CHAPTER VIII
PUZZLED
Whistler Morgan's three chums had by this time become somewhatinterested in the bearded man, who called himself Blake and who workedin the laboratory of the Elmvale munition factory.
They were not at all as sure as Whistler seemed to be that the man wasan alien enemy, and dangerous; for one reason they did not know all thatWhistler had discovered up by the dam. It was only to Ensign MacMastersthat their leader had told of the water wheel under the rock.
Frenchy began to grin when he saw how Whistler hesitated about enteringthe restaurant in Rivermouth.
"What's the matter? You so mad with that fellow that you won't eat atYancey's because he does?" he asked.
"I'd like to get in there," said Whistler, "without attracting hisattention and that of the man with him. I know he's the skipper of thatoil boat."
"How are you going to do that?" demanded Torry. "They'll spot ourblouses and caps in a minute."
"That's just it. Wish we didn't have 'em on," grumbled his friend.
"Good-_night_! We'd make a nice fumble, wouldn't we, if we didn't wearthe uniform? What would it be--a month in the brig on hard tack andwater?"
"Say!" murmured the eager Ikey Rosenmeyer, "there's a side door. I'llcall Abe, the waiter, out there and tell him. If those fellows have goneinto one of the booths----"
"Bully!" cried Torry. "Maybe he can sneak us into one next to 'em. Howabout it, Whistler?"
"Just the thing," agreed Morgan, nodding his head emphatically.
Ikey ran down the alley beside the restaurant while his mates waited atthe corner. The side door was not used save by the restaurant help; butIkey insinuated himself in by that entrance and in half a minute pokedhis head out of the door again and beckoned furiously to the other boys.
"Oi, oi!" he chuckled in high feather, when they joined him. "We are inluck all right. Those fellows got a booth, and Abe is layin' the tablein the one next to it, this side, for us. Come on! They won't see us."
"If they take a look out of the curtains they will," declared Torry.
"Have a care, now, about talking," Whistler advised earnestly. "Saynothing about boats or the sea. No whispering, remember! Talk right outwhen you talk at all."
"All right, me lud," said Frenchy. "Anything else?"
"Yes," said Whistler grimly. "This is a Dutch treat. Every fellow paysfor his own eats. Last time we were in a restaurant you all wished thecheck on to me."
At that his mates chuckled much. Each had excused himself and gone out"just for a minute," and Whistler found himself, after waiting half anhour, expected by the waiter to pay the whole score.
The four got into the booth the waiter had prepared for them, andWhistler sat with his back against the partition dividing it from thatin which Blake and his companion sat. Between the clatter of dishes, thewaiter's calls to the order man, and the talking of his own friends,Whistler could not hear much at first. But he knew the two men whom hesuspected were talking in English.
Of course they would not be unwise enough to speak in German. By thistime the German language when spoken in public places was beginning tocause remark. Wise Germans, whether friendly or enemy aliens, were notusing it.
One of the voices Whistler heard in the other booth, however, wasdistinctly German in its accent. This he was quite sure was the skipperof the oil tender. The other man used perfect English.
"They would not be likely to select a man too obviously German for a bigpart in any plot," thought Whistler. "And that Blake looks like a suave,well educated fellow."
The latter man spoke low, too. The other had a bluff and coarse voice.He was a typical old sea-dog in his way. Only, a German sea-dog!
"Are you going back there yet?" Whistler heard him ask.
"For just one thing. You know what that is, Braun."
"_Ach!_ Yes."
"My work is done there," said the man, Blake, with pride in his voice."Oh, it will be taken note of, don't fear."
"I bet you!" growled the other, in evident admiration. "Undt so she goesoop, yes? Boom!"
"Sh!" warned the other. "Never mind any talk about it."
But the other was inclined to be voluble. Whistler thought the skipperof the oil tender, Braun, had been drinking. "And when alcohol is inthe brain wit is very likely to move out," he muttered.
"Grand work!" he ejaculated. "_Ach_, yes! Undt there will be more grandwork when two-fifty is joined by the others."
"Sh!" warned Blake again. "You talk too much, Braun. The wise man keepsa still tongue."
Ordinarily Whistler Morgan would have found nothing in this overheardconversation to fan suspicion into a blaze. He quite realized this fact.But what he had seen at Elmvale, and the presence of Blake on the oiltender, led in his mind to but one conclusion.
Blake and his companion referred to the former's work in Elmvale. Andwhat was that work? Not merely the peaceful occupation of chemist in thelaboratory of the munition factory. He was convinced that Blake referredto something entirely different when he said: "My work is done there."
Nor was Blake merely an inventor, hiding away the actual working modelof an invention until he could secure its patent, for instance. No,indeed!
