Chapter XIX: Suspicions

Next day fresh regiments were moved up, and the Rutlands, who had twice borne the brunt of the struggle for the hill, were sent into reserve and promised a long rest. They went back to their old quarters, now a good deal farther behind the firing line.

One night, when Kenneth was returning alone to his billet, he heard the thin squeak of a bat, and glanced up, though it was so dark that he could scarcely expect to see the animal. To his surprise, he caught a momentary glimpse of it as it flew across the lane. It was as though a moonbeam had flashed upon the wings for the fraction of a second. But the moon was not up. The sky was clouded; only one or two stars were visible; and the rays of a star were too feeble to light up the flittering wings.

Kenneth was puzzled. He stood still, looking up, waiting for the bat to reappear. It was circling somewhere above him; he could still hear it faintly squeaking; but it did not again come within view, and after a while the sound ceased.

"Extraordinary!" thought Kenneth.

He was about to move on when he heard the grating of a key in a lock, so slight that it might have passed unnoticed had he not been listening intently for the bat. In this quiet lane, with trees on one side and a garden wall on the other, the sound challenged curiosity. The villagers were forbidden to leave their cottages after dark; Kenneth himself had only chosen this route as a short cut to his billet; he could not help suspecting that one of the inhabitants was breaking rules and entering his house by a back way to avoid detection.

It was no part of his duty to play the policeman, and he would have gone on his way if he had not at this moment heard a light, hasty footfall, as of one walking quickly but cautiously. Instinctively he remained still, keeping close to a tree trunk. A man passed him, moving very quietly, almost touching him. He appeared to be in uniform. A second later he heard the key again. Then all was silent.

He was now interested, suspicious. The man was going in the direction from which he had come. Who was he? What was he doing at this late hour? For a moment he thought of following him; but he was averse to getting a man into trouble for what was perhaps a harmless escapade, and he decided to proceed.

A few steps brought him to a door in the wall. The man must have been silently let out, and must have left without a word, the door being then as quietly closed and locked behind him. The wall, as Kenneth knew, bounded the gardens of two or three of the larger houses. It might perhaps be worth while to find out from which house this nocturnal visitor had departed so stealthily. It was too dark to see; Last Post would be sounded in a few minutes; all that he could do was to put a mark upon the door which he could identify next day. He scratched a cross with his pocket-knife on the right side of the door, on a level with the keyhole, which was on the left, and went on, treading lightly by instinct.

So soon as he could get off next day, he returned to the lane. The door he had scratched was one of three. Two were close together. The wall was too high for him to look over; he could only discover the house to which his door belonged by going to the end of the lane, and round to the front of the houses. The gardens were large; it meant a walk of some considerable distance. His most certain course was to number his paces along the lane, and take an equal number along the street which the houses faced. He went along with even stride, and in the lane counted 239 steps. In the street the 237th pace brought him to the front gate of Monsieur Obernai. This must be the house. His paces had probably differed a little, or the street and the lane were not quite parallel.

"It's all right," he thought. "The man was one of the officers' servants, perhaps, sent out on some late errand."

But as he went away, this explanation did not appear quite convincing. A servant sent on an errand by one of the officers quartered in Monsieur Obernai's house would not have been let out stealthily, and locked out. Furtiveness implied an uneasy conscience. Upon this thought came a sudden recollection of Madame Bonnard's dislike of the Alsatian. He had seldom himself come into contact with the village philanthropist; it seemed to him now that he had even avoided him. "It never struck me before," he thought, "but I haven't felt the least inclination to meet him. Yet some of the men are quite keen on him."

On the previous night he had not mentioned the incident to his comrades. It was not in Kenneth's nature to be expansive. He had told them about the sudden appearance and disappearance of the bat, which, however, they, not having seen it, had not regarded as extraordinary. But now, a little uneasy, he decided to tell them everything. He felt the need of talking it over.

"Capting wants you," said Ginger, meeting him at the door of Bonnard's cottage.

"What's it about?" he asked.

"That uniform I borrowed; they found some papers in the pockets, in German, seemingly, and Capting wants you to read 'em."

Kenneth went back to Monsieur Obernai's house, was admitted, and found Captain Adams with other officers in the mess-room.

"Ah, Amory, we want you," said the captain. "You know German. What do you make of that?"

He handed him a scrap of paper, straightened out after having been crumpled, on which were written two lines in German.

"Tell our friend it is now due east," Kenneth translated.

"That's what I told you, Adams," said one of the lieutenants. "There's nothing in it."

"Well, look at these, Amory."

He handed to him the contents of Lieutenant Axel von Schwank's pocket-book. Kenneth looked them over: a copy of the Hymn of Hate, a cutting from the _Cologne Gazette_ announcing the blowing up of Woolwich Arsenal, some letters from members of the Schwank family, one or two memoranda of no importance. He translated them aloud one by one.

"Nothing of any value to us," said the captain. "I think we might give the letters back to the prisoner. His people idolise him, evidently. Well, the only thing left is this." He took up a crumpled piece of music paper. "Schwank seems to write music in his spare time--a setting of the Hymn of Hate perhaps. Our find is no use. Very good, Amory, that's all."

But Kenneth, rendered suspicious of everything by his recent discoveries, remembered that he had found a similar piece of music paper in the trench some weeks before.

"Before you tear that up, sir," he said, "I think I'd let Randall have a look at it. We found a paper like it in our trench."

"You think there may be something in it?"

