Over There with the Canadians at Vimy Ridge

"What do you want to do?" asked "the baron."

"Whatever I'm best fitted for. I hoped I'd been successful enough in the venture just completed to warrant your keeping me in something of the same line."

"Do you want to go back to Canada?"

"I'd thought some of that, but it doesn't seem practicable," Irving replied. "You see, I'm an enlisted soldier now and would be sent back to the front if I returned. But it seems to me that I might do some good work in the United States."

"Yes, that's true, you might," "the baron" admitted, meditatively. "I'll think that over."

"Meanwhile," Irving continued, "I'd like to get rid of this uniform. It causes me no end of inconvenience. I'm constantly expecting to be stopped on the street and questioned."

"Have you been stopped yet?"

"No, but I've been followed. I'd have gone out and walked around some last evening, but was followed all the way from here to the hotel. The same man followed me from the hotel here this morning."

"The baron" appeared to be genuinely surprised at this statement.

"I don't understand that," he said. "What kind of looking man was it that followed you?"

"He was middle-aged and dressed in civilian clothes."

"I'll find out about this," "the baron" announced, pressing a button on his desk.

An office messenger between 60 and 70 years old entered.

"Is Schoensiegel or Blau out there?" inquired "the baron."

"Blau is," replied the messenger.

"Send him in."

The messenger went out and a minute later an individual who might have passed for an ordinary plain-clothes man of the police force entered.

"Blau," said the intelligence official, "this is Mr. Hessenburg, one of our friends from America-Canada. He was with the Canadian army at the front and broke away to bring us some important information. He's been here only a couple of days, but has been followed on the street by someone, not under orders from this office. I want you to go outside and wait until he leaves, and then find out who it is that's following him and why he's doing it. Maybe some other department or the police are laboring under a misapprehension as to our friend's identity."

"Gans gewiss, Herr Hauptmann," said Blau, bowing himself out of the room and indicating acceptance of his commission. The conversation was resumed between the spy and "the baron."

"I'll provide you with a uniform and make you an attache of this office for the present," the latter announced. "Later I'll take up your suggestion for keeping you in this branch of the service and see what I can do. The skill and daring of your achievements thus far deserves recognition, I can say that much at least."

Irving was reassured and encouraged by these words. He was convinced that "the baron" entertained no doubt regarding the genuineness of his representations.

"Why not give me employment that will enable me to advance my efficiency for further spy work?" the boy suggested.

"That's a good idea," declared the intelligence official with a look of professional animation in his eyes. "I think I'll do that. As soon as you get your uniform, report at this office and I'll have you assigned to your new duties. Meanwhile I'll put you on the payroll and give you an order for a month's salary in advance. Your bill at the hotel has been taken care of, but from now on you'll pay that yourself. Lieut. Vollmer was guilty of an inexcusable oversight when he left you without money for your meals and other incidentals. I thought that was being taken care of."

Irving thanked "the baron" for the interest shown in his welfare. Then he took up the subject on which he had expected to make his strongest play with the intelligence official.

"I want to speak to you now," he said, "about a matter that perhaps I should have brought to your attention sooner. It's about the message on my arm. I don't know what's in that message, but it may be that Canadian officials have taken steps to render worthless the information I brought to you. Would it be possible for them to render it of no value to you if they knew the contents of the message I brought?"

The keen interest that "the baron" manifested instantly in these suggestions indicated to Irving that he could hardly have broached a subject that would command closer attention.

CHAPTER XXIX

ORDERS FOR MONEY AND CLOTHES

"It would not only be possible for the Canadian officials to nullify the value to us of the message you brought, but that is exactly what they would do if they found out the contents of that message."

This is the reply "the baron" gave to the question put to him by Irving at the close of the preceding chapter. The spy put the question in accord with a suggestion made by Col. Evans in the course of his instructions behind the Canadian lines. The intent of this move was to obviate suspicion that he had delivered a fake message when discovery was made that the information it contained did not answer its professed purpose.

"Have you any reason to believe that they discovered the nature of the information you brought in that message?" asked the high Prussian official after he had answered the spy's question.

"I'm afraid I have," the latter replied. "Why didn't they arrest you?"

"Because they didn't know where to find me. I was lost somewhere in the Canadian army. They probably had no way of identifying me. However, they must have made a search for me when they learned what had been going on-maybe they're searching yet."

"Do you know what they learned that a message of this kind was being brought over here?"

"I know enough to feel that there is grave danger that they made such a discovery."

"How did you find that out?"

"This way: One of the boys in the company to which I belonged received a letter from his cousin in Canada that told almost the whole story, and I read the letter. That cousin told a long story about his going to Toronto to visit some friends and getting sick while there. He was taken to a hospital-our hospital, by the way-and while he was convalescing, he strolled out in the hall and saw the tattooing operation on my arm. The two men who were doing the work saw him standing there and gazing through the glass door, and they rushed out, collared him, and dragged him into the laboratory. But he satisfied them that he was merely a curious onlooker and they let him go.

