THE man who had formed the small, distinct characters covering the paper of instructions had written in English; but while he was quite familiar with English script, it was evident that he had written with the deliberate pains of a person who realizes the need of differentiating his letters from the formation natural to him. That formation, clearly, was German script. Like everyone else, Ruth knew German families; and, like many other American girls who had been in high schools before the outbreak of the war, she had chosen German for a modern language course. Indeed, she had learned German well enough so that when confronted by the question on her War Registration card, What foreign languages do you read well? she had written, German.
She had no difficulty, therefore, in recognizing from the too broad tops of the a's, the too pointed c's and the loops which twice crossed the t's that the writer had been educated first to write German. He had failed nowhere to carefully and accurately write the English form of the letters for which the German form was very different, such as k and r and s; it was only in the characters where the two scripts were similar that his care had been less.
You are (he had written) the daughter of Charles Farwell Gail, a dry-goods merchant of Decatur, Illinois. Your father and mother—ages 48 and 45—are living; you have one older brother, Charles, now twenty-six years old who quarreled with his father four years ago and went away and has not been heard from. The family believe that he entered the war in some capacity years ago; if so, he probably was killed for he was of reckless disposition. You do not write to him, of course; but in your letters home you refer to being always on watch for word from Charles. You were twenty-four years old on November 17. You have no sisters but one younger brother, Frank, 12 on the tenth of May, who is a boy scout; inform him of all boy-scout matters in your letters. Your other immediate family is a sister of your mother now living with your parents; she is a widow, Mrs. Howard Grange, maiden name Cynthia Gifford. You were named for her; she has a chronic ailment—diabetes. You write to her; you always inquire of her condition in letters to your parents. Your closest girl friend is Cora Tresdale, La Salle, Illinois, who was your roommate at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.; you were both class of 1915; you write to her occasionally. You recently have been much interested in 2nd Lieutenant George A. Byrne, from Decatur, now at Camp Grant; he saw you in Chicago this past Saturday. Probably you are engaged to him; in any case, your status with him will be better defined by letter which will arrive for you at the Hotel Champlain, this city, Room 347.
It is essential that you at once go to hotel and continue your identity there. Immediately answer by telegram any important inquiry for you; immediately answer all letters. Buy a typewriter of traveling design and do all correspondence on that, saying that you are taking it up for convenience. Your signature is on passport; herewith also a portion of letter with your writing. So far as known, you do not sign nicknames, except to your father to whom you are "Thia." Mail arriving for you, or to arrive at hotel, together with possessions in room will inform you of your affairs more fully. So far as now known you have no intimate friends in Chicago; you are to start Thursday evening for Hoboken where you report Saturday morning to Mrs. Donald G. Gresham for work in the devastated districts in France, where you will observe all desired matters, particularly in regard to number, dispositions, personnel, equipment and morale of arriving American forces; reporting. If and when it proves impractical to forward proper reports, you will make report in person, via Switzerland; apply for passport to Lucerne.
With this, the connected writing abruptly ended; there was no signature and no notation except at the bottom of the sheet was an asterisk referring to an asterisk before the first mention of "mother." This note supplied, "Mother's maiden name, Julia Trowbridge Gifford," and also the street address in Decatur. Below that was the significant addenda:
Cynthia Gail killed in Sunday night wreck; identification now extremely improbable; but watch papers for news. No suspicion yet at home or hotel; but you must appear at once and answer any inquiry.
This last command, which was a repetition, was emphatically underlined. The page of the letter in Cynthia Gail's handwriting was addressed to her mother and was largely a list of clothing—chemises, waists, stockings, and other articles—which she had bought in Chicago and charged to her father's account at two department stores. A paragraph confided to her mother her feeling of insignificance at the little part she might play in the war, though it had seemed so big before she started away:
Yet no one knows what lies before one; even I may be given my great moment to grasp!
The letter was unfinished; Cynthia Gail evidently had been carrying it with her to complete and mail later when she was killed.
