tff3(%J^^^ 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
BY GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON 
 
 GBAUSTABK 
 
 CASTILE CRANEYCROW 
 
 BREWSTER S MILLIONS 
 
 THE SHERRODS 
 
 THE DAT OF THE Doo 
 
 BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK 
 
 THE PURPLE PABASOL 
 
 NEDRA 
 
 COWAJRDICE COURT 
 
 JANE CABLE 
 
 THE FLYERS 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF ANDERSON CROW 
 
 THE HUSBANDS OF EDITH 
 
 THE MAN FROM BRODNEY S 
 
 THE ALTERNATIVE 
 
 TRUXTON KING 
 
 THE BUTTERFLY MAN 
 
 THE ROSE IN THE RING 
 
 WHAT S- HIS-NAME 
 
 MARY MIDTHORNE 
 
 HER WEIGHT IN GOLD 
 
 THE HOLLOW OF HER HANDS 
 
 A FOOL AND His MONEY 
 
 BLACK Is WHITE 
 
 THE PRINCE OF GRAUBTARK 
 
 MR. BINGLE 
 
 THE LIGHT THAT LIES 
 
 FROM THE HOUSETOPS 
 
 GREEN FANCY 
 
 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
m/m vHk 
 
 VERY GOOD, CAPTAIN ! ORDERS is ORDERS, SIR. SHE 
 
 STOOD OFF AND SALUTED HIM WITH MOCK SOLEMNITY 
 
 (Page 66) 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 BY 
 GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON 
 
 Author of "Graustark," "The Hollow of Her Hand," 
 "Brewster s Millions," etc. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 F. R. GRUGER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 1918 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1918 
 BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANT, INC. 
 
 :iO"ii 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "Very good, Captain! Orders is orders, 
 sir." She stood off and saluted him 
 with mock solemnity. (Page 66) Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Carstairs took up the receiver. He realized that 
 his hand trembled. He had never known it to 
 happen before, even in moments of great stress 36 
 
 They did not speak until they reached a deserted 
 corner of the hotel lobby . . . . . . . 94 
 
 Carstairs sprang to his feet. For an instant a 
 flash of joy transfigured his face 150 
 
 M22166 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 CHAPTER I ^ < V - 
 
 FOE thirty seconds no one moved. " 
 An odd sort of paralysis seemed to have 
 gripped every one in the room, paralysis of 
 the mind as well as of the body. 
 
 Then puzzled, wondering looks were ex 
 changed. 
 
 A man sitting near the fireplace glanced 
 sharply, apprehensively at the huge beams in 
 the ceiling and muttered : 
 
 "What was it? Sounded as though some 
 thing had smashed in the roof. There s a tre 
 mendous wind. It may have got that big tree 
 at the corner of the locker room." 
 
 "It couldn t have been thunder, not at this 
 time of the year," said one of the women, send 
 ing a nervous, frightened look at her husband 
 who sprawled ungracefully in a big Morris chair 
 at the end of a table littered with newspapers 
 and magazines. 
 
 1 
 
2 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 " Gad, did you feel the house rock?" ex 
 claimed he, sitting up suddenly, his eyes nar 
 rowing as with pain. "Like an earthquake 
 
 $~"* 
 
 " "It couldn t have been an earthquake," inter* 
 
 ilipted 1& wife, starting up from her chair. 
 
 "Why couldn t it?" he demanded crossly, 
 and then glanced around at the other occupants 
 of the room, ten or a dozen men and women 
 seated in a wide semi-circle in front of the huge 
 logs blazing in the fireplace. "What do you 
 think it was, Zimmie ? 
 
 "We ll find part or all of the roof gone," 
 answered the man addressed. As he spoke, he 
 rose quickly and started across the room in the 
 direction of the door leading to the steward s 
 pantry. "Ill have a look from the back of 
 the" 
 
 He stopped short. The dull, ripping crash 
 that had startled them was repeated, this time a 
 little louder and more prolonged than before. 
 The club-house shook. Several of the men 
 sprang to their feet in alarm. A look of com 
 prehension shot among them. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 3 
 
 "By Gad! An explosion !" cried one of 
 them. * The damned beasts I 
 
 "The Reynolds Works I" cried another, grip 
 ping the back of his chair with tense fingers. 
 "Sure as you re alive! It s only a few miles 
 from here. Nothing else could have " 
 
 "Let s go home, Ned. The children some 
 thing may have happened you never can 
 toll-" 
 
 "Don t get excited, Betty," cried the man in 
 the Morris chair. She was shaking his arm. 
 "The children are in New York, twenty miles 
 away. They re all right, old girl. Lord! 
 What a smash it was !" 
 
 The group was silent, waiting with bated 
 breath for the third and perhaps more shocks 
 to come. 
 
 The club steward came into the room, bearing 
 a tray of bottles and glasses. His face was 
 ashen; there was a set expression about it, as 
 one who controls his nerves with difficulty. 
 
 "Did you hear it, Peter?" was the innocuous 
 inquiry of one of the men, a dapper youn# fel 
 low in corduroys. 
 
4 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Cribbs. I thought at first it was 
 the roof, sir. The chef said it was the big chim 
 ney" 
 
 " Never mind the drinks, Peter, " said a tall, 
 greyish man as the steward placed the glasses 
 on the table. "We ve lost what little thirst we 
 had. Where are the Eeynolds Works from 
 here!" 
 
 Peter looked surprised. "South, sir, be 
 yond the hills. About five miles, I should say, 
 Mr. Carstairs." 
 
 "And which way is south?" inquired one of 
 the women. "I am always turned around when 
 I am in the country." She was a singularly 
 pallid, clear-featured woman of perhaps forty- 
 five. One might surmise that at twenty she had 
 been lovely, even exquisite. 
 
 "This way, Mrs. Carstairs," said the stew 
 ard, starting toward the windows at the lower 
 end of the lounge. 
 
 The man who had been addressed as Zimmie 
 was already at one of the broad windows, peer 
 ing out into the black, windy night. 
 
 "Can t see a thing," he said, as the others 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 5 
 
 crowded about him. "The shops are off there 
 in a direct line with the home green, I should 
 say." 
 
 "I happen to know that the Allies have a fif 
 teen million dollar contract with the Reynolds 
 people," said Carstairs, looking hard into the 
 blackness. 
 
 "If they d string up a few of these infernal 
 There! See the glow coming up over the hill? 
 She s afire! And with this wind, gad, she ll 
 go like waste paper ! My God, I wish the whole 
 German Army was sitting on top of those build 
 ings right now." It was little Mr. Cribbs who 
 spoke. He was shaking like a leaf. 
 
 "I d rather see a million or two of these 
 so-called German-Americans sitting there, 
 Cribbs," said Carstairs, between his teeth. 
 " There d be some satisfaction in that." 
 
 His wife nudged him sharply. He turned and 
 caught the warning look in her eye and the 
 slight movement of her head in the direction of 
 the man called Zimmie. 
 
 "Oh, that s all right," cried Carstairs care 
 lessly. "You needn t punch me, dear. Zim- 
 
6 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 mie s as good an American as any of us. Don t 
 think for a moment, Zimmie, old chap, that I in 
 clude you in the gang I d like to see sitting on 
 that pile of shells over there." 
 
 The man at the window turned, and smiled 
 affably. 
 
 " Thanks, old man. Being, as you say, as 
 good an American as any of you, I may be per 
 mitted to return the compliment. I shouldn t 
 like to see Mrs. Carstairs sitting on that pile of 
 shells. " 
 
 Carstairs flushed. An angry light leaped to 
 his eyes, but it was banished almost instantly. 
 Mrs. Carstairs herself replied. 
 
 "I can t imagine anything more distasteful," 
 she drawled. 
 
 "But Mrs. Carstairs isn t a German," put in 
 little Mr. Cribbs, somewhat tartly for him. 
 
 6 You re always saying the wrong thing, 
 Cribbs, or the right thing at the wrong time," 
 said Carstairs. "Mrs. Carstairs is not Ger 
 man. Her father and mother were, however. 
 She s in the same fix as Zimmerlein, and she 
 isn t ashamed of it any more than Zimmie is," 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 7 
 
 "I had er no idea that Mrs. Carstairs 
 was " 
 
 "What were your parents, Mr. Cribbs?" 
 asked Mrs. Carstairs calmly. 
 
 Nebraskans, said Cribbs, stiffening. i My 
 grandfather was a Welshman." 
 
 "And so you have absolutely nothing to re 
 proach yourself with," said she. "How fortu 
 nate in these days." 
 
 "I m sorry, Mrs. Carstairs, if I " 
 
 "I was born in the United States," she said, 
 without a trace of annoyance, "but not in Ne 
 braska. You have the advantage of me there, 
 I fear. And of poor Mr. Zimmerlein, too. He 
 was born in Boston, were you not?" 
 
 "In Marlborough Street," said Zimmerlein, 
 drily. "My father was Irish, as you can tell 
 by me name, and me poor mither was Irish too. 
 Her name before marriage was Krausshof." 
 
 Mr. Cribbs s face was scarlet. To cover his 
 confusion, he wedged his way a little closer to 
 the windows and glared at the dull red light 
 that crept slowly out of the darkness off to the 
 south. The crests of the hills were beginning 
 
8 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 to take shape against a background shot with 
 crimson. 
 
 i Just the same," he muttered, "I d like to see 
 the men who are responsible for that fire over 
 there burning in hell. 
 
 "I think we can agree on that point, at least, 
 Mr. Cribbs," said Zimmerlein, with dignity. 
 
 "Who wants to run over there with me in 
 my car ? cried the other, excitedly. * It s only 
 a few miles, and it must be a wonderful sight. I 
 can take six or seven " 
 
 "Stay where you are, Cribbs," said Carstairs 
 sharply. "When those shells begin to go off 
 Why, man alive, there s never been anything 
 on the French front that could hold a candle to 
 it. Don t forget what happened when Black 
 Tom pier was blown up. Pray do not be 
 alarmed, ladies. There isn t the slightest dan 
 ger here. The shells they are making at the 
 Reynolds plant are comparatively small. 
 We re safely out of range." 
 
 "What size shells were they making, Car- 
 stairs?" inquired one of the men. 
 
 "Three inch, I believe and smaller. A lot 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 9 
 
 of machine-gun ammunition, too. Cox, the gen 
 eral manager, dined with us the other night. 
 He talked a little too freely, I thought, didn t 
 you, Frieda?" 
 
 "He boasted, if that is what you mean," said 
 Mrs. Carstairs. 
 
 "Well," said a big, red-faced man on the 
 outer edge of the group, "it s time some of these 
 blooming fools learned how to keep their mouths 
 shut. The country s full of spies, running 
 over with em. You never know when you re 
 talking to one." 
 
 Silence followed his remark. For some time 
 they all stood watching the crimson cloud in the 
 distance, an ever-changing, pulsing shadow that 
 throbbed to the temper of the wind. 
 
 They represented the reluctant element of a 
 large company that had spent the afternoon and 
 early evening at the Black Downs Country Club, 
 the element that is always reluctant to go 
 home. There had been many intimate little 
 dinner parties during the evening. New York 
 was twenty miles or more away, and there was 
 the Hudson in between. The clock above the 
 
10 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 huge fireplace had struck eleven a minute or two 
 before the first explosion took place. Chauf 
 feurs in the club-garage were sullenly cursing 
 their employers. All but two or three waiters 
 had gone off to the railway station not far away, 
 and the musicians had made the 10 :30 up-train. 
 Peter, the steward, lived on the premises with 
 the chef and several house employes. 
 
 The late-staying guests were clad in sport 
 clothes, rough and warm and smart, for it was 
 one of the smartest clubs in the Metropolitan 
 district. 
 
 A fierce October gale was whining, cold and 
 bitter and relentless, across the uplands ; storm- 
 warnings had gone out from the Weather Bu 
 reau ; coast-wise vessels were scurrying for har 
 bours and farmers all over the land had made 
 snug their livestock against the uncertain ele 
 ments. 
 
 If it turned out to be true that the vast Rey 
 nolds munitions plant had been blown up, the 
 plotters could not have chosen a more auspi 
 cious night for their enterprise. No human force 
 could combat the flames on a night like this; 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 11 
 
 caught on the wings of the wind there would be 
 no stopping them until the ashes of ruin lay wet 
 and sodden where the flight had begun. 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs was the first to turn away from 
 the windows. She shuddered a little. A 
 pretty, nervous young wife sidled up to her, 
 and laid a trembling hand on her arm. 
 
 "Wouldn t it be dreadful if there were a lot 
 of people at work over there when when it 
 happened?" she cried, in a tense, strained voice. 
 Just think of it. " 
 
 "Don t think about it, Alice dear. Think of 
 what they are going through in France and Bel 
 gium. 
 
 "But we really aren t fighting them yet," 
 went on the other, plaintively. "Why should 
 they blow up our factories? Oh, these dread 
 ful, terrible Germans. " Then suddenly, in con 
 fusion: "I I beg your pardon." 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs smiled pleasantly. "That s 
 all right, my dear. A good many of us suffer 
 for the sins of the fathers. Besides, we are in 
 the war, and have been for six months or 
 more. 9 
 
12 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "We all hate the Kaiser, don t we?" pleaded 
 the younger woman. 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs pressed her arm. "None 
 more so than those of us whose parents left 
 Germany to escape such as he." 
 
 "I m glad to hear you say that." 
 
 "Beg pardon," said Peter the steward, at 
 Mrs. Carstairs elbow. "I think this is yours. 
 You dropped it just now." 
 
 "Thank you, Peter," said she, taking the 
 crumpled handkerchief he handed her. "I 
 shan t drop it again," she went on, smiling as 
 she stuffed it securely in the gold mesh bag 
 she was carrying. 
 
 Peter is such a splendid man, isn t he ? " said 
 her young companion, lowering her voice. So 
 much more willing and agreeable than old 
 Crosby. We re all so glad the change was 
 made." 
 
 "He is most efficient," said Mrs. Carstairs. 
 
 The admirable Peter approached Mr. Car- 
 stairs and Zimmerlein, who were pouring drinks 
 for themselves at the table. 
 
 "Preparedness is the word of the hour," Car- 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 13 
 
 stairs was saying, as he raised his glass. "It s 
 a long, cold ride home." 
 
 "Excuse me, gentlemen, shall I call up Cen 
 tral at Bushleigh and see if they can give us any 
 news?" asked Peter. 
 
 "You might try. I don t believe you can get 
 a connection, however. Everything must be 
 knocked galley-west over on that side of the 
 ridge." 
 
 "I think your wife is signalling you, Car- 
 stairs," said Zimmerlein, looking over the 
 other s shoulder. 
 
 Carstairs tossed off the contents of the glass, 
 and reached out his hand for the check. Zim 
 merlein already had it in his fingers. 
 
 "I ll sign it, old chap," he said. "Give me 
 your pencil, Peter." 
 
 "None of that, Zimmie. I ordered the " 
 
 "Run along, old man, your wife He s com 
 ing, Mrs. Carstairs," called out Zimmerlein. 
 
 As Carstairs turned away, Zimmerlein 
 scratched his name across the check, and handed 
 it back to the steward. 
 
 "Under no circumstances are you to call up 
 
14 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 Bushleigh," fell m low, distinct tones from his 
 lips. * Do you understand 1 
 
 Peter s hand shook. His face was livid. 
 
 "Yes, sir," he muttered. "What shall I say 
 to Mr. Carstairs?" 
 
 "Say that no one answers," said the other, 
 and walked away. 
 
 The company had recovered its collective and 
 individual power of speech. Every one was 
 talking, loudly, excitedly, and in some cases 
 violently. Some were excoriating the Germans, 
 others were bitterly criticizing the Government 
 for its over-tenderness, and still others were 
 blaming themselves for not taking the law in 
 their own hands and making short work of the 
 "soap-boxers," the "pacifists," and the "ob 
 structionists." Little Mr. Cribbs was the most 
 violent of them all. He was for organizing the 
 old-time Vigilantes, once so efficacious in the 
 Far West, and equipping them with guns and 
 ropes and plenty of tar and feathers. 
 
 "Nothing would please me more than to lead 
 such a gang, he proclaimed. * Lead em right 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 15 
 
 into these foul nests where What s that, 
 Judge!" 
 
 "I repeat How old are you, Cribbs?" 
 
 "Oh, I guess I m old enough to shoot a gun, 
 or pull a rope or carry a bucket of tar," re 
 torted the young man. 
 
 "I ll put it the other way. How young are 
 you?" 
 
 "I m twenty-nine." 
 
 "I see. And how did you escape the draft?" 
 
 * i They haven t reached my number yet, said 
 Mr. Cribbs, with dignity. 
 
 < Well, that s good. There s still hope, said 
 the Judge, grimly. "They need just such fire- 
 eaters as you over there in France with 
 Pershing. 
 
 Carstairs turned to Zimmerlein, who was be 
 ing helped into his fur-coat by one of the at 
 tendants. 
 
 "Can t we take you to the city, Zimmerlein? 
 There is plenty of room in the car." 
 
 "No, thank you, Carstairs. I m going in by 
 train. Mr. and Mrs. Prior will drop me at the 
 
16 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 station. Good night. Oh, here s Peter. What 
 did you hear?" 
 
 "I could get no answer, Mr. Zimmerlein, " 
 said the steward steadily. " Wires may be 
 down, sir." 
 
 "Good night, Mrs. Carstairs." Zimmerlein 
 held out his hand. She hesitated an instant, 
 and then took it. Her gaze was fixed, as if 
 fascinated, on his dark, steady eyes. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 HOARSE, raucous-voiced newsboys were 
 crying the " extras " soon after midnight. 
 They were doing a thriving business. The de 
 struction of the great Reynolds plant, more 
 spectacular and more appalling than any previ 
 ous deed perpetrated by the secret enemies of 
 the American people, was to drive even the most 
 sanguine and indifferent citizen to a full reali- 
 zaton of the peril that stalked him and his fel 
 low-man throughout the land. Complacent se 
 curity was at last to sustain a shock it could not 
 afford to scorn. Up there in the hills of Jer 
 sey a bombardment had taken place that rivalled 
 in violence, if not in human toll, the most vivid 
 descriptions of shell-carnage on the dripping 
 fronts of France. 
 
 Huge but vague headlines screamed into the 
 faces of quick-breathing men and wide-eyed 
 women the first details of the great disaster 
 across the River. 
 
 Night-farers, threading the streets, paused in 
 
 17 
 
18 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 their round of pleasure to gulp down the bitter 
 thing that came up into their throats a sick 
 thing called Fear. From nearly every doorway 
 in the city, some one issued forth, bleak-eyed 
 and anxious, to hail the scurrying newsboys. 
 The distant roar of the shells had roused the 
 millions in Manhattan; windows rattled, the 
 frailer dwellings rocked on thin foundations. 
 It was not until the clash of heavy artillery 
 swept up to the city on the wind from the west 
 that the serene, contemptuous denizens of the 
 greatest city in the world cast off their mask 
 of indifference and rose as one person to ask the 
 vital question: Are the U-Boats in the Har 
 bour at last? 
 
