“It is not a matter of one’s living,” he said. “We do not merit His love by the way we live. It is a matter of so trusting that you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that whatever happens will be what He allows, and that all will be well for you, whatever it is, because you are His beloved. His beloved because He died for you. Because He bought you with His blood, and nothing can come except He allows it. If some things come that we would not choose if we were trying to run our own lives, we can know that He sees that it is going to bring us more quickly to the place where we shall be like His Son. That is what He wants for us, you know, that we may be ‘conformed’ from ourselves ‘into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.’ And no matter what it is, if it does that for us, it is worth it, isn’t it? For that is the ultimate that we should desire, to be what He wants us to be.”
“Oh!” breathed Lisle softly, a new wonder and a new enlightenment growing in her eyes. “Then we don’t need to be afraid for anything?”
“Not if you are consciously walking with Him. He will do the taking care. Our care is that we are being guided utterly by Him. Living so the soul is alive constantly to His guidance. He will not lead us into the wrong way.”
“I see,” said Lisle thoughtfully. She smiled suddenly into the face of a tired-looking woman beside her who looked as if she wished it were true but wasn’t quite certain. Lisle had almost forgotten the immediate trouble for which she had come forward, perhaps to ask help, she wasn’t sure. For now she had begun to feel that there was help all about her, over her continually.
“The beloved of the Lord,” she said softly to herself. “To think I may claim that!”
Presently the little company began to break up and to walk slowly toward the door, and Lisle walked with them, all at once remembering the man outside who had frightened her. Should she ask someone to go with her to the bus? Did any of them go that way? She wasn’t sure, and she wouldn’t like to make them go out of their way. In her heart she prayed, “Dear Father, show me now what to do. Give me safekeeping home, please.”
She looked up and saw the teacher hurrying. He was going to meet a train, she heard him say. She could not ask him to look out for her and make him miss the train he wanted to meet.
Then her eyes lifted toward the door. Perhaps her would-be escort was gone by this time, and she could walk out and go home by herself. Not by herself, but with her heavenly Father. Would He help her?
And suddenly she saw, just entering the door, her good old chauffeur. Oh joy, the Lord had sent Joseph to take her home!
Lisle walked radiantly to meet him, for she saw behind his faithful homely face the glory of the Lord who had sent him.
“Oh, Joseph! You have come!”
“Yes, Miss Lisle. I have come right away just as quick as I could. I telephoned a garage and had them look after the car, and I called Mark to bring the little service car, and it’s outside here now, waiting. You won’t mind riding home in the service car once, will you? It was the best I could do under the circumstances. I’ve left the big car for repairs.”
The little old car that was used for the house errands and the servants stood just outside the mission close to the curb, and she could see Mark’s stubby form sitting behind the wheel. Nowhere could she see the man who had so frightened her.
Thankfully, she climbed into the backseat of the service car, and it was not until they were started on their way home that she thought to ask Joseph about the man.
“Who was that you sent after me, Joseph?” she asked breathlessly. “Was he someone you know?”
“Sent after you, Miss Lisle? I don’t understand,” said the puzzled Joseph, turning to look back at her from his seat beside Mark. “I didn’t send anybody after you.”
“Why, the man who came to tell me the car had broken down. He said you had sent him to take me home.”
“No, Miss Lisle. I sent no one. I wouldn’t do a thing like that. Your mama would not stand for my doing that, and in these times I would not dare, either. Send a stranger after my young lady? No, never!”
“Well, then, who was he? And how did he know that our car was disabled? What happened to the car, anyway? Did someone run into you?”
“No, no one run into me. Just the car run over something, some broken glass maybe. Anyway, something sharp, and the tires picked it up. And the fourth has some of the small spikes still sticking in the tire. The garage people are investigating. They are bringing it to the attention of the authorities. It was intentional. I don’t know if it was meant for us. I thought maybe a accident. But now since you say a man came after you, I think maybe no accident. There are a great many things going on in the world today since this war started. Definitely, Miss Lisle, we must arrange that you do not go places alone. I think somebody plans to do you harm. For money perhaps. Might be. I must report to your papa. So I came quick. I am glad you did not go with that man. I know nothing about him. I did not see any man at all. It was a lonely place in the street where the car stopped—the shops all shut for the night. I am sure it must have been no accident. But don’t you worry. I’ll take care of you, Miss Lisle. Mark and I’ll watch over you!”
