Chapter II: Part 2

"Well, about the time I was able to get around without doing myself any harm--the gas effects kept me pretty weak quite a while,--I went up to Toronto to visit some friends. I was invited up there by one of the boys who was gassed at the same time I was. He and others had organized a 'Gas club,' consisting of fellows who had been gassed in the war. Grewsome idea, wasn't it? But it took famously. They wanted me to join, and I went up there and was initiated.

"Well, while I was up there, I saw considerable outdoor life. Several of us went hunting on snowshoes one day, and that capped the climax of my physical exertions. I ought to have been more careful, for I was not strong enough yet for such life. Well, I became ill on the way, and the boys got me to a hospital in the outskirts of the city and a physician examined me. The doctor said there was nothing serious the matter with me, only over-exertion in my weakened condition, so I did not notify father and mother.

"Two days later the doctor said I was in good enough condition to leave the hospital, but advised me to go straight home and not try any more such vigorous exercise until I was in condition to return to the trenches. This was in the evening, and I decided to remain in the hospital until morning. I was sitting up when the doctor called, and after he left I went out into the hall to find a telephone to call up my friend and tell him of my plan to return home next day.

"The building is an old brick structure that undoubtedly would have been condemned for hospital purposes if the interior woodwork had not been of the best material and well put together. However, the layout was decidedly old-fashioned and confusing to one accustomed to modern architecture. Anyway, I got lost, so to speak, in the hall while trying to find my way to the stairway.

"I found a stairway, but soon realized that it was not the one I wanted, and was about to turn back, when something caught my attention and held it for several minutes. I was on a kind of half-floor landing before an entrance into a low rear addition, and from that position found myself gazing into a laboratory in which something very strange was going on. Three men were in the room, one of them little more than a boy and in the khaki uniform of a soldier; the other two in civilian clothes. In the upper half of the door were two glass panels, through which I could see very clearly, and the transom over the door was swung partly open.

"There was something peculiar about the two older men which almost fascinated me. Both had a decidedly foreign look. One was smooth-shaven, except for a heavy kaiser mustache; the other, the older of these two, wore a full beard.

"The young fellow in khaki was seated on a chair, with his left arm bared above the elbow, resting on a table. The other two men were working over the arm in a most studious manner. Over them was a brilliant calcium light which illuminated their work. I could see the arm very plainly and it took me only a minute or two to determine what the two older men were doing to it.

"They were tattooing the arm, and a most remarkable kind of tattooing it was. They were extremely careful with their work and progressed slowly. Judging from the care they took and the slowness with which they progressed, they must have worked on that arm several days. Also, spread out before them, was a small sheet of white paper, to which they referred frequently.

"It is hard to describe to you the appearance of the result of their work, but I'll send you a copy of the original they were working from and explain how I got it. I think you'll agree with me that it looks more like a piece of kindergarten patchwork than anything else imaginable.

"While I was gazing in a kind of fascination at the strange scene, the man with the kaiser mustache turned suddenly and saw me. His next movement was just as sudden and much more astonishing. He sprang to the door, flung it open, and before I could realize what was taking place he had seized me by the arm and was dragging me into the laboratory. I struggled to prevent him from getting me inside, but, because of my weakened condition, was unsuccessful. My next impulse was to cry out for help, but the situation seemed to me so ridiculous that I decided I would only make myself look foolish by so doing. This hospital was surely a highly respectable institution, I reasoned, and the misunderstanding of which I was a victim would soon be cleared up. Perhaps these men thought I was a spying meddler bent on some malicious mischief.

"After they got me inside--for the other men sprang to my captor's assistance--they closed and locked the door, also the transom, and began to quiz me as to what I was doing out in the hall. I was too sore at their treatment of me to give an explanation and demanded what they meant by their actions. I saw that they were very uneasy about something and that made me bolder. It soon dawned upon me that they had been doing something that they wanted to keep secret. That resolved me to get back at them with interest, and while they were busy with their excited demands, I got my wits together to devise some sort of trick that would show them it wasn't quite so easy to browbeat me as they seemed to imagine.

"All three of them huddled together right in front of me and rained questions at me excitedly. This suited me first rate as soon as I had decided what to do. I wasn't afraid of any desperate violence on their part; the place was too public for that. I retreated slowly to the table at which they had been working and leaned back resting my hands on it. They never caught on to what I was up to, but pressed close to me with their excited questions. I met these with noncommittal replies, and at the same time got one hand closer and closer to the mysterious slip of paper on the table. It was not more than six inches long and three wide, and I figured that if I could get one hand on it I might crumple it in my fist without their observing what I was doing. After I had been dragged into the room, I saw the young fellow hurriedly draw down the sleeve of his shirt over the tattooed portion of his forearm. He seemed so nervous while doing this that my suspicion of something wrong became very acute; and yet, the mystery could hardly have been more baffling.

"Well, I got my hand on the paper and crumpled it in my fist, and they never got onto my trick, at least, not until I got out of that room and away from them. I was now ready to answer their questions. I told them I was a patient in the hospital and was just trying to find my way to the office and started down the wrong stairway--that was all there was to it. I then demanded that they release me at once or I would make serious trouble for them. They asked me my name, and I told them. Then the bearded man left the laboratory, and I presume he went to the office to make inquiry about me, for he came back in a few minutes and reported that he guessed I was all right. But they held a whispered conversation in German--I caught enough of their words to be sure of that--and then told me I might go. But before the door was unlocked, the bearded man apologized, as nearly as I can remember, in the following words:

"I hope you will forgive our rough conduct, but we are engaged in very important government work, and when we saw you looking through the glass at us and apparently listening to our conversation, we presumed you were a German spy. You have satisfied us that you are all right, and we recommend that, as you love your country and wish to aid us to win the war, you keep this affair strictly to yourself."

"I was astonished and more confused than ever. That statement convicted them of something on the face of it, but of what I could not conjecture. The idea that a responsible secret agent of the government should make such a speech as that under any circumstances was simply ridiculous. I was mighty sure they were not doing work for the government. They were trying to cover something up, but what I could make no rational guess.

"I decided not to remain in the hospital any longer than it would take to get my few belongings together and pay my bill. I was afraid they would discover the loss of the paper I had stolen. Well, I got out of that place so rapidly that I had everybody staring at me who beheld my movements.

"I went to a hotel, but I am dead sure I was followed. In the morning when I went down to breakfast I was conscious of being watched. I telephoned to my friend, but while in the booth I glanced about with apparent unconcern and caught one of my shadowers looking in my direction over the top of a newspaper from a seat in the hotel lobby. I met my friend, but said nothing to him about my adventure. I wanted to get back home as soon as possible. I wasn't in condition physically to undergo any great strain.

"At last I was on the train and speeding toward home, but hadn't covered more than half of the journey when I discovered that one of my shadowers was making the journey with me. He got off when I got off and for several days had a room in one of our local hotels. I talked the matter over with father and we came to the conclusion that I had fallen into a nest of the kaiser's spies. We examined the paper I had taken from the table in the laboratory of the Toronto hospital and I made a copy of it. Then we went to the chief of police and I told nay story to him. He said the matter ought to be taken up with government officials and asked me to let him show the mysterious paper in my possession to them. I had expected this, and gave him the paper.

"A few days later I read in a newspaper that the hospital had been raided by government agents. Also, I saw nothing more of the fellow who had followed me from Toronto after I made my report to the chief of police.

"Now, what do you think of all this? Isn't it some adventure? I'm sending to you, just for your amusement, a copy of the drawing on the paper that I stole from the hospital laboratory. Can you make anything out of it? It may afford you some diversion during long, dreary watches in camp, trench or dugout."

*CHAPTER X*

*DOTS AND DASHES*

Not more than a minute after reading this letter and examining the slip of paper that accompanied it, Irving said to himself:

"This drawing is very similar to the cubist tattooing on the arm of Lieut. Tourtelle."

He studied over the matter a little more and then added:

"I believe that both were made from the same copy, or original."

A little more puzzling over the problem caused him to supplement thus:

"It looks very much as if Tourtelle and the soldier who bared his arm over the table in the hospital laboratory are one and the same person."

The suggestion startled the boy as a realization of the logical sequence flashed in his mind.

"Gee whillikens!" he exclaimed. "That means that his story about being an art student and about the tattooing of that picture on his arm by one of his fellow students is a fake. But why should he have faked it? Why wouldn't the truth have served his purpose just as well?"

Irving was at battalion headquarters, awaiting orders, which were expected to come after sundown, to move forward into the trenches. While reading the letter he was seated on the log of a tree that had been literally uprooted by a concentrated shell fire at this point a week or two before. Nobody else was interested in what he was doing and he was too much preoccupied to feel much interest in anybody right now except the mysterious Lieut. Tourtelle and his equally mysterious "amputation souvenir."

"Now," continued the boy, resuming his reasoning soliloquy, "if he told me a fake story about being an art student and having one of his fellow students copy one of his pictures on his arm, what was the motive? He wanted to deceive me, of course, but why? I'll have to leave that question unanswered for the present, I'm afraid. If I could get at his real reason for wanting that picture tattooed on his arm, I might feel some encouragement in trying to get at his motive in deceiving me. There's no doubt the picture on his arm is practically the same as the copy on this paper. I shouldn't wonder if they were the same size, drawn with precisely the same dimensions. Supposed to represent a basket of eggs spilling down stairs. What a ridiculous title. I'm sure I'd have hard work picking out the basket and the smashed eggs. It looks to me almost as if someone had pinned this paper up on a wall and fired a lot of eggs at it--and hit it, too, every crack. After all, it's the best title to a cubist art picture I ever heard of. I remember our teacher gave us a talk about that kind of art and showed us some copies of cubist paintings in magazines at the time when everybody was gossiping--yes, that's the word--about cubist art. And we surely had a lot of fun over it.

"Tourtelle told me that another student tattooed that picture on his arm. Bob's description of the scene in the hospital laboratory makes that 'second looie' look very much like a liar. I take it from this letter that both of those men were pretty well advanced in years. Art students as a rule are younger people. Moreover, students wouldn't act so strangely just because they suspected somebody of secretly watching them at their work. Then, again, Bob says the government raided that hospital. What for? Enemy agents, of course; there could be no other reason. And this raid followed Bob's report of his experience to the police. Plain as daylight. And yet, what possible connection can there be between enemy spies and cubist art? I give it up."

Irving would have liked to make a report of some kind concerning the web of strange events that clung in confusing tangle to the mystery of the ridiculous tattooing recently peeled from the amputated arm of Lieut. Tourtelle, but the more he studied over the matter, the more probable it appeared to him that such action on his part would be unwise. His conclusions must of necessity be exceedingly vague. He could not figure out a motive in any way explaining the apparently eccentric ideas and actions of the "hobby ridden second lieutenant." Yes, that phrase characterized Tourtelle exactly when the spy suspicion contained in Bob's letter was dismissed, and undoubtedly the average officer, unless he be of a very suspicious nature, would take that view of it.

"I'd be laughed at if I made a report of this affair without being able to place my finger on anything more definite than I seem to be able to single out now," he concluded. "So I guess I'll have to keep this thing to myself or else whittle my wits to a sharper point than I have been able to whittle them thus far."

About an hour after nightfall Irving returned to the front line trenches together with seventy-five or a hundred other soldiers who constituted a relief shift, to take the place of a like number of tried and muscle-cramped boys whose capacity for efficient service was in need of recuperation. The sector was quiet on this occasion and the relief exchange was effected without notable incident. In fact, conditions were such that it was considered safe to permit most of the soldiers to sleep under ground of sentries here and there along the trenches and in listening posts out in No Man's Land.

But Irving did not "sleep a wink," although general conditions were favorable for sleep in the dugout where he wrapped himself in a blanket and attempted to follow the reposeful example of half a dozen comrades with little on their minds save the ordinary routine of bloody battle in the past and prospect of much more fight and blood in the future. No mystery racked their minds, and they rested peacefully enough. With Private Ellis, however, it was different, and in a very few minutes after he lay down a plausible solution of the puzzle that had been teasing him for several hours popped into his brain with startling suddenness and rendered sleep about as impossible to him as peaceful surrender was to outraged Belgium.

After the excitement of the first thrill was over, Irving was unable to trace the process by which he arrived at his conclusion. After all, "process" is too slow a word to use in this relation. "The first thing he knew," his mind had jumped from the rough pen sketch of the cubist art drawing in his pocket to the tattooed copy as he had seen it on Tourtelle's arm. A moment later he found himself almost weirdly interested in the recollection of a marked difference in these two copies which had not impressed him before.

Then came a new thrill of eagerness, followed by incredulity, then eagerness and incredulity battling for supremacy, over a suspicion that would not be downed in spite of its almost laughable character. Could it be possible? Yes, no, yes, no--back and forth the contradictions swung. But one thing was certain; Irving recalled it distinctly: In the maze of configurations of "distorted cubes" were myriads of dots and dashes, dots and dashes. What could they mean? If the theory which forced itself upon him was correct there was only one reasonable solution of the whole mystery.

The boy in the dugout could scarcely contain his excitement as the seemingly logical explanation of the mystery "dotted and dashed" itself into a position of settled conviction in his mind.

*CHAPTER XI*

*IRVING TELLS THE SERGEANT*

"Dots and dashes, dots and dashes, dots and dashes," kept running through Irving's mind.

He took Bob's letter from his pocket and drew from the envelope the paper containing his cousin's copy of "The Basket of Eggs Spilling Down Stairs."

"Bob drew this in a hurry, or at least he had no appreciation of the value of minute details which, I believe, are more important than a thousand baskets of eggs," the young soldier mused as he gazed at the cleverly drawn, but rather inaccurate, copy in the light of the trench lamp. "He disregarded most of those clots and dashes, except in a few places, thinking, I suppose, that continuous lines would do just as well. And he was right so far as the picture is concerned. In fact, I believe those dots and dashes that were on Tourtelle's arm detracted from the art of the artist, if I may pose as an art critic; but for the purpose intended they are absolutely essential.

"Now, I wish I could get hold of an officer who would listen to me and maybe I could start an investigation that would result in something worth while. But Sergt. Wilson, who messes in here, is out with some other men in a listening post and I'm sure it would be better to approach the lieutenant through him. That means I've got to wait here probably until morning before I can get this great weight of responsibility off my mind."

And that was exactly what he did. He lay there thinking over and over again the events of his own and his cousin's adventures concerning Lieut. Tourtelle. There was no use of his attempting to slumber, and it was not long before he gave up the idea entirely. However, he was in no great need of sleep, inasmuch as he had almost reveled in the luxury of rest ever since he was ordered to the field hospital for treatment of his shoulder.

