Chapter V: The Severed Ropes

It was eight a. m. by the time Grail reached the fort, for he had stopped on the way to submit to a chemist an envelope containing the remnants of the decoy message. The chemist agreed with him thoroughly that its disintegration must have been accomplished by means of chemicals. He thought a mixture of certain acids, drying into the fiber of the paper, would cause it rapidly to disintegrate and crumble to dust, although he declined to commit himself definitely on the point until he had made a complete analysis.

His theory, however, was all that Grail really cared for, since it showed him that he was on the right track, and that the destruction of the note was due to no accident or mischance, but was part of a deliberate and premeditated plan--an incident to be duly reckoned with in any investigation of the colonel’s disappearance.

Too thoroughly did he recognize his own limitations even to consider the task of handling the business in person. But how was he to secure the aid he required at the fort? If the army post has ramparts of privacy against the world, there is little going on inside which does not become generally known, and Grail had no sooner set foot on the reservation than he sensed the same feeling of hostility and suspicion which had manifested itself in the manner of the officers who met him at the foundry the night before.

The challenge of the sentinel on post, the side glances of the enlisted men, even the stiff salute of his own orderly, gave him to understand that he was ostracized--under the ban as much in barracks as along officers’ row. There was no open disrespect shown, but the very air was full of a silent disapproval. He evidently had not a friend in the place--no one upon whom he could call for help.

Outwardly calm, but inwardly raging at the injustice, he turned in at headquarters--he would have starved rather than go over to the mess for breakfast--and, in order to conceal his perturbation, buried himself in the morning papers.

Staring fixedly at the headlines in the Brantford _Bee_, although unconscious of a word, he was roused from his abstraction by a slight cough, and glanced up, to find standing in front of him Sergeant Cato, the relief telegraph operator, and a decidedly superior type of noncom. Indeed, Cato had ambitions toward winning shoulder straps for himself, and had been materially aided by Grail in his preparation for the necessary examination.

There was no recognition of this now, however, in the stiff, distant salute which he gave his superior.

“The list of messages sent out during the night, sir,” he said.

Evidently, thought Grail, he was only to be addressed in the strict line of official duty. Even this man whom he had befriended reflected in his manner the general uncompromising spirit.

Perfunctorily the adjutant took the slip handed him, and glanced at it. Then he gave a quick start.

“To Miss Vedant, at Chicago!” he exclaimed, forgetting his determination to be as stiffly military himself as any one accosting him. “And sent by Major Appleby at two o’clock! Do you mean to say, Cato, that----”

The sergeant gave a slight sigh of relief, and noticeably unbent.

“Yes, sir,” he returned. “It was to inform her of her father’s disappearance. I thought myself it was a mistake to frighten her, when the thing’ll probably be cleared up before she can get here; but the message was handed me for transmission, and what could I do?”

“So you expect the affair to be cleared up before Miss Vedant arrives, eh?” Grail asked. “What makes you say that, sergeant?”

Cato flushed a trifle. “Well, sir, if I may make so bold, it’s because I am banking on you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, sir.” He shifted his feet uneasily. “Excuse me, captain, if I go too far; but it is a cinch, to my mind, that you’ll never rest easy under this talk that’s going around.”

“You mean that there is a rumor that I am in some way responsible for Colonel Vedant’s disappearance?”

Cato nodded. “That was what made me so sure the thing would be straightened out,” he explained. “I knew you’d move heaven and earth before you’d let a charge like that stand against you.”

Grail was silent a moment. “Is the fact of the colonel’s disappearance pretty generally known among the men, sergeant?” he asked finally.

The other gave a significant shrug of the shoulders. “It’s the only thing they’re talking about over in the barracks, sir.”

“And do many of them believe this gossip connecting my name with it?”

Cato’s reluctance to answer was more eloquent than words. “You know what a bunch like that is, sir,” he said apologetically. “Let somebody tell ’em St. Peter is a crook, and they’ll be proving it to you in five minutes. That’s what made me a bit standoffish when I came in just now, captain. I knew you couldn’t help but be wise to the way the post is feeling, and I didn’t want to seem to be handing you out any sympathy.”

An incredulous look flashed into the adjutant’s face, and he bent quickly forward. “Am I to understand, then, sergeant, that you do not entertain the same unfavorable opinion of me as the others?”