“Thank you, Joseph! I’m not worrying! I am quite sure the Lord sent you for me tonight. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid of that man. I had seen him watching me before, or at least he seemed like the same one, and I was silly and frightened. But when I saw you come in the door, you looked just like an angel from heaven, Joseph!”
“Well, Miss, I sure am obliged to you for the compliment.”
“But you see, Joseph, that was a prayer meeting and Bible class I had been attending, and I had been praying that God would show me what to do and take care of me on the way home. And then He sent you.”
“Well, Miss Lisle, I sure am much ‘bliged to God for letting me be the one to come.” Joseph’s tone was awed and reverent. He had never heard his little lady talk of religious matters before, and it filled him with a great wonder. He felt that it was really so, since his little lady thought it was, and he felt that he must walk softly the rest of the way, at least while the war lasted, for somehow the next world seemed terribly near to this one in these days. And if there was glory and angels about, there must be devils and deviltry about also. He hadn’t been able to enlist in the great war, because of his age and his devotion to his dear “family” the Kingsleys, but he began to suspect that perhaps there were ways of serving in this war under a greater General, even as he might have had if he had gone out to fight as a private somewhere. A firmer look came about his homely mouth and chin, and a gentleness about his eyes. Joseph wanted to be a true soldier somewhere and to serve to the best of his humble ability.
Elsewhere that evening John Sargent, returning from his midnight shift at the shipyard, looked up to see Kurt Entry falling into step beside him.
It had been several weeks since he had seen or even thought of this man, and John wondered what was coming now. He had sometimes been sorry that he had not pursued the subject a little more subtly and therefore been able to discover more to report to the authorities, for the more he heard of sabotage, the more he felt that he had almost uncovered something that might have proved pretty important to the country. Therefore he looked up alertly.
“Well, so it’s you again!” he said calmly. “What’s doing now? Another fake job?”
“No fake about it,” swaggered Entry. “It’s real, all right. I’ve come to give you another chance. It’s something really good, so you better do something about it this time, for this is the last chance you’ll get.”
“Oh, is that so?” drawled John mockingly. “It seems to me I’ve heard something like that before.”
“None of your lip,” said Entry, “or I’m quitting. I know another man would jump at this chance you’re getting and no mistake. I’d have folded him into it quick enough, only the boss is hit hard by you and wants you to take the job. He feels you’ll do a better job than anybody else, so I had to give you one last try. But t
he time has come, and you better say yes at once, or the other man gets the chance, and he’s all eager for it. Besides, there’s a little matter of a lady involved, and a good deed you can do, so that might make a difference to you.”
“A lady?” said John with a laugh. “Not me! I don’t have anything to do with ladies. I haven’t time.”
“Oh, yeah?” returned Entry with a sneer. “How about that little lady you took home from the blackout that night? Know her, don’t you? A dame named Kingsley? Well, she’s the gal I mean. She’s in real trouble now, and as far as I’ve been informed, you are the only man who can help her out. Now, does that make any difference? She’s been kidnapped, and her folks don’t know where she’s at. It’ll probably all come out in the papers in a day or two. Her parents are sort of laying low now to give the kidnappers a chance to get the ransom, perhaps. I don’t know much about that part of it. But they tell me if you would come forward and take this job I was offering you, and carry this thing through, you could get her released tonight, that is, providing you tied yourself up to the job so you couldn’t wriggle out of it afterward. How about now?”
John had given the man a quick look when he began this new phase of the plot and then dropped his eyes and feigned indifference. But suddenly into the silence that followed Kurt’s last statement there came an ear-piercing whistle that rent the air about them and seemed to proceed from the opposite corner and to echo far and wide. Entry started and looked sharply at his companion to see how it had affected him, but John was looking around casually as if to see where the sound came from.
“What’s that?” asked Entry huskily, and there seemed to be almost a note of fear in his voice. “We better beat it. You take the right road and I’ll hide over there in that lumberyard. We can meet after they’ve gone, over there by the closed gate to the yard. Do you think that was the police?”
Now, John Sargent had an accomplishment which dated back to his early childhood. He could imitate perfectly a police whistle, and make it sound from any direction he chose. Moreover his officer-friend was aware of this gift he had, and more than once when John was a young boy in school, he had grinned at the lad when a whistle of his had stopped some rash driver from going through a light. John had talked over this matter of the offered job with his policeman-friend, and they had agreed that if John should give that whistle again, the police would answer it by coming at all speed, and if there was a man with him they would understand that he was one to keep an eye on.
So now, in the not-far distance, they could hear the snappy roar of a police car heading their way, and John grinned affably.
“No need for you to get excited, is there?” he asked Entry lazily. “If you haven’t done anything out of the way, they can’t hurt you. What’s this, you say? Somebody kidnapped? You sure? Where is she now? Oh, you aren’t ready to tell yet. I see. And they think I know her? You say her name is Kingsley? Seems as though I might have heard of her, maybe met her once, but nobody would ever associate her name with mine. I’m not in her class at all. Why should they pick me out to come to her rescue?”
“Why you see, they want you, and if you’ll agree to carry out this job in the right way and put yourself under contract to do it, they’ll put you on to how to set her free. Give you an advantage with her all righty, too, to her family, and her papa’ll be so everlasting grateful he won’t even think of that class-business you was talking about. You’ll be right in the swim, and everybody happy, see?”
Chapter 12
While Entry had talked, a police car had turned the corner and suddenly gone silent, rolling so quietly to their side that he had a feeling it had gone down another street. Then suddenly there was a voice. “Is this your man, kid?”
Looking up with a start, Entry saw the police car and several dark, silent figures on the pavement close beside him, their rubber-shod feet quite unheard by the man who had thought he was just putting over a big deal and making good on it.
“It’s one of them,” said John. “He’s just been giving me a new line of talk about a kidnapping he wants me to stop. It’s Big Kingsley’s daughter. Better take notice.”
Entry started to slink into his accustomed invisibility, but a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder and another on his arm, and a pair of steel bracelets were snapped about his wrists. That one man was caught. A man, too, who had been most successful in many an unlawful operation, both in this country and in Europe. Perhaps he had grown too confident in his own powers and was sure that he was going to get away with this job, also.
But Kurt Entry was not figuring on Lacey’s having failed in his mission of the kidnapping. Lacey did not as a rule fail, and the agreement had been that if anything should go wrong, a small boy who was known to them both would somehow communicate with him. Lacey hadn’t stopped him. There had been no small boy on hand to beg for five cents to pay his bus fare home. Kurt hadn’t been able to sight that small boy anywhere. Could it be possible that some harm had come to him? He wasn’t a boy who had things happen to him. He was smooth and sharp and slick as a whistle about getting out of jams. If he only was about, there were ways he could send a message, signs agreed upon by gestures—or when it was dark there were sounds. What was that? A cat squalling! That was the boy, showing that he was aware of what had happened. He would report to Lacey, of course. Entry had only to lie low and keep his mouth shut, and eventually Lacey would find a way to set him free. Yes, even if they locked him up for the night, he would be released later. He cheered up and cleared his throat strenuously. He blew his nose, and he put forth a pitiful plea that he knew nothing about this whole affair. That would let the boy see what was going on. He would be rescued.
But what Entry did not know was that Lacey’s part of the plan had failed. That he had not been able to kidnap the girl. She had not fallen for his plan to take her home. And that being the case, Lacey himself was in no position to do any rescuing. As for Weaver, he had departed hastily for parts unknown, not wishing to be mixed up in any trouble with the “Big Kingsleys.” Of course he had planned such an escape as a possibility from the first. But a quick message to Lacey instructed him to get hold of that Sargent kid at all costs, or failing in that, take the girl and see what could be done with her in getting facts. “Definite information is imperative at once, at all costs.”
