“I tell you, read!”
Soane, still cursing under his breath, bent over the table, reading as Freund’s soiled finger moved:
“Fein plots,” he read. “German agents ... disloyal propa ... explo ... bomb fac ... shipping munitions to ... arms for Ireland can be ... destruction of interned German li ... disloyal newspapers which ... controlled by us in Pari ... Ferez Bey ... bankers are duped.... I need your advi ... hounded day and ni ... d’Eblis or Govern ... not afraid of death but indignant ... Sinn Fei——”
Soane’s scowl had altered, and a deeper red stained his brow and neck.
“Well, by God!” he muttered, jerking up a chair from behind him and seating himself at the table, but never taking his fascinated eyes off the torn bits of written paper.
Presently Freund got up and went out. He returned in a few moments with a large sheet of wrapping paper and a pot of mucilage. On this paper, with great care, he arranged the pieces of the torn letter, 161 neatly gumming each bit and leaving a space between it and the next fragment.
“To fill in iss the job of Louis Sendelbeck,” remarked Freund, pasting away industriously. “Is it not time we learn how much she knows—this Nihla Quellen? Iss she sly like mice? I ask it.”
Soane scratched his curly head.
“Be gorry,” he said, “av that purty girrl is a Frinch spy she don’t look the parrt, Max.”
Freund waved one unclean hand: