CHAPTER XIX Plots within Plots
"You're sure—certain, Private Dan Holman?" the Divisional Commander asked him for perhaps the twentieth time, some two or three days after that parade which had followed the discovery of the presence of a spy in the midst of this particular American division. "Certain you'd recognize him? Remember, boy, you caught only one single glimpse of him, and that under torchlight. A man looks queer under the glare of a searchlight—different from what he looks under the moonbeams."
Dan gulped. Even an American soldier, with all that assurance born of the freedom of the vast country in which he lives, may feel disconcerted under the gaze of a superior officer, indeed under the gaze—the almost incredulous gaze—of a number of officers. Dan gulped, therefore, but his eyes, steadily fixed on those of the Commanding Officer, never wavered.
"Sure, sir," he answered. "It sounds queer, I know, but I've laid in bed thinking it over, and I'm as sure as sure—surer than I was when I first came along with the information. That man that came down in the aeroplane—for I take it he was dropped, as the Germans have dropped spies before—was the same man that shot the father of a chum of mine way back in a saloon by the copper-mine near Salt Lake City, the same chap as drilled me through with a bullet from a revolver. I ain't dreamin'; the thing's sure; and the fellow's somewhere about in these parts dressed in our uniform."
A long and secret discussion followed. Dan was closeted with the Intelligence Branch of the division for many hours, and on more than one occasion, and thereafter, though the life of the camp was unaltered, though nothing untoward seemed to be occurring, and though the ordinary rank and file and their officers were entirely ignorant of what had been or of the suspicions in their Commanding Officer's mind that a spy was lurking in the neighbourhood, active steps were being taken to come upon Heinrich Hilker.
"We'll telephone along to the other commanders, and notify the French and the British; we'll get every billet, every hut, even the woods searched. If the chap's in the neighbourhood we'll see if we can ferret out the hiding-place he's selected. Gee! it makes me feel uneasy to think that there's a spy somewhere here—a fellow that knows all about us Americans. What's more, it makes me feel worse to believe that he's got an accomplice; for otherwise how could he have slipped through our clutches when we guessed his presence within a few minutes of his arrival?"
Up and down the line, from the trenches to a point some miles behind, French and British and American military police and Intelligence branches caused the closest search to be made—a search which naturally enough included that church in which Heinrich Hilker and Alphonse, a spy like himself, had taken shelter. But granted that Heinrich himself was cunning, Alphonse was still more so. One of that band of individuals sent out broadcast by Germany to penetrate peacefully the countries of their neighbours, to prepare the ground in case of a German invasion, and to keep Berlin informed as to all local affairs and on every matter of importance, Alphonse had lived the life of a schemer for many years. He, in fact, chuckled on numerous occasions at the ease with which he had hoodwinked the simple peasants with whom he had taken up his residence. Even in his cups he had, as a general rule, been extraordinarily careful and crafty; and now, as he went his way, unsuspected by the Americans, his craft and his guile allowed of his throwing dust in their eyes also.
"You've got to stay here," he told his accomplice as he visited him one night in his lair at the top of the tower. "Here's better than anywhere else, because every billet is being searched. There isn't a hut, an outhouse, or any farm or hovel in these parts and right along the line that isn't being looked into. They've been to the church, too, but——" and then he began to cackle, that horrid cackle which grated upon Heinrich's nerves so much.