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THREE BLACK BAGS








I had time to wonder at the almost fierce intentness of her
scrutiny


Three Black Bags
By MARION POLK ANGELLOTTI
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with The Century Company
Printed in U. S. A.
|- -


Copyright, 1922, by
THE CENTURY Co.
Printed in U. S. A.


THREE BLACK BAGS





THREE BLACK BAGS
I
ET me say here and now that I consider
Raoul de Mericourt much too lucky. In
the main part of the extraordinary affair he
never figured in the least. During one brief
quarter of an hour he set afoot a train of cir-
cumstances that failed by the narrowest of
margins to turn my hair white; then he van-
ished from the scene of action. It seems hardly
fair. Having precipitated the business, he
might have remained to share it—helped me
through a few of the cataclysms, divided some
of the thrills.
Still, I hold no grudge against Raoul. He
played with dynamite, but he did n’t know it,
and you cannot logically blame a man for tak-
ing you to a shop and helping you to make a
purchase there, which is all he did. Besides,
3


4. THREE BLACK BAGS
near as he came to killing me, I am grateful,
not rancorous. But for him—well, that
does n’t bear thinking of ! I am thankful it is
over, but I am doubly thankful it all took
place.
The thing started, and with a vengeance,
one cold wet afternoon in Paris, just as a New
Year had come around and brought what
seemed like a new world, too. An unexpected
armistice had worked astonishing develop-
ments. Shells had ceased to burst, bullets to
fly. The war lord, ignominiously safe in Hol-
land, was sawing wood for diversion, while the
crown prince pursued such mild amusements
as bicycling at Wieringen in the Zuyder Zee.
In Germany, surprised Americans found
themselves guarding the Rhine and the Mo-
selle, among a people who gave it to be under-
stood that they felt a warm affection for
Yankees and welcomed us with keenest pleas-
ure. And I, Everett Ramsay, once upon a
time of New York and more lately of the A.
E. F., was like many another man a prey to


THREE BLACK BAGS 5
the sensation that the greatest of adventures
had ended with disconcerting abruptness, and
that a return to peace and its comforts and
pleasures would seem tame in the extreme.
It was a satisfaction, therefore, to encounter
Raoul de Mericourt, who had been detailed to
instruct our outfit in the good old days when
we came to France. I hailed him with en-
thusiasm. He responded with the gay charm
I recalled so vividly; and for some seconds we
stood contentedly shaking hands on the wet
slippery pavement of the Avenue de l'Opéra,
with the mist drifting unheeded between our
faces and the crowds eddying and jostling
past.
“It is not possible. It is a dream,” insisted
my old camarade. “But no, it is indeed the
Captain Ramsay—pardon, pardon, I should
say the Colonel Ramsay; we meet again at
last! Come, my friend, let us walk together.”
He fell into step beside me. “Where is it that
you are going? What is it you wish to do?”
My errand, as I revealed it to him, was suf-
ficiently prosaic. Driven by hard necessity, I


6 THREE BLACK BAGS
was out to buy a traveling-bag. Throughout
the last eighteen months I had journeyed
hither and yon incessantly as the plans of those
above me dictated, and owing to the conges-
tion of the railroads and the eccentricities of
the French baggage system, I had lost my va-
rious impedimenta one by one, until quite be-
reft.
“Come along, though,” I invited. “I sha’n’t
be long about it. I’ll say one thing for Paris;
there is n’t any lack of shops. I’ll pick up any
old bag, anywhere, in just about two minutes,
and then we’ll go somewhere and have some-
thing for the sake of auld lang syne, eh?”
Upon hearing this casual program Meri-
court lifted hands of horror. He is, I fancy,
what old writers had in mind when they de-
scribed their heroes as “point device”—in plain
words, a bit of a fop. Such mere trifles as
bombs and shrapnel he has always viewed with
airy nonchalance; but one's personal appoint-
ments are, in his eyes, solemn affairs.
“My dear friend,” he protested, “what you
suggest is a barbarity. In France, at this mo-


THREE BLACK BAGS 7
ment, there is but one bag a man of taste may
carry, and but one place where he may procure
it—Lemaitre’s, on this very street. It has had
a mad success, this bag; it is an obsession! To
be sure, no fashion endures, and in another
month it may be as out of mode as the Em-
peror Guillaume—”
“That need n’t worry us,” I said resignedly.
“It will be lost by then.”
Raoul laughed his appreciation. “It is
probable,” he admitted amiably. “Some day
I shall write the ballad of baggage—where are
the bags of yester-year? But you prepare for
travel. Is it that you go away from us? Will
you leave my beloved Paris, just when she
comes back to life?”
“Yes, I’m off,” I responded. “I leave at
eight this evening. I’ve been on Baldwin's
staff since the armistice, but he sailed for home
to-day. My regiment is up in Germany, be-
yond Coblenz, and I’m rejoining it. It’s not
quite the way I once hoped to go there! Hang
the Germans, anyhow—there was some fun in
life last autumn when we had them running;


8 THREE BLACK BAGS
and then the confounded quitters never took
their medicine at all!”
“It was not chic of them,” Raoul agreed
with disdainful brevity. Then, having dis-
posed of the German nation, he shot me a teas-
ing glance. “You are bored, my friend,” he
accused. “It does not surprise me. I myself,
though not bloodthirsty, find the life of peace
at times of a sameness. And if it is so with me,
how must it be with the American hero, the
young captain of the famous Shock Company,
who held the apex of the salient at Valençay in
the Argonne, and was cut off there, near the
wood, and took refuge with his men in the old
farmhouse and held out for many days with
unexampled brilliancy and contempt for dan-
ger, until his friends won back their ground
and rejoined him—”
“Look here,” I growled, reddening, “that'll
do!” His cryptic remarks were crystal-clear to
me. They had reference to a war-time adven-
ture that had given me a lime-light bath. More
lately, I had dared to hope that a welcome
oblivion was overtaking me; but for a time re-


THREE BLACK BAGS 9
porters had lain in wait for me, photographers
had snapshotted me, generals had dragged me
from ambush for the purpose of pinning
medals on me, and the press of my native land,
convinced that the public wanted heroes, had
mendaciously featured me in that capacity,
making my life a nightmare that I recalled
with horror.
“Forget it, old man!” I begged.
Raoul was deaf to my entreaty. “And the
ribbons?” he accused. “The decorations? To
my knowledge, Monsieur, you have six at least
of them, from other countries and your own.
Where have you concealed them? Let me ob-
serve that you show small gratitude when you
fail to wear them—”
“They made me look like a Christmas-tree,”
I protested, groaning. “People stopped to
stare at me; I was pointed at on the streets!
I’ve got them safe enough, Mericourt, and I
appreciate them; but heaven knows I did n’t
deserve them. Anybody else would have done
what I did.” Like a drowning man, I clutched
at a straw. “Here's Lemaitre's,” I ended


IO THREE BLACK BAGS
thankfully. “Buy me a bag and hold your
tongue!”
The atmosphere of the famous shop envel-
oped us as soon as we entered, cushioning us
as if on velvet, subtly luring us to buy. A
scent of leather, faint and pleasant, filled the
air like an aroma. Shopmen, suave and unob-
trusive, hovered about like high priests of trade.
On every side, in luxurious confusion, lay
heaped all imaginable articles that could prove
useful or tempting to a traveler—elaborate
wardrobe-trunks, valises fitted with ivory or
gold or silver, cushions, Russian-looking coats,
heavy fur rugs, traveling-clocks, folding
leather photograph-frames: a bewildering
maze, through which like a homing pigeon
Raoul held straight toward where, enthroned
on a conspicuous rack, there stood proudly a
long row of walrus-skin bags, medium-sized
and rather of the Gladstone variety.
“Behold!” he said.
There was a time coming, and not so far in
the future either, when the mere sight of bags
like these would send little shivers down my


THREE BLACK BAGS II.
spine. At present, however, my nerves were
excellent. I made a cursory examination.
Just why one must carry this article and no
other remained, I confess, a mystery to me;
but the thing looked both smart and service-
able, and I was prepared to accept Raoul's
dictum.
“All right, if you say so,” I agreed.
The tepidness of my enthusiasm appeared
to nettle him a trifle. “Ask whom you choose!”
he protested. “It is not I who make the
modes! Once again I assure you that this is
the only possible purchase. Even your com-
patriots know it; behold one who comes to
buy!”
A man in uniform was indeed approaching
under convoy of a salesman, though the latter,
it struck me, was the guiding spirit in the af-
fair. The American was a tall, swift-moving,
stalwart fellow, who wore a captain’s bars.
He saluted indifferently as he passed us.
Then he cast an eye on the bag which the sales-
man, with many encomiums, displayed.
To dislike a stranger is palpably foolish; yet


12 THREE BLACK BAGS
it is a luxury we all allow ourselves, and I
must admit that I was conscious of an odd an-
tipathy for this unknown man. His mouth, I
thought, had a faint sneer; his face, though
handsome and regular, was cold, his manner
disagreeably haughty. Like myself, he seemed
disposed to take the first article recommended.
“This will do,” he announced curtly. A mo-
ment later, bag in hand, with the air of a man
in a tearing hurry, he left the shop, leaped into
a taxicab that stood awaiting him, and was
whirled beyond our ken. -
The sale consummated beneath my eyes was
to Raoul a vindication, and I let him enjoy
his triumph and agreed forthwith to buy. If
I had known—but then, one never does know.
We arranged that the bag should be des-
patched to the Meurice, where I was stop-
ping; and Mericourt, with a pleasant smile and
a few cool words in his own language, knocked
off the sum of fifty francs from the ridiculous
purchase price.
Our business being thus completed, we al-
lowed our thoughts to turn to pleasure, and


THREE BLACK BAGS 13
patronized the Café de la Paix for an entirely
satisfactory hour. Then Raoul left me with a
cordial farewell. He had played his part. An
amiable, unconscious spider, he had enmeshed
me in a web that was to tighten slowly but
surely—one from which no struggles would
extricate me for many and many a day.


II
Y bonds being, as yet, mere cobwebs, I
was for the present unaware of them,
and proceeded placidly with my preparations
and my early dinner at the Meurice. My sole
sensation was one of boredom. Raoul, I felt,
had hit the nail on the head when he described
our life as “of a sameness.”
“It’s a relief to be going somewhere,” I
told myself, with rising spirits, as at half-past
seven or thereabouts I descended at the Gare
de l’Est.
In the course of the last two years I had
passed often through this station, which was
like some gigantic maw that fed the western
front. Peace had not yet altered its formal-
ities. I checked my trunk, then proceeded to
the provost-marshal's booth, exhibited my
travel-order, and, having convinced the lieu-
tenant in charge that I had the blessing of the
14


THREE BLACK BAGS I5
authorities on my mission, “registered out” in
approved style.
The inner platform was as crowded and
brilliant as an opera lobby. American and
English uniforms blended in kaleidoscopic
fashion; much bemedaled French officers in
shaggy fur coats or capes of horizon blue went
superbly past. Alined on the tracks, half a
dozen trains were waiting, snorting their eag-
erness to be off. I located mine and boarded
it. The army of occupation was in its in-
fancy; its travel facilities were atrocious. This
was not merely a train for Germany, but a
German train, one taken over by the Allies: no
express-train either, worse luck, but an old-
fashioned, cramped compartment car, much
the worse for wear, with unlighted corridors
and stiff-backed seats as hard as nails, and
walls placarded with autocratic German signs.
Having stacked my traps in the rack above, I
installed myself in the seat reserved for me,
which proved to be the one by the window, fac-
ing backward–Seat No. 4. The compart-
ment would accommodate six people, and the


I6 THREE BLACK BAGS
small white reservation-tags indicated that six
we should ultimately be. Indeed, the rest fol-
lowed hard on my heels, beginning with a
young aviation lieutenant, who saluted me,
stored his baggage, and installed himself in the
seat by the corridor door, facing forward:
Seat 1.
The acquired habit of measuring men made
me look him over half unconsciously. He was,
I deduced from the casual scrutiny, a not un-
prepossessing boy. Twenty-two or so, blond,
blue-eyed and alert, he had his share of good
looks, accentuated by the wide fur collar of his
coat and the silver wings he wore; but the ef-
fect was marred by a pastiness of complexion,
dark circles beneath the eyes, and a general
look of fatigue and jumpiness—signs and
tokens that made me somewhat grimly credit
him with returning from a too gay leave.
However, it was not my business. The
youngster was not in my regiment. I forgot
him promptly, unfolded a paper, and began a
hunt for news. From this fruitless occupation
another arrival soon diverted me; and, with


THREE BLACK BAGS 17
mild surprise, I beheld the captain who had
bought a bag like mine at Lemaitre's.
Moving with the light, almost feline swift-
ness I had already observed in him, he came in
and made a search for his seat, which proved
to be No. 5, next me. He adjusted his bag-
gage overhead, taking a good deal of time for
the operation. Then he sat down, opened a
paper in his turn, and began to read.
The hour of departure was growing immi-
nent; the platform outside became still more
animated. Apparently a drizzle had started,
for coats were dripping and faces shone wet.
In the train corridor milled belated travelers,
hunting desperately for elusive compartments,
and two of these wanderers, consulting their
tickets, found port with us with sighs of relief.
The foremost, who drew Seat No. 2, oppo-
site the captain, wore a major's oak-leaves.
A rugged-faced, keen-eyed, sensible-looking
fellow he was, well past his youth. The sec-
ond, a captain of the medical corps, was a se-
rious, saturnine young man with glasses. In a
lack-luster way, he was, it soon developed, the


18 THREE BLACK BAGS
talker of our party, for no sooner was he set-
tled as the aviator’s vis-à-vis than he threw a
feeler into the air.
“Nice traveling quarters—I don’t think!”
he gave judgment gloomily, pounding the
cushions. “Say, if I ever see a real Pullman-
car again, with room to turn round and seats
you can sink into, I guess I won’t believe my
eyes. They’re talking about putting on a
German express next month, I hear. Lots of
good that does us to-night, though. We
should chortle! They call it a twelve hours'
trip,” he monologued on, addressing nobody
in particular, “but if it does n’t take us twenty-
four hours and then some, I’ll eat my overseas
cap. I know a man who made this trip two
weeks ago. He left the Gare de l’Est at eight,
same as we’re going to, and he did n’t get to
Treves, Germany, till next evening after ten!”
This anecdote drew a response.
“Good night!” wailed the boy in the corner.
“I have n’t slept a wink in forty-eight hours;
sat up all the way from the Riviera, on another
of these snails. They call them rapides, too.


THREE BLACK BAGS 19
Can you beat the nerve of it? Do they do it
to be funny, or does it really strike them that
way?”
The major chuckled sympathetically.
“Guess we’re used to the thing,” he com-
mented. “Folks have got past expecting a
drawing-room and electric lights and running
water nowadays when they take a trip. We’re
in the army now, boys! And at that, we’ll
probably survive it. It’s a lot better than a
box-car—eight horses, forty men—”
His comments ended with some abruptness,
and he stared raptly at the doorway. All of
us stared, to be quite candid; even my haughty
neighbor relaxed. It was rude, but few could
have blamed us. We had been exiles in camps
and villages, with a leave once in a blue moon.
We had forgotten that certain things existed,
except as myths or fables.
“There ain’t no such animal,” I quoted men-
tally, as I gazed.
There was a girl framed in the entrance.
She was a young girl, and surprisingly beau-
tiful; a girl men would fight to dance with or


20 THREE BLACK BAGS
talk to, at a dinner or a ball at home. She was
of our country, and, like us, was militarized.
There was a red cross in her wide black hat.
Beneath her heavy dark coat with its wide fur
collar one glimpsed a high white stock and a
well-fitting, smartly cut uniform of gray
whipcord; and to prove that this was no mas-
querade and that she had earned the right to
her insignia, there were three service-stripes on
her left sleeve.
As her porter piled her traps by the win-
dow, facing mine, I noticed something. It was
curious; she had one of Lemaitre’s black bags;
this made the third! Raoul had not exag-
gerated their omnipresence, I admitted in-
wardly. Then, as she sat down facing me, I
forgot Lemaitre, Mericourt, everything ex-
cept her eyes. They were too lovely, I decided.
They were not eyes at all, but dark water,
just touched by moonlight. Her black hair
had a gloss on it that was like a rich blue
shadow; and as for her head and the proud,
gracious little way she carried it
“Travel-orders, please!” a curt voice cut
across my trance.


THREE BLACK BAGS 21
The nervous young flier jumped and
started, reminding me of a startled thorough-
bred. In the doorway, his shoulders blocking
the entrance, stood a sergeant of the military
police. I was conscious of some surprise my-
self. We had passed the outer cordon. What
more did they want of us? Casting a glance
into the corridor, I beheld, flanking their ser-
geant, three M. P.'s, fine, clear-eyed, husky
youngsters, conspicuous with their wide cam-
paign hats and the staring red letters on the
black bands of their sleeves. This looked like
an assault in force. I began to feel interested.
“Thank you, sir,” said the sergeant respect-
fully, handing my travel-order back.
One by one the members of our party pro-
ceeded to display their credentials. The girl,
delivering hers, got a “Much obliged, lady,”
and a salute. The aviator, the major, and the
medical officer passed in review, and then my
neighbor, with an increase of haughtiness,
handed over his paper.
“Hang this red tape!” he observed to me.
As the young sergeant bent forward and
read, a slight, significant change came over


22 THREE BLACK BAGS
him. His healthy face grew distinctly harder;
there was a grimness in his eyes. Still holding
the travel-order, he looked steadily at my
neighbor.
“So you’re Captain Henry Parker, are
you?” he inquired in level tones.
The captain turned a cold gaze upon him.
His attitude was a little rigid, but if he felt the
slightest anxiety he camouflaged it very well.
“Come, sergeant,” he requested, crisply and
sharply, “don’t be an idiot! What do you mean
by holding me up like this? If I was n’t Cap-
tain Henry Parker, d' you think I’d be travel-
ing on his papers? And what’s more, if you
said “sir' when you spoke, I did n’t hear you.
You don’t seem to be blind; you can read
travel-orders. Can’t you see my bars?”
The young sergeant was unabashed. “I
guess I won't waste any sirs till I find out who
you are,” he retorted. “I know one person
you’re not, and that’s Captain Parker; he
was my officer till I got mine, last September
up at St. Mihiel. You don’t fool me. When
a man’s bawled you out about a dozen times,


THREE BLACK BAGS 23
you know darned well what he looks like.” As
a peroration he drew forth a pair of handcuffs.
“You come along with me,” he invited. “Hi,
you! None of that!”
With a single lightning movement he flung
himself on the spurious captain, and simul-
taneously my hands went out to seize that
worthy's wrists. The latter's gesture had been
unmistakable. He meant to shoot up our com-
partment. Instead, however, thanks to the
sergeant's promptness, there was a brief strug-
gle, an exclamation of pain from the under
man as his arm was twisted and dropped limp,
a groan as a steel bracelet was snapped about
his wrist and its mate about his captor's; and
the battle was over, almost before it had be-
gun.
“That’ll be about all,” panted the victor,
straightening. “I did n’t go for to hurt you,
but you asked for it, and now you’ve got it;
don’t blame me! Say, be a sport, can’t you?”
he urged reasonably. “We’ve got you fair.
S'pose I was enough of a boob to let you shoot
me; what good would it do you? Our fellows


24 THREE BLACK BAGS
are out there waiting. Do you think you could
get by?”
It seemed doubtful. I had just located a
police lieutenant engaged in interestedly
watching our windows, and the platform was
as thick with M. P.'s as ever Vallombrosa was
with leaves. The sight appeared to convince
the prisoner of the hopelessness of his predica-
ment, but with astonishing self-command he
played his rôle to the bitter end.
“All right,” he announced, arrogant to the
last, “I’ll go with you, sergeant; only, let me
tell you that you’ll regret this as long as you
live. I’m Parker, and I’m going to see to it
that this pretty little business costs you your
chevrons. Now let ’s be off.” He seemed in-
explicably eager, all at once, to get away.
“I should worry,” was the entirely cheerful
rejoinder to his warning. “And hold on: we
don’t want to be in such a hurry we leave
anything behind. You got some baggage with
you? Because if you have, we want to see it.”
He scrutinized the two bags which his prisoner
sulkily indicated. “Sure that’s all?”


THREE BLACK BAGS 25
As the false Parker wrapped himself in dig-
nified silence, I came to the rescue. “It’s all
right, sergeant,” I bore witness. “That’s all
he had. The next traps are mine.”
“Thank you, sir. Jim, you bring this stuff
along after us, will you?” Jim, one of the
three M. P.'s on the outskirts, evinced his wil-
lingness to comply. For a last instant the
sergeant hung fire on the threshold, glancing
somewhat shamefacedly in the girl’s direction.
“Excuse me for starting something in front
of you, lady,” he apologized, with American
chivalry, “but there's a lot of these birds
around and we gotta get them when we have a
chance. Come along, old scout!” Without
malice he urged his captive from the compart-
ment, and the pair disappeared in the direction
of the outer door.
As they descended to the platform the
whistle blew for our departure, and I settled
back into my seat, inexplicably cheered. I
confess I had enjoyed the incident. In its
mystery, its odd setting, and its swift progress
it seemed typical of the vanishing era—might,


26 THREE BLACK BAGS
I thought, be the last little drama of its kind
that I should ever see.
Which is where I was wrong, for it was not
the last of anything. On the contrary, it was
the beginning of some very lively events in-
deed.


III
HE train slid smoothly into motion, ac-
cumulating a deceptive momentum, as if
it meant to whisk us to Germany in the course
of an hour or so. The station platform re-
ceded, a blur of lights and uniformed figures;
and my fellow-travelers, who had preserved a
fascinated silence since the arrival of the khaki-
clad Nemesis, relaxed as if feeling the spell
broken, sighed softly, and recovered speech.
“I would n’t have missed that,” the doctor
declared excitedly, “for twenty dollars. It’s
the kind of thing we’re going to talk about
when we’re old and gray. I’ll bet that fellow
was a bad one—he certainly did look it; a crack
German spy, most likely, snooping round pick-
ing up news!”
The major proved a non-alarmist. “Oh, I
don’t know,” he differed sensibly. “There's
a lot of talk about spies and plotters, but
27


28 THREE BLACK BAGS
they’re pretty well cleaned up since the war.
What I’d say is,” disappointingly, “that he’s
really Porter or Parker, or whatever he said.
That’s what happens nine times out of ten
when the M. P.'s get all excited and go gun-
ning—is n’t it, sonny?” to the boy at his right.
The flier raised a shaky hand and pushed the
hair from his damp forehead. “I don’t know,”
he responded pettishly, “and what’s more, I
don’t give a whoop. All I say is, I hope they
don’t spring any more such rackets on us till
I get some sleep, or they’ll have me gibbering.
I’m all in, and I could go to pieces just as
easy as eat!”
He was right there, I agreed mentally,
studying him with more attention, and realiz-
ing that my first diagnosis, while sound
enough, had not been complete. A mere leave,
however lively, could scarcely have reduced
him to the point of collapse where he now hov-
ered. “He’s had a nasty spill, flying,” I con-
cluded, “and it has left him with his nerves
frazzled. He ’d better look out!”
The medical officer, for the last minute, had


THREE BLACK BAGS 29
been eying me hypnotically, and at this junc-
ture he rose and transferred himself to the van-
ished Parker’s seat.
“Excuse me, colonel,” he began, with gloomy
interest. “I’ve been taking a look at you.
Say, is n’t your name Everett Ramsay? Ain’t
you the Shock Company man?”
The inquiry, much to my annoyance, created
a sort of mild sensation, causing the major to
examine me sharply and the aviator to start
and stare. Even the girl, who had been watch-
ing the Paris lights flash past, gave me a brief,
disturbing look that made the blood rise be-
neath my sunburn. s
“I’m Ramsay,” I admitted, in discouraging
tones. *
“Well, I thought you were,” he rejoined,
undismayed. “I’ve got a good eye for faces,
and I’ve seen your picture. Gee, that must
have been some fight! You’re a young man,
but I’ll tell the world you earned those eagles
you’re wearing. Anybody who could put that
thing through has a right to be plastered all
over with 'em—or with stars, even!”


30 THREE BLACK BAGS
“Plastered with fiddlesticks!” I retorted
ungratefully. “It’s a case of dead men's
shoes; I’m a colonel because better men were
killed in the Argonne.” The major, smiling
quietly, arose and stepped into the corridor—
bored by this nonsense, I deduced approvingly.
He seemed to be a fellow of sense.
“Oh, better men nothing! You’re too mod-
est, colonel.” My new admirer was courting
murder. “You’re a household word, that 's
what you are, and you ought to make it pay. "
Why don’t you go into the movies? You’d be
worth a million before you knew it. ‘Hero of
Valençay Makes Film Début’—that’d be some
attraction. There would n’t be standing room. .
You’d pack the houses in every town in the
U. S. A.!”
With an appalling sense of stage-fright, I
imagined the thing accomplished; saw myself
filmed, willy-nilly; pictured a dark theater
and a close-up of myself and the Valençay
farm. “Only over my dead body,” I said
firmly. A diversion seemed imperative. I
looked about, and beheld the major silhouetted


THREE BLACK BAGS 31
against the outer darkness, beckoning to me
like a conspirator across the group of uncon-
scious heads.
Though mystified as to what he could want
of me, I gladly determined to take a chance on
him. With a feint of feeling for my cigarette-
case, I stepped outside and glanced around.
The line of compartments, I could see, was
packed; even the corridor, at its lower end, was
full of cheery though seatless doughboys, the
overflow of the third-class carriages. In the
obscurity I stumbled over a heap of baggage
and came near sprawling. “Well, what is it?”
I inquired, without much cordiality of mien.
The major had retreated and was leaning
against a window. “Come this way, colonel.
I want to speak to you,” he greeted me, in
sepulchral tones. “Don’t seem too interested,
though. Just stand there and look out, sort
of careless. Act as if we were saying some-
thing about the scenery. Get the notion? Not
that there’s any to see at present. It’s as
black as Tophet along this stretch.”
A life amid the alarms of war had left me


32 THREE BLACK BAGS
hardened to surprises, but I wondered if in
escaping a bore I had got a lunatic on my
hands. I felt a conviction that in any case I
had swapped companions to small advantage.
“What in blazes ?” I began irritably,
staring at him through the gloom.
“Wrong! I’m not crazy.” His eyes were
twinkling. “All I want is a five minutes' talk,
and I’ll promise you it won’t be dull. You
see, when I heard our friend the doctor say
you were the Valençay fellow 95
“Look here,” I began. “There’s been
enough—”
“Oh, don’t worry. I did n’t get you out
here to make speeches or hang wreaths on you,
young fellow. I’ve got a fairly clear idea
how you’d feel about that Valençay thing.
You’re glad you put it through, of course—
anybody would be—but it must have been a
week-end in Hades, and when some idiot talks
as if it was a hip-hip-hurrah business, with a
jazz band playing and one grand good time
for everybody, you get mad as a hornet.”
“Something like that,” I admitted, startled


THREE BLACK BAGS 33
by his acumen. “We’ll bury the subject.
What did you want?”
“Why, it’s this.” He pressed closer to the
window as if noticing some point of interest.
“Judging by your looks and by what I’ve
heard of you, I’d say you were a pretty cool
sort. And I liked the way you reached for
the captain’s wrist when he tried to pull his
pistol; it sure looked capable! You're the kind
of fellow I’d rather have on my side than on
the other man's, if something started. I mean,
if trouble started. And there's some trouble
around to-night!”
The conviction in his last words made me
turn and eye him curiously. “The deuce there
is!” I retorted with skepticism. “Then it’s
keeping mighty close!”
“I’d say it was fairly obvious.” His good-
natured face had hardened oddly. “How
about that Parker fellow?”
“You’ve changed your mind, then!” I sug-
gested. “You said that was all a false alarm!”
“I said,” he returned, unabashed, “just what
I thought was the safest dope for those fellows


THREE BLACK BAGS 35
morning he walked out of his hotel, and that’s
the last they’ve seen of him. Last night he’d
been complaining to the hotel people that he
thought he was being followed, and he could n’t
understand it. They’d laughed at the idea—
said he was loony; but when he disappeared
that way and did n’t come back to start for
Germany, they began to think there might be
something in it after all, and sent in word.
That’s why we had a man who'd served under
Parker go through the train at the last
minute.”
Viewed in this new and startling light, the
situation became dramatic. “You mean,” I
summed it up, “that you think some one made
away with him to get his papers? That’s go-
ing it rather strong! But even so, it’s over
now.”
“That’s just what it is n’t,” with his jaw
growing tenser. “It’s only begun, if there’s
anything to it. The fellow would n’t trust to
himself alone; he’d have another string to his
bow.” Clutching my arm, he stood with his
face thrust against mine and his eyes fairly


36 THREE BLACK BAGs
glittering with excitement. “Colonel Ram-
say 25
“Well?”
“I think there’s something in the wind.”
His voice had sunk to the merest whisper.
“I’ve felt it for a month, the way you feel a
storm coming, or—I don’t know; it’s a sixth
sense you get in this work; I can’t explain.
I’ve pieced some things together, too. Oh, not
much, just straws; but they count up. It’s
too big a business for one man to handle. Sup-
pose they got me? It means too much to
everybody to be taking chances with it this
way. It's got me scared, I tell you. It's
got me scared!”
His whole personality had altered under
the stress of his emotion, leaving not a trace
of the rugged, cheerful, kindly major who had
entertained us with slangy chat. As I stood
dumb in the swaying corridor, staring at him
in astonishment, he seemed like a fanatic.
“I’ve decided I’ve got to have some one
in with me on this job,” he muttered. “And
I'll trust you to help me out on it; your rec-


THREE BLACK BAGS 37
ord’s good enough for me. If I’m right, you
ought to be glad to lend a hand. Any Ameri-
can ought. It may mean life or death for
us—” He broke off, wiping his face as clear
of expression as if he had drawn a sponge
across it. “Look out of the window, quick!”
he hissed, dropping back. “Don’t look at me!”
The medical officer, I perceived, was at the
door of our compartment, stretching his arms
and yawning in boredom, and peering aim-
lessly about. As he vanished, unenthralled by
the prospect, my companion relaxed and smiled
on me pityingly.
“I guess you’re a good officer,” he com-
mented, resuming his old manner, “but you
certainly are a helluva actor. If that doctor-
man does n’t know we were having a heart-
to-heart talk, it is n’t your fault! Say, we
can't stay out here any longer or they’ll smell
a mouse. We’ll finish up this pow-wow to-
morrow. I’ll go back now—”
“Hold on a minute!” I exclaimed. “You
have n’t told me what to do.”
“I want you to stay awake to-night and see


88 THREE BLACK BAGS
if anything develops. I’ve got a hunch that
something will, though I don’t know where
it’ll come from or what it’ll be. It’s just a
feeling I’ve got; it’s in the air, I tell you!”
“You’re as crazy,” I reflected with convic-
tion, “as a March hare.”
“Keep your eyes open,” he pursued, “and
don’t miss a move of anybody's. Watch 'em
so close that you’ll know if they look cross-
ways and hear it if they drop a pin! Oh,
there’s another thing. Don't put out the light
yourself—I want it burning; but if some one
else puts it out, don’t interfere or take any
notice. I’d rather do the best I can in the
dark than put them wise to our watching them.
Well—I guess that’s all there is to say. So-
long.”


