CHAPTER XXVII
A RAID AND A SURPRISE
Mr. Cook's automobile was still standing outside, and a few moments laterthe little party of four were seated in it and on their way to the policestation. Bob was at the wheel.
Upon their arrival it was the work of only a few moments to have Mr. Cookand the two boys sworn in as deputy sheriffs. Bob and Hugh retired to thewash room and after more or less trouble succeeded in removing the falsecrop of hair from their faces.
Sergeant Riley ordered two policemen in uniform to go with them, and whenMr. Cook, Bob and Hugh had been equipped with pistols and heavy nightsticks, the band, now increased to six, were ready to proceed. They usedthe Cooks' car again and presently were gliding silently along in thedirection of Elm Street.
Two blocks distant from number twelve eighty-two Bob stopped the car andevery one got out. A short consultation was held and it was decided toseparate. Consequently Mr. Cook, Hugh, and one of the policemen wentdown a side street in order to go around the block and approach the housefrom the opposite direction. Bob, Sergeant Riley, and the other policemanwere to wait a few moments and then move on up Elm Street. It was thoughtbest to have Bob with one party and Hugh with the other as both boys knewthe house and could lead the way with no possibility of mistake.
It was exciting work and Bob and Hugh both felt very important andelated at being allowed to accompany the officers on this raid.Furthermore they were going to see the inside of the mysterious stuccohouse, and perhaps clear up the whole mystery of the German plot and spysystem in High Ridge.
After a few moments' wait Bob, Sergeant Riley, and the policeman startedto move slowly up the street. They met no one on the way, for it was nowafter midnight and people were mostly in bed. Only one house had a lightburning as far as they could see; that house was a white stucco one,number twelve eighty-two and the light was on the third floor.
"Here come the others," whispered Bob to Sergeant Riley as they drew neartheir destination.
Orders had already been given and every one knew what he was to do. Oneof the policemen went around to the rear of the house and took hisposition by the back door. Mr. Cook was to guard the front entrance, andboth men had instructions to do everything necessary to prevent theescape of any of the inmates of the house.
The remaining four members of the party, led by Sergeant Riley, stolenoiselessly up the steps and approached the front door. Riley took abunch of keys from his pocket, inspected the lock, and then selected oneof his keys. At the first trial the lock responded; he grasped the doorknob and silently and, with extreme caution, pushed open the door.
The hallway was unlighted. Sergeant Riley took out his flashlight andpressed the button on it for a second as he inspected the hall. Heuttered a low grunt of satisfaction as he noted that there was a carpeton the floor, and also on the stairs leading to the second floor. Thatmeant their footsteps would not be heard. He beckoned to the others tofollow, and softly stepped inside.
Scarcely daring to breathe, the four raiders advanced. They made no noiseon the thick carpet, but a collision with a piece of furniture or a falsestep might have ruined all their chances for success. Sergeant Riley wasin the lead, quick flashes from his pocket torch showing the way.
After what seemed hours they reached the second floor. Thus far nothinghad occurred to make them think that they had been discovered, but thehardest part was yet to come. From the third floor came the sound ofvoices and a shaft of light from an open door pierced the darkness of thehallway. The men above were talking in German.
There was a brief halt and then Sergeant Riley stole forward again.With breath in check and walking on tip-toe his three companionsfollowed. The open door above was about five or six feet distant fromthe head of the stairs. They started up the last flight; the voices ofthe men above seemed raised in anger, and though Bob of course couldnot understand what was said, he thought that the tone of one of themsounded strangely familiar.
Suddenly the stairs under Sergeant Riley's foot creaked. The little bandstopped short, their hearts pounding; every one gripped his revolver abit tighter and waited for developments. Apparently the noise had notbeen heard, however, for the voices continued as before.
The advance was resumed and finally Sergeant Riley reached the top ofthe stairs. He went a little farther and took his stand just besidethe opened door and barely out of the light. As the others came upthey stationed themselves directly behind the sergeant and closeagainst the wall.
It was a tense moment. Bob and Hugh could feel their hearts hammering sothat it seemed to the two boys the noise must be heard. Their faces werepale, and frankly they were frightened. Suppose the men in the roomshould outnumber them and overpower them? Certainly if they were thespies and plotters they sought, they would be desperate. Then again itwas just possible that the men were peaceful citizens, and that theaffair would turn out to be a farce; that would be almost toohumiliating.