 An elderly man, two women, and a sallow- 
 faced man of thirty sat by the windows at the 
 top of a lofty apartment building on the Upper 
 West Side. For an hour they had been sitting 
 there, listening, and looking always to the west, 
 out over the dark and sombre Hudson. Father, 
 mother, daughter and son. The first explosion 
 jarred the great building in which they were 
 securely housed. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 19 
 
 "Ah I" sighed the old man, and it was a sigh 
 of relief, of satisfaction. The others turned to 
 him and smiled for the first time in hours. The 
 tension was over. 
 
 Farther down-town two men in one of the big 
 hotels silently shook hands, bade each other a 
 friendly good-night for the benefit of chance 
 observers, and went off to bed. The waiting 
 was over. 
 
 Two night watchmen met in front of one of 
 the biggest office buildings in New York, within 
 hearing of the bells of Trinity and almost within 
 sound of the sobbing waters of the Bay. Their 
 faces, rendered almost invisible behind the great 
 collars that protected them from the shrill 
 winds coming up the canyons from the sea, 
 were tense and drawn and white, but their eyes 
 glittered brightly, fiercely, in the darkness. 
 They too had been waiting. 
 
 In a dingy apartment in Harlem, three shifty- 
 eyed, nervous men, and a pallid, tired, fright 
 ened woman rose suddenly from the lethargy 
 of suspense and grinned evilly, not at each 
 other but at the rattling, dilapidated window 
 
20 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 looking westward across the sagging roofs of 
 the squalid district. One of the men stretched 
 forth a quivering hand and, with a hoarse laugh 
 of exultation, seized in his fingers a strange, 
 crudely shaped metallic object that stood on the 
 table nearby. He lifted it to his lips and kissed 
 it ! Then he put it down, carefully, gingerly, 
 with something like fear in his eyes. Scraps of 
 tin, pieces of iron and steel, strands of wire, 
 wads of cotton and waste, and an odd assort 
 ment of tools littered the table. Harmless ap 
 pearing cans, and bottles, and dirty packages, 
 with a mortar and pestle, a small chemist s 
 scales, funnels and graduates stood in innocent 
 array along a shelf attached to the wall, 
 guarded, so it seemed, by sinister looking 
 tubes and retorts. 
 
 The woman, her eyes gleaming with a malev 
 olent joy that contrasted strangely with the 
 dread that had been in them a moment before, 
 lifted her clenched hanrfs and hissed out a single 
 word: 
 
 "Christ!" 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 21 
 
 They, too, had been waiting. 
 
 Thousands there were in the great city whose 
 eyes glistened that night, thousands who had 
 not been waiting, for they knew nothing of the 
 secret that lay secure and safe in the breasts of 
 the few who were allowed to strike. Thousands 
 who rejoiced, for they knew that a great and 
 glorious deed had been done ! They only knew 
 that devastation had fallen somewhere with ap 
 palling force, it mattered not to them where, 
 so long as it had fallen in its appointed place ! 
 
 Many a glass, many a stein, was raised in 
 stealthy tribute to the hand that had rocked 
 the city of New York ! And in the darkness of 
 the night they hid their gloating faces, and 
 whispered a song without melody. 
 
 Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief! In 
 spirit, at least, they touched hands and thrilled 
 with a common exaltation ! 
 
 It was after one o clock when the Carstairs 
 motor crept out of the ferry-house at 130th 
 Street, and whirled up the hill toward the Drive. 
 A rough-looking individual who loitered unmo- 
 
22 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 lested in the lee of the ferry-house, peered in 
 tently at the number of the car as it passed, and 
 jotted it down in a little book. He noted in the 
 same way the license numbers of other automo 
 biles. When he was relieved hours afterward, 
 he had in his little book the number of every car 
 that came in from Jersey between half past 
 eleven at night and seven o clock in the morn 
 ing. It was not his duty to stop or question the 
 occupants of these cars. He was merely exer 
 cising the function of the mysterious Secret 
 Eyes of the United States Government. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs were admitted to their 
 Park Avenue apartment by a tall, beautiful girl, 
 who threw open the door the instant the elevator 
 stopped at the floor. 
 
 " Thank goodness!" she cried, a vibrant note 
 of relief in her voice "We were so dread 
 fully" 
 
 "What are you doing up, Louise?" cried 
 Mrs. Carstairs quickly. Her husband frowned, 
 as with annoyance. 
 
 "Where is Hodges?" he demanded. He 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 23 
 
 stood stock-still for a moment before following 
 his wife into the foyer. 
 
 "He went out some time ago to get an extra. 
 The boys were in the street calling new ones. 
 He asked if he might go out. How how ter 
 rible it is, Uncle Dawy. And it was so near the 
 Club, I I oh, I was dreadfully worried. The 
 papers say the shells fell miles away Why, I 
 couldn t go to bed, Aunt Frieda. We have been 
 trying for hours to get the Club on the tele 
 phone. " She was assisting Mrs. Carstairs in 
 removing her rich chinchilla coat. Carstairs 
 studied the girl s white face with considerable 
 anxiety as he threw off his own fur coat. The 
 worried frown deepened. 
 
 "Could you hear the explosions over here, 
 Louise f " he asked. 
 
 "Hear them? Why, Uncle dear, we all 
 thought the city was being bombarded by war 
 ships in the river, it sounded so near and so 
 terrible. Alfie and I ran to the windows. It 
 was just after eleven, I think. He called up 
 Central at once, but the girl was so frightened 
 
24 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 she could hardly speak. She didn t know what 
 had happened, but she was sure the Germans 
 were destroying the city. She said another girl 
 had seen the Zeppelins. Alfie went out at once. 
 Oh, dear, I am so glad you are home. I was so 
 anxious 
 
 "My dear child, you should be in bed," began 
 her uncle, taking her hand in his. He laid his 
 other hand against her cheek, and was relieved 
 to find it cool. "You say Alfred went out at 
 eleven?" 
 
 "A few minutes after eleven. He waited un 
 til all the noise had ceased. I assured him I 
 was not the least bit nervous. He had been 
 working so hard all evening in your study over 
 those stupid physics." 
 
 6 And he hasn t returned ? Confound him, he 
 shouldn t have gone off and left you all alone 
 here for two solid hours " 
 
 "Don t be angry with him, Uncle Dawy," 
 pleaded the girl. "He was so excited, poor 
 boy, he simply couldn t sit here without know 
 ing what had happened. Besides, Hodges and 
 two of the maids were up, so I wasn t all 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 25 
 
 alone. " She followed them into the brilliantly 
 lighted drawing-room. "Here are the first ex 
 tras. The doorman sent them up to me." 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs dropped heavily into a chair. 
 Her face was very white. 
 
 "How terrible," she murmured, glancing at 
 the huge headlines. 
 
 "I say, Frieda," exclaimed her husband; 
 * it s been too much for you. A drop of brandy, 
 my dear, " 
 
 6 i Nothing, thank you, Davenport. I am quite 
 all right. The shock, you know. We were so 
 near the place, Louise, don t you see? Eeally, 
 it was appalling." 
 
 "What beasts! What inhuman beasts they 
 are ! cried the girl, in a sort of frenzy. i They 
 ought to be burned alive, burned and tortured 
 for hours. The last extra says that the number 
 of dead and mutilated is beyond " 
 
 Now, now ! " said Carstairs, gently. l Don t 
 excite yourself, child. It isn t good for you. 
 You ve been too ill, my dear. Run along to bed, 
 there s a sensible girl. We ll have all the de 
 tails by tomorrow, and, believe me, things 
 
26 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 won t be as bad as they seem tonight. It s al 
 ways the case, you know. And you, too, Frieda, 
 get to bed. Your nerves are all shot to 
 pieces, and I m not surprised. I will wait 
 for" 
 
 A key grated in the door. 
 
 "Here he is now. Hello, Alfred, what s 
 the latest!" 
 
 His son came into the room without remov 
 ing his overcoat or hat. His dark eyes, wet 
 from the sharp wind without, sought his 
 mother s face. 
 
 "Are you all right, Mother! I ve been hor 
 ribly worried thank the Lord! It s a relief 
 to see that smile ! You re all right ! Sure ! 
 
 He kissed his mother quickly, feverishly. She 
 put her arm around his neck and murmured in 
 his ear. 
 
 "I am frightfully upset, of course, dear. 
 Who wouldn t be!" 
 
 He stood off and looked long and intently 
 into her eyes. Then he straightened up and 
 spoke to his father. 
 
 "I might have known you wouldn t let any- 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 27 
 
 thing happen to her, sir. But I was horribly 
 worried, just the same. Those beastly shells 
 went everywhere, they say. The Club must 
 have been " 
 
 "Nowhere near the Club, so far as I know," 
 said his father cheerfully. "We were all per 
 fectly safe. Have they made any arrests? Of 
 course, it wasn t accidental." 
 
 "IVe been downtown, around the newspaper 
 offices," said the young man, throwing his coat 
 and hat on a chair. "There are all sorts of 
 wild stories. People are talking about lynch- 
 ings, and all that sort of rot. Nothing like that 
 ever happens, though. We do a lot of talking, 
 and that s all. It all blows over as soon as the 
 excitement dies down. That s the trouble with 
 us Americans." 
 
 "America will wake up one of these days, 
 Alfred," said his father slowly, "and when she 
 does, there will be worse things than lynchings 
 to talk about. 
 
 "Are your feet cold, Alfred dear?" inquired 
 his mother, a note of anxiety in her voice. 
 "You ve been tramping about the streets, and 
 
28 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 You must have a hot water bottle when you 
 go to bed. There is so much pneumonia " 
 
 "Always mothering me, aren t you, good 
 Frieda 1" he said, lovingly. He pronounced it 
 as if it were Friday. It was his pet name for 
 her in the bosom of the family. "Warm as 
 toast, he added. He turned to Louise. i You 
 didn t mind my running away and leaving you, 
 did you, Louise ? 
 
 * Not a bit, Alfie. I tried to get Derrol on the 
 long distance, but they said at the Camp it was 
 impossible to call him unless the message was 
 very important. I I so I asked the man if 
 there had been any kind of an accident out there 
 and he said no, there hadn t. I asked him if 
 Captain Steele was in bed, and he said he should 
 hope so. Don t laugh, Alfie! I know it was 
 silly, but but it might have been an ammuni 
 tion depot or something at the Camp. We 
 didn t know " 
 
 "Ammunition, your granny! They haven t 
 sufficient ammunition in that Camp, or in any 
 of em, for that matter, to make a noise loud 
 enough to be heard across the street. How can 
 
SHOT WITH CEIMSON 29 
 
 you expect me to keep a straight face when you 
 suggest an explosion in an Army Camp?" 
 
 "It s high time we stopped talking about ex 
 plosions and went to bed," said Carstairs, aris 
 ing. He put his arm across his wife s shoul 
 ders. " We ve had all the explosions we can 
 stand for one night, haven t we, dear? Come 
 along, everybody. Off with you!" 
 
 "Hodges should be back any moment with the 
 latest extra, " said Louise. "Can t we wait 
 just a few minutes, Uncle Dawy? He has been 
 gone over an hour." 
 
 The telephone bell in Mr. Carstairs study 
 rang. So taut were the nerves of the four per 
 sons in the adjoining room that they started 
 violently. They looked at each other in some 
 perplexity. 
 
 "Probably Hodges," said Alfred, after a 
 moment. * Shall I go, dad ? " 
 
 "See who it is," said Carstairs. 
 
 "Wrong number, more than likely," said his 
 wife, wearily. "Central has been unusually 
 annoying of late. It happens several times 
 every day. The service is atrocious." 
 
30 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 Young Carstairs went into the study and 
 snatched up the receiver. Moved by a com 
 mon impulse, the others followed him into the 
 room, the face of each expressing not only 
 curiosity but a certain alarm. 
 
 "Yes, this is Mr. Carstairs residence. . . . 
 What? ... All right. " He sat down on the 
 edge of the library table and turned to the 
 others. "Must be long distance. They re get 
 ting somebody. 
 
 Alfred Carstairs was a tall, well-built young 
 fellow of twenty. He bore a most remarkable, 
 though perhaps not singular, resemblance to his 
 mother. His eyes were dark, his thick hair a 
 dead black, growing low on his forehead. The 
 lips were full and red, with a whimsical curve 
 at the corners denoting not merely good humour 
 but a certain contempt for seriousness in others. 
 He was handsome in a strong, bold way despite 
 a strangely colourless complexion, a complex 
 ion that may be described as pasty, for want of 
 a nobler word. His voice was deep, with the 
 guttural harshness of youth; loud, unmusical, 
 not yet fixed by the processes of maturity. A 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 31 
 
 big, dominant, vital boy making the last turn 
 before stepping into full manhood. He was his 
 mother s son, his mother s boy. 
 
 His father, a Harvard man, had been 
 thwarted in his desire to have his son follow him 
 through the historic halls at Cambridge, as 
 he had followed his own father and his grand 
 father. 
 
 Sentiment was not a part of Alfred s make 
 up. He supported his mother when it came to 
 the college selection. Together they agreed 
 upon Columbia. She frankly admitted her self 
 ishness in wanting to keep her boy at home, but 
 found other and less sincere arguments in the 
 protracted discussions that took place with her 
 husband. She fought Harvard because it was 
 not democratic, because it bred snobbishness 
 and contempt, because it deprived the youth of 
 this practical age of the breadth of vision neces 
 sary to success among men who put ability be 
 fore sentiment and a superficial distinction. 
 She urged Columbia because it was democratic, 
 pulsating, practical. 
 
 In the end, Carstairs gave in. He wanted to 
 
32 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 be fair to both of them. But he was not de 
 ceived. He knew that her chief reason, though 
 spoken softly and with almost pathetic simple- 
 ness, was that she could not bear the separation 
 from the boy she loved so fiercely, so devotedly. 
 He was not so sure that filial love entered 
 into Alfred s calculations. If the situation had 
 been reversed, he was confident, or reason 
 ably so, that Alfred would have chosen Har 
 vard. 
 
 He had the strange, unhappy conviction that 
 his son opposed him in this, as in countless other 
 instances, through sheer perversity. His 
 mother s authority always had been supreme. 
 She had exercised it with an iron-handed firm 
 ness that not only surprised but gratified the 
 father, who knew so well the tender affection 
 she had for her child. Her word was law. Al 
 fred seldom if ever questioned it, even as a 
 small and decidedly self-willed lad. Paradox 
 ically, she both indulged and disciplined him by 
 means of the same consuming force : her mother- 
 love. 
 
 On the other hand, Carstairs, a firm and 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 33 
 
 positive character, received the scantiest con 
 sideration from the boy on the rare occasions 
 when he felt it necessary to employ paternal 
 measures. Alfred either sulked or openly de 
 fied him. Always the mother stepped into the 
 breach. She never temporized. She either 
 promptly supported the father s demand or op 
 posed it. No matter which point of view she 
 took, the youngster invariably succumbed. In 
 plain words, it was her command that he obeyed 
 and not his father s. 
 
 As time went on, Carstairs came to recognize 
 the resistless combination that opposed him, 
 and, while the realization was far from com 
 forting, his common-sense ordered him to ac 
 cept the situation, especially as nothing could 
 be clearer than the fact that she was bringing 
 her son up with the most rigid regard for his 
 future. She had her eyes set far ahead; she 
 was seeing him always as a man and not as a 
 boy. That much, at least, Carstairs conceded, 
 and was more proud of her than he cared to ad 
 mit, even to himself. He watched the sturdy, 
 splendid, earnest development of his boy un- 
 
34 SHOT WITH CBIMSON 
 
 der the influence of a force stronger than any 
 he could have exercised. 
 
 Sometimes he wondered if it was the German 
 in her that made for the rather unusual strength 
 which so rarely rises above the weakness of 
 a mother s pity. Once he laughingly had in 
 quired what she would have done had their 
 child been born a girl. 
 
 "I should have been content to let you bring 
 her up," said she, with a twinkle in her eye. 
 
 While she was resolute, almost unyielding in 
 regard to her growing son, her attitude toward 
 her husband was in all other respects amazingly 
 free from assertiveness or arrogance. On the 
 contrary, she was submissive almost to the point 
 of humility. He was her man. He was her 
 law. A simple, unwavering respect for his 
 strength, his position, his authority in the home 
 of which he was the head, rendered her inca 
 pable of opposing his slightest wish. An odd 
 timidity, singularly out of keeping with her 
 physical as well as her mental endowments, 
 surrounded her with that pleasing and, to all 
 men, gratifying atmosphere of femininity so 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 35 
 
 dear to the heart of every lord and master. 
 She made him comfortable. 
 
 And she was, despite her social activities, a 
 good and capable house-wife, one of the old- 
 fashioned kind who thinks first of her man s 
 comfort and, although in this instance it was 
 not demanded, of his purse. He was her man ; 
 it was her duty to serve him. 
 
 As her boy merged swiftly, almost abruptly 
 into manhood, her long-maintained grip of 
 iron relaxed. Carstairs, noting the change, was 
 puzzled. He was a long time in arriving at the 
 solution. It was very simple after all: she 
 merely had admitted another man into her cal 
 culations. Her boy had become a man, a 
 strong, dominant man, and she was ready, 
 even willing, to relinquish the temporary power 
 she had exerted over him. 
 
 She was no longer free to command. Alfred 
 had come into his own. He was a man. She 
 was proud of him. The time had come for her 
 to be humble in the light of his glory, and she 
 was content to lay aside the authority with 
 which she had cloaked her love and ambition for 
 
36 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 so long. His word had become her law. She 
 had two men in her family now. Slowly but 
 surely she was giving them to understand that 
 she was their woman, and that she knew her 
 place. She had been for twenty-two years the 
 wife of one of them, and for twenty years the 
 mother of the other. 
 
 Carstairs was rich. He was a man of affairs, 
 a man of power and distinction in the councils 
 of that exalted class known as the leaders of 
 finance. He represented one of the soundest 
 vertebrae in the back-bone of the nation in these 
 times of war. With a loyalty that incurred a 
 tremendous amount of self-sacrifice, he had of 
 fered all of his vital energy, all of his heart, to 
 the cause of the people. He was on many 
 boards, he was in touch with all the great enter 
 prises that worked for the comfort, the support 
 and the encouragement of those who went forth 
 to give their lives if need be in the turmoil of 
 war. Davenport Carstairs stood for all that 
 was fine and strong in practical idealism, which, 
 after all, is the basis of all things truly Ameri 
 can. 
 
CARSTAIRS TOOK ur THE RECEIVER. HE REALIZED THAT 
 
 HIS HAND TREMBLED. HE HAD NEVER KNOWN IT 
 TO HAPPEN BEFORE, EVEN IN MOMENTS OP GREAT 
 STRESS 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 37 
 
 As he stood inside the study door, watching 
 with some intensity the face of his son, he was 
 suddenly conscious of a feeling of dread, not as 
 sociated with the recent grave event, but some 
 thing new that was creeping, as it were, along 
 the wire that reached its end in the receiver 
 glued to Alfred s ear. He glanced at his wife. 
 She suddenly exhaled the breath she was hold 
 ing and smiled faintly into his concerned 
 eyes. 
 
 "Yes, " said Alfred, impatiently, after a 
 long pause, "Yes, this is Mr. Carstairs home. 
 . . . I am his son. . . . What? . . . Yes, he s 
 here, but can t you give me the message? . . . 
 Who are you? ... What? . . . Certainly I ll 
 call him, but . . . Here, father; it s some one 
 who insists on speaking to you personally." 
 
 He set the receiver down on the table with 
 a sharp bang, and straightened up to his full 
 height as if resenting an indignity. 
 
 Carstairs took up the receiver. He realized 
 that his hand trembled. He had never known it 
 to happen before, even in moments of great 
 stress. 
 
38 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "Yes, this is Davenport Carstairs. Who are 
 you, please?" He started slightly at the crisp, 
 business-like reply. "Bellevue Hospital? 
 Police surgeon What? Just a moment, 
 please. Now, go ahead." He had seated him 
 self in the great library chair at the end of the 
 table. "Yes; my butler s name is Hodges. . . . 
 An Englishman. . . . What? . . . What has hap 
 pened, officer? . . . Good God! ... I Why, 
 certainly, I shall come down at once if neces 
 sary. I can identify him, of course. . . . Yes, 
 tomorrow morning will suit me better. . . . 
 Hold the wire a moment, please." 
 
 He turned to the listeners. "Hodges has 
 been injured by an automobile," he said quietly. 
 "I gather he is unconscious. You are nervous 
 and upset, Frieda, so you d better retire. 
 Leave this to " 
 
 "Is he dead, Davenport?" she asked in a 
 low horror-struck voice. 
 
 "Run along, Louise, skip off to bed. I ll 
 get the details and tell you in the morning." 
 
 The girl swayed slightly. Her eyes were 
 wide with anguish. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 39 
 
 "I I shouldn t have allowed him to go out," 
 she stammered. I Oh, Uncle Dawy ! 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs put her arm about the girl s 
 waist and led her from the room. Carstairs 
 looked up at his son. 
 
 "I guess you can stand it, Alfred. He s 
 dead. Instantly killed. " He spoke into the 
 transmitter. "Tell me how it happened, 
 please. " 
 
 He hung up the receiver a moment or two 
 later. 
 
 "Run down at the corner of Madison Avenue 
 and 48th Street. There were two witnesses, 
 and both say that he was standing in the street 
 waiting for a car. The automobile was going 
 forty miles an hour. He never knew what hit 
 him. Poor devil! Have you ever heard him 
 mention his family, Alfred? We must notify 
 some one, of course. " 
 
 "No, sir," said his son. "He seemed a quiet 
 sort. The other servants may know. Mother 
 says his references were of the highest order, 
 that s all I know. What a terrible thing to 
 have " 
 
40 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "We must not worry your mother with this 
 tonight, my son. She s had enough for today. * 
 
 "I should say so," exclaimed Alfred, clench 
 ing his hands. He choked up, and said no more. 
 
CHAPTEE in 
 
 PAUL ZIMMERLEIN was a mining engi 
 neer. His offices were off Fifth Avenue, 
 somewhere above 34th Street. He stood well 
 in his profession, he stood high as a citizen. No 
 one questioned his integrity, his ability or his 
 loyalty. He was a good American. At least, 
 a great many good Americans said he was, 
 which amounts to the same thing. 
 
 One entered his offices through a small ante 
 chamber, where a young woman at the tele 
 phone-desk made perfunctory inquiries, but al 
 ways in a crisp, business-like manner. She was 
 the first cog in a smooth-running piece of ma 
 chinery. Her name was Mildred, Mildred 
 Agnew, and she had a brother in the British 
 navy, from whom she received infrequent let 
 ters of a most unilluminating character, let 
 ters omitting date, place and ship : in which he 
 said he was well and happy and hoped to God 
 
 41 
 
42 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 the Germans would come out into the open to 
 see what the weather was like. 
 
 If your business was important, or you had 
 an appointment, you would be conducted by a 
 smart-looking boy into a rather imposing cor 
 ner room, from whose windows you could look 
 down fourteen storeys to the roof of an eight 
 storey building below. Presently you would be 
 invited into Mr. Zimmerlein & private office. 
 Beyond this snug little office was the drafting 
 room, where several actively studious men of 
 various ages bent over blue-prints and estimate 
 sheets. 
 
 They all appeared to be good, industrious 
 Americans; you could see them quite plainly 
 through the glass upper half of the intervening 
 door. 
 
 You were at once aware of an impression that 
 this was not the place to come if you were en 
 gaged in a secret or shady enterprise, such as 
 the exploitation of a " get-rich-quick " mining 
 proposition or any kindred opening for the un 
 wary. You always said to yourself that you 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 43 
 
 felt quite safe in the hands of Mr. Paul Zimmer- 
 lein, and his associates. 
 
 You went about saying that you wished all 
 men with German blood in them were like Mr. 
 Paul Zimmerlein. He became one of your pet 
 hobbies. You invariably referred to him when 
 you declared that you knew at least one man of 
 German extraction who was "absolutely on the 
 level/ and you would unhesitatingly go about 
 proving it if any one had the effrontery to even 
 discuss the point with you. All you would have 
 to do would be to point in triumph to the men 
 who were his associates professionally, commer 
 cially and socially. The list would include 
 many of the really significant figures in public 
 life. Among them, for instance, you would 
 mention several United States senators, at least 
 two gentlemen high up in Administrative cir 
 cles, practically all of the big financiers, certain 
 members of the English Cabinet, and, in a 
 pinch, the presidents of three South American 
 Republics. He was on record as being violently 
 opposed to Von Bernstorff, indeed, he had 
 
44 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 said such bitter and violent things about the 
 ex-ambassador that even the most conservative 
 German- Americans, those who actually were 
 opposed to the Kaiser and his policies, felt 
 that he was going much too far. 
 
 He was about forty years of age, tall and pow 
 erfully built, with surprisingly mobile features 
 for one whose face at a glance suggested heavi 
 ness and stolidity. His smile was ever ready 
 and genial ; his manner courtly ; his eyes, which 
 were honest and unwavering, had something 
 sprightly in them that invited confidence and 
 comradeship. The thick, dark hair was touched 
 with grey at the temples, and there was a deep 
 scar on his left cheek, received not in a Ger 
 man university, as you might suppose, but 
 during a fierce and sanguinary encounter with 
 Yaqui Indians in northern Mexico, a tragedy 
 which cost the lives of several of his companions 
 and brought from the people of the United 
 States a demand that the government take dras 
 tic action in the matter. Altogether, a pre 
 possessing, substantial figure of a man, with a 
 delightful personality. 
 
SHOT WITH CEIMSON 45 
 
 Shortly before noon on the day following the 
 destruction of the great Eeynolds plant by alien 
 plotters, Zimmerlein was seated in his office, 
 awaiting the arrival of two well-known New 
 York merchants and a gentleman from Brazil. 
 Half-a-dozen morning newspapers, with their 
 sinister head-lines, lay upon his desk, neatly 
 folded and stacked with grave orderliness. He 
 had read them, and was lolling back in his big 
 leather chair with a faint smile on his lips, 
 and a far-off, frowning expression in his 
 eyes. 
 
 The gentleman from Brazil came first. 
 
 1 Sit down, said Zimmerlein curtly. They 
 will be here in a few minutes. 
 
 "That was a terrible thing last night, Zim 
 merlein," said the Brazilian, nervously glanc 
 ing over his shoulder in the direction of the 
 drafting-room. 
 
 Zimmerlein made no response. He resumed 
 his set, faraway expression, his gaze directed 
 at the upper sash of the broad, high window, 
 beyond which a distant, grey cloud glided slowly 
 across a blue-white sky. 
 
46 .SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "Most shocking," went on the Brazilian, after 
 a moment. He had not removed his overcoat. 
 The fur collar was still fastened closely about 
 his neck. 
 
 Zimmerlein turned toward his visitor. 
 
 "Take off your coat, Riaz. Make yourself 
 comfortable," he said, affably. "Help your 
 self to a cigar." 
 
 Riaz, Sebastian Riaz, diamond merchant 
 and mine-owner of Rio Janeiro, removed his 
 coat. "The appointment was for eleven 
 o clock, Mr. Zimmerlein," he said, looking at 
 his watch. "They are late. It is nearly 
 twelve." 
 
 "Permit me to remind you that you also were 
 late. Everything is in order, my dear sir. The 
 deal may be closed in ten minutes, or even less 
 time than that, if there is no further haggling 
 on your part." He closed one eye slowly. 
 "The contracts, the estimates, the plans are 
 ready. Nothing is lacking except the signa 
 tures." 
 
 "Just as they have been ready for nearly two 
 months," observed Riaz, also closing an eye. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 47 
 
 "All ready except the signatures and the 
 date." 
 
 "We shall date them, and sign them, in our 
 extremity," said Zimmerlein, going to a safe 
 which stood invitingly open in a corner of the 
 room. He removed a small but important-look 
 ing package of papers and tossed them care 
 lessly on the table. "Such as a visit from on 
 high, he added, with a smile. 
 
 "Yes," said Riaz, and sat down again, frown 
 ing. 
 
 "We shall never be caught napping. Here 
 are the papers, as they would say in the melo 
 drama. By the way, do you go in for melo 
 drama in Eio ? Or are you above that form of 
 amusement?" 
 
 Eiaz remained unsmiling. "It is not as pop 
 ular with us as it is with you Americans," said 
 he. i i We see through it too readily. * 
 
 Zimmerlein unfolded and spread out several 
 of the documents. "There!" he said. "Let 
 him come who will. Under the sharpest eyes in 
 America you may transfer property valued at 
 ten millions, and no one will question the valid- 
 
48 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 ity of the transaction. You see, my dear Eiaz, 
 you do own these mines and they are exactly 
 what they are represented to be. To save their 
 lives, they can t go behind the facts. And the 
 purchasers are prepared to hand over the cash 
 at any moment. Could anything be simpler?" 
 
 "Nothing," said the Brazilian, sententiously, 
 "except the damned little slip that sometimes 
 comes between the cup and the lip." 
 
 "Ah, but our cup is always at the lip," said 
 Zimmerlein buoyantly. "Don t be a kill-joy, 
 old chap." 
 
 "All well and good, Zimmerlein, unless some 
 one s lip splits." He shot an uneasy glance 
 into the drafting-room. 
 
 "This is the most perfect machine in the 
 world, Eiaz. Have no fear. Every cog has 
 been tested and is of the staunchest steel. 
 Every part has been put in its proper place by 
 the greatest genius alive." 
 
 "I don t have to remind you that a few cogs 
 in the Foreign office have slipped badly." 
 
 The door opened to admit two brisk, prosper 
 ous-looking gentlemen. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 49 
 
 "I fear we are late," said the foremost. "It 
 was unavoidable, I assure you." 
 
 "It is never too late," said Zimmerlein, ad 
 vancing to shake hands with the new-comers. 
 Then, while they were laying aside their over 
 coats, he stepped swiftly to the door of the 
 drafting-room and called out: "Thorsensel! 
 Come here, please. And you also, Martin. 
 
 One of the men in the outer room, laid down 
 the instrument with which he was working over 
 a huge blue-print ; with a sigh of resignation, he 
 removed his green eye-shield, smoothed out his 
 wrinkled alpaca coat, and came slowly, diffi 
 dently into the private office. He was a middle- 
 aged, stoop-shouldered, sunken-faced man, with 
 a drooping moustache that lacked not only in 
 pride but in colour as well. The ends were 
 gnawed and scraggly, and there were cigarette 
 stains along the uneven edges. Otherwise, this 
 sickly adornment was straw-coloured. Thick 
 spectacles enlarged his almost expressionless 
 blue eyes; as one looked straight into them, 
 the eyeballs seemed to be twice the normal 
 size. 
 
50 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 This man was John Thorsensel, civil engi 
 neer, American born of Norwegian parentage, 
 graduate of one of the greatest engineering uni 
 versities in the country. You would go many a 
 league before encountering a more unimposing, 
 commonplace person, and yet here was the 
 most astute secret servant in the German 
 Kaiser s vast establishment. Not Zimmerlein, 
 nor Eiaz, nor any of the important-looking 
 individuals who skulked behind respectable 
 names, not one of them was the head and heart 
 of the sinister, far-reaching octopus that spread 
 its slimy influence across the United States of 
 America. John Thorsensel, an insignificant 
 toiler, was the master-mind, the arch-conspira 
 tor. It was his hand that rested on the key, 
 his thought that covered everything, his in 
 fernal ingenuity that confounded the shrewdest 
 minds on this side of the Atlantic. The last 
 man in the world to be suspected, such was 
 John Thorsensel, bad angel. 
 
 Martin, the other man called to the confer 
 ence, was a brisk young fellow who left a roll- 
 top desk in the corner of the drafting-room 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 51 
 
 and presented himself with stenographer s 
 note-book and pencil. It is worthy of mention 
 that this book already contained the stenog 
 raphic notes of the preliminary verbal discus 
 sion between the three principals to a trans 
 action involving the sale of great mining prop 
 erties in South America. Everything was per 
 fectly prepared, even to the abrupt termination 
 of the conference that would come naturally in 
 case agents of the government took it into their 
 heads to appear. Martin s notes, jotted down 
 weeks beforehand, broke off in the most natural 
 way. There is no telling how many times he 
 had sat with the note-book on his knee in just 
 such a conference as this, without adding a 
 single word to what already appeared on the 
 pages. It is safe to say, however, that the notes 
 were never transcribed. 
 
 It would have been impossible to find in the 
 offices of Paul Zimmerlein a single incriminat 
 ing line, or article, or suggestion of either, for 
 the simple reason that no such thing existed. 
 Nothing ever appeared in tangible form, Visi 
 tors were always welcome. 
 
52 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 Once and once only had the slightest symp 
 tom of a creak appeared in the well-ordered 
 machine. One man was suspected, merely 
 suspected. There was no actual evidence 
 against him in the hands of the conspirators, but 
 the fact that a possibility existed was enough for 
 them. He was an ordinary window- washer who 
 came twice a month to the office, not oftener, 
 in his regular round of the building. Always 
 it was the same man who washed Zimmerlein s 
 windows, and always a few words passed be 
 tween him and the engineer, words that no one 
 else heard. One day the device to which his 
 safety belt was attached gave way and he fell 
 fourteen storeys to the roof of the building be 
 low. He was to be trusted after that. 
 
 The six men gathered in the office of Mr. Paul 
 Zimmerlein formed a combination of intelli 
 gence, wealth, energy and evil sufficient to sat 
 isfy even the most exacting of masters. Here 
 were the shrewdest, the safest, the soundest 
 agents of the cruelest system in all the world. 
 No small, half-hearted undertaking in frightful- 
 ness ever grew out of their deliberations; no 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 53 
 
 sporadic, clumsy botch in the shape of needless 
 violence; no crazy, fore-doomed project; no 
 mistakes. They were the big men, the men 
 who did the big things. 
 
 Out of every nook and cranny in the land 
 oozed constant and reliable reports from the 
 most trustworthy sources, from agents of both 
 sexes; sly, secret, mysterious forces supplied 
 them with facts that no man was supposed to 
 know ; the magic of the Far East was surpassed 
 by these wizards who came not out of Egypt but 
 from commonplace, unromantic circles in the 
 Occident. 
 
 The departures of vessels from every port, 
 the nature of their cargoes; the sailings of 
 transports and the number of troops ; the condi 
 tions in all the munitions plants and canton 
 ments; the state of mind of the millions of 
 workers and idlers throughout the land; the 
 very thoughts of the people in control of the 
 country s affairs, it would seem. Everything! 
 Everything was known to this resourceful 
 clique. They were the backbone of the unrest, 
 the uneasiness, the scepticism that swept the 
 
54 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 land. Their agents, loyal unto death, were 
 everywhere. The secrets of sea, land and air 
 were theirs. They could buy, buy anything 
 they wanted with the wealth that was theirs for 
 the asking. 
 
 Information came to them and commands 
 were issued by them in a thousand different 
 ways, but never in circumstances that invited 
 suspicion. A casual meeting on the street ; the 
 passing of the time of day; a hand-shake in 
 restaurant or club ; brief and seemingly innocu 
 ous exchanges of pleasantries at the theatre; 
 perfunctory contact with stenographers, em 
 ployes, and customers in the course of a day; 
 thus, under the eyes of all observers the secret 
 word was given and received. With these men 
 no word was written, no visible message was 
 exchanged. And the German language was 
 never spoken. 
 
 " Trains from the West are all late," said one 
 of the late arrivals, an elderly, grey-whiskered 
 man. " Rhine did not get in from Chicago till 
 nearly eleven. It was imperative that I should 
 see him before coming here, gentlemen." 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 55 
 
 "Weflt" demanded Thorsensel. 
 
 "He says the time is not yet ripe. He has 
 studied the situation, has had reports from 
 many sources. It is too soon. A partial suc 
 cess would be far worse than a total failure. 
 He is very positive. 
 
 "All right, " said Thorsensel crisply. The 
 matter was thus summarily disposed of. He 
 did not believe in wasting time or words. He 
 turned, with a questioning look, to the other 
 prosperous-looking citizen. 
 
 "He died very suddenly last night," said that 
 worthy, responding to the unspoken query. 
 
 Thorsensel nodded his head with lively sat 
 isfaction. 
 
 "Anything else?" 
 
 "That young fellow we were speaking of the 
 other day dropped in at the store this morning. 
 He appears to be interested in a very good- 
 looking shop-girl on the second floor. I don t 
 know how many pairs of gloves he has bought 
 of her in the past few weeks." 
 
 "I know, I know," impatiently. "Miss 
 Group." 
 
56 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "We re making no mistake about this fellow, 
 are we, Elberon?" demanded Zimmerlein. 
 
 "No, absolutely no. I ll stake my life on 
 Mm." 
 
 "Go on," said Thorsensel curtly. 
 
 "The British and French Commission sails 
 tomorrow on the Elston. There is no question 
 about it. He had it from the same source that 
 reported their arrival last month. 
 
 "Martin, see that this information is on the 
 wing immediately," said Thorsensel. "We 
 may accept it as authentic. 
 
 "I should think we might," said Zimmerlein, 
 "when you stop to consider that no one in the 
 United States or England is supposed to know, 
 even now, that this Commission is in the coun 
 try, that is, no one outside a very restricted 
 circle in Washington. I ve never known any 
 thing to be kept so completey under cover. 
 Some of the biggest men in France and Eng 
 land land on our shores, transact the most im 
 portant business conceivable, and get out again 
 without so much as a wliiff of the news reaching 
 the public. Somebody deserves the Iron Cross 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 57 
 
 for this, Thorsensel. It is the cleverest, smart 
 est piece of work that has been done up to 
 date." 
 
 "I venture the opinion that the Elston with 
 its precious cargo will never see land again, " 
 was Thorsensel s remark. 
 
 "The Kitchener job all over again, eh?" 
 said Riaz, admiringly. 
 
 "Or the Lusitania," amended Elberon. 
 
 "Don t speak of the Lusitania," exclaimed 
 Thorsensel, irritably. "You know how I feel 
 about that piece of stupidity." 
 
 "You were against it all the time, I know," 
 began Elberon. 
 
 "Of course I was. It was the gravest blun 
 der in history. But this is no time to talk about 
 it. Every one has reported on last night s 
 business. There were no casualties and no one 
 is missing." 
 
 "Good!" exclaimed the grey-whiskered plot 
 ter, his piggish eyes sparkling. "No one killed 
 or injured or missing, eh? That seems all that 
 could be expected of Providence." 
 
