The Apartment Next Door - William Andrew Johnston (top 10 novels to read .TXT) 📗

Jane. For more than two miles they had seen neither house nor barn. Once or twice they came upon little used lanes leading off through the woods, but none of them showed any traces of the recent passing of an automobile.

As they came dashing around a curve on a steep down-grade, where hardly more than the semblance of a road had been cut into the hillside, Jane caught her breath sharply. Above the roar of their own motor she thought she heard some other noise, something that sounded like another car near-by; yet neither behind nor ahead was there another automobile in sight.

"Listen," she cried sharply.

Dean started to slow down, but it was too late. Out of a cut in the hillside, half screened by a clump of bushes at the side on which Jane was riding, a great gray motor shot out just as they were passing. Jane caught just one glimpse of the man on the driver's seat. It was Frederic Hoff, frantically twisting at the wheel in an effort to avert the threatened collision. There came a thud and a crash as the forward part of the Hoff car struck the motorcycle a glancing blow, overturning it completely. Too terrified even to shriek, Jane felt herself being catapulted out of her seat and flung high in air. Then came a blank.

Her companion did not escape so easily. The heavy machine crashed over on him and dragged him several yards. His head, as he landed in the roadway, struck a stone, and the motorcycle itself pinned him to the earth by its weight, one of his arms doubled up in an alarming fashion, as he lay there completely senseless.

Jane fortunately had landed on some soft grass, though with sufficient force to leave her badly stunned. As she lay there, a boyish figure in her disguise, her senses began gradually to revive, although it was some time before she opened her eyes.

Vaguely, as from a great distance, she began to hear voices, and it seemed to her that they were German voices, arguing about something. The voices seemed angry and excited. At first she did not bother about them. She was wondering how badly she was hurt. Her arms and limbs had a curious sort of deadness about them, a detached sensation, as if they belonged to some one else. She wondered if she was paralyzed and dared not try to move them, fearful lest she might find that it was the terrible truth.

The voices--the German voices--came nearer, became louder and more strident. She struggled to collect her thoughts. Where was she? What had happened? Where was Thomas Dean? Gradually some memory of the accident came to her. They had been run down by the Hoffs' car. The voices she kept hearing were those of the two Hoffs, angrily wrangling about something. As she revived further she became acutely conscious that her head seemed to be splitting. What was it the Hoffs were arguing about? Still lying there motionless, with her eyes closed, endeavoring to collect herself, she tried to listen to what they were saying.

"I tell you there is not time. I must hurry. Every minute is precious. I cannot delay my work for these swine, no matter if they both are dying or dead," old Otto was angrily shouting with many German oaths.

"I tell you," Frederic was saying,--his voice was calmer but determined,--"we've got to get these people to a doctor. It's too heartless. I will not leave them here."

"And betray us at the last moment, when our plans are all ready," snarled old Otto.

"There is less danger if we bundle them into the car and take them with us than if we leave them here," protested Frederic. "Two bodies right here at the entrance would be fine, nicht wahr?"

His last remark appealed to old Otto.

"That is so," he muttered. "It is not safe. We must hide the bodies, both of them, yes?"

The bodies! Jane decided that Dean must have been killed and that they thought that she, too, was dead. As she strove to open her eyes she could hear Frederic protesting.

"It's inhuman," he cried. "They both are hurt, but perhaps still alive. We must take them to a hospital."

"And endanger all our plans," stormed old Otto. "Throw them into the woods."

"We'll do nothing of the sort," Frederic insisted, his voice becoming unusually stern and severe. "I'm going to get both of these people to a doctor at once, I tell you."

With effort Jane opened her eyes and looked cautiously about. Where was Thomas Dean? How badly had he been hurt? The Hoffs' automobile was slowly backing up. As she looked old Otto sprang out of it and righted the motorcycle. As he did so Jane saw the body of Dean lying senseless beneath it, but to him the old German paid no attention. He was examining the motorcycle and still sputtering that the swine should be left to rot.

"We are going to take them with us in the car," directed Frederic in a voice of authority. "I command it."

At the word old Otto's mutterings ceased, though he shot a black look at the younger man.

"This machine," he suggested, "it is not hurt. I will take it and do our work. There is haste. You remain with the car. Do what you will with these people."

"Go then," said his nephew curtly. "You can take the train at the first station and make time."

As the old man mounted the motorcycle and sped away Frederic sprang from the car, and approaching the spot where Dean's body lay, began making an examination of his injuries.

"Scalp wound, perhaps fractured skull, broken arm," Jane heard him saying aloud to himself. She noted curiously that as soon as he was left to himself he began speaking in English.

He left Dean and approached her. As he came nearer she closed her eyes again, trying to plan some course of action. Her head was throbbing so that she found it impossible to think. She felt toward young Hoff a warmth of gratitude for not having gone off and left them helpless as his uncle had insisted. Even though he was an enemy of her country, a man to be hated, a spy, she could not help being glad for his presence there. What would she have done without him, with Dean lying there injured and helpless on this lonely mountain road?

"This chap seems only stunned," she heard him say as he bent over her, then as he looked closer, she heard him exclaim:

"My God, it's Jane!"

In an instant he was down at her side on his knees. Tenderly one of his arms went about her and lifted her head.

"Miss Strong, Jane, Jane," he implored, "Jane dear, speak to me."

"Thank God," he cried. "Jane dear, tell me you are not hurt."
"Thank God," he cried. "Jane dear, tell me you are not hurt."

Stunned though she still was a flush crept into Jane's cheeks at the unexpected term of endearment, though she still kept her eyes closed. Gently he laid her back on the turf and hastened to the automobile, returning with a flask which he held to her lips. Slowly Jane opened her eyes.

"Thank God," he cried. "Jane dear, tell me you are not hurt."

For a moment she lay there, staring wonderingly at him as he bent over her imploringly, the tenderest of anxiety showing in every line of his face. Unprotestingly she let him slip his strong arm once more under her head. In her dazed brain there was a strange conflict of peculiar emotions. He was a German, a spy,--she hated him, and yet it was wonderfully comforting to her to have him there. Under other circumstances she could have loved him. He was so handsome, so masterful and so kind, too. He cared for her. Had he not called her "Jane, dear" in his amazement at finding her lying there? But she must not let herself think of him in that way. It was her duty, her sacred duty to trap him, to thwart his nefarious plans against her country. She must do her duty just as her soldier brother was doing his in far away France.

Still supported by Hoff's arms she sat up, trying to collect her thoughts and gingerly testing the movement of her arms and limbs.

"Tell me," he cried again, "Jane, dear, are you hurt?"

"I don't think so," she managed to say.

With his assistance she got up on her feet and walked uncertainly to the car, shuddering as she looked at Dean's crumpled senseless body.

"Your friend," said Hoff, as he placed her in the forward seat and wrapped a rug about her, "I am afraid, is badly hurt."

"It's our chauffeur, Thomas Dean," she explained confusedly.

She had been wondering what she could say to Frederic to account for her presence there. It was unconventional at least for a girl to be motorcycling about the country dressed in man's clothes with a chauffeur. Hoff must surely realize now that she had been shadowing him. She felt almost certain that he had known it from the very first, since that afternoon when he had overheard her telephoning about the "fifth book." Yet never by word or manner had he betrayed the fact that he suspected her. Beyond his customary reserve in speaking about himself or his activities, there was nothing to indicate that he knew anything yet. Whatever she told him now she must be careful not to betray her mission. Perhaps even in spite of all that had happened she still might be able to aid Chief Fleck in trapping them.

But did she really want to trap Frederic Hoff? Had Thomas Dean's bitter charge that she was trying to protect him been true? Frederic Hoff loved her. She, yes--she had to admit it to herself--she was beginning to love him. Could she go on with it?

Hoff had been busy lifting the unconscious Dean into the tonneau. As she watched him as he lifted up the body unaided she was conscious of admiration of his great strength.

"Will he die?" she whispered.

"I don't know," he answered. "He is badly hurt. We must get him to a doctor at once."

He stopped a moment longer to examine the car. Fortunately the glancing blow that it had struck the motorcycle had done no more damage than shatter one of the lamps and bend the mud guard. Soon they were moving rapidly in the direction of New York.

"I think," said Hoff, "we had better leave him in the care of the first doctor we come to. We can say that he is an injured motorcyclist we found lying in the road."

"And me?" asked Jane, almost fearfully.

"I'll take you back to the city with me."

"No," she replied, "that won't do. I ought to stay by him. Besides, if I return with you, it will be hard to explain."

He turned to look inquiringly at her and for a moment drove on in silence.

"There's nothing more you can do for the man once he is in competent medical hands, except to notify his people. Is he married?"

"No," said Jane, "he's not married. I can tell his friends."

"Did your parents know about"--he hesitated--"about this trip with the chauffeur?"

Jane blushed guiltily, wondering what he suspected of her. She hoped that he did not think she had a habit of going off on such journeys with the chauffeur. Even though the man at her side was officially her enemy she resented being put into a position that would cheapen her in his eyes.

"No," she replied, "they knew nothing about it."

Hoff drove on in silence. She had feared that he might ask her more embarrassing questions, might insist on knowing where she had been going when the accident occurred. A panic seized her. What if he should ask her? What could she tell him? He had a masterful way about him. If he took it into his head to make her confess she realized that she would have a struggle to keep