen boughs, he remarked suddenly:
“hello, it’s all clouded up. looks like snow.”
“it does. we’d better start back,” said larry, for they were far beyond franz’ clearing, on the other side of the road that wound through the forest toward badheim.
michelle said, pondering over lucy’s words, “why cannot you come to france, lucy, before you go home? surely we must see each other again.”
“janet leslie has invited you to england,” lucy reminded her. “she is crazy to know you, i’ve written of you so often. couldn’t you come?”
michelle shook her head in doubtful soberness. “that rests with maman and armand. money is scarce with us now, and we have not yet a home, except the little house in chateau-plessis.”
“oh, how i’d love to go back there!” cried lucy, warmed to vivid recollection. “wouldn’t you love it, bob? though chateau-plessis doesn’t mean to you quite what it does to me.”
“to me it means some rather bad days spent wondering what had become of father and you,” said bob, still half-absorbed in thought, and profoundly annoyed at heart that franz’ schemes could so absorb him.
larry broke in, “leave off reminiscing a minute, will you? as bob remarked, it’s going to snow. in fact, it’s begun. suppose we turn back?”
as he spoke big flakes fell lightly on his overcoat sleeve, which he held up for the others’ inspection. no wind stirred in the branches, but the cloudy sky had darkened the forest almost to twilight.
“well, what’s a snow-storm, anyway, larry?” asked lucy, unmoved. “it’s rather nice here, i think, in this queer, dull light. we’re not three miles from the hospital.”
the snowflakes were now falling steadily, seeming to pour down all at once out of the heavens, as though emptied in bucketfuls.
“ma foi, it is snowing hard!” exclaimed michelle. “captain eaton is right, lucy. let us go back.”
lucy complied and the four turned in their tracks, the snowflakes whirling thickly about them. a cold wind suddenly rose, driving bleakly through the pines and changing the murmur of the green branches to a dismal wail.
“yes, he’s right,” agreed lucy, smiling as she drew her cape close around her. “a little snowstorm can go a long way in a german forest. bob, will you tell me why you’re so preoccupied?” she asked, looking with uneasy earnestness into her brother’s face. “you’ve spoken twice since we’ve been out.”
“i’ll tell you,” said bob, seeing no use in keeping lucy in the dark indefinitely. “it’s about that same stupid mystery. i wish alan had stayed here to ferret it out. why did i ever dissuade him?”
“go on, will you?” begged lucy.
“all right. a couple of days ago i went to coblenz to see——phew!” he stopped to plunge one hand into his collar. “this snow is getting down my neck. would you believe it could come down so thick all of a sudden? why, the sky was blue in spots when we started out.”
“look here, lucy, you know where that lodge of herr johann’s is, don’t you? it must be near, for here’s the road you spoke of.” larry paused beside the winding forest track, looking along it and through the trees on either side as well as the swirling snowflakes would permit.
“yes, it’s near here,” said lucy, “but why?”
“we’d better go there for shelter. the snow may stop and it may not. we’re still two miles from home.”
“but, larry,” protested lucy, surprised, “it can’t hurt us. why, how often i’ve been out in snow-storms!”
“i know, it can’t hurt you, nor miss michelle, nor me. but it can hurt bob. his lungs were touched when he was frozen up in archangel. the surgeon himself told me he mustn’t risk any exposure.”
“oh, larry, what rot! i’m strong enough,” scoffed bob.
but lucy was an instant convert to larry’s side. “he told me that, too. what an idiot i am,” she said in one breath. then, looking anxiously around her, “where would you say that hunting-lodge was, michelle? i know it’s near the road. if we follow along it——”
“i can find it,” said michelle, starting confidently up the road. “it was all fir and hemlock trees near it, except for a few birches. we must be close to it, lucy.”
“but it’s idiotic,” said bob crossly. “suppose it keeps on snowing?”
“then you can stay there all night,” said larry. “i’ll take the girls home and come back. why be stupid and risk a relapse? you know it’s cold you have to fear—you and alan both.”
silenced, bob followed the others along the road. at the end of ten minutes michelle cried out and pointed to the little lodge, showing beyond the first fringe of birch and fir trees. its roof and doorstep were newly covered with snow. the door was padlocked and the red curtains drawn.
“too bad i haven’t the key herr johann offered me,” said bob as they approached the door.
larry tugged at the padlock and twisted it, but in vain.