 "Every man has reported," said Thorsensel 
 
58 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 succinctly. "Even Trott, from whom we had 
 heard nothing for two whole days. It appears 
 he was trapped and had to lie hidden in an 
 empty bin. He got away just in time, and with 
 out being seen. Yes, luck and God were with us 
 last night, gentlemen. Not a life lost, nor a 
 man scratched. " 
 
 "If we come out half as well next week, I will 
 say that God is with us," said Zimmerlem. 
 
 " Where were you last night, Elberon?" de 
 manded the gaunt leader abruptly. 
 
 "I dined with some friends and went to the 
 theatre afterwards, Thorsensel." 
 
 "Who were they?" 
 
 "Mr. and Mrs. Heidel " 
 
 "You needn t finish the name," broke in 
 Thornsensel. "I want to warn you again not 
 to take them into your confidence, not even in 
 the smallest of matters." 
 
 "His brother is a general in the Bavarian " 
 
 "It doesn t matter. I know all that. And 
 one of her brothers is in the Reichstag. But 
 you must not overlook the fact that a great 
 many of these people are loyal to America. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 59 
 
 That is a point you don t seem able to get 
 through your head, Elberon. The worst enemy, 
 the direst peril we have to contend with is the 
 American-German, if you grasp the distinction. 
 No one seems to have used the hyphen in just 
 that way, Elberon, but there is such a thing as 
 the American-German, and we ve got to steer 
 clear of him. He s not as uncommon as you 
 may think, either. This man you were with 
 last night is one. He would turn you over to 
 the authorities in a flash if he got a breath of 
 the truth. A word to the wise, Elberon, means 
 a word to you." 
 
 "A man is one thing or the other," said the 
 other, flushing. "He s either a German or an 
 American. There s nothing in the hyphen." 
 
 "You re quite right," agreed Thorsensel. 
 "The man you were with last night is an Ameri 
 can in spite of his name and his antecedents. 
 I happen to know. Somewhere in this city 
 there is -a list of the people I define as Ameri 
 can-Germans. It is a rather formidable list, 
 let me tell you. They happen to be traitors, 
 damn them." 
 
60 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 " Traitors? I thought you said they were 
 loyal." 
 
 "You d see what would happen to them if 
 they ever set foot on German soil," said Thor- 
 sensel, and it was not difficult, even for the stolid 
 Elberon, to see what he meant by loyalty. 
 
 An hour later the meeting came to an end, 
 and the men went their several ways, unsus 
 pected by the troubled, harassed watch-dogs of 
 the nation. In that hour they had confidently, 
 almost contemptuously, forwarded the consum 
 mation of other enterprises even more startling 
 than the blowing up of the Reynolds plant. Re 
 mote assassinations were drawn a trifle nearer ; 
 plans leading to the bombing of New York by 
 aeroplanes that were to rise up out of the sea 
 from monster submarines ; a new and not to be 
 denied smashing of the Welland Canal; well- 
 timed collisions of ships in the lower Hudson, 
 and other basins, with results more stupendous 
 than anything yet conceived; deceptive peace 
 propaganda for the guileless and unwary 
 American proletariat ; subtle interference in the 
 Halls of Congress; almost everything, it may 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 61 
 
 be said, except the transfer of valuable mines 
 in Brazil. That trifling detail was left to an 
 other day. 
 
 Within the next hour, a message was on its 
 way through the air to far-off Berlin, giving in 
 singularly accurate figures the military losses 
 sustained by the Allies at a spot in New Jersey 
 recently occupied by the great Eeynolds con 
 cern. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT the end of ten days the excitement and 
 horror occasioned by the blowing up of 
 the Reynolds plant had succumbed to the great 
 American curse: indifference. Amateur secret 
 service men brazenly proclaiming themselves, 
 went about more actively than ever, showing 
 their badges and looking up clues at the same 
 time, doing more harm than good, for while pro 
 fessional intelligence men were compelled to 
 accept them as liabilities, the grateful aliens 
 quite properly regarded them as assets. 
 
 The burning of two grain warehouses in Chi 
 cago, the wrecking of a train loaded with motor 
 trucks, three dock fires in Brooklyn, and the par 
 tially suppressed account of an explosion on 
 board a man-of-war in home waters, provided 
 the public with its daily supply of pessimism. 
 Scores of alien suspects were seized, examined 
 and interned. Others were caught with "the 
 goods," so to speak, and were flung into prison 
 
 62 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 63 
 
 to await, in most cases, the minimum penalty 
 for maximum intentions. But at no time was 
 the finger of accusing Justice levelled at any one 
 of the men or women who made the wheels go 
 round. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of a cold, blustering day 
 a young man presented himself at the Carstairs 
 home. He was a smart-looking, upstanding 
 chap in the uniform of a captain of Infantry. 
 The new butler announced that Miss Hansbury 
 was at home and was expecting Captain Steele. 
 
 You would go far before finding a manlier, 
 handsomer fellow than this young American 
 soldier. Lithe, and tall, and graceful, he was 
 every inch a man and a thoroughbred. Only a 
 few months before, he had given up a splendid 
 position down town, with a salary that few 
 young men commanded and prospects that even 
 fewer entertained, and eagerly offered himself, 
 heart and soul, to the army that was to lift his 
 country out of the pit of commercialism and 
 give it a place among the proud. 
 
 He had won his sword and his shoulder straps 
 with the ease of one who earnestly strives, and 
 
64 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 at the same time lie had conquered in an enter 
 prise sweetly remote from the horrors of war. 
 Louise Hanshury, beautiful and gifted, was 
 wearing the emblem of surrender on the third 
 finger of her left hand. 
 
 He was to dine with the Carstairs that eve 
 ning ; as a privileged person, he came long ahead 
 of the other guests of the evening. There was 
 to be a distinguished company. A Cabinet offi 
 cer, a prominent Southern Senator, an Admiral 
 of the Navy, a Foreign Ambassador, to say 
 nothing of more than one potentate in the realm 
 of finance. And women whose names were not 
 more widely-known than their deeds in these 
 days of great endeavour, women who had put 
 aside frivolity and selfishness and social glut 
 tony for the cold, hard business of making the 
 country safe. 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs, herself, was the chairman of 
 one of the most important of the Relief Organi 
 zations controlled and operated exclusively by 
 women ; far from being a mere figure-head, she 
 was an active, zealous worker, an inspiration 
 to her associates. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 65 
 
 One of the guests of the evening was to be an 
 Italian Countess whose labours in the war 
 hospitals of her native land had made her 
 one of the most conspicuous women in all 
 Europe. 
 
 Louise Hansbury was the daughter of Daven 
 port Carstairs only sister, now deceased. 
 Since the death of her mother, her father had 
 died when she was a small child, the girl had 
 made her home with this adoring uncle. She 
 possessed a somewhat meagre fortune, suffi 
 cient to guarantee independence, however, if 
 she chose to care for herself, a circumstance 
 that would have excited resistance in Davenport 
 Carstairs had it ever come up for discussion. 
 
 "How are you, dearest?" inquired the young 
 officer, holding her off to look anxiously, search- 
 ingly into her eyes. The colour of health was 
 just beginning to flow in her cheeks. 
 
 "Gorgeous," she replied, her eyes agleam 
 with love and happiness. 
 
 6 Go slow, he said gently. * Don t tax your 
 self too much. It s a serious job, this business 
 of getting well." 
 
66 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "But I am well, you goose. I never felt bet 
 ter in my life." 
 
 "You never were more beautiful," he said 
 softly. 
 
 "I d much rather hear you say that than 
 something really serious," she cried, smiling 
 divinely into his dazzled eyes. 
 
 "You ve had pneumonia," he said sternly, 
 after the moment it took to regain a temporar 
 ily lost air of authority. "Mighty sick you ve 
 been, darling, and " 
 
 "And I m not to get my feet wet, or sit in a 
 draft, or Very good, Captain ! Orders is or 
 ders, sir." She stood off and saluted him with 
 mock solemnity. "I m so glad you came early, 
 Derrol," she cried, abruptly abandoning her 
 frivolous air. "I ve I ve wanted you so 
 much. This has been a long oh, an age, dear. 
 You knew that poor Hodges was killed by an 
 automobile, didn t you? I never know what I 
 put in my letters. And there is all this talk 
 about Belgium being a nest of spies at the out 
 set, and oh, that would be too much. Sit here 
 with me, Derrol, and you might hold me close 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 67 
 
 to you, just for a little while. It yes, it does 
 give me strength to feel your arms about me." 
 
 After a few moments, the troubled look that 
 had been lurking in his eyes for a long time, 
 reappeared. A light frown clouded his brow. 
 He glanced over his shoulder, and, when he 
 spoke, his voice was even lower than it had 
 been before. 
 
 "Louise dear, something very strange and 
 mysterious has happened. Don t be alarmed, 
 dear. It has turned out all right. But, gad, 
 it might have resulted very seriously. Do you 
 remember that I told you about ten days ago, 
 in this very room, that I suspected a certain 
 officer in our camp of being well, crooked ?" 
 
 "Yes, I remember quite well, Derrol. Is 
 is he?" 
 
 He smiled grimly. "That remains to be 
 seen. I had observed one or two things about 
 him that excited my suspicions, but I mentioned 
 the matter to no one. The next day after I 
 spoke to you about it, I decided to go to head 
 quarters with my fears. As a matter of fact, 
 by that time I really had something tangible to 
 
68 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 report. I was received by the general himself. 
 He was dumbfounded. Instantly an investiga 
 tion was started. The officer I mentioned was 
 missing from camp. It was found that he had 
 gone to New York the night before, but was 
 expected back in the morning just as I was. 
 That was ten days ago. He has never returned. 
 It has been proved beyond all question that he 
 was a spy. There is no doubt in my mind that 
 he got a tip while in New York, and beat it for 
 parts unknown. Now the infernal part of the 
 business is that I never mentioned my sus 
 picions to a soul except to you, never even 
 breathed them outside of this room until the 
 next day. 
 
 She was staring at him in perplexity. "But 
 but, Derrol dear, what does it all mean? You 
 you certainly cannot think that I repeated " 
 "Of course not, dear, certainly not. I " 
 "In the first place, I had not been outside the 
 apartment," she went on in suppressed excite 
 ment. "And I give you my word of honour 
 that I did not mention the matter to a soul in 
 this house. Not one word, Derrol. If you " 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 69 
 
 4 Calm yourself, Louise, " he urged, pressing 
 her hands. "The chances are that he found 
 out he was suspected before he left camp, and 
 even as I was telling you he may have been on 
 his way to safety. I have not told any one that 
 I spoke of the matter here, you may be quite 
 sure of that. That would bring trouble and 
 annoyance to you and well, I couldn t allow 
 that, you know. Just the same, he has disap 
 peared, completely, utterly. He got the scent 
 somehow, and didn t lose a minute. Saved 
 himself from facing a firing squad, you may be 
 sure. So far as we have been able to discover, 
 I am the only man who knew that he was up to 
 something wrong. That s the maddening part 
 of it. I you see, I actually had the goods on 
 him." 
 
 "You looked over your shoulder just now, 
 Derrol," she said, the colour ebbing from her 
 cheek. "Do you do you suspect any one 
 here? Any one of the servants? They have 
 all been with us for years, except poor 
 Hodges, and he is dead, and I know that Uncle 
 Davenport trusts them implicitly." 
 
70 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 He held her a little closer. His lips were 
 close to her ear, and the half -whispered words 
 were fraught with the deepest meaning. 
 
 "See here, Louise, it s a desperately serious 
 thing to say, and I know I m a fresh, half- 
 baked upstart, and all that sort of thing, but 
 I just can t help feeling that if I hadn t spoken 
 of that matter here last week, we would have 
 nabbed Mr. Spy practically red-handed." 
 
 * Oh, Derr ol ! she whispered, aghast. i You 
 don t know what you are saying." 
 
 "It s the way I feel, just the same," said he 
 stubbornly. 
 
 "Then you do think the warning came from 
 this house?" She attempted to withdraw her 
 self from his arms. 
 
 "God bless you, darling, I don t think it 
 came from you, or in any way through you," 
 he cried miserably. 
 
 "Then, whom do you suspect?" she de 
 manded. 
 
 "It might have been Hodges," he said, his 
 eyes narrowing as he looked away from her. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 71 
 
 "But Hodges was an Englishman, and vio 
 lently anti-German. It couldn t have been 
 Hodges." 
 
 "In any event, he s dead and can t defend 
 himself, " said he. "I trust you, dearest, not 
 to repeat a word of what I Ve just been saying, 
 not a word to any one." 
 
 "You are very foolish, Derrol, but I prom 
 ise. Not even to Uncle Davenport or Aunt 
 Frieda. They would be shocked beyond words 
 if they knew you " 
 
 "That s right, dear, not even to Mr. or Mrs. 
 Carstairs, or that bustling young son of 
 theirs." 
 
 "It would be far more sensible to suspect me 
 than either of them, she said. 
 
 A latch-key turned in the front door, and a 
 moment later young Alfred Carstairs came 
 whistling into the hall. 
 
 "Hullo ! " he called out, peering in upon them 
 from the dimly lighted hallway. He was shed 
 ding his overcoat. "How s the camp, Derrol f 
 Getting into shape ? " 
 
72 SHOT WITH CBIMSON 
 
 "Getting shapelier every minute," said Der- 
 rol Steele, crossing over to shake hands with the 
 youth. 
 
 "Where s mother?" inquired Alfred, looking 
 over the officer s shoulder at his cousin, who had 
 not risen. 
 
 "Lying down, Alfie. She has been on the go 
 all day. Much beauty is required for this even 
 ing. She s giving it a chance to catch her 
 napping. 
 
 "By golly, it s the only thing that ever does 
 catch her napping," said Alfred warmly. 
 "She s a wonder, Derrol. She d be a field- 
 marshal if she ever got into the army." 
 
 "I haven t the least doubt of it," said Cap 
 tain Steele, smiling. Even as he uttered the 
 jesting words, a strange, uncanny sense of their 
 importance took root in his mind. 
 
 Very serious topics were discussed by the 
 guests at Mrs. Carstairs dinner that evening. 
 No one felt the least restraint, nor the slightest 
 hesitancy in speaking freely of matters that 
 never were mentioned in the open. Questions 
 that could not have been answered outside the 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 73 
 
 most secret recesses of the State department 
 were frankly asked here, and answered by 
 some one who spoke with authority. No man 
 feared his neighbour, nor his neighbour s wife, 
 for here were assembled only those to whom the 
 Government itself could look with confidence. 
 These were the people on the inside of every 
 thing, the spokes of the inner wheel, the people 
 who knew what was going on in Washington, 
 in London, and in Paris. No alien ears were 
 here to listen, no alien eyes to watch ; sanctuary 
 for the true and loyal. 
 
 One man there held his tongue, and spoke not 
 of the things that were vital: Captain Derrol 
 Steele. It was not modesty alone that kept him 
 silent in this imposing group, nor the recogni 
 tion of his own insignificance. He had had his 
 lesson. He was young enough to profit by it. 
 
 True, the wine may have had something to do 
 with it. It usually does. A beguiling lubricant 
 is this thing that gets into the rustiest of brains 
 and produces a smooth combination of thought 
 and thoughtlessness. In any case, tongues 
 wagged loosely and wits were never keener than 
 
74 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 in this atmosphere of ripe security. A good 
 many secrets were out for an airing. They 
 were supposed, in good time, to get back into 
 their closets and lie there as snugly as if they 
 had never been disturbed. 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs was never more brilliant than 
 on this particular evening. Always clever, 
 but never witty, she was at her best when sur 
 rounded by personalities such as these; when 
 confronted by problems which permitted her 
 profound mentality to rise to its highest level 
 and her singularly clear-headed vision to pro 
 ject itself across spaces that defy even the most 
 far-seeing of men. She went below the surface 
 of everything; she saw nothing from a super 
 ficial point of view. What men liked in her, 
 and what other women envied and sometimes 
 hated, was the rare faculty of saying little un 
 less she was prepared to say a great deal more. 
 
 More than one great statesman had said, on 
 occasion, that it was too bad she wasn t a man! 
 With a mind like that, well, there s no telling! 
 No wonder Davenport Carstairs was proud of 
 her! 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 75 
 
 And yet, with all this unstinted praise, with 
 all this respectful admiration, there was not a 
 man among them who would have exchanged 
 places with Davenport Carstairs. Despite her 
 beauty, her no uncertain charm of manner, her 
 strangely old-fashioned femininity, no man cov 
 eted her. As a matter of fact, they were a little 
 bit awed by Frieda Carstairs. 
 
 The foreign ambassador was leaving early. 
 He explained to his hostess that a very im 
 portant conference was to be held that night 
 in his rooms at the hotel. He was profoundly 
 apologetic, but if she knew how much depended 
 on the outcome of this very, very important 
 meeting, and so on, and so on. She said she 
 understood perfectly; affairs of state, she went 
 on to say, always lead up to a state of affairs, 
 and that, of course, was hopeless unless taken 
 in time. 
 
 He was a little bewildered. Fearing that she 
 had not fully grasped his meaning, he pro 
 ceeded to elaborate a little. It wasn t really a 
 state of affairs, nor, for that matter, an affair of 
 state. Time, of course, yes, time was the es- 
 
76 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 sence of everything in these bitter days. She 
 was quite right; the whole trouble with the 
 Allies had been the wasting of time ; now they 
 realized the importance of doing things 
 promptly. She said she was glad that they 
 were not letting the grass grow under their feet. 
 He mumbled something about winter and the 
 nothing much growing outside the tropics, and 
 floundered with further confidences. 
 
 Leaning quite close to her he whispered some 
 thing in her ear. It left her perfectly calm. 
 
 "This, you understand, my dear madam, is 
 not to be repeated, strictly confidential, ab 
 solutely ah on the quiet, as you say over 
 here." 
 
 "I sha n t even repeat it to my husband," 
 said she. 
 
 The ambassador looked relieved. "I fear he 
 would not approve of my mentioning a matter 
 that he seems to have withheld from you him 
 self." 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " Possess your soul in peace, my dear Ambas 
 sador. I am as good as he at keeping a secret. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 77 
 
 "It is ah most imperative that this 
 shouldn t ah get out, so to speak," said he, 
 wishing in his soul that he had not let it out 
 himself. 
 
 "You have spoken to the Sphinx," said she 
 gravely. 
 
 She happened to glance down the table at this 
 juncture. Something hypnotic drew her gaze 
 directly to Captain Steele. He was regarding 
 her steadily. There was a queer, intent look 
 in his eyes. For an instant their gaze held, and 
 then he looked away. She turned to speak to 
 the man on her left. If he had been an observ 
 ing person, he would have noticed the tired look 
 that suddenly clouded her eyes, briefly, flit- 
 tingly, it is true, but remaining long enough to 
 have been detected by one less absorbed in him 
 self than he. No doubt his pride would have 
 been hurt had he observed it. 
 
 The little Italian Countess spoke very frankly 
 of conditions in her country, of specific needs 
 that called for immediate action on the part of 
 the American government, of plots and counter 
 plots in the very heart of the army, of political 
 
78 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 and ecclesiastical intrigue that sapped the cour 
 age of the people, and of the serious situation 
 on the Isonzo where victorious Italian armies 
 were in constant danger of collapse because of 
 an utter lack of support from behind the lines. 
 She went so far as to say that in the event of a 
 supreme assault by the Austro-Germans, the 
 Italian armies would have to relinquish their 
 hard-earned gains and fall back, perhaps in 
 actual defeat. 
 