IV
FTER the lapse of a discreet interval,
I left the corridor and regained the
compartment, where I cast upon my uncon-
scious companions a newly speculative eye.
The scene was tranquil enough at present.
The girl, leaning back in her seat with her
head resting on the hard cushion, had her face
turned toward the window and her gaze fixed
on the outer blackness, while the aviator, sunk
in his corner, a hand across his eyes, was court-
ing slumber, and the medical officer was yawn-
ing, fidgeting, and scanning the pictures in a
weekly paper by the rays of the uncertain
light that flickered in the globe above.
As for the major, he was sitting with his
arms folded, blinking drowsily—a study in
content and benevolence, in striking contrast
to his late alarms. For my part, I thought
it likely that he would be allowed to rest un-
39


THREE BLACK BAGS 41
tonsils, I should n’t choose him. Still, I can’t
brand him as a disturber of the world's peace
on that account, and other evidence is con-
spicuously lacking. We’ll have to let him
leave the court-room without spot or stain.
“That eliminates everybody but the aviator,
who really does n’t bear discussing. He can’t
take care of himself at present, let alone a
world plot. Whoever trusted him with a valu-
able secret would deserve to be court-martialed
for sheer idiocy, and that lets out the Germans.
No; if there’s any trouble coming, it will de-
velop from outside!”
Though it was only nine o’clock, nobody
seemed disposed toward wakefulness. The
doctor's paper slipped from his fingers as he
began to nod. The girl, too, arose presently,
searched among her baggage, and produced a
heavy black fur rug in which she proceeded to
envelop herself, and a pillow in a case of em-
broidered linen which she slipped behind her
head. As she settled into her luxurious nest
our eyes met, and she smiled faintly.
“I’m afraid you’ll have a bad night,” I


42 THREE BLACK BAGS
ventured. “These are pretty poor quarters.”
“It does n’t matter,” she responded. “I
shall do very well indeed.”
The low, clear, modulated tones were like a
strain of soft home music. I watched, incredu-
lous as to her comfort, while she drifted off to
sleep. I had the usual masculine prejudices.
Girls like this, I felt, should n’t have to sit up
all night in crowded trains, or to struggle with
the building of fires and the scouring of tables,
or to stand behind counters till their feet ached
pouring coffee and dispensing sandwiches.
They did enough for the world by simply ex-
isting. As a small return for that, they should
be waited on, guarded, and protected in every
imaginable way.
The conviction leaped full-armed upon me
that Germany was no place for women. De-
spite my skepticism, I may have been influ-
enced by the talk of the intelligence man. As
I sat in this dim, swaying, cramped compart-
ment-car I saw the trip in a new aspect. We
were bound for a conquered country, a land
peopled by hostile millions. Who could tell


THREE BLACK BAGS. 43
what might await us there among them? For
myself and those like me, this was all very
well; it was part of the day's work; it was an
exhilaration even. But for a girl
Out in the corridor, the unlucky doughboys
were beguiling their vigil by singing Quand
Madelon in hushed voices. The refrain drifted
in to us. The girl, stirring slightly, unclosed
her eyes and astonished me anew with their
soft, lustrous blackness.
Elle rit, c'est tout 1 mal qu’ell’ sait faire,
Madelon, Madelon, Madelon!
I bent forward. “If those fellows are dis-
turbing you,” I said, “I’ll put a stop to it.”
“Oh, please don’t. I like to hear them,”
she murmured, with a drowsy smile.
The singing outside was followed by an in-
terval of hushed conversation. “This travel
business,” growled one of our nation’s de-
fenders, “is certainly great! We don’t have
to worry a bit. The government provides the
transportation and the tickets; all we have to
do is to stand up all night. Gee, I’m getting


44 THREE BLACK BAGS
pretty near desperate. One of my feet’s gone
to sleep!”
“It’s darned lucky, then,” responded a com-
rade, unsympathetically. “Wish I could do
the same. By jiminy, I believe I will! What's
the matter with lying down on the floor for
forty winks?” A brief interval elapsed, dur-
ing which he apparently followed his own sug-
gestion. “Come on in, boys!” he invited pres-
ently. “The water’s fine!”
“Not me!” This was a third voice. “I’ve
only got one face, and I need it. Last time
I lay down in one of these trains a guard came
along and stepped on me before I knew it.
Never again!”
The major sat with eyelids fallen, feigning
slumber most deceptively. The flier and the
medical officer sighed and shifted on the hard
seats. The wretched light flickered above us,
shining now on the aviator's silver wings, now
on the horn rims of the doctor's spectacles, now
on the girl's black bag. Queer about those
bags, I thought again. She had one; I had
one; the spurious captain had had one. How-


THREE BLACK BAGS 45
ever, everybody goes to Lemaitre's, and most
people take what a salesman urges on them.
The coincidence was not so amazing, after all.
As the hours dragged on toward midnight
the air grew colder and colder. Rain spattered
against the windows; a chill draft passed over
our heads. The aviator shivered, started up,
glared about wildly, and slid the door shut,
after which he relapsed into oblivion. The
medical officer, roused in his turn by the stir,
struggled to his feet, and jerked down the
leather extinguishers of the light. For a
moment the globe glowed incandescently.
Then it faded and died, and the compartment
was as black as pitch.
This was just what my friend the sleuth
had not wanted, I remembered. But it did
not matter. Nothing had happened; nothing
would happen, I felt sure. My fellow-sentinel
had mentioned, as sole proof of his weird the-
ories, an intuition. I lacked confidence in such
psychic inspirations. I had seen too many
men, hugging presentiments of imminent
death, emerge unscathed from months of war-


46 THREE BLACK BAGS
fare, and too many others, convinced that they
bore charmed lives, fall in their first dash.
The train proceeded through the darkness,
jolting, grinding, jarring. It crawled and
dragged like a wounded thing; it switched on
and off of tracks; it paused as if to rest. Dis-
tances that it should have traversed in a few
minutes it took an hour to negotiate. The doc-
tor snored twice, cavernously, and then to my
relief thought better of it and subsided. The
aviator groaned as if in pain. Outside, the
storm was increasing, the wind rising. Rain
dashed angrily against my window, in which
a leak materialized. I had a rain-coat, for-
tunately, and I looped it across the break.
We paused at Château-Thierry. We
stopped again at Epernay and Châlons.
Through the dripping glass I glimpsed
crowded platforms, and saw figures enter and
leave the train. The station lights, shining
into our compartment, illuminated the girl
where she lay breathing softly and regularly,
swathed in folds of fur, the pale rose lining of
her pillow casting a soft glow on her long


THREE BLACK BAGS 47
black lashes, her slightly parted, scarlet lips,
the warm smooth ivory of her skin.
The delightful vision, so sheltered, so ex-
quisite, seemed to take me back to another ex-
istence—a life of peace and well-ordered se-
curity, of comfort and luxury, of clubs, friends,
travel, sports. In that world, I felt a sharp
reluctance to be absorbed again. Perhaps
some people are miscast at birth; I may have
been one of them. At all events, though I
had conformed outwardly and played the
game, I had not been satisfied. There was
nothing I had that I set much value on, noth-
ing I did that held much zest.
The last two years had made that existence
seem oddly unreal and very distant. My life
in the army had been an awakening; I was
the right man in the right place. The days
when I had been an onlooker, bored, restless,
hiding my discontent beneath a non-committal
front, seemed like a dream. Like a duck to
water, I had taken to the variety, the activity,
the life in the open, the care of my men, in
short the whole great job, including its risks


48 THREE BLACK BAGS
and dangers and privations. Even Valençay,
with its nightmare accompaniments—the
bursting shells, the burning woods, the thirst
and hunger, the constant summons to sur-
render—had been a test of manhood, well
worth passing. But for all the brave fellows
that had been left there, I would have valued
that memory, too.
Well, since nobody can put the clock back,
my great adventure was almost over. I had
made myself useful, I had achieved something,
but at thirty-two I had had my fling. There
must be something wrong with me, since I did
not thrill at thought of a homeward voyage
for which a million Americans were clamoring
frantically. What did I want? I could n’t
imagine. Not more war, of course; but not my
old life again, either. That was n’t my rôle.
It was at this morose conclusion that my
ruminations were interrupted. Time had been
marching while I reflected; it was two o'clock
and more. Amid considerable racket, we were
jolting along a track composed of, at a venture,
mountains; and the blackness that enveloped
us was utter and opaque.


THREE BLACK BAGS 49
The aviator, I became aware, was stirring.
He subsided; then he moved again, this time
in an impatient way. From the depth of slum-
ber he murmured something inarticulate, which
became more definite in form as his wits re-
turned to him.
“Lemme alone, can’t you?” he protested
sleepily. “I’m no pillow, darn it. You keep
to your own seat! Here, get off me, will you?”
Then, suddenly, the drowsy, complaining note
merged into a shrill scream, a blood-curdling
crescendo of horror.
“Ah-h-h!” shrieked the boy, like a lost spirit.
“Take him off me, somebody! The man’s
dead!”


V
WAS not aware of finding my feet, or of
jerking the flaps from the light above us,
but in view of the resulting developments that
must have been the course I pursued. With
my first conscious realization, I was staring
at the youngster opposite. He was straining
off to the furthest extremity of his corner, claw-
ing at the air; and the body of the intelligence
man was lying across him in a heap.
The girl who was my vis-à-vis showed both
self-control and courage. When the light went
on she was leaning forward, startled and rigid,
her hand clutching at the window-ledge and
her face so white that it seemed all eyes. The
tragic sight galvanized her instantly. Freeing
herself from her rug, she sprang to help me
lift the fallen man.
“Is he ill, Colonel Ramsay?” My name
50


THREE BLACK BAGS 51
fell from her lips quite naturally. Then her .
voice sank to a shocked whisper. “Ah!” she
exclaimed, catching her breath.
It was all too lurid, too sensational, and too
ghastly to seem possible. There lay the major,
his rugged, kindly features as placid as if he
were asleep. But something red and wet
smeared my hands as we lifted him to the hard .
cushions; and buried in him to its handle was a
pocket-knife—an uncommonly large one, my
mind registered with cold accuracy; one with
long, dirk-like blades. -
The medical officer, who had sat transfixed,
in a cataleptic trance of horror, now roused
himself and sprang into action like a terrier on
a scent. I made way for him with relief, recog-
nizing that this was his business. Jerking
down the blinds, I stepped into the dim, silent
corridor, where I found that sheer exhaustion
had finally conquered the group of doughboys
and lulled their fears of the casualties that
might result from the peregrinations of the
train officials. To a man they were lying on
the floor, much entangled, and breathing ster-


52 THREE BLACK BAGS
torously. I bent over and shook the nearest,
and he came profanely back to life.
“Stop that racket,” I ordered sharply. I
preferred that the rest should not awaken. “I
want you to cut ahead and find whoever is in
charge of this train. Tell him something has
happened in Compartment 5, Car No. 4, and
get him back here—quietly, mind you. Look
alive, now!”
The faint light from the doorway showed
him the glimmer of my eagles. He reas-
sembled his faculties and gained his feet,
tousled but alert.
“Yes, sir,” he answered, saluting. “Right
away.” With much agility he leaped across
his comrades and disappeared, while I reën-
tered the compartment. The doctor, kneeling
by the motionless figure, looked at me across
his shoulder.
“Well?” I said.
He emitted a sort of cackle, the result not
of flippancy but of jangled nerves. “I
would n’t call it well if it was me,” he declared
with conviction. “Straight through the heart.
Clean as a die.”


THREE BLACK BAGS 53
“My God!” shuddered the flier, in a state
of total collapse.
Suppressing a futile inclination to fight
against the truth of the verdict, I sat down in
the place of the stricken man and eyed the girl
with growing concern.
“I am sorry,” I remarked, “that you’ve had
to go through this. It has been a shock to
you.”
“Yes,” she answered faintly. “It is terrible.
He was so cheerful, only last evening! He
must have been crazy, don’t you think so, to
kill himself in this awful way?”
To kill himself! I stared at her, conscious
of a blank astonishment at the suggestion.
Still, of course, she did n’t know; she had not
heard that strange prediction of trouble and
danger, made so recently by the dead man, so
swiftly and spectacularly fulfilled. I sus-
pected no one,—I had n’t reached that point,
—but I knew it was murder.
“Well, what’s happened?” a voice de-
manded, in businesslike, capable tones.
The machinery of command was confronting
us, represented not by a French official, but,


54 THREE BLACK BAGS
to my surprise, by a young American captain
who wore on his shoulder the R that stood for
railroads and proclaimed him an officer of
trains. What he was doing in this galley I
did not know, but as he was cool in manner
and reassuringly clear-headed in appearance,
I was glad to see him.
“I’m in charge here,” he explained briefly.
“We took this train over from the French at
Châlons.” His face changed as he perceived
the body stretched on the cushions, and he came
in and slid the door shut.
“Is that man dead?” he demanded sharply.
“Dead as a door-nail,” declared the medical
officer, with a certain gloomy triumph of mien.
The captain's eyes had narrowed. “Sui-
cide?” he queried. The doctor looked aston-
ished.
“Sure it is,” he answered. “What else’d
it be, with five of us cooped up in here? Not
much room for a shindy in these two-by-fours,
is there? I’ll say there’s not!”
The keen gaze of the captain left the dead
man and ran over us. “Let’s hear how it


THREE BLACK BAGS 55
happened,” he commanded. A funeral hush
ensued, which I broke.
“That’s the question,” I explained briefly.
“I was wide awake when it happened, and I
don’t know anything. Out of a clear sky, I
heard the lieutenant there begin to talk in his
sleep, and then to yell bloody murder. I
switched the light on, and this man was dead.”
“That’s me, too,” concurred the doctor,
“only I did n’t switch any lights on. I sat pet-
rifed, that 's what I did, and you’d understand
it if you’d heard that screech! I’ve heard
tall yellers in my time, but the lieutenant's
got 'em all skinned to the mast, and then
Some!”
Our inquisitor turned a somewhat sharp
scrutiny upon the flier. “It seems to work
back to you,” he commented. “What do you
know about the thing?”
The youngster wiped his forehead and wet
his lips before replying. His plight was piti-
able; he was shaking violently, and his blue
eyes had a wild, set stare.
“I know just this,” he panted; “it’ll be the


56 THREE BLACK BAGS
death of me. I was about all in already, and
this business is the last straw! I was sleeping
like a log, and I woke up with some one on top
of me. I told him to get off—you fellows
heard me,—but he did n’t budge. Then I got
good and mad, and pushed him, and he flopped
back, so much dead weight; and I felt some-
thing on my hands—something wet—” His
voice broke, then soared to a high, shrill note of
hysteria. “Good Lord!” he babbled. “Was n’t
I out of luck enough without having somebody
hack himself to pieces on top of me? I’m done
for, I tell you 9%
“Steady there! That’ll do for the present!”
The captain seized his arm and shook it.
“Now,” he continued, addressing us in the
mass, “I’d like your names; please show me
your papers. You’ll have to testify to all this
later on, you know.”
Seating himself, he drew forth a note-book
and the stubby remnant of a pencil, and noted
our names and destinations, runing over each
aloud. In the white light thus turned upon us,
the girl stood revealed as Miss Lorraine Ivison,


THREE BLACK BAGS 57
proceeding to Treves to join a Red Cross can-
teen unit; the doctor took concrete form as
Captain William Harris, bound for a hospital
at the same place; and the flier materialized
anew in the form of Wesley McCloud, on his
way to join an aéro-squadron located near Cob-
lenz. As the captain inscribed the fact that I
was Colonel Everett Ramsay he regarded me
with interest, and I gathered that the ghost of
Valençay was walking again.
“The next compartment’s just been va-
cated,” he remarked, pocketing his note-book.
“The people left at Château-Thierry; and I’ll
ask you to move in there. I’ll see you again
in a few minutes. What is it, sir? Do you
want to speak to me?” he added, with a hint of
impatience, as, having let the others file into
the corridor, I shut the door.
“Yes, since you seem to be managing this
without the formality of calling in the police,”
I answered curtly. “I’ve got some things to
tell you that I don’t care to shout from the
housetops. In the first place, this man is n’t
what his uniform indicates—”


58 THREE BLACK BAGS
“I know who he is,” said the captain, gravely.
“But I was n’t telling. He's Martin Bel-
linger—intelligence work—a wizard at it.
I’ve seen him before.”
His omniscience nettled me. “In that case,”
I retorted, “this should interest you. As I
see the thing, there’s not a chance in ten thou-
sand of its being suicide; it’s a cold-blooded
murder. The man himself was expecting
trouble, and he told me so in those very words.
Listen to this.”
The chain of circumstances, as I ran over
them, seemed to grow increasingly damning,
leading sharp and clear from the Parker epi-
sode to our dark vigil and its end. The captain
listened with his brows drawn together.
“H'm!” he commented reflectively, as I
paused. “That’s a queer go, is n’t it? Look
here—from what you say, I gather Bellinger
talked pretty wildly.”
“He did. Fanatically almost.”
“Just so. Fanatically. Was it marked
enough, by any chance, to suggest that his
mind might not be right?”


THREE BLACK BAGS 59
“I must say,” I assented, marshaling my
recollections, “that it occurred to me. This
last development lets him out, though—proves
he knew what he was about.”
“Then how in heaven’s name was he killed?
I mean, how did any one get at him?” The
captain looked about alertly, reconstructing
the late scene. “Could some one have opened
that door and slipped in without your knowing
it?”
“Anything’s possible,” I replied, “but I
doubt it. I’ve noticed that the door
creaks.”
“And nobody could come in by the window,
except an acrobat,” he argued. “Well, then,
we’ve got it narrowed down to the five of you
who were shut up in here. Could one of you
have left his place and killed this man without
rousing the rest of you?”
“I’d say no,” I rejoined decisively. “Still,
the place was as black as Tophet; and as luck
would have it, the train was racketing—mak-
ing a most infernal noise.”
“Let’s try it that way, then,” he agreed.


THREE BLACK BAGS 6E
rang in my ears, prophesying some world's
peril.
“What’s your idea?” said I.
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “First,
there's Bellinger’s mission; that 's important,
as I see it—what he was doing here, and
whether it was to somebody’s interest to stop
his mouth. Then, some one may have slipped
in and out from the corridor; or it may be sui-
cide. People are n’t themselves nowadays;
there's been too much tension. Some of us—
the damned lucky ones—keep pretty normal,
but lots of others remember all the horrors and
dwell on them and brood. Then some fine day,
when the brooding gets a little worse, some-
thing snaps and the world does n’t seem fit to
live in, and they end it. Bellinger’s been do-
ing an unhealthy sort of work, living among
rumors, talking and thinking plots; he could
have gone off his head as easy as lying.
You must have had that sort of thing to
deal with among your own men. How about.
it?”
“Yes—I’ve seen it,” I owned, unconvinced.


62 THREE BLACK BAGS
“But he did n’t strike me that way. He looked
game clear through.”
“Well, it ’ll be sifted down,” he assured me.
“But we can’t stop now to call the police in.
We took over this train for a detachment that
has to get to Treves on a hurry call. I’ve got
orders not to stop for anything and to cut out
all the stations from Châlons on, and the best
I can do is to see that not a soul leaves this par-
ticular car till we get to Treves and our police
there take up the matter. Then they’ll grill
us all, and if there’s anything in this murder
theory, you can rest assured that it'll come
out.”
Perhaps it would, but I still felt dubious as
I rejoined my fellow-travelers. The trail
appeared an oddly blind one; I suspected no-
body of the crime. I even admitted that the
dead man had acted strangely in confiding his
story to a total stranger like myself, and had
talked wildly. But—a madman, a man un-
nerved to the point of suicide? I doubted it.
He had had steady eyes.
I sat down, outwardly impassive, inwardly


THREE BLACK BAGS 63
possessed by restlessness. Had that prophecy
been mere raving? I could not quite decide.
If it had held a shred of truth, this grim even-
ing's work would have a sequel. We were go-
ing to Germany, to Germany. The wheels
seemed to chant it as we sped on through the
darkness. Something—probably my bones—
whispered that my days of adventure were not
yet ended.
And my bones knew whereof they spoke.


VI
PEED, like other words, is a term to be
used comparatively, and I do not doubt
that the Paris-Treves “express” did its honest
best in the way of haste. However, the stars
in their courses—to be prosaic, railway condi-
tions—fought against it, and not until the next
evening did it deposit us triumphantly at ad-
vance general headquarters, Treves.
The latter portion of our journey might well
have been described as ghastly. By mute con-
sent, our light was left burning, and I spent
the night in contemplation of a German sign of
the old régime, which forbade me to fall from
the window under pain of a heavy fine. Then
ensued a gray rainy dawn; a day of chill dis-
comfort, throughout which we crawled along
damaged tracks, over rent, blackened country,
past the ruins of Pont-à-Mousson and the
neighboring towns; a transit to German soil,
64


THREE BLACK BAGS’ 65
marked by no more startling phenomenon than
the almost American rapidity with which we
began to run along a route no longer shell-
torn; and finally, the lights of Treves gleaming
at us from the night blackness, and a percep-
tible brightening of our spirits as we alighted
from the train.
At the behest of the authorities, the scene
shifted to the provost-marshal's, where all the
occupants of our car were interrogated at some
length. The suicide theory seemed to stand
unquestioned; if murder was suspected, it was
not hinted at. We were ordered to remain at
Treves temporarily; and I shrewdly surmised
that we would be shadowed. Then a motor,
provided by our inquisitors, bore off Miss Ivi-
son to Red Cross headquarters, and McCloud,
Harris, and I sought the billeting officer, who
assigned us to the Bahnhof Hotel.
Once installed within that sanctuary, I
would gladly have entered dreamland, but
though forty-eight wakeful hours lay back of
me, for some reason sleep was coy. I could not
forget I had passed the barriers and was in a


66 THREE BLACK BAGS
conquered and occupied country. It was hard
to realize that this room of mine, with its nar-
row bed and red plush curtains and inevitable
washstand, had been “made in Germany.” I
could scarcely credit it that the proprietor who
had welcomed me with open arms, bowing
unctuously, rubbing his hands in apparent joy
at the arrival of an American officer beneath
his roof, speaking English with an accent
barely perceptible, had been one of our late
foes.
On an impulse I left my bed and reconnoit-
ered from the window. The square below was
dimly lighted; the station loomed across the
way. The one person to be seen was an Ameri-
can M. P., promenading to and fro and whist-
ling “Smiles.” No more peaceful scene could
have been imagined. I tried to form a con-
sciousness of the invisible surrounding thou-
sands, the silent, alien, watchful people who
now cut me off from France; but the effort
was futile. I gave it up, went back to bed, and
ultimately fell asleep.
It must have been three or four hours later


THREE BLACK BAGS 67
when I came sharply back to consciousness.
Some sound, apparently, had roused me; I
was sitting bolt upright, straining my ears.
For a moment all seemed normal; then the
floor creaked faintly, a current of cold air
passed across my face, and my eyes, becoming
more habituated, made out a grayish smudge
in the blackness. The door, which I had
omitted to lock, was standing open, and there
was somebody in the room.
To awaken so, in hostile territory, was not
particularly pleasant, especially as an after-
math to Bellinger's uncanny end. With an
impulse to know the worst, I seized my electric
torch from the stand beside me, pressed its
bulb into action, and stared transfixed. The
disturber of my peace revealed in its shaft of
light was not a German. On the contrary, it
was Lieutenant Wesley McCloud of the avia-
tion, who emitted a fish-like gasp and flung
one arm across his face.
My amazement at this development was sur-
passed by my exasperation.
“What the devil do you mean,” I demanded


68 THREE BLACK BAGS
angrily, “by opening my door like a sneak-
thief? Don't you know that I might have put
a bullet through you? Why did n’t you
knock?”
The young fellow made a desperate effort to
pull himself together. “I—I beg your pardon,
sir,” he stammered, with chattering teeth. “I
guess I must be going crazy. I wanted to
speak to you, but I did n’t want to wake you,
so I thought I’d slip in quietly and see if you
were sleeping 55
“Well, don’t do it again,” I snapped, un-
mollified by his patent anguish. “What do
you want?”
“My—my flask’s empty.” He eyed me im-
ploringly. “I thought maybe if you were
awake, you’d let me have a nip. I believe I
could go to sleep then, and if I don’t I—I’m
afraid I’m done for. Could you see me
through?”
“Oh, come in,” I responded irritably. “And
for heaven’s sake shut that door. The draft is
freezing me.” A pajama-draped figure of
wrath, I flounced out of bed, switched on the
55


THREE BLACK BAGS 69
lights, and began to rummage for my flask. I
dare say the atmosphere, which was colder than
Greenland, cooled my temper; at all events,
I softened a trifle as the boy collapsed on the
edge of my bed, shaking violently, with his
eyes fixed blankly on my black bag where it
stood unopened.
“Man alive! Haven’t you turned in yet?”
I demanded, realizing he was still fully dressed.
Seizing upon the flask I proffered, he helped
himself to a good stiff swig from it. “No. I
was afraid to be in the dark, on account of that
dead man,” he confessed. “I’ve been seeing
him all evening, even with my lights going full
tilt. That’s how I came to bolt in here the
way I did; I went clean to pieces 29
“That’s all right,” I said shortly, sitting
down.
“It’s white of you to take it that way.” He
was pitifully grateful. Moving suddenly
closer to me, he fixed me with tormented eyes.
“I don’t know,” he muttered desperately,
“what I’m going to do. It’s getting worse
and worse. I did n’t use to be like this; I was


70 THREE BLACK BAGS
crazy about flying. There was n’t anything
on earth I liked so well as whisking round
up there in the clouds, till I came my crop-
per—”
“Accident?” I asked briefly, as he paused.
“Yes, a spill. I went up with a friend, a
beginner who did n’t know his business, and
he made a mistake and lost his head, and
brought us down. We were pretty well
smashed up. I’ve been in the hospital, and
on leave, and they say I'm cured, but every
now and then I see the ground coming up to
hit me and it makes me sick all over. I guess
you think I’ve got a yellow streak a yard
wide, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, I’ve fought it hard enough.” He
choked over the avowal. “And I thought I
was getting steadier, till that fellow stabbed
himself last night. I wish he’d picked some
one else to fall on; he ’s finished me.” With-
out warning he clutched my arm, buried his
face against it, and began to shake with tear-
less sobbing. “What’ll I do?” he moaned
frantically. “What’ll I do?”


THREE BLACK BAGS 71
Despite the utter, sickening abjectness of
this wreck that clung and whimpered, there
was something poignantly appealing in the
frankness of the boy’s despair. What he had
borne, alone in the night watches, before he
broke down and revealed his soul stripped of
every decent disguise of pride and manhood
that men build up to shield them in their bad
hours, did not bear thinking of. My impulse
was to sympathize, but I knew softness would
hurt, not help.
“Look here,” I said succinctly, “I am go-
ing to tell you something. You’ve had tough
luck, but unless you’ve got that yellow streak
you talk about, you’ll face it down. It’s time
you were beginning, too. You’ve got to take
a real bracer, not the kind you get out of
pocket flasks—”
“I know it.” He sat up, quieter. “I be-
lieve you could help me. I’ll bet you have n’t
any more nerves than one of those bronze fel-
lows the French put on their victory medals.
You look like them—just as cool and steady.
If I could tie to you for a while—”
I shook my head. “I can’t help you,” I


72 THREE BLACK BAGS
declared curtly. “And nobody else can help
you either; that is, if the doctors have done
their part. You know as well as I do that
you’ll have to see this through yourself. Go
to it, and good luck! That’s all I can say.”
He lingered, regarding me with wide, ir-
resolute blue eyes. “When I get to Coblenz,”
he whispered, “I’ll have to go up again. I
could tell them how I feel, of course; but I’d
rather shoot myself than let them know that
I’m a coward! What would you do?”
The truth seemed brutal, but nevertheless I
let him have it.
“Personally,” I said, “I’d go up. The
chances are I could put it through and end this
nonsense once for all, but if not—well, I’d
still do it. I only want my life on certain
terms, McCloud, though I may be wrong.”
To my surprise, he did not flinch, though
his face took on a greenish pallor.
“On certain terms,” he repeated under his
breath. “That’s right. That’s dead right.
I—I’m much obliged to you for telling me,
sir. Good night.”


VII
EN o'clock was striking somewhere when
I sprang out of bed next morning, and
set briskly about my toilet, wondering what
the day would bring forth. Life, it struck me,
had been picturesque lately. I had encoun-
tered some unusual people. There was the
spurious Parker; there was poor Bellinger,
with his tales of plot and counterplot; there
was young McCloud, a bit of war wreckage
that rather haunted me; and, last but not least,
there was Miss Lorraine Ivison, who had made,
I was beginning to realize, a somewhat vivid
impression on me. When I reconstructed our
late drama her figure, I found, crowded out the
others. I had only to think of her, and she
stood before me, a little proud but charmingly
gracious, her black hair crowned by a faint
blue gloss, and her eyes as dark as moon-lit
water under its shadow.
73


74 THREE BLACK BAGS
“For sheer civility's sake,” I argued spe-
ciously, splashing water, “I wonder if I
should n’t look her up and inquire if she’s any
the worse for that twenty-four-hour nightmare
of a trip. But hello! What’s that?”
The cause of my ejaculation was a folded
sheet of paper, which at some period since Mc-
Cloud's departure had been slipped beneath
the door. I picked it up, spread it out, vouch-
safed it a glance—and sat down abruptly.
From a coarse gray ground, these words stared
up at me:
Look out for yourself. They’re after what you’ve
got, and they’ll try anything, even murder. Don’t leave
your door unlocked, and don’t go out alone. This is
straight.
A FRIEND.
If the floor had opened to engulf me I could
hardly have been more dumfounded. Turn-
ing the missive over and over, I considered its
salient points. By design or by accident, these
were few. The paper might have been bought
anywhere; the words were printed. As for
the wording, couched in the lurid phraseology


THREE BLACK BAGS 75
of the dime novel, it provided an impenetrable
disguise for the real mentality of the scribe.
The thing could not have been better done,
allowing that somebody wished to warn me,
and had a preference for remaining anonymous
while performing the friendly deed. But why
should I be warned? And warned of what?
“They’re after what you’ve got.” I had noth-
ing, save the clothes I stood up in, and a bag
and a suit-case! “They’ll try anything, even
murder.” I laughed outright. For sheer ab-
surdity, that deserved a prize. One might
have thought me a bearer of despatches in-
volving the fate of empires, instead of an every-
day, unimportant officer rejoining his com-
mand!
“Such poppycock can’t mean anything,” I
concluded comfortably. “If I had friends in
the hotel, I’d say that they were playing a
joke. By Jove, that’s the ticket!” I seized
upon the inspiration. “The place is swarming
with Americans; I saw a dozen in the halls
last evening. Somebody wants to rag a chum,
and has hit on my room by mistake!”


76 THREE BLACK BAGS
Tearing up the note, and dismissing the inci-
dent, I proceeded with my preparations, and
was occupied with the finishing touches when
a vigorous rat-tat-tat nearly broke my door.
Opening in answer, to my amazed gratifica-
tion I found myself in the clutches of a hand-
some, laughing young rascal in whom I recog-
nized Jerry Sutherland, a friend of mine since
our school days, born with a gold spoon in his
mouth to an existence similarly gilded, but the
best-hearted and best-natured fellow that ever
breathed. -
A listening ear in Coblenz might have heard
his roar of welcome. “Good Lord, Everett,
old scout, but I’m glad to see you!” was his
cry. “Welcome to Germany. Look here,
whaddayou mean by being a colonel while I
still remain a first lieutenant, and while, at
that, my superior officers sometimes hint that
the army could survive without me? By the
way, where are the medals? Thought I’d see
you blazing with 'em. I say, old man, is n’t it
luck you’ve stopped in this bailiwick, when
your outfit’s up Coblenz way?”


THREE BLACK BAGS 77
“I’m going there,” I explained, “but I have
to stop here to give some evidence. We had
the deuce and all to pay on our trip, Jerry.
We brought a dead man in 95
“Who killed him? You?” inquired Jerry,
unabashed by the sad intelligence. It would
take a general with four stars on each shoulder
to abash Jerry, and even then the effect would
be transitory and surface-deep. “I suppose
you’ve got so used to killing people you can’t
stop, you fire-eater. Well, I’d be glad to see
you if the whole train-load had pushed daisies.”
He vaulted to the foot of the bed and sat en-
throned. “Lorraine Ivison told me you were
here,” he continued. “I walked right bang
into her this morning, working at the station
canteen. Talk about luck! Oh, boy!”
Why this news should have annoyed me is
a mystery. It did, however. “You know Miss
Ivison, then?” I inquired lamely. Jerry
laughed.
“Yes,” he replied. “I know her! Did I
spend the one lone leave I ever got in a little
French town of a thousand souls, because she


78 THREE BLACK BAGS
was working there? Did I go A. W. O. L.
three separate times and just dodge a court
martial, to talk to her five minutes? Yes, and
I would again!” He beamed radiantly.
“There’s nobody like her. She looks like
strawberries and cream, but I’ll tell the world
she's more than that. I’ve seen her with her
little feet half frozen and her nose as blue as
skimmed milk, standing back of a counter
pouring coffee, and smiling at every man that
passed; smiling, get it? I’d have been swear-
ing, or reaching for the poker. And I don’t
believe she ever put on her pretty little slippers
for herself till she came over here. Lorraine’s
true blue.”
“She is!” I agreed, recalling our trip.
“I’ve asked her seven times to marry me.”
Secrecy is not a vice of Jerry’s. “And I’ll
never give up hope till she walks down the aisle
with somebody else. Not that it’s any use;
she always has about a hundred generals and
staff officers, and heroes like you, old fellow,
lined up waiting for a word with her.” He
groaned cavernously, then regained normal


THREE BLACK BAGS 79
cheerfulness, and switched from sentiment to
fact.
“Pick up your baggage and follow me,” he
ordered. “I’m going to lead you to the finest
billet in the town. I live with Colonel Fer-
guson and Captain Kilbourne; nice rooms,
stores from the commissary, German woman
to cook them, all the comforts of home com-
bined with all the advantages of a change.
We’ve got an extra room—Fred Joyce left
for Brest yesterday, lucky devil!—and I’ve
fixed things up for you to have it. Here’s the
program: We’ll see sights this morning; I’ve
got the colonel’s car downstairs—he thinks I’m
doing errands for him. To-night, Kilbourne
has a dinner—Red Cross girls, and the opera
afterward; he'll ask Lorraine. To-morrow
night, there’s a dance at Brockendorff, Gen-
eral Holt's headquarters. This conquered
Germany is the one gay place I’ve struck since
I came over. Ready now?”
“Ready, aye, ready,” I responded, picking
up my bags and following. As we stepped
forth a door across the hall opened, and young


80 THREE BLACK BAGS
McCloud emerged. He looked much more
normal, I thought, scrutinizing him briefly but
sharply; there was even, to my satisfaction,
some color in his cheeks.
I acknowledged his salute with a carefully
casual friendliness. “Sleep well?” I inquired
without emphasis, as he paused.
“Pretty well, thanks.” He achieved a man-
ner equally casual. There was stuff in the
boy after all; he was putting up a fight. “I’m
going to look up a friend of mine in the squad-
ron here.” He paled perceptibly, but his
gaze held steady. “Maybe he 'll let me try
a flight with him,” he ended, in a meaning
voice.
“That's first-rate,” I exclaimed heartily.
“See you later on,” and I turned to the stairs.
Somebody was coming up them, whistling
mournfully—no other than Captain William
Harris of the medical corps.
“Well, well, well!” he exclaimed, halting.
“Here’s a gathering of the clans; is every one
leaving us? Where are you off to, lieutenant?”
He did not wait for McCloud’s answer. “And


THREE BLACK BAGS 81
how about you, colonel—bound for Coblenz?”
“No,” I vouchsafed. “I’m joining friends.”
“Pretty soft for you, eh? I’ve got to get
busy,” he maundered on, still blocking the
staircase, and giving me the odd, palpably ab-
surd impression that he was talking to gain
time. “My hospital’s swimming in flu, they
tell me. Say, you’ve got too much baggage.
Let me carry this for you.” He made an un-
expected dive at my black bag.
“Thanks; don’t bother,” I returned, not
loosening my grip upon it. Pushing past him,
I descended the stairs in Jerry's wake, com-
plied with a formality or two below, and left
the hotel. A gray sky stretched overhead.
Fresh damp air blew across my face, and I
breathed it in with pleasure as we crossed the
pavement to the waiting motor.
“Now, old man, what about this train busi-
ness?” inquired Jerry, as we got in.
I placed our journey briefly before him,
achieving a dramatic résumé, but concentrat-
ing my chief attention on this first glimpse of
the town of Treves. Our car, having executed


82 THREE BLACK BAGS
a turn before the station—the usual building
of its kind, marked by a great gilded clock, a
broad gray façade, and stone steps thronged
with khaki-clad soldiers,—was running up the
Bahnhofstrasse, between handsome houses and
lawns and trees. Behind us, in the distance,
rose the vineyard-covered hills that shut in the
valley; before us, a gray-black, threatening
pile, a mass of towers and colonnaded galleries,
loomed the Porta Nigra, the fortified gate that
had watched the life of Treves go past since
Roman days.
My first impression, a triumphant one, was
of the omnipresence of my compatriots. They
were everywhere, clean, ruddy, straight-gaz-
ing, swift-moving young Americans, whose
nationality would have been patent if one had
met them in Timbuktu. Treves being a leave
area, they had come from far and near. I
saw on their shoulders the red, white, and blue
shield of headquarters, the “A. of O.” of the
Third Army, the red diamond of the Fifth Di-
vision, the Indian head of the Second, the red
numeral of the Fighting First. These young


THREE BLACK BAGS 83
victors made me smile a little, they were so
matter-of-fact, so competent. They could have
been no more at ease, no more cheerfully as-
sured of their ability to dominate the situation,
if they had been walking through Kalamazoo
instead of Treves.
In this laying-low of the Germans there was
something almost stunning. Their dreams of
empire, their resistless army that was to sweep
Europe, their proud claim to the place in the
sun, had come to this. At each of their street
corners, an American M. P. controlled the
passing trams and pedestrians. At each bridge
an American sentry watched with mounted
bayonet. At the turnstile of each railway
station, an American halted German travelers
and demanded American authority for their
journeying. How could they bear such sub-
jugation? Must not our very presence gall
their pride? My amazement grew with every
glance I turned on their faces, which were
neither humbled nor resentful, but superior,
satisfied, ineffably smug.
With slow, relentless surety a new impres-


84 THREE BLACK BAGS
sion grew upon me. I was fresh from France,
from her ravaged meadows, from the ruins
of her lovely towns. I studied the surrounding
scene—the busy streets, the crowded market-
booths, the unshattered solidity of the packed
buildings, the demeanor of these people who
were going as usual about their business.
What in their serene complacency suggested
remorse or retribution? What did they know,
in their intact country, of the woes and horrors
that they had caused?
As I concluded my narration we lapsed into
a reflective silence. The car debouched from
the Brückenstrasse and began to run along the
Moselle. Across the broad sheet of water rose
red cliffs like those of the Palisades, crowned
by woods, and dominated by a great stone sta-
tue of the Virgin. Jerry was pursing his lips
and whistling noiselessly.
“How about this McCloud having done it?”
he demanded suddenly. “From what you say,
he’s infernally jumpy. Why would a fellow
be so nervous, if he’s straight?”
“Nonsense!” I exclaimed. A protective


THREE BLACK BAGS 85
feeling toward the youngster had risen in me
since our late séance. “Everybody is n’t lucky
enough to be born with rhinoceros-hide nerves,
like you and me. If you want a suspect, make
it Harris!” I paused to laugh at the serious,
lack-luster, talkative young man in the rôle
of an assassin. “He’s a doctor; he could plant
a quick, sure thrust in a vital spot!”
Our morning did not reach its close without
a somewhat startling incident. Two hours
later, having completed a tour of sight-seeing
that embraced the cathedral, the Roman baths,
the amphitheater, and the vine-covered ruins
of the Kaiserpalast, we drew up before Jerry's
abode. The door was opened by Colonel Fer-
guson's orderly, who saluted us snappily.
“Pardon, sir,” he began. “Colonel Ram-
say?” .
“Yes,” I answered, with some surprise.
“This is for the colonel, then. I found it
under the door, about an hour ago.” He
handed me a small gray envelope, and I tore
it open with a prophetic intuition as to what it
would contain. Once again, roughly printed


86 THREE BLACK BAGS
words stared at me from a sheet of coarse pa-
per. The warning was condensed this time,
but its gist was unaltered.
Don’t leave your door unlocked [it urged me]. Don't
go out alone.


VIII
HROUGHOUT the day, I struggled at
intervals with the problem of these warn-
ings, concluding finally that Jerry had written
them, though he virtuously denied the charge.
The truth was, while I recognized the gro-
tesqueness of the episode, it failed to impress
me. It was as if it had never been by the time
we met for dinner that night.
This billet of Jerry's in the Blumenstrasse
was very comfortable and intensely hideous.
It was the property, I believe he told me, of a
merchant prince of Treves. Entering by an
imposing door, one mounted to the second
story, which boasted a salon heated by an
enormous white porcelain stove, a dining-room
richly but funereally furnished, and four bed-
rooms, opening from a long narrow passage
hung with two or three bits of spurious tapes-
try. To complete the ensemble, there was even
87


88 THREE BLACK BAGS
a garden, beneath my windows at the rear.
The personnel of our dinner gathering was
limited to the number of seven, the men being
Colonel Ferguson, Captain Kilbourne, Jerry,
and I. As for the ladies, they were a Miss
Lamarche, the directress of the Red Cross can-
teen, a charming woman, whose hair framed
her animated, sympathetic face like the crisp
powdered coiffure of a Louis Quinze minia-
ture; Miss Doris Oliver, a wisp of a girl with
big gray eyes, a mist of fair curls, and a com-
plexion like a rose-leaf; and Miss Lorraine
Ivison, who looked lovelier than the law should
allow. She sat between the colonel and Jerry,
not the arrangement I would have chosen.
However, I drew Miss Oliver, and she was de-
lightful, smiling sweetly when I was looking,
and studying me shyly from beneath her lashes
when she fancied I was n’t. She was thinking
of Valençay. I knew the signs.
The dinner was appetizing, if simple, and
the conversation was cosmopolitan. Colonel
Ferguson, just back from Coblenz, described
the Rhineland at some length. Kilbourne, re-


THREE BLACK BAGS 89
cently returned from Luxemburg, brought
down the house with an account of that comic-
opera duchy, its toy revolutions, and the man-
ner in which, in a late disturbance, four Ameri-
can M. P.'s had been detailed as sole defense
of the palace of the grand duchess against the
excited populace, and had proved entirely ade-
quate. As for Jerry—who can barely read,—
he achieved the literary hit of the evening,
apropos of the abrupt departure of the Joycé
to whose room I had fallen heir.
“Here to-day and gone to-morrow,” he said
resignedly. “That’s the army. I knew a fel-
low once who went around spouting Omar
Khayyam; I remember one thing he said:
“How? Without asking, hither hurried whence?
And without asking, whither hurried hence?
Take it from me, old Omar was thinking of
the A. E. F. when he wrote that! I'll tell
the world they hurry us; and if they ask us
first, I never noticed it.” He subsided mod-
estly into the background as we broke into
applause.


90 THREE BLACK BAGS
“Well, the Red Cross suffers more than the
army,” Kilbourne maintained. “Look at these
girls—I mean these angels. Work in the
morning. In the afternoon, rides, or callers,
or pouring tea at the Officers’ Club. In the
evening, dinner or the opera, or a two hours'
drive to some God-forsaken station at the back
of beyond, to dance with men who have n’t had
a chance to one-step or fox-trot since they came
over. Three hours' sleep. Back to coffee-
pouring in the cold gray dawn. How do they
do it? They’re martyrs!”
“I don’t mind being that kind of a martyr,”
bubbled Miss Oliver. “Would you, Colonel
Ramsay?”
“There, young lady!” Colonel Ferguson
addressed his neighbor jovially. “Does all
that scare you? You can see we mean to keep
you busy. What d’ you think of Treves?”
Miss Ivison turned from Jerry. She had
been laughing at his nonsense; they seemed
like old friends, and very good friends, I had
been noticing without much zest. She was
still smiling as she looked at Ferguson.


THREE BLACK BAGS 91
C.
“It is n’t,” she admitted, “what I expected.
Is it always so gay? So—unlike the war?”
Ferguson guffawed appreciatively. “Oh,
well,” he rejoined, “you’re like the rest of
them. You want conquered country stuff
when you come to Germany—thrills, excite-
ment, rebellions, eh? We can't oblige you,
though, I’m afraid. You see, the Germans are
too sensible. Some folks might start some-
thing with the odds against them and machine-
guns planted over their towns to blow them to
kingdom come if they so much as cheeped, but
not these fellows. There’ll be no trouble
hereabouts. Is n’t that so, you youngsters?”
“That’s right, sir,” Kilbourne agreed with
emphasis. “Nary trouble in our zone. They
know better!”
“No such luck!” This from Jerry, who en-
joys the alarms of war.
Miss Ivison leaned forward a little. Un-
consciously she pushed back her coffee-cup.
She was still smiling, but more faintly, and her
eyes looked very large and dark.
“You feel quite sure, then,” she asked, “that


92 THREE BLACK BAGS
they won’t do anything? It seems incredible.
Suppose this was America, and a German
army had come in! Would we endure it, do
you think?” Her eyes flashed, and the head of
every man at the table went up as if at a bugle-
call. “Oh, I know they’re not like us; but
doesn’t that make them still more dangerous?
We fight openly; they plan things secretly. If
they did n’t keep faith—they would stab in the
dark!”
The colonel drained his last drop of coffee
and set his cup upon the table. “Don’t you
worry, my dear young lady,” he adjured com-
fortably, with a hearty laugh. “They’ve set-
tled down to make the best of it, and upon my
word, they do it up so brown that they don’t
seem human sometimes. You ought to see them
skedaddle off the sidewalks for us; and as for
the signs in their shop windows! I saw one
to-day that said “Pictures of Occupied Treves,”
as sure as I’m sitting here. It gave me a
nasty jolt. Can you see us advertising pic-
tures of occupied New York for souvenirs, if
we had the Germans on our side?”
Amid the laughter that ensued, Captain.


THREE BLACK BAGS 93
Kilbourne cast a glance at his wrist-watch, and
announced that if we meant to patronize the
opera to-night, we must be off. The theater
was conveniently located just around the cor-
ner, and in five minutes we had reached a de-
serted lobby, climbed a flight of stairs, and en-
tered our box.
The first act of “The Gipsy Baron” was al-
ready drawing to its conclusion, a fat tenor
serenading his lady-love with a fervor that de-
fied years and weight. Our arrival did not
pass unobserved. As we took our seats, a sea
of faces turned our way, scrutinized us with
the interest they might have accorded to some
zoo exhibition, and at length, their curiosity
satisfied, turned back phlegmatically to the
stage.
As the curtain fell and the lights rose, I bent
forward and looked about me. The house was
crowded; the sound of German assailed my
ears on every side. Here and there, with a
sense of kinship, I picked out a khaki-clad
form among the civilians, and in two of these
scattered castaways I presently recognized ac-
quaintances—young McCloud, sandwiched in


94 THREE BLACK BAGS
under a box just opposite, and Captain Harris,
a few rows to his rear.
The aviator looked flushed and feverish; he
had been losing ground since morning. I was
sorry. I could n’t, for the life of me, forget his
collapse and his appeal. To distract my
thoughts, I glanced at the box above him, cas-
ually at first, then with mounting interest. Its
three occupants bore the stamp of a higher
social grade than the majority of the audience.
Two men, stalwart, autocratic, contemptuous
in bearing, sat against the curtains, bending
forward at intervals to address a figure in the
foreground, against the rail.
This third figure was a woman, young and .
unmistakably German, and of a hard, vivid,
forceful arrogance as sharply striking as a
blow. Her gown, in its richness, was almost
regal. As for her beauty, it was magnificent.
She had bright yellow hair, dressed high,
haughty, resolute, imperious features, and
dark blue eyes, oddly smoldering in aspect,
which with a slight shock of surprise I found
fixed on me.


THREE BLACK BAGS 95
For no good reason, a queer sense took me
of the presence of some invisible danger.
From the box opposite, in electric fashion,
there seemed to emanate a current of threat.
The men, with their Junker arrogance, their
look of scorn and defiance for the conquering
invaders, simply roused my hostility; but the
woman seemed menacing. She was like a prin-
cess in some old saga, wrapped in a sulphur-
ous cloud of storm.
Miss Lamarche and Colonel Ferguson were
fathoms deep in conversation. Kilbourne, a
victim to the charms of Miss Oliver, was whis-
pering in her ear. Miss Ivison, who was lean-
ing on the rail and looking down, stirred sud-
denly, and turned half toward me where I sat
behind her.
“Colonel Ramsay she began hesitat-
ingly. I bent forward quickly. “Yes?”
“I’m afraid you thought that I talked very
foolishly at dinner. Didn't you?”
“At dinner?” I repeated blankly, marshal-
ing my souvenirs of that meal.
“It must have sounded like—like Cassandra
92


96 THREE BLACK BAGS
prophesying,” she murmured. “As if I were
afraid of a German rising here at Treves. It
is n’t that. It is only that I can’t quite trust
these people yet.” Her troubled gaze swept
the audience and returned to me. “They gave
way so suddenly, so utterly; I don’t under-
stand it. I can’t forget that a little while ago
they were fighting our soldiers and stoning our
prisoners—”
“And wanting peace, and being let off too
easily by half!” I put in grimly. “I should
think you could n’t; I can’t either. There’s
too much forgetting going on.”
“It does n’t seem fair,” she agreed uncer-
tainly. “Think how France and Belgium suf-
fered! Here, though they’re defeated, they
seem so satisfied—and Treves seems so quiet
and untouched! But about what I said at
dinner—I thought you might misunderstand
me.” She flushed, then laughed half proudly,
half confusedly. “I’m not really a coward;
last year when the hospital was bombed, I
was n’t frightened. I—I shouldn’t like you
to think—that I was afraid.”


THREE BLACK BAGS 97
Was there the faintest, most unconscious
stress, as light as gossamer, upon that you?
I seemed to catch it, and felt elated. Then,
vigorously, I called myself several picturesque
varieties of idiot for harboring such a vain
idea.
“That’s not likely,” I replied, with careful
matter-of-factness. “What I think is that
you’re too brave by half—that you should n’t
have come. Not that I’m expecting trouble,”
I added hastily. “I agree with Ferguson that
these fellows don’t want any more punishment
and will mind their p’s and q’s with us. But
still—”
With my eyes narrowing, I stopped
abruptly, leaning forward and staring before
me. What was it, precisely, that had just hap-
pened in the box above McCloud? The
woman, stirring carelessly, had dislodged a
scarf from the rail; it dropped at the feet of
the young flier; he arose, saluted stiffly, and
extended it. As if to save her even this brief
contact with an American, one of her escorts,
bowing haughtily, advanced and received it,


98 THREE BLACK BAGS
and as McCloud settled into his seat again the
incident apparently closed.
I sat intrigued. Had I seen, or had I
dreamed, a quick, furtive movement of the
boy's fingers, as if he were enveloping some-
thing in the scarf before giving it back? It
was impossible; my wits were wool-gathering.
What connection could he have with these
strangers? Becoming aware that Miss Ivison,
justifiably puzzled, was gazing at me, I turned
my shoulder on the audience and ended my
Sentence.
“But still,” I whispered firmly, scorning
logic, “I’m glad you came!”


IX
HE outstanding feature of it all, as I look
back upon the matter, is the ease with
which I might have cleared up a portion of
the mystery at any time. The clue was in my
hands; one action on my part would have pieced
together various uncorrelated episodes and
precipitated a dénouement; but failing such
procedure I continued in abysmal darkness,
and not until the day after our dinner was I
vouchsafed a gleam of light.
Toward five o’clock in the afternoon I was
lounging in the salon, the house being, for the
moment, deserted by everybody save myself.
Sitting by the great white stove and smoking,
I glanced through a Paris paper that had just
arrived, and that bore the date of the day fol-
lowing my departure from the world's me-
tropolis. The warmth lulled me; so did the
silence. The news was soporific rather than
99


I00 THREE BLACK BAGS
startling. I was hovering on the verge of a
doze when a head-line jerked me back.
“Arabian Nights’ Adventure of an Ameri-
can Officer,” I read, now sitting bolt upright.
“What Happened to Captain Parker of the
A. E. F.?” The article continued:
Those who lament that the ending of the war has
brought in its train a surcease of romance and adventure
may well be cheered by the experience that yesterday
befell Captain Henry Parker in the heart of the fashion-
able quarter of the Etoile.
At ten o'clock last night the attention of Jean Vig-
naud, concierge of the house at 724 Avenue de la Grande
Armée, was attracted by a muffled tapping on the floor
of the room above his own. The noise continued with
such regularity as to suggest a signal or an appeal for
assistance; and as the room in question formed part of a
furnished suite taken recently by an American journalist,
John Gillespie, who had left the house at noon with the
avowed intention of remaining absent overnight, the sus-
picions of the concierge were aroused.
On proceeding to the door of the apartment, he found
it locked. His inquiries, shouted through the panels,
elicited no answer. He therefore entered with his pass-
key, and discovered an American officer sitting bound and
gagged in an arm-chair, engaged in tapping upon the
floor with one foot, which after hours of effort he had
partly freed.
This young man, upon his release, revealed himself
as Henry Parker, an officer who had lately reached Paris
and found quarters at the Hotel du Louvre. According
to his account, he had that morning received a note


THREE BLACK BAGS IOI
signed with the name of John Gillespie, an old acquaint-
ance, suggesting a meeting at the latter's apartment and
a luncheon in the Bois; but on arriving, he was amazed
to have the door opened by a stranger, and yet more
astonished to be greeted by a stunning blow on the head,
inducing temporary unconsciousness, from which he
awoke to find himself bound and helpless in a deserted
room. Strange to say, the roll of bills he carried was
untouched, and his watch and other valuables were left
upon him; but his papers, including a travel-order to
Germany, of which he was to have made use that night,
had disappeared.
To complicate the matter, it has been ascertained that
the real John Gillespie, a journalist of some reputation,
is now and has been for three weeks a guest at a hotel
at Deauville. The tenant of the rooms in the Avenue de
la Grande Armée is, therefore, an impostor; and it would
appear that the apartment was taken and the whole affair
stage-managed with a view to relieving Captain Parker
of his papers, for some purpose that may ultimately be
fathomed but at present is unknown.
The record of the victim of this outrage is of the
highest, Captain Parker having taken part in the St.
Mihiel offensive and received in recognition of his gal-
lantry the Distinguished Service Cross.
Well, here was news, I reflected, as I threw
aside the paper. Part at least of Bellinger's
story was no figment of a disordered brain.
Rising, I began to pace the room with my eyes
fixed upon the carpet, aware that this new de-
velopment had accentuated a restlessness I had


I02 THREE BLACK BAGS
felt all day. “You ought to be glad to lend
a hand. Any American ought. It may mean
life or death for all of us.” The intelligence
man had whispered that, and on the heels of
it he had died mysteriously. Was it really
suicide; and was a man necessarily insane now-
adays because he predicted trouble? Since I
had reached Treves, two impressions had grown
on me steadily—the first, that this Germany,
pictured elsewhere as ravaged by famine and
disentegrated by revolt, still remained oddly
stable; the other, that the smug, cordial faces
these people showed us, their impressive oblig-
ingness, their obstinate amiability, were, in
the very nature of things, too good to be
true.
My ruminations, at this juncture, were in-
terrupted by a voice from the doorway.
“Pardon, sir. Could I speak to the colo-
nel?” it inquired in punctilious form.
Glancing up, I saw that the speaker was
Johnson, Ferguson's orderly. From the little
notice I had taken of him, I was inclined to
like the boy. He was a freckled, flaming-


THREE BLACK BAGS I03
headed young husky, with a ready bearing, a
cheerful face, and a pair of wide-awake eyes,
at present somewhat troubled.
“Well?” I asked.
Looking by no means at his ease, he shifted
from one foot to the other. “It may seem like
butting in, sir,” he stammered. “It sure does
sound like awful rot. I’ll take a chance,
though. I know about the Shock Company
—all us fellows do,-and if anything hap-
pened to the colonel because I’d kept still,
I’d never get over it.”
I looked at him more keenly. What on
earth did this prologue indicate? “Get on
with it, Johnson,” I adjured, flicking the ash
from my cigarette.
“Yes, sir.” He looked as wretched as a
caught chicken-thief. “I wish it did n’t seem
so plumb loony. I’d think I’d gone crazy
and was seeing things, if it was anywheres else
but here. Ain't this a queer place, sir? I'll
say it is. You’ve got a hunch all the time that
these folks’d like to lay for you some dark
night and have your scalp, and yet they keep


104 THREE BLACK BAGS
grinning like a lot of Chessy cats, and acting
like the only thing they wanted was to treat
you swell. You can’t dope them out, hardly.
It gets you leery.”
“It does, rather,” I admitted, amused by
this dash into German psychology. “Now,
you wanted to say ?”
“I wish I’d up and spoken sooner,” he pro-
ceeded conscientiously, “but I could n’t be-
lieve my eyes at first, sir; I kind of thought
I was off my bean. I did take it up with
Colonel Ferguson, but we did n’t make con-
nections, somehow. I guess he thought the
Germans were getting my goat some way, and
he bawled me out to a fare-you-well 95
“I’m not surprised,” I commented drily.
As a raconteur, the boy was a failure; I could
vision Ferguson growing apoplectic in the
effort to extract his tale. Still, there was real
anxiety in his manner and patent honesty in
his harassed eyes. I made a last effort.
“Look here, Johnson,” I commanded.
“You did n’t come in here to give me your
impressions of the German nation; you know


THREE BLACK BAGS 105
better than that. Out with it, now. What’s
wrong?”
“Well, sir, it’s this,” he blurted desperately.
“There’s people trying to get the colonel!
They’re following him when he goes out, and
trying to sneak into the house here—”
“What!” I cried.
“It’s the truth, sir,” he maintained dog-
gedly. “It began when the colonel went to
the theater. I did n’t have but one light burn-
ing, and I guess it looked to them like there
was nobody home and they had their chance.
Anyhow, about half-past nine I heard a funny
scratching noise at the front door. I put up
the window and looked out, and I’m blessed
if I did n’t see three Germans! When they
saw me they began laughing and gargling, and
doing a vaudeville turn like three guys that
had just happened to stop for a talk-fest; but
I’ll bet my back pay they’d been picking the
lock; they left some scratches on the wood.
I yelled at them—it was some yell, too,-and
gee, I’ll say they beat it! There's an M. P.
just around the corner, and I guess they knew


106 THREE BLACK BAGS
there was. That was all for then. But to-day,
when the colonel went to lunch at the Officers’
Club with Lieutenant Sutherland, somebody
followed him 99
My cigarette had burned down to my fin-
gers. I cast it hastily from me. “Don’t be
a damned fool, Johnson!” I exclaimed.
“I know it sounds that way, sir,” he owned,
“but it sure happened. I was leaning out
of the window, watching, and I saw the whole
thing as plain as day. There was a German
on the other side of the street, kind of loiter-
ing, and he let the colonel get about forty feet
ahead and then trailed him. It gave me the
willies, seeing it. I locked the doors, and I
sort of moseyed round every few minutes; and
if anybody’d shown up, I’ll say I was ready!
Then, just as I was quieting down some, I
heard a noise in the colonel’s room—”
“You don’t mean to say,” I asked, staring
at him, “that somebody had got in there?”
“Yes, sir, they had. I made tracks, but they
were too darned smart for me, and by the time
I got the door open there wasn’t hide or hair


THREE BLACK BAGS 107
of any one left. Whoever it was got up from
the garden by the vines, and in and out of the
window; there’s a blind alley back of the
house, and nobody round to see what's hap-
pening.” He flushed brick-red, and in emo-
tional embarrassment tossed the third person
overboard. “Won't you please look out, sir?
It must be that Valençay thing. These
Fritzes know you gave 'em hell there, and now
they think they’ll pay you out. If they could
catch you in a lonesome street, or lay for you
in here with a sand-bag, they’d be tickled to
death. They’d rather knock you on the head
than eat!”
Despite myself, I laughed a little at the
motive thus developed, for I was a victim to
no illusion that I loomed so large in the Ger-
man mind. My amusement was short-lived,
however. Too many queer things were hap-
pening; they annoyed me, they puzzled me.
Unless Johnson had gone crazy, I was being
shadowed, not by Americans who might be
police agents moved by misgivings as to my
possible connection with a fellow-traveler's


108 THREE BLACK BAGS
death, but by Germans! And I had received
reiterated warnings to go escorted and to lock
my door!
I thanked the boy for his revelations and
told him I would think them over. Then, hav-
ing seen him depart elated, I entered my room
and looked about. Whatever had inspired my
visitors, they had left no sign of burglarious
ravages; so far as I could see, everything re-
mained as I had left it, save that my black
bag now lay conspicuously in the center of the
floor.
If my callers had been rummaging through
it, they must have felt distinctly discouraged.
I picked it up, set it on the bed, and opened
it for the first time since I had left the Meurice.
Then I stared, dazed. Good heavens—what
had happened? Had I become a klepto-
maniac? Never in my life, until this moment,
had I set eyes on one of these things!
I scanned the outside of the bag with a con-
centrated suspicion. This netted me nothing;
it was certainly mine—the one I had pur-
chased at Lemáitre's. But since leaving Paris,


THREE BLACK BAGS 109
it had inexplicably acquired a set of ivory fit-
tings, monogrammed in gold, and a heap of
sheer filmy linen trifles, edged with lace and
exquisitely embroidered! From beneath a
charming pink boudoir-cap protruded what
seemed to be a page cut from a weekly paper.
I plucked it forth and, to complete my be-
wilderment, stood confronted with a grumpy-
looking likeness of myself, with my cap pulled
over my eyes and one shoulder turned on the
public, surmounted by the caption: “Colonel
Everett Ramsay, formerly captain of the
Shock Company, snapshotted by our repre-
sentative during a recent leave at Nice.”
As I studied this unsoldierly loot, one fea-
ture was borne in upon me, namely, that the
monogram on the ivory was an L and an I en-
twined. The situation stood clear in a flash.
I remembered that, on our trip from Paris,
Miss Lorraine Ivison had carried a bag like
mine; that we had alighted together at the
Treves station; that we had proceeded in com-
pany to the provost-marshal's. During our
interrogation there our baggage had been


II.0 THREE BLACK BAGS
stacked by the doorway, and undoubtedly in
retrieving it we had unconsciously exchanged
bags.
As a contretemps, the event was trivial.
But its implications—they were momentous!
A warm little glow was born within me; I
seemed to grow a foot at least. Beaming fa-
tuously, I stood pondering the undeniable fact
that Miss Ivison, before ever she had seen me,
had felt sufficient interest in my exploits to
cut that picture from the paper.
“Good old Valençay!” I exclaimed grate-
fully, under my breath.


X:
HEN my beatific trance had broken,
leaving me perhaps semi-rational, it
occurred to me that it was my business to re-
turn this bag at once. At any minute Miss
Ivison, too busy doubtless since her arrival to
set about unpacking, might discover the substi-
tution. I should have seen her shortly, any-
way—with Miss Lamarche and Miss Oliver,
she was to motor out to the dance at Brocken-
dorff with Jerry, Kilbourne, and myself, in
a car obligingly lent by Ferguson; but I de-
cided not to await this meeting. Snapping the
bag shut, I shrugged into my coat, seized my
cap, and ran downstairs.
The Blumenstrasse, when I emerged into
it, was dark already and seemed deserted, but
before I had turned into the Fahrstrasse I
caught the sound of footsteps behind. Glanc-
ing back, I distinguished a civilian figure on
111


II2 THREE BLACK BAGS
the opposite sidewalk. I recalled Johnson's
story. Was it possible that this fellow had
been lurking in some doorway, keeping the
house under surveillance, and that he had
slipped forth and taken up the trail when I
appeared?
I thought of pausing for an interview; then
concluded not to tarry at present. I was too
well satisfied. Let them follow me; let them
search my room—or let the roof fall in! What
did I care? Swinging the black bag and hum-
ming gaily, I turned into the Kornmarkt,
passed the Officers’ Club and the horde of gray
military cars drawn up before it, and pro-
ceeded by the main thoroughfares, which I
found in a holiday humor. Through the after-
noon soft, feathery snowflakes had been
falling steadily, powdering the pavements,
the steps of the houses, the roofs of the
dark old buildings; and now, with whoops
of glee, the boys who had won the war
and overthrown the kaiser were skylarking
to and fro, taking long running slides along
the inviting white expanses, or hurling snow-


THREE BLACK BAGS II3
balls with a precision highly creditable but dis-
tinctly ruinous, while the harassed M. P.’s
strove vainly to maintain a clear space for the
passage of traffic, and groups of Germans
stood fascinatedly watching the antics of their
conquerors, under the obvious impression that
the army of occupation had gone mad.
Having reached the Porta Nigra, I turned
past it into the Nordallee, a street of handsome
residences, dim and stately and remote. Si-
lence, broken only by joyous echoes, settled
about me. Save for an occasional M. P., pac-
ing to and fro, stamping his feet and blowing
on his fingers, I encountered nobody. Hap-
pening to look back, however, I started on per-
ceiving in the glow of a just illuminated arc-
light a slouching form following unostenta-
tiously in my footsteps—either the gentleman
I had noticed in the Blumenstrasse or his
double.
“If I find that fellow when I come out,” I
resolved rather grimly, “he’s due for a chat
with me. I’m tired of being the outsider.
He 'll have to let me in on the joke.”


114 THREE BLACK BAGS
Until requisitioned, the Red Cross house
where Miss Ivison lived had been the residence
of his Honor the mayor. It was impressive;
from a handsome gate, a driveway wound be-
tween tall trees, through a garden set out with
lawns and flower-beds and embellished by a
fountain, to a pillared porte-cochère and a
great square building that beckoned whitely
through the gloom. I ran up the steps and
rang the door-bell with some anticipation. A
neat maid replied to the summons.
“Miss Ivison?” I inquired, thus tactfully
avoiding an excursion into the German tongue.
“Ja wohl, Herr Oberst.” She beckoned me
invitingly forward, and I stepped past her into
a long entrance-hall, lined on either side with
doors. At the further end a staircase de-
scended, and down this Miss Ivison was com-
ing, wearing her hat and overcoat, and carry-
ing a muff in one hand and my black bag in
the other. She looked, I thought, a little pale,
but at sight of me her expression brightened.
“Why, Colonel Ramsay!” she exclaimed,
pausing on the lowest step.
As the maid vanished through a doorway,


THREE BLACK BAGS 115
I came forward to the staircase. I was try- .
ing hard to restrain my eagerness and to pre- .
sent a normal mien. Above all, I told myself,
I must n’t let her get the faintest inkling of
the fact that I had seen that photograph
among her possessions! She would n’t stand
for it; no girl would. In fact, so vividly did
I realize this truth that with strategic craft
I had buried the incriminating sheet at the
very bottom of the heap of fal-lals, where she
would think it had escaped my notice.
“Good afternoon, Miss Ivison,” I began
with outward calmness. “I find I must have
walked off with your bag the other night, and
left you mine.”
The ensuing pause was allowed, it struck
me, to prolong itself a bit unduly, for instead
of answering she stood quite motionless and
stared at me with widening eyes. I felt
slightly chilled. The interview was not
marching along the lines I had imagined. I
had cherished visions of a warm welcome, a
cosy visit in a reception-room, perhaps a social
cup of tea.
“I see that you’ve discovered my coup,”
f


/
II6 THREE BLACK BAGS
I went on, nodding toward the bag she carried.
“Sorry. When I found out, I rushed over
here with the sensations of a thief. I’m out of
luck, though; I’d hoped to get here before
you found out what I’d been up to—” I
broke off abruptly. “What is it, Miss
Ivison?” I exclaimed sharply. “Are you
ill?”
The startled face she turned upon me was
washed of every vestige of color. She was
swaying back against the balustrade, clutch-
ing at it for support. The bewilderment of
her expression had given way to a flash of
terror.
“Do you mean,” she whispered almost in-
audibly, “that this bag belongs to you?”
If the eternal skies had fallen I could hardly
have been more dumfounded, but though well-
nigh convinced that she was crazy I tried vali-
antly to stay sane myself.
“Certainly,” I responded. “We must have
changed bags the night we got here. They are
exact duplicates, you’ll notice. I suppose we
both patronized Lemaitre’s.”


THREE BLACK BAGS 117
Her great dark eyes continued to stare at
me with an effect of absolute horror.
“I just discovered it,” she said, beneath her
breath. “I was going to the provost-marshal's
now.”
“To the provost-marshal's!” I repeated,
more and more puzzled. “Oh, I see—you
meant to leave it until some one claimed it?
Then you did n’t realize it was mine.”
“No. I—I did n’t realize that.” She
crushed herself still further back from me.
“Yours!” she repeated, on a sudden note of
passionate repudiation. “Oh, no! There is
some mistake, Colonel Ramsay. It can’t be
true!”
My bewilderment was slowly merging into
an anger that surprised me. The truth was,
a new force had been working in me, unrecog-
nized even by myself. My acquaintance with
the girl had been brief, but her charm and
beauty had acted swiftly; and moreover, there
had been a certain romantic strangeness, pro-
ductive of quick results, in the scenes of our
meetings—the train that had brought us to a


118 THREE BLACK BAGS
conquered country; the theater where we had
sat surrounded by hundreds of staring, silent
enemies; this house, taken from a German
burgomaster by military force.
My feeling had developed rapidly, begin-
ning with our unlucky journey, increasing
with our last night's talk and her proud little
plea to me not to doubt her courage, warming
amazingly when her bag revealed that she had
taken even a careless, transitory interest in
what I had done. I had come here unreason-
ably elated. The revulsion was overwhelming.
When I spoke again, I was almost startled by
the incisive quality of my accents.
“As you say,” I remarked coolly, “there
seems to be a misunderstanding. Do you mind
telling me just why you rank it as an atrocious
crime to own this bag?”
At the hostility of my rejoinder, her eyes
flashed a scornful, indignant answer; and we
stood confronting each other like enemies, our
glances meeting with a clash. Then she caught
her breath quickly, sharply. Her face re-
mained poignantly distressed, but its anger


THREE BLACK BAGS II9
faded. I felt that she was appealing to me,
trying to master her disbelief.
“I—I’m sorry,” she said hurriedly. “Please
forgive me, Colonel Ramsay. Of course it is
all right; I mean, if this bag is yours, there is
something that—that explains it all. You’ll
tell me later, won’t you? I’m afraid I can’t
talk now.” Her lips quivered as she dropped
my bag at my feet, seized her own from my
paralyzed fingers, and, turning swiftly, sped
up the stairs and vanished from my range of
vision. A door above opened and closed.
Abandoned thus unceremoniously, I stood a
prey to utter bafflement. My impulse was to
pursue her, locate her, and thrash out the mys-
tery to its last word. I knew quite well, how-
ever, that I could n’t indulge my temper to the
point of invading rooms and extorting ex-
planations in this cave-man style. Neither, so
far as that went, could I remain here, sur-
rounded by doors, any one of which might
open forthwith and disgorge a Red Cross
worker to be a witness of my discomfiture! I
shook my fist at the bag on the floor; I may


120 THREE BLACK BAGS
even have kicked it. Then I seized it savagely.
Striding across the hall, and flinging the door
open, I left the house.
The interval of my ill-starred visit had suf-
ficed for the fall of a thicker darkness, and for
the rise of a tiny, wiry breeze that slipped
through my tunic like a knife. My feet
crunched on the light snow powdering of the
drive as I stalked toward the gate. Confound
Raoul de Mericourt, I anathematized. If he
had n’t bought me, practically by force, one of
these infernal bags that seemed as widespread
as the influenza, this would n’t have happened!
As for Miss Ivison, her attitude dazed me.
What on earth was there about this harmless
receptacle to inspire such horror? Barring a
helter-skelter, hit-or-miss, catch-as-catch-can
system of packing, not resulting in too rigid
neatness, the thing was impeccable; I could
have exhibited its contents to the commander-
in-chief in person without fear of conse-
quences.
“I’ll clear this up yet,” I told myself, “or
I’ll know why!”