Suddenly Sergeant Riley stepped forward into the open doorway.
"Hands up!" he ordered sharply, covering the inmates of the room with hispistol. His three companions crowded into the doorway alongside him.
There were three men seated about a table in the room, and they werecompletely taken by surprise. They started to their feet with mutteredexclamations of anger and astonishment, staring with wide eyes at thefour pistols levelled at them from the doorway.
One man hesitated and made a move as if to reach around towards his hippocket, but Sergeant Riley was alert.
"None of that," he cried. "Put up your hands."
The man hastened to obey and together the three stood and faced theircaptors. Sullen and angry they looked, and not one of them spoke.
"Now, Marshal," said Sergeant Riley, speaking to the policeman next tohim. "I wish you would be so good as to relieve these gentlemen of anyhardware they may have concealed about them."
While Riley and Bob and Hugh covered the three prisoners, the officerwent rapidly from one to another and took a revolver from each one ofthem. He also examined their other pockets, but finding no additionalweapons returned to his post by the door.
While this little drama was being enacted Bob had a chance to look aboutthe room. It was scantily furnished, a table, four chairs, and a shelfalong the wall constituting its equipment. On the shelf were a dozen ormore bottles that looked as if they might contain chemicals; a squareblack box stood on the table and also a brass spring and what resembled acord hanging from one side. Bob decided it was a bomb. From a nail in thecenter of the ceiling a small alligator was suspended by its tail. Bobrecognized the missing Percy, and decided that this must be theheadquarters of the gang that had used an alligator as its symbol, andtraced a picture of it on all the notes and warnings they sent out.
While the furnishings of the room were interesting, the three mencaptured were far more so, and as Bob saw one of them he experienced adistinct shock. The first was a man with dark hair, weighing perhaps onehundred and fifty pounds, and having a close-cropped mustache; the fakedetective beyond a doubt. The second was a thin, wiry individual with abeard, and a swollen, red nose. He was the man who had escaped from hisand Hugh's hands at the factory, Bob decided. His nose was swollen whereHugh had hit him. This must be the man who had set off the bomb.
The third prisoner was the one who furnished the surprise to Bob,however. He was a man Bob had known for years, and liked, admired, andtrusted as well. He was Karl Hoffmann.
"Well," exclaimed Sergeant Riley, "it looks as if you men was throughwith your work. Get out your handcuffs, Marshal."
Up till now not one of the prisoners had spoken. When they saw themanacles being brought out, however, they shifted uneasily andKarl spoke.
"Bob," he said. "This is all a mistake."
Bob would have liked to believe him but before he had an opportunity tosay anything Sergeant Riley spoke up. "Perhaps it is a mistake," heexclaimed. "We can talk that over down at the police station better thanhere, however."
There
was now little left to do. The handcuffs were quickly attached tothe prisoners' wrists and Hugh was sent to the second floor to telephonefor the patrol wagon. The prisoners were marched downstairs, and Mr. Cookand the other policeman were summoned. Mr. Cook was as shocked as Bob hadbeen to see Karl Hoffmann among those who had been captured in the raid.
There was nothing for it, however, but to see him loaded into the patrolwagon and driven away to police headquarters.
CHAPTER XXVIII
CONCLUSION
Mr. Cook, with Bob and Hugh, returned home. They had been in the houseonly a few moments when the telephone rang, and Mr. Cook answered it tofind Sergeant Riley on the wire.
"I want to come up and see yez," he said. "I've let one of your friendsout of jail and I'll bring him along with me if you don't mind."
He offered no further explanations, and the three friends were at a lossto understand what his visit could mean and who the "friend" might be.
"It must be Karl," said Mr. Cook. "No one can convince me he's disloyal."
"I guess that's who it is all right," agreed Bob.
They discussed their experiences of the past two days, but no one wasable to offer any satisfactory explanation for the strange events throughwhich they had passed. There was only one thing of which they werecertain and that was that a band of men who were working for Germany hadbeen plotting against the peace and welfare of the United States.
It was not long, however, before Sergeant Riley arrived and everyone was greatly astonished to see that his companion was none otherthan Heinrich.
"Yes," said the sergeant. "Here's your friend Heinrich back again, and Iguess he's here to stay this time."