Ruth placed it under her pillow with the other paper and the passport and the money; she unlocked her door and went out, locking it behind her; descending to the first floor, she obtained the yesterday's paper and brought it back to her room. She found readily the account of a wreck on Sunday evening when a train had crashed through a street car. It had proved very difficult to identify certain of the victims; and one had not been identified at all; she had been described only as a young girl, well dressed, fur toque, blue coat with dark fur collar.
The magic of this money and the passport had faded quite away; the chain of vital, mortal occurrences which had brought them to Ruth Alden was becoming evident.
There had been, first of all, an American girl named Cynthia Gail of Decatur, Illinois, young like Ruth but without responsibilities, loyal and ardent to play her part in the war. She had applied for overseas work; the government therefore had investigated her, approved her and issued her a passport and permitted her to make all arrangements for the journey to France and for work there. She had left her home in Decatur and had come alone, probably, to Chicago, arriving not later than Saturday. She apparently had been alone in the city on Sunday evening after Lieutenant George Byrne had returned to Camp Grant; also it was fairly certain that she had no intimate friends in Chicago as she had been stopping at a hotel. On Sunday evening she had been on the car which was struck by the train.
This much was positive; the next circumstances had more of conjecture; but Ruth could reason them out.
Someone among those who first went to the wreck found Cynthia Gail dead and found her passport upon her. This person might have been a German agent who was observing her; much more probably he was simply a German sympathizer who was sufficiently intelligent to appreciate at once the value of his find. At any rate, someone removed the passport and letter and other possessions which would identify Cynthia Gail; and that someone either acted promptly for himself and for Germany or brought his discoveries to others who acted very energetically. For they must immediately have got in touch with people in Decatur who supplied them with the information on the page of instructions; and they also must have made investigation of Cynthia Gail's doings in Chicago.
The Germans thereupon found that they possessed not merely a passport but a most valuable post and an identity to use for their own purposes. If they could at once substitute one of their own people for Cynthia Gail—before inquiry for Cynthia Gail would be made or knowledge of her loss arise—this substitute would be able to proceed to France without serious suspicion; she would be able to move about with considerable freedom, probably, in the districts of France where Americans were holding the lines and could gather and forward information of all sorts of the greatest value to the Germans. They simply must find a German girl near enough like Cynthia Gail and clever and courageous enough to forge her signature, assume her place in her family, and in general play her rôle.
It was plain that the Germans who obtained the passport knew of some German girl upon whom they could depend; but they could not—or did not dare to attempt to—communicate directly with her. Ruth knew vaguely that hundreds of Germans, suspected of hostile activities, silently had disappeared. She knew that the American secret service constantly was causing the arrest of others and keeping many more under observation. It was certain, therefore, that communication between enemy agents in Chicago must have been becoming difficult and dangerous; moreover, Ruth had read that it was a principle of the German-spy organization to keep its agents ignorant of the activities of others in the same organization; so it seemed quite probable that the people who had possession of Cynthia Gail's passport knew that there was a German girl in the city who might play Cynthia's part but that they could not locate her. Yet they were obliged to find her, and to do it quickly, so that she could take up the rôle of Cynthia Gail before inquiries would be made.
What better way of finding a girl in Chicago than posting yourself as a beggar on State Street between the great stores? It was indeed almost certain that if the girl they sought was anywhere in the city, sooner or later she would pass that spot. Obviously the two Germans who had mixed with the crowd on State Street also had been searching for their German confederate; they had mistaken Ruth for her; and one of them had somehow signaled the beggar to accost her.
This had come to Ruth, therefore, not because she was chosen by fate; it simply had happened to her, instead of to another of the hundreds of girls who had passed down State Street that morning, because she chanced to possess a certain sort of hair and eyes, shape of nose and chin, and way of carrying her head not unique at all but, in fact, very like two other girls—one who had been loyal and eager as she, but who now lay dead and another girl who had been sought by enemy agents for their work, but who had not been found and who, probably, would not now be found by them.
