Over There with the Canadians at Vimy Ridge

by G. Harvey Ralphson

Three weeks after he entered the office he began to accumulate the information for which he had been sent. He then was given access to the card-index system of the great world-spy organization. It was like a city-library catalog, with references to files of interminable data buried away in metal boxes in a large vault.

In his work with this catalog and files he was associated with a man whose countenance was strangely familiar to him from the first. He tried to assume that there was merely a resemblance in the face of this man to that of some other man he had known on the Canadian front or at home, but such assumption failed to satisfy him. He could not drive away the feeling that he had met this fellow somewhere since he dropped from the sky with a parachute behind the German battle lines, but although he studied over the matter for hours while busy with his work he was unable by such efforts to solve the mystery.

The solution came during a period of relaxation, as the solution of many mysteries come. On the third day since his last advancement in the service, while making entries on certain catalog cards, there recurred to him a mental picture of his experiences with the unidentified man who had shadowed him through the streets while he was still in Canadian uniform. Two weeks before he had dismissed this incident from his mind, being convinced that the man had given up his quest, whatever it was.

But the returned picture did not rest long peacefully in his mind. It was followed closely by a thrill that almost made him drop the card that he held in his hand. He looked quickly, almost involuntarily, at his associate worker, who was bent over a task at his desk.

Irving knew at once that he was not mistaken. Before him was the "middle-aged man in civilian clothes" who had shadowed him more than three weeks before from the intelligence building to the hotel where he was living and to other places in the city.

CHAPTER XXXIII

A SURPRISING OFFER

Emil Strauss was the name of Irving's coworker in the card index room. One could hardly say that he was either an agreeable or a disagreeable fellow. He had little to say. It was generally understood that he was very efficient in his work and ranked as one of the leading, if not the leading, experts in the department.

Strauss was not a typical Teuton in appearance. Irving thought he looked as much like an Irishman as a German, that he might have passed for either or a Swede. He was of medium height, somewhat slender of build, and had a smooth, round face, out of which shone two piercing black eyes--that is, they shone and pierced when the camouflage of heavy eyelashes and eyebrows was lifted. Otherwise one would have noticed almost everything else about him first.

There was no doubt in Irving's mind as to his identification, but he caught not even a surreptitious glance of recognition from the fellow at any time. He attended strictly and diligently to his own business, and the spy did likewise from the moment of his recognition of the man. He was determined his new associate should see no evidences of uneasiness in him as a result of this development.