Through all the rest of the night, Irving continued to review and analyze the strange case of "freak art." And perhaps it was fortunate that he had ample opportunity to do this, for it is quite possible that otherwise he would not have had certain important points sufficiently in mind to make a strong and convincing case when at last he found opportunity to make his report.

"It seems to me those dots and dashes explain Tourtelle's anxiety to keep that tattooing on his arm," the boy mused. "Now, if he's a spy, he was putting over just a clever 'con game' when he sent for me and begged my forgiveness and then asked me to do him a favor. After all, I've got to admit that that fellow is pretty smooth. No, I don't think he overdid it at all. I did think it a little strange when he followed his plea for forgiveness with a request that I do him a favor. But the favor was so simple, although unusual enough, goodness knows, and there appeared to be so little opportunity for him to trick me into something I wouldn't like to do, that it seemed foolish for me to hesitate. It looks now as if he tricked not only me, but the surgeon and nurses, too. I wonder what that surgeon would say if he knew that a spy had made clever use of him to prevent a very deep enemy plot from going to pieces at a time when the bottom was about to drop out of it. He'd be a lot sorer, I bet, than he was when I contradicted him after he said Tourtelle's mind was wandering under the anaesthetic.

"'A Basket of Eggs Spilling Down Stairs'--that's some name for a painting. I wonder what's behind it. Now, it's just possible that that name's written somewhere in cipher in the picture, and maybe a key goes with it and that key applied to the name will produce the message he's carrying to the enemy. I suppose he'll watch his opportunity and--

"My goodness!"

Irving uttered this exclamation aloud and the sound of his voice awoke one of the sleepers in the dugout, who asked what was the matter. The soliloquist replied "nothing," that he had merely startled himself with a "bright idea," whereupon the awakened soldier grumbled, "You're a nut," and rolled over and went to sleep again.

"I wonder if the sergeant will call me a nut, too, when I tell him my story," Irving reflected a little apprehensively. "In spite of the way everything fits into everything else as logically as can be, the whole account is bound to sound a good deal like a fairy story. Sometimes I feel like giving it up and casting the whole affair out of my mind, but--but--I can't. Now, that idea that made me burst out like a 'nut,' as that soldier called me, fits in just as pat as can be with all he rest. It looks, it looks, yes, sir, it looks just as if Tourtelle was trying to surrender out in No Man's Land the other night when we were scouting there together. I don't know how I can prove it, but it's plain enough to me, unless my whole theory falls down, and I don't see how it can."

At last, shortly before the break of day, reliefs were sent to the various sentry posts, and Sergt. Wilson returned to the dugout with several other men. Irving seized the first available opportunity to tell the "non com" that he had some important information that he wished to "get off his mind," and they withdrew to one side of the underground room to talk the matter over.

In a few minutes Private Ellis had Sergt. Wilson interested by his simple, direct method of presenting his subject. In fifteen minutes, the boy had finished his narrative and turned over his cousin's letter to the officer to read. The latter pored with intense interest over not only the epistle but the accompanying copy of the mysterious "Basket of Eggs Spilling Down Stairs." Presently he said:

"You've got something very important here, Ellis. I'm going to see Lieut. Osborne right away. I think you had better come along. Unless I'm badly mistaken this matter will get to the major in a very short time and something important will be doing."

The sergeant climbed up out of the dugout into the trench, and Irving followed, and soon they were making their way to another similar excavation which was the headquarters of Lieut. Osborne.

*CHAPTER XII*

*QUIZZING A SPY*

Sergt. Wilson's prediction that Private Ellis's spy story would go to the major of the battalion was more than realized. Affairs moved rapidly from the time when the non-commissioned officer got a clear idea of the importance of the situation. He and Irving made a rapid transit from their trench cave to the dugout where Lieut. Osborne was stationed, and there the story was repeated. The lieutenant was interested at once and took the matter up with the captain. The latter instructed the lieutenant to remain at the telephone until he could communicate with his superior officers.

There followed a wait of rather nervous expectancy for Irving. It really was not more than half an hour, although it seemed much longer to the young soldier who made the original complaint. At last, however, came a ring of the muffled telephone bell, and Lieut. Osborne lifted the receiver to his ear. He listened a minute or two, then hung up the receiver and said:

"Ellis, you and I are ordered to proceed to the hospital and confront this young spy of yours with the fact that we have the goods on him. The captain communicated with the major, and the major with the colonel; so, you see, your story has gone up to the head of the regiment. Sergt. Wilson, I am going to leave you here in my place while I'm gone. I hope to be back before nightfall. If I'm delayed longer than I expect to be, I'll communicate with you by 'phone. Ellis, we'll start at once. The colonel has ordered an automobile to be ready to meet us at the nearest relief station back of the lines. Come on."

In a few minutes the officer and the private were racing through the nearest communication trench, which was deep, sinuous and well camouflaged, on past the second and third lines to the relief station just beyond a small inn covered with a growth of trees and a thicket of tall bushes. The promised automobile was waiting for them, and they were soon speeding away toward the field hospital which, in the last hour, as a result of Private Ellis's story, had become a center of very serious interest in a strange admixture of an elaborate spy system and "high art."