 "But the Austrians are down and out them 
 selves, " declared the cabinet member. He 
 spoke loudly, for he was at the far end of the 
 table. "They haven t a good solid kick left 
 in them, much less anything like a supreme as 
 sault, Countess." 
 
 "Let us hope you are right," returned the 
 Italian woman, the line deepening between her 
 eyes. "I only know that the Italians are in no 
 condition to withstand a great offensive if it 
 should come. Oh, if only England, and France, 
 and you, gentlemen, could but be made to 
 realize the importance of a real victory over the 
 Austrians, if you could only be made to see 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 79 
 
 how desperately we are in need of all the sup 
 port you can give us in men, and guns, and food, 
 and aye, in confidence, too. If the German 
 Emperor knew the truth about our position on 
 the Isonzo and in Trentino, he ah, he would 
 not wait, he would not hesitate. He would 
 move like lightning. He would send a million 
 men to the aid of the Austrians. He would 
 strike with all his might, and then, when it was 
 all over, you, all of you, would grate your 
 teeth while he laughed over another of your 
 blunders. 
 
 The men all smiled tolerantly. She was a 
 woman. That was just the way a high-strung, 
 emotional woman would talk. 
 
 "It would be quite simple, Countess, " said 
 Davenport Carstairs, "if the Kaiser had even 
 half a million men to spare. He is being kept 
 pretty busy in France and Flanders just now." 
 
 "Ah, but in Russia," she cried vehemently. 
 "What of the damned Russians?" In her ex 
 citement she spoke the language of the army. 
 Of her hearers, the men seemed a little more 
 shocked than the women. "Are they keeping 
 
80 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 him pretty busy? No! Are they holding his 
 vast armies in check? No! They are doing 
 more than that. They are shoving him back, 
 driving him and all of his men and guns out of 
 Eussia. Driving them down into Italy and over 
 to Flanders, that is what they are doing. And 
 you, you and France and England, will not 
 wake up until it is too late. When the beastly 
 Russians have driven the Germans into Paris, 
 and across the English Channel, and down to 
 Rome, then you will understand." 
 
 "Bu^; the Italians will hold the ground they 
 have gained," protested one of the men. "I 
 talked with members of the commission before 
 they sailed the other day, and there wasn t one 
 of them who expressed the slightest uneasiness 
 about the Italian front. On the other hand, 
 they were of the opinion that the Italians would 
 continue to advance. The Austrians are shot 
 to pieces." 
 
 4 * Italy was not represented in that secret mis 
 sion, my dear sir," said the Countess, a trifle 
 curtly. "You do not know what the Italians 
 know, and what they are actually dreading. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 81 
 
 They know they cannot resist a great offen 
 sive. " 
 
 "Well, as long as the Germans are ignorant 
 of the true state of affairs, I can t see that there 
 is much to worry about," said Carstairs pleas 
 antly. 
 
 "But the Germans will not remain in igno 
 rance for ever, Mr. Carstairs, " exclaimed the 
 Countess. "They find out everything, every 
 thing, in time." 
 
 "Not every thing, " said the Admiral of the 
 navy, blandly. "Their marvellous spy system 
 failed completely in the case of the Franco-Brit 
 ish special mission. The members of the party 
 came, remained here for more than a fortnight, 
 sailed for home last week, and Germany never 
 had so much as an inkling of the visit. By this 
 time the Campion is no doubt safely through 
 the danger zone. I call that beating the devil 
 with his own stick. 
 
 "The Campion?" feU sharply from the lips 
 of Mrs. Carstairs. 
 
 "You are mistaken, Admiral. They sailed 
 on the Elston," said her husband. 
 
82 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 The Admiral beamed. "My dear sir, the en 
 tire party was transferred to the Campion ten 
 hours after the Elston sailed out of this port. 
 The Secretary took no chances. He had that 
 devilish Kitchener betrayal in mind. There 
 was the possibility, you know, of a leak some 
 where. One never can tell. So everything that 
 could be thought of was done to frustrate the 
 * system. The destruction of the Elston with 
 those men on board would have been a greater 
 disaster to the Allies than the loss of Kitchener 
 or half the battle front in France. I happen to 
 know the transfer was made safely and accord 
 ing to plans. The Elston continued her voyage 
 in convoy, but she was laden with nothing more 
 precious than food for the Germans. " 
 
 "Food for the Germans?" cried the Italian 
 Countess, aghast. 
 
 The Admiral s smile broadened. "The most 
 indigestible food that is made in America, " said 
 he. After a moment s perplexity, she smiled 
 and clapped her hands. 
 
 Once more Mrs. Carstairs gaze was drawn 
 irresistibly to the young captain half way up 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 83 
 
 the table. His eyes were fixed on her again, 
 and again, as before, after an instant they were 
 averted. Something in his steady look seared 
 her like a hot iron. He seemed to be searching 
 the innermost recesses of her brain, and she 
 quailed. His face grew suddenly pale and 
 drawn, paler even than her own. 
 
 The Admiral, having come sharply into prom 
 inence, continued to play his high cards. He 
 leaned back in his chair, neglecting a dessert of 
 which he was especially fond, and with consid 
 erable bumptiousness rambled on sonorously. 
 
 "We ve been expecting word all day from 
 Admiral Sims. The convoy is a swift one. 
 Both the Campion and the Elston should reach 
 port today, or at the very latest tomorrow. 
 I confess we ve all been anxious. They are wir 
 ing me from Washington as soon as By the 
 way, Mrs. Carstairs, I took the liberty of in 
 structing my aide to telephone me here in case 
 the report comes tonight. Hope you don t 
 mind. I thought 
 
 "Of course I don t mind, Admiral," she said 
 warmly. "On the contrary, I am glad you 
 
84 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 thought of it. We are all terribly interested." 
 
 Late in the evening, in fact, just as the 
 guests were preparing to depart, the Admiral 
 was called to the telephone. When he rejoined 
 the group a few minutes afterward, his expres 
 sion was serious. 
 
 "Our precautions were well taken, ladies 
 and gentlemen," he said. "The Elston was 
 torpedoed this morning. Practically everybody 
 on board was lost." 
 
 There was a moment s silence. Then Cap 
 tain Steele spoke. 
 
 "So the Germans did know that the Commis 
 sion sailed out .of New York harbour on the 
 Elston. It would seem, Admiral, that the spy 
 sits pretty close to the head of your board, I 
 mean, of course, your board of strategy." 
 
 "By Gad!" growled the distressed sailor- 
 man. "It it is absolutely incredible. There 
 couldn t have been a leak down there." 
 
 "Have you an idea how many people 
 actually knew that the party was sailing on the 
 Elston?" inquired the young man. His face 
 was very white. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 85 
 
 The Admiral glanced around the room, rather 
 helplessly. "Of course the fact was known to 
 quite a number of people, such as we are here, 
 but, what are we to do if we can t trust our 
 selves? Nothing could have been more care 
 fully guarded. Not a line in the newspapers, 
 not a word uttered in public, not a " 
 
 "The information could not have come from 
 any one directly connected with the Navy de 
 partment, Admiral, " said Steele slowly. 
 
 "I m glad to hear you say that, sir," said 
 the Admiral, stiffening. 
 
 "For the simple and obvious reason that it 
 was the Elston and not the Campion they went 
 after. A spy in such a position would have 
 known of the transfer. 
 
 "On the other hand, it may have been pure 
 chance that they attacked the Elston/ said 
 Davenport Carstairs, a queer huskiness in his 
 voice. Coincidence, and nothing more. Thank 
 heaven, they didn t get the Campion." 
 
 Steele was the last to leave. He said good 
 night to Louise Hansbury in the little hall 
 outside. He had rung for the elevator. The 
 
86 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 door, on the latch, had been closed behind them 
 and they were quite alone for a few min 
 utes. 
 
 "Louise," he said, and suddenly his voice, 
 scarcely more than a whisper, sounded strange 
 and unnatural to her, "it s a horrible thing to 
 say, but the the trouble is right here in this 
 house. You heard what the Admiral said? I 
 can t explain how it all happened, but suddenly 
 I had a well, a revelation. A great, flaring 
 light seemed to flash in my face. I give you my 
 word, it was actually blinding. I thought my 
 heart would never beat again. I saw through 
 everything. It is all as plain as day to me. 
 God help us all, dearest, it s it s unspeak 
 able. I ve just got to tell you, so that you 
 may be on your guard. Tomorrow or as soon 
 as possible, at any rate, you must make an ex 
 cuse to get away from here, for a visit, or 
 anything you can think of. But get away you 
 must!" 
 
 "Do you know what you are saying, Der- 
 rol?" she whispered, clutching his arm. She 
 was trembling like a leaf, and swayed. An ex- 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 87 
 
 pression of the utmost dread and horror filled 
 her eyes. 
 
 "Yes, yes, I do. It is terrible, but, by 
 heaven, it s true, as true as we live and 
 breathe/ 
 
 She covered her face with her hands. "Oh, 
 Derrol, I felt it too, tonight. What are we 
 to do ? What can be done ? 
 
 "Hush! Here is the elevator. I can t say 
 anything more tonight. I don t have to go back 
 to Camp till tomorrow night. Tomorrow morn 
 ing, I ll call up. I must see you alone and 
 not here." 
 
 "I go out every morning for a walk, about 
 eleven," she breathed. 
 
 The elevator door slid open. 
 
 i Good night, "said he. She clasped his hand 
 in silence. Then she went back into the apart 
 ment, and, as one drugged, passed the drawing- 
 room door and staggered down the hall toward 
 her bedroom. 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs, alone in the drawing-room, 
 saw the girl pass, and stepped quickly to the 
 door. 
 
88 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 1 Louise, dear, are you ill?" she called out. 
 
 No, Aunt Frieda. I I in all right. Good 
 night. " 
 
 "Good night, dear. Sleep late." 
 
 The door down the long hall closed softly, and 
 Frieda Carstairs turned back into the drawing- 
 room with a sigh. Her husband was looking 
 over the night mail that had been piled on his 
 desk in the study. She went in to him. 
 
 "I wonder if poor, dear Alfred is struggling 
 with that abominable nightmare of his," she 
 said. "Beally, Davenport, the boy is wearing 
 himself out. I don t see why physics should be 
 so difficult for him." 
 
 "They were difficult for me, my dear," said 
 he, looking up. Their eyes met, and she smiled 
 gently, lovingly. He took her firm, steady hand 
 and pressed it to his cheek. 
 
 "I think I ll run in and shoo him off to bed. 
 If only he wouldn t smoke that dreadful pipe 
 while he studies. He breathes nothing but 
 smoke." 
 
 * Doesn t hurt him a bit, said he. They ve 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 89 
 
 got sheet-iron lungs, you see, these sopho 
 mores." 
 
 She left him and went down to her son s 
 room. Carstairs was staring fixedly, intently 
 into space when she returned, he knew not 
 how long afterwards. He came out of his rev 
 erie with a start when she spoke to him from 
 the door. 
 
 "Alfie is going out for a breath of fresh air," 
 she said. "It seemed to me his room was stuf 
 fier and smokier than I ve ever known it to be 
 before. Eeally, dear, he is dreadfully trying. 
 He" 
 
 "My dear, you ve never been a boy," said 
 he, collecting himself and smiling. "You don t 
 know what it is to be completely self-satisfied." 
 
 "I ll be back in a few minutes," said Alfred, 
 coming up behind his mother. "Are you going 
 to sit up much longer, mother?" 
 
 "A little while. Hurry back, dear. Don t 
 go out without your overcoat. There is quite a 
 chill in the air. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ME, PAUL ZIMMERLEIN S telephone 
 rang shortly before midnight. He lived 
 in a small, exclusive hotel on one of the cross- 
 town streets, near Fifth Avenue. A brief con 
 versation over the wire ensued. A few minutes 
 later he appeared at the desk in the office down 
 stairs, dressed for the street. He was very 
 angry. 
 
 6 Why was I not informed when I came in this 
 evening that Mr. Prince had called up and was 
 expecting me to join his party at the Helvetia 
 for supper, Mr. Eogers ? He rang me up at nine 
 o clock and instructed you to put the message 
 in my box. 
 
 "I have no recollection of " 
 
 "Of course you haven t. You never do have 
 any recollection. None of you. I shall take the 
 matter up with the manager in the morning, 
 Eogers. It has happened before. The least 
 
 90 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 91 
 
 you could have done was to stick the message 
 in my box." 
 
 "I will inquire of the telephone operator. 
 The regular boy is off tonight. If there has 
 been any carelessness, Mr. Zimmerlein, it has 
 been with her, not with us, sir," said the clerk, 
 with the servility that is sometimes mistaken for 
 civility on the part of hotel clerks. 
 
 "I haven t time to listen to her excuses. 
 They have been waiting for me since eleven 
 o clock, and I have been in my room since 
 ten." 
 
 "I know, sir. It was a little before ten when 
 you came in." 
 
 "Well, be good enough to investigate. I 
 warn you that I intend to complain in the morn 
 ing." 
 
 "I m sorry, sir," began the clerk, but Zim 
 merlein was already on his way to the street. 
 
 The night-clerk scowled after him, and then 
 retired behind the key-rack to consult the oper 
 ator. 
 
 "What s the matter with you?" he demanded. 
 " Zimmerlein s sore as a crab about not getting 
 
92 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 a message that came in at nine, he says, and 
 he s going to raise hell about it. 
 
 " Nobody called him up, not till just a few 
 minutes ago. It s the old gaj. I heard what 
 the guy said to Zimmerlein, about calling up 
 at nine and giving directions and all that bunk, 
 and I had to hold my tongue between my teeth 
 to keep from butting in and telling him he was 
 a liar, and " 
 
 "Tell that to Mr. Coxhorn in the morning, " 
 broke in the clerk, and moved languidly away. 
 That was the extent of his investigations. 
 
 The Helvetia was a brisk five minutes walk 
 from Zimmerlein s hotel. He did it in three. 
 
 "Is Mr. Prince entertaining in his rooms or 
 in the cafe? 7 he inquired at the desk. 
 
 "In the cafe, Mr. Zimmerlein." 
 
 "Thanks." 
 
 Fifteen minutes later, he sauntered up to a 
 table at which a party of seven or eight people 
 were seated. Nodding and smiling in his most 
 amiable manner to the ladies, he laid his hand 
 on the shoulder of one of the men. 
 
 "Sorry, old man, but they didn t give me your 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 93 
 
 message. I should have been sitting on the 
 doorstep waiting for you, if I d known you 
 really wanted me. Thanks for calling me up 
 again. It was good of you, and I 11 try to make 
 up for all the lost time and trouble by being as 
 agreeable as I know how to be." He added an 
 encircling smile. The ladies appeared to cheer 
 up measurably. 
 
 The man addressed, a huge individual with a 
 tremendous expanse of white shirt front, be 
 trayed not the slightest sign of surprise or con 
 fusion. With all the profound affability of a 
 far- Westerner, he made the newcomer welcome. 
 If his steel-grey eyes bored inquiringly into 
 Zimmerlein s for the briefest instant, no one 
 else at the table was aware of the fact. Nor did 
 any one observe the warning that shot back from 
 the narrowing eyes of the belated guest. 
 
 A waiter produced a chair for Zimmerlein, 
 and placed it between two of the ladies, who, 
 with evident eagerness, made room for him. 
 His smile deepened as he shook his head, af 
 fecting dismay. 
 
 "Not yet, but soon," he pleaded. "I ran 
 
94 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 across an old friend of yours out in the lobby, 
 Prince. Stillwell. I told him you d be happy 
 to have him join you, but as he s just off the 
 train, he says he s filthy. 
 
 " Where is he?" cried Prince, starting up. 
 "I wouldn t miss seeing him for anything in the 
 world. An old pal of mine in Japan," he ex 
 plained to his guests. 
 
 "If you will excuse us both, we ll " began 
 Zimmerlein apologetically. 
 
 "Come along," interrupted Prince, grabbing 
 the other s arm. < Good old Still ! We 11 bring 
 him back with us if we have to drag him in. 
 You ll love him," he added boisterously. 
 
 .The two men hurried from the cafe. They 
 did not speak until they reached a deserted cor 
 ner of the hotel lobby. 
 
 "What s up?" demanded Prince. 
 
 "I ve just had some damnably disturbing 
 news. It s pretty bad, but I think I ve got word 
 to the right people in time to head off trouble. 
 I was just going to bed when I was called up on 
 the phone. By God, he s cool-headed, I ll say 
 that for him. Said he was you, and wanted to 
 
THEY DID NOT SPEAK UNTIL THEY REACHED A DESERTED 
 CORNER OF THE HOTEL LOBBY 
 
irO .^IH IU 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 95 
 
 know why the devil I hadn t showed up over 
 here. I was wise in a second. We met in the 
 most casual manner at the corner. He will go 
 a long way, that chap will, mark my words. 
 He s as keen as a fox and as resolute as the 
 devil. I can t explain here, Prince. We must 
 get back to your party. My alibi lies there, you 
 know, if I should happen to need it. You un 
 derstand, don t you?" 
 
 "Certainly. I knew something was in the 
 wind. Is it serious ? Tell me that. 
 
 "It can be serious, desperately serious. 
 But we can t do anything now. At one o clock 
 I shall ask you to excuse me, Prince. Engage 
 ment very early in the morning. Much-needed 
 rest, and so on. And, by the way, we were 
 unable to locate Folwell. He " 
 
 "Stillwell, wasn t it?" 
 
 "So it was. Gad, my nerves must be shot 
 up worse than I thought. At any rate, he had 
 vanished." 
 
 "Have you managed to get in touch with any 
 one else?" 
 
 " I ve sent word to Jehovah ! Zimmerlein 
 
96 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 permitted himself what was meant to be a smile, 
 but was instead an ugly grin. 
 
 " About the only name that s safe to utter in 
 these days," said Prince, looking over his shoul 
 der. 
 
 "You ve done your bit tonight, my friend, 
 by simply being who and what and where you 
 are. Nothing more is required of you." 
 
 "I m not asking questions," said Prince, 
 scowling. 
 
 "You have asked one," snapped Zimmerlein. 
 
 < Oh, Lord ! Haven t I a right to 
 
 "There is nothing more to be said on the sub 
 ject," said the other, fixing the big man with a 
 look that caused him to quail. "You know as 
 well as I just what our law is, Prince. I am not 
 above it, nor are you. Now, let us return. 
 
 Shortly after one o clock, Zimmerlein said 
 good night to the host and the guests upon whom 
 he had deliberately imposed himself, and went 
 forth into the night. A short distance down the 
 street, he was hailed by a lone taxi-driver, who 
 called out in the laconic, perfunctory manner 
 of his kind : 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 97 
 
 "Taxi?" 
 
 Zimmerlein walked on a few paces, and then, 
 apparently reconsidering, turned back. 
 
 Take me to the Pennsylvania, he said, and 
 got into the cab. 
 
 When he took his seat, it was between two 
 men who slunk down in the corners and kept 
 their faces and bodies well out of sight from the 
 occupants of passing cars and pedestrians on 
 the sidewalk. 
 
 An unusual amount of clatter attended the 
 getting under way of the car. The exhaust 
 roared, the gears grated and snarled, and the 
 loose links of tire-chains banged resoundingly 
 against the mud-guards. 
 