Yet Morgan could not imagine what that water wheel was for. To what endcould it have been placed under the rock on the edge of theoverflow-stream from the Elmvale Dam?
Whistler had little to say himself during that meal at Yancey's. Heheard nothing more from the next booth, for Blake seemed to manage thehalf drunken skipper of the _Sarah Coville_ with better judgment. By andby the two men left the restaurant.
"Say! are we going to follow them?" asked the excited Frenchy.
"Aw, you poor fish!" scoffed Torry. "Where'd we follow them to? Back tothat stinking oiler? And how would we follow them to sea? We haven't aboat."
"That's so," Frenchy admitted, crestfallen.
"No good to try to keep tabs on them," admitted Phil. "I hope EnsignMacMasters will pick up news of that boat again. Just think of hischaser coming right in here and not seeing the oiler in the fog. Toughluck!"
"Say!" queried Ikey, "what did you hear, Whistler?"
"Just about what you did," returned the older lad. "Nothing much."
"What are we going to do?" demanded Torry.
"Pay our bills and go to the train. It is almost time," said Whistlerrather grumpily.
And this they did. The train for Seacove came along in a few minutes.The boys got aboard. Ikey ran ahead down the aisle of the car and gotinto a seat by an open window. The first thing he did was to thrust hishead out of the window and look back along the platform as the trainstarted.
"Oi, oi!" he cried, under his breath. "Here he comes!"
"Here who comes?" demanded Al Torrance.
"The German spy," declared Ikey.
"Hush up!" commanded Frenchy. "Want everybody to hear you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Whistler.
"That man," said Ikey. "He got aboard. He went into the last car."
"You don't mean Blake?"
"That's who I mean," declared Ikey with conviction.
"Aw, he's crazy," scoffed Frenchy.
But Torry went back through the train after it was well under way andthe conductor had taken their tickets. He peered through the glass inthe door of the rear car.
He came back shaking his head and looking puzzled.
"He's there all right," he said to Whistler. "Bet he's going to Elmvaleinstead of to sea again. What do you make of it?"
"Not a thing," grumbled Whistler. "I wish I knew what to do."
"Let's have him pinched," suggested the eager Frenchy.
"Not a chance! On what charge?" asked Torry. "Accuse him of being indisguise because he wears that beard?" and he chuckled.
But to Whistler Morgan's mind it was no laughing matter. He was silentall the way to Seacove. Torry suggested that they stay on the train toElmvale and see if Blake got off at that station.
"No," his friend said decided
ly, "we can't do that. Our folks will beworried about us if we don't report soon. Cap Bridger may have toldaround town that we went off on the submarine chaser, and perhaps ourfolks will think we've gone for good."
So they alighted at their station and left the mysterious Blake aboardthe train. Whistler hurried home to consult with his father. There wasnobody else in whom he had so much confidence; at least, nobody withinreach.
In this case, however, his father was not within reach. Dr. Morgan hadbeen called away to see a patient in the country. It was a call thatmight keep him away from home all night. Whistler was greatlydisappointed.
He went down town again and hunted up Torry. He found his friend gettinginto his father's car in front of the garage.
"I was just coming over to get you," Torry said. "D'you know, Whistler,I feel just as nervous as a cat?"
"I guess that's what is the matter with me," Morgan confessed. "I'mbothering my head about that fellow Blake."
"Me, too. Say! let's run over there."
"To Elmvale?"
"Yep. Pa's gone away----"
"So has my father," admitted Whistler.
"Well, neither of them can advise us, then," said Torry, practically."How about talking with somebody in Elmvale? The manager of the munitionworks, for instance?"
"That's so! Mr. Santley. Say! let's 'phone him and see if he is athome."
"But you can't say anything over the telephone about Blake, or about usfellows thinking he is up to something wrong."
"We'll make an appointment with the manager," said Whistler, runninginto the Torrance house.
He knew where the telephone was, the girl at central quickly gave himthe connection. A man answered the call.
"Is this Mr. Santley?" Whistler asked.
"It is. Who are you?"
Morgan told him who he was and asked if he could see the manager if hedrove right over to Elmvale in his friend's car.
"What for?"
"It has something to do with a man named Blake in the employ of thefactory," said Whistler plainly. "But I can say nothing more about itover the 'phone."
"'Blake'?" repeated the voice at the other end, and Whistler thoughtthere was a startled note in it. "What about him?"
"I can only tell you when I see you."
"Come on, then!" exclaimed the man. "I shall wait here for you at myoffice."
Whistler ran out of the house. Al was already at the steering wheel ofthe car.
"What did he say?" he shouted.
"For us to come over," Whistler replied. "And somehow, Torry, I feel weought to hurry."
"You said it!" agreed the other and turned on the power.