There was more talk the next morning at the table about reporting rumors, and Sam’s father gave him strict instructions not to tell anything he heard outside the family. One of the men brought down a radio from his room that night and turned on a speech about how people ought not to spread rumors and ought to be very careful to find out if stories were officially confirmed before they told them anyway, and Sam wriggled around and at last came out with another story he had heard.
“They say there’s more fifth column fellas in that gang at the plant than they knew. They say they’re doing all kinds of things to delay the work. They stop to tie their shoes and then go and get drinks of water, and they get fits of coughing, and they pretend something’s the matter with their machines. Anything to hold up the job.”
“Look, Sam, is that official?” asked his father in a severe tone.
“Yes, sir, it sure is, Dad. I heard that Winter telling some men as they came down to the village that it was so. He said he knew pretty well who had instigated it, but he wasn’t arresting him yet. He wanted him to give himself away a little more before he fired him.”
“Son, are you quite sure that was the man named Winter?” asked his father, looking at Sam with a piercing glance.
“Well, I’m mostly sure,” said Sam, shifting his gaze to his plate. “He’s the one Joe pointed out.”
“Well, now, look here, Sam. You’re ‘mostly sure,’ that’s all, and You’re not sure at all. And even if you were, you had no right to go and tell even your family what a big boss like you say he is said. He didn’t say it for publication. That’s just the kind of thing that is going to make it impossible to win the war if such things go on. And it seems to me a mighty strange thing for a big high-up boss to go gossiping along the highway when he’s supposed to be sworn to secrecy. It sounds kinda funny to me. A real man in an authoritative position would be sworn to keep such things to himself or look out who he told them to. The man you heard talk might even be a fifth column man himself, for all you know. So now I want it distinctly understood that none of my family go around telling anything that they have not seen themselves, and even then they might not have understood what it all meant. Do you understand, Sam?”
“Yes, sir!” said Sam with downcast eyes.
“Do you understand, Nannie?”
“Yes, Daddy,” said Nannie, lifting clear, innocent eyes.
Laurel listened thoughtfully. She had all but decided to drive to the Price boardinghouse tonight and ask for Bruce Winter and tell him what she had overheard that night before he arrived. But this decided her. If Winter was as careless as that, he wasn’t trustworthy. Besides, she wasn’t at all sure that he was in such a responsible position as they seemed to think. She would wait another day. Perhaps she would still hear from Phil Pilgrim. If she didn’t, she would go to Mrs. Gray and ask her what wise man she should consult.
It was just then that someone rang the old-fashioned doorbell and Nannie brought in a telegram for Laurel.
Laurel excused herself and went to her room to read it. She found that she was trembling from head to foot, and she certainly did not want to be asked any questions just now.
Up in her room, she locked her door and read the telegram.
MESSAGE RECEIVED. HAVE GIVEN THE INFORMATION TO BROWN, A MAN HIGH IN AUTHORITY. HE WILL CALL FOR YOU TOMORROW AFTERNOON AT FOUR P.M. AT YOUR SCHOOL. YOU CAN TRUST HIM WITH ALL THE DETAILS. LETTER FOLLOWS AIRMAIL.
PHIL
Laurel sat for a minute or two in a daze. Why hadn’t she done this before? Evidently the information she had given had been considered important enough for some office to come and inquire into it. Well, she was glad it was going to be taken off her conscience. Would it be an ordeal to be questioned by an officer?
Then she began to try and plan for that interview. Where could she hold it? Not at the school, for the children would hang around and be curious. They would go home and report that she had had a visitor. And if he was a man in uniform, they would get up all sorts of stories and proclaim them over the town. Word might even get to those men at the boardinghouse, and they would find out who had told about them. Also they would most effectually cover up their tracks so that she would be proved a fool and that there was nothing to it all. She must somehow take him away where they could have privacy and nobody would overhear.
She couldn’t bring him here to the house. There was no place to take a caller except the big dining room where any member of the household was liable to walk through at any moment and interrupt. There seemed no way to have privacy except to take him out in the car for a little drive. If it would only be fairly pleasant, perhaps that would not be such a bad idea. Of course Phil would have told him enough to make him understand how she was situated.
She went over and over it, even to arranging the details of the story she had to tell, to make it as brief as possible and yet get in every possible phrase that could have any bearing on the case.
Then there would be the two young Gilberts whom she was in the habit of taking home every night when she left the school. She would have to get rid of them on some pretext that would not make them suspicious. She decided to look after that on her way to school in the morning. So when Mrs. Frisbie was safely landed at her store for the day and she had turned her car toward the school, she spoke.
“Sam! Nannie! I’m not going to be able to take you home today. I’m having a caller this afternoon after school, and I’m taking him driving. I might not even be back in time for dinner, but you tell your mother not to bother saving anything for me if I’m not back on time. I’ll get something on the way if I’m late. Now, can I trust you to go right home and tell your mother that? And not tell anybody else anything unless they ask where I am, and then you can say I had a guest I took driving. If they ask you more, just say you don’t know. Can I trust you to do that for me? Please? Thank you! So don’t wait for me nor talk about this to any of the students.” They promised eagerly, glad to do anything she asked, and so the first worry was out of the way. She was sure Sam and Nannie would be absolutely mum about her affairs.