“try the window,” lucy suggested.
“try giving the padlock a good kick,” said bob. “that usually fetches them.”
larry stepped back and drove his heavy boot-heel in a sort of backward swing against the side of the lock. the padlock snapped and flew off into the snow. the bar was bent against the staple. larry wrenched it open and pushed wide the door. “welcome, in the name of the kaiser,” he said, sniffing the cold, musty air. “a fire is about the first thing we need.”
“there’s plenty of wood,” said lucy, as the four entered the lodge and shut the door. “michelle and i saw the shadow of the flames and heard them crackle while we were shivering in the snow outside. ouf, i’m almost frozen! it has grown cold. bob, i hope to goodness you haven’t hurt yourself.”
“not likely. why, this would be a warm, enervating spring day in archangel. there’s the wood, in that bin.”
bob had struck matches as he spoke, for the lodge, with curtains drawn, was almost dark. he spied a candle on the rough wooden table in the principal room where they stood, and, lighting it, held it up to survey the surroundings. “not much of a place,” he remarked. “there can’t be but two rooms, altogether.”
“it’s rather nice, though, cozy, if german,” said larry, throwing pine-boughs on the broad stone hearth.
there was no other furniture in the room than the big table, four or five massive chairs, cut from pine-trunks as rudely as if by franz’ own hands, and a couple of fox or wolf skins on the pine floor. there was a smoky-beamed ceiling above the red-curtained leaded windows, and trophies of the chase—stag-heads and rabbit skins, together with weapons, shotguns, pistols and sabres—ornamented the unplastered walls.
larry had kindled the fire, which now began to blaze with a great cheerful light. lucy drew aside one of the curtains to reveal the hemlock trunks and the dull twilight of the storm.
“sit down, everybody. we’re here for an hour or two,” said larry, dusting his sleeves over the hearth and looking rather pleased with his handiwork. “it’s three o’clock. i don’t think it will snow all the afternoon. it seldom does when it comes up in a flurry.”
“i think i’ll explore the other room,” said bob, nodding toward the closed door beside the hearth. “herr johann gave me a free hand, so it can’t be called snooping. not that i’d feel much scruple——”
“wait a bit, bob. warm up first,” counselled larry. he threw off his overcoat and sank into a chair beside the girls, who were already drawn up before the fire. he spoke casually, but lucy discerned in his voice a lingering anxiety for bob and added her own persuasion.
“there’s no hurry, bob. look at that beautiful fire larry’s made. it’s worth breaking in here for.”
“i wonder what kind of talk has taken place before this hearth,” said michelle, watching the flames. she glanced about the room and added, “it is very bare. they do not leave anything behind.”
“you may be sure of that,” said bob. “else he wouldn’t have invited me here so confidently. still, he must feel pretty sure by now that i’m not coming. i’ll take a look around. smarty-cats like herr johann sometimes think too poorly of other people’s intelligence. that’s a german failing.”
lucy was so pleased with the rustic quaintness of the lodge interior, with the leaping fire on the great hearth and the snowflakes falling outside in the shadowy forest that she began to think that herr johann might be excused for his oddities.
“i could almost believe that he comes here to hunt in winter,” she declared, stretching her arms behind her head, her cape slipped from her shoulders in the pleasant warmth. “if i had this lodge i shouldn’t be able to keep away from it.”
“i’ll tell you now what i began back there in the forest,” proposed bob, at this remark. “i told you about my talk with herr johann——did lucy tell you, michelle? well, the next day i went to coblenz to see elizabeth, but she was out. larry and i overtook her by accident, followed her, and saw her meet franz on one of the terraces of the rhine embankment.”
“meet franz!” lucy started up to lean forward, staring into bob’s face. “then he’s all right! they did tell the truth!”
“that’s one way of looking at it,” bob demurred. “either they are all right or elizabeth is all——”
“bob!” lucy caught her brother’s arm in shocked surprise. “why, bob, how can you? you don’t suspect—elizabeth?”
“no, i really don’t. yet i have reason enough to. she wouldn’t explain anything.”
“because there was nothing to tell,” cried lucy confidently. “oh, now i shan’t worry any more about franz, if elizabeth trusts him. don’t you see, bob, what that means? franz is just a disagreeable old german who hates us because we won.”
“hum, you’re easily convinced,” said bob, staring into the fire. “i felt for a moment the same way, but now when i think of herr johann——”
bob met larry’s eyes, lighted with a faint, mocking gleam, and fell silent. michelle said doubtfully:
“i, too, trust elizabeth’s friendship for america. but franz—no, i do not trust him.”
“what in the world can they have to say to each other?” lucy wondered, thinking it over once more. “where can she have met him first?”
larry rose to throw pine-boughs on the fire and remarked, sitting down again, “you’re rather easy, both of you.” he glanced at lucy and bob. “all franz’ and herr johann’s plotting and sneaking is forgotten at a word from elizabeth. i know she’s a good sort and fond of you, but, after all, she’s a boche. couldn’t she be influenced by a clever rogue among her fellow-countrymen? there’s not a doubt but that she’s in hand and glove with franz. why, lucy, didn’t we see her meet him by the river? and, more than that, she begged us not to say a word to anyone.”
lucy shook her head and still spoke confidently. “if she knows franz and is friends with him it is not to plot against the allies. i know elizabeth better than you do, larry. she’s honest. if she were our enemy she would never have asked bob to bring her from berlin.”
“and suppose she wanted to get here for reasons of her own?” larry muttered under his breath. aloud he said, “germany is pretty well down and out. even those germans who, like elizabeth, didn’t favor the war, might be persuaded they must work for her now.”
“wouldn’t she tell you how she happened to know franz, bob?” lucy asked, almost pleadingly. “i’m sure she will if i ask her.”
“we caught up with her after she left franz, but i didn’t have much time to question her. and she looked as though she hoped i wouldn’t.”
“how did she behave, captain gordon, when she saw you?” asked michelle. “did she look frightened?”
“no, she didn’t. did you think so, larry?”
“no,” larry conceded. “she looked surprised and—well—uncomfortable.”
bob got up and moved toward the door beside the hearth. “let’s see what’s in here, larry,” he suggested, trying the door.
it opened, admitting him to a small bedroom, furnished as barely as the rest of the lodge. it held a cot-bed, a table and chair, some wooden pegs driven in the wall, from which hung a curtain covering some clothing, and a few ornaments of skins and weapons.
“may we come?” asked lucy, when bob and larry had entered.
“yes, come along,” bob called.
“not much to see,” said larry, drawing back the red curtain from the single window. “hello, it’s stopped snowing. perhaps you won’t have to spend the night here, bob.”
“i never meant to,” said bob, looking curiously about him.
the cot had two heavy blankets folded upon it, and a wolf-skin stretched on the floor beside it. several suits of clothing hung half-concealed behind the folds of calico, and some dog-collars dangled from the wooden pegs.
“i’m glad he took out the dogs,” said larry, fingering a nail-studded collar. “johann von eckhardt,” he read inside it. “that’s his name, all right. i dare say he’s too proud of it to hide it. bob, we ought easily to find out all about him.”
“i’ve already written dick harding to ask him what he knows,” said bob. “he’s in the intelligence department now, and has tabs on a lot of them. look, here’s a uniform.”
he lifted the calico screen and revealed a prussian officer’s grey field-uniform, worn and faded, and stained with mud and rust. beside it hung a hunting dress like the one herr johann usually wore, and a heavy fur-lined overcoat.
“he’s a colonel,” said bob, touching the insignia on the blouse, “colonel of artillery. this must be a mild sort of hunting compared to what he’s done. larry, i believe you’re right. elizabeth stifled my suspicions for a while, but they’re all coming back.”
“they’d better,” said larry grimly.
“but not of elizabeth!” cried lucy hotly.
“all right, if you can explain it some other way,” said larry. “well, there’s nothing else to see here.”
he and bob approached the window. “look, larry, it’s clearing. there are not more than two inches of snow on the ground. i think even my delicate little feet can pick their way home now.”
larry laughed, then pointed out through the woodland. “there’s the road, see it, bob? that’s franz’ route when he takes his wood to coblenz—or elsewhere. he’s right under herr johann’s eye.”
“but old johann doesn’t spend much time here, only an occasional visit,” remarked bob.
while the two young officers talked together lucy and michelle lingered on the far side of the room, lucy’s eyes on the grey uniform, her loyal heart troubled by the sight of it, by the evidence of herr johann’s profession. he was franz’ master and franz was elizabeth’s friend. what could be the explanation?
with restless fingers she touched the grey cloth, felt something in the pocket, mechanically plunged in her hand and drew out a square, folded paper.
“what is it?” asked michelle, taking it from her.
lucy, hardly thinking what she did, reached for the pockets of the hunting-jacket hanging alongside. she felt swiftly in them and drew out a gold clasp-knife, a seal ring and a letter addressed to franz kraft, badheim post-office, and postmarked coblenz.
lucy read the few lines of german
lucy read the few lines of german
with a sensation of prying she slipped back the clasp-knife and the ring, and was about to return the letter when the handwriting caught her eyes and left her breathless, holding the letter in her hand. it was elizabeth’s writing. michelle had carried the folded paper from the uniform pocket over to bob and larry. lucy snatched open elizabeth’s letter and read the few lines of german:
franz kraft:
i have your message and will be without fail on the embankment at nightfall next wednesday. from there you will take me to the place we know, five miles south, on the opposite shore. may we meet with success!
the crossing is what i dread, for french torpedo boats patrol the river. not that i have anything to fear, except that they should follow us.
i will never forget your services.
elizabeth muller.
hot and panting, lucy crammed the letter inside her dress and turned toward the window, as michelle called to her to join the others.
they were bent over the paper michelle had taken from lucy’s hand, a long, narrow map of the rhine, from cologne to mayence, with about ten miles of territory on each side.
“what is it?” asked lucy, trying to speak naturally, not daring to raise her eyes for fear of betraying her excitement.
“just a map,” said larry. “nothing special on it, that i can see, except these crosses, which might mean anything.”
he pointed to a dozen or more small, black crosses in ink, marking various places along the river, towns or villages, or open country. sometimes the crosses were on one side of the river, sometimes on the other, occasionally connected by a stroke of the pen.
“probably a map he had during the war. i’ll stick it back in his coat,” said bob. he crossed the room and felt about in the other pockets but returned empty-handed. “it’s half-past four and time to go home.”
“i’d better put out the fire,” said larry, as they left the bedroom. “i suppose franz served under this von eckhardt,” he remarked, kicking apart the glowing embers. “adelheid said her father left off soldiering to become a woodcutter. that must have been owing to von eckhardt’s patronage.”
lucy could hardly talk at all, her thoughts were in such a whirl of bewilderment. nothing much was clear to her except her determination to keep elizabeth’s letter secret until she could think out its meaning for herself. then she would either convince herself of the german woman’s innocence or face her and demand the truth. but to show the letter now to bob’s suspicious eyes, to larry’s openly accusing ones, to condemn her old nurse on such hasty evidence—this she could not do.
but her heart throbbed with grief and anger, and she could not drive elizabeth’s face from her mind, that face whose truth and loyalty she had believed in so entirely, and which seemed all at once to hold the enemy’s sly duplicity.
“it can’t be true. it can’t, it can’t!” she told herself, as she gathered her cape around her and felt the letter crackle from where she had thrust it inside her dress.
“come on,” said larry, leading the way out. “i’ll put back the padlock as best i can. wonder what herr johann will think of our intrusion?”
“he’ll think we came to spy and didn’t get much out of it,” said bob. “let’s cut across here, through the birches.”
the faint squeak of wheels on the new-fallen snow sounded ahead of them. larry glanced between the slender birch-trunks and, beyond the firs bordering the road, caught sight of a wagon moving slowly in the direction of badheim.
“someone’s coming along the road,” he said, putting out his hand to keep back the others. “i think it’s old franz himself.”
lucy, stealing up to his side, saw the horse and donkey drawing the wagon and gave a quick nod. “it’s franz,” she said.
the woodcutter had come now almost abreast of where they stood. his wagon was heavily loaded with bundles of fagots roped together and partly sheltered by a tarpaulin cover. he drew rein and, jumping down into the snow, walked on as though inspecting the road, across which loose snow had drifted.
“no wonder he’s afraid of getting stuck,” said bob. “his wagon’s overloaded.”
