Kauffman turned to the manager.
"Will you please order your man to get the projectile?" he asked. "It is lucky for us all that the thing isn't loaded, or there really would have been an explosion." He now turned to Josie, with his hands still in the air, and explained: "It is meant to explode through impact, and ordering it tossed out there was the most dangerous thing you could have done."
At the manager's command Joe took an electric searchlight and went out to find the steel ball.
"If you please, miss," said Kauffman, "may I put down my arms? They are tired, and I assure you I will not try to escape."
Josie lowered the revolver. Her face was red. She was beginning to wonder if she had bungled the case. A second thought, however—a thought of the papers she had found in the old desk—reassured her. She might have been wrong in some respects, but surely she was right in the main.
"This man," said Mr. Colton, pointing to Kauffman, "is known to me as a munition expert. He bears the endorsement of the Secretary of War and is the inventor of the most effective shells we now manufacture. What you have mistaken for a bomb is his latest design of projectile for an eight-inch gun. He had arranged to bring it here and explain to me its mechanism to-night, and also to submit a proposition giving our company the control of its manufacture. If you are a government agent, you surely understand that these arrangements must be conducted with great secrecy. If we purchase the right to make this projectile, we must first induce the government to use it, by demonstrating its effectiveness, and then secure our contracts. So your interference, at this time, is—-ahem!—annoying."
Josie's face was a little more red than before. A second motor car drew up at the door and to her astonishment Mrs. Charleworth entered and greeted both the manager and Kauffman in her usual charming manner. Then she looked inquiringly at the girl.
"Pardon me, madam," said Mr. Colton. "There has been a singular misunderstanding, it seems, and our friend here has been accused of being a German spy by this young lady, who is a government detective—or—or claims to be such. The precious projectile, in which you are so deeply interested, has just been tossed out upon the common, but Joe Langley is searching for it."
Mrs. Charleworth's face wore an amused smile.
"We are so beset with spies, on every hand, that such an error is quite likely to occur," said she. "I recognize this young lady as a friend of the Hathaway family, and I have met her at the Liberty Girls' Shop, so she is doubtless sincere—if misled. Let us hope we can convince her—Miss O'Gorman, isn't it?—that we are wholly innocent of attempting to promote the Kaiser's interests."