"I want to urge you, Tourtelle, to be very careful to tell the truth and the whole truth, because you are surely going to get yourself into trouble if you don't. We know a good deal more than I have told you, and I promise you that I have some information on which I can catch you if you tell me any lies."
"You needn't be afraid of my lying to you," the spy returned quickly; "for, to tell the truth, I'm sick of this whole business. I wish I'd never got into it, and if I succeed in getting out with a whole skin, I'll admit I'm glad you caught me.
"I've done a whole lot of thinking since I agreed to put this thing over or try to put it over. There's a lot of difference between sitting still and dreaming how you love your father's fatherland before he emigrated, and plotting in the midst of your fellow countrymen to help a lot of tyrants whom you've never seen on the other side o' the world. I didn't think of that until I got up to my neck in this business and found it almost impossible to get out.
"You see, my father was an Austrian, and my mother was from Alsace-Lorraine. Both of them died when I was five or six years old and I was adopted by a brother of my father, also an Austrian, of course. By the way, my name is not Tourtelle and never was. That was just a bit of camouflage, so that I might pass as being of French descent. My real name is Hessenburg. My uncle was most bitterly anti-British in this war, and is yet. He was a man of considerable means and position in the business world, was a member of the board of directors of that hospital in Toronto where my arm was tattooed. Yes, that hospital was a hotbed of spies, and I'm glad they raided it.
"I wasn't taken into the confidence of the high-ups in the spy organization in Canada, but I know it was a big one. I suppose they thought I was too young to be trusted with any more information than was necessary to make me useful. And for that reason, you see, they did not translate to me the message that was tattooed on my arm, and they didn't give me the key to work out the cipher. Besides, I'm no telegrapher. You'll understand, therefore, that they didn't pick much of an expert to carry their message."
"Didn't you know that there were telegraphic characters in that picture on your arm?" asked Lieut. Osborne.
"Yes, or rather I suspected it pretty strongly," was the reply.
"And you don't know what the message is?"
"No, I don't."
"Haven't you any idea?"