Lieut. Osborne and his companion were both apprehensive lest they find the second lieutenant in condition so weakened that it would be inadvisable to subject him to the strain of a "third degree." They discussed this possibility on the way, and the officer decided that he would broach the subject gently in order to avoid the danger of defeating their purpose through a physical and mental collapse of the patient.

But Lieut. Tourtelle proved to have withstood the shock of the operation much better than might have been expected. They found him looking really bright and vigorous. Apparently he had had the best of care and had rested well. Nevertheless, Lieut. Osborne called a nurse aside and asked her to administer a stimulant to him, as he had important business with the patient under instructions from the commander of the regiment. The nurse did as requested without arousing any suspicion in the "cubist art spy."

"This is quite a surprise to receive a visit from a superior officer under such circumstances, and I'm sure it's very much appreciated," Tourtelle remarked after he had answered several questions put by Lieut. Osborne regarding his condition and the attention he was receiving.

"The occasion fully warrants our coming to see you," the superior officer replied in a purposely peculiar tone of voice. Tourtelle noticed it and looked inquiringly at Lieut. Osborne.

"Private Ellis told me about that art souvenir that was peeled off your arm and I have come to see it," continued the leader of the "visiting expedition."

Tourtelle shot a furtive, searching glance at each of his callers. These glances did not escape the observation of either the officer or the private, for both were looking for evidence of this sort; but they were well on their guard and did not betray, by the slightest expression, any evidence of what was going on in their minds.

"Of course you have it here," Lieut. Osborne continued in tone of assurance. "Ellis tells me he laid it by the side of your pillow and asked the nurse to call your attention to it after you came out from the effects of the anaesthetic."

Plainly enough Tourtelle was struggling within himself over something, and his visitors did not have much trouble convincing themselves what it was. But finally he settled the problem tentatively in favor of the evident inevitable and replied:

"Yes, of course, I have it here, only I hate to unpack it; but if your curiosity over a freak idea is uncontrollable, I must submit. I'm very jealous over that affair, because the average person is utterly incapable of appreciating it and would only laugh at me."

"Oh, you needn't be afraid of our doing anything of the kind," returned the lieutenant reassuringly. "We're deeply interested, both of us."

"You must be profoundly interested if you can leave your places at the battle front just to inspect a sample of what most people would call freak art. You didn't call a truce and sign an armistice just for this, did you?"

The lieutenant realized by this time, as Irving had realized before, that he was dealing with a young fellow of no puny intelligence. Tourtelle, although signifying willingness to do as requested, was evidently fencing with weapons of jest and banter, intended to be accepted as conversational pleasantry. He made no motion as yet to produce the box containing the tattooed section of skin packed in salt.

"No," the visiting officer replied quietly; "but I'm sure you won't disappoint me after I've gone to the trouble to get permission from the colonel to come here and see that remarkable curiosity that Ellis says you possess. Where is it?--under your pillow?"

Lieut. Osborne made a move as if to reach under the pillow. The patient made no motion to object; he maintained a passiveness of manner which the inspecting officer accepted as an admission as to the whereabouts of the article of interest. The next moment the box was produced from its "hiding place," for Irving and the lieutenant were certain that when Tourtelle put it under the pillow his purpose was primarily to conceal it from inquisitive eyes.

The officer opened the box and poured the contents out on a paper lying on the floor. Then he picked out the "cubist parchment" and gazed at it with deep interest.

"By the way, Lieut. Tourtelle," he said after an inspection lasting a minute or two, "would you mind telling me what these dots and dashes mean in this work of art? They look to me like letters of the Morse telegraph code."

As he spoke he looked sharply at the soldier on the cot, whose face in an instant became an interesting study of struggling effort to appear calm and curious and only superficially concerned. Irving realized, however, that Lieut. Osborne was getting down to business without any preliminary foolishness.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*TOURTELLE ADMITS*

"Nonsense," replied Tourtelle, with remarkable calmness, after what must have been a desperate effort at self-control. "Nothing of the kind. I drew the original picture and I don't know the first thing about telegraphy."

"But it's here," Lieut. Osborne insisted. "I've had a course in wireless and can read the code like a book. Let me read some of it to you--'h-e-f-c-k-a-w-r-t-m-c-a-a-b-l'--and so on, all around every one of these cubes."

"Is that so?" exclaimed the patient, rising slightly on his remaining elbow, but falling back. "Let me see it. I never noticed that. Bickett must have put one over on me if you're right. Bickett was the student who tattooed the picture on my arm."

"Where was that tattooing done?" asked Lieut. Osborne.

"In our room in Montreal," replied Tourtelle, without hesitation. "He and I roomed together and attended art school."

"You're sure it wasn't in a laboratory of a hospital in Toronto?" was the inquisitor's next query.

This was too much for the bedridden "second looie." He opened his mouth as if to speak, but his jaw dropped and remained in its lowered position half a minute as if paralyzed. At last, however, he managed to find his voice again, but it came with a succession of stammers.

"Wh--wh--why," he said, with a brave enough effort to transform confusion into astonishment. "Wh--wh--what do you mean? I--I don't understand you. You talk like a sphinx. I hope you're not questioning my word. I can't understand what your motive can be. But maybe you're making sport of me. If I told you that I was born in--in New Brunswick, would you try to make out it was in Saskatchewan?"

"Not unless the fellow who was seized out in the hall and dragged into the laboratory should appear suddenly and contradict your statement," the investigating officer answered. "By the way, did you know the hospital was raided by government agents a few days after the tattooing operation?"

By this time, Tourtelle, who must have realized the gravity of the situation, had summoned all the nerve needed to provide him with a bold front to meet the emergency. He just sat and stared blankly at his visitors.

"Why don't you answer?" Lieut. Osborne demanded.

"Because I haven't the faintest idea what you're driving at," Tourtelle replied, with well assumed mystification. "But I'm sure of one thing, or rather one of two things, and that is that either somebody has put you on a very bum steer, or you have got things very badly twisted. You'll have to straighten matters out some way or else stop this line of questioning, for I don't know how to answer you except by denying absolutely more than half you say."

"Now, see here, Tourtelle," returned the visiting officer severely; "this camouflage of yours has gone far enough. I came here to get from you an admission of the main truth and some additional information. I already have all the proof needed to convict you of being a spy. Unless you do what I ask you to do, undoubtedly you will be courtmartialed and shot. Now, the question is, do you want to save yourself from such a fate?"

"That is a grave accusation," Tourtelle answered icily. "At any rate, I'll listen to the evidence you have against me. Suppose you tell me what it is."

"It's right here in this," Lieut. Osborne replied, unhesitatingly, holding up the section of skin containing the tattooed outlines of strange art. "You have here a message of secret information for someone on the other side of the Rhine. I want to know whom it is for and the substance of the message."

"But how do you figure that I could get it into the hands for whom it is intended, admitting for the sake of argument that you are correct in your inference?" the soldier on the bed inquired.

"By surrendering to our enemy at the first opportunity," was the answer. "That's what you tried to do out in No Man's Land the night you were wounded."

This was a new startler for the wounded spy, as was evident from the expression on his countenance. After a few moments of undoubtedly painful meditation, he continued:

"Again, just for the sake of argument, how could I be certain that you would keep your word after promising to save my life if I acted according to your instruction?"

"All you have is my word for it and your own common sense. If you give us some valuable information that could not have been obtained otherwise, it stands to reason--doesn't it?--that we'd forget that you'd been a spy, particularly so if the value of your information was greater than your menace as a spy."

"All right, I'll admit I'm a spy," said Tourtelle, a little doggedly; "but I'm not going to tell you anything until I have more authoritative assurance that I'll not be courtmartialed."

"I don't mean to assure you that you won't be courtmartialed," Lieut. Osborne answered, hastily. "I mean that I will intercede for you. Moreover, there is no evidence that can be produced against you except through Private Ellis and me. We have the information, and will either produce it or keep it under cover as we see fit."

"But suppose I really have no information of great value; suppose I'm merely a bearer of a cipher message, which I can't read and don't even know the person to whom it is addressed--what then?"

"I don't ask anything impossible," the inquisitor replied. "All I want is a straight-forward story from you, with all details. If you keep anything back or lie to me, I'm very likely to find it out, and then you'll fare worse than if you refused point blank to enter into an agreement with me."

"All right," said Tourtelle, "I suppose I may as well give in, for you seem to have some real information, although I can't understand where or how you got it. Anyway, here's my story:

*CHAPTER XIV*

*TOURTELLE'S STORY*

"I must first tell you who I am," Lieut. Tourtelle began, after some moments' deliberation. Ordinarily his countenance was almost expressionless, for he belonged to a certain type of pulseless-souled humanity that talks little with the face, except through that orifice where the tongue wig-wags the signals of the mind. But on this occasion, he looked not only serious, but seriously concerned over his predicament. Before he got farther with his introduction, however, Lieut. Osborne interrupted him with this warning:

"I want to urge you, Tourtelle, to be very careful to tell the truth and the whole truth, because you are surely going to get yourself into trouble if you don't. We know a good deal more than I have told you, and I promise you that I have some information on which I can catch you if you tell me any lies."

"You needn't be afraid of my lying to you," the spy returned quickly; "for, to tell the truth, I'm sick of this whole business. I wish I'd never got into it, and if I succeed in getting out with a whole skin, I'll admit I'm glad you caught me.

"I've done a whole lot of thinking since I agreed to put this thing over or try to put it over. There's a lot of difference between sitting still and dreaming how you love your father's fatherland before he emigrated, and plotting in the midst of your fellow countrymen to help a lot of tyrants whom you've never seen on the other side o' the world. I didn't think of that until I got up to my neck in this business and found it almost impossible to get out.

