“Mischief is certainly afoot,” exclaimed Schmidt. The other men said nothing, but studied the proposition.
“There still is a chance,” said O’Reilly in an unconvincing manner—as if he wanted to believe something his better sense did not permit him to do, “that this outfit was not used since Strong and the other man had been kept from it.”
A sickening thought at the same instant came to Schmidt. “O’Reilly, we talked about the prisoners, how we had trapped them, where they were—and all the time someone was listening. That someone heard all we had to say and then, after we were all through, he went up to Winckel’s house and rescued them.”
Winckel said nothing for many minutes; he seemed lost in thought. The other men waited for him to speak. Finally he did.
“We are a lot of dunces. We were so sure of ourselves, we felt we were so wise. Pride goeth before a fall and we fell. We must give up our plans. It is up to both of you to get busy, we still have time to keep out of trouble. There is a ray of comfort in that, at least.”
“I hate to think what Knabe and the others at the embassy will think,” was the rueful comment of Schmidt.
“Don’t let that bother you. This plan has failed, we must plan again—when again we match wits, let us hope we shall be more careful and consequently more successful. Come, enough of post mortems, let’s get busy.”
It was a busy night for all of them. There were many men who had to be seen and who in turn had to see others. It was, so they explained to the others, a matter of life and death that all preparations cease at once, as there would be close and careful watch kept. There was much telephoning and telegraphing to the friends who were in other cities.
There can be nothing but thorough admiration for the effective, capable way these men went about calling a halt to all activities. Like a perfect, well oiled machine which slows down and then ceases its movements, until there is something tremendously impressive in its inaction and silence; like a well-drilled army which retreats magnificently and in its very retreat almost gains a victory, so much like all this, was the action and the work of these men at this time. They were obeyed as only the Germans know how to obey. By morning, there was no sign, no clue to their plans and activities. One thing only remained to prove the danger to Canada that had been. Arsenals and warehouses holding weapons and vehicles of war were found at the places shown on the list that Ted had copied.
At Ottawa and a little later in London and in Washington, the powers—the men at the helm—found out that what would in all probability have been a successful invasion of Canada had been checked. And they found out, too, just how and in what way it had been done.