"However, they had him watched, and after he left the hospital he was followed everywhere he went. He communicated with government officials and a week or two later the hospital was raided. This is all the information the letter contained, but it is possible that they compelled somebody to reveal the contents of the message that was tattooed on my arm."

"Very possible," agreed "the baron," leaning forward with a look of hard and harsh concern in his eyes. "And where were you in the meantime?"

"On my way on a transport for England. The spy in the hospital, I suppose, did not observe me very closely. Fortunately I had my coat off and perhaps he did not identify me as a soldier. At any rate, I was not interfered with, and I am here."

"No doubt of that," returned the intelligence official rather absently; "and you brought the message. Well, all we can do is remember the circumstances you have just related and take them into consideration if developments don't prove satisfactory. I'm glad you told me about this, for it may prevent a lot of confusion. It wouldn't be well for you to venture back into Canada with that picture on your arm. You'd be picked up as a deserter, and the intelligence officers wouldn't be very slow finding out that you were the fellow they've been hunting for ever since the raid on that Toronto hospital. As a matter of fact, I doubt if you can be of much use to us in any of the countries of our allied enemies with that thing on your arm."

"I have an idea to remedy that," said Irving with a smile that suggested something of a novelty in his mind.

"What is that?" asked "the baron."

"Peel this picture off and graft some new skin in its place."

The intelligence official laughed, but he was interested as well as amused.

"That isn't a bad idea at all," he said. "On the whole I am inclined to take you seriously. You seem to have a scientific turn of mind, and that always appeals to an intelligent German. I'm going to put you to work under the direction of a man who will give you a thorough tryout, and we'll find out what you're good for. You seem to be ambitious and intelligent and have a good record behind you. Go ahead now and show us what you're worth."

This announcement and the accompanying instruction delighted the spy beyond measure. If his recent experiences had not schooled him in the very wise habit of self-restraint, his first joyful impulse might have got him into trouble.

"Just wait a minute and I'll fix you up with an order for some money and some clothes," said "the baron" after a few moments of silence.

He picked up a pen and busied himself filling out a form and writing a note on a letterhead of the department. These he folded and placed hi separate envelopes. The envelopes he addressed and handed to the spy.

"There, that's all today, I think," he said. "Whatever you need hereafter will be taken care of by Mr. Herrmann. Inquire outside and you'll be directed where to go to have this order cashed."

Irving thanked him and left the office. Ten minutes later he was outside the building with a comfortable roll of bank-bills in his pocket. As he started up the street with directions in his mind for reaching the quartermaster's office, he saw Blau on the opposite sidewalk and was reminded of the instruction given that intelligence operative to shadow the young spy's shadower.

CHAPTER XXX

BEFORE BREAKFAST

Irving dismissed from his mind for the time being the mystery concerning the middle-aged man in civilian clothes who had followed him through the streets on two occasions. His fears regarding the incident were dispelled, for he felt that Blau, the intelligence operative on the opposite side of the street, would take care of that matter very efficiently. Everything was coming his way now, and he in his mission than he had felt at any other time walked alone; with greater confidence of success since landing with his parachute.

It was a ten minute walk to the quartermaster's headquarters. At the entrance of the building, his curiosity concerning the game of "shadow chase shadow" which he presumed to be going on behind him was aroused by a sudden reverting of his mind to the subject, and he turned and looked down the street by which he had come. There was Blau, half a square away, but the "middle-aged man in civilian clothes" was not in sight.

"I wonder if he got onto the fact that somebody was directed to watch him," Irving mused. "But that ought not to have stopped him. He had nothing to fear from an agent of another department if he was engaged in legitimate government business."

The spy delivered his requisition for a soldier's uniform and was given in turn an order on the supply house and directions how to reach it. Then he left the building and took a car for the place where he was to get his suit.

Blau took the same car, but the "shadow" he had been ordered to "shadow" was not there unless he had disguised himself so successfully that Irving was unable to recognize him. The operative appeared to be somewhat puzzled, too, but he made no sign of recognition to the soldier in enemy uniform, and the latter maintained a like pretense of unacquaintance.

An hour later the spy was clad in a first lieutenant's uniform and on his way back to the hotel. Blau kept within hailing distance of him, but his shadowing seemed to be futile, for the "middle-aged man in civilian clothes" had not appeared in any recognizable guise or disguise. Indeed, Irving was certain that nobody except the operative had followed him since he came out of the quartermaster's office and started for the store-rooms.