THREE BLACK BAGS 121
There was a barely perceptible rustling in
the shrubbery ahead of me. Absorbed in my
wrongs, I did not heed it, and no second warn-
ing was vouchsafed. In another instant a
dark form, leaping from the bushes, hurled it-
self forward. What might have been a knock-
out blow just missed my cheek, but the man’s
impetus brought him crashing on me; at the
shock of the collision my feet, slipping on the
snow, flew from under me, and I was thrown
backward with a force that knocked all the
breath out of me and left me half stunned.
My assailant, dropping with me, landed
full on my prostrate body, and before I had
quite recovered my senses his grasp was tight-
ening on my throat. Urged by my few re-
maining wits, I played possum. Relaxing, I
lay inert, as if catapulted into unconsciousness
by my tumble. In a moment, I thought daz-
edly, the fellow would begin hunting for my
watch and money; and then, if I had got back
a modicum of breath in the interval, we should
see what we should see.
Somewhat to my surprise, however, his ac-


I22 THREE BLACK BAGS
tivities took another channel. Convinced ulti-
mately of my state of coma, he released my
windpipe with a last loving squeeze. Then,
swiftly gaining his feet, he whipped out an
electric torch, swept its circle of light to and fro
over the driveway, and, exclaiming gutturally
in triumph, swooped down upon my fallen
bag.
At this epoch, heaven is my witness I held
that bag in no affection. A little earlier, I had
wished fervently never to see the thing again.
Still, to be ambushed, knocked down, and
throttled might have aroused a professional
pacifist or conscientious objector. Leaning
forward, I seized the foot of my plunderer,
and caused him to duplicate my late fall.
We rolled over and over in the snow, inci-
dentally swallowing some of it, while my an-
tagonist attempted desperately to pull a
weapon from his coat. I managed to balk his
amiable designs. Nevertheless, my fall had
befuddled me. When the sound of rapidly
approaching footsteps struck the fear of God
to the fellow's soul, to my disgust I failed to


THREE BLACK BAGS 123
hold him. Putting forth a convulsive effort,
he writhed out of my clutch like an eel, made a
last wild grab, which I blocked, toward the
fallen bag, and was gone in the dark. -
As I scrambled up, bruised and panting
heavily, a second torch came into action, and I
confronted the M. P. from the adjacent cor-
ner, obviously prepared for war.
“Say, what you think you’re doing here?”
he demanded truculently. Then his hand rose
to the salute. “Pardon, sir. Anything
wrong?”
“I should say there was,” I snapped, feeling
gingerly at my collar-bone. “I’ve been leaped
upon, bowled over, wrestled with, and damned
near robbed and murdered in the last two min-
utes. It’s been fairly lively. Let’s be after
that fellow—I want to get him!”
The M. P. looked eager but dubious.
“There’s just about a dozen ways, besides
the gate, that he could slip out of this yard,
sir,” was his verdict. “And it’s a good bet
he's not hanging round here waiting for us to
nab him. He's a mile off by now, and still


124 THREE BLACK BAGS
running. Could the colonel tell me how he
looked?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, trying to recon-
struct an image of the man who had trailed
me. “A German—medium-sized—dressed
pretty shabbily. I never saw his face.”
“We stand a swell chance of getting him on
that!” remarked the M. P. gloomily. “We’d
have to round up about twenty thousand of
these birds. I wish the colonel had sung out
when the scrap started. I heard some sort of
shindy going on, and I came a-running. I try
to keep an eye on this house, but say, it don’t
seem right for the ladies not to have a watch-
man on the premises. It’s taking chances.
Something might happen.”
“They’ll have one,” I announced, “if I live
twenty-four hours longer. I’m going to see
it’s called to the provost-marshal's notice.
Well, good night.”
As I turned homeward I was struggling
with unjustified exasperation. The M. P. had
been all that one could reasonably have asked
of his species; he was watchful, willing, cour-


THREE BLACK BAGS 125
ageous, physically competent to knock down
an ox. I could not expect the military police
to be recruited exclusively from among Sher-
lock Holmeses—intellectual prodigies who
could have cast a glance at the scene of conflict
and deduced the name, age, and present habi-
tat of my assailant. And yet I hated to drop
the matter. I felt I owed that German one!
Gaining my bedroom in the Blumenstrasse,
I scanned myself in a gilded mirror, and found
that save for a slight bruise on one temple I
bore no signs of the recent fray. Placing my
hard-won bag on a chair, I jerked it open.
“Now let’s see just what dark secrets my
life does hold,” I muttered. With that, I saw.
For a moment, my tired brain refused to
cope with the discovery. A few more such
surprises, I told myself dazedly, would leave
me prematurely aged. How many black bags
did the world hold, anyway? It amounted to
a persecution; they followed me everywhere!
This, in outward aspect my Paris purchase,
was no more mine than the one that I had
gleaned such doubtful éclat from restoring to


I26 THREE BLACK BAGS
Miss Ivison. Its contents were remarkable.
Guiltless of garments or toilet accessories, it
was packed with cotton wadding, and on the
top, where the girl had probably dropped it
after extricating it and examining it, lay a
small oval miniature in a gold frame.
I picked up this object of art. Staring at
it, I sat down heavily. A German face was
gazing back at me—a face that I had seen be-
fore. I was not mistaken. I recalled too
clearly those hard, beautiful, imperious fea-
tures, that crown of yellow hair, those
straight-gazing, arrogant blue eyes.
It was the woman who had sat in the box
above McCloud last night at the opera. The
woman to whom he had handed something,
wrapped in the scarf she had let fall.


XI
T was a two hours’ drive from Treves to
Brockendorff, a castle that had seen his-
toric vicissitudes, and that was at present
General Holt's headquarters and the scene of
the dance we were to attend. Owing to the
length of the trip confronting us, we had
agreed to start at half-past six promptly, and
I was still engaged in contemplation of my
amazing find when a tap on the door heralded
Johnson.
“Lieutenant Sutherland's compliments,
sir,” he recited, “and he says the car’s ready,
and will the colonel step in the dining-room
and have a bite before he goes?”
“Say I’ll be there in a minute,” I answered,
pulling myself together. Shutting the bag, I
thrust it hastily out of sight beneath my bed.
As for the miniature, that, I determined,
should accompany me upon my junketing.
127


128 THREE BLACK BAGS
Too many people appeared animated by an
ambition to acquire it, even by robbery or mur-
der, or a tasty combination of both.
I found Kilbourne and Jerry awaiting me—
Ferguson was away for the evening,-and
we had a stirrup-cup and a plate of sandwiches
without the formality of sitting down. Thus
fortified, we fared forth to the Nordallee to
pick up the ladies, and in the course of our
brief transit Jerry imparted some startling
Ile WS.
“By the way, old man,” he announced, “you
might as well unpack and be comfortable.
You won’t get off to-morrow or next day; this
train business is a serious thing. I ran into
Captain Leonard to-day—army intelligence;
friend of mine; a corking fellow—and he told
me several little facts on the quiet. They don't
believe that Bellinger killed himself; they
think it was a snappy, competent murder.”
“They do, eh?” I remarked non-commit-
tally. “Why?” -
“For one thing,” Jerry enlightened me,
“when they searched him they found a pocket-


THREE BLACK BAGS I29
knife. He was stabbed with one, you remem-
ber, and it’s not likely he carried two. Then,
they’ve heard from Paris. It seems this Bel-
linger had a bee in his bonnet about trouble
brewing here in Germany; and as he was a
sort of cross between a stormy petrel and a
wizard, they gave him a free hand and told
him to go to it and run down the thing. Leon-
ard thinks he found out too much and some
one silenced him. I tried to whitewash you,
Everett; I said you killed off half a dozen
Germans every morning before breakfast, but
Americans had escaped your homicidal mania
up to yet. He said he’d thought as much, but
he wants a chat with you to-morrow—thinks
you might help him. It’s darned hard to get
a line on. Man made away with in a closed
compartment; not a sound heard; not a clue
left. Some murder mystery, what?”
Kilbourne emitted an impatient snort by
way of comment. “This German bugbear
they keep raising makes me tired,” he de-
clared. “They overdo it. Last week they had
a story about Prussian officers in civilian


130 THREE BLACK BAGS
clothes circulating here and at Coblenz, call-
ing on the people to rise and put us out, and
bring back the emperor. Bring back your
grandmother!” he exclaimed, with healthy
skepticism. “There’s as much chance of one
as of the other. Well, here we are!”
As we hurtled up the driveway, the scene of
my recent Waterloo, I recalled grimly how
much pleasure I had anticipated from this
jaunt. The afternoon had changed all that.
When three figures, so muffled as to have lost
all outward semblance to Miss Lamarche and
Miss Ivison and Miss Oliver, emerged to join
us, I greeted and took leave of them simul-
taneously.
“We are one too many,” I announced.
“I’ll sit with the driver,” and with an air of
sacrificing myself to the general good, I took
the vacant seat outside.
I congratulated myself upon my strategem
as we glided from the porte-cochère. Time to
cogitate was what I needed, and this trip
would give me my chance. Reflecting that I
was in a position to astonish Captain Leonard


THREE BLACK BAGS I31
to-morrow, I decided to correlate recent hap-
penings for clear presentation. Folding my
arms, I leaned back, and was lost in thought.
The complication of the three black bags
was, on its surface, sufficiently commonplace:
a mere chain of untoward little occurrences
treading thick and fast on each other's heels.
Entangled with these contretemps, however,
there was something blacker, something more
ominous. Already, in the ramifications of the
business, a man had lost his life.
“I’ll put two and two together,” I deter-
mined reasonably. “First, those bags. For
five minutes there were three of them, just
alike, in the compartment of that train in the
Gare de l’Est. The confusion dates from
then, of course. To be sure, Miss Ivison and
I exchanged our traps here at Treves, at the
provost-marshal's; but it’s plain enough that
some one else had changed bags with me be-
fore that time.
“Well, that is n’t hard to fathom. It could
only have been one person—the fellow who
impersonated Parker and was taken off the


I32 THREE BLACK BAGS
train. He came in after I did; he sat next me;
and I remember that he took the deuce and all
of a time to arrange his baggage. The rack
was just above my head, so I could n’t follow
his activities, and he must have deliberately
put his bag with my suit-case and mine with
his. .
“Why should he have done that, though?
He hatched the scheme on the spur of the mo-
ment; unless he was the seventh son of a sev-
enth son, he could n’t have foreseen that I’d be
in the compartment, convenient to his purpose.
with a black bag! Did he know the M. P.'s
were after him—and had he a confederate
whom he trusted to get the bag away from me
before I opened it? The exchange was known
to somebody, for ever since I got here people
have been trying, by fair means and foul, to
have the thing; it was only the second ex-
change, which they did n’t know about, that
baffled them until this evening. All right. The
fellow had no chance to tell an accomplice
what he’d done—so one saw him do it. Now
then, who was in the compartment at the time


THREE BLACK BAGS I33
it transpired? Nobody but myself and young
McCloud.
“McCloud! By Jove!”
The wind was shrieking in my ears as if to
deride my labored reasoning. Treves, by this
time, lay far behind us; we were on a lonely
country road. Through the heavy, brooding
blackness our lamps, piercing like acetylene
eyes, picked out now a rude little village with
lights like glimmering pin-points, now a
stretch of river with dark German barges ly-
ing at their moorings, now dense woods, now
frozen meadows. The road, narrow, winding,
and snowy, was deserted for the most part, but
at rare intervals we glimpsed some figure
plodding sullenly along in the shadows, and
twice, out of the night, a huge lumbering
wagon loomed suddenly on us, causing us to
swerve to the right with startling velocity as
we flew past.
There was something weird and wild in our
hurtling flight through the darkness, our un-
challenged passage across a country so lately
conquered, so easily held. A little while ago,


134 THREE BLACK BAGS
this had been an unknown land, cut off, barri-
caded, guarded so jealously that we lacked all
knowledge of what passed within it. The
change, instead of reassuring me, disturbed
me vaguely. It seemed too rapid, too com-
plete.
“The only other possible suspect,” I re-
sumed my argument, “is Captain Harris.
Now I think of it, he met me on the stairs at
the hotel, and wanted to carry down my bag.
Still, he could n’t have eloped with it beneath
my eyes; and he was n’t in the compartment
when the bags were shuffled. No, it’s Mc-
Cloud—and there’s his night sally into my
room at the Bahnhof and his behavior at the
opera to clinch the thing!”
My suspicions, crystallizing definitely, fast-
ened themselves upon the aviator, and re-
vealed him as a masquerader whose shattered
nerves were a clever blind. That night, when
the lights were out, had he left his seat to ex-
tract the miniature from the bag above me?
Had Bellinger detected the manoeuver, and
had he murdered Bellinger to escape retribu-


THREE BLACK BAGS 135
tion? Had he stolen into my room at the hotel
to make another effort? Appearances were
against him. Well, to-morrow, bright and
early, I would turn over the incriminating bag
to the authorities, with a concise account of his
activities; if he could explain them satisfac-
torily, so much the better for him!
“It’s a queer go,” I mused, “the whole of
it. I’ve been a regular storm-center.
Alarums and excursions; people shadowing
me; people breaking into my room; people
garroting me by night! And then, those
anonymous warnings! Who the dickens sent
them to me?” I paused to touch my battered
temple with cautious, reminiscent fingers.
“By Jove, whoever it was tried to do me a
good turn!” I owned.
The country over which we were hastening
had become mountainous and savage, and our
road now wound precariously upward between
snow-laden firs and pines. Our young driver,
a confirmed fatalist apparently, displayed a
disdain for slippery surfaces and a light-
hearted indifference to corkscrew curves that,


I86 THREE BLACK BAGS
at this juncture, wrung a scream from Miss
Oliver.
“Take it easy,” I cautioned sharply, as we
skidded toward a steep declivity.
“Yes, sir,” he assented, respectful but in-
jured, as if surprised by the request.
The wild loneliness of the scenery, hanging
over us like a menace, seemed to lend my
vague premonitions a sudden concrete form.
A plot had been formed; an apartment had
been secured at Paris, a spurious journalist
installed as its occupant, for the purpose of
entrapping some officer bound for Germany
and securing his papers; a man who had got
wind of the affair had been made away with
before he could clog its workings. What
had been the end and aim of this deadly,
well-planned business? Simply, it seemed,
the Smuggling of a miniature across the
lines!
I drew out the baffling thing, held it cupped
in my hand, and studied it, recalling my brief
glimpse at the opera of the woman it por-
trayed. She had left a singular impression


THREE BLACK BAGS 137
with me. There had been a threat beneath her
splendor.
“Where does she come in on this?” I won-
dered, with a thrill.
The talk and laughter from behind, drift-
ing to me in echoed snatches, were like a mock-
ery of the presentiment that was fastening on
my brain. I realized that I stood apart in
harboring such intuitions. For most Ameri-
cans, all possibilities of trouble had come auto-
matically to an end on November 11. With
national inability to harbor a grudge and char-
acteristic readiness to let bygones be bygones,
we already recalled more dimly the deliberate
conflagration of war, the systematic scheme of
terror, the whole amazing plan of conquest
that had failed so narrowly. Well, before the
Sicilian Vespers, the French had hunted and
danced and feasted; the English had smiled
at the writing on the wall before the outbreak
of the Sepoy mutiny. Through all the ages,
conquerors in occupied countries had slept a
triumphant, dreamless sleep—and awakened
to hear a tocsin ringing. Were we on the


138 THREE BLACK BAGS
brink of a crumbling precipice, all of us? Miss
Ivison, too,
Miss Ivison! I straightened angrily. Why
should I pick her out to fret over, when she
had paid me the shabby compliment of sus-
pecting me at the first test? She had looked
distressed to-night—had sent me an appealing
glance as I helped her into the car; but I was
not mollified; the wound still rankled. In jus-
tice to myself, I would clear up matters with
her this evening, but after that I would drop
our acquaintance as definitely as I could.
Lights, gleaming from the blackness, broke
off my bitter cogitations. We climbed a hill,
sped up an avenue flanked by terraces, and
passed beneath an old stone gate, carved with
a battered coat of arms. The castle loomed
before us, towered and battlemented, shining
a welcome; and a blare of music, extremely
jazz in character and not unreminiscent of the
violent clashing of tin pans, saluted my ears
inspiritingly as I sprang from my perch and
turned to assist the ladies.
“Not much here to suggest danger,” I


THREE BLACK BAGS I39
thought, following the others through the huge
doorway.
Inside, the first person my eyes encountered
was Lieutenant Wesley McCloud.


XII
F my mood had been more festive, I should
have enjoyed the dance at Brockendorff,
for I must pay General Holt the tribute of
saying that he did us well. The superb stage-
setting made his task easy. When, having
shed our wrappings upstairs, we descended to
receive a hospitable welcome in the baronial
hall, we were dazzled by lights galore, oak
floors polished to a satin smoothness and be-
strewn with bear-skins, and walls adorned with
boars’ heads, medieval weapons, and imposing
family portraits; while to complete the scene
of revelry, great green branches were fes-
tooned everywhere, a gigantic American flag
displayed its silken folds from the gallery, and
a military band, commandeered for the even-
ing and installed in a bower of foliage, exe-
cuted popular selections with enthusiasm and
140


THREE BLACK BAGS 141
furnished encore after encore with tireless
VerWe.
As I watched the laughing groups that had
gathered from all the places between Treves
and Coblenz, I felt as if we were assisting at
some new species of masquerade. Under these
old walls, our costumes seemed a strange ana-
chronism; for, needless to say, the men were
one and all attired in khaki, while the girls,
according to regulations, had eschewed fur-
belows and fallals, and wore the blue, V-
necked linen aprons that were their working
outfit, adorned with wide cuffs and collars of
white, and topped with sheer, white, floating
veils.
This ball-room garb, while somewhat un-
usual, was most becoming to all its wearers,
though Miss Oliver declared with laughing
pique that it made her feel like a kitchen-maid.
As for Miss Ivison, she was unreasonably
lovely in it. As she stood surrounded by of-
ficers, her white-coifed head outlined against
the panels, her hair seemed a bluer black, her
eyes larger and darker than ever. I resented


142 THREE BLACK BAGS
my appreciation; I tried to pry my gaze away;
but it always came back to her. Moreover, I
saw that other glances were similarly drawn.
The gaiety and sparkle around me might,
by degrees, have raised my spirits, had they not
remained irritated by the behavior of Mc-
Cloud. With this young man, I soon found
myself engaged in a game of hide-and-seek.
On my descent, he had started to join me,
whereupon I had turned my back and attached
myself to a group; and despite this snub, I saw
that, like a ghost of Banquo troubling the
feast, he was stalking me from pillar to post
when I moved and hovering on the outskirts
when I became stationary, with the obvious in-
tention of buttonholing me the instant he
could catch me alone.
At one stage of our acquaintance he had
managed to enlist my sympathies, but in the
light of recent developments I had experi-
enced a change of heart. I would give him a
wide berth, I determined. The dancing hav-
ing now commenced, the hall was fast becom-
ing deserted, and, caught in the exodus, I


THREE BLACK BAGS 143
drifted down the corridor to the ball-room, ac-
complishing the transit side by side with an
aide of the general's.
“Fairly snug quarters, I should say,” I
commented, scrutinizing the tapestry on the
walls.
“They’re all of that,” he agreed emphati-
cally. “We’re in luck to have this place for
brigade headquarters. When I think of the
mud-hole I lived in last autumn, I give you my
word I rub my eyes. The Count von Brock-
endorff and his family—they own the castle,
you know—are all right, too; a mighty decent
sort, for Germans.”
At the moment, my mood was such that this
glowing tribute left me chilly. “They are, are
they?” I inquired with no great enthusiasm.
“Along what lines?”
“Oh, I mean the way they’ve treated us.”
He fairly beamed appreciation. “They
haven’t been able to do enough for us from
the time we struck this place. They put the
whole castle at our disposal; they offered us
the fruit from their hot-houses and the wine


144 THREE BLACK BAGS
from their cellars. Why, when we were get-
ting ready for this dance, the countess brought
in all these flowers from the conservatory—”
“Very nice of them,” I agreed drily. “In
fact, a little too nice, is n’t it? Considering
everything, I should think our uniforms and
that flag draped in their gallery would n’t be
just what they’d enjoy!”
The young aide laughed good-naturedly.
“They may not love us, at that,” he admitted,
“but they’ve got to stand for us. Then, it’s
worth their while being on good terms. The
countess has a sister at Treves, an invalid, and
if she wants to go and spend a few days with
her she can get a pass without any trouble.
One of the daughters came back just this af-
ternoon from a little visit there Here we
are,” he broke off eagerly. “Now for the
fray!”
The last word, I soon discovered, had been
selected with descriptive acumen, for there
were two hundred men in the big ball-room,
and something less than thirty girls. Under
these unequal auspices, the ladies passed a


THREE BLACK BAGS 145
strenuous evening, and lucky was the man who
won himself the attenuated fragment of a
dance.
Wedged against the wall, surrounded by a
horde of rivals, I watched my chances, and se-
cured a turn about the room with Miss Oliver
and part of a one-step with Miss Lamarche.
With two other girls, whose names I was fated
never to know, I enjoyed brief interludes.
Then I undertook what I considered the real
business of my evening. As the strains of the
“Missouri Waltz” rose and fell in dreamy ca-
dences, I halted Miss Ivison and Jerry by tap-
ping the latter on the arm.
He did not welcome my apparition. “Have
a heart, old man!” he protested. “She’s just
declined for the eighth time to marry me, and
I’m urging her to think again. I say, do you
know what my idea of heaven is, after these
dances? It’s a ball where there’ll be fifty
beautiful girls and I’ll be the only man in
captivity, and they’ll all tag me. Some para-
dise! Well, so-long.”
He dived hastily for another partner, and


I46 THREE BLACK BAGS
we glided off to the strains of the music. This
waltz, for me, had been a mere pretext, yet I
found myself falling under its spell. Our
steps matched perfectly; the dreamy notes and
the smoothness of the floor blended in delicious
fashion; Miss Ivison, one of the dancers that
are born, not made, floated in my clasp as
light as thistledown, her lashes hiding her eyes,
her face half averted. It was a dance, I
acknowledged grudgingly, to remember for a
life-time, but I harked back to my sense of in-
jury and freed myself from the enchantment.
“If you’ll let me,” I announced in business-
like tones, “I want to speak to you.”
She displayed no surprise at the proposal.
“Of course,” she assented quietly. “Let us
go into the hall.”
I guided her toward the door, then stopped
dancing, and covered her retreat down the cor-
ridor, pursued by yells of reproach and protest
from a number of alert young men. The hall
was quite deserted. Miss Ivison sat down
upon a couch of Cleopatra-like aspect, piled
with cushions; but I did not take the place be-


THREE BLACK BAGS 147
side her. My resentment, lulled temporarily
by our perfect waltz, was awake again and in
full possession.
“I’m sorry to bother you about this,” I be-
gan concisely. “I’ll try to be as brief as pos-
sible. This afternoon, when I got home, I’
opened the bag you gave me, and discov-
ere 95
“No. Please wait,” the girl broke in.
Her voice was low, but it was imperative.
Checked in mid-career, I stood and listened.
She was sitting rather tensely erect, looking at
me half proudly, half pleadingly, with her
hands clasped tight together and her eyes very
large and bright.
“There is n’t anything,” she declared, “for
you to tell me. But—I must tell you some-
thing. I had opened that bag this afternoon,
just a few minutes before you came. I recog-
nized the face in the miniature. It was the
German woman who sat opposite us last night
at the opera. She kept looking across at you;
don’t you remember? To find her picture,
alone in a bag, made it seem as if some one


I48 THREE BLACK BAGS
was dealing with the Germans, intriguing with
them—”
“Yes,” I supplied with unfriendly suavity,
as she paused. “So you thought it was I.”
“No, no, I did n’t,” she denied quickly. “I
never thought of you or of any one. I
could n’t conceive how my bag had vanished,
or how this other had taken its place. Then,
as I was starting for the provost-marshal's, I
met you, and you said that we had exchanged
bags and that this was yours. It was like a
blow. I could n’t think clearly 55
Her low, distressed voice demolished my de-
fenses. Abruptly, ignominiously, I made my
surrender. As I sat down by her, I felt ve-
hemently convinced of several things: that she
should n’t be apologizing to me or to any-
body; that I ought to be kicked for letting her;
that I was a brute, devoid of chivalry.
“Please don't,” I begged abjectly. “It’s as
plain as possible; any one but a fool would
have seen your side of it. Why, I might have
been anything—a German masquerading as
an American officer, for all you knew. How
could you tell?”


THREE BLACK BAGS 149
She halted me with a proud little gesture.
“No,” she commanded. “You must listen! It
was n’t natural—it was abominable; and I
won’t let it rest that way! I can make you
understand if you’ll let me explain a little.
Won't you?”
“I suppose I will,” I said ruefully, “if you
insist. But I’ll feel like—well, say the lowest
order of animal life, or a microbe. Can't you
let me off?”
She smiled faintly, but she persisted. There
was a great green branch of fir on the wall be-
side her. As she spoke again her eyes rested
on it and her fingers played with it, and it cast
little, flickering, dusky shadows on her blue
dress, her white throat, her bent, lovely head.
“It’s not easy,” she began, “to put into
words. Of course, we all of us love our coun-
try. I don’t love it more than any one else;
but perhaps I’ve thought about it more. It has
been—a sort of religion with me. So many of
my people have worked for it. We live in
Washington now, but we were Virginians, and
my grandfather still owns the house on the
James River that belonged to us in colonial


*I50 THREE BLACK BAGS
days. I used to spend my summers there with
him. The old swords and pistols are on the
walls, and the pictures of the men who wore
them; one was a colonial governor, and one
signed the Declaration, and one was on Wash-
ington's staff. I’ve loved to think about them,
always. All my life I’ve wished I could do
something—such things as they did—for
America.”
“I understand.”
There was a soft glow in her eyes. “Yes.
I knew you would,” she murmured. “I have
no brothers, so when the war began I came
myself, and did what I could. It was very lit-
tle, but I loved it. When the armistice was
signed, my family wanted me to come home,
but I begged for three months more and came
to Germany. I did that because—well, I felt
it was n’t the end yet; the war seemed to have
finished too soon; nothing seemed really set-
tled. And since I’ve been at Treves, I’ve felt
that more than ever. There is something in
the air about us—a sense of waiting, of being
threatened.”


THREE BLACK BAGS I51
“It’s there, right enough,” I owned, staring
at the floor.
“I’ve felt it in the streets,” she whispered,
“when I’ve looked around at the German faces
—and in the house where we live, too, when
the German servants are in the room. I’m
not afraid—you’ll believe that, won’t you?—
but I think that we’ve forgotten too quickly.
They’re not like us; they don’t forgive. It
seems like madness to be dancing and laugh-
ing here—” She caught her breath and
stopped for a moment. “Well, to-day, the
bag and the picture seemed to fit into this—
this nightmare. Then you claimed them, and
I believed you. I was so shocked I did n’t
reason—”
“Look here,” I interposed with determina-
tion. “We thrashed that part of it out be-
fore!”
“There’s one other thing,” she insisted.
“You must let me say it. I want to tell you
why I was so horrified when I believed the bag
was yours. It was because I’d thought of
you as having been—yes, heroic, splendid! Of


152 THREE BLACK BAGS
course I know about Valençay; every one
does. It’s the sort of thing I used to dream
about in those summers in Virginia. We’re
all proud of you for it, Colonel Ramsay. All
of us—at home and here!”
Her clear voice shook the merest trifle, and
her fingers clasped each other tightly, but she
kept her white-coifed head unlowered and her
wide, dark, misty eyes on mine. Her color
had risen; her lips were parted. All in a
breath, she was proud, generous, eager, plead-
ing—and lovely to a point that set my brain
spinning. It was her amende, a royal one. I
bent toward her with my pulses leaping.
“By Jove!” I exclaimed. “That’s worth
twenty war medals, Miss Ivison! I don’t de-
serve a word of it, but I’ll never forget it.
You can be eternally sure of that!”
Already the great moment was over. She
laughed unsteadily and drew away from me.
“I wanted you to understand,” she finished
hurriedly, with averted eyes. “It’s because I
love America and feel bound up with her that
I’ve been so anxious—suspicious even


THREE BLACK BAGS 153
About the miniature,” she digressed hastily.
“Where is it now?”
Hang the miniature! The change of sub-
ject was the last thing I wanted; but I did n’t
dare press her; I might spoil everything. Re-
signing myself to a policy of waiting, I tapped
my tunic.
“It’s here, for to-night,” I enlightened her.
“To-morrow morning I’ll turn it in.”
She shivered almost imperceptibly. “I’m
foolish, I suppose,” she murmured. “I do
wish, though, that you were n’t carrying it; I
feel as if—as if you were n’t safe. I’ve been
thinking it all out. The bag belonged to the
man who was arrested in the Gare de l’Est,
did n’t it? But in that case, you may be fol-
lowed! Have you noticed anything wrong?”
I had indeed, but as I did n’t mean to alarm
her further on my account I shook my head.
“Not a thing,” I denied reassuringly. “Every-
thing’s been as right as rain. Besides, their
game’s up now, since we’ve opened the bag!”
“That would make them still more despe-
rate, would n’t it?” Her eyes came back to


154 THREE BLACK BAGS
me, very dark and anxious. “Colonel Ram-
say, I’ve been wondering if the death of that
poor man on the train was mixed up with this!
If it was, you may be in just as much danger.
I have the strangest feeling to-night—a pre-
sentiment almost. And this castle seems the
very place for things to happen; it is so big
and gloomy and dark and threatening—”
“I’m fairly able-bodied,” I laughed. “The
jinx might fall on the fellow who tackled me.
Anyhow, the place is full of Americans, and if
necessary I’ll yell for help!”
Her eyes were clouded, but she laughed
gaily. “It’s foolish of me,” she repeated.
Much to my regret—I liked this confab—she
slipped from the couch and stood erect. “Still,
Colonel Ramsay, will you promise me some-
thing?” Impulsively she came a step closer.
“Will you turn over that miniature, the very
first thing to-morrow, to whoever ought to
have it? And in the meantime, will you go
nowhere alone, and watch everywhere for dan-
ger, and be careful—very careful?”
“I will,” I declared. “I give you my word


XIII
- AVING watched the pair depart for the
ball-room, I did not follow them imme-
diately, but resumed my seat upon the couch
in an astonishingly cheerful mood. The world,
which had recently been jet-black, was now
rose-colored. My emotions had flip-flapped
and somersaulted till they were changed be-
yond recognition. I had entered the hall re-
served, chilling in my dignity, a very ramrod
for military stiffness; and now, scarcely ten
minutes later, with a lordly scorn for that
jewel consistency, I sat beaming foolishly and
thanking high heaven that the late unpleasant-
ness had taken place.
There had been a potent magic in the appeal
the girl had made me, in her low voice, in her
high-held head, in the light of her eyes, aglow
with dreams. She had been beautiful, ador-
able; and much, much more. Eager and ar-
156


THREE BLACK BAGS 157
dent, she had put in every word and breathed
from every fiber the love of country that so
many feel and so few express openly. It was
a sentiment, I knew by instinct, too deep for
her to uncover often; and I hugged the bliss-
ful realization that she had poured it out to
me. -
My spirits fizzed and rocketed skyward, but
I called them sternly back to sanity. She
did n’t care two straws about me; she was
proud and generous, that was all. Under the
same circumstances, I assured myself relent-
lessly, she would have made as full amends to
any buck private or K. P., whose very name
she did n’t know. And yet, an insinuating
whisper persisted in demanding, would she?
Would n’t there have been a subtle difference?
It was base of me; but, recalling her distress
at the dangers my possession of the miniature
might entail, for the life of me I could n’t help
formulating a hypothesis and toying with a
query. Suppose that, instead of minimizing
my late adventures, I had volunteered a
graphic account of them. What would the re-


158 THREE BLACK BAGS
sult have been? How far might her concern
have gone?
In the background of my elated conscious-
ness, an unwelcome recollection awakened, and
augmented rapidly and with startling painful-
ness, like a growing twinge in a doubtful
tooth. Jerry Sutherland! How well did she
know him? How much interest did she take
in him? She must like him; no one could help
it. He had everything—good looks, charm,
irresponsible high spirits, a grin as exhilarat-
ing as a cocktail. For a moment, fond as I
was of him, I felt irritably that the fate which
had bestowed such gifts, and thrown in the
concrete advantages of a Fifth Avenue house, .
a country place, a yacht, family jewels well
and favorably known even in Gotham, and an
income that would make him a shining target
should the red day of the Bolshevists ever
dawn on us, had done too much!
Beneath the goad of these ruminations, I
rose slowly from among the cushions, and my
eyes, shifting with the movement, fell on the
gallery above. The effect of what I saw was


THREE BLACK BAGS 159
hypnotic. If my first glance had been blank,
my second was frozen. The flag draped on
the wall had been lifted at one end; a door
yawned back of it; and Was I dream-
ing? Or was that the lady of my miniature,
leaning from the opening and looking down?
For an instant, she shone from the dim re-
cess like a figure in a shadowy tapestry. I
caught the blue gleam of the eyes she fixed on
me, the gold glimmer of her hair, the green
of her gown. I had time to wonder at the al-
most fierce intentness of her scrutiny. Then
she drew back; the flag dropped, hiding her;
she was gone like a ghost. I gasped and acted
simultaneously. An old oak staircase with a
heavy carved balustrade led majestically to
the gallery, and I had reached it and was
springing up it before the silken folds had
ceased to sway.
Arriving breathless at the top, I raised the
flag and seized the door-knob. It yielded
promptly to my pressure, and without hesita-
tion I stepped inside. Darkness confronted
me, but I whipped out my electric torch and


I60 THREE BLACK BAGS
shed a spectral light on my surroundings. I
was in a long, paneled passage, with a door at
either end and a door in the center; and I was
alone in it! By which exit my quarry had
vanished, there was nothing in the world to
show.
The net result of my reaction was that I
doubted my own eyesight. Swearing softly, I
assured myself that this obsession had got to
stop. The woman was becoming a hallucina-
tion; I saw her everywhere. Because I had
encountered her at a Treves theater and in a
picture of as yet unexplained potentialities de-
spatched from Paris, I now identified her with
some harmless member of this household and
assumed that she had annihilated time and
space for the sake of popping out at me. Well,
unless she was the Flying Dutchman's wife,
or a German replica of the Wandering Jew, it
could n’t be done!
The dim gallery and a chance resemblance
must have conspired to deceive me. I had
seen, perhaps, one of the count's daughters,
peering down at the conquerors' ball. After


THREE BLACK BAGS I61
all, there were such necessities as travel-passes
for Germans living in occupied territory; peo-
ple did n’t journey here and there at their own
sweet will; the same woman could n’t be in
Treves one evening, at Brockendorff twenty-
four hours later Aha! Could n’t she,
though? My bit of chat with the general's
aide flashed back on me with new significance.
Had n’t he said that the countess had a sister
at Treves, that the family paid her frequent
visits, in fact that one of the daughters had
returned to-day from a sojourn there?
With a sudden cool, elated clarity, I seized
upon this clue and followed it. The Brocken-
dorffs! They had an old title; their Prussian-
ism must be bred in the bone. Adherents un-
doubtedly of the kaiser, steeped through and
through with Junker traditions, probably
cherishing the memory of a son or two lost in
the war, they yet welcomed us cordially and
professed friendship, did they? Such behavior
was more suggestive of early Christian mar-
tyrs than of modern Germans. From the first,
when I had formed a vicarious acquaintance


I62 THREE BLACK BAGS
with them through the aide's description, they
had struck me as being just a little too good
for this wicked world.
I extinguished my torch and repocketed it,
and turned decisively to leave the passage. I
had no authority to arrest the woman; I would
not put her on her guard. Instead, to my re-
port of to-morrow—a communication that was
attaining unexpected scope—I would add the
identity of the pictured lady and the fact that,
equipped with a plausible pretext, she was cir-
culating freely about the country. If they
could n’t make good with the data I offered,
the intelligence men ought to lose their jobs!
In this castle, one thing led to another; there
was no rest allowed for the weary. When I
emerged from my seclusion, I collided fair and
square with Lieutenant McCloud. As he
reeled back, clutching at the folds of the flag,
breathing in short, quick, painful gasps and
staring at me with dilated eyes, his appearance
would have shocked a physician. I stopped
short. The coincidence of his presence at this
door, at this special juncture, seemed worth
considering.


THREE BLACK BAGS I63
“So it’s you, is it?” I inquired, with some
grimness.
“Yes. It’s me, all right,” he panted. “And
you’re in luck that it’s nobody worse!”
Without pondering this cryptic utterance, I
motioned him imperatively forward, and he
trailed weakly down the staircase, like a crim-
inal preceding a guard. Beneath a mask of
impassivity, I felt a thrill. He had been
bound for a rendezvous; of that I was certain.
And—he did n’t strike me as an iron-nerved
gambler, prepared to risk his life on the fall
of the cards, accept what came, and keep his
mouth shut! Taking in, with a sharp glance,
his limpness, the twitching of his lips, and the
feverish glitter of his eyes, I was inspired to
wonder if a touch of third-degree methods
might not wring a confession out of him and
result in the solving of the entire mystery at
one fell swoop. It was worth a shot, I deter-
mined. As we reached the hall, I addressed
him crisply.
“Your game's up,” I informed him. “If I
were you, I’d stick to the ball-room. In that
case, you may get through the evening without


I64 THREE BLACK BAGS
being publicly arrested, but if you try to visit
that gallery again you’ll leave here in hand-
cuffs. Understand?”
The boy had staggered beneath the impact.
Now he rallied and laughed, though shakily.
“What’s the joke, anyhow, sir?” he gasped,
swallowing. “I don’t get the idea!”
“You would n’t, naturally!” I retorted. I
was studying him with contemptuous coolness.
“That explains why your knees are knocking
together, and your teeth rattling like a lot of
castanets, eh? You’ve picked the wrong
game, McCloud; you can’t play it. This sort
of thing is damned chancy and calls for nerve
all along the line, and you have n’t any. If
you go on like this, you’ll die of heart-failure
before you ever see a court martial—”
McCloud was backing against the wall now.
His face was greenish white; his eyes seemed
to fill it.
“What’re you talking about?” he croaked
defiantly. “Court martial? Say, have you
gone crazy? You can’t bring a charge on
earth against me, and you know it. Nobody
can!”


THREE BLACK BAGS I65
“I can’t?” Inwardly, I was exulting; this
was going to be too easy! All I had to do was
to press him sharply, drive in my accusations,
and he would break. “You’re not what I’d
call a good life-insurance risk. I’ve seen men
shot at sunrise on less evidence! Let’s run
over it: To begin with, I come across you on
a train where a man gives up the ghost under
suspicious circumstances—”
McCloud, with a convulsive shudder, raised
one arm and buried his face in it. “For the
Lord's sake,” he wailed shrilly, “let up on
that! I can see him now. It’s driving me
Wild!”
“Next,” I pursued relentlessly, “you come
snooping into my room at the Bahnhof, wan-
dering around in the dead of night and not
taking the trouble to knock at the door! When
I catch you in the act, you collapse on my bed
and ask for my pocket flask. The flask you
wanted was the bag I brought on from Paris,
was n’t it?” I shot out sharply.
He wet his lips. “Have it your own way,”
he muttered, with a feint at bravado. “Any-
thing else?”


I66 THREE BLACK BAGS
“Yes.” I was letting my gaze bore into him.
“There’s another queer little coincidence. I
suppose you know, like all the rest of us, that
fraternization is an offense? Just the same,
you risked punishment last night at the opera
by communicating with the lady in the box
over you—”
“I did n’t,” he denied in a whisper, his eyes
shifting. “I swear I did n't!”
“— and now,” I concluded, hammering it
in, “I find you visiting a castle where I’ve lo-
cated the same woman. It hangs together
fairly well. I fancy I’ve a pretty clear notion
what you were after, up in the galle 53
“Yes,” he cut in, with a high, hysterical
cackle. “You’ve got a fine notion! I was up
there for the same reason I came to Brocken-
dorff to-night—to see you!”
Of all conceivable last-ditch ruses, here was
certainly the most ridiculous. I laughed
shortly. “That the best you can think of?
It’s not good enough,” I said.
“It’s the truth, though.” For the first time
in our colloquy, his manner had become con-


THREE BLACK BAGS 167
vincing, and his gaze had stopped its shifty
veering and fastened steadily on mine. In this
guise, he had an odd appeal; with his blond
hair disheveled, and his eyes imploring me, he
looked more like a youngster in a scrape than
a potential murderer and traitor. “I—I
thought you’d be here. I’ve got to speak to
you 99
“It’s no use, McCloud,” I snapped. I was
recalling that I had been done out of some
genuine sympathy, two nights before, by his
clever acting. “I’ve opened that bag and got
the goods on you. Face the music, now—”
“Face hell!” the boy cried angrily. “You’re
way off; it’s not me—it's you! I came here
to tell you to quit taking crazy chances, unless
you want to commit suicide—”
“What?” I exclaimed.
“I did, I tell you!” His voice was shaking;
if he was not sincere, the stage was his métier.
“A friend of mine, an aviator that knows you,
says he saw you to-night, out alone, after dark!
Don’t you know they’re after you? They
watch you all the time, and they follow every


168 THREE BLACK BAGS
step you take, and you go around as bold as
brass! Talk about murder—you’ve been ask-
ing for it; I don’t see how they’ve missed you
this long! You say you’ve found that picture.
Well, why don’t you turn it in? Have you
gone dotty? I’ll bet you’ve got it here to-
night; and say, what were you doing in that
passage?” A flash of terror crossed his face.
“I saw you going in, and I started after you,
but gee, my legs would n’t hold me! When
I saw you coming out alive I did n’t believe
it. I thought they had you that time, sure!”
Standing spellbound, listening in astonish-
ment to this extraordinary outburst, I had the
feeling that the solid floor was turning over
beneath my feet. The last thing I had ex-
pected at the present crisis had been a warn-
ing.
“You seem to know a good deal about this,
for an innocent person,” I remarked.
His eyes veered again as he backed away.
“You can’t mix me up in it,” he maintained
shrilly. “You have n’t any proof except what
I’ve told you, and I can deny that, up and


THREE BLACK BAGS 169
down. I knew I’d better keep still; it’s not
my funeral; but I—I could n’t. They’d have
got you, sure as shooting!” He was shiver-
ing, and his voice had sunk. “They’ll be get-
ting desperate: they’ll do anything. You’ve
found that picture and you’ll turn it in to-
morrow. Well, that leaves them this evening,
and the drive home, and the night at your
house; and take it from me, you’ll hear from
them! If you want to be alive in the morning,
you keep some one in your room with you to-
night, and lock your door!”
The last words struck a chord in my mem-
ory. I stood petrified, staring at him.
“By the Lord Harry!” I said slowly. “Did
you send me those anonymous notes?”
My inquiry, for the present, was destined
to remain unanswered, for at this highly psy-
chological moment an unwelcome interruption
occurred. The intruder on our téte-à-tête was,
of all people, Captain Harris. As he caught
sight of us he exclaimed cordially.
“Hello, folks!” was his greeting. “Some
jinks they’re giving here to-night, are n’t


170 THREE BLACK BAGS
they? You’re looking kind of upset, seems
to me, lieutenant. Anything wrong?”
As if keyed too high for comprehension, the
boy stared blankly at his questioner, and then,
turning unsteadily away from us, crossed the
hall to the corridor door. Before disappearing
he hung fire an instant, looking back at me.
“It’s no joke, sir,” he adjured me, with an
earnestness that was almost terrible. “You
look out!”


XIV
APTAIN HARRIS, gazing after him,
tapped his forehead with dark signifi-
Cance.
“That young fellow’s either dippy or
jingled!” he stated, in decided tones. “He
interests me a lot, professionally. I wish he
had n’t gone away; I’d have liked to talk to
him. The first time I saw him, on the train,
I thought he was on his last legs, and now I’m
sure of it.” He stopped his diagnosis to eye
me with poorly hidden curiosity. “He was
talking pretty wild to you just now, was n’t
he?” he asked.
“Like a lunatic,” I answered shortly, re-
pressing homicidal impulses, for this unneces-
sary interruption, just when I had grasped
something tangible at last, seemed the final
straw. Recognizing my mood, he dropped the
subject, though he was plainly disappointed.
171


172 THREE BLACK BAGS
“Guess I’ll take a look round,” he digressed.
“They tell me this Schloss place is a corker.
The fact is, I came to see it; I’m not any great
shakes as a dancer,” and with the air of a pre-
war tourist, he began solemnly to explore the
hall.
Looking after him mechanically, with my
hands plunged into my pockets, I watched him
scrutinize armor, tapestry, and the trophies of
the chase. My mind was weaving dizzy circles.
I could not fathom McCloud's procedure. On
the one hand, he warned me; on the other, by
his terror, his shiftiness, and his weak denials,
he confirmed my worst suspicions of his com-
plicity. Had he gone insane? Had his nerve
broken? It was the anonymous notes that
baffled me; save for them, I should have
laughed at his outburst, dismissing it as a ruse
to halt my attack and divert my cross-question-
ing. But those letters indicated that, ever since
we had reached Treves, he had been trying in
an ineffectual way to watch over me and
protect me from his own confederates. In
heaven's name, why?


THREE BLACK BAGS 173
Above the sea of my conjectures, one fact
stood out like the Rock of Gibraltar, that if
the thing was not a mare's nest, my adversaries
must act at once. For them, the situation held
no secrets. They had trailed me to the Nor-
dallee; they had watched me retrieve the bag
that had bewildered them by its disappearance
from my effects; they had failed to snatch it.
Undoubtedly, they must foresee that I would
tell my tale to-morrow; and as the night the
day, it followed that the intervening hours
formed their only hope.
With a good deal of incredulity, yet with a
tingle of excitement, I recalled McCloud’s
hysterical prophecies as to their disposal of
their brief time. Most reprehensibly, my
spirits were rising. Did they want the picture
enough to fight for it? Indulging in a flight
of imagination, I conjured up a vision of a
rope stretched across the road on my return
trip, an abrupt halting of the motor, a swarm-
ing of dark forms out of ambush and a scat-
tering fusillade of shots; in short, a sumptuous
mêlée.


174 THREE BLACK BAGS
“I’d give something for another crack at
them,” I mused reminiscently. “But no such
luck!”
Harris, sated with antique glories, was re-
entering the corridor. I put aside my vain
imaginings, according them a sigh of regret.
The affair, I admitted on reflection, was not
a personal row between the Germans and my-
self. I had no right to hunt trouble; too much
might hang on it. Resolving to play safe,
keep under cover, and generally conduct my-
self with a caution, prudence, and circumspec-
tion that would do credit to an octogenarian,
I turned toward the ball-room. Then I halted.
“Whoever is at the wheel of that car,” I
thought, cocking one ear, “must want to die!”
The inspiration of my comment was the
hooting of a motor siren, which was indicating,
by its growing volume, the approach of a car
at breakneck speed. Reverberating distantly
at first, like the echoed wailing of a lost spirit,
it increased swiftly to a sharp, unintermitting
shriek, an imperative command to all who heard
to clear the road for its blind, hurtling prog-


THREE BLACK BAGS 175
ress. The uproar culminated in an insane
chugging of the engine and a fierce, protesting
grinding of the brakes as the car was jerked
to a standstill before the castle; and an instant
later, a door was thrown open and a muffled
figure mounted the steps into the hall, blinking
at the lights in dazzled fashion. At sight of
me it advanced, saluting.
“I’m looking for Colonel Everett Ramsay,
sir,” the new arrival stated without preamble.
“Know him by sight?”
Surveying him in some astonishment, I
grappled with a hazy memory. Somewhere,
some time, I had seen this officer, so abruptly
projected out of the night. There was a fa-
miliarity about him; it teased me, haunted me;
it eluded me as if by a hair’s-breadth. He was
a man of thirty-five or more, well set up, rather
grim of aspect, with a keen and penetrating
gaze, and a line of jaw and hardness of feature
strongly suggestive of a bulldog.
“I’m Colonel Ramsay,” I informed him,
wondering what on earth this meant.
His face relaxed, and he sighed relievedly.


176 THREE BLACK BAGS
“Well, that saves time!” he exclaimed with
heartiness. “Hope you won’t mind, but I’ve
come to ask you if you’ll be my passenger on
a trip to Treves. There are some people there
who want to see you—some of the best intelli-
gence men in the service. You’ve got to help
us. It’s this Bellinger matter; the Lord knows
where it’s going to end, but it’s the biggest
thing that's ever broken in the zone of occu-
pation! We did n’t begin to get a line on it
until this evening.” He fumbled in his tunic.
“Wait a minute. I’ll show you my creden-
tials—”
“Is your name Leonard?” I broke in.
His stare and nod betrayed such surprise
that I explained my flash of clairvoyance.
“Jerry Sutherland told me you had charge of
the investigation,” I elucidated. Captain
Leonard frowned. His hand dropped from
his coat.
“That boy,” he declared uncompromisingly,
“talks too much. I was a fool to say a word
to him.” He came closer, casting sharp, sus-
picious glances about the empty hall. “Look


THREE BLACK BAGS 177
here, Colonel Ramsay. We’ve been on the
track of something for a month now; it’s been
in the air. Well, I think we’ve nailed it
finally. The whole business fits together like
a picture puzzle: Bellinger's murder, the re-
port from Paris, our own clues, the confession
of a man we’ve caught. The one link that’s
missing is the picture they smuggled out of
France; and you’ve got that, have n’t you?
All of a sudden, it came over me like a flash
you must have. It explains why they’ve been
after you like a flock of vultures. May sur-
prise you, but I know all about those fellows
searching your room, and attacking you in the
Nordallee—”
“The deuce you do!”
“Yes.” He shrugged apologetically. “Oh,
we know your record, and we did n’t suspect
you; but just as a form we kept an eye on
everybody who was with Bellinger on that
train. Now, what I say is, if your story fits
into ours the way I think it will, we’ve got
them dead to rights; and we’ll go straight
after them! If you’re interested, you can


178 THREE BLACK BAGS
stick around with us and see the finish. From
all I’ve heard, you’re a handy man in a scrap,
and we can use you. It’ll be a busy evening;
but you mark my words, by morning we’ll
have every one of them locked up and their
scheme blown higher than a kite!” He broke
off, laughing shortly, though his jaw remained
set and his eyes still glittered. “Well, how
about it?” he demanded. “You coming along
to Treves?”
At this prospect of some definite action, the
instinct of the chase had seized me. “Am I
coming?” I cried. “You wait sixty seconds,
till I get my coat and tell Jerry Sutherland
he’s lost a passenger; and I’ll race youthere!”
“I’ll see Sutherland,” he shouted after me.
“It’ll save time.” I signified my assent with
a hand-wave. Leaping up a flight of stairs,
I precipitated myself into the dressing-room,
where for several minutes that resembled cen-
turies I played hob among the coats and caps.
When I regained the lower regions, Leonard
was awaiting me.
“I found Sutherland,” was his greeting.


THREE BLACK BAGS 179
“And I told him,” he added grimly, “to keep .
his mouth shut. The fewer people that know.
there’s something in the wind to-night, the
better for us!” -
He led the way, but as I followed I caught
a low soft laugh behind me, and heard a voice
that checked my progress as if a steel cable
had jerked me back. Miss Ivison, escorted
by two young aides much alive to their good
fortune, had emerged from the ball-room and
was approaching. At sight of me, obviously
bent on departure, with my cap in my hand
and my coat thrown across one arm, she stood
motionless.
“Why, Colonel Ramsay!” she exclaimed, in
open dismay. “Is something wrong?”
From the exasperated Leonard came a mut-
ter of annoyance, but I paid no more attention
to him than to the circumambient air. The
slight pallor of the upturned face, the anxiety
of the dark eyes, sent all else careening helter-
skelter into nothingness. I advanced hastily.
“It is!” I said. “I’m being done out of my
trip back with you! They’ve sent for me to


THREE BLACK BAGS 181
“Let’s go!” snapped Captain Leonard,
flinging open the hall door.
The snow had stopped, but the air blew cold
on us as we stepped out into the courtyard, and
approached the closed car that stood awaiting
us behind its shield of glaring lights. Its nose
was already pointing downward, its engine
chugging a frantic summons, and as we sprang
inside and slammed the door, the driver threw
in the clutch, pressed his foot on the accelerator,
and sent us down the hillside, leaping and
swaying.
“The hereafter,” I remarked resignedly, as
I settled back, “does n’t worry these fellows.”
“That’s a fact,” my new friend grunted, en-
veloping himself in a rug.
Overhead, the wind had torn the clouds and
tossed them into floating fragments, and a
crescent moon and a few pale stars shone
faintly on us through the rent. Bathed in
this wan light, the trees loomed dark; the
ground had a dim, unearthly whiteness. We
seemed to flash through a land of phantasm,
rather than a living world.
Pressing my face against the window, I


THREE BLACK BAGS 183
cupping it in his hands, bent over it. His fea-
tures, illuminated by the flare, stood out
briefly, then receded into dimness. Again that
vague remembrance teased me.
“I’ve seen you somewhere before,” I com-
mented.
He turned blank, preoccupied eyes upon me.
“Eh? Oh! Not likely,” was his reply.
The car slackened speed for a brief moment,
turned to the right, and hastened on again.
The road was narrower; the trees loomed
closer, shutting us in on either side. Struck
by the change, I sat up straighter and scanned
the landscape.
“Here! Wait a minute!” I commanded im-
peratively. “We’ve taken the wrong turn.
This is n’t the road!”
As if with an effort, Leonard roused himself.
“It’s not the highroad,” he corrected. “It’s
all right, though—a short cut through the
Brockendorff forests and past an old hunting-
lodge of theirs; we’ll save three good miles.
We haven’t any time to waste joy-riding;
and we’d better utilize this trip, too. Let’s


184 THREE BLACK BAGS
compare our data. To begin with, I want you
to appreciate the proposition we’re up against,
so you’ll weigh every word and bring out every
point you think may help us.” His voice
grew tenser. “I suppose you’ve heard of the
Princess Ilse of Hohenburg?”
“No,” I responded, somewhat flippantly.
“I don’t move so high.”
“I wish I did n’t.” Leonard laughed
shortly. “She’s made more trouble than
Field-Marshal von Hindenburg. Her biog-
raphy in a German “Who’s Who would read
about like this: ‘Princess Ilse; impoverished
Junker family; cousin to the kaiser in a tenth
degree or so; educated under his supervision;
married when she was eighteen to Johann von
Hohenburg, a prince of one of these two-feet-
by-four principalities, who was killed in the
war. That marriage, though,” he interpolated,
“was just to give her standing. Her real game
was international intrigue, and I’ll say this
much for her; she's a wonder at it! Brains,
looks, fascination, nerve, she’s got them all.
There is n’t any trick she can’t turn. Look
at her record!”


THREE BLACK BAGS 185
Why he was offering me this sketch I failed
to grasp, but I found it colorful. Interested,
I bent forward.
“Let’s have it,” I said.
“She’s played the kaiser's game,” he told
me, “in half the capitals in Europe. For in-
stance, they planted her in Paris about two
years before the war. She had a house in the
Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and the things
that happened there would make good reading.
The German ambassador posed as infatuated,
and used the house under cover of visits—held
secret meetings there; left lists and documents
in the safe with her jewels; had innocent-look-
ing code instructions sent him from Berlin, ad-
dressed to her. Then the kaiser moved her
down to Rome, to keep Italy neutral if she
could, and for months she worked it. She was
in Bulgaria later, bribing Ferdinand, and after
that she went to Greece, on a Dutch passport,
and did some more meddling—they say she
saw Queen Sophia, William's sister, in the
back room of a milliner's shop for just ten
minutes; that was enough. The next we heard
of her, she was in Russia, making German


I86 THREE BLACK BAGS
overtures to the revolutionists and preaching
against war; and finally— Well, you can fill
in the rest of it, can’t you? You’re carrying
her picture now.”
“I’m carrying what?”
His eyes were shining like a bloodhound's.
“I’ve got it all doped out,” he muttered. “If
she’d shown herself in American territory as
the Princess Ilse, we’d have seen her on the
other side of our bridge-heads, bound across
the neutral strip toward her own people, bag
and baggage, within twenty-four hours! What
does she do, then? Why, when our army
comes, she lets us find her living at Brocken-
dorff, installed as one of the count's daughters!
Nobody suspects her—why should they?—and
she spends two months here, free to work out
her plans and make preparations and get re-
ports! It may mean anything—What’s that
driver doing?” he digressed suddenly. “If he
stalls us now !"
To the accompaniment of an ominous pound-
ing, we were slowly but surely losing momen-
tum. We picked up speed for one hearten-


THREE BLACK BAGS 187
ing instant, then puttered down to a snail-like
crawl. With the motor coughing piteously,
the car dragged itself a little further; hung
fire, as if deliberating whether to succumb or
struggle; meandered aimlessly a few last
inches, and, with an expiring sigh that fell on
our ears like a death-groan, shuddered and
stood inanimate. I thrust out my head. Snow
and trees surrounded us. To the right I
caught the glitter of a frozen pond; to the left,
among the firs, a small stone hunting-lodge,
curiously French in its effect, gleamed gray in
the moonlight, like a fairy ghost of Chantilly or
Rambouillet haunting forests far from home.
Subconsciously, my mental retina absorbed
the beauty of the vista, but Captain Leonard's
revelations had not induced an esthetic mood.
To be stranded in the wilderness, a victim to
engine trouble, while a few miles away in-
trigues were woven and plots were coming fast
to a head, seemed distinctly maddening. I
wrenched the door open.
“What the devil’s wrong?” I demanded,
springing out.


188 THREE BLACK BAGS
Coincidentally with my action, the driver
also had alighted, and as we stood in the snow,
confronting each other, I saw his face for the
first time. As if immersed in icy water, I gave
a gasp. Enlightenment flooded me. Just as
I had identified Leonard as part and parcel
of some past incident, I recalled this fellow;
but the first remembrance had been hazy, while
the second was complete and clear.
In that instantaneous flash of memory, I
pierced the camouflage of the khaki uniforms.
The disguises of a changed bearing, a glib use
of English, faces from which the stolid arro-
gance had been erased, were stripped away.
I was back at Treves, at the opera. Across the
house, leaning on the rail and looking at me,
was a German woman, and behind her, in the
shadows, sat two stalwart men in civilian dress.
There was a gleam of expectation in the eyes
of the spurious chauffeur. His gaze was di-
rected, not at me, but across my shoulder at
his friend. The significance of that regard
was my last conscious realization. The truth
stood out starkly: I had been fooled, kid-


THREE BLACK BAGS 189
napped triumphantly by this pair, brought to
this lonely place to fight for my life and the
thing I carried
As I whirled, a blow from behind fell on my
skull like the stroke of a pole-axe. The moon-
light went out before my eyes as I crashed for-
ward on the snow.


XV
UT of an interval of happy oblivion, free
from anxieties and self-reproaches, I
struggled through successive stages to a realiz-
ation of my plight. First, I groped a way up
through waves of darkness. Next, I was
aware that my head ached fiendishly. Lastly,
I became sensible of an inner voice, urging,
nagging, prodding.
“Wake up!” it kept repeating disquietingly.
“Wake up, and get busy. Something’s
wrong!”
Goaded by this persistent summons, I lifted
heavy, reluctant eyelids. A gleam of candle-
light, flashing jaggedly, ran across my brain
like a crooked knife. With singularly little
interest, I discovered that I was lying back,
tied hand and foot, in a tall, uncomfortably
hard oak chair. I was in a room of oval shape
—an odd room: dim and shadowy, hung with
spears and shields and quaint old firearms,
190


THREE BLACK BAGS I91
paneled with age-blackened oak and adorned
with worn, faded tapestries portraying hunt-
ing-scenes. A pleasant warmth pervaded the
atmosphere. Over by the wall, at a table, two
men were sitting with their heads together,
one jotting down something on a paper, the
other watching. That was all.
Their peaceful figures disturbed me vaguely,
holding, I felt, some unwelcome significance.
From sheer reluctance to cope with the riddle,
I shut my eyes and tried to forget. That inner
voice, though, protested urgently. It seemed,
now, to be Miss Ivison speaking. She was
standing by me in the hall at Brockendorff, her
hands clasped tightly, her eyes distressed,
warning me of something. McCloud had
warned me too—warned me of danger. My
mind fastened upon that word, pondered over
it, began groping sluggishly. Danger; the
miniature; the messenger from Treves; the
trip in the night
With slow, inexorable clearness the late
events defiled before me, culminating in the
stopping of the car and the brief battle in the


I92 THREE BLACK BAGS
snow. Fuddled as I was, I supplied the sequel.
Having knocked me out, my captors had
picked me up like a bag of meal, conveyed me
to the hunting-lodge I had seen near-by, and
searched me at leisure. Ye gods! Warned by
every one and everything, I had let a disguised
emissary enter Brockendorff, pour a cock-and-
bull story into my ears, carry me off, and land
me here, helpless. Of all egregious asses, I
was the greatest. I ought to be court-mar-
tialed and cashiered!
With a weak disgust, I turned my thoughts
from the spectacle of my deficiencies. Ignor-
ing my sickness and my numbness, I fought
determinedly to clear my mind. By slow de-
grees, my faculties reassembled. Things, I
owned, looked bad—as bad as possible; but
there was no telling. My antagonists, inscrut-
ably, had left me damaged, but at least alive,
and without a fractured skull or a case of brain
concussion; they might yet regret this. In the
last two years, I had more than once had cause
to note the capriciousness of fortune, and the
completeness, sometimes ruinous, sometimes


THREE BLACK BAGS 193
heaven-sent, with which a tide can turn at the
ultimate moment. The end was not yet.
I set my teeth, and the pain-waves lessened,
and the clogging, dizzying paralysis faded. In
a fashion now I was able to concentrate, de-
spite the handicap of a throbbing head. Stir-
ring cautiously, I tested my bonds, which
proved firm to painfulness. Then, reconnoit-
ering warily, I made two discoveries that com-
pleted my rousing like a dash of ice-water.
On the floor, its purpose served, lay the pic-
ture, torn apart ruthlessly and cast aside; and
at the table, my late friend Leonard held a
thin paper, extracted doubtless from the wreck,
and covered with ciphers, which with the aid
of a note-book and a pencil he was converting
into more intelligible form. A code message,
concealed in a miniature that guaranteed its
authenticity. So that was the game!
My numbness, by this time, had vanished.
My clarity was intense, uncanny. I was see-
ing everything, noting everything, as I had
done in tight places in France. Scanning the
room, I observed that my captors had doffed


194 THREE BLACK BAGS
their caps and coats, lighted several candles,
and even, profiting by the heavy shutters, set
a small fire burning in an antique wrought-
iron brazier in a corner. Their informality
suggested accustomedness. This quaint old
lodge, deep in green sylvan solitudes, reminis-
cent of days when the Counts of Brockendorff
had tracked wolves and bears through the for-
ests and stopped here to eat and sleep, was re-
mote and unwatched, and formed, it seemed, a
wonted rendezvous for these men who were
conspiring. But—conspiring what?
To my sharpened nerves, the air seemed
heavy with some vague menace I could n’t
fathom, full of a lurking, sinister danger en-
tirely distinct from my own plight. For the
first time, in the light of this coup, I realized
the gigantic web that had been woven, the far-
reachingness of its threads, the extent of its
resources. When a thing was needed, it was
ready—in Paris, an apartment where a man
might be decoyed and robbed; at Treves, a
system of espionage that missed nothing; at
Brockendorff, materializing from space, a mili-


THREE BLACK BAGS I95
tary car, American uniforms, the whole para-
phernalia of to-night's masquerade. The ac-
tors of the drama did a devil’s dance before
me: the false Parker defying the sentries at
the Gare de l’Est, the assassin striking Bel-
linger from the darkness of the train, this
spurious Leonard, walking coolly into a castle
where his liberty was not worth two sous. Such
daring was ominous. Men, however iron-
nerved, did n’t take these chances for trivial
objects. What was this message they had
moved heaven and earth to get into their pos-
session? What was their plot?
A guttural exclamation roused me. The
man at the table laid down his paper. Amazed
apparently, he sat as if petrified, staring at
his comrade with startled eyes. Then he spoke,
in German. The crisis inspired me. My ac-
quaintance with that tongue was informal and
scrappy in the extreme, but I resurrected it,
and, rather to my surprise, found myself
grasping the gist at least of the ensuing dia-
logue.
“Friday!” the fellow was exclaiming. “Fri-


THREE BLACK BAGS 197
To have thought me unconscious, and to find
me keen, alert, in full grasp of my faculties,
fixing watchful eyes upon him and addressing
him in crisp, definite accents, seemed to be a
shock. As he stood stock-still, regarding me
in fascination, I returned his gaze with interest.
My antipathy was immediate. He was a tall
young man, heavily built, heavy of feature,
with an autocratic bearing, curly yellow hair,
a florid face, and small blue eyes, just now
rather baffled.
“Aha!” he crowed, recovering promptly.
“The Herr Ramsay is hard-headed, it is very
plain. I make him my compliments! Yet his
awakening is, I fear, a sad one. He has played
a little game with us, and he has lost it.
Through his ill-fortune, his compatriots will
find themselves unlucky also. Is your brain
clear again? Do you comprehend?”
“Not quite.”
My laconic answers seemed to please him.
He took them, probably, for sullen hopeless-
ness. I could understand his miscalculation,
for the odds were against me, to say the least.


198 THREE BLACK BAGS
That I could sit here, immobilized, as complete
a castaway as a sailor clinging to a spar in
mid-ocean, and yet mean to fight to the last
ditch to turn the tables, was an idea far-
fetched enough to have amused him had it
crossed his mind, which it did n’t. He smiled
broadly. Much at his ease, with his arms
folded, he leaned back comfortably against the
wall.
“Your head is hard in two ways!” he gloated.
“But you have half an hour to live, Herr Ram-
say. While we are waiting, to divert you, I
will explain what has come to pass. You are
in the hunting-lodge of the Count of Brocken-
dorff; your hosts are the nephews of the coun-
tess. Behold us, the Barons Max and Kaspar
von Nordhausen, officers of his Imperial Ma-
jesty! For the aid you have given us, we
thank you. When my brother came seeking
you, you greeted him as Leonard. In the car,
when we turned from the highroad and you
cried out, he spun a true tale of our plot and
of the princess, and you sat spellbound. My
felicitations to the brave American, the hero
of Valençay! His wits are keen!”


THREE BLACK BAGS 199
Baron Max von Nordhausen, it struck me
vividly, had a tone and a manner that asked
for murder; but my tactics had begun to shape
themselves, and I kept myself determinedly
cool. Surreptitiously, I had been studying the
man at the table, Baron Kaspar, who now, I
fancied, stood revealed as the real god in the
machine of this conspiracy. He amounted to
something. Deaf to his brother, oblivious of
me, he sat writing out the message of the cipher
paper, in which the key to the entire plot must
stand revealed. If I could have leaned across
his shoulder for a bare instant— But why
dally with pipe-dreams? Coming down to
brass tacks, I might achieve the same results
through the loquacious triumph of Baron Max,
and his fondness for the sound of his own voice.
I must keep him going.
“Yes,” I owned, still more sulkily. “You
got me, all right.”
“You perceive it late,” he suggested amia-
bly. “A clever man might have seen it earlier!
Ha, my friend, you are like all your country-
men, confiding, sweetly trusting, blind! At
Treves, you have guards at every corner, yet


200 THREE BLACK BAGS
we go where we choose, prepare what we will.
We copy your uniforms, your cars, your
passes. We leave the city and reënter it; your
men salute us. And what we do here, others
do elsewhere—”
This was well worth knowing. We were
getting on famously. Tense to my finger-
tips, watching him like a lynx, I flared out as
if goaded past my self-control.
“Well, what of it?” I taunted. “How does
all that help? You’re beaten, are n’t you?
We settled this thing up once for all, last No-
vember. Forgotten that?”
I had steeled myself for all forms of re-
joinder, even for the fist of the high-born
baron, but though his face turned tomato-col-
ored and he eyed me nastily, he let me live.
“Beaten! Also!” he echoed scornfully. “To
see so little, one must be English, French,
American, one of those whose heads are
wooden! Behold our enemies—their ruins,
their war-weariness, their discords! Turn to
us who stand intact, untouched, our aims un-
altered! We have the loot of Europe, its


THREE BLACK BAGS 201
herds, its harvests. We have our armies, our
victorious ones, who fought so well that to the
end no hostile foot was set upon our soil! You
talk of our surrender? It was our triumph.
When we withdrew, it was to conquer at a riper
moment. You begin to see?”
“No. I don’t grasp that,” I shot back, like
a pistol-crack. My breath was quickening and
my blood racing, but the face I turned on my
adversary remained an angry, defiant mask.
“We see things differently. I’d have under-
stood it if, last fall, when the tide turned,
you’d stuck it out—fought the way the French
fought when they were out of luck; taken a
little of the sort of thing you handed out to
Belgium; played the game foot by foot, back
to the Rhine.”
The German spat contemptuously.
“Ach!” he muttered. “Thus fools talk.
Lose our men, whom we have kept to use
against you? Impoverish our country, richer
to-day than France? And why?”
“Just a point of view,” I retorted briefly.
“If it does n’t register, there’s no use pressing


202 THREE BLACK BAGS
it. Then, there was one other thing open to
you. You might have seen a great white light.
In that case, you could have offered honestly
to foot your bill, and buckled down and worked
your hardest. But to say you’re right, and
yet give in all along the line, agree to every-
thing, submit to everything, just to save your
skins—no, I don’t get that; and I don’t get
this conquering talk. We’re in your country,
are n’t we? We’ve got our soldiers in your
streets, our police in your stations, our boats
on your rivers. That’s as good a victory as
I want. In your place, I’d rather have been
blown to kingdom come with my flags still
flying, and be damned to everybody! Eh?”
Sighing noiselessly, I relaxed a little. My
stratagem had been successful. He would
either fall upon me now, and maul me with his
hands and feet, or he would speak. With his
face congested, and his hands clenched, he
came closer.
“You are clever, you!” he stammered. “But
listen, fool! The play is over. The Day has
failed us, but the Night remains! To-morrow,


THREE BLACK BAGS 203
while you dream, the hour will strike. Your
comrades, wakening, will die, or live to toil
for us like slaves. Your women—” He
chuckled thickly. “They may be luckier!
They are not bad, some of them. There is one,
slender, dark of hair, dark of eye, who came
with you from Paris and drove with you to
dance at Brockendorff; I have marked her,
that one! To-day, she has thousands who pro-
tect her. To-morrow, on the Night, it will be
different—”
I had got more than I had bargained for.
There were small cold drops on my forehead,
and my blood felt icy. I forgot my part.
“Drop that!” I cried, struggling. “Drop
it, I tell you 99
My voice died, while Max von Nordhausen
fell back, and Kaspar rose from the table. All
three of us listened. There was not a shadow
of doubt about it. A motor-car had stopped
outside.


XVI
HE sudden, dying groan of that engine,
with all its implications of rescue, was
as welcome to me as the pipes at Lucknow to
the garrison shut up inside. My troubles, I
deduced with premature thankfulness, had
abruptly ended. Some one, probably, had
recognized the Nordhausens at Brockendorff,
and had trailed them here—a bit belatedly, I
acknowledged, thinking of my damaged skull;
but better late than never; my mood was not
carping. On the contrary, I foresaw consola-
tions. In two minutes, the tables would be
turned, and in three, I would be ready for a
brief interview, on equal terms, with Max von
Nordhausen, which I wanted badly. When he
left this place, he would need a doctor. The
authorities might have him later, and welcome;
but my turn came first.
My gratifying delusions lasted till I grasped
204


206 THREE BLACK BAGS
captors, in their haste, had overlooked two facts
—the first, that the arms of the chair possessed
square, angular edges; the second, that, tightly
as my wrists were bound, I could, at cost of
some sharp pain, make them work to and fro,
almost imperceptibly, a fraction of an inch,
across this area, much as if I were drawing the
rope across the teeth of a dull saw. Had my
arms been drawn behind me and fastened there,
I should have been hopeless. Now, though
matters looked, from any reasonable point of
view, sufficiently black, I was n’t—quite.
It was a pitiful straw to clutch at, the mer-
est ghost of a possibility, but in a predicament
so precarious I much preferred it to nothing
at all. The weak point lay in the snail-like
slowness of the device. To achieve results
might take till morning. Baron Max, very
affably, had informed me that I had half an
hour to live; I could well believe it. Indubita-
bly I had learned too much; and, given such
excessive knowledge on my part, I recognized
in this remote lodge an unpleasantly appro-
priate setting for a quiet, unostentatious mur-


THREE BLACK BAGS 207
der, and in the pond I had seen outside, glim-
mering in the moonlight with spectral signifi-
cance, an ideal spot for the concealment of the
corpus delicti after the crime.
While these reflections raced through my
mind, like a turkey-trotting phantasmagoria,
the Nordhausens had drawn back the bolts,
turned the key in the lock, and swung open the
door. The next development startled me. In
the aperture, against a frame of stars and leaf-
less trees and dim white landscape, stood two
men in khaki and a woman with a blue apron
under her heavy dark cloak and a white veil
with a red cross beneath its shrouding hood.
For one second, absurdly, with a leaping heart,
I thought of Miss Ivison; then I knew better.
The figure in the doorway had blue eyes, yel-
low hair, and hard, imperious features, and
was, in fact, no other than my old acquaintance
of the miniature, the Treves theater, and the
castle gallery—the Princess Ilse.
There was something luridly impressive in
the swift march of these developments, the ma-
terialization of these actors out of the silence


THREE BLACK BAGS 209
for on her entrance the two Nordhausens had
clicked their heels together, bent like auto-
matoms, and kissed her hand, while her escorts,
fellows of the same Junker stamp, kept their
places back of her, more like a queen's body-
guard than anything else I could call to mind.
“The American?” she asked curtly, in Ger-
In 1811.
“As you commanded, Highness,” answered
Baron Max, standing like a statue on parade.
“He lives.”
For the first time, I grasped something
tangible in the mystery of my predicament.
To have tied me up, instead of despatching me,
had seemed out of character on the part of my
hosts. The proceeding, it now appeared, had
been due to no squeamish humanity of theirs,
but to a direct if puzzling order from the Prin-
cess Ilse herself. I stared at her, intrigued.
She looked back for one instant. That brief
exchange of glances left me more at a loss than
ever. It was odd, but twice before, in other
places, I had caught her watching me in this
same way, with a scrutiny that was fierce, ab-


210 THREE BLACK BAGS
sorbed, disturbing in its intensity, and yet not
hostile.
“The message?” she was demanding of Kas-
par von Nordhausen. He handed her the
translation.
“It is well, Highness,” he announced. “His
Imperial Majesty approves our plans. The
arrangements for the escape are made, the
guards bribed, the false papers ready. To-
morrow he leaves Amerongen. To-morrow at
midnight, he will be in Berlin.”
A little sigh went through the group. The
men watched the Princess Ilse, and she stood
motionless, her hair gleaming golden beneath
her hood and her eyes shining like blue stars.
She was a triumphant figure, but her voice
rang steady.
“The report from Berlin?” she asked again.
“Has it reached you?”
“Highness, three hours ago.” Kaspar's
tones shook a little. “They are there, our great
ones! Field-Marshal von Hindenburg has re-
turned from his estates. Field-Marshal von
Ludendorff has come from Sweden. In the


THREE BLACK BAGS 2II
houses of our friends, they await the hour when
they shall stand beside the emperor on the bal-
cony of his palace, before his people!”
Like figures in a play, the men clicked their
heels and raised their hands in the salute.
“Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!” they chanted in
chorus, in a growling, guttural cheer.
I had ceased to ask myself if I was dream-
ing. It was crystal-clear, by now, that I
was n’t. This scene was lurid, it was melo-
dramatic, but it was as real as the ropes on my
wrists. The past was being solved with a
vengeance. As I lay there, hardly breathing,
the puzzle that had so long baffled me was un-
folding itself with the swiftness of prestidigi-
tation and the scattered fragments were piec-
ing themselves together and sliding smoothly
into place. I had learned the secret of the
miniature. The thing had come circuitously
from the Netherlands, through Belgium, across
France, passed from hand to hand, bringing
its message, the hour when the kaiser would
reappear to claim the throne again for himself
and his dynasty. Here, in all conscience, was


212 THREE BIACK BAGS
enough to startle me. Yet was it all? Was it
even half? *
As I watched and listened, I knew infallibly
that there were depths I had n’t fathomed; that
the mere restoration of the Hohenzollerns was
not the whole of the affair. It would not cover,
for instance, the presence of these people in the
zone of occupation, their feverish activities
here, their organization—no, nor the threats
of Max von Nordhausen, still ringing in my
ears. There was more for me to learn. I felt
like a machine, cool, set, efficient. Every word,
every gesture, every flicker of expression was
registering itself indelibly on my brain; I
noticed even trivial details—the way the mouth
of the tall dark man behind the princess turned
down at the corners; the small red birthmark
on the cheek of the fellow next him, who was
speaking.
“The time,” he was pointing out, “is short.
Is it too short?”
“And why?” challenged Kaspar. “Is not
all ready? To-morrow—no, already it is to-
day!—we speak. At midnight, in the zone of


THREE BLACK BAGS 213
the Americans, the zone of the French, the
zone of the English, our people rise. By morn-
ing, in the whole of Germany, the foreigners
will be dead, or live as prisoners! And then?
We have no more a world against us. France
is bled white, Russia in chaos, the others care-
less, war-weary, alienated already from each
other. They will hear the tramping of our
soldiers. They will call for armies to oppose
us; none will answer. With blood and tears
they shall pay us for our short endurance.
The Night is here!”
The Princess Ilse drew her hood closer.
“Enough of talk!” she said impatiently.
“We know our parts.” She nodded to Kaspar.
“You to Treves, baron; your brother to Cob-
lenz; Count von Lorenz and the Baron von
Freistadt, with me to Cologne, Mainz, and the
Rhineland.”
They saluted. Then, with a thrill, and a
recognition that the crisis had arrived, I saw
that Max von Nordhausen's little, hostile,
gloating eyes had turned my way and were
resting on me.


214 THREE BLACK BAGS
“The American, Highness?” he put in
smoothly.
She looked at me. Then she took away my
breath and his as well.
“He remains here,” she said coolly. “He
is safe here. In all these weeks, none have
entered, or passed along this route. Make him
secure, that he may not stir or cry for help, and
follow me.”
A dead hush greeted this dictum. Kaspar
broke it.
“Gott in Himmel, Highness!” he stam-
mered, aghast. “You would let him live?”
The princess turned on him.
“And what else?” she asked sharply. “Is
he not a soldier, honored among soldiers, born
for fighting? Has he not proved it? Good—
he shall join us. In the days to come, what is
there for him among his people? With us,
there are all things. To pay great soldiers,
we shall have booty, titles, honors, the regency
of conquered provinces, the government of na-
tions! He lives. I have said it.”
This was some hallucination, I thought


THREE BLACK BAGS 215
dazedly. Kaspar's knock-out blow had un-
hinged my reason. Still, the others seemed
to share my delusion, and they had n’t all had
a crack on the head. Max von Nordhausen
finally shattered my trance. His voice would
have roused the Seven Sleepers.
“Highness!” he was shrieking. “It is mad-
ness, this! Listen graciously—a thrust with a
knife, a weight tied to his feet, a hole in the
pond, and we are safe! If he lives, some
chance will free him to tell his knowledge!
Never will he join us; they lack the sense, these
fools. Behold, I will prove it!” He strode
across and stood confronting me. “Speak,
American!” he bellowed in English. “To buy
your life, will you give up your country? Will
you become German, fight for the emperor?”
The power of speech returned to me sud-
denly.
“I’ll see you all hang first!” I cried.
Max flung his arms high, and stared at the
ceiling, as if calling on the heavens to witness.
Well, I had given him what he wanted; I had
cooked my goose now, and no mistake. I


216 THREE BLACK BAGS
glanced at the princess, then blinked rapidly.
As she stood there, with her face flushed, her
eyelids drooping, her breath coming fast, I
would have sworn, save for the sheer absurdity
of such a notion, that she was exulting in my
answer. She gave me one intense, burning
look.
“Later,” she said serenely, “he will think
otherwise. Meanwhile, he is safe here.” Her
eyes flashed around the group. “Am I the
mistress?” she asked arrogantly. “Do I stand
for the All-Highest?”
Kaspar leaned forward and touched Max's
arm. I saw the look that passed between them.
“Zu Befehl, Hoheit!” he said, with a low
bow. Advancing, he bent over me, and, still
incredulous of such luck, I lay passive, not
protesting by the flicker of an eyelash when
he tested the ropes, forced a handkerchief into
the mouth I obligingly held open to assist him,
and fastened it securely. Max was blowing
out the candles, leaving the room illuminated
only by the faint glow of the coals in the bra-
zier. For a last instant, I saw the Princess


THREE BLACK BAGS 217
Ilse, her face luminously fair in the gloom, her
eyes shining back at me in a look as inexplic-
able as the whole new, dumfounding turn the
episode had taken under her guidance. Then
she passed through the door that Kaspar held
open, and disappeared, followed by her satel-
lites. The heavy oak panels swung into place.
A key turned in the lock.


XVII
HEN the snort and purr of the motors
receded and sepulchral silence settled
on the hunting-lodge, I wasted no precious
time in pondering the astounding angles of
what had occurred. I had been precipitated
into a melodrama. Through some miracle, I
was still alive; but I was n’t out of the woods
yet, by a long shot. I had neither missed that
exchange of glances between the Nordhausens
nor failed to analyze its ingredients. First
and foremost, there had been an acknowledg-
ment that the Princess Ilse was in command
and that an open revolt against her verdict was
impossible. So much was excellent. Unfor-
tunately, there had been, as well, a pronounce-
ment that to leave me at large, possessed of
greatly increased knowledge, as full of danger-
ous potentialities as a stick of dynamite, was
a piece of lunacy—a woman's whim, not to be
218


THREE BLACK BAGS 219
considered for a moment by men playing, at
tremendous peril, for a heavy stake. This
was n’t so good.
Time, in a nutshell, was the crux of the con-
test. That commodity would decide the issue.
I was safe while the party kept together, be-
neath the eyes of the Princess Ilse. Let it
once separate, however, and swift, competent
arrangements would soon be made to eliminate
me from the affair. I reviewed my knowledge.
On the whole, it seemed likely that the group
would proceed in company as far as Treves,
where, I had gathered, Kaspar von Nord-
hausen would remain in charge, while the
others continued on their way to rouse the
chief cities of the Rhineland. The issue was
crystallized by this deduction. It was Kaspar
that I had to fear.
The faintly luminous face of my wrist-
watch, glimmering at me through the shadows,
had told me that it was two precisely when
the Junker delegation had left the lodge. To
reach Treves, even in a high-power car, would
consume two hours, while a half an hour should


220 THREE BLACK BAGS
suffice amply for Kaspar to arrange with an
underling for my taking-off, and the latter's
journey to the scene of action would take two
hours more. Working stubbornly, drawing
my right wrist to and fro the mere infinitesimal
space that the cord permitted, I concluded that
toward six, or half-past six at latest, I might
look for the blowing in upon me of the envoy.
He might have a surprise.
The physical features of my predicament
were most unpleasant, to say the least of them.
The ropes were eating into my ankles; the
eternal sawing gnawed my wrist. Beneath the
gag, my tongue was swelling, while in my head,
thanks to Kaspar's punch, waves of pain per-
sisted, twanging, throbbing, rising once in so
often to a crashing crescendo, then subsiding
gradually to a nagging, worrying ache. I felt
no self-pity.
“You had it coming to you,” I told myself.
“You asked for it all!”
In days gone by, I had rather fancied that
I possessed a certain acumen—enough, at
least, to prevent my figuring in the loathsome


THREE BLACK BAGS 221
rôle of an easy mark. I had passed some acid
tests. First and last, in my military career,
a good many young limbs of Satan had ap-
peared before me, armed with plausible tales
of the Munchausen variety and ingenious ex-
planations of their sins of omission or commis-
sion, only to go away owning ruefully that I
was, in their vernacular, “wise.” Had they
seen me now, their faith might have been se-
verely shocked, if not shattered. My own was,
anyhow. As I dwelt on certain points—the
impudence of Kaspar's arrival at Brocken-
dorff, driving a car at breakneck speed and
tooting a horn; his cool offer to save time by
hunting up Jerry Sutherland and announcing
our departure, and his offhand assurance, on
my descent, that he had done so; his whirlwind
kidnapping, causing me to vanish from the
earth's surface, sinking me, so to speak, with-
out leaving a trace—my disgust was great.
“He did good work,” I admitted ruefully.
“And I’ll say this much—he had his nerve with
him. When he stepped into that hall at the
castle, he must have been shaking in his shoes.


222 THREE BLACK BAGS
Suppose, as might easily have happened, he
had stumbled on some intelligence officer who
knew him perfectly by sight; his career would
have ended! As luck would have it, though, he
did n’t. On the contrary, he walked into me.
“Once that had happened, it was too easy, a
case of taking candy from babies. Thanks to
Jerry, and his talk about Leonard, I fairly ate
out of his hand. There was just one cog that
slipped—I saw Miss Ivison, and gave her some
idea of how things stood; but that does n’t help
any. She’ll tell Jerry, and he’ll cuss me
out for going on a man-hunt and leaving him
behind, but he won’t be worried. Before it
dawns on him that I’ve disappeared and he .
starts a hue and cry, I’ll be free, or murdered
—past taking anything but a purely academic
interest in his activities, in either case. No.
There’s no hope there.”
Recalling the old spilled-milk adage, I post-
poned further self-arraignment, the more
readily as, in spite of everything, the fiasco
had a rosier side. Should I win my race with
time, it would be a lucky chance, not to say


THREE BLACK BAGS 223
an act of providence, that had landed me in
this adventure, where in one hectic night,
through sheer wooden-headedness, I had gath-
ered data that had for weeks eluded the
trained, astute intelligence of the cleverest
agents of my country. All was not yet clear.
I had not located Bellinger's assassin. Young
McCloud, unexplained, lurked irritatingly in
the background. Least of all did I grasp why
the Princess Ilse of Hohenburg, talking wild
nonsense about soldiers, had snatched me from
the tender mercies of the Nordhausens and in-
terned me here. But I knew enough.
The lurid drama of the evening had been like
the climax of a sinister leitmotif. For a long
time I had sensed some danger, but now I had
met it face to face. Its nature and its scope
dumfounded me. It was the Junker plot, peri-
odically suggested by sensation-lovers, scouted
by the rational and the steady-nerved. This
very night I had heard Kilbourne laugh at
it. Well, for once, the alarmists had been
right. These people had roused the whole of
Germany. Moreover, in secret probably, the


224 THREE BLACK BAGS
inner group, the little band of leaders, had
plotted that on the high tide of the rising
against the invaders the kaiser should reap-
pear and claim his throne again. Of all my
countrymen, I alone knew this. The others
would still smile at the thought.
Whether I escaped, or whether I died here,
I felt pretty sure of the ultimate outcome. We
would make short work of this crazy project,
this attempt to revive a dream of the past. If
I gave the warning, though, we would be pre-
pared, while if I did n’t there might be blood-
shed, killing, horrors like those of the Sicilian
Vespers or the Sepoy mutiny. I seemed to
hear the tocsin ringing. A figure rose before
me, straight, slender, lovely—Miss Ivison,
dressed in blue, wearing her veil with the red
cross; I saw the white house in the Nordallee
where she lived, a mob outside, a door flying
into splinters. Unless I took a hand, this
might happen. I worked on steadily, like a
machine.
The time was flying with a speed that ap-
palled me. The coals in the brazier had dulled


THREE BLACK BAGS 225
and faded, and the room had sunk into pitchy
blackness, broken only by the disk of my watch.
As its hands advanced, I worked more desper-
ately, while my scraped wrist bled and ached
and my throat swelled to suffocation. Three
o'clock. Four. Five. The devil was in those
moving hands; they did n’t creep as usual:
they raced; they racketed. The rope, to be
sure, was eating away slowly. But it did n’t
keep pace with the flight of time. -
With a sudden half chilly, half feverish
shiver, I realized that I was getting light-
headed: that the knock on the head and the
pain and the struggle were pushing me gradu-
ally over the line. I fought this new menace,
but with poor success. A ghastly interval en-
sued, through which, though I worked on me-
chanically, I lost track of my surroundings. I
was in some inferno. Echoes beat in my brain;
I was spurring myself, inexorably, as in days
gone by, driving myself to it, I had sometimes
spurred ranks of men so done that my heart
ached for them; men who were so tired,
drenched and groggy that they could scarcely


226 THREE BLACK BAGS
keep their feet—yet who had responded. That
they had responded helped me, somehow.
“That’s the way,” my brain beat out. “No
quitting! Just keep going! We can do it.
We can do anything they tell us to; don’t
forget that. We have n’t got all day. Hit it
up a bit. Come, not falling down on the last
lap, are you? Almost there now. Fine! Tip-
top! That’s the way to work it! Just a little
more—”
From somewhere, very far off, very faintly,
a disquieting sound penetrated my conscious-
ness, then died, then came again more clearly,
accompanied by explosions and throbs. It
shocked me, sobered me. Suddenly, I was
back again in the hunting-lodge, weak, ex-
hausted, but clear-headed, all too well aware
that a motor-cycle was approaching and that
it bore, beyond a doubt, Kaspar's messenger.
It was now or never. I gathered all the
strength remaining to me and exerted it; the
last frayed strands parted. One hand was free
now, but numbed, almost helpless. I mas-
saged it desperately against the chair.


THREE BLACK BAGS 227
The racket of the motor-cycle had passed
abruptly into oblivion, leaving a sort of weird,
eery silence, punctuated at intervals by faint
creaks on the snow. The rider, apparently,
had dismounted and was approaching—a hy-
pothesis confirmed when a key turned smoothly
in the lock and the door swung open and shut
again without a sound. In that flash of time,
things had altered indescribably. The very
hush and darkness, outwardly the same, were
subtly different. For a fleeting instant, I had
seen a black silhouette against the pale, gray,
star-lit world outside; and now, listening, I
caught a faint breathing, not my own. My
adversary was upon me. We were shut up
in this oblivion, to fight for our lives—and for
other lives too.
My stiff, numbed fingers had slid downward
and were fumbling to bring out my revolver.
Thank heaven, the Nordhausens had not
searched me; their trust in my bonds had been
too complete. As the thing wabbled in my
fingers, though, and just missed sliding
through them and escaping, I wondered if I


- THREE BLACK BAGS
could use it. Well, I had to. But I must wait
my time. I could n’t locate the fellow in the
blackness, and I could n’t pot at him at ran-
dom, either; this was too critical. Unless he
gave himself away, I must hold on till I felt
him close upon me, and then drop him. It all
hung upon that one chance. I would have no
ImOTC.
A beam of light, slashing through the dark-
ness, converged directly on my arm-chair. I
had a vision of a crouching figure, with a torch
in one hand, in the other a knife. I saw a face,
etched white against the gloom, with blank,
slitted eyes staring incredulously at the re-
volver doing a devil's dance in my trembling
fingers. Even at that crisis, while I aimed re-
morselessly, a remembrance stabbed me. I
had no proof, of course. I might be mistaken.
But this was, I thought, the man who had
trailed me to the Nordallee, fought me for the
bag
A flash of fire bit the shadows. I had man-
aged, somehow, to take my shot at him; but it
was my last, for my fingers opened and


THREE BLACK BAGS 229
dropped the revolver to the floor. The thing
was settled, one way or another. I held my
breath. For an instant, he stood upright, en-
tirely motionless; I thought I had missed him.
Then he went to pieces, all at once, like a
jointed doll, and pitched forward on his face.
The torch went out
As the velvety darkness closed about me,
I heard, once again, the sound of an engine. It
was an automobile this time, and it was stop-
ping outside the lodge. With a sense of fury,
I grasped the significance of this. The fellow
had confederates; they were coming; I was
helpless. My weapon, gone beyond repair, lay
at my feet, as lost to me as if the intervening
space had been the Atlantic Ocean; all they
had to do was to enter, locate me, and dispose
of me at leisure. My warning, now, would
never be carried. I had done my best—but I
had lost.
A hand fell heavily on the knob and twisted
it in imperative fashion. The door, left un-
locked by my late visitor, fell open with a sick-
ening crash. Through the aperture, with a


230 THREE BLACK BAGS
whoop of triumph, precipitated themselves two
figures armed with torches, who gradually re-
solved themselves before my dazzled eyes, the
first as Jerry Sutherland, the second as a
strange young man who, at sight of me,
brought up abruptly in his tracks.
“I say,” he shouted jubilantly, “I know
what your name is. It’s Ramsay!”
Jerry had my gag out. I moved my swollen
lips cautiously and touched the cracked cor-
ners of my mouth with an experimental
tongue-tip.
“You win,” I croaked. “How about yours?”
“Mine’s Leonard,” said he.


XVIII
HEN I emerged, a free man, from the
hunting-lodge, the last pale star in the
sky was fading, and a rosy streak, the portent
of morning, was distinctly to be seen in the
east. The stillness and whiteness of the world
persisted, though the flakes had ceased falling
during my sojourn, and on all sides, except
where, in the distance, the castle of Brocken-
dorff towered on its hill like an enemy's out-
post, we saw only leafless, snow-laden trees
and wide expanses of snowy ground.
My convalescence, all things considered, had
been quick enough to rank as a record one,
the determining feature of the recovery hav-
ing been the contents of Jerry's flask. Within
ten minutes, under this treatment, the blood
was running in my numbed limbs again. In
fifteen, I was sizing up the present with inter-
est, and facing the future with definite zest.
231


232 THREE BLACK BAGS
The real Captain Leonard was a person who
bore no resemblance to his impersonator. In
fact, he differed from that gentleman as
sharply as the day from the night. Young and
prepossessing, casual in manner, he presented
an astonishing antithesis to the grim, keen, im-
placable intelligence officer as conceived by fic-
tion-writers and brilliantly enacted by Kaspar
von Nordhausen. I eyed him curiously. In
the last year or so he had, I knew, become cele-
brated as the possessor of a sort of sublimated
acuteness, an odd sixth-sense flair amounting
almost to divination, which had enabled him
to solve brilliantly a number of mysteries
abandoned by others as inscrutable. More-
over, his name for nerve was enviable, his in-
vestigations having more than once, it was said,
led him into hostile territory, under circum-
stances that made a modern battle-field seem,
in comparison, a place of safety.
“Perhaps,” I thought doubtfully, “there
are two Leonards. If so, this must the other
one. But you never can tell.”
My feeling toward him, whatever his iden-


234 THREE BLACK BAGS
“She did?” I gasped.
“I’ll say she did,” he declared resolutely.
“It all began when we left Brockendorff. I
could see she was upset, and it worried me,
though I did n’t know then what it was about.
She’d told me that you’d left with my friend
Leonard, and I was pretty sore at you for
going off German-hunting and leaving me be-
hind, but I let it go at that. On the way home,
though, I sat next Lorraine in the car.”
“Go on,” I urged.
“I’m a darned fool,” Jerry owned frankly.
“I’ve kept right on hoping she might get to
care for me. I’ve felt in my bones, all the
time, she would n’t, but I could n’t give up
trying; it went too deep. The others were
busy talking, and I guess the quiet and the
snow and having her there beside me made me
worse than usual. Anyhow, I began to tell her
something I’ve told her often enough to know
it is n’t any use. And then I saw she did n’t
even hear me. She—”
For a minute he stopped. -
“Then,” he went on firmly, “she began talk-


THREE BLACK BAGS 235
ing. From that time on, I did the listening.
She sat there, with her hands holding each
other, and her eyes looking big and bright
and sort of feverish, and she talked low and
fast, catching her breath just a little some-
times—you know the way. She was,n’t satis-
fied, she said. She was afraid for you on ac-
count of that damned bag—Yes, she told me
that part, too. When I explained who Leon-
ard was she had to own it all seemed natural,
but she would n’t drop it. She made me
promise that I’d find you, and that I’d keep
close to you from then till morning-sleep in
the room with you. When we stopped at the
Nordallee and she got out, she said, “You
promise, Jerry?’ and looked at me with her
eyes shining like a pair of big black stars, and
went in without another word. I—I wanted
you to know.”
“It’s white of you,” said I.
Squaring his shoulders, he took up the tale
again.
“Well,” he proceeded, “I went home to the
Blumenstrasse, and when I found you were


236 THREE BLACK BAGS
still missing I called up Jack here—Leonard,
you know. I must have got him out of his
beauty-sleep. I’ll tell the world the wire
sizzled! He roared: “What the blue blazes
do you want? I said, perfectly polite:
‘Where’s Ramsay?” He had apoplexy first,
and then, when he could talk, he asked who
the Old Nick Ramsay was, and said he’d be
eternally grilled and broiled if he knew where
you were, or cared a whoop in Hades. That
jolted me; I began to think Lorraine was
right. I did some talking then myself, and
when Jack heard he’d been to Brockendorff
and kidnapped you, while he'd thought he was
asleep in bed, he changed his tone. It seemed
to interest him. Perhaps he thought he was a
victim of double personality—this psychic
stuff. Anyhow, in ten minutes he was pound-
ing down my door, and nothing would suit him
but to hunt you up.” He dropped his pre-
tense at lightness. “I don’t want any more
such trips,” he announced. “You see, old fel-
low, the chances seemed to be that if we found
you you’d be past—well, taking any interest.”


238 THREE BLACK BAGS
I pulled myself together resolutely. First
I sat up. Then, albeit dizzily, I stood up.
“I’ll tell you,” I assured him. “We won’t
stop here, though—no time. You’ve got a
car? Help me out to it, and we’ll start for
Treves, hell-bent. First, though, if this fellow
left a cycle, bring it in, and lock the door after
us and take the key. If any Germans pass,
this place has got to look hermetically sealed.
The fact is, I want all interested parties to
think that I’m lying in here, murdered.”
For a moment Leonard eyed me steadily.
Then he nodded.
“All right,” he agreed quietly. “You’re in
command. Let’s go.”
Out in the Snow where I had been stricken,
a car and driver were awaiting us, and within
five minutes we had installed ourselves and
were humming on our way to Treves. As we
sped through the woods, rejoined the high-
way, and whirled along the country roads, I
told my story, beginning with the hour of my
flitting from the Gare de l’Est, and ending
only with the final details of my late adven-


THREE BLACK BAGS 239
ture. Never had narrator a better audience.
Bending toward me, spellbound, elbows on
knees, straining their ears to catch the accents
I kept discreetly lowered lest the chauffeur
share our knowledge, my two listeners con-
fined themselves, in the way of comment, to oc-
casional deep-drawn breaths and ejaculations.
Jerry's eyes were incredulous, dazzled.
“I say, Everett!” he whispered, as I paused.
“Did that crack leave you dippy?”
Leonard struck his knee with his fist.
“Dippy nothing!” he exclaimed tersely.
“It’s just the sort of thing I’ve been expect-
ing, sooner or later. To know about it all be-
forehand, though, like this, is plain, sheer, un-
adulterated luck; the kind you would n’t dare
to pray for! With almost eighteen hours
ahead of us, do you think the Americans can’t
block any game the Germans want to play?
You wait till we get to Treves and set things
going!”
“Who are these Nordhausens?” I asked.
“We’ve got their dossiers,” he informed me.
“They’re the biggest people in Rhenish


240 THREE BLACK BAGS
Prussia, and for quite a while we kept an eye
on them, but I’ll admit they had us fooled.
They own a fine house near the river, and
they’ve lived apparently shut up in it—
haughty, aristocratic pose, on their dignity,
obeying rules implicitly, but never coming in
contact with us if they could help it. The fam-
ily’s been in favor at court for generations.
They’re as rich as Croesus, and as proud as
Satan. Kaspar, the eldest, has the brains. In
fact, he's got so many of them that for years
he’s been a sort of confidential envoy of the
emperor. He was in the diplomatic service,
and whenever there was a critical situation any
place, they sent him there to look around and
write his impressions directly to the kaiser.
He was educated in England, and he spent the
year before we went to war at the embassy in
Washington. He could pass for an Ameri-
can—”
I touched the lump on my skull, cautiously.
“He did,” I stated, in glum assent.
“Max is the soldier,” went on Leonard.
“He was a chum of the crown prince's; had a
rather wild name in Berlin and Paris—wine


THREE BLACK BAGS 241.
and women and gambling; the usual things.
It was mild, though, compared to the name he
got after the war started. He was in Belgium,
in command at Miesbecken, and the stories of
his occupation pass anything of the sort I’ve
heard. There was one about a Belgian girl, a
child almost, the daughter of a count whose
house he took for his headquarters, and one
about a boy, fifteen years old, the last of a
great old family, who struck a German
trooper for insulting his mother and was
flogged to death while Max looked on. De-
portations and all the usual comparatively
mild atrocities as well, of course. It 's a won-
der he got out alive. When the armistice was
signed and the evacuation started, he was
mobbed and almost killed. I’ve heard he
looked like the loser in a prize-fight when he
got to Germany.”
“A little sunbeam,” commented Jerry. The
words were jocular, but the tone was not.
“And I hope he chokes!” he ended piously.
“What’s the matter, Everett? You look mur-
derous.”
“I’m remembering something,” I owned


242 THREE BLACK BAGS
grimly. “I’m hoping for five minutes with
this Max von Nordhausen, alone, in a sound-
proof room preferably—for personal reasons.
Never mind. Go on with these pleasant little
biographies of yours, Leonard. The only per-
son unaccounted for is the Princess Ilse; and
I’m more than half inclined to think I
dreamed her. Is she a myth?”
“She’s just what Kaspar told you,” grinned
Leonard. “His outline stuck to the facts
pretty closely. There was one point, though,
he forgot to mention, and a mighty important
one at that. She’s got her weak side, like
other people. Every now and then she’s
fallen, and fallen hard, for men, and when
that’s happened there’s always been the devil
to pay. She goes the limit; nothing else mat-
ters. You ought to know it. From what hap-
pened last night, I’d say she’d heard your
record—Valençay and the rest of it,-and it
caught her fancy. Then she saw you at the
opera, or wherever it was, and lost her head.
Yes, it’s queer enough; but it was a piece of
luck for you. It was all that saved you.”


THREE BLACK BAGS 243)
I was staring at him, stupefied.
“Of all the balderdash ”I began.
“Call it what you like,” he conceded gener-
ously. “It fits the facts, and it fits her history.
I could tell you stories, half a dozen of them;
but I’ll keep them for another time. I’ll just
say this: If you had any hankering for life
with the Germans, or any notion that your
gifts were suited to a soldier-of-fortune,
Murat-Bonaparte career, this was your
chance.” His grin broadened as he watched
my mounting wrath. “In fact,” he added,
“her risking the entire plot by leaving you
alive looks as if she'd been more serious than
usual in your case. She might have married
you—”
“Oh, you go to the devil!” I exploded. “She
might not have married me. I’ve got other
plans!”
In response to the urging of Leonard and
Jerry, the driver broke all rules for speeding,
and as we hectically negotiated the highroad
the trees looked like a fine-tooth comb. My
recovery had progressed in transit; and save


THREE BLACK BAGS 245
and gray, seemed good. The thankfulness of
escape, the zest of a coming fray, were in my
veins, and, transcending everything, the mem-
ory of Jerry's revelation. Miss Ivison had
been anxious for me! I went no further; but
at thought of seeing her, the long night of
struggle, the menacing plot, the Princess Ilse
and her group of satellites, all seemed to
scurry into oblivion and vanish like so many
evil phantoms blown by a gust of fresh pure
air.
A broad sign announced, in staring letters,
that the American Red Cross canteen was be-
fore me, and, halting and pushing the door
open, I stepped into a large, square room. In
this sanctuary perhaps forty doughboys were
comfortably installed, some sleeping in cor-
ners, some sitting at the long tables and sip-
ping cups of steaming coffee, some reading
newspapers or weeklies, or scanning the flags
of the allied nations and the colored reproduc-
tions of division insignia that decked the walls.
The place even boasted a piano, where a boy
was seated, picking out a familiar tune with


THREE BLACK BAGS 247
veil. At my apparition she exclaimed ani-
matedly.
“Good morning, Colonel Ramsay!” was her
greeting. “Will you have corn-willy sand-
wiches, or goldfish? I don’t think you deserve
either, after deserting us at Brockendorff!”
“I know it,” I admitted promptly. “I was
out of luck, and I’ve come to apologize.” My
eyes, sweeping the room in a vain quest, fas-
tened on the door leading to the kitchen. “I’d
like,” I announced strategically, “to make my
excuses to everybody at once. Is Miss Ivison
in there?”
Miss Oliver, filling cups busily, looked back
at me with charming pettishness.
“Indeed she is n’t! I don’t know what’s
keeping her,” she complained. “I’m all alone,
and I can’t be at the counter and in the kitchen
at the same time. It is n’t possible!”
This was disappointing. A little cold
breath seemed to touch my triumph and spoil
its savor.
“Do you mean,” I queried anxiously, “that
she did n’t come this morning? Is she ill?”
“No. Of course she came,” the girl re-


248 THREE BLACK BAGS
sponded. “But we had n’t been at work ten
minutes when that officer arrived to get
her 59
On the opposite wall, a bell began ringing
with ear-splitting, persistent violence, and an
instant later the word “Saarbrücken” flashed
out on the electric board. At this announce-
ment of the train's readiness, there was a stir
in the room, a rising and adjusting of knap-
sacks, a setting down of cups and bolting of
last morsels, an abrupt ending of the labored
tune at the piano. As the boys moved toward
the door I stood frozen, in the grip of a pre-
sentiment.
“What officer?” I asked.
“The one who took her to the provost-mar-
shal’s.” She was wiping up a devastated
counter. “He inquired first for her at the
Nordallee, and Miss Lamarche told him she
was here. It had something to do with that
train murder; somebody wanted to ask her
questions. Won’t you have a cup of nice hot
coffee, now you’ve come?” she concluded hos-
pitably.


THREE BLACK BAGS 249
“I’m afraid,” I said steadily, “that I must
be going. May I ask how long ago this hap-
pened? Did you know the man?”
‘Nearly two hours ago,” she declared re-
sentfully. “No, I never saw him before. He
was tall and fair; good-looking, but with a red
birthmark on one cheek Why, what is it,
Colonel Ramsay?”
The opportune arrival of a doughboy
rescued me.
“Here’s a customer,” I muttered, beating a
retreat.
I remember nothing of my transit to the
car waiting outside the station, where I found
myself with a foot on the running-board, say-
ing: “Thirteen Nordallee!” to the chauffeur.
In a dim fashion, I became aware that Leon-
ard and Jerry were regarding me curiously.
“Nordallee? What’s the idea, Everett?”
the latter asked, as I sprang aboard.
“I don’t know, yet,” I said, through my
teeth. “But—a man, answering to the descrip-
tion of one of that crew at the hunting-lodge
last night, took Miss Ivison away this morn-


250 THREE BLACK BAGS
ing. He said Miss Lamarche sent him. We’ll
soon check up that story.”
Of the two faces turned upon me, one had
whitened suddenly, while the other had hard-
ened.
“You don’t think ?” Jerry asked after
a minute, in a queer whisper. “Not those peo-
ple? Why?”
“She had that bag in her possession forty-
eight hours,” I said mechanically. “They
know now that both of us saw the picture; that
we conferred about the thing. They could n’t
tell how much she might guess when she heard
about my disappearance, how far she might
put two and two together, what she might do
to set us on their trail; they’d be safer if she
disappeared utterly, as they meant me to.
From the instant yesterday when they found
out she’d had the bag, we ought to have had
a guard watching over her every minute—
every second. I thought of most things in
the lodge last night. I did n’t think of
that.”
“Good Lord!” Leonard breathed.


254 THREE BLACK BAGS
relating the tale of my adventures to various
important powers. The results, sharp and
swift, had seemed miraculous. In the back-
ground of my mind, there lay a wonder and a
pride at the resources I had seen displayed.
The whole gigantic machinery of our power
was already in motion, functioning smoothly,
running without a hitch, working with a noise-
less, hidden activity. I had come home
through a quiet city, a world apparently at
peace. It was hard to realize that the wires
were flashing, not through our territory alone,
but to the French and English, warning of
the coming danger; that Holland knew al-
ready of the plan of escape; that about us, in
a hundred towns, trained men of ours, dis-
guised as natives, were setting out to watch
and listen in the streets, the alleys, the clubs,
the restaurants, the eating-houses; that Treves
was being ransacked for Kaspar von Nord-
hausen, with a view to keeping him under sur-
veillance and gaining knowledge from his
movements; above all, that in every corner,
every nook and cranny of the city, a search


256 THREE BLACK BAGS
In my mind, a less passive plan was form-
ing, but I felt no impulse toward divulging
it; and he let us out as he had suggested and
disappeared down the snowy street. There-
after, Jerry and myself—Kilbourne having
left the house before our advent and Ferguson
being still absent—took our coffee in the din-
ing-room, a silent couple. Horror had un-
nerved Jerry; had I met him unexpectedly, in
his present aspect, I should have passed him
without recognition. He kept eying me fur-
tively, as if for comfort.
“I say, Everett,” he quavered presently.
“D’ you think they’ll find her?”
“Yes. She’ll be found,” I responded
briefly, as I doggedly refilled my cup.
“It seems tough we can’t be helping look
for her—or knocking somebody's head off,”
Jerry muttered.
“Yes,” I agreed again, as curtly as before.
What was there to say?
He sprang to his feet, his self-control break-
ing.
“Look here! I can’t stand this!” he choked


THREE BLACK BAGS 257
despairingly. “You’re sitting there like a
damned steel machine, Everett. Say some-
thing, can’t you? D’ you realize they’ve got
her—got Lorraine? I tell you, if they touch
her—”
In my turn, I rose.
“You’re all in,” I said, with iron compo-
sure. “If I were you, I’d lie down some-
where, and try to pull myself together. I’ll
be back right away.”
As I passed through the salon, he flashed in
after me, and flung himself down on the couch
by the telephone. Glancing back from the
hall, I could see him lying there, his shoulders
shaking in suspicious fashion and his face
buried in his arms. I did not tarry. Taking
my coat and cap from the rack, I tiptoed to
the stairs, descended, and let myself noiselessly
into the street. A brief walk, through unos-
tentatious byways, brought me to the Brod-
strasse, and I hailed a car bound in the direc-
tion of the Porta Nigra and climbed aboard.
Installed within, on a red velvet seat, an
object of interest to a few stray Germans, I


258 THREE BLACK BAGS
sat impassive, my collar elevated and my cap
pulled down over my eyes. I was animated
by a definite purpose. From the first, I had
known that to sit inactive, twiddling my
thumbs, awaiting the outcome of a search con-
ducted by comparatively indifferent agents,
would not be my way. Miss Ivison was in
danger. To get her out of it was my business.
Who was there, connected with the plot, whom
I could run to earth, drive into a corner, and
force to reveal to me the various rendezvous
and hiding-places of the conspirators where
the vanished girl might be incarcerated? The
answer had been instantaneous. There was
McCloud.
The car crept on past the Porta Nigra,
toiled down the street till it reached the sta-
tion, and, executing a majestic circle, drew up
before the Bahnhof Hotel. Alighting, I
passed the portals, glanced at the blackboard
by the entrance, and, having gleaned the in-
formation that Lieutenant Wesley McCloud
was domiciled in Zimmer ein und dreizig, ran
up two flights of rather dingy stairs without


THREE BLACK BAGS 261
had been piled before the door, and though it
was ten o’clock and after, the shutters were
fastened, and the room was lighted by the
strong white glare of electricity. On the stand
by the bed lay a revolver, an ink-stand and a
pen, and a heap of closely written sheets of
paper—coarse gray paper, I noticed suddenly,
like that on which my anonymous warnings
had been indited. McCloud, pajama-clad, was
leaning on the wall, a startling figure, look-
ing, with his white cheeks, terrified eyes, and
heavy, labored breathing, like a man in an at-
tack of heart-failure. For an instant, diverted
by these side issues, I stood measuring him.
“What’s all this?” said I.
He wet his lips desperately.
“They’re after me,” he stammered. “They
think I’ve welshed on them, and they’re
afraid of me. They were watching out there,
at three this morning, when I came back from
Brockendorff—those same two men. Since
I’ve come in, somebody’s tried my door twice,
and once I heard a noise at the window.
They’re going to get me—”


262 THREE BLACK BAGS
“Well, I’ve got you first,” I stated omin-
ously. Turning back to the door, I shut and
locked it. The boy, staring at me fascinatedly,
had retreated to the bed and dropped against
the pillows.
“Say,” he gasped, obviously terror-stricken.
“What do you want?”
“I want several things,” I informed him
sharply. “What’s more, McCloud, I’m go-
ing to have them. There’ll be no interrup-
tions this time; if the house burns down, we’ll
stay right here. What you’re doing in this
galley I don’t know—never have. You’re not
the stuff for it. If you go to pieces this way
now, how will you feel a little later, at mid-
night, when this infernal game of yours begins
to function?”
“My game?” he repeated, like a parrot.
“Begins at midnight? Whadda you mean?”
“You don’t know, eh?” I countered harshly.
I had expected this show of bewilderment.
“All right; never mind that. We’ll take it
up later. For the present, I want to hear, and
in double-quick order too, what’s been done
with Miss Ivison.”


264 THREE BLACK BAGS
arm across his face to shut out my boring gaze.
“Say, listen!” he implored. “I’ll tell you all
about it from the first to the last. Will you
let me?”
I drew a deep breath and leaned back
against the wall.
“Go ahead,” said I.


XX
HERE was a drama and a poignancy to
that interview in the room at the Bahn-
hof. The issue at stake, that of the girl's
safety, etched every detail on my brain. Long
ago as it was, it seems like yesterday. When
I close my eyes, it all rises before me: the
locked, shuttered room; the glare of light; my-
self, a grim figure, standing with arms folded
and gaze fixed ruthlessly on the face of the
culprit; the ashen boy, his resistance broken,
despairingly pouring out his tale.
“You got me wrong,” he persisted wretch-
edly. “But I’m not trying to crawl out of
it. It's like this: I come from a small town
in Michigan; I used to work there in a garage.
I’d never seen anything or done anything.
Then the war came along, and I enlisted. I
always was a bear at mechanics, and I went in
265


266 THREE BLACK BAGS
for aviation and got my commission before I
knew what was happening to me. It sort of
turned my head; I can see that now. People
liked the fliers—wished a halo on us; used to
look at us and point us out in the streets and
restaurants. Then, before we sailed, and over
here, too, I saw a side of things I’d never
known about before. Some of the aviators
were real swells, top-notchers; and I liked
their ways and tried to copy them. It was n’t
hard. If you look all right and pick up things
quick and don’t talk much about yourself,
it’s kind of hard to tell the difference between
a millionaire and a jitney-driver when they’re
both in uniform. Ever think of it?”
“Never mind that.”
“The things I did took money,” he mut-
tered. “I was broke all the time; my pay
would n’t stand it. But I got along somehow,
and made good at flying: by the time the war
was over, I’d brought down two enemy
planes, and got my cross. Then I was in that
smash-up, but I came through pretty well.
When I left the hospital, though, I went down


THREE BLACK BAGS 267
to Nice on leave, and on the train I met two
fellows who’d been with me at the training-
camp at Issoudun. They were corkers—
princes. I guess you know them, but they
would n’t come my way in a thousand years,
at home. They knew that I’d been hurt, so
when they saw I was alone they felt sorry for
me, and asked me if I’d come to their hotel
and play round with them. They thought I
had money; or perhaps they thought I had
sense enough to say so if I could n’t foot the
bills. Well, I did n’t. I said, ‘Yes.”
“That sure was some hotel that we went to.
And those two fellows were sure live wires.
They never stopped going, day or night either;
restaurants, theaters, cafés, tea places—they
did 'em all; and I trailed along. I figured out
it was once in a life-time; I’d never have such
a chance again. Like a crazy loon, I was feel-
ing fine because they treated me like one of
their own sort, and it made me grow an inch
when the waiters and the taxi-starters bowed
and skipped around when they saw us coming.
And so as not to spoil it, I threw a bluff, and


270 THREE BLACK BAGS
and asked me if I’d like to come along and
sit a while with them. I need n’t play if I
did n’t feel like it. I could just look on.
“That was how I got in my first real trouble.
Up to that night, I’d been just plain foolish;
I suppose in the end I’d have told the fellows
and borrowed of them and settled my bill.
But I went upstairs with Parker, and we
found three more officers, and I sat and
watched them for a while. Then I got to
thinking. I’d always had good luck at cards.
I began to wonder if I could n’t stake the
money I had left, and make enough to manage
without eating humble-pie and owning up to
Elliott and Forrester that I’d been a piker.”
A flash of prophetic instinct visited me.
“You damned young idiot!” I exclaimed.
“You’ve said a mouthful.” The boy
grinned wrily. “You see how it was already,
don’t you? I raked in money to begin with,
and then the tide turned, and I lost and lost.
I went on playing, trying to get it back, and
before the game broke up I’d signed I.O.U.’s
for five thousand francs—all to this Parker;


272 THREE BLACK BAGS
perate. I told him I’d shoot myself. That
seemed to reach him, and he calmed down some
and said he was sorry for me, and that maybe
there might be a way I could do a favor for
him and even up the score. I said, ‘Anything
on earth.”
“Here’s the story he told me, more or less.
He said he’d had troubles and he could sym-
pathize. He’d been in Germany, represent-
ing big business, before America went into the
war. While he was at Treves, he met a girl, a
German count's daughter, and got engaged to
her, and when the war came on they both
agreed to wait. He had n’t heard from her
until just now. He’d got a message to her,
through a friend in the army of occupation,
that he was ordered up to Treves and coming
on a certain day; but he'd warned her that
they must n’t communicate. He knew the
rules about fraternization. He was afraid
he’d get into a mess.
“She’d sent a message right straight back
to him, through this same friend, and it had
scared him. She was a headstrong girl, he
/


THREE BLACK BAGS 273
told me, and used to having her own way.
She said she must see him—could n’t stand
waiting. She wrote she’d be in a box at the
opera on a certain night—the night after he'd
reach Treves—and she’d have a seat kept for
him beneath her; he was to ask at the theater
for a place reserved for Herr Heinrich
Schmidt. Then she’d drop her scarf, and
he'd hand it back with a note inside it. Parker
said he was frightened. If he went near her,
she'd lose her self-control and give the show
away, and he’d get the dickens for communi-
cating with a German. Things were strict
just now, he knew. He had her picture, in a
frame, and he meant to slip a note inside it,
warning her to let the whole thing slide for the
present, if she did n’t want to ruin him. His
idea was to have me go and get the ticket and
take the seat. She’d be smart enough to guess
he’d sent a friend, and she’d drop the scarf,
and I’d give her the picture.” -
“Good Lord!” I ejaculated. “Did you
Swallow that?”
“It sounds fishy now,” he owned apatheti-


274 THREE BLACK BAGS
cally. “But he made it all seem different,
somehow. It sounded—well, picturesque, ro-
mantic; like something in a book or a play.
And he said if I’d help him out, he’d tear up
my I.O.U.’s and lend me enough to settle my
account at the hotel and get up to Germany;
it was worth that much to him; he was well
fixed, anyhow. I agreed I’d do it, and he
went off, and I lay down with my clothes on
and slept like a log. Next day we left for
Paris, and when we got there we went and
took our reservations for Germany in the same
compartment, and he told me to be there that
night before the train filled up; he’d bring the
picture and give it to me. That was all. We
were n’t even to seem to know each other, from
then on. “Only mind,” he said, getting nasty
again, “we’re playing this together. If I have
any trouble, you’ll have plenty, too, so you’d
better not fail.”
“I came down early, but he was late, and
when he did show up he looked blamed wor-
ried. I guess he’d seen the police were trail-
ing him, and he’d lost time dodging them, and


THREE BLACK BAGS 275
still did n’t feel safe. He knew they might
grab him any minute, and he wanted to lose
that picture in a hurry, but he did n’t see how.
The corridor had filled up with people, and
you'd turned up ahead of him and were in the
compartment. If he handed me something,
we’d be spotted, sure. He began to put his
baggage in the rack, slowly, thinking all the
time. Then he saw your bag and his were just
alike. He stood still, and looked around, and
then, quick as a flash, he changed them.”
“Thought so!” I exclaimed.
“Well, you know the rest,” McCloud strug-
gled on wearily. “The M. P.'s came in next,
and yanked him out with them, and after that
we were off to Germany. Say, you need n’t
envy me that trip. I put my hand across my
face and acted sleepy, while I thought it out.
I’d begun to see. This Parker man was a spy
or something, and the picture was a message.
He’d been waiting, down at Nice, till some
one sent him word from Paris to come and get
the thing and take it through to Treves. He’d
heard me say that I was going there, and he’d


THREE BLACK BAGS 277
ing to get a bag you thought was yours. And
there was something else—something worse.
I’d never seen you; but I’d kind of worshiped
you. Lots of the boys had. I kept wondering
what you’d think of me, if you knew it all;
but I did n’t stop; I could n’t. By and by
some one put the light out. I waited and
waited, till I began to be afraid it’d soon be
morning and I’d lose my chance. Then,
finally, I set my teeth—they were pretty near
chattering—and held my breath, and edged
off my seat and stood up a little at a
time 55
As he broke off, staring, his tongue para-
lyzed by the sheer terror of the recollection, I
drew back from him.
“Go on,” I commanded harshly. “Say it.
Bellinger caught you, and you stabbed
him—”
“So help me God, I did n’t!” shrieked the
boy.
Flinging himself forward, he clutched my
wrist.
“I’m not standing up for myself,” he bab-


278 THREE BLACK BAGS
bled. “I’m a coward—a traitor maybe; it’d
be too good for me to be shot, or hanged; but
I did n’t do that. I was standing there, with
my fingers on the clasp; I’d have had it open
in a second. Well, just then some one grabbed
my shoulder. Before I could move—I was
too scared anyway—he let me go, and when I
fell back in my seat he tumbled on top of me.
I was so frightened, I thought faster than I
ever did before. I pretended I was waking,
and I spoke kind of drowsy, and then I felt
the blood on my hands, and there was n’t any
flim-flam about the scream I ended up with.
Somebody—I don’t know who—stabbed that
man Bellinger just as he was nabbing me.
But I did n’t kill him. I did n’t. That’s the
living truth!”
He fell back against the pillows, exhausted.
“That murder finished me,” he panted. “I
knew I could never tell the truth now; every-
body’d believe that I’d done the thing. And
I had to get that picture, or you’d find it, and
they’d start investigating and link me up with
Parker before I knew it. The next night I


280 THREE BLACK BAGS
They’d move heaven and earth to get the bag,
and they might kill you, same as they had Bel-
linger. I wrote a note and slipped it under
your door; and next morning, when you went
away, I found out from the billeting officer
where you’d gone, and left another letter
there. Then I said, ‘I’m through.”
“I was n’t, though; not by a long shot. In-
side an hour I was worse than ever. I kept
wondering if they would n’t get you, and I
knew if they did, it’d be my fault. I felt yel-
lower than I had before. Along toward even-
ing I was almost crazy. I gave in then. I
thought: ‘I can’t stand this. I’ll square it,
and then some. I’ll go to the opera, just as
Parker told me, and I’ll get the ticket for
Herr Schmidt and the seat beneath the box.
They don’t know positively where the picture
is, and they’ll be there, probably, on the
chance that I’ve got it somehow and that I’ll
pass it on to them to hush up the business and
save my skin. I’ll go, and if the woman drops
her scarf I’ll give it back, but she’ll find it
empty. I’ll use my eyes, and I’ll get a reg-
ular police description of the people in the


THREE BLACK BAGS 28I.
box, and afterwards I’ll hunt up Colonel
Ramsay and tell him everything from start to
finish, and we’ll do whatever he says about
it.’”
“Well,” I exclaimed slowly, “I’ll be
damned!”
His brief flare of spirit sank into apathy.
“I did it,” he muttered. “I got the nerve
somehow. But I had a scare when I left the
theater; I found two men trailing me, and I
lost my head. I hopped on a street-car and
went over to the flying-camp, and got some
friends I had there to take me in. I lay low
all next day, but at night I drove over with a
car-load of the fellows to the dance at Brock-
endorff; I thought I’d find you there. I’d
have told you everything, but it scared me
when you went for me the way you did and
talked about a court martial. I was all fraz-
zled, anyhow. Before I knew it, I was deny-
ing everything I’d come to say; and the only
thing I had sand enough to do was to warn you
to look out, or they’d get you. Can you beat
that?
“I’ll tell the world, I came home sick. I


THREE BLACK BAGS 283
papers, and forget about me. I’m through;
I’m not fit to be alive; and I’ll get out!”
His hand went flying to the stand beside
him, seized the revolver, and brought it back
to him; but before he could jam it against his
temple I had seized his wrist and was wringing
it hard. The call was a close one. As he cried
out, and his clasp gave, I flung the weapon on
the floor and stood over him, breathless.
“I’ve a good mind,” I panted, “to knock
your fool head off! You young idiot, what’s
yellower than that, if you talk about yellow-
ness? What about your record? You’ve
been through the war, decorated for valor, and
you want to leave a name like that behind
you?”
His face was hidden against the pillows.
“It’s too late now,” he moaned. “I can’t
come back—”
“It’s not too late,” I declared relentlessly.
“How about last year at Château-Thierry?
Suppose we’d said it was too late then, when
we came in and found the French falling
back? If we’ve learned anything from this
row, we’ve learned we can carry on any time


284 THREE BLACK BAGS
—at the last minute, if we have to—and put
it through. Yes, you’ve been a fool, and a
quitter, and a coward, for about a week. Well,
you’ve got to square it. You’re not fit to
live, you say. D'you think you’re fit to die,
at present?”
“But—” he gasped.
“There’s no but about it.” My grip had
tightened. “You’re taking orders. Before I
leave this room. I’ll have your word of honor
that you’ll run straight hereafter.”
The blue, boyish eyes he raised to mine were
astonished, bewildered, and, in a queer, glim-
mering, frightened way, hopeful.
“Say,” he whispered. “Do you mean that?
You’re Everett Ramsay. If you say you’ll
take my word, I’ll buck up and make good
somehow, if it takes till doomsday!”
“You heard me say it,” I stated unrespon-
sively.
His hand groped blindly for mine and
clutched at it.
“I’ll—I’ll give it to you,” he sobbed. “And
I’ll keep it, too. Only—don't go just yet.”


XXI
N the unfolding of this adventure, I had
experienced many vicissitudes, and had
changed localities often and suddenly; as one
might say, at the drop of the hat. A brief
hiatus now ensued. Then, unexpectedly, the
scene again shifted, and at five o’clock, as dusk
was falling, I found myself descending at
Coblenz, at the end of a three hours’ motor
journey which Captain Leonard and I had
shared.
The intervening hours, in the retrospect, re-
minded me of a species of nightmare. First,
I had devoted a few minutes to the settlement
of McCloud’s affairs. His blind trust and
obedience had simplified matters. Without
entering into particulars, I had informed him
that certain recent disclosures had rendered
his confession superfluous, and had myself
torn the closely written sheets to shreds and
285


288 THREE BLACK BAGS
crisply, “one fair, one dark. The dark-haired
girl was sleeping, wrapped in rugs, with her
head on the other's shoulder: drugged or
chloroformed, of course. Every time they
stopped to show their travel-orders, which
were in perfect form—forged ones, naturally
—they asked the M. P.'s to speak low and not
disturb her; explained she was tired out from
working all the night before. It’s plain
enough. The princess and these friends of
hers were bound for the Rhineland, and they
took Miss Ivison along, counting on it that
when we found her missing we’d waste time
hunting for her in Treves and the en-
virons 95
I cut his exposition mercilessly short.
“Well?” I demanded. “Where is she now?”
“We don’t know yet,” he owned reluctantly.
“You’d think the earth had swallowed that
motor; but they’re hunting for it all over Cob-
lenz, and at any minute it may be found. I’m
going up myself. I know some of this crew by
sight—Max von Nordhausen, for instance-
and I’m wanted there.”


THREE BLACK BAGS 289
“Take me, too,” Jerry begged.
“No, I could n’t work it,” Leonard gave
judgment. His tone was definite and implac-
able. “You’d give the whole show away, any-
how, Jerry; you’re the very last person I’d
want along.” He turned to me. “You’re a
different proposition, though. They don’t
want you stopping here at Treves, being rec-
ognized by these people, and letting it out that
you’ve escaped and told us what they’re plan-
ning. I’ve got your orders here, and a special
pass to Coblenz. Ready?”
I picked up my coat, which lay draped on
the balustrade.
“Let’s go,” I said briefly, starting down-
stairs.
“That’s right. Good luck, Everett.” Jerry
was abreast of me. “I—I think a lot of both
of you, old man; and I’m glad you can go.
I’d be no use, but I’ve got a hunch you’ll
save her somehow—you yourself, I mean.
You’re that kind of person.”
I found no answer to this tribute.
“Good-by,” I said, as I opened the door.


290 THREE BLACK BAGS
The City of Treves slipped away behind us,
and a snow-packed road unwound before us.
The driver, settling down to his business, pro-
pelled us forward with speed and skill. Beside
me in the tonneau Leonard enveloped himself
in rugs, slid into a comfortable posture, and,
on the border-land of slumber, advised me
murmurously to emulate him in recuperating
from a sleepless night and recovering strength
for the coming struggle. I made no rejoinder;
what was the use of it? Conceding the desir-
ability of rest, I relaxed my limbs, but my eyes
stayed open. An hour later, as we passed in
meteoric fashion through Wittlich, I was still
awake.
The road rose presently toward the moun-
tains, winding through scenery reminiscent of
Switzerland. We climbed steep slopes, and
shot down sheer declivities, between dense for-
ests or lonely wastes. In the softening snow
our tires dug dark, rutty, parallel tracks; the
firs and pines, touched with white, lacked only
a load of glittering ornaments and a costumed
Santa Claus to resemble Christmas-trees. I


THREE BLACK BAGS 291
stared unseeingly at the landscape. Where
was Miss Ivison? Had she passed this way?
My sense of helplessness, of clogging fu-
tility, was so new and strange that it seemed
intolerable. Until to-day, in its worst devel-
opments, the whole adventure had had its zest.
This had ended suddenly. With my own life
and safety I might gamble—but with Lor-
raine Ivison’s? That was unthinkable. She
had come from a life where people were
guarded and protected, a secure, luxurious,
ordered world, where, save for such rare cata-
clysms as a burglar or a motor smash-up, one
pursued one's daily round without let or hin-
drance. It was in such a setting, safe, shielded,
watched over, that I had liked to picture her.
Where was she now?
I had set out, single-handed, to rescue her,
by learning the secret of her hiding-place. It
was my one chance, and I had lost it. From
this time on, I must sit and wait. Others
would do their best, but they did n’t know what
I did; they had n’t heard Max von Nordhausen
speak of her with smacking lips and hint at


292 THREE BLACK BAGS
plans that turned me cold. Not for a minute,
since McCloud had proved a broken reed, had
that recollection left me, or Leonard's stories
of the man's exploits in Belgium ceased to
gibber in my brain. They were together now.
Facing this, I wondered for an instant, imper-
sonally, if I should soon begin to go to pieces
like Jerry Sutherland. I knew, though, that
I would n’t; it affected me differently. The
worse the thing grew, the blacker the picture,
the more I felt like a steel machine.
Our car dipped sheerly toward a valley,
passed under the dark, towering castle of
Cochem, and began to follow the Moselle
River, speeding along the level road. On
either side, vineyards climbed the slopes, and
towns and villages grew more numerous. For
the first time, it began to penetrate the bar-
riers of my absorption that something was
afoot hereabouts. At intervals, we passed de-
tachments, sometimes small, sometimes consid-
erable, of men in khaki, moving forward
steadily. At each town, in the neighborhood
of each station, the same compact, swiftly mov-
ing files of brown-clad figures met my gaze.


THREE BLACK BAGS 293
There was in their bearing a certain subdued
exhilaration that recalled the past. Leonard,
stirring and yawning, sat up, rubbed his eyes,
and looked about him, and was moved to com-
ment on the phenomenon.
“They don’t know why,” he remarked
tersely, “and they don’t know where; but they
know they’re on their way, and that some-
thing’s brewing. It’s like this through our
whole zone. They’re doing it quietly; there’s
nothing anywhere that can’t be taken for a
piece of the day's work; but altogether—Why,
inside another hour there’ll be troops coming
in from every railway line in France. They’ll
be massed through the whole area; every ave-
nue’ll be watched, every loophole. Take it
from me, it'll be the Germans who'll be get-
ting the surprise to-night, not us. All I’m
afraid of is that they’ll smell a mouse too soon,
and spoil our fun.”
For just an instant, a faint thrill stirred
Ine.
“It’s good work,” I commented, beneath
my breath.
“I’ll say it is.”


294 THREE BLACK BAGS
As the roofs of Coblenz rose in the distance,
slate-gray against a dull, smoldering sunset,
we straightened and thrust the heavy rugs off
us, as if preparing for the fray. I caught
Leonard’s eyes on me.
“Look here,” he ventured, rather awk-
wardly. “This means something to you,
does n’t it? I thought it did. Well, I’ll tell
you what I’ll do. You wait at the Monopole,
and before the evening’s over I’ll drop in,
or telephone, and let you know what news
we’ve got of her. How about it?”
“I’ll be there,” I assented briefly. “And
I’ll expect you. Let me out there now.”
The Hotel Monopole, once a bourne for
tourists, had been turned summarily into a club
for officers. I made a tour of its tarnished
splendors, and then, suffocated, returned
to the air. Before Leonard could communi-
cate with me, sometime must pass, and through
this interval I would feel less like a caged tiger
in the open air than between four walls. I
set forth doggedly. Who could tell? Chance
might favor me. If I tramped the streets, I


THREE BLACK BAGS 295
might, by some wild freak of fate, catch a
glimpse of the Princess Ilse, Freistadt, Lor-
enz, even Max himself. They were circulating
somewhere; why should n’t I meet them? If
only, I reflected grimly, I were the hero of a
novel, the long arm of coincidence, maligned
but useful, would stretch that way.
This being real life, my efforts proved fruit-
less and resembled the wanderings of a man in
a nightmare. In an aimless fashion, I roamed
through Coblenz, like a tourist bent on seeing
its sights. My mind, as I progressed, regis-
tered a confused jumble, first of close-packed
business thoroughfares, next of a handsome
modern quarter with parks and terraces and
massive buildings. I scanned the blank faces
of the houses. Any one of a thousand might
hold the girl.
My route debouched in the wide, stone-
paved space where the Rhine and the Moselle
formed their confluence, and the statue of
Kaiser Wilhelm, on horseback, looked down
at the meeting of the ways. Across the sheet
of water, with its hurrying boats, rose black,


296 THREE BLACK BAGS
craggy heights, crowned menacingly by the
dark fortress of Ehrenbreitstein. The stars
and stripes were flying from it; our sentry-
boxes stood at the bridge-heads. I gazed
vaguely at these signs of accomplishment, my
thoughts still fixed on the girl in the net.
As the darkness fell, and the lights winked
out, I returned reluctantly to the Hotel Mon-
opole, where, having inquired in vain for Leon-
ard, I forced myself to consume a meal. Upon
quitting the restaurant, I selected a table at
the rear of the lounge, installed myself facing
the street entrance, and barricaded myself be-
hind a paper, of the contents of which my brain
refused to assimilate a word. It was half-past
nine when Leonard, coming in, dropped into
a chair facing me.
“I’m sorry, Ramsay,” he said, in a whisper.
“It looks bad, mighty bad. I'm afraid we’ve
lost her.”
For an instant, I felt my self-control slip-
ping.
“Damn it!” I exclaimed fiercely. “You
can’t have lost her! You had all those clues,


298 THREE BLACK BAGS
quietly. “The city’s picketed with men hunt-
ing for Nordhausen; but we might as well
look for a needle in a haystack, if he has the
sense to keep still and lie low. The chances
are he's in some good hiding-place, and he’ll
stay there till the hour for the rising. It’s
tough luck, but if I were you, I’d forget
about it.”
I startled myself by laughing harshly.
“Forget about it!” I exclaimed.
“Well, not that exactly,” he retracted.
“You can’t forget it, and we can’t either; but
you can’t do anything, any more than I can:
we’ve just got to wait and take what comes.
Think of something else instead. There’ll
be a peach of a scrap before long. Things are
quiet now, but we’re good and ready, and to-
ward midnight, right at the last minute,
there’ll be troops massed all around the city,
suddenly, as if they were coming out of no-
where. You can join on any place, if some-
thing starts, and have a crack at these fellows.
That’ll be some comfort.”
“Yes,” I echoed stonily. “That’ll be some


THREE BLACK BAGS 299
comfort. Thanks, Leonard. You’ve been
very decent about this thing. Good-by.”
When the outer darkness had engulfed him,
I sat on and on, with my arms on the table.
The larger issue was nearing rapidly, but it
failed to register on my brain. Dully, indiffer-
ently, I realized that the hour was close; that
my brother-officers, passing in and out, had
their orders for their whereabouts a little later;
that the Coblenz Germans, perhaps even to the
placid waiter who had served me in the restaur-
ant and the stolid porter at the door, had their
parts to play in the coming drama. When
the time arrived, I, too, would join in it. But
to think of it now was beyond my power.
With the coming of Leonard, and his admis-
sions, my last faint hope had been finally pul-
verized, and my lingering faith in a possible
miracle annihilated for good and all. My
helplessness wrung a sort of groan from me.
Somewhere in this city, within a radius of a
mile no doubt, was Lorraine Ivison, in who
knew what extremity of fear or peril; and I
could n’t help her. Words of hers recurred


300 THREE BLACK BAGS
to me like some ghastly jest. She had praised
my courage, glowed for my achievements. She
had been anxious for me the night before;
sent Jerry to my rescue. After that, if I
sat here idle, leaving her in the hands of Max
von Nordhausen, I was the poorest travesty
of a man that ever walked the earth. Yet
what could I do?
Eleven o'clock struck somewhere in the dis-
tance. I still sat on, like a graven image, as
lost to the changing scene about me as if ma-
rooned on a desert isle. With blank eyes, I
watched a man in uniform come in by the street
entrance and, as a hundred others had done,
approach the lounge. I looked at him, at first
unseeingly, then with recognition, finally with
a stirring of interest and a little, sharp, elec-
tric tingle, premonitory of excitement.
It was not Max von Nordhausen who was
bearing down on me. It was not Freistadt.
It was not Lorenz.
It was Captain William Harris of the medi-
cal corps.


304 THREE BLACK BAGS
have seen you.” He crossed to the passage
door and vanished. I was tingling with the
desire to follow, but I remained rooted to my
seat. Leaning forward on the table I gazed
abstractedly, not toward the door that had en-
gulfed him, but at a tall gilt-framed mirror on
the wall, reflecting that point of egress. In
another minute, it revealed exactly what I
had expected: Harris, poised on tiptoe, stolen
back noiselessly to discover how I had com-
ported myself on his withdrawal. My delay
had been lucky. At the slightest sign of pur-
suit he would, I felt convinced, have shot me in
my tracks—if I had n’t shot him first—and
trusted to fortune and to his wits to get away.
Reassured by my air of bored quiescence, the
lurking figure dematerialized, and this time I
galvanized into action before it had fairly left
my sight. Gaining the passage and darting
down it, I reached the street, with its scattered
spangle of shining lights, and, reconnoitering
from the shelter of the door, picked out Harris,
already half a block off. He was walking fast,
almost running, looking neither backward nor


306 THREE BLACK BAGS
Harris, returned to spy on me, had clinched
the matter and obliterated my last doubt. In
that flash of time I had seen, not the apathetic,
lack-luster, slangily talkative young man whose
personality had made the notion of his com-
plicity in dark events seem ludicrous, but an-
other being—an alert figure, swift-moving,
much alive, threatening in its energy, with a
look of tense, wiry strength in muscles that
had seemed flabby, and with something sinister
and merciless in the eyes glaring at me from
behind the horn-rimmed spectacles. The vis-
ion was a revelation. From the first, he had
played a part, and played it with a skill and a
cold-blooded nerve I could scarcely credit.
Now he stood revealed.
In this new light, the present was simplified,
and the past began to yield up its mysteries.
I understood the pivotal episode, the chang-
ing of the two black bags. Invariably this had
baffled me. In McCloud's suggestion, to the
effect that Parker had expected him, from
motives of panic and self-preservation, to sal-
vage the picture and carry through its trans-


THREE BLACK BAGS 307
fer, I had taken small stock; the thing was
too chancy; the boy was too weak a vessel to
be counted on. Harris, though, was another
pair of shoes. He had been Parker's col-
:
league, the second string to the bow; he had
been in the corridor, on watch; Parker had
known it. Through the door he had seen the
bags exchanged, and that night he had lain .
awake, awaiting his chance. McCloud had
forestalled him; Bellinger had intervened.
To ward off discovery from the precious pic-
ture, Harris had stabbed Bellinger. Consid-
ering these revelations, we had been a strange
company, indeed, that night!
What Harris was doing in this galley I did
not ponder for the present, though the com-
plicity of an American officer in such a plot
seemed beyond belief. I had things of more
importance to think of. A miracle had been
worked. Just as the case seemed at its black-
est, the tide had turned, and this man, up to
his ears in the conspiracy, had been brought
face to face with me and confronted with the
stunning fact that I had escaped from durance


308 THREE BLACK BAGS
with full knowledge of the activities projected
for to-night. What would be his first move?
Like a homing pigeon, he would take the news
to Max von Nordhausen, his chief, his com-
mander, the man who stood at Coblenz for the
Kaiser. If I followed him, he would lead me
straight to my hidden enemy—perhaps to Lor-
raine!
While we dodged and ducked up and down
the thoroughfares, little wisps of mist blew
across our faces. The night was chilly, creepy
almost, but electricity was in the air. The
streets were filling with khaki-clad figures;
squads passed us, moving briskly toward their
stations; in more than one square troops stood
massed already, and when our route brought
us to the river I caught glimpses of boats
packed with men, which negotiated the current
rapidly, or lay close against the shore as if
waiting a summons. We were getting ready,
as Leonard had boasted. Did Harris see the
doom written on the wall?
We crossed the Castor Platz and debouched
from it, and by slow degrees our surroundings
altered. We were leaving the river quarter


THREE BLACK BAGS 309
behind us, entering a meaner part of the town.
The change, to my sharpened nerves, seemed
significant. These blank, narrow streets,
lighted only at intervals, deserted save for an
occasional slouching figure, looked sinister and
menacing; their barred shutters spoke of se-
crets; their bits of antique architecture, sur-
viving here and there amid squalor, bore wit-
ness to a time when plots and murders and ab-
ductions had been every-day matters, scarcely
worthy of a thought.
The end came abruptly. Harris glanced
backward, and then turned sharply into a side
street, the looming mass of a tall, gabled build-
ing concealing him instantly from my sight.
Obsessed by the fear that now, at the last
minute, he would slip through my fingers, I
rounded the corner after him—and got a shock.
Whether he had sensed my presence from the
time we left the Monopole, or had awakened
to it at some subsequent stage, I can’t tell yet;
but he knew, and he was lying in wait for me.
As I emerged, he was upon me, and I was
fighting for my life.
His plan, apparently, was to shun firearms,


THREE BLACK BAGS 3II
bad enough to be spotted by Harris and to
lose his services as a guide. To rouse the
neighborhood, and betray my presence to the
house, presumably near, for which he had been
making, would be the finishing straw. Not if
I could help it—and I fancied I could.
“Hold your tongue,” I snapped impera-
tively, “and listen to me!”
As if my accents held something startling,
the man above me exclaimed audibly. Turn-
ing on a torch, and pointing it down, he con-
verged its beams upon my face. His free hand
shot to his forehead. He stiffened snappily.
“Holy smoke!” he exclaimed jubilantly.
“If it ain’t the captain—I mean the colonel!”
Still kneeling, I regarded him, vaguely at
first, then more intently, my mind groping
down a vista of a thousand more or less similar
faces, all marked by the same youth, the same
surface irresponsibility and harum-scarum
high spirits, and the same underlying, reassur-
ing hint of balance, capability, and strength.
The missing link seemed to dance just beyond
me. Then suddenly the dark street faded, and


312 THREE BLACK BAGS
I saw, like a picture thrown on the screen, a
shot-spattered expanse, a rain of singing,
whining bullets, and a space, seared, blackened,
unprotected, seemingly endless, across which,
on my face, I was working toward a crumpled
figure lying under fire.
“Why, it’s Donovan!” I cried.
“Yes, sir.” My recognition delighted him.
“I guess the colonel’s surprised to see me.
It’s a long way from Valençay-in-the-Ar-
gonne to pounding pavements here in Coblenz,
and having the fellows give me that yip of
theirs about who won the war, same as if I’d
never seen a gun. I was in the hospital three
months, and when I came out I was sort of
wabbly, and they stuck me in the M. P.'s. At
that, I was lucky. If the captain—I mean the
colonel—had n’t crawled out and brought me
in that day, I’d have pushed daisies 55
“Never mind that.”
“Pardon, sir, but I do.” His tone was
dogged. “I ain't forgotten, nor the boys
either; there ain’t a blamed one of us that was
in the Argonne that’s ever going to forget.


THREE BLACK BAGS 313
We’d go to hell for the colonel any day, and
be glad of the chance of it—”
The present had me in its grip again.
“Well,” I cut him short, “you can do some-
thing less sulphurous for me to-night. Do you
See this fellow?”
Together, in the light of the torch we ex-
amined Harris. He had been lying as if dead,
but now, as if aroused by our scrutiny, his eyes
flickered open, sick and dazed, staring up at
us without recognition or seeming intelligence.
“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of him. What's
he been doing?” inquired my erstwhile com-
rade in arms.
“Headquarters want him,” I summed up
briefly. “The very least he’s done is murder.
Now, there’s something else I'm after, Dono-
van, and I should n’t wonder if you could help.
You’ve gathered, have n’t you, that there’s
something in the wind to-night? Well, this
man’s in it and he has accomplices. He was
on his way to them, and I was trailing him,
when he tried to stab me, and I’ve a fancy that
the house he was bound for is n’t far off. You


314 THREE BLACK BAGS
know this region; can you place a building,
within a radius of five blocks or so, that seems
in any way suspicious? Think it over; don’t
hurry. There’s a good deal hanging on it,
Donovan, I don’t mind telling you. Any
house you’ve noticed as being different, in any
way whatever, from the other houses? Yes,
I know, it’s a large order. I’ll wait. Take
your time—but get it right.”
“Well, sir—” the boy was plainly excited,
—“I should n’t wonder if I could place it. If
there’s such a house anywheres in this neigh-
borhood, it’s the one two blocks down, with
the light upstairs. It’s a shop on the ground
floor, sir, and the man who keeps it lives above
it by himself; but he has lots of company.
Nights, when the store’s closed up, there’ll be
no end of people drop in to see him and stay
just five minutes or so; I’ve often noticed it.
To-night especially he’s been popular. About
a dozen times, since I’ve been here, I’ve seen
one fellow or a coupla guys together come
along and knock, and go in, and come popping
out again a little later. Does that sound
right?”


316 THREE BLACK BAGS
yes, I’ll manage it—you take this fellow where
he'll be safe. Then, in my name, get Captain
Leonard of the intelligence by telephone.
You’ll find him at headquarters, probably.
Tell him that the girl he wants, and the men
too, are in this street; then come back, and sur-
round the house. I may be out by that time,
but in any case Captain Leonard won’t be long
in getting here, and he’ll manage the affair.
In the meanwhile, the main point is that you’re
not to let one man leave the house alive. Got
that straight, have you?”
The boy cleared his throat.
“Pardon, sir,” he mumbled. “I—I s'pose
the colonel would n’t let me tie up this guy and
leave him, and come along?”
“Donovan,” I exclaimed sharply, “don’t you
know yet that when I give an order I mean it?”
He chuckled sheepishly.
“I guess we all knew that,” he owned.
“I’ll say it’s good to be back working with the
colonel.” Bending, he jerked up the unresist-
ing Harris, who stood swaying drunkenly to
and fro, his face greenish white, his eyes still


THREE BLACK BAGS 317
dazed and uncomprehending. “Shake a leg,
old scout!” He saluted me, linked an arm
through Harris's in a vise-like grip, and, car-
rying his prisoner rather than leading him, set
off toward a glow of lights in the distance that

dicated the locality of the Castor Platz.
Standing in the shadow, I looked down the
street toward the shuttered house that Dono-
van had shown me. In that building, was Max
von Nordhausen sitting, while his scouts and
messengers came and went? Behind one of
those windows, was Lorraine Ivison listening,
hoping? Without reason, yet definitely, I be-
lieved she was. My blood cooled suddenly.
My pulses stopped their drumming. I felt
an enveloping calmness and clear-sightedness,
as if I were not a man at all but a piece of ma-
chinery wound up for the performance of the
task before me.
Donovan and his wavering, staggering cap-
tive had passed from sight. I started down the
Street.


XXIII
HE last year, for me, had held various
moments that had by no means lacked
in tension—night excursions, for instance, into
No-Man's-Land, when for all I could tell, at
any minute, an enemy patrol might graze my
sleeve; waits in the dim, still, weird hour be-
fore dawn, watch in hand, prepared to give the
word for the dash across the top. Now, as I
approached this house of mystery, all those
events seemed suddenly trivial. The crisis of
my life, the thing I had been born for, was
upon me. It was my great moment. Hith-
erto, in the last analysis, I had risked no more
than life and limb, and if I had been counted
out others would have replaced me. To-night
the stake was something more precious, and I
was playing the game alone.
My sense of certainty was rather puzzling,
considering the slimness of my data. I had
318


320 THREE BLACK BAGS
wanted, which I must necessarily have replaced
by a sheer blind reliance on luck in the case of
a total stranger. The omen was good.
It was well that I had so much encourage-
ment in an enterprise so distinctly chancy.
Even should the place prove to be the right
one, I was still on the threshold of the affair.
How I was to penetrate within, how, having
penetrated, I was to locate Miss Ivison and
escort her forth before the house became the
center of a conflict that might threaten her
with serious danger, were problems calculated
to test the resources of the most seasoned.
Postponing the other questions temporarily,
I concentrated on the first step—that of en-
trance. In such a place, the headquarters of
a leader, where messengers and reports must
arrive continually, it was obvious that a pass-
word was likely to be the condition of admit-
tance. Armed with the right one, I might gain
at least a foothold on the territory of the enemy.
I resolved on a flier. Through that conference
at the hunting-lodge, one phrase had recurred
at intervals in the talk of the conspirators, like


THREE BLACK BAGS 321
a leitmotif in an opera, until, whenever I
looked back upon that scene, it rang in my
brain. It was die Nacht—the Night; the night
that had been planned to follow the unsuc-
cessful Day. Might that be the word?
The crucial instant was close upon me, for
1 had almost reached the house now. Already
it was towering over me, a dark, mysterious,
shuttered bulk. Across my mind, grimly,
ironically, flashed the memory of how, only
four nights ago, I had sat in the compartment
of a jolting train, and lamented that adven-
ture and excitement had become non-existent
with the ending of the war. As if to confound
me, I had been plunged, within an hour, into
a veritable maelstrom formed of both ingredi-
ents, culminating now in my stealthy approach
to a darkened building in the heart of Coblenz
and my attempt at single-handed rescue of a
girl kidnapped in broad daylight, rushed all
the way from Treves, and held here in dur-
ance. Had the war brought stranger things
than this?
The thought winked out and was gone in-


322 THREE BLACK BAGS
stantly. I strode, without haste, across the
pavement, my faculties all massing and con-
centrating on the blank surface of that high,
narrow door. The first test was coming. Was
there some definite knock—a signal indispens-
able for gaining admittance, or the absence of
which, at least, would brand me from the start
as an intruder uninstructed in their code and
to be regarded with suspicion? In that case,
I would be handicapped at the very outset.
I thought rapidly. Inspiration came to me.
In another vivid flash of memory I saw my-
self lying bound in the lodge, Max and Kaspar
standing with straining ears, and the Princess
Ilse and her two satellites, outside, announcing
their identity by their curious tattoo upon the
panels. It was worth trying, anyhow. The
door loomed before me. I bent forward and
knocked exactly as they had done, giving first
a sharp quick rap and then two heavier blows.
I was not kept waiting a single instant for
the success of my experiment. Almost as if
I had been expected, the door swung open,
just a crack. It was, I could see, still on its


THREE BLACK BAGS 327
merged into laughter as I listened; and, like
an echo, other voices seemed to rise from be-
neath my feet. Extreme caution was advis-
able. I snapped the torch out. Then, with it
in one hand, and my revolver in the other, I
stole to the door.
The air seemed thick with potentialities
as the knob turned beneath my fingers. What
might lie just within I had no notion, and
visions of ambush danced through my brain.
With a sigh of relief, however, I found my-
self, peaceably enough, in a long, narrow pas-
sage, innocent of occupants, and lighted in
ghostly fashion by a tallow candle guttering
on a table. At one end, a narrow twisting
staircase disappeared, presumably toward a
cellar, while at the other a flight of stairs as-
cended to the second story. From both above
and below, more clearly now, I caught the
sound of voices that had reached me in the
shop. I ventured on a deduction. Max and
his especial coterie, I decided, were installed
upstairs in haughty, exclusive solitude. Their
bodyguard was below.


328 THREE BLACK BAGS
With the circumspection of a man near a
wasp’s nest, I began to work my way slowly
upward. I tested each board before I stepped
on it; I started guiltily at the faintest creak.
Thanks to this caution, or to luck, success
crowned my efforts. Without any alarm shat-
tering the stillness, I reached the top. Above
me, the stairs continued, narrower now, end-
ing in what seemed to be the door of a garret.
Before me stretched a passage with three doors
opening from it, two shut, the third open and
emitting a light.
It was from this last sanctuary that the
sound of voices had been drifting. I crept
nearer to it, still nearer, with all the wariness
of a mouse. Now that the crisis was at hand,
I felt a craven unwillingness to look within.
If my guess had gone astray, if this house,
though most certainly one of the centers of the
intrigue, was not the right one—I halted sud-
denly, relief sweeping over me like a flood.
From inside I had caught a voice that, though
thick, overbearing and arrogant, was more wel-
come in my ears at that juncture than the


THREE BLACK BAGS 333
perhaps to leave myself a reward when my
work was done.” He wet his lips. His eyes
ran over her, slowly, from head to foot. “In
an hour I will claim it, that reward 95
Covering the group with my revolver, I
stepped into the doorway.
“You’re mistaken, baron,” I said grimly.
“That’s not quite the program. Hands up,
please!”


XXIV
HE ensuing moment was compensation
for almost everything I had suffered.
The sight of their faces, in particular of Max's,
was worth, conservatively, a year of my life.
Had I been a jinn, emerging in smoke-clouds
from the bottle on the table, or taking shape
from the air above his head, I could have
knocked the flower of the house of Nordhausen
no sillier. He had fondly fancied, had indeed
just stated, that I had been eliminated from
the game and left to repose, a harmless cada-
ver, in the neighborhood at Brockendorff.
Challenging the statement, I popped out at
him. The pasty whiteness of his broad face,
the blank terror of his little, staring eyes, pro-
claimed the trend of his dazed cogitations.
Was I flesh and blood, he was asking fear-
fully? Or was I a ghost?
334


THREE BLACK BAGS 335
The dramatic suddenness of my entry had
shifted the odds in amazing fashion. The aver-
age physique of these men was excellent, and
beyond a doubt they were heavily armed.
With the merest second to prepare themselves,
they could have greeted me with a fusillade
that would have made short work of me, or,
leaping on me, have overwhelmed me with sheer
force of numbers; but this leeway had been
missing. Like a masked thug, appearing in
a saloon door with designs on the cash-register,
I had sprung into being, and, employing the
methods of a bandit, had achieved the success
that at times accompanies them. Obedience
to my mandate was instantaneous. Every
hand arose. Every eye stared.
Advancing a few steps into the room, I stood
for a moment, measuring them pitilessly, yet
poignantly conscious with every heart-beat of
the single figure outside their group. At my
armed invasion, the girl had sprung up, utter-
ing my name in a low, soft, breathless cry of
welcome. Now, unstirring, she stood gazing
at me in half fearful, half incredulous wonder,


336 THREE BLACK BAGS
her eyes shining radiantly, her lips parted, one
hand resting on the back of her chair.
“I’ll ask you, gentlemen,” I announced
coolly, “to stand just as you are—not to move
a muscle. If you make me nervous, and my
finger wabbles, there’ll be the devil to pay,
you know. You appreciate that quite clearly,
do you? I thought you would.” Without
shifting my hypnotic gaze I addressed the blue-
clad figure in the background. “Miss Ivison?”
“Yes, Colonel Ramsay.” Her voice was
still a little breathless, but it was quite clear.
“I want you,” I stated, “to tell me what’s
happened. I heard what was said before I
came in here. Apart from that, and from your
kidnapping, have you anything to complain of
on the part of these people?”
She shook her head.
“No. I’ve been safe—until now,” she an-
swered. “They must have drugged me. When
we left the station, this man—” she motioned
toward Nordhausen—“was driving, and I was
inside, with the man who had come for me; the
one with the birthmark on his cheek. I noticed


338 THREE BLACK BAGS
the lower passage, at your right hand, you’ll
find a door leading to the shop. There’s a
man inside, but he’s harmless, temporarily;
I’m only mentioning him because I don’t
want the sight of him to startle you. Let
yourself out into the street. You may find
the house already surrounded by our men, but
if you don’t, run straight toward the Castor
Platz, where you’ll see the lights shining.
There’ll be plenty of Americans there. Give
them the alarm, and tell them to come on the
double-quick and join me, and take over our
friends here.” I extended my left hand, which
held the torch. “Take this. You’ll need it.”
She drifted forward a little, hung irreso-
lutely, then halted. We were close together.
Though I could n’t look at her, I felt her dark
eyes regarding me steadily from the shadow
of her hood.
“I see,” she whispered. “You mean to stay
here—to cover my retreat.” Her head went
up stubbornly. “I’ll go when you do,” she
declared, with a catch of the breath. “I won’t
go before.”


342 THREE BLACK BAGS
when they hear about this kidnapping. Your
rising's petered out, I tell you. It’s as dead
as a door-nail. Your one hope is to rush me
and get away before the house is surrounded,
and hide yourselves somewhere—”
A woman's low cry came from the stairs.
With a purely automatic movement, I
backed to the threshold, seized the key in my
left hand, and transferred it to the outer key-
hole, still keeping my revolver trained. In an-
other instant I was in the hall, the door was
slammed, the key was turned, the six Germans
were shut up to meditate inside, and I had
started like a hare for the staircase. There
stood Miss Ivison, clutching the balustrade,
listening to the sound of steps and voices in
the hall below. With dismay, I comprehended.
The men from the cellar!
“O Colonel Ramsay!” breathed the girl.
“People are coming!”
“Yes,” I agreed. My mind and my eyes
were working simultaneously. We were
caught between two fires; this inopportune
turning of the tables had brought my whole


THREE BLACK BAGS 343
scheme tumbling about my ears like a house
of cards. I damned the luck inwardly, even
while, as if sizing up the scene of a surprise
attack, I gave one swift, comprehensive scru-
tiny to the hall, the doors opening from it, the
stairs leading from beside us to the upper story.
These last seemed most promising.
“There’s a garret,” I said, making my
choice between the frying-pan and the fire.
“Go up there!”
Obeying me instantly, she ran up lightly,
and I followed her with all possible prompti-
tude. It was time, for my prisoners were wak-
ing the dead now, and shaking the panels un-
der their blows. The men in the lower passage,
awakening to the uproar, were hastening up
the stairs, and emerged into the hall as we
reached the garret door. For a minute the
sight of us brought them up standing. I tried
to prolong this brief immunity.
“Unless you want trouble,” I shouted,
“stop right where you are!”
To emphasize my recommendation, I sent a
shot among them at random, and a groan and


THREE BLACK BAGS 345
and to hunt up an ax; and all that takes time.
Then, if they smash the door, we’ll take to
the roof, and if they follow us they’ll come
one by one and I’d be a rotten marksman not
to pick them off. Remember, we’ve got
friends coming. Every minute helps us.”
“They’re quite still now,” she murmured.
“No, they are talking somewhere. Where are
they?”
“In the room where I shut up those fellows,”
I responded. “They’ve joined forces.”
The voices below grew clearer, louder.
“You were right,” Miss Ivison whispered.
“They’re coming.”
“Yes. Please stand out of range—back
there.” -
Scarcely breathing, we stood straining our
ears for the tramp of feet ascending to our
aery. With a certain sense of anticlimax, I
began to realize that it did not come. Nor was
this an approach by stealth, a creeping up the
staircase to take us by surprise, for we still
heard the voices. They were lessening in vol-
ume, though, growing distant. As Miss Ivi-


XXV
* TN that summons from the outer world, there
was something startling and almost breath-
taking. Sepulchral stillness had preceded it,
and sepulchral stillness swallowed it up. In
the quality of the two silences, though, there
was a difference. The house itself now seemed
to fill with an atmosphere of fear and horror,
an emanation from the trapped band under
us. Just as, before the knocking, I had pic-
tured the Germans slipping toward the door,
with safety almost in their grasp, I visioned
them standing petrified by the alarm, afraid
to stir, with that echo ringing in their ears.
Another minute, and they would have been
outside, with a city before them in which to lose
themselves like needles in a haystack. Fate
had not willed it so. All escape was barred.
Leaning on the door, Miss Ivison looked at
me, with her lips parted and her eyes anxious.
348


352 THREE BLACK BAGS
figures guarded the place of mystery. Above
and below, up and down the street, I could see
other broad-hatted, black-banded figures, keep-
ing the area clear. As I scanned the scene, a
cry from beneath, in Donovan's accents, re-
minded me that the one light now burning in
the house, that in our garret, was behind me,
and that as I leaned out I was silhouetted
against its rays.
“It’s the colonel!” the boy yelled, in a paean
of relief and triumph. “It’s the colonel!”
Again that little creak sounded below us.
This time, it was followed by a guttural voice,
hoarse with rage—the voice of Max von Nord-
hausen.
“Stop!” it screamed. “Come no further.
If you set foot across the threshold, the Herr
Ramsay dies, the girl dies, before you reach
them!”
I leaned from the window.
“Can you hear me, sergeant?” I shouted.
“They’re lying! We’re safe in the attic, both
the girl and I. Break the door down, and
hurry up about it. They can’t touch us.”


358 THREE BLACK BAGS
pert riflemen, and the heavy shutters afforded
them .an excellent barricade. Save for the
crack of shots, no sound came from beneath
our feet, and in the silence of the resistance one
sensed something deadly, desperate They
had no hope now, but the lack, instead of weak-
ening them, had made them more ferocious.
The house across the way was not idle either,
for at intervals, as if to impress upon me the
desirability of a policy of non-interference, a
shot crashed at random through our window.
One of these, slanting inward, brushed the pile
of bales that sheltered Miss Ivison before
ricocheting from the wall. I muttered some-
thing. This was too chancy. Perhaps she
thought so, too, for on the heels of my ejacula-
tion she spoke.
“Colonel Ramsay ” she began.
“Yes?” I asked, coming closer.
She hesitated for an instant.
“If ” she recommenced. “If anything
should happen 53
“It won’t,” I declared sharply.
“I’m sure it won’t. But, in case it should,
I want to thank you for saving me to-night—


360 THREE BLACK BAGS
out, then, perceiving that the present develop-
ment had brought immunity in its train, leaned
head and shoulders out as boldly as if I were
bending over Fifth Avenue.
“Now,” I cried triumphantly, “we’re going
to see!”
Down the street, from the region of the Cas-
tor Platz, were coming lines of khaki-clad fig-
ures; and more came after them, and still more
followed, till their blessed ranks seemed with-
out an end. The light fell on the glitter of
their fixed bayonets, on their set, boyish faces,
on their eyes unclouded by doubt of the out-
come. Above the thud of their feet rose the
clear, confident orders of their officers. With-
out halting or slackening, disregarding the
bullets from the windows as utterly as if they
were a shower of colored confetti thrown on
a day of carnival, the ranks came on as irre-
sistibly as ever they had gone across the top,
while, before their advance, the fire above
broke, came sporadically, and at last, as if con-
scious of the inevitable defeat, petered into
nothingness.


364 THREE BLACK BAGS
on my wrist-watch. I stared at it. Lifting it
to my ear, I listened to assure myself that it
was functioning properly.
“What’s wrong?” Leonard asked.
In the wild vicissitudes of the late battle, I
had lost all conception of time and its passing,
and all recollection of certain happenings ar-
ranged by the Germans for to-night. Incred-
ulously, I perceived that the hands of my
watch pointed to one o’clock, and realized that,
while we had been prisoners in our garret, the
hour of the rising had come and gone. Had
the conflict around us drowned the echo of the
fighting elsewhere? Had the part of Coblenz
where we were been immune? I looked at
Leonard.
“How about the plot?” I demanded.
“What happened?”
His eyes flashed exultantly.
“What happened?” he repeated. Words
seemed to fail him. “Look here; I want you
to see for yourself, you and Miss Ivison. It’s
the sort of thing you can’t talk about or tell
about; you’ve got to see it.” His eyes, sweep-


THREE BLACK BAGS 371
lenged, then passed on with words of congratu- .
lation. We emerged into the Castor Platz. '
Again cheers greeted us and search-lights
swept us, and across the river we saw Ehren-
breitstein, where our flag had waved at sunset
and would wave again at sunrise. A deep-
drawn sigh of relief and contentment came
from Miss Ivison. I interpreted the sound .
into words.
“Under all the circumstances,” I remarked,
“we’re pretty lucky, are n’t we?”
“It is like a dream,” she answered, in a
hushed voice. “I can’t quite believe it yet. Is
it real?”
“Well, I’m not sure,” I admitted dubi-
ously. “I’ve been thinking of the day we left
Paris. I was mooning because the war was
over, and all my adventures had come to an
end. Since then, I’ve been mixed up in a
murder, been robbed, been knocked on the
head and shanghaied, had a princess save my
life, and practically offer me her hand in mar-
riage if I would consent to join the Ger-
mans—”


THREE BLACK BAGS 373
“Oh!” she exclaimed.
“They say,” I went on, “that we’re done
with fighting. I hope we are; we’ve had
enough of it. But for a while—for a good
many years yet—we'll keep a few soldiers in
case of need. That’s the only thing I was
ever good for in my life—to be a soldier; not
the kind that goes hunting for a row and turn-
ing the world topsyturvy for the sake of loot,
but the watch-dog kind, that's on the spot to
see the rules are kept if a lot of dangerous
lunatics try to run amuck. I can make men
follow me; it’s the one gift I’ve got. Well,
that’ll be my work. I’ll be happy anywhere
on earth—on a desert, if they send me there.
And if the time comes, by and by, when they
don’t need any of us, so much the better. I’ll
have done my part.”
“I understand,” the girl whispered. Her
head was high, and her eyes were shining
through the darkness. “My people were sol-
diers. Yes, I understand, Colonel Ramsay.
And I’m glad!”
A sigh of thankfulness broke from me.


THREE BLACK BAGS 375
to Coblenz and I would have stopped at
Treves. I would n’t have been carried off.
You would n’t have followed me, and found
where they had hidden me, and come all alone
to save my life. We would n’t be here now,
together—”
“I would n’t be the luckiest beggar in Chris-
tendom!” I broke in. Dimly I recalled that,
in the days just past, I had at times reverted
to my purchase made beneath the wing of
Raoul de Mericourt, and dwelt, not altogether
in gratitude, on the train of adventures it had
brought. That attitude had become incon-
ceivable. My arms were around the girl, my
face was close to hers, but as I bent over her
I paused for one instant to waft a benediction
toward Raoul, Lemaitre’s, everything that
had in the remotest or most far-fetched degree
contributed to the present outcome.
“Bless those bags!” said I.


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