Mr. Cook was a trifle cool in his greeting to the chauffeur. Not thathe did not like him, but he had hoped to see Karl with the policesergeant. He had been convinced of Heinrich's guilt, while he hadconsidered Karl to be innocent. Furthermore Karl had been foreman ofthe factory for a number of years and had proved himself a mostintelligent and valuable workman.
"Heinrich has a story to tell you," said Sergeant Riley.
"You confessed, did you, Heinrich?" asked Mr. Cook. He was under theimpression that he had confessed in order to save himself, and glad as hewas to have the mystery and uncertainty ended he did not like a"tell-tale."
"He had nothing to confess," said Riley. "Tell your story, Heinrich."
"Well," began Heinrich nervously, "in the first place you all suspectedme because I worked for Mr. Wernberg. Mr. Wernberg was working all thetime for the United States."
"What?" exclaimed Mr. Cook in surprise.
"Yes," said Heinrich, "that iss what he was doing. He knew there wasplots on foot and he knew every one in High Ridge was suspicious of him.He decided to expose those plots and prove that he was a good American.He hired Lena and me mit some others to help him."
"Lena, too, was all right?" demanded Bob.
"Certainly," exclaimed Heinrich. "Of course she iss all right. Mr.Wernberg he knew who these plotters were, but he was not able to proveanything about them. He also knew that they were meeting in that oldhouse out in the woods. The night before last he went out there in a biggray roadster to search the house."
"I didn't know that was his car," said Bob in surprise.
"Yes," said Heinrich, "and I was mit him. You and Hugh followed us and weknew it, so to scare you away I took the automobile and brought it home.You see Mr. Wernberg wanted to do it all himself."
"We couldn't understand it," muttered Hugh. "To think that you werefooling us all the time, Heinie."
"Yes," grinned the chauffeur, "I fool you all right. Well that night wecould not find anything so we left and Mr. Wernberg went back the nextafternoon to look around. One of the plotter's gang discovered that hewas there and tried to blow him up."
"But who locked us in that room?" demanded Bob.
"I did," said Heinrich. "I thought you was part of the German gang."
"Didn't you see us?"
"No, I only hear you talking. Then I fire one shot to give you a scare."
"And you almost blew Bob's head off," added Hugh.
"I tried to shoot high," said Heinrich. "Then I hurry away to tell Mr.Wernberg that I had two of the plotters caught. When I was gone I guessone of the plotters came there and you had a fight with him."
"The fake detective," exclaimed Bob.
"His name iss Kraus," said Heinrich. "He has a little mustache, and inthe afternoon he blew up the house, because he knew we were after him andhe wished to destroy all evidence."
"That's when Mr. Wernberg got hurt," said Mr. Cook. "What was he doing inthe house, Heinrich?" He was amazed at the way the mystery was clearingitself up.
"As I told you," said Heinrich. "He was looking around for evidenceagainst the gang."
"Why didn't he notify the police if he was suspicious?"
"As I told you," repeated Heinrich patiently, "he wished to do allhimself and when he turned those men over to the police no one could sayhe was forced to do it. They sent him lots of warning notes because theyknew he was after them."
"What did the alligator mean?"
"It iss the sign of a secret society; all Germans in High Ridge knowthat. It was that snake Hoffmann who stole poor Percy to kill him andhang him up in the room where they had their office."
"How long has Karl been a member of the gang?" asked Mr. Cook.
"Ever since Germany went to war with England," said Heinrich. "Nearlythree years."
"But he never talked as though he sided with Germany."
"The ones who mean trouble never do," said Heinrich. "Karl knew enough tokeep his mouth shut. You see you never suspected him."
"Tell me about Lena," exclaimed Mr. Cook. "Why was she meeting that manKraus down town tonight and going around with him if she was not workingwith the gang?"
"She pretended to Karl Hoffmann that she was working mit them. All thetime she was acting as a spy for Mr. Wernberg. Because Karl Hoffmann wasin love with her he told her lots of things, and it was in that way wegot most of our information."
"Pretty clever, eh?" exclaimed Sergeant Riley, approvingly.
"There's another thing, Heinrich," said Mr. Cook. "Why wouldn't you readwhat was written on that paper tonight?"
Heinrich looked sheepish. "I could not," he said. "Kraus had becomesuspicious of Lena; he feared she was going to betray them and the notewas a warning to her. It said that if they were caught they would see toit that she went to jail mit them. At that time you were all suspectingpoor Lena, and I was afraid you would send her to jail before she had achance to prove to you that she was loyal."
"You're in love with Lena, aren't you?" asked Mr. Cook.
"We are to be married," said Heinrich, proudly, his eyes shining.
"Did Karl suspect that Lena was treacherous?"
"I think not until he saw that note."
"He was going to read it to us though."
"He would not have read it," cried Heinrich hotly. "He would have made upsomething, not what it said at all."
"Who shot Lena?"
"Kraus shot her. She was going to your office to warn you that yourfactory was going to be blown up, and he shot her to prevent that."
"Who was the man with the whiskers?" asked Bob.
"His name iss Mueller. He iss the one who set off the bomb tonight."
"That's what we thought," exclaimed Bob. "Well, Hugh, you hit him onegood one anyway, didn't you?"
"I hope so," said Hugh.
"There was four of them altogether," said Heinrich. "Kraus, Mueller,Hoffmann, and a man named Schaefer who went to blow up the railroadbridge Friday night and has not been heard of since."
"We know where he is, don't we, Hugh?" laughed Bob.
"Where iss he?" demanded Heinrich.
"In jail, I guess," said Bob. "We caught him on the bridge with a bomb."
"Good boys," said Heinrich warmly.
"Why were you so angry when you had to go with father tonight?" askedBob. "Where was y
our engagement?"
"I was going with Lena to twelve eighty-two Elm Street, where Schaeferlived. You see Lena was already a member of the gang, so they thought,and I was to join too, so we both could watch them better."
"Somebody telephoned Lena about meeting them there this evening."
"Yes, it was Mueller. He thought he had a recruit in me."
"Well, Heinrich," said Mr. Cook, "I guess that explains pretty nearlyeverything, and I'm sorry I ever suspected you." He shook hands warmly.
"Oh, that's all right," smiled Heinrich. "I had to get suspected with thejob I had. That was part of the game."
At that moment the door bell rang and Dr. Clarke was ushered in. "Ithought you might be interested in the hospital patients," he said. "Mr.Wernberg will recover all right, and Lena is not badly hurt. She keepscalling all the time for somebody named Heinrich. Do you know him?"
"Will you excuse me, Mr. Cook?" exclaimed Heinrich, and, without waitingfor a reply, he dashed out of the room, nearly falling over two chairs inhis haste to get away to the hospital.
"He seems to be in a hurry, doesn't he?" laughed the doctor.
"I must be going, too," said Sergeant Riley. "I have some boarders downat my hotel who may need attention."
"Well, good-night, Sergeant," exclaimed Mr. Cook, shaking hands with thedoughty officer. "I'm sorry Hoffmann was mixed up in this business, butI'm glad it's all cleared up. I hope we'll have no more trouble."
"Ye won't, as long as yez have two young fellers like Bob and Hughworking for yez," exclaimed Riley. "The United States needs boys likethat; this war is going to be a long and hard one in my opinion."
"I'm afraid so," Mr. Cook agreed. "I guess we'll come out all right if weall work hard and stick together though."
"That's it," exclaimed Riley. "We must all work together. Our personalfeelings don't count. It's what our country needs."
He said good night all around and went out.
* * * * *
The next morning Bob was out in the yard inspecting a plot of groundwhere he was going to have a garden. He could not enlist, but he wasgoing to "do his bit" by raising a few vegetables, and thus help tosupply the country with its necessary food. He heard a step behind himand turned to see Frank Wernberg.
Frank held out his hand. "Shake hands with me, Bob," he exclaimed. "Iwant to tell you that I was wrong about that the other day, and youwere right."
Bob responded heartily. "Yes," said Frank.
"I was dead wrong. I had thought from the way father talked that he waspro-German, but I found out that he wasn't at all. When it came to aquestion of deciding between his country and Germany there was never anydoubt about where he stood."
"I know that, Frank," said Bob. "I wish every one of German birth ordescent over here felt the same way."
"I think most of them do," said Frank.
"I guess that's right," Bob agreed. "Look at Lena and Heinrich."
"Well, all I wish now," exclaimed Frank, "is that we could enlist."
"So do I," cried Bob enthusiastically. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if youand Hugh and I could enlist and go together?"
The new adventures are recorded in the story entitled,
BOB COOK AND THE GERMAN AIR FLEET.
THE END
Bob Cook and the German Spy Page 27