"You see, my father was an Austrian, and my mother was from Alsace-Lorraine. Both of them died when I was five or six years old and I was adopted by a brother of my father, also an Austrian, of course. By the way, my name is not Tourtelle and never was. That was just a bit of camouflage, so that I might pass as being of French descent. My real name is Hessenburg. My uncle was most bitterly anti-British in this war, and is yet. He was a man of considerable means and position in the business world, was a member of the board of directors of that hospital in Toronto where my arm was tattooed. Yes, that hospital was a hotbed of spies, and I'm glad they raided it.

"I wasn't taken into the confidence of the high-ups in the spy organization in Canada, but I know it was a big one. I suppose they thought I was too young to be trusted with any more information than was necessary to make me useful. And for that reason, you see, they did not translate to me the message that was tattooed on my arm, and they didn't give me the key to work out the cipher. Besides, I'm no telegrapher. You'll understand, therefore, that they didn't pick much of an expert to carry their message."

"Didn't you know that there were telegraphic characters in that picture on your arm?" asked Lieut. Osborne.

"Yes, or rather I suspected it pretty strongly," was the reply.

"And you don't know what the message is?"

"No, I don't."

"Haven't you any idea?"

"Well, yes, I have an idea, but it's pretty vague. I overheard a little of a conversation not intended for my ears, and from that I got the notion, or perhaps it's only a suspicion, that the message contains the British naval or aeronautical wireless code."

"At any rate, it's of great importance," suggested Lieut. Osborne.

"Oh, there's no doubt about that," Tourtelle, or Hessenburg, assured.

"Are you an artist?" was the inquisitor's next question.

"Yes, I am; that is, I was an art student, and the story I told Ellis about making a hit with a cubist painting is true. That's what started the scheme of tattooing a picture message on my arm."

"Who suggested it?"

"One of the fellows who did the work. He was something of an artist as well as a chemist.

"The fellow with whiskers?"

"Yes," replied the spy. "I see you have had a pretty thorough report of that affair."

"We have. Did you know that the boy who was seized in the hall and dragged into the laboratory left with the pen-and-ink sketch of your painting crumpled up in his hand?"

"No. Is that what became of it? One of the men suggested that he must have stolen it, but I didn't think he was right."

"Did you know they put detectives on his track?"

"No. Did they?"

"That's what they did. And that is probably the reason why the hospital was raided a few days later. If they hadn't followed him, the boy probably would have passed the matter up and dismissed it from his mind. But he became restlessly curious and reported the affair to the police."

"Hm!" Tourtelle grunted at this elucidation.

"Do you mean for me to understand that you have no idea whom this message is for?" asked Lieut. Osborne, indicating the section of skin illuminated with cubist art.

"That's exactly what I mean," the cubist spy replied.

"But what were you supposed to do after you got over into Germany?"

"Seek out an army officer and tell him my story. Any officer, I was told, would know at once what to do with me."

"Do you speak German?"

"Not much, nor Austrian, either. I studied German at school and learned enough to be able to make myself understood on the other side of the Rhine."

"Come on, Ellis," said Lieut. Osborne, rising suddenly. "We've got all we want now. I'll report to the colonel and probably in a day or two Tourtelle will hear from us again. I'm going to take this cubist souvenir with me."

In the course of the conversation he had repacked the section of tattooed skin in the salt, and as he arose to leave he put the box in one of his overcoat pockets. Irving followed him out of the building, and soon they were speeding back over the road by which they had reached the field hospital.

*CHAPTER XV*

*IRVING AN ORDERLY*

"We will go direct to Col. Evans' headquarters," Lieut. Osborne announced shortly after the return trip had been begun. "He asked me to report back to him as soon as possible."

The trip was soon made. The colonel's headquarters were less than a mile behind the rear line trenches, and the road to this point was in fairly good condition.

Irving felt a deep interest in this visit aside from the bearing it had on the matter under investigation. He had never seen a colonel's headquarters and was curious to know what appearance such a place might present.

He was not greatly surprised to find it a dugout, although he had not pictured it such in his mind. The first suggestion that had offered itself to him was that the head of the regiment probably had stationed himself in the palatial residence or chateau of some wealthy fugitive civilian. However, when the truth appeared to him with the most commonplace simplicity, he decided that it was the very thing that he ought to have expected.

The dugout was a two-room affair in the side of a hill on the outskirts of a small village. The hill was covered with fruit trees and berry vines, affording an excellent camouflage. One of the rooms was occupied by the colonel and the other by his orderlies. The walls and roof were of concrete, thick enough to resist heavy bombing from the air. Other attaches of this headquarters were housed in several homes of the otherwise deserted village.

The commander of the regiment received the visitors in his elaborately furnished living room, bedroom and dining room. Lieut. Osborne began at once a rapid account of the interview he had had with Second Lieut. Tourtelle, or Hessenburg. The colonel listened attentively, every now and then casting a sharp and sometimes lingering glance at Private Ellis, who had all he could do to suppress the anxious eagerness he felt relative to impending developments. Naturally, as he had rather dubiously offered the original information that led up to the partial disclosure of extensive spy activities, he felt as if his whole future depended upon the full success of the investigation.

