"Do you know who this is coming down the hill?"
Von Lertz glanced up. "No, but we passed him back in town. Why?"
"We can use him—if he is all right. You and Boy-Ed take Von Igel in your machine and get him to a hospital quick. I'll have to try a rather dangerous stunt—work the Fifth Avenue wireless. It's risky but——"
Dixie had brought her machine to a standstill near the smoking wreck of Von Igel's wireless machine. Her heart pounded madly as Von Papen stepped toward her. Was fate favoring her? It seemed so!
She drew her cap down and adjusted her goggles more firmly as Von Papen advanced. "We've had an accident here," he said, "I've got to get back to town. Can you take me?"
Dixie nodded and opened the door. Von Papen stepped in and gave her directions as to where he wished her to drive him—little knowing that he was giving information to the woman representative of the Secret Service!
"Turn into Fifth Avenue at Fifty-second Street and then start up-town. Make it as fast as the law allows!" Captain Von Papen was snapping his orders excitedly, but in a low voice. "I've got to get there to notify the mother of the boy who has just been hurt. Understand?"
Dixie nodded. Her foot pressed the accelerator. A moment more and the finger of the speedometer climbed to forty miles, then fifty and slowly to sixty where it stayed until the outlines of the city began to show against the western sky. Then Dixie slowed down to a speed which would allow her to pass the policemen they began to encounter at intervals without interference. She crossed over to Madison Avenue, and there slowed down. Von Papen glanced out and around the machine nervously. Evidently the way was clear, for he reached into his pocket and drew out a bill which he pressed into the driver's hand. "Drive on, please, no need to wait for me," he called, hurrying to the sidewalk.
Dixie nodded and started the machine. She crossed Fifth Avenue. Just beyond the corner she stopped the car and jumped out. Scurrying to the corner she watched Von Papen enter the house. It was Dr. Albert's house, the huge Fifth Avenue mansion that German efficiency had turned into a spies' nest from which to prey upon a country with which it claimed to be on friendly terms and by whom it was trusted. Dixie Mason glanced up at its close curtained windows. Somewhere inside was Von Papen, gone there on an errand unknown to her but which she knew had some bearing on the events of the afternoon. What was his mission?
In a moment the answer was given her. High up on the roof the slender antennae of a wireless outfit was being raised. Higher and higher with slim tentacles spreading as the machinery inside that controlled it was operated.