The applicant for an army uniform was required to enlist for service in the army before it could be supplied. Irving was not surprised at this, but he was very much surprised by the kind of uniform given him. It bore the insignia of a first lieutenant's rank.

"That's certainly generous on the baron's part," he said to himself. "I don't understand it. I didn't read his note to the quartermaster, nor the quartermaster's order. Maybe they would have afforded some explanation. Maybe I shall have to earn my rank and meanwhile will go about like an automobile for which a license has not been issued but bears a tag 'license applied for.' Maybe that's my case here-first lieutenant's commission applied for. It looks kind of irregular, but I suppose 'the baron' knows his business. Anyway, mine is a special case all around, however one looks at it."

When he filled out his enlistment papers, of course Irving signed the name of Adolph Hessenburg, late of Toronto, Canada, and on the "history sheet" that he had to fill out he entered data given him by the boy of the original tattooed cubist-art message. Then he was granted the use of a room where he discarded his Canadian uniform and put on his new Prussian military disguise.

He felt that he was disguised now as he at no time had hoped to be since planning his spy expedition into the heart of the kaiser's kingdom. He surely must have the full confidence of the Prussian officials with whom he had come into contact, or he would not have been elevated to the military rank and position of trust that now were virtually his.

Irving was particularly pleased with the ease he had experienced in picking up the idioms of the German language. He had an excellent memory and scarcely a word or a phrase that was taught to him at school or behind the Canadian lines, or that he had heard since landing with a parachute on territory held by the Prussian armies, had failed to make a lasting impression on his mind. Moreover, he was very quick to put ideas together and in that way get their associated significance; so that he skillfully "figured out" the meaning of not a few words that he had never heard before they were used in conversation with him by "the baron" and other persons with whom he came in contact. And he was almost as quick and skillful in his use of those same words for the expression of his own ideas.

After leaving the quartermaster's supply depot, Irving visited a haberdashery and bought several suits of underwear, shirts, collars, and socks, and then returned to the hotel. As he entered his room and deposited his bundles on the bed a funny thing happened.

He stopped short-true, he could not have gone much farther without falling over the bed, but nevertheless there was a decided "shortness" to his "stop."

"My goodness!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand to his appetite region. "I haven't had any breakfast yet."

Which being a sufficiently thrilling climax for the closing of a chapter, we will carry the reader over in suspense to the next.

CHAPTER XXXI

AT WORK IN THE SPY OFFICE

Irving laughed and felt hungrier than ever. The humorous relaxation afforded him great relief from the nervousness of his morning's activities, which had been associated enough with doubt and apprehension to make a coward run and a brave man extremely cautious.

"Well, that's a good one," the young pseudo-boche lieutenant continued in soliloquy. "Here it's nearly 2 o'clock and I haven't eaten my breakfast, and meanwhile I'd forgotten all about it. And I'm as hungry as a bear. I wonder if the British blockade has left enough food in the kaiser's kingdom, to fill up the vacuum inside of me. I think I'll go and find out. That'll be worth-while information to carry back to the Canadian commanders."

So out he went to a restaurant two squares away, where he had small difficulty in getting all he wanted to eat, the only qualification being that he had to pay prices so out of proportion to his income that he instinctively began to figure out the financial problem of how to make his salary carry him through to the end of the month.

"I'm starting out too swell," he concluded after several minutes' reckoning. "I'll have to eat at cheaper restaurants and get a cheaper room. That makes me think I don't know how much my room at the hotel is going to cost me; but it's bound to be pretty steep. Anyway, I don't care, so long as I can pull through on my salary. I don't want to carry any of this money with me when I go back to the other side of No-Man's Land."

Irving did not ask how much the hotel was charging for his room. He merely announced that he would check out that evening after engaging quarters in a comfortable rooming house in a semi-residence district near the Tiergarten. Economy was not the only motive that caused him to make this move. Being now in German uniform, he reasoned that he might be able to throw off of his trail the "middle-aged man in civilian clothes" who had been shadowing him, if he changed his living address also. As a further precaution he made this change late in the evening.

Next morning he reported for duty at the office of "Mr. Herrmann" as he had been instructed by "the baron" to do. Mr. Herrmann proved to be in charge of a suite of offices in the intelligence building in which were employed more than a hundred persons, most of them men, varying in ages from 20 to 70. Irving, for want of detailed information regarding their duties, classed them all as clerks, stenographers and typists at first glance, and this in general was a very good classification, although many of them performed special work that entitled them to ranking positions of greater dignity. And he had not been employed there more than two or three days when he learned that half of them held such ranking positions together with salaries proportionate to the grades of work they did.

"Can you operate a typewriter?" asked Mr. Herrmann after conducting the new employe through one large and several smaller work-rooms under his superintendence.

"With two fingers," Irving replied with a smile.

"Learned it at home, eh? Well, you won't need a lot of speed. I understand your education in German is not very far advanced."