"I'm rather suspicious, sir, but I'd rather say no more until Randall has seen it."

The captain sent a man to find Harry. When he arrived, Kenneth asked him whether he still had the piece of music paper he had found. After rummaging in his pocket Harry drew the paper out. The two pieces were laid side by side.

"Well?" said the captain, when Harry had examined them for a few moments. The other officers crowded round in an interested group.

"They are not alike except in one particular," said Harry: "that neither is a recognisable tune."

He whistled the notes.

"Very ugly, certainly," said the captain. "Any further suggestion, Amory?"

"What do you call that note in music?" Kenneth asked Harry, pointing to the first note on Stoneway's paper.

"B flat," said Harry.

"And the next?"

"E, then D, then E again; the next is A sharp above the stave."

"What are you driving at, Amory?" asked the captain.

"I was wondering if I could make a word out of it, but _bedea_ doesn't begin any word either in English or German that I know of. Try the other paper."

"F sharp, A, G, E," said Harry.

"It's the sharps and flats that bother me," said Kenneth. "Do they ever call them anything else?"

"No ... Wait a bit. The Germans call B flat B, and B natural H. I remember toiling away at a fugue on the name BACH years ago. I say, give me a minute. I've got a notion."

He sat down at the table, took out pencil and began to write the names of the notes on the lines and spaces, beginning with A on the second leger line below the stave. Having written H on the third line, instead of writing A on the second space he wrote I, and on the third space J. Then he paused, looking reflectively at the notes originally written. Except in the case of B flat, all the accidentals were sharps.

"We'll try this," he said.

On the third space he wrote C sharp, and called it K, and so proceeding, completed the alphabet by writing two notes, the second sharpened, on each line and space. Z fell on the third space above the stave.

"Now try again," he said to Kenneth.

Kenneth took up von Schwank's paper, and read off the names of the notes in this new notation. The first four letters were _Sage_.

"That's good German," he said.

"Go on," said the captain. "This is very interesting."

Kenneth wrote down the letters as he read them.

"By George!" he cried. "In English it reads: 'Tell our friend it is now due east.'"

"What's due east?" Captain Adams exclaimed. "Try the other paper."

"The first word is _bedeutend_, 'considerable,'" said Kenneth, writing. "The English of it all is, 'Considerable movement in the rear.'"

The officers glanced at one another.

"We've had a spy among us, then," said the captain quietly. "Where did you get this, Randall?"

Harry explained, without however naming the man whom, in common with Kenneth, he now suspected. But his reticence was unnecessary.

"It's that fellow Stoneway, without a doubt," said one of the lieutenants. "He makes the most weird sounds on his flute. You'll arrest him, Adams?"

"Wait a little. There's a deep-laid scheme here. There's more than one man involved. Who is 'our friend'?"

"I must tell you what I saw last night, sir," said Kenneth.

He described the stealthy exit from the gate in the lane, and the discovery that it led from Monsieur Obernai's garden--behind the house in which they were then assembled. Captain Adams whistled under his breath.

"Rather serious for our polite Alsatian host," he said. "We must get to the bottom of this. It won't do to act too hastily. We must catch the fellow at it."

"But hang it all, we can't stop here under the roof of a spy," said a lieutenant.

"If I may suggest, sir," said Kenneth, "do nothing yet. Nobody knows about this except ourselves. If you leave the house or show any sign of suspicion, those who are involved will smell a rat, and we shall perhaps fail to learn all there is to be learnt. Wouldn't it be better if you go on as usual, and let Randall and me, and perhaps Murgatroyd, keep a watch on the lane?"

"But Obernai won't appear in the lane," said the captain.

"Very likely not, sir. I believe his work is done in the house. You remember the lamp signalling we saw in the church tower."

"That's in our hands now."

"Yes, and the light now comes from due east."

"You think that's it? Have you seen a light?"

"No, sir; but last night I caught a sudden glimpse of a bat flying above my head in the lane; it was for only the tenth of a second, just as if the bat had crossed a pencil of light. But I was puzzled, because there was no light visible. I can't help thinking that it has some connection with this discovery, and if you'll give us leave to keep a look-out at night, we may make sure of it and give you positive grounds for taking action."

"What about Stoneway? Hadn't we better keep him under observation?"

"Leave him to us, sir. I'd give him plenty of rope."

"And keep enough to hang him afterwards," said the lieutenant of his platoon.

"Very well, Amory," said the captain. "You'll of course say nothing to any one else. We'll do our best to keep up appearances before Obernai, though upon my word it will tax our histrionic powers. If you make any discovery, don't come to the house; report to me elsewhere."

"If we can collar the men, sir?"

"Oh, in that case do so, and put them under lock and key. But don't attempt too much: it's of great importance to get hold of the whole gang, for I imagine that we've been unawares in a wasps' nest all this time. We must scotch them all."

"One thing, sir, before we go: will you tell us the arrangement of the house?"

"So far as I know it. Our billets are all in the front. Obernai and his servants live at the back. On this floor there's a long passage between us. Upstairs there's no communication between back and front: the doors are blocked up, to secure our privacy, Obernai said."

"There's a back staircase, then?"

"No doubt."

"How many servants are there, sir?"

"Two men, whom Obernai brought with him from Alsace, he says. I've caught a glimpse of an old woman, too, but she rarely leaves the back premises."

With this information Kenneth and Harry left the house, and returned to their billet to consult Ginger.