About the middle of November, a few days after Evans and Elkins arrived at Punta Delgada, Commander Barton also arrived from Washington and took charge of the Naval Intelligence service at Communication Headquarters on shore. Before leaving Washington he interviewed an officer who rendered notable service in finding men for unusual duties. If a man was needed to make a corner in glue for the Government, or to deliver a consignment of homing pigeons in Northern Russia, he would find just the man for the job. To this officer Barton made the request that as soon as possible a man, with experience as a spy in enemy territory and with some knowledge of radio, be chosen for important duties at the Azores and elsewhere. He was to be enrolled as a chief petty officer and sent to Punta Delgada to report at Communication Headquarters.
Barton’s parting injunctions were, “Much will depend on him; look him over well, and be sure he’s a real man.”
About three weeks after this, while Evans was in the radio room of the flagship busily engaged in the congenial task of rehabilitating this vital nerve center of the fleet and undoing the damage wrought by Brigham, he received a cryptic message from Commander Barton intimating that a friend had arrived from home whom he would like Evans to see.
Evans obtained permission for shore liberty and proceeded to Communication Headquarters. There he learned that the man requested by Barton “for important duties” had arrived, a man of thirty-six named Kendrick. He had been an army spy, who, being sent by aeroplane behind enemy lines, had been for some weeks performing valuable duties in Spain, and had just returned successfully to Washington. By some maneuver of which very few are master, great masses of red-tape had been cut, and he had been transferred to the navy, enrolled as a chief radio electrician and sent at once to Punta Delgada. He had as yet been kept completely in the dark as to the nature of the duties for which he had been sent.
Evans opened conversation with him informally and questioned him concerning his experiences in enemy countries, then as to his knowledge of radio. After a somewhat prolonged interview in some of which Barton took part, Kendrick was still quite in the dark as to the real object of his mission, although given clearly to understand that it had to do with radio communication.
During their talk Evans watched closely the play of Kendrick’s features, and said to himself, “He looks like three or four men in one; I guess he’s what we’re after.”
But along with this reflection came the disquieting thought—“What if he’s one man too many?”
Perhaps there was more in his performance in enemy country than was known to the Army Intelligence Service. Cases were by no means unknown in which the most valued spies had been really in the enemy employ. Keenly Evans sought to sense all that lay beneath this mobile exterior as they talked. But this was a task for some one other than a scientist. He longed for the power of a master sleuth.
We are all quite accustomed to trusting our lives to the nervous coördination of a taxicab driver, and thinking nothing of it. But when the fate of the world may hang on the sensory impressions, the resulting nerve impulses in the brain and the emotional responses thereby aroused in one individual by barely perceptible motions in the features of another, we may well consider the great importance of little things, especially if those little things be nerve impulses.
That this man had been a consummately successful spy there could be no doubt. But the question whom he had fooled, Evans dared not consider settled to his satisfaction without further scrutiny. He imparted his wonderings to Barton when they were alone, and, though the latter at first inclined to regard the suspicion as fanciful and too improbable for serious consideration, he finally agreed that they had better scrutinize their man for a few days before revealing to him much of his real task.