 A quarter of an hour elapsed. Zimmerlein 
 did most of the talking. Then, as the taxi drew 
 up in front of the little hotel in the cross-town 
 street, he got down and handed the driver a 
 bank-note. His last words, before leaving the 
 car, were : 
 
 "Remember, now. There must be no mis 
 take, no slip-up. Be dead sure before you do a 
 thing. He is to disappear, that s all. There 
 
98 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 must be no trace, absolutely no trace. " 
 
 As he sauntered into the hotel, the taxi rat 
 tled swiftly off in the direction of Broadway, 
 its remaining occupants silent and white-faced, 
 but with lips and jaws rigidly set. 
 
 "No complaint after all, Rogers, " said he to 
 the night clerk, rather jauntily. "My friend 
 confessed that he hadn t called me up at all. 
 It was his nice little way of stringing me. As 
 suage the poor girl s grief if you know how, 
 Rogers. Tell her it s all right, and she can 
 sleep soundly at the switch. Also, be good 
 enough to say to her that I apologize for my 
 self and for my friend." 
 
 Rogers watched him enter the elevator, and 
 once more strolled back to the switchboard. 
 
 "Hey! Wake up. Zimmerlein s just come 
 in. He s stewed and says his friend s a liar. 
 There won t be any court-martial. 
 
 The girl yawned. * l Say, has that darned old 
 clock stopped, or is it still only ten minutes of 
 two? It s been that for an hour. Never again 
 for me. Next time Pilcher wants to get off till 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 99 
 
 half -past leven, he needn t leave a call for me. 
 I m through accommodating that mutt. My 
 Gawd ! Two o clock, and he swore he d be here 
 by eleven. I ought to report him. Do a guy 
 like that a favour and he What was that 
 you said about old Zim-zim? D you say he was 
 soused?" 
 
 "No. I said stewed. He s carryin an egg 
 on an oyster fork. I never saw him drunk be 
 fore. 
 
 At his usual hour for breakfasting, Mr. Zim- 
 merlein briskly entered the dining-room the next 
 morning and seated himself at his customary 
 table near the window. Two morning news 
 papers lay beside his plate of sliced oranges. 
 His eyes swept the headlines on the front page. 
 A slight frown darkened his brow. He looked 
 again, a little more closely. Then he took up 
 the other paper. A certain eagerness that had 
 been in his eyes when he sat down gave way to 
 something bordering on astonishment. His in 
 terest passed quickly to the second, third and 
 fourth pages. 
 
100 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 There wasn t a line, not a solitary line about 
 the sinking of the Elston! 
 
 He had encountered Elberon late in the after 
 noon of the preceding day. He was going into 
 the club as the other came out. 
 
 "You will read something great in the morn 
 ing papers," Elberson had said guardedly. 
 "Perhaps in the extras tonight. 7 
 
 "I am always reading something great in the 
 newspapers, " he had replied. 
 
 "They got the Elston. Report came about 
 two o clock. No details. I doubt whether it is 
 known in Washington yet." 
 
 But the morning papers had no account of 
 the sinking. Not a word. What did it mean? 
 Could it be possible that their news travelled 
 so much faster than that obtained by the eager, 
 avid Press? Were they even ahead of Wash 
 ington? Elberon was in a position to know. 
 He never went off half-cocked. There wasn t 
 the least doubt in Zimmerlein s mind that the 
 Elston had been sunk, but why this amazing 
 failure of the newspapers to He started sud 
 denly. Comprehension flooded his brain. His 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON : : ; , : 1Q1 
 
 eyes lighted up again. He understood in a 
 flash. Suppressed! The news of the destruc 
 tion of the Elston with all those vitally impor 
 tant men on board, Why, of course ! It had 
 to be suppressed! 
 
 Nevertheless, he decided to drop in and see 
 Elberon on his way down town. 
 
 As for last night s business, if it came to a 
 head at all, it was after the papers had gone to 
 press. Still, he took the time to run through 
 both papers with unusual thoroughness. It was 
 barely possible that a paragraph, one of those 
 widely spaced paragraphs that always exact at 
 tention, might have stopped the presses at the 
 last minute. 
 
 He slid indifferently over the account of a dis 
 astrous fire along the water-front of an Ameri 
 can port from which heavily laden ships de 
 parted almost daily for French and English des 
 tinations. He knew all about that . 
 
 Elberon was not at his place of business. 
 This defection on the part of Elberon exasper 
 ated him. It was a new sensation. He could 
 not account for the sudden and admittedly un- 
 
102 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 reasonable sense of irritation that assailed him, 
 for, after all, Elberon regulated his actions 
 according to the demands of his own business. 
 The merchant s secretary announced that he 
 doubted if his employer would be in the office 
 before noon. He thought he had gone Christ 
 mas shopping with his wife. 
 
 "Damn Christmas I" muttered Zimmerlein as 
 he closed the door behind him and stalked off 
 into the counter-lined aisles that led by rectan 
 gular turns to the street. 
 
 The business of the night just ended had got 
 on his nerves. His hand shook a little as he 
 paused inside the doors to light a cigarette. It 
 was a bad "business"; there was no use trying 
 to make light of it. 
 
 Miss Mildred Agnew welcomed him with a 
 cheery "Good morning, " and the alert office- 
 boy went her one better by adding the informa 
 tion that it was ( a fine day, sir. 
 
 "Any messages, Miss Agnew? " inquired 
 Zimmerlein. 
 
 "A telephone call, sir, from the steward of 
 the Black Downs Country Club. He says there 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 103 
 
 is a leak and wants to know if you, as chairman 
 of the house committee, will do something about 
 it right away. " 
 
 "A leak?" he demanded, stopping short. 
 
 "So he said, Mr. Zimmerlein. 
 
 "Get him on the telephone and ask him to 
 come in and see me at once. 
 
 He was frowning darkly as the office-boy re 
 lieved him of his hat and coat and hung them up 
 in the closet. His mail received scant attention. 
 As a matter of fact, he swept the pile aside and 
 touched a button on the corner of the desk. 
 
 Thorsensel came into the private office, carry 
 ing a roll of blue-prints. 
 
 "Any word?" asked Zimmerlein, as the other 
 carefully and deliberately spread the prints on 
 the desk and weighted one end of them down 
 with a heavy steel ruler. 
 
 "No. Not a word." 
 
 "It s it s rather queer, don t you think?" 
 
 "You are nervous, Zimmerlein," said Thor 
 sensel, after a moment in which he studied the 
 other with a keen and soul-searching eye. "It 
 won t do, my friend. Nervousness tends to irri- 
 
104 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 tation, and irritation leads to impatience. You 
 know what happens to the impatient, Zimmer- 
 lein." 
 
 "Damn it all, I am nervous. I admit it. 
 Don t lecture me. I m not going to lose my 
 grit, or my head either." 
 
 "You can t lose one without the other, you 
 know," remarked Thorsensel sententiously. 
 
 "What do you suppose has happened?" 
 
 "Nothing, nothing at all," said the other. 
 
 "You mean that that they didn t pull it off? 
 God, that is the very worst that could have hap 
 pened." 
 
 That is exactly what I mean. You need not 
 worry, however. Trust Scarf to play it safe. 
 If he saw that there was the slightest chance of 
 failure, he would have taken no risk. That s 
 Scarf, my friend. Calm yourself. We will 
 hear from him before noon. He will have 
 worked out another plan, you may be sure." 
 
 It may be mentioned here and now that Zim- 
 merlein had consulted Thorsensel the master 
 mind, before taking a step in the affair of the 
 night just past. He had gone directly from his 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 105 
 
 hotel to the little French cafe down the street. 
 He knew that it was the unvarying habit of the 
 strange, silent engineer to drop in at this quaint 
 place for a bite of something to eat and a bottle 
 of red wine at midnight. Thorsensel never 
 missed doing this. There was method in his 
 continence. 
 
 A big and vital problem confronted Zimmer- 
 lein. He did not dare act without consulting 
 his pseudo-subordinate. Thorsensel took the 
 matter out of his hands. It was he who laid 
 the plans. Zimmerlein became merely an in 
 strument, with certain functions to perform, 
 and nothing more. 
 
 "I hope you are right," said Zimmerlein, 
 absorbing some of the other s fatalistic assur 
 ance. God help us if you are wrong. " 
 
 "My dear man, God helps us because we are 
 right, not because we are wrong," said Thor 
 sensel, laying his big, clenched fist upon the 
 desk, not violently but with a gentleness that 
 suggested vast strength held under control by 
 the power of a vaster will. 
 
 Zimmerlein drew a long, deep breath. 
 
106 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "You ve heard about the Elston, I suppose? " 
 "Yes. They got her. I knew they would. 
 That was the greatest tip we ve ever had. Our 
 report is that not one of the big bugs on board 
 was saved. A number of the crew got off in 
 boats, but they had to hurry. She went down 
 in eight minutes. They made a good job of it, 
 bless em. No wonder the night wind weeps! 
 Now, we ll see what old England has to say for 
 the invincibility of her fleet, and what she ll say 
 to the United States for letting the cat out of 
 the bag. He laughed aloud, for the first time 
 in the memory of Zimmerlein. Several of the 
 men in the drafting-room looked up. They 
 stared unblinkingly at the laugher. 
 
 The forenoon wore away. Thorsensel shut 
 tled between the drafting-room and the private 
 office. He no longer laughed. The pleased, 
 confident look had left his eyes; in its stead 
 lurked something that finally developed into 
 real, undisguised anxiety. An atmosphere of 
 restraint settled down like a cloud over the 
 offices. The uneasiness of the two principal fig 
 ures in the place was acutely infectious. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 107 
 
 The report of Peter Hooge, the steward of 
 the Black Downs Country Club, who arrived 
 shortly after noon, neither increased nor les 
 sened the strain. He was unnecessarily 
 alarmed. What if secret service men did visit 
 the club-house and question the employes? 
 That was not an unusual proceeding. They 
 were doing something of the sort all the time. 
 But, said Peter, they obtained a list of all the 
 members and guests of the club present on the 
 premises at the time of the Reynolds explosion. 
 Naturally, said both Zimmerlein and Thorsen- 
 sel : That was just what they would do. Pre 
 cious little good it would do them, however. 
 
 "I was obliged to show them my passports 
 and papers from the Swiss Government," said 
 Peter. 
 
 "Well, they were all in order, weren t they?" 
 
 * Perfectly. That isn t the point. The mere 
 fact that they asked for them proves something, 
 doesn t it?" 
 
 "You are too old a bird to be frightened by 
 pop-guns, Hooge," said Thorsensel, gnawing at 
 his moustache. "These fellows, from what I 
 
108 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 know of them, couldn t catch the scent of a pole 
 cat. " 
 
 "I m not so sure of that," put in Zimmerlein. 
 " They ve landed some pretty big fish." 
 
 " They ve landed a pack of blatant asses," 
 snapped Thorsensel. "Good God, man, you 
 don t put Reistelen and others of his stripe in 
 the class with well, with a few I could mention, 
 do you? They ve only touched the surface, my 
 friend. It is very deep, very deep indeed 
 where the big fishes lie. Go back to your work, 
 Hooge, and don t worry us again with trifles. 
 
 Late in the afternoon Scarf came in. He 
 came as a stoop-shouldered, consumptive-look 
 ing, unwashed District Messenger of uncertain 
 age and stability. 
 
 "Well?" cried Zimmerlein, glaring at the 
 man. 
 
 "Where in hell have you been?" grated Thor 
 sensel. 
 
 "That s just where I have been," replied the 
 messenger, straightening his bent figure and 
 drawing a long, full breath. He passed his 
 hand across his brow. "Or rather, I ve been 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 109 
 
 close enough to get an unpleasant whiff of 
 It" 
 
 " Don t sit down!" exclaimed Zimmerlein, 
 as the man prepared to sink into a chair. 
 
 * I m all in, I ve got to, and down he flopped. 
 After a moment he leaned forward and fixed the 
 others with burning, bitter eyes. "In the first 
 place, do you know what s happened to El- 
 beron?" 
 
 "No," fell in unison from the lips of the two 
 men. 
 
 "Well, he s sitting up in the United States 
 Attorney s office with half a dozen experts try 
 ing to pump intelligence out of him." 
 
 An imprecation ground its way out between 
 Thorsensel s teeth. Zimmerlein s lower lip 
 tightened against his teeth. 
 
 "I had it from Zumpe. They went to Elber- 
 \ on s house early this morning, on the quiet, of 
 course, nothing for the public, and took him 
 down for a grilling. Zumpe says old Elberon 
 has been getting pretty gabby with one or two 
 people who ought to be good Germans but 
 ain t." 
 
110 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "The infernal fool! I have warned him re 
 peatedly, " snarled Thorsensel. "He has been 
 very thick lately with Kleinhans, the banker. I 
 told him to take no chances with that man. I 
 mentioned a few others too." 
 
 "Some of em are straight, eh?" queried 
 Scarf, a twist at the corner of his mouth that 
 went for a sneer. 
 
 "Straight? No! Crooked as rattlesnakes! 
 I wouldn t trust a man like Kleinhans out of 
 my sight. He actually thinks he s an Ameri 
 can, and God knows that makes him worse 
 than one. Well? Go on. What else?" 
 
 "That s all I know about Elberon. As for 
 that other little matter, " He stopped to wet 
 his lips. 
 
 Zimmerlein muttered hoarsely : * Little mat 
 ter!" 
 
 "I m lucky, that s all," said Scarf, and again 
 passed his hand over his brow. 
 
 "Get on with it. You can t stay here all 
 afternoon," commanded Thorsensel. 
 
 "We came within an ace of dropping into a 
 pit a bottomless pit at that. Why didn t you 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 111 
 
 tell me that secret service men were trailing 
 him, Zimmerlein?" 
 
 What ? What s that you say 1 " 
 
 " Why, damn yonr eyes, Zimmerlein, that guy 
 was suspected of giving information to the 
 enemy. He s been watched like a hawk. We 
 got onto it just in time. Don t you see what 
 would have happened if they had followed us to 
 his room? You don t, eh? Well, I ll tell you. 
 We would have been nabbed with him, before 
 anything could have happened, caught in the 
 very net they were laying for him. His pals 
 that s what they would have made of us, his 
 comrades, mind you, not his enemies. How the 
 devil could we have explained? And would 
 they have believed him, no matter what he said 
 about us? Not on your life. The very thing 
 they were watching for would have hampered. 
 A rendezvous I They would have had him dead 
 to rights, delivering information received 
 earlier in the night to two German agents, oh, 
 what a diabolical joke it would have been on 
 him, and what a devil of a mess we would have 
 been in ! God, I shiver every time I think of it, 
 
112 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 and I ve been shivering all day, let me tell 
 you." 
 
 " Secret service men after him?" muttered 
 Thorsensel, incredulously. "What s the angle, 
 Zimmerlein, what s the angle? You are sup 
 posed to be on the inside up there. What do 
 you know about this?" 
 
 "I am completely in the dark. I can t under 
 stand it, Thorsensel. It are you sure, Scarf ? 
 
 " Absolutely. They got Blechter, yanked 
 him off the taxi when he stopped around in the 
 next block, according to plans. He was to wait 
 for us there, fixing his engine as a blind, 
 stalling for time. He put up a fight, poor 
 fool. They got him just the same." 
 
 "Will he squeal?" demanded Zimmerlein, 
 pacing the floor. 
 
 "You ought to know. He s your protege," 
 said Scarf succinctly. 
 
 "Better dead than alive, I d say," said Thor 
 sensel unfeelingly. " Go on. " 
 
 "Well, from all I could learn, two of them 
 waited outside the building and two of em were 
 inside I don t know just where. I think one 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 113 
 
 of them was running the front elevator. All 
 I know is that Buddy and I barely had time to 
 get out of the window and onto a little balcony 
 and drop down to the one below, before they 
 smashed in the door. Twelve foot drop, too, 
 and the balcony wasn t more than three feet 
 wide. If we d missed Lord ! 
 
 "You were in his room?" cried Thorsensel. 
 
 Sure. We got in through the building next 
 door, sneaked up ten flights of stairs to the top. 
 Got out on the roof through the * dog-house, and 
 dropped down to the other roof. Sort of pent 
 house arrangement up there. Very simple 
 after that. We had his apartment pretty well 
 marked. Ninth floor front. It s closed except 
 when he comes up occasionally from camp for a 
 night or two. Family in the South somewhere, 
 servants dismissed. We didn t waste any time. 
 Had it all doped out. Went to his door and 
 rang the bell. Pretty soon he came and opened 
 it and asked what we wanted. We told him 
 right off the reel that we were in the secret 
 service and had to have a talk with him at once 
 about a certain party he knows. He told us to 
 
114 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 go to hell. Then I showed him my badge and 
 mentioned a name that bowled him over. He 
 said: My God! and drew back into the room. 
 We went in and closed the door. 
 
 "I asked him first if there was anybody in 
 the apartment anybody that would be likely 
 to hear our conversation. He said he was alone, 
 his people were out of town for the winter. 
 Buddy asked him point blank just what he knew 
 about a certain party, all of it. He came back 
 with a question. Has there been an arrest? 7 
 Yes, says I. He sat down, limp as a rag. 
 My God, it s terrible horrible, he says. 
 Who put you wise? How much is actually 
 known? That was enough for Buddy. He 
 stuck the gun under his ear and let him have 
 it. He never knew what hit him. Buddy 
 dropped the revolver on the floor beside the 
 chair, just where he would have dropped it 
 himself, and then we started out to see if we 
 could find anything in the apartment that 
 oughtn t to be lying around loose. I forgot to 
 say there was a Maxim silencer on the gun. We 
 had just entered the first bed-room when his 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 115 
 
 door bell rang. Two hearts stopped beating 
 right there and then. For a minute we were 
 paralysed. Then there was pounding on the 
 door, and we heard some one say, Open up, or 
 well smash it in! 
 
 "No use wasting time on minor details. 
 After we got onto the balcony below, we opened 
 the French windows and sneaked into a big 
 apartment, darker than Egypt except when 
 the light from a big electric sign down the 
 street flashed every few seconds. We got out 
 into the hall without rousing anybody and 
 started down the stairs. Of course, we thought 
 it was the elevator man pounding on the door 
 up there, he might have heard the muffled re 
 port if he happened to be near that floor. God 
 was with us. We got down to the ground floor 
 all right, but there we struck something worse 
 than a stone wall. Two men were standing 
 right in front of the passenger elevator. We 
 jumped behind a curtain they have hanging 
 there to hide the stairway. They didn t hear 
 us. They were talking about Blechter. We 
 knew in a second what they were. 
 
116 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 " There was a cubby hole under the stairs 
 where they keep mops and brooms and such 
 stuff. We got in there, leaving a crack through 
 which we could hear. After awhile the front 
 elevator came down. We heard em all talking. 
 They said he had shot himself, and they cursed 
 their luck because they hadn t been able to take 
 him alive. He must have been warned that they 
 were after him. That s what they were roar 
 ing about. After a while we got out of the 
 mop-hole and sneaked down to the basement. 
 The doors were locked, and there were men in 
 the engine room a night fireman and a friend 
 of his who was drunk and had come in to sleep 
 it off. Somebody was walking up and down in 
 the little court outside. We didn t dare risk a 
 dash for it, so we hid under a pile of last sum 
 mer s awnings for a couple of hours. When we 
 couldn t stand it any longer, we decided to put 
 on a bold front and pass ourselves off as plain- 
 clothes-men. It was dead easy. The employes 
 about the place were scared stiff. All we had 
 to do was to look hard at the head porter and 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 117 
 
 the back elevator man, and tell em not to let 
 anybody go near the storeroom for apartment 
 E 9, not on their lives. Here s the evening 
 paper. You can read what it says. 
 