There followed a number of sessions between Erda and Lacy, and Erda was more and more entrusted with delicate situations to be dealt with, involving heavy risks both to herself and to those for whom she worked.
That first trip of Erda’s to the inner buildings of the plant was not her last one by any means. More and more she found means to an access that would better reveal the inner workings of the plant and the new inventions. So, quietly, unsuspected, the knowledge of vital facts, even to the delicate measurements made by accurate instruments especially designed for this particular operation, were not only measured by expert hands, but also photographed from every possible angle, until an exact duplication of every item with which the Vandingham plant had to do, went traveling out to the enemy.
And day by day the men who were making these marvelous death-dealing instruments, sworn to keep their secrets inviolable, labored on with the one thought in mind that they were giving their strength and the labor of their hands to make the winning of the war possible for their country, and for freedom. And they never suspected that there was one stealing in and out among them like a ray of lovely sunshine—and “the young boss’s girl” they called her now—giving her smiles and her laughing words here and there, cheering them on their way, who was undermining all that they did. She was giving away all their precious secrets to the enemy who was on the other side of the ocean. She was working away with a fiendish intensity to beat them to their goal and steal their ammunition before they had ever completed it.
And so the days went on, and only Kurt Entry went to jail as yet, because they could not find the other men who were in absolute hiding. Only Lacey remained at large, for he ha
d ways of disguising himself and getting places, and he was important to the whole outfit. In fact, he and Erda were quite a team in themselves. His main object now was to get hold of John Sargent, for Weaver was still determined to have him in their service. Some incident of his past that had been brought to Weaver’s knowledge had impressed him as being one who would be invaluable to them, and if he made good in this Vandingham affair it would be a sort of a test case, and also bind him to their cause.
But John Sargent, after he had whistled Kurt Entry into custody, could not get away from the memory of his last words. Was it true that Lisle Kingsley was in trouble? That anyone had dared to lay hands upon her and imprison her? He ought to do something about that. Or should he, more than he had already done by telling the police? Maybe it was all a hoax, and they had merely been using her name to tempt him. But if it wasn’t? If it should be true, and he was the only link between Lisle and safety he surely must do something to find out. Oh, if he had only had his head about him and made that sneaking reptile tell where she was before he gave the signal to the police. He wasn’t a very wise person or he would have led this man on to further revelations before he gave him over to the police. The only thing was that he happened to know that just then the police were about to start out on their rounds, and if he gave the signal before they left he would stand some chance of having them get his man. Perhaps, after all, it was best so, for if it were true that Lisle was kidnapped they would have one man at least and might be able to put him through such a grilling that he would have to tell what he knew.
But John was not happy about leaving it at that. He had to do something himself. He simply had to find out right away whether Lisle was safe or not. He hesitated to call her on the telephone, for that seemed a presumption, and if she was at home, and safe, how could he explain? He wouldn’t want to say he called to see if she had been kidnapped. If she was safe, then he ought not to let her know that such a thing had been considered. Or ought he? Perhaps she ought to be aware of danger and be on the alert. Yet was it fair to fill her with fears? Perhaps he should hunt up her father and tell him. But no, that didn’t seem the right thing either. Why cause alarm to her father and mother when there might be nothing to it at all? Take it all in all, John Sargent had never been in quite such a perplexity. But after considering a moment, he walked straight into a drugstore and looked up the Kingsley number. Even after he had it, he stood for a moment in the booth considering before he finally called the number. He found himself trembling as he waited. Would she be at home? Oh, if he could be sure it would be her own voice that would answer! If she wasn’t there, he must surely do something. He couldn’t take any chances. He would perhaps have to go to the police and ask advice if he didn’t find her. What a fool he had been not to have asked a few more questions of that man! He could have acted as if he were considering taking the job, and the creature might have told him more.
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