"Not very far," the spy replied.

"Can you read the script?"

"Yes, I can work it out. I know the letters, but they come to me rather slowly."

"You'll make it all right after a few days' practice. I'm going to set you at work first copying some translated cipher messages." (The boy's heart began to thump eagerly, but the thumping became a weaker reflex pattering as the superintendent continued.) "They don't amount to much. We get masses of indifferent material from numerous sources, but we keep it all carefully cataloged, indexed, and cross-indexed several times. Any little insignificant item of information may be worth a good deal to us at any time. That's one secret of the great value of the German spy system. Now I'll leave you with this budget of communications and let you work it out with your own intelligence. That's one way we have of finding out what a man is worth."

Irving longed to ask him how he protected such an intricate system of concentrated information from leaks that might be of value to the enemy, but wisely refrained.

"I'll find that out by keeping my eyes and ears open," he told himself. "I mustn't ask any questions except such as bear directly on my duties and are calculated to promote my efficiency."

He sat down at the desk assigned to him and was soon diligently, eagerly at work. His eagerness, however, was a well-camouflaged secret.

CHAPTER XXXII

A STARTLING RECOGNITION

For two weeks Irving continued his work in the record offices of the great German espionage system. His experiences there during this time were without special incident, except that they evolved before his mind a continuous motion picture of scientific detail far more intricate, comprehensive, and deep-reaching than he could ever have imagined.

There could be no doubt that "the baron," Mr. Herrmann, and the staff of experts, clerks, stenographers, and typists looked upon the "parachute hero" as a bona fide fatherland loyalist. The story of his "camouflaged escape" by parachute from an enemy aeroplane to deliver a cryptic-code message that he carried all the way from America had circulated among them, and the glee with which they commented on his skill and success indicated the intense feeling with which they, one and all, regarded the cause for which the Teutonic race was fighting-the supremacy of the empire founded by Prince Bismarck. Irving discovered also another important human factor in this relation, namely, that the initiated members of the great spy organization of the central powers could discuss among themselves the secrets of their system without becoming in the least gossipy; hence, the danger of their inadvertently dropping hints of important state matters never intended for "outside ears" was small indeed.

A more secretive group of employes it would be difficult to imagine. Moreover, their secrets seemed to be grouped in sections and degrees. And the most peculiar feature of the whole system, perhaps, was the fact that few instructions were given, defining these sections and degrees. Irving received none himself, and in all the time he was connected with the bureau he learned of nobody else who had been told what, or what not, to do or say in this regard.

"Here seems to be another instance of the requirement of instinctive understanding," he told himself a good many times. "They seem to give me credit of being an extremely intelligent fellow. Well, I hope I exceed their estimate of me. If I do, they may find it necessary co revise their system somewhat."

The degrees of secrecy Irving learned in the course of a week or more were of a graduated character. For instance, he soon discovered that he might talk about his own work to any and all other members of the force, but all of them outside of his class would not discuss their work with him. After he was advanced to the next higher grade of work he found, as he had already had reason to suspect, that there were two degrees of the great spy system within the "circumscribed freedom" of his intelligence. This "freedom" was circumscribed by a prohibition, forbidding him to discuss any spy subject to anybody outside the office except on special direction from superior authority.

Irving progressed rapidly in his work. He exhibited such ready comprehension of details and purposes that he was soon marked by the entire office force as a "coming man" in the government secret service. Undoubtedly his spectacular method of transit from the Canadian to the German lines helped materially to boost along his growing reputation, but it would also be unfair to put too much emphasis on this feat of daring and skill. Irving really deserved much credit for innate ability.

In his efforts to create a general feeling of satisfaction and confidence in order to ward off any suspicions which might arise regarding his purpose and motives, the young spy did a good many things that almost caused in him a rebellious boiling over of patriotic sentiment. He did much to perfect a filing system that had been neglected because of illness of the man previously in charge, and offered a number of suggestions for certain other efficiency improvements which brought forth complimentary notice from Superintendent Herrmann. But all the time, while doing these things, Irving kept in mind the big purpose of his mission which outmeasured so greatly in importance his services to the enemy that his feelings of self-reproach for the aid he was incidentally giving the kaiser's spy machine were short-lived.

Evidently it was the purpose of Mr. Herrmann to advance his spy pupil as rapidly as possible. Undoubtedly he was under orders to do this from "the baron." Although the reason for this method of procedure had not been stated in so many words, the understanding seemed to be clear enough that it was the purpose of the department to send him back to America equipped for very important work at an early date.

Three weeks after he entered the office he began to accumulate the information for which he had been sent. He then was given access to the card-index system of the great world-spy organization. It was like a city-library catalog, with references to files of interminable data buried away in metal boxes in a large vault.