“Me, sir!” Cato’s tone was one of surprise. “What kind of a soft-brained pup do you think I am, sir? You sell out to Japanese spies, and make away with the old man? Why, Captain Grail, if you told me yourself that you’d done it, I wouldn’t believe you--no, not if you swore to it! It’s because I’m certain of your innocence, captain, that I’ve been so positive the colonel would be found. Foolish as the charge is, you’ve got to disprove it for your own sake; and, with that sort of a proposition facing you, I knew you would manage to do it somehow. I only wish,” he added, “that I could be of some help to you.”

The adjutant turned sharply about at the suggestion. Quick-witted, discreet, diplomatic, and, above all, devoted to his cause, here was the very helper for whom he had been seeking.

“Help me!” He sprang to his feet. “You can, sergeant. You can help me enormously. Are you willing to put in a day or two of scout work for me, following up what may seem to be a series of absurd and irrelevant investigations, but asking no questions until you are through, or until I see fit to enlighten you as to my purpose?”

“Try me!” said Cato, drawing himself up.

Grail studied for a moment the eager face of the young noncom in front of him; then nodded his satisfaction.

“Good!” He drew from his pocket the stump of the cigarette he had found outside Schilder’s office door, and showed it to the other. “You will notice,” he said, “that this is an imported cigarette, not likely to be found in the average tobacco shop. What I want you to do, therefore, is to go, unostentatiously, through the saloons and small stationery stands down on the river front, in the neighborhood of the Dolliver Foundry, and find out for me, if possible, just where cigarettes of this kind are kept in stock, and, if possible, learn the names of the customers who have asked for them.”

The sergeant signified his comprehension. “And what else, sir?” he asked, handing back the cigarette after a careful examination.

“I fancy,” Grail said, “that you will find your work pretty well cut out for you along that one line. Still, you may have luck; and, in that case, I would like to have you find out about a motor boat which arrived yesterday, consigned to Otto Schilder.”

“You will want me to use a disguise of some kind in making my inquiries, I suppose, sir?”

“Provided the disguise doesn’t make you too conspicuous--yes,” the adjutant assented. “That was a point, however, that I intended leaving largely to your own judgment. As a suggestion, though, it might be well, if you could manage it, to play the part of a foreigner seeking a job at the foundry--say, a Russian or a Pole.”

“I think I can manage it,” Cato returned. “Why, captain, taking off that Russky dialect is my strong specialty. I used to work at a rolling mill at Portsmouth, Ohio, where there was a whole bunch of them.” And, to illustrate his powers, he dropped into an imitation which left no doubt in Grail’s mind as to his ability to make good.

Accordingly, after a little further discussion, the sergeant started off on his mission, while Grail, feeling as though a load had been removed from his shoulders, hurried out to give orders for the inflation of the dirigible balloon which formed a part of the equipment of the post. He was the most enthusiastic aviator among the officers, and was regularly permitted to take out the dirigible without going through the form of making official application.

No one asked him the purpose or object he had in view. Silently, and with eyes averted, the men obeyed his orders; and the officers all kept distinctly aloof, although usually when there was a flight to be undertaken a crowd was very quick to gather.

“Never mind,” Grail said to himself. “By to-morrow, if all goes well, the tide will have turned, and they’ll be only too anxious to hear what I have to say.”

The preparations completed, he climbed into the light framework under the big, swaying bag, and was just about to give the order “Let go!” when, casting a final glance about, he chanced to observe that two of the cords which held up the car were badly frayed. Had a flight been attempted with them in that condition there could hardly have failed to be a serious accident.

Stopping his engine, Grail sprang to the ground, and faced the little squad of men who had been helping him make ready.

“This machine was in perfect condition when it was brought out of the hangar,” he remarked to them grimly, as he pointed to the almost severed ropes. “Consequently one of you must be responsible for this damage.”

Then, as they hesitated, glancing uncertainly at one another, he took a quick step forward, and caught up a sharp fragment of broken glass which one of them--a new recruit by the name of Simmons--had attempted to drop behind him.

“Ah!” he cried triumphantly. “I thought I would be able to smoke out the culprit. Now we will have the corporal of the guard.”

He held the offender in a close grip until the corporal he summoned arrived; then turned him over, with an injunction that he be held in close confinement, and permitted to speak to no one, or send out any word, until his own return.

Presently the weakened cords were replaced with new ones, under his instructions, and everything was again in readiness for the flight.

It may seem strange that Grail did not immediately follow up so serious an affair; but, as a matter of fact, he was so perturbed and puzzled by the dastardly attempt on his life that he wanted a little time for reflection. Was it merely the crazy freak of a simple-minded “rookie,” or did the incident hold a deeper and more sinister significance? Could it be a further development of the plot which had already resulted in the colonel’s disappearance, and was Simmons merely a tool in the hands of the secret conspirators?

Revolving these questions and many others in his mind, he gave the word to cut loose, and a moment later he was hovering high up in the air above the grassy parade ground. He turned the nose of his craft due east, and, with his propeller whirring, flew away toward the river’s long, crescentlike curve around the town.

The dirigible from Fort Denton was not an unusual sight aloft, and consequently attracted but little attention from the people of the city; but out at the post Grail’s flight was watched with curious interest. Officers and men alike, although pretending indifference, laid aside their duties to follow, with eager gaze, the evolutions of the airship. They gained but little for their pains, however. Out over the line of smoky chimneys marking the water front they saw him go; then sail in a straight line across the river, where he turned to the south, and, having executed a couple of wide circles over the wildernesslike bottoms below the town, headed back for home. But as to his purpose they gathered not the slightest intimation.

At that distance they could not discern that as he swept above the weed-grown, bush-covered lowlands so frequently subject to overflow, he leaned over in the car, and studied with the eye of the skilled topographer every feature of the country beneath him.

Upon a tumble-down shack in a clump of stunted willows his gaze lingered longest, and as he estimated its distance from the river, as well as from the few other habitations which dotted the waste acres, his eye showed a glint of satisfaction. Unwilling, however, to reveal by his movements the nature of the survey he was making to any possible watcher, he did not hang long over the spot, or descend for a closer view, but contented himself with two rounds, at high altitude, as already described, and beat back westward toward the fort.

With the wind against him, his return trip consumed more time than the outgoing one, and it was well after noon when he finally effected a skillful descent to the parade ground. He had been absent from the post altogether a little over two hours.

“Has Sergeant Cato returned yet?” was the first question he asked as he sprang from the car; but, receiving a sullen negative for answer, bent his steps, as soon as he had seen the dirigible safely put away, toward the guardhouse.

There he found himself confronted by Lieutenant Hemingway, who happened to be acting as officer of the day. The younger man’s eyes fell, and he showed his embarrassment by blushing painfully; but Grail was cool and steady as a statue.

“I wish to speak to Private Simmons, placed under arrest by my orders,” he said brusquely.

“Simmons?” Hemingway spoke rather superciliously. “Oh, yes--the man brought in from the balloon squad. Why, he isn’t here. I heard that there was only a slight disorderly charge against him, and I let him go to his quarters.”

“You _heard!_” repeated Grail icily. “Didn’t you know the nature of the accusation against him?”

The other manifested a shade of anxiety. “Why--er--no,” he stammered. “I was not here, you see, when the fellow was brought in, and just as I returned both the corporal and sergeant were called out by a fight over at barracks.”

“And you did not consult the book before taking this step?”

“No,” Hemingway was obliged to confess. To tell the truth, he had deemed it rather smart to set at liberty one whom he supposed to be merely a victim of the adjutant’s ill humor; but now doubts began to assail him.

Hastily he caught up the record of offenders for the day, and noted the charge entered opposite the name of Simmons; then fell back, with a little gasp.

“Attempted murder!” he exclaimed. “Here, corporal! Sergeant! Somebody! Hustle over to barracks, and bring back that man Simmons we had here a while ago.”

But, as might have been expected, the bird had flown; and, although a squad was instantly ordered out to search the city for him, and the police were put upon the case, both Hemingway and Grail knew that with so much of a start the chances of catching him were very slim indeed.

The culpable lieutenant, court-martial staring him in the face, started to stammer some wild excuses; but Grail merely turned on his heel, and marched off to his quarters. He had scored heavily over one of his enemies, but he gathered little gratification from the fact. He would have preferred a chance to question Simmons.