CHAPTER VI " 
 
 LOUISE HANSBURY did not go out for 
 her customary " constitutional " that 
 morning. She arose, tired and depressed after 
 a sleepless night. Soon after she had her 
 breakfast, chocolate and toast and a pre 
 scribed porridge, she complained of a sudden 
 and violent nausea. 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs went in to see her, and was 
 alarmed. She took the girl s temperature and 
 then called up the doctor. 
 
 "You have a fever," she said. "You must 
 go back to bed. It s nothing, I daresay, but 
 we have to be on the safe side, dear." 
 
 Louise betrayed her agitation. She pleaded 
 to be allowed to dress and go out for her walk. 
 There were moments when actual fear lurked in 
 her dark eyes. 
 
 "I will be all right in a little while, Aunt 
 Frieda. Don t be cross with me. I must have 
 
 118 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 119 
 
 eaten something last night that disagreed with 
 me. The lobster, I ate a tiny bit of it." 
 
 "Very likely," said her aunt calmly. "All 
 the more reason for being careful today. No, 
 my dear, I must insist on your remaining in bed, 
 at least until Dr. Browne has seen you." 
 
 "When is he coming?" 
 
 "The attendant said she could locate him and 
 would send him here as soon as possible. He is 
 out making his calls. 
 
 "The chocolate tasted queerly this morning, 
 Aunt Frieda," said the girl, feverishly. 
 
 "Imagination. Nothing tastes right when 
 one s stomach is upset." 
 
 "Oh, I want so much to get out for a breath 
 of fresh air. It is a perfectly lovely day. I am 
 sure Dr. Browne will say it s the best thing in 
 the world " 
 
 "Dr. Browne doesn t know everything," in 
 terrupted Mrs. Carstairs. She laid her hand 
 on the girl s hot forehead. "You must go back 
 to bed, just for a little while," she said, and 
 there was an inexorableness in her tone that 
 roused swift resentment in Louise. A rebelli- 
 
120 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 ous, angry light smouldered in her eyes. "I 
 know what is best for you. If it should turn 
 out to be ptomaine poisoning " 
 
 "It can t be ptomaine if it came from the 
 chocolate I drank," sad Louise, excitement 
 causing her voice to tremble and to take on a 
 certain shrillness. 
 
 "I am confident it is all due to nervousness/ 
 said Mrs. Carstairs. She spoke in a patient, 
 consoling manner. "Dr. Browne will give you 
 something to straighten out your digestion, and 
 you will be all right by tomorrow. You are 
 not strong yet, you know. Just be patient, my 
 dear. It takes time." 
 
 "I should like to telephone, Aunt Frieda," 
 said the girl abruptly. Submissive to the 
 gentle but unyielding authority of the older 
 woman, who dominated as one with the power to 
 scourge if resistance continued, she had begun 
 to divest herself, rather helplessly, of the gay 
 peignoir in which she had breakfasted. With 
 feverish haste, she slipped her arms through the 
 loose folds, and faced her aunt. There was de 
 fiance in her glance. For an instant it held. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 121 
 
 The calm smile and the tolerant shake of the 
 head, as to a pleading child, shattered her re 
 solve ; she saw that argument was useless. The 
 robe fell from her shoulders as she turned away 
 with a sob in her throat. 
 
 "Is it important?" inquired the older 
 woman. 
 
 "I this afternoon will do as well, I sup 
 pose," replied the girl, without turning her 
 head. 
 
 "Let me call up for you, dear. It is no 
 trouble at all. I can explain that you are ill." 
 
 "No, thank you, Aunt Frieda. It it doesn t 
 matter." 
 
 She hesitated about confiding to Mrs. Car- 
 stairs that she was going out to meet her lover. 
 Something told her that it would be the wrong 
 thing to do, something that for want of an 
 other name would have to go as cunning. 
 She shared a vague, disturbing secret with 
 Steele. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Carstairs tucked the bedclothes about 
 her. 
 
 "The doctor will be here soon, I am sure," 
 
122 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 she said. "Bo you feel any better? Are you 
 more comfortable V 
 
 "I am in no pain, if that s what you mean. 
 Just this wretched nausea. What do the morn 
 ing papers say about the loss of the Elston, 
 Aunt Frieda 1" 
 
 "Nothing, I believe. Your uncle says there 
 was no mention of it. I daresay the news has 
 been held up for the time being. Waiting for 
 full details. Wasn t it fortunate, wasn t it 
 providential that the transfer to the Campion 
 was so cleverly accomplished?" 
 
 A maid-servant came to the door. 
 
 "You are wanted on the telephone, Mrs. Car- 
 stairs. Shall I say you are engaged?" 
 
 "Who is it, Wrenn?" 
 
 "A gentleman. I couldn t catch the name, 
 Mrs. Car stairs." 
 
 "I will see who it is." 
 
 After she had closed Louise s door behind 
 her, Frieda Carstairs stood stockstill in the long 
 corridor. She put her hand to her breast and 
 held it there lightly, as if to transmit its vital 
 strength to the organ which pounded so vio- 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 123 
 
 lently. Her tall figure was tense ; her face took 
 on the pallor of death and its rigidity. For as 
 long as fifteen or twenty seconds, she remained 
 motionless. Then her lips moved stiffly; they 
 twitched as in a spasm of pain. The two words 
 they formed but did not utter were : 
 
 "Poor girl!" 
 
 Once, as she covered the short distance to her 
 own sitting-room, her figure swayed slightly. 
 She even put out a hand to steady herself 
 against the wall, a needless precaution, for 
 she instantly regained command of herself. 
 
 She closed the door, and, before taking up the 
 receiver, threw in the device which cut out the 
 instrument from other extensions in the apart 
 ment, those in the butler s pantry, her hus 
 band s study, and the one that stood on the 
 night-table at the head of his bed. Her knees 
 suddenly became weak; they trembled as with 
 the palsy. She sat down at the writing table 
 and dropped her elbow heavily on the top. 
 Again she feared that she was going to faint. 
 
 "Yes?" she murmured thickly into the trans 
 mitter, and, instantly realizing that her voice 
 
124 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 betrayed nervousness and even alarm, repeated 
 the word firmly, crisply. "Yes, this is Mrs. 
 Carstairs." 
 
 "I am speaking for the Evening " (the 
 name of the newspaper was indistinctly pro 
 nounced) "and I called up, Mrs. Carstairs, to 
 ask if it is true that Captain Derrol Steele was 
 engaged to be married to your niece, Miss 
 Louise Hansbury?" 
 
 She did not reply. Her lips parted but no 
 sound issued forth. 
 
 Again the voice spoke in her ear. "Are you 
 there?" 
 
 The "yes" she uttered in reply was little 
 more than a hoarse gasp. And then: "I hear 
 you quite distinctly. There was a click at the 
 other end. Slowly, as in a daze, she hung up 
 the receiver. Not another word passed. 
 
 She did not leave the apartment that day, but 
 spent most of the time with her niece, whose 
 indisposition was promptly diagnosed as an 
 acute attack of indigestion by the learned and 
 complacent physician, who dosed her and went 
 his way. He ordered her to remain in bed ; he 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 125 
 
 would run in and see her in the morning. If 
 anything, ah ! a alarming turned up, he mur 
 mured to Mrs. Carstairs, she was to call him at 
 once. Not likely, of course, said he, nothing to 
 be apprehensive about, but well, you never can 
 tell. Resistance not yet fully restored, and, 
 4 * after all, as I Ve said all along, Mrs. Carstairs, 
 one s own resistance is the best chemistry go 
 ing, and one has to fill his own prescription 
 when it comes to that sort of thing, don t you 
 know. 
 
 Being a very fashionable doctor he gave her 
 pyromedan to bring down the temperature in a 
 hurry, and codeine to quiet the pain. 
 
 Davenport Carstairs seldom reached his home 
 before six or half -past. It was his custom, if 
 business happened to be indulgent, to drop in 
 at his favourite club about four in the after 
 noon. On this afternoon, however, he drove 
 straight home from the office. The clock in the 
 hall was striking four as he entered the apart 
 ment. The afternoon newspapers were under 
 his arm, four or five of them. 
 
126 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "Has Mrs. Carstairs come in, Hollowell?" lie 
 asked. 
 
 "Mrs. Carstairs did not go out today, sir. 
 Miss Hansbury is ill." 
 
 Ordinarily Carstairs would have been dis 
 turbed by this information. He had been 
 gravely worried over his niece s condition. 
 Hollowell s supplementary statement, however, 
 appeared to have fallen on deaf ears. 
 
 "Say that I m home, Hollowell, and in my 
 room." 
 
 "Very good, sir. Is there anything I can 
 do, sir?" 
 
 " Do ? What do you mean t 
 
 "I thought perhaps you might be ill, sir. 
 I" 
 
 "Not at all, not at all," somewhat irascibly. 
 "Ask Mrs. Carstairs to come to my room- 
 Wait! Have you had any news here to 
 day?" 
 
 l No, sir, nothink as I am aware of, sir. 
 
 * No er commotion ? 
 
 "I think not, sir. It isn t serious. Sort of 
 ah what you might call stomach ah al- 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 127 
 
 though cook says it can t have been anything 
 she ate last " 
 
 "By the way, what made you think I was 
 ill!" 
 
 "Well, since you ask, sir, you do look a bit 
 seedy, sir, that is to say pale and 
 
 "I wish to see Mrs. Carstairs alone. Please 
 avoid mentioning my return in Miss Hansbury s 
 presence." 
 
 He went at once to his study, where, moved 
 by the remark of the butler, he stared long and 
 hard at his features in a mirror. His face was 
 ashen grey, and suddenly, strangely old. 
 
 He had tossed the newspapers on the rare old 
 Italian table in the centre of the room. After a 
 few moments of complete abstraction, his dull, 
 frowning gaze was raised from the floor to 
 sweep the room, which, for some strange, al 
 most uncanny cause, seemed almost unfamiliar 
 to him. And yet it was the same, nothing had 
 been changed. Only he had altered his own 
 perspective had undergone a vast, incompre 
 hensible change. His eyes falling upon the pa 
 pers, he took them up, one by one, and stared 
 
128 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 again at a certain headline in each, a raw cap 
 tion that fascinated him and hurt him like the 
 cut of a knife. 
 
 It did not occur to him until long afterwards, 
 and then only in retrospective contemplation of 
 events that filled the most important day in his 
 life, that his wife was a long time in appearing. 
 She came into the study at last, and, as was her 
 unvarying custom, pressed her lips to his cheek. 
 He noticed that her lips, always moist and soft 
 and alive, were hot and dry and as dead as 
 parchment. Before he spoke a word to her, he 
 crossed the room and closed the door into the 
 hall. 
 
 She was staring at him in amazement as he 
 turned toward her again. 
 
 What has happened, Davenport? You 
 you look so strange, so Oh, something 
 dreadful has happened! Is it is it Alfred? 
 Tell me ! For God s sake, don t 
 
 "It isn t Alfred, my dear," said he. There 
 was a dull, hollow note in his voice, a note that 
 held to one key. " Where is Louise?" 
 
 "In bed. She hasn t been well" 
 
SHOT WITH CEIMSON 129 
 
 "We must manage somehow to break this 
 thing gently to her. It might there is no tell 
 ing what it may do to her, Frieda. 
 
 She steadied herself against the table. Her 
 face now was as white as his. It had been pale 
 before ; now it was livid. 
 
 "What is it, Davenport!" 
 
 He looked searchingly, anxiously into her 
 eyes for a moment, and then said: "It will be 
 a shock to you too, Frieda, but I know you. 
 You can take it like a soldier. Derrol Steele 
 shot himself last night. He is dead. He 
 There, there, dearest ! I shouldn t have blurted 
 it out like sit down here, Frieda! That s 
 right ! Poor old girl ! Curse me for a blunder 
 ing fool! I might have known it would be a 
 dreadful shock to you. You were devoted to 
 him. He" 
 
 "Tell me, tell me everything, Davenport," 
 she broke in, her eyes fixed on his lips. She did 
 not look into his eyes. He was leaning over 
 her, clasping one of her hands, a hand that 
 suddenly became limp after the utmost rigidity. 
 
 "Just a moment. Compose yourself. Pull 
 
130 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 yourself together, dear. It s it s a cruel 
 story an incredible story. I would have 
 staked my soul on Derrol Steele. I ve known 
 him since he was a little boy. If I had been 
 asked to name the most honourable, the most 
 loyal man in the but, Frieda, I was wrong I 
 was deceived in him, just as you were and 
 Louise. Louise ! God, how this will crush that 
 poor, innocent, loving " 
 
 1 Tell me ! she insisted, her fingers tighten 
 ing on his, her voice scarcely more than a 
 whisper. 
 
 For answer, he placed the newspaper in her 
 hands, and pointed to the headline at the top of 
 the page. 
 
 "Read it, Frieda. Read this first. " 
 
 He sat on the edge of the table, his arms 
 folded across his breast, and waited for her to 
 finish. At last the paper fell from her fingers 
 and she looked up into his face. Her eyes were 
 bleak. 
 
 "I can t believe it, Davenport, I will not 
 believe it of Derrol Steele." 
 
 "As soon as I saw the paper, about two 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 131 
 
 o clock, I should say, I hurried over to the 
 United States Attorney s office. The story is 
 true, Frieda. It appears that a secret service 
 agent gad, how marvellous they are! an 
 agent overheard scraps of a conversation be 
 tween two men late last night, in front of a 
 little French restaurant, I think it was. 
 Steele s name was mentioned two or three 
 times. He was not interested, however, until 
 he heard them speak of a man long suspected by 
 the department. Then he pricked up his ears. 
 The marshal did not repeat the name, for ob 
 vious reasons. The man heard enough to con 
 vince him that this suspect and one or two other 
 men were to be at Steele s apartment before 
 three o clock this morning. The address was 
 carefully, precisely given by one of the men, 
 who was very greatly agitated. Captain Steele 
 had vital information in his possession, that 
 much, at least, the listener was able to grasp. 
 One sentence he heard distinctly. I recall it 
 clearly. * Tomorrow will be too late. This 
 was enough for the agent. He was too clever 
 to arrest these men on the spot. The way was 
 
132 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 clear for the seizure of at least four or five men, 
 including an officer in the United States Army. 
 So he are you listening, dear ? 9 
 
 "Yes, yes!" she replied, as if waking from a 
 dream. 
 
 "This agent had been set there to watch for 
 a man and a woman, posing as French people, 
 who are under surveillance. As soon as the 
 speakers parted, he rushed up the street to an 
 hotel, and called up headquarters. This was 
 too big a thing to be sidetracked for the French 
 couple. Several operatives were dispatched 
 immediately to assist him. They went to the 
 building where Derrol lives or lived. They 
 seized the driver of the taxi-cab, but the others 
 evidently got wind of the raid, for when they 
 went up to Steele s apartment, hoping to catch 
 them in the place with him, they found him 
 alone. He had slipped a bath gown over his 
 pajamas and was undoubtedly waiting for his 
 fellow-conspirators. He realized in an instant 
 that he was trapped. They smashed in the 
 door. While the violent noise was going on, he 
 shot himself. They did not hear the report, 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 133 
 
 however, due to the clatter and to the fact that 
 there was a silencer on the revolver. There 
 was the faintest sign of a pube, indicating that 
 the shot had been fired only a minute or two be 
 fore they burst in and discovered him sitting 
 in a chair not twenty feet from the door/ 
 
 The tears rolled down the cheeks of Daven 
 port Carstairs. His voice broke. 
 
 "I can t believe it of him, Frieda, I can t be 
 lieve it." 
 
 Her face was ghastly. "We have the proof, 
 Davenport, the indisputable proof, " she mur 
 mured. 
 
 The proof I What proof have we?" 
 
 "The best proof in the world. He shot him 
 self. Only a guilty man would have taken his 
 own life in the circumstances. We we must 
 believe it of him, Davenport. That poor, sick 
 girl ! How are we to tell her 1 
 
 Of the two, she was now by far the more com 
 posed. Except for the colourless lips and an 
 almost lavender-like hue that stole slowly into 
 her cheeks just below the temples, indicative of 
 the vast effort she had been called upon to exert 
 
134 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 in order to regain command of her nerves, she 
 was visibly calm and self-contained. Her hus 
 band had sunk dejectedly into a chair. For 
 many minutes no word passed between them. 
 It was she who spoke first. 
 
 " You say they caught one of the men one of 
 the others, I mean?" she inquired. 
 
 "The taxi-driver. " 
 
 Her lips parted to form another question. 
 She withheld it. With her handkerchief she 
 wiped away the moisture that suddenly ap 
 peared at the corners of her mouth oozing 
 from between close-pressed lips. 
 
 She read the accounts in the other papers, her 
 face absolutely emotionless. After a while he 
 looked up, and, unobserved, watched her face. 
 
 "You are a very wonderful woman, Frieda," 
 he said as she laid the last of the papers on the 
 table. Her answer was a faint smile and a 
 shake of the head. 
 
 She arose and started resolutely toward the 
 door. As she neared it, she faltered, and then 
 turned back to him. 
 
 "Davenport, I have just had a most disturb- 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 135 
 
 ing thought. It also may have occurred to you. 
 Derrol Steele was a trusted and familiar guest 
 in this house. He heard many important, let 
 me go on, please, I can see revulsion in your 
 eyes. Whether we like it or not, we must look 
 at it squarely from every point of view. Last 
 night, for example, he heard the Admiral; he 
 heard what the Countess had to say about the 
 Italian situation. Going farther back, you 
 yourself spoke in his presence of the sailing of 
 the Elston with all those men on board." 
 
 "I see what is in your mind, Frieda," he said 
 slowly. " You mean we may be dragged into it?" 
 
 "Not at all," she said rather sharply. "We 
 need not be drawn into it in the slightest degree 
 unless we volunteer information that concerns 
 no one but ourselves. Why should any one 
 know that he came into possession of facts here 
 in our home?" 
 
 Such things are bound to leak out, my dear. 
 The investigation will be thorough. They will 
 go to the bottom of this. Of course, I can man 
 age it so that we sha n t come in for any pub 
 licity, but we can t escape questioning." 
 
136 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 "And are we to admit that we discussed these 
 very grave and important matters in his pres 
 ence?" 
 
 "We are to tell the truth, Frieda. You 
 should not forget that we spoke of them in the 
 presence of an officer in the United States 
 Army. 
 
 After a moment she said: "I daresay you 
 are right, Davenport. You are always right. 
 I was only thinking that in view of the fact that 
 there is no proof against him except the few 
 words overheard by that man in front of the 
 cafe, well, it is possible, don t you see, that 
 there may have been some horrid, appalling 
 mistake. They have no other proof, unless 
 the United States Attorney withheld something 
 from you. 
 
 They have the best proof in the world. He 
 shot himself, as you have said." 
 
 She half closed her eyes. A queer little 
 spasm twisted her lips apart. 
 