Lieut. Osborne opened the box containing the tattooed message and took it out of its salt packing. Col. Evans examined it curiously while the reporting officer explained all he knew about it, calling attention to the telegraphic dots and dashes running around the numerous "cubes."

"We ought to get somebody who is skilled in cryptographic work busy on this at once," said the colonel. "I've been in communication with the brigadier general's headquarters and suggested that to them, and now that I have this in my possession, I'm going to urge it stronger. I'll get them on the wire again."

They were seated at a table at one side of the room, and as he spoke, the regiment commander cranked the telephone box at his right and lifted the receiver to his ear. The conversation was short, for the intelligence department at the brigade headquarters had been busy on the colonel's suggestion and already had found an expert qualified to probe the mystery of the cubist cryptogram. He would start at once for the regimental headquarters.

"Just wait here till our cryptologist arrives," said the colonel, after reporting the result of his conversation over the telephone; "and maybe he'll be able to clear up matters so that we may begin to see bottom."

The expert, Lieut. Gibbons, attached to the divisional commander's intelligence staff, arrived half an hour later, and the spy story had to be told all over again for his benefit, while he examined curiously the "freak-art camouflaged message."

"I may be able to work this out in a few hours, and then again, it may take several days," he said. "I'd better take it with me back to headquarters and work on it there and report back results as soon as I get them."

The colonel assented to this and the expert prepared to depart with the cubist cryptogram in his possession. Then the regimental commander turned to the officer and the private and said:

"Lieutenant, you will return to your company. I will call on you when I wish to communicate with you again on this matter. Private Ellis, you will remain here. I can use another orderly, and, besides, I'd like to have you close at hand in case of further developments in this spy investigation. By the way, can you operate a motorcycle?"

"Yes, sir," Irving replied.

"Good. You can be useful at once. I have some papers that I want delivered to the brigadier general. You may follow Lieut. Gibbons' automobile and learn the way. He goes past the brigadier general's headquarters."

A motorcycle was soon produced and Irving, after a hurried examination of it, announced that he understood it thoroughly. A minute later he was in the saddle and "lickety-chugging" along after the intelligence official's automobile.

And meanwhile there was buzzing in his brain this new wonder with eager expectation:

"What was the real purpose of Col. Evans in keeping him at headquarters"? Was that officer likely to have further army detective work for him to do?

Already he was beginning to feel like a government secret service man, and he longed to be of further service to his country and the cause of world freedom in this romantic line.

He little dreamed how far beyond the scope of his saner imagination his patriotic longing was to be realized.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT*

Three days later Col. Evans summoned Irving into his dugout office and said to him: "Well, the cubist cryptogram has been read."

The officer smiled with a kind of grim exultation as he spoke. Then he added:

"And it contained very important information."

"I'm glad of it," the boy answered simply, although he felt almost as if he would burst with a "hurrah!" that threatened to explode within him.

"Of course you are," the commander concurred. "And I suppose you'd like to know what's in it."

"Naturally," Irving replied; "but I doubt very much if you are going to tell me."

"Why?"

"Because, in the first place, it's none of my business as a private; and, secondly, I presume it is information of a character that the war department wishes to keep secret."

"Right you are, Ellis. That's the main reason I put the matter up to you. I wanted to find out what you thought of it. But there's another reason why you shouldn't know the contents of that message, and I'll tell you that later. Meanwhile, I have another important matter that I want to quiz you on. Do you want to go back to the trenches?"

"I'm perfectly willing to go back if that is the best thing I can do," Irving answered readily. "But I'll say this, that if there's any other place where I can be of greater service, I prefer to be sent there. It's a question of service pure and simple with me. Naturally, I have my selfish preferences, but I manage to suppress them."

"Have you any idea where you could be of greater service than in the trenches?" asked the colonel.

"I'll answer your question in this way: I'm sure that the time I spent helping to run down a dangerous spy was put to much better purpose than it would have been if spent in the trenches, although I think I did some good work out in No Man's Land in front of the trenches. But, of course, there's no more of that kind of work left for me to do."

"Are you sure about that?"

Irving looked curiously at the putter of this question, considered a moment or two, and then replied:

"No, I'm not; but I don't know of anything more."

"Suppose some more of that kind of work should be found, would you like to do it?"

"Surely."

"Irrespective of the size of the task or the danger?"

"I don't know how I could find anything much more dangerous than that skirmish in No Man's Land," Irving replied slowly. "The other part of your question I don't wish to answer rashly. Tell me the task, and I'll tell you if it's too big for me."

"That's the very answer I wanted you to make," said the colonel, almost eagerly. "Now, suppose we should ask you to go over into Germany on an important spy mission, how would that strike you?"

This was something Irving was not looking for, and he was so astonished that he did not answer for several moments. Then he said: