“I will tell you now, if I may.” Grace took up the narrative from the time of her landing in the vineyard, giving him only such information as she knew to be of military interest. The Intelligence officer listened with close attention.
“You should be in the secret service,” he declared after she had finished. “By what means do you think the Germans got information about you?”
“Pigeon or spy, sir. Pigeon most likely. You have not found the guilty one, have you, sir?”
“We have not.” The captain pinched his lips together. “I think we shall have to ask you to run this spy matter down, Mrs. Gray.”
CHAPTER XVI
ELFREDA HAS A SUSPICION
THE billet to which Grace had been assigned was the home of a German doctor, where she had a comfortable, large room extending all the way across the rear of the house. The owner, as she later learned, occupied a large front room with a small communicating room on the left-hand side of the house, a similar apartment on the other side of the house being occupied by some one else.
Elfreda Briggs was busy getting her hand in at canteen work when Grace arrived at the billet with her credentials, without which no one could obtain lodgings in Coblenz, now that the Americans had taken possession of the place and were at work setting it in order. The Overton girl found her belongings already there, including her mail. There was mail from home, but a letter from Emma Dean got first reading and put Grace in a happy frame of mind.
“My Darling Grace (This goes for all of the Overton Unit),” wrote Emma:
“We haven’t had a letter from you in so long I don’t believe we should recognize your handwriting. There isn’t a thing new in Paris except military news that I hear over the wire, which of course I can’t tell you. By the way, I did hear that William the First had been called before a court-martial for insubordination and ungentlemanly language to a superior officer. My! what a narrow escape I did have. Think what a terrible mistake I should have made had I married him. Thank heaven my present William is not that sort of a fighter. By the way, I learned over the wire only yesterday that he too is on his way to Coblenz. I am glad of that, for, you being a married woman, I can trust you to chaperon him and see that he doesn’t fall in love with one of those rosy-cheeked Gretchens on the Rhine. I am told that they are inclined to favor the American doughboys. They’d better not favor my William.