 "Yes," she said unsteadily, "yes, he shot 
 himself." 
 
 Her hand was on the door-knob. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 137 
 
 "Are you going in to tell her now, Frieda?" 
 
 "I must have a little time, just a little, dear. 
 I am more shaken than you think. I must have 
 time to collect myself. It will be very difficult, 
 Davenport. Stay here. Do not come unless I 
 call to you." 
 
 "I leave it all to you, Frieda, God bless you 
 and God give you strength." 
 
 The door closed behind her. He sat motion 
 less for a long time, wondering whether he could 
 hear her call to him with that door and doubt 
 less another intervening. Strange that she 
 should have closed it. He would wait a little 
 while, a few minutes only, and then he would 
 open it and listen. 
 
 She went straight to her own room. . . . 
 Presently she lifted the telephone receiver from 
 the hook. The next moment she replaced it, but 
 did not release it from her tense fingers. 
 
 She sat rigid, staring at the instrument, re 
 solve and indecision struggling for mastery. 
 At last she pushed the instrument away and 
 sank back in the chair as if exhausted. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE doctor arrived at eight. He could not 
 afford to disregard the summons of such 
 a man as Davenport Carstairs. So he told his 
 wife to go on to the Opera without him; he 
 would join her as soon as possible, in fact, it 
 might be possible to get there before the over 
 ture was ended, or, at the very latest, soon after 
 the curtain went up. Make his apologies, and 
 all that. This was an urgent case. 
 
 Close on his heels came two men to see Mr. 
 Carstairs. . . . 
 
 Miss Hansbury was in a pitiable condition. 
 For the better part of two hours, Frieda Car- 
 stairs had been with her. Every one else, not 
 excepting her uncle, was denied admission to 
 the room. From time to time, the sound of 
 voices came through the closed door, one shrill 
 and rising to the pitch of frenzy, the other firm, 
 gentle, soothing one that seemed to croon. A 
 sharp-eared listener outside would have caught 
 
 138 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 139 
 
 an occasional sentence wailed in the despairing 
 treble, but he would have made little of it, for 
 it dwindled away into a smothered, inarticulate 
 jumble of words. He might have distinguished 
 the oft-repeated cry : 
 
 You know it isn t true ! You know it ! You 
 know it I" 
 
 Carstairs grasped the doctor s arm the in 
 stant he entered the apartment. 
 
 "For God s sake, Doctor, give her something 
 to quiet her immediately. I I cannot endure 
 it. We should have waited. I had no idea it 
 would be like this. Mrs. Carstairs hasn t left 
 her for an instant. I can hear her moaning 
 and" 
 
 "Is it this ah news about young Steele?" 
 inquired the doctor blandly. He rubbed his 
 hands. 
 
 "Yes yes! We thought it best to tell her 
 before she got it from the servants, or the pa 
 pers, or " 
 
 "Dreadful affair, most shocking. I knew 
 him very slightly, but he seemed a most delight 
 ful chap. By Jove, it is really distressing, the 
 
140 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 way the Germans have undermined our very " 
 
 "She is in a most deplorable condition, Doc 
 tor. Don t delay an instant, please, and do 
 not leave her until you are convinced there is no 
 danger of " He broke off abruptly. 
 
 "Ahem! Yes, yes, ah, I ll remain as long 
 as ah, I feel the least bit uneasy about her." 
 
 "All right, Doctor, if there is the remotest 
 danger of " 
 
 "Oh, I fancy there isn t any real danger 
 of that, Mr. Carstairs. Compose yourself. 
 We 11 have her sleeping like a baby in no time 
 at all. Had you an inkling that Steele was that 
 sort of a" 
 
 "And will you please send Mrs. Carstairs out 
 of the room at once?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, immediately. Leave it to me, 
 leave it to me," and off he went, with a spright- 
 liness that would have, surprised his dignity if 
 he had had the slightest notion at that moment 
 that he still possessed such a thing. 
 
 But Mrs. Carstairs refused to be sent out of 
 the room. She remained steadfast at the girl s 
 side, holding and stroking her hand. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 141 
 
 "I cannot, I will not leave her, Doctor 
 Browne," she said, compressing her lips. 
 
 The butler apologetically stuck his head into 
 Mr. Carstairs study a few minutes after the 
 doctor s arrival. 
 
 "Sorry, sir, but there s two gentlemen asking 
 to see you." 
 
 "I told you I was not at home to any one, 
 Hollowell. Is it necessary for me to repeat 
 your instructions?" 
 
 "No, sir, thank you, sir. But these gentle 
 men say they must see you, sir. They are out 
 side, sir, in the hall. I asked " 
 
 Who are they ? What is their business ? 
 
 "I asked both those questions, sir," said the 
 butler, in evident distress. 
 
 "Yes, yes, well, and what did they say?" 
 
 "They simply said * Never mind/ " said Hol 
 lowell, with a great deal of feeling. 
 
 Carstairs stopped suddenly in his tracks. 
 
 "I thought you said they were gentlemen." 
 
 His brow darkened. He had sensed the 
 truth. Secret service men. 
 
 "My mistake, sir, my mistake," mumbled 
 
142 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 Hollowell. "Ahem! I can only add, Mr. Car- 
 stairs, that they seem to think you are at home, 
 and ah " 
 
 "Conduct them to this room," said Carstairs. 
 A few minutes later: "Come in, gentlemen, 
 and be seated. I suppose you are here to as 
 certain if I can throw any light on the Derrol 
 Steele affair. It is no secret, of course, that he 
 was my niece s fiance, and that he was a con 
 stant visitor here. I am afraid, however, that 
 I can be of no assistance to you. Captain 
 Steele" 
 
 "Pardon me, Mr. Carstairs," said one of his 
 visitors, a sharp-eyed, clean-cut man of forty, 
 "but, as a matter of fact, our business here is 
 really with Mrs. Carstairs. Will you be good 
 enough to ask her to step into this room!" 
 
 His companion had closed the door, and both 
 remained standing. 
 
 "I assure you she knows as little as I do about 
 this distressing affair. My niece is very ill. 
 She cannot leave her. You must allow me, 
 for the present, at least, to speak for Mrs. 
 Carstairs." 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 143 
 
 "Deeply as I regret it, Mr. Carstairs, I must 
 insist that your wife " 
 
 "You heard what I said, didn t you?" de 
 manded Carstairs coldly. Two vivid red 
 blotches shot into his cheeks. 
 
 The two men looked at each other. Then the 
 spokesman gave a significant jerk of his head. 
 His companion opened the door and stepped 
 quickly into the hall. As the door closed, 
 the one who remained drew nearer to Car- 
 stairs. 
 
 "In the first place, Mr. Carstairs, you cannot 
 speak for your wife. I am not here to make in 
 quiries, sir, but to escort her to the offices of the 
 United States Attorney, who will " 
 
 Carstairs started up from his chair. "What 
 infernal nonsense is this?" 
 
 "I am afraid it isn t nonsense, " said the 
 other quietly. "My instructions, my orders, 
 I may say, are to confront Mrs. Carstairs with 
 certain charges, in your presence, by the way, 
 and to remain in this apartment until further 
 orders. There is no alternative." 
 
 "Charges?" gasped Davenport Carstairs, in- 
 
144 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 credulously. "What do you mean? What 
 charges have been brought against us?" 
 
 "There is nothing against you, sir. I am 
 instructed to exercise the greatest consideration 
 for you. A great deal, I may add, is left to my 
 discretion, after all. Your wife, I am com 
 pelled to inform you, is charged with a very 
 serious offence. In plain words, we have indis 
 putable proof that she is and has been for sev 
 eral years in direct communication with the 
 German Government through 
 
 "It is a damned, outrageous lie!" shouted 
 Carstairs, furiously. "How dare you come 
 here" 
 
 "Just a moment, please," interrupted the 
 other sharply. "My instructions are to treat 
 you with the utmost respect and consideration. 
 I must ask you to accord me the same treatment. 
 Will you send for your wife, or must I resort 
 to the authority that " 
 
 "For God s sake, man, wait! Let me get 
 this thing through my head. I I will try to 
 control myself. There has been some terrible 
 mistake. Let us discuss the matter calmly. I 
 
SHOT WITH CEIMSON 145 
 
 can explain everything. We must spare her 
 the mortification, the humiliation of being 
 Why, my dear sir, it would -kill her. She 
 would not survive the " 
 
 The agent held up his hand. " There is no 
 mistake. It may be possible to spare her the 
 disgrace, the ignominy of public exposure. 
 That, sir, rests with her and with you. We 
 recognize your position, Mr. Carstairs. There 
 is a disposition on the part of the authorities 
 to protect you. With that object in view, I am 
 instructed to grant Mrs. Carstairs the privilege 
 of remaining in her own room until tomorrow 
 morning. We are to take no definite action to 
 night, unless, of course, you and she decide that 
 it is best for her to accompany me to the er 
 to headquarters. It is up to you and Mrs. Car- 
 stairs, sir." 
 
 Davenport Carstairs was a strong, virile 
 character. He possessed the arrogance born of 
 power and a confidence in himself that had 
 never been shaken. His home was his strong 
 hold, his wife its treasure. In his serene 
 strength he could not conceive of discredit fall- 
 
146 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 ing upon either. Instead of faltering, now that 
 the first shock had been weathered, he drew 
 himself up and faced the situation with a cour 
 age that excited the wonder and admiration of 
 the man who came with evil tidings. 
 
 "Be seated," said he, indicating a chair. 
 The man sat down. "You may be partially if 
 not entirely ignorant of the nature of these 
 charges. Am I right in assuming that you are 
 not at liberty to discuss them with me?" 
 
 t On the contrary, Mr. Carstairs, I have been 
 advised to do nothing until I have talked the 
 matter over with you. I am in possession of all 
 the facts." 
 
 "Is the department content to allow me to 
 pass judgment on my wife?" inquired Car- 
 stairs, with a touch of irony. He maintained a 
 calm exterior, at what cost no one but he will 
 ever know. The secret service man made no 
 response. "In any case, I shall have to ask 
 you to explain everything to me before permit 
 ting you to approach my wife." 
 
 The agent, who shall be called Jones, nodded 
 his head, and then leaned forward in his chair. 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 147 
 
 "A man named Hodges was in your employ 
 as a butler up to a fortnight ago. He had 
 worked for you exactly seven weeks and one 
 day. Do you know where he came from and 
 who he really was, Mr. Carstairs?" 
 
 "No. Mrs. Carstairs engages the servants 
 here. Are you going to tell me that he was a 
 German spy?" 
 
 "Far from it, sir. He was a British secret 
 service agent. His name was Bridgef ord. He 
 was killed by an automobile, but not accidentally 
 as you have been led to believe. We have been 
 looking for the driver of that car for two weeks. 
 Last night we got him. He has confessed. 
 Since six o clock this evening three other men 
 have been arrested, all subordinate figures in 
 the game. Before morning we expect to land 
 at least one or two of the principal members of 
 the shrewdest gang of spies operating in the 
 name and interest of the Kaiser." 
 
 "Including my wife," said Carstairs, lifting 
 his eyebrows. 
 
 Jones allowed the remark to pass without 
 comment. 
 
148 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 "Bridgeford, or Hodges, as you knew him, 
 was sent to this city from London. For a 
 long time he worked independently. A few 
 days before his death, we received instructions 
 from Washington to get in touch with him. 
 That was the first we knew of him, I ll confess. 
 The British Foreign Office advised our depart 
 ment that he had finally got hold of something 
 big and tangible. But evidently the German 
 Foreign Office also was wise to him. He re 
 ported to us on the afternoon of the day he was 
 killed. He said that the time was not yet ripe 
 to take positive steps, but that he would soon 
 have the goods on four or five prominent people. 
 He gave us the names of these people. Two of 
 them he was sure about, the others were in 
 doubt. Believe me, they were prominent. We 
 were to hold off till he said the word. That 
 night he was killed. But they didn t do it soon 
 enough. We had all his data, incomplete as it 
 was, and we ve followed it up. That s why I 
 am here this evening. 
 He paused ; and Carstairs said, harshly : 
 1 Well, go on, why do you hesitate ?" 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 149 
 
 "We know now;* beyond all possible doubt, 
 that information of the most vital character has 
 reached the German Admiralty and the Foreign 
 Office through Mrs. Carstairs," said Jones de 
 liberately. 
 
 "I may be pardoned if I repeat that it is a 
 damned lie," said Carstairs, gripping the arms 
 of his chair. 
 
 "You have said just what you were expected 
 to say, Mr. Carstairs. Before I have finished, 
 however, you will realize that it is not a damned 
 lie. I am authorized to exhibit certain memo 
 randa from the Department. You will then 
 agree with us that the information came 
 from this house, from this apartment, in 
 fact." 
 
 "In the light of what happened last night, I 
 may go so far as to concede that such may have 
 been the case. Permit me to remind you of the 
 suicide of Captain " 
 
 He broke off abruptly, struck by the expres 
 sion in the other s face. Jones shook his head 
 slowly. There was genuine distress in his voice 
 when he spoke. 
 
150 SHOT WITH CEIMSON 
 
 "Captain Steele was murdered, Mr. Car- 
 stairs," he said. "He did not kill himself." 
 
 Carstairs sprang to his feet. For an instant 
 a flash of joy transfigured his face. 
 
 "By gad, I knew it, I knew it! I would 
 have staked my soul on that boy s honour. 
 Murdered? My God! And for what hellish 
 purpose is his name blackened by the foul re 
 ports given to the press by your " 
 
 "A very grave injustice has been done an 
 honourable gentleman," interrupted Jones, 
 with real feeling. "Captain Steele was mur 
 dered by assassins in the employ of persons con 
 nected with the German Government. When I 
 have finished my story, I shall make it brief, 
 you will understand that, far from being a 
 traitor to his country, Derrol Steele was a pa 
 triot who would not have hesitated to denounce 
 " He withheld the words that rose to his 
 lips in vindication of the maligned officer. "A 
 careful search of his rooms today resulted in 
 the discovery of a document in his own hand 
 writing, written after he left your apartment 
 last night, and put under lock and key some time 
 
1 
 
SHOT WITH CEIMSON 151 
 
 prior to the arrival of the assassins. I have a 
 copy of it with me. You will observe that he 
 does not make definite accusations against any 
 one, and that he employs initials only in desig 
 nating the persons involved. He goes no 
 farther than to express his own misgivings, his 
 suspicions and certain observations that prove 
 how keenly alive he was to the real situation. 
 Sit down, Mr. Carstairs, and look over these 
 papers. Begin here, sir, with the data ob 
 tained by the man you knew as Hodges. I beg 
 to assure you, in advance, that my superiors 
 entertain no thought that you were at any time 
 cognizant of what has been going on in your 
 own home, and there is the profoundest desire 
 on their part to spare you " 
 Enough, sir ! Let me see the papers. 
 "Just a moment, please. There is one gap 
 in the sequence of events leading up to the death 
 of Captain Steele. We are confident that the 
 leaders of this great conspiracy were warned 
 late last night that Captain Steele suspected a 
 certain person, but we have been unable to dis 
 cover by what means, or through whom, this 
 
152 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 warning was delivered. The men under arrest, 
 with the exception of the chauffeur, absolutely 
 refuse to make a statement of any kind, and he, 
 we are confident, does not know who the go- 
 between was. All he knows, or thinks, at 
 least, is that he and his pals were double- 
 crossed last night by well, by Mrs. Carstairs." 
 
 Davenport Carstairs read the papers placed 
 in his hands by the Secret Service man. One 
 by one, they fell from his stiff, trembling fin 
 gers, fluttering to the floor, each in its succeed 
 ing turn. At the end, he looked not into Jones s 
 eyes, but past them, and from his own the light 
 was gone. 
 
 "Will you ask your wife to come in now, Mr. 
 Carstairs!" said Jones, a trifle unsteadily. 
 
 Carstairs stared at him for a moment, un- 
 seeingly. Then he passed his hand over his 
 eyes as if to clear them of something revolting. 
 The moment was tense, spasmodic, prophetic of 
 approaching collapse. The strength and cour 
 age and confidence of the man had sustained a 
 shock that made ruin of them all. He won- 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 153 
 
 dered dumbly whether he would ever have the 
 power and the desire to lift his head again and 
 look into the eye of this man who sat there with 
 him. The whole fabric of existence was torn to 
 shreds by the merciless revelations contained 
 in the papers he had read with the steel in his 
 heart. They were complete, irrefutable indict 
 ments. There was no such thing as going be 
 hind them. Steele s blighting conjectures sud 
 denly became truths of the most appalling na 
 ture ; the astonishing record of Hodges the but 
 ler laid bare a multitude of secrets; the brief, 
 almost laconic summing-up of facts in the pos 
 session of the Department took the heart out of 
 his body and scorched it with conviction, for 
 he knew that the Secret Eye had looked into the 
 very soul of the woman he loved and cherished 
 and trusted. . . . 
 
 "If you do not object, I will speak with her 
 alone, " said he, lifelessly. He struggled to 
 his feet, and, by the mightiest effort of the will, 
 lifted his head and fixed his haggard eyes upon 
 the face of the man who had cast the bomb at his 
 
154 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 feet: a far more potent agent of destruction 
 than any that Germany herself had ever hurled ! 
 It was to destroy heaven and earth for him. 
 
 Jones, cleared his throat, 
 
 "That is for you to decide, Mr. Carstairs," 
 he said, and there was something significant in 
 his voice and manner. "Will you take these 
 documents " 
 
 "No. I do not wish her to see them. Be 
 good enough to step into the drawing-room, 
 and wait. This way through this door. And 
 please call your companion. It is not neces 
 sary for him to stand guard over her. You 
 have my word that she shall not escape." 
 
 "We are to respect your wishes in every par 
 ticular, Mr. Carstairs. The authorities appre 
 ciate your position. It is their desire to spare 
 you, if possible, the disgrace, the pain " He 
 stopped. 
 
 "I think I understand," said Davenport Car- 
 stairs slowly. A moment later he was alone. 
 
 Presently he unlocked and opened a small 
 drawer in his desk. He took out something that 
 glittered, examined it carefully, and then stuck 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 155 
 
 it into his coat pocket. His jaws were set; in 
 his eyes lay the hard, cold light of steel. 
 
 He did not falter. 
 
 She had not been fair with him, but he would 
 be fair with her. He would stand by her to the 
 end. . . . She should have her chance. He 
 would see to it that the newspapers, and the 
 world, dealt kindly with her. He had loved 
 her. 
 
 If possible, he would see to it that he was the 
 only one in all the world to hate her. 
 
 He went to her room. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FAR in the night he said to her : 
 "It is the only way. I shall leave you 
 to yourself now, Frieda. The rest is with God 
 and you. Tomorrow morning they will take 
 you away. They may they probably will 
 shoot you as a spy. I cannot save you, noth 
 ing that I can do will be of avail in turning aside 
 or tempering the wrath of Justice." 
 
 She sat, limply, with bowed head. Her fine 
 body seemed to have shrivelled; emptied of its 
 vitality, it had shrunk as with age before his 
 eyes. Everything that had fed her blood for 
 years seeped away, leaving a waste of sunken 
 flesh : pride, arrogance, defiance, and, last of all, 
 fury, all had gone out of the house of her soul. 
 There was nothing left but the pitiful thing 
 called life. 
 
 She raised her eyes. 
 
 "I cannot take your