“why in the world does he come out in such weather, and almost at nightfall?” murmured larry, involuntarily moving nearer the road.
franz had disappeared around the turn. bob said suddenly:
“larry, let’s have a look at one of his bundles of wood. be quick and we can manage it.”
he had no sooner spoken than by common consent he and larry plunged forward through the trees to the road. they ran to the wagon and, while the donkey turned his head to watch them, from the neatly piled layers of fagot-bundles chose one at the top, more easily pulled from beneath the tarpaulin covering. in another minute they were back, ducking under the trees and out of sight at the moment when franz reappeared, plodding along in the snow, head bent, and hands thrust in his pockets.
michelle and lucy waited breathless for larry and bob to rejoin them. franz climbed up on his seat, picked up his reins and went on slowly down the road, the snow squeaking once more under the heavily loaded wheels.
bob and larry laid down the fagot-bundle and bob with his pocket-knife cut the cords that bound the sticks together, while all eyes followed his movements with eager intentness. the sticks fell apart and scattered on the snow. there was nothing else in the bundle.
“one on us, bob,” said larry, gazing at the fagots rather sheepishly. “now, why in thunder is he in such a rush to carry wood to badheim—or coblenz—to-day?”
“i give it up,” said bob disgustedly. “let’s go home.”
in silence the four crossed the road and continued their way through the forest, which was now bathed in twilight shadows. lucy was too lost in unhappy pondering over the letter hidden in her dress to give much thought to franz’ afternoon wanderings. she longed to confide in michelle, but still hesitated, hating to hear someone else accuse elizabeth of what she herself refused to believe. she was roused from her reverie by hearing larry say:
“that’s it. that’s what we’re afraid of. the germans who have lost everything with the fall of the monarchy and who despise the new government, are combining—so we think—with the bolsheviki. anything to harass the allies and delay the peace, do you see? they don’t look further ahead than that, with german obtuseness. i thought of you, bob, when i heard the rumor, because of your theories about the bolshies that alan would never listen to, and i believe that you have been right all the time.”
“alan’s an idiot,” said bob crossly. his leg was hurting him but he tried not to limp. “i wish he were here to settle with franz now. he needn’t bother with any theories—just face him down until he tells the truth.”
“well, we might do that much ourselves.”
“yes, but i’m always held back by a lingering feeling that we’d find out only half the truth that way. to learn it all we must wait and watch. but alan would never think that out. he’d go for franz and herr johann as if he were hunting rabbits. it’s lots easier on the temper.”
“hang on to your temper, we’re almost home,” said larry, guessing the pain that bob tried not to show. “about the german government, bob; they say it’s still pretty wobbly. if anyone nips the german pro-bolsheviki in the bud it will be the allies. and we’d better go to it.”
“berlin was riotous enough when alan and i came through,” said bob. “we were shot at from all directions.”
“no wonder elizabeth wanted to leave,” remarked larry.
lucy glanced up at him, still keeping her troubled silence. larry asked, disapprovingly:
“what’s the matter with you, anyway, lucy? do you think you’re a jolly companion to-day? i’d as soon take a walk with a dumb animal.”
“thanks,” said lucy, shaking off her gloomy preoccupation with an effort. “talk to michelle, can’t you?”
larry glanced behind him at michelle and shook his head in discouragement. “she looks as solemn as you do. bob, i thought nurses’ aides were sent here to cheer up the patients. if this goes on they’ll all have a relapse.”
“you are not a patient, captain eaton,” smiled michelle. “on the contrary, it is you whom we expect to cheer us. i am sorry to look so serious. i was thinking that this week i go away to france, and that before leaving i would like well to understand these strange happenings.”
bob said with conviction, “michelle, before this week’s over, i promise you’ll know it all. i’m as sick of floundering as you are. i’m going to plunge in and fish out franz’ secret.”
“only, don’t go in over your head,” advised larry. “you’re flying against the wind when you face that wily old johann. hello, i’ve lost my simile.”
“never mind, it’ll do, and the advice is fine,” said lucy. with a sigh she added, “bob got safely out of archangel only to run into a nest of boches and try to——”
“—smoke them out,” finished larry. “but what are you afraid of, lucy, except of their eluding us? we’ve got the upper hand. don’t you know we won the war?”
“sometimes i have to remind myself of it,” declared lucy soberly. “it’s a queer mixture we live in now—neither war nor peace. i hate that old franz and never look at him if i can help it, but i go every day to see adelheid and can’t but like her, poor little thing.” all at once, as they neared the hospital clearing, she asked, “are you on duty all day to-morrow, larry?”
“no, in the afternoon i’m free. why?”
“nothing at all. don’t say anything,” said lucy quickly, with a nervous earnestness that made larry stare at her almost with anxiety.
“what are you up to, anyhow?” he demanded.
“something that you’ll have to be up to with me,” said lucy with sudden resolution.