For, after giving the boxes to Ruth, the German who played the beggar would not search further; that delivery of the passport and the orders to her was proof that he believed she was the girl he sought. She had only to follow the orders given and she would be accepted by other German agents as one of themselves! She would pretend to them that she was going as a German spy into France in order that she could go, an American spy, into Germany! For that was what her orders read.
"You will report in person via Switzerland!" they said.
What a tremendous thing had been given her to do! What risks to run; what plans to make; what stratagems to scheme and to outwit! Upon her—her who an hour ago had been among the most futile and inconsiderable in all the world of war—now might hang the fate of the great moment if she did not fail, if she dared to do without regard to herself to the uttermost! She must do it alone, if she was to do it at all! She could not tell anyone! For the Germans who had entrusted this to her might be watching her. If she went to the American Secret Service, the Germans almost surely would know; and that would end any chance of their continuing to believe her their agent. No; if she was to do it, she must do it of herself; and she was going to do it!
This money, which she recounted, freed her at once from all bonds here. She speculated, of course, about whose it had been. She was almost sure it had not been Cynthia Gail's; for a young girl upon an honest errand would not have carried so great an amount in cash. No; Ruth had heard of the lavishness with which the Germans spent money in America and of the extravagant enterprises they hazarded in the hope of serving their cause in some way; and she was certain that this had been German money and that its association with the passport had not begun until the passport fell into hostile hands. The money, consequently, was Ruth's spoil from the enemy; she would send home two thousand dollars to free her from her obligation to her family for more than two years while she would keep the remainder for her personal expenses.
The passport too was recovered from the enemy; yet it had belonged to that girl, very like Ruth, who lay dead and unrecognized since this had been taken from her. There came to Ruth, accordingly, one of those weak, peacetime shocks of horror at the idea of leaving that girl to be put away in a nameless grave. As if one more nameless grave, amid the myriads of the war, made a difference!
Ruth gazed into the eyes of the girl of the picture; and that girl's words, which had seemed only a commonplace of the letter, spoke articulate with living hope. "Even I may be given my great moment to grasp!"
What could she care for a name on her grave?
"You can't be thinking of so small and silly a thing for me!" the girl of the picture seemed to say. "When you and I may save perhaps a thousand, ten thousand, a million men! I left home to serve; you know my dreams, for you have dreamed them too; and, more than you, I had opportunity offered to do. And instead, almost before I had started, I was killed stupidly and, it seemed for nothing. It almost happened that—instead of serving—I was about to become the means of betrayal of our armies. But you came to save me from that; you came to do for me, and for yourself, more than either of us dreamed to do. Be sure of me, as I would be sure of you in my place! Save me, with you, for our great moment! Carry me on!"
Ruth put the picture down. "We'll go on together!" she made her compact with the soul of Cynthia Gail.
She was glad that, before acting upon her decision, she had no time to dwell upon the consequences. She must accept her rôle at once or forever forsake it. Indeed, she might already be too late. She went to her washbowl and bathed; she redid her hair, more like the girl in the picture. The dress which she had been wearing was her best for the street so she put it on again. She put on her hat and coat; she separated two hundred dollars from the rest of the money and put it in her purse; the balance, together with the passport and the page of Cynthia Gail's letter, she secured in her knitting bag. The sheet of orders with the information about Cynthia Gail gave her hesitation. She reread it again carefully; and she was almost certain that she could remember everything; but, being informed of so little, she must be certain to have that exact. So she reached for her leaflet of instructions for knitting helmets, socks, and sweaters, and she wrote upon the margin, in almost imperceptible strokes, shorthand curls and dashes, condensing the related facts about Cynthia Gail. She put this in her bag, destroyed the original and, taking up her bag, she went out.
Every few moments as she proceeded down the dun and drab street, in nowise changed from the half hour before, she pressed the bag against her side to feel the hardness of the packets pinned in the bottom; she needed this feelable proof to assure her that this last half hour had not been all her fantasy but that truly the wand of war, which she had seen to lift so many out of the drudge of mean, mercenary tasks, had touched her too.
She hailed a taxicab as soon as she was out of sight of the boarding house and directed it to the best downtown store where she bought, with part of the two hundred dollars, such a fur toque and such a blue coat with a fur collar as she supposed Cynthia Gail might have possessed. She had qualms while she was paying for them; she seemed to be spending a beggar's money, given her by mistake. She wore the new toque and the coat, instructing that her old garments be sent, without name, to the war-relief shop.
Out upon the street again, the fact that she had spent the money brought her only exultation; it had begun to commit her by deed, as well as by determination and had begun to muster her in among those bound to abandon all advantage—her security, her life in the great cause of her country. It had seemed to her, before, the highest and most wonderful cause for which a people had ever aroused; and now, as she could begin to think herself serving that cause, what might happen to her had become the tiniest and meanest consideration.
She took another taxicab for the Hotel Champlain. She knew this for a handsome and fashionable hotel on the north side near the lake; she had never been in such a hotel as a guest. Now she must remember that she had had a room there since last week and she had been away from it since Sunday night, visiting, and she had kept the room rather than go to the trouble of giving it up. When she approached the hotel, she leaned forward in her seat and glanced at herself in the little glass fixed in one side of the cab. She saw that she was not trembling outwardly and that she had good color—too much rather than too little; and she looked well in the new, expensive coat and toque.
When the cab stopped and the hotel doorman came out, she gave him money to pay the driver and she went at once into the hotel, passing many people who were sitting about or standing.
The room-clerk at the desk looked up at her, as a room-clerk gazes at a good looking and well-dressed girl who is a guest.
"Key, please," she said quietly. She had to risk her voice without knowing how Cynthia Gail had spoken. That was one thing which the Germans had forgotten to ascertain—or had been unable to discover—for her. But the clerk noticed nothing strange.
"Yes, Miss Gail," he recognized her, and he turned to take the key out of box 347. "Mail too, Miss Gail?"
"Please."
He handed Ruth three letters, two postmarked Decatur and one Rockford, and also the yellow envelope of a telegram. He turned back to the box and fumbled for a card.
"There was a gentleman here for you 'bout half an hour ago, Miss Gail," the clerk recollected. "He waited a while but I guess he's gone. He left this card for you."
Ruth was holding the letters and also the telegram unopened; she had not cared to inquire into their contents when in view of others. It was far safer to wait until she could be alone before investigating matters which might further confuse her. So she was very glad that the man who had been "here for her" was not present at that instant; certainly she required all the advantage which delay and the mail and the contents of Cynthia Gail's room could give her.
She had thought, of course, of the possibility of someone awaiting her; and she had recognized three contingencies in that case. A man who called for her might be a friend or a relative of Cynthia Gail; this, though difficult enough, would be easiest and least dangerous of all. The man might be a United States agent aware that Cynthia Gail was dead, that her passport had fallen into hostile hands; he therefore would have come to take her as an enemy spy with a stolen passport. The man might be a German agent sent there to aid her or give her further orders or information, if the Germans still were satisfied that they had put the passport into proper hands; if they were not—that is, if they had learned that the beggar had made a mistake—then the man might be a German who had come to lure her away to recover the passport and punish her.
The man's card, with his name—Mr. Hubert Lennon, engraved in the middle—told nothing more about him.
"I will be in my room," Ruth said to the clerk, when she glanced up from the card. "If Mr. Lennon returns or anyone else calls, telephone me."
She moved toward the elevator as quickly as possible; but the room-clerk's eyes already were attracted toward a number of men entering from the street.
"He's not gone, Miss Gail! Here he is now!" the clerk called.
Ruth pretended not to hear; but no elevator happened to be waiting into which she could escape.
"Here's the gentleman for you!" a bellboy announced to Ruth so that she had to turn and face then and there the gentleman who had been waiting for her.