It was after they were out of the car, waiting for her to lock the door that Nannie said, “But, Miss Sheridan. We’re having chicken for supper tonight.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Nannie! That’s just too bad for me, but I’ll tell you what—if I’m late, you and Sam divide my piece between you.”
“No,” said Nannie, “I’m sure Mom’ll save it for you.”
“Don’t let her,” said Laurel and left them smiling.
The day seemed rushing on all too fast, and Laurel was filled with foreboding as the hour for closing approached. But she sat quietly at her desk, working over her class reports until the school was dismissed and had trooped away. Then a little interval, and at last she heard steps coming down the hall.
She looked up, and there stood a man with intense, pleasant eyes and a firm mouth. He was not in uniform.
“Is this Miss Sheridan?” he said crisply.
“Yes,” said Laurel, rising and gathering up her report cards to put in her desk.
“My name is Brown,” said the man. “Is there some quiet place where we could talk a few minutes?”
“I thought perhaps we might take a drive in my car,” said Laurel. “We would be rather liable to interruption either here or at my boarding place, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, I should suppose so. The car would be very good. Is it near here?”
“Just at the back of the school. Come this way.”
Laurel had thought this out step by step and had her wraps on a chair beside her. She put on her hat with one motion and swept up her coat, handbag, and gloves. The man followed her down the hall and out the back door. In a moment more, they had turned into a side street and were riding away from Carrollton at a brisk pace.
“Now,” said the stranger, “tell me please everything that happened, just when and where and how. I have, of course, seen your letter to Captain Pilgrim and shall understand your re
ferences. The men’s names are Byrger and Gratz and Schmidt. Is that right? And the other two whom you knew in the city are Winter and Rainey. Now if you will kindly give me details.”
So Laurel began her story, driving slowly up the road where Adrian Faber had taken her that day several weeks ago, choosing that road because it did not go through town nor pass the homes of any of her pupils. She felt they would be all agog if they saw her with a strange man. The little village life was so cognizant and curious about every new happening.
So they drove on, the stranger interrupting now and then with a question. And when the story was told, he said, “Yes, I think I understand. And now, could we go through the town somehow, and could you show me the boardinghouse, Crimson Mountain, the location of the plant, and any other places that seem important, especially that little cemetery lot, without making it too obvious?”
“I think so,” said Laurel, puckering her brows thoughtfully and trying to think quickly. “I’ll do my best.” They went speeding back to town, entering by side streets and going around behind the old railroad junction. Laurel tried to remember all that Pilgrim had told her about the roads that had never been so familiar to her in earlier days.
Chapter 17
Laurel had talked very quietly and quickly. She had told the story just as she had thought it out in the waking hours of the night. She was sure she had not missed a detail.
The man beside her watched her as she talked, interjected a question now and then, which Laurel answered as best she could and sometimes could not answer. She saw at once that this man whom Phil Pilgrim had sent to her knew his business and had no illusions about its being nothing but nonsense. He gave her assurance that the matter would be fully investigated. He told her that cases of this sort were his special business and that she had been very wise in letting Pilgrim know what she had heard. He warned her not to tell anyone else. And then he began to question her about what she knew of Winter and Rainey, how she came to meet them, and what she knew of their history. Of course, though, she knew very little except the world that had currently gone about the city when they had been received freely in the circles where Adrian Faber moved.
“Oh, Faber!” said the stranger. “Yes, Faber. He’s not a man who stops to find out very much about people he takes into his circle if they happen to please him socially. Did you find that so?”
Laurel looked thoughtful. “Perhaps,” she said hesitantly, surprised that he knew Adrian Faber. “I’m not sure. I never thought about that. I haven’t known him so long. Perhaps you’re right. I don’t know who was responsible for bringing Mr. Winter and Mr. Rainey into the social circles; they just appeared one day, and everybody accepted them as a matter of course. I heard they were former war correspondents from abroad. Germany perhaps. They claimed to be American-born. But I heard yesterday that Mr. Winter is in charge of things up at the plant. Of course I don’t know if that is true. I heard also that the two men, Gratz and Schmidt, have been arrested. It seems to be part of the rumors that are going around among the schoolchildren. I cannot vouch for it. Gratz and Schmidt are rather unpleasant-looking men, very rough and uncouth. I only saw them a couple of times. The man I would be most likely to suspect is that strange, watchful, sullen man with the gimlet eyes, Mr. Byrger. He’s no American, I’m sure of that. He says he’s an inventor and tries to give the impression he is making some mysterious secret up there that is going to win the war—for somebody! He doesn’t say who.”
“Yes?” said the visitor grimly with that unbelieving rising inflection that creates immediate doubt in the mind of the listener.
It was then that they came to the two white headstones, gleaming there in the late afternoon sunshine, the roses long since dead and turned brown like the ground around them.
