"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: