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

foreign birth or parentage, probably either Swedish or German. The man with him was smaller and slighter. Despite the air of importance his uniform gave him, it was palpable that he was the less forceful of the two, his handsome face, it seemed to Jane, betraying weakness of character and a fondness for the good things of life.

"Come, daughter," said Mrs. Strong, rising, "we must be going."

So intent was Jane on her study of the two men that her mother had to speak twice to her.

"Yes, mother," she answered obediently, rising hastily as the hint of annoyance in her mother's repeated remark brought her to a realization of having been addressed.

Letting her mother and Mrs. Starrett precede her in the doorway she paused to look back at the scene that had interested her so strongly. What could it mean? What was going on? How was she involved in it?

Her glance moved quickly from the watcher to the watched. The blond young man caught her eye. Amazedly, it seemed to her, he stopped right in the middle of what he was saying and sat there, his gaze fixed full on her. She let her eyes fall, abashed, and turned to hasten after her mother, but not so quickly did she turn but that she observed he had hastily seized his cup and appeared to be drinking to her, not so much impudently as admiringly.

CHAPTER III "MR. FLECK"

Twice after the elevator had deposited her on the floor Jane had approached the door of Room 708, and twice she had walked timorously past it to the end of the hall, trying to muster up courage to enter. A visit to a man's office in the business district was a novelty for her. On the few previous excursions of the sort she had made she always had been accompanied by one of her parents. She found herself wishing now that she had taken her father into her confidence and had asked him to go with her. Making shopping her excuse she had come down-town with Mr. Strong but had gotten off at Astor Place, and waited over for another train.

In her hand she held the card given to her by the black-mustached man the afternoon before. As she studied it now her curiosity came to the rescue of her fast-oozing courage. She must find out what it all meant, whatever the risk or peril that might confront her. Boldly she returned to Room 708 and opened the door. An office boy seated at a desk looked up inquiringly.

"Is Mr. Fleck in?" she inquired timidly.

"Who wishes to see him?"

"Just say there's a lady wishes to speak to him," she faltered, hesitating to give her name.

"Are you Miss Strong?" asked the boy abruptly, "because if you are, he's expecting you."

She nodded, and the boy, jumping up, escorted her into an inner room. As she entered nervously an alert-looking man, with graying hair and mustache, rose courteously to greet her. In the quick glance she gave at her surroundings she was conscious only of the great mahogany desk at which he sat and behind it some filing cabinets and a huge safe, the outer doors of which stood open.

"Sit down, won't you, Miss Strong," he said, placing a chair for her.

His manner and his cultured tone, everything about him, reassured her at once. They conveyed to her that he was what she would have termed "a gentleman," and with a little sigh of relief she seated herself.

"I'm afraid," said Mr. Fleck, smiling, "that Carter's method of approaching you must have alarmed you."

"Carter--Oh, the black-mustached man."

"Yes, that describes him. You see, he did not wish to act definitely without consulting his chief, yet the unexpected opportunity seemed far too vital not to be utilized. He did not explain, did he, what it was we wanted of you?"

"Indeed he didn't," said Jane, now wholly herself. "He was most mysterious about it."

Mr. Fleck smiled amusedly.

"Carter has been an agent so long that being mysterious is second nature to him."

"An agent--I don't understand."

"A Department agent," explained Mr. Fleck, adding, "engaged in secret service work for the government."

"Oh!"

Jane's exclamation was not so much of surprise as of delighted realization, and the satisfaction expressed in her face was by no means lost on Mr. Fleck.

"Would you object," he asked, moving his chair a little closer to hers, "if, before I explain why you are here, I ask you a few questions--very personal questions?"

"Certainly not," said Jane.

"You are American-born, of course?"

"Oh, yes."

"And your parents?"

"American for ten or twelve generations."

"How long have you lived in that apartment house on Riverside Drive?"

"For about five years."

"Do you know any of the other tenants in the house?"

"No--that is, none personally."

"Is your time fully occupied?"

"No, indeed it isn't, I've nothing to do at all, nothing except to try to amuse myself."

"Good," said Mr. Fleck. "Now would you be willing to help in some secret work for the United States Government, some work of the very highest importance?"

"Would I?" cried Jane, her eyes shining. "Gladly! Just try me."

"Don't answer too quickly," warned Mr. Fleck. "Remember, it will be real work, serious work, not always pleasant, sometimes possibly a little perilous. Remember, too, it must be done with absolute secrecy. You must not let even your parents know that you are working with us. You must pledge yourself to breathe no word of what you are doing or are asked to do to a living soul. Everything that we may tell you is to be buried forever from everybody. No one is to be trusted. The minute one other person knows your secret it will no longer be a secret. Can we depend upon you?"

"You may absolutely depend on me," said Jane slowly and soberly. "I give you my word. I have been eager for ever so long to do something to help, to really help. My father is doing all he can to aid the government. He's on the Shipping Board."

Mr. Fleck nodded. Evidently he was aware of it already.

"My brother, my only brother," Jane continued, with a little catch in her throat, "is Over There--somewhere Over There--fighting for his government. If there is anything I can do to help the country he is fighting for, the country he may die for, I pledge you I will do it gladly with my heart, my soul, my body--everything."

"Thank you," said Mr. Fleck softly, taking her hand. "I felt sure you were that sort of a girl. Now listen." He moved his chair still closer to hers, and his voice became almost a whisper. "In the apartment next to you there live two men,--Otto Hoff and his nephew, Fred. They have an old German servant, but we can leave her out of it for the present. The old man is a lace importer. Apparently they are both above suspicion, yet--"

He stopped abruptly.

"You think they are spies--spies for Germany," questioned Jane excitedly. "They're Germans, of course?"

"Otto Hoff is German-born, but he has been here for twenty years. Several years ago he took out papers and became an American citizen."

"And the young man?"

Jane's tone was vibrant with interest. It must be the man she had seen from her window whom they suspected most.

"He professes to be American-born."

"Oh," said the girl, rather disappointedly.

"But," continued Mr. Fleck, "there's something queer about it all. He arrived in this country only three days before we went into the war. He had a certificate, properly endorsed, giving his birthplace as Cincinnati. He arrived on a Scandinavian ship. He speaks German as well and as fluently as he speaks English, both without accent."

"Perhaps he was educated abroad," suggested Jane, rather amazed at finding herself seeking to defend him.

"He must have been," said Fleck, "yet I find it hard to believe that Germany at this time is letting any young German-American come home if he's soldier material--and young Hoff's appearance certainly suggests military training."

"It surely does."

"Unless," continued Fleck, "there was some special object in sending him here."

"You think," said Jane slowly, "they sent him here--to this country--as a spy."

"In our business we dare not think. We cannot merely conjecture. We must prove," said Mr. Fleck. "Maybe the Hoffs are O.K. I do not know. Nobody knows yet. Let me tell you some of the circumstances. This much we do know. Von Bernstorff is gone. Von Papen is gone. Scores of active German sympathizers and propagandists have been rounded up and interned or imprisoned, yet, in spite of all we have done, their work goes on. A vast secret organization, well supplied with funds, is constantly at work in this country, trying to cripple our armies, trying to destroy our munition plants, trying to corrupt our citizens, trying to disrupt our Congress. Every move the United States makes is watched. As you probably know, every day now large numbers of American troops are embarking in transports in the Hudson."

"Yes," said Jane, "you can see them from our windows."

"Now then," said Mr. Fleck, lowering his voice impressively, "here is the fact. Some one somewhere on Riverside Drive is keeping close and constant tab on the warships and transports there in the river. We have managed recently to intercept and decipher some code messages. These messages told not only when the transports sailed but how many troops were on each and how strong their convoy was. Where these messages originate we have not yet learned. We are practically certain that some one in our own navy, some black-hearted traitor wearing an officer's uniform--perhaps several of them--is in communication with some one on shore, betraying our government's most vital secrets."

"I can't believe it," cried Jane, "our own American officers traitors!"

"Undoubtedly some of them are," said Mr. Fleck regretfully. "The German efficiency, for years looking forward to this war, carefully built up a far-reaching spy system. Years ago, long before the war was thought of--or at least before we in this country thought of it--many secret agents of Wilhelmstrasse were deliberately planted here. Many of them have been residents here for years, masking their real occupation by engaging in business, utilizing their time as they waited for the war to come by gathering for Germany all of our trade and commercial secrets. Some of these spies have even become naturalized, and they and their sons pass for good American citizens. In some cases they have even Americanized their names. Insidiously and persistently they have worked their way into places, sometimes into high places in our chemical plants, our steel factories, yes, even into high places in our army and navy and into governmental positions where they can gather information first-hand. In no other country has it been so easy for them, because of this one fact: so large a proportion of Uncle Sam's population is of German birth or parentage. Why here in New York City alone there are more than three-quarters of a million persons, either German-born themselves or born of German parents. Many of them, the vast majority of them, probably, are loyal to America, but think how the plenitude of German names makes it easy for spies to get into our army and navy. Besides that, they employ evil men of other nationalities as spies, the criminal riffraff,--Danes, Swedes, Spaniards, Italians, Swiss and even South Americans,--all of whom are free to go and come as they choose in this country."

"I never realized before," said Jane, "how many Germans there were all about us."

"In an effort to locate this particular band of naval spies," continued Mr. Fleck, "we have combed the apartment houses and residences along the Drive. Three places in particular are under suspicion. The apartment of the Hoffs is one of these places. They moved in there thirty days after this country went to war. Ordinarily, where the occupants of an apartment are under suspicion, we take the superintendent of the building partly into our confidence and plant operatives in the house, or else we hire an apartment in the same building. In this case neither course is practicable.