Colonel Brown gave a quick glance around. “Wait a minute!” he said. He got out of the car and went over by the stone wall, taking a close look at the place. His trained eyes saw disturbances in the ground that had been well camouflaged, but all he said when he came back to the car was, “Well, now let’s get on. The old Pilgrim house is next, isn’t it? Across the road?”
He took out a diagram that Pilgrim had evidently drawn for him and studied it. He surveyed the sad, drab home of the Pilgrims with grave eyes, scarcely pausing over it, and then they went on toward the road where the plant had been built. Laurel was surprised as she drew nearer the plant to see how amazingly large the building was, although it seemed such a short time since it was started. Six weeks they said such things were taking now, and being used even before they were entirely finished. They passed down the far road where they would not be seen by anybody working at the plant. Then whistles blew for changing shifts, and her companion gave the word to drive faster.
“There is a lower road here somewhere,” he said. “It turns off to the right and goes around to Carrollton by way of the junction. Pilgrim told me about it. We’d better go back that way. We’ll be less likely to meet workmen returning for the night to their boarding places.”
“Yes,” said Laurel, and she found herself following the old rough road up which she had come that first day to meet the cattle, and the man who saved her life.
Somehow it seemed as if this stranger were someone she had known long ago. His serious, quiet manner put her at her ease. She wanted to ask him some questions, but she figured that it was not her business, and that just because she had happened on some evidence that was going to be valuable, it did not give her the right to pry out other things.
But as they neared the station where Colonel Brown had asked her to drop him for the train, she mustered courage to ask, “Was Mr. Pilgrim well when you saw him?”
He turned to her with a lighting of his eyes. “Yes,” he said, “he is very well, and I had almost forgotten a most important commission he gave me. I was to give you greeting from him and best wishes. I also promised him that I would inform you that you have done a most important bit of detective work that may save the government much time and hard work to search out some of the people who are trying to undo us in favor of our enemies. Let me also say that I do appreciate the way you have helped me this afternoon. Do you anticipate that what you have done will cause you any annoyance or curious questioning from people who have no right to ask?”
“Oh no,” Laurel said with a smile. “I think not. We have met very few people I know, and they may not have even noticed that there was a stranger with me. I explained to the young people in whose home I board that I would have a caller this afternoon whom I was taking for a drive around to show the sights of the vicinity, and that I might not get home in time for dinner, so they need not be worried. But now since you are leaving on that train, I shall be home in plenty of time for the evening meal, and I shall not be subjected to questioning. The father of the family is very much opposed to his children telling any rumors they have heard or asking any questions. He seems to have true breeding, although he is a poor, hardworking man. So I shall just go in as usual, and nothing will happen, I’m sure. But you don’t know how relieved I am to have this matter off my mind. I have been so worried lest I ought to do something and didn’t know what to do.”
“Well, you certainly did the right thing and selected the best man you could have found to confide in. Not only because he has rare good sense and is a man to be trusted utterly, but also because he knows this place, this situation, and can advise as well as pass on information. He is a valuable man, and I suspect is in line for promotion soon.”
“Oh,” said Laurel with a catch in her voice, “does that mean that he will be sent far away—perhaps overseas?”
Brown smiled. “Of course I have no authority to make positive statements, but I should say not. He is too valuable a man to waste that way. We need him right here. His technical training has been very fine and will be worth a great deal in defense work. He is a mechanical genius, and it doesn’t take the government long to discover people like that!”
Laurel’s eyes were shining now. S
he loved to hear Phil Pilgrim praised, and her heart rejoiced over the possibility that he might not have to go overseas.
“Thank you for telling me that!” she said, her face aglow.
“And there is one other thing I’d like to say before I leave you, and that is that I think Phil Pilgrim knows how to select his friends, if I may judge by the one I have been with this afternoon. I do hope I have not imposed upon your time too much, and I shall be glad to have you call on me at any time if there should arise an occasion where I could help you in any way. You certainly have rendered efficient help today. Now, it’s about time for my train, and I guess I’d better get out and say good-bye. I hope I shall see you again!”
When he was gone, Laurel sat thoughtfully a minute or two before she started her car for home. What a pleasant experience it had been. It was almost like seeing Pilgrim again to meet someone who admired him so much!
Then she went smiling back to the house, put away her car, and went up to her room, stopping in the dining room only long enough to call to Mrs. Gilbert that she was home and hungry as a bear for that chicken dinner she had heard about.
It was hard for her to bring her thoughts down to study that evening because there were so many things to think about, and her face was very happy when she went down to dinner.
“You had a good time, didn’t you?” whispered Nannie happily. “I’m glad. I like you to be happy.”
“You dear child!”she said as she went over to her chair, reflecting about this dear, plain family in which she was living, whom she was growing to love, and who were beginning to love her. Could anything be better than that? It made up for all lack of service and luxury. She was glad she had come here. She wanted to stay here as long as she stayed in this town, if they would let her, and she saw by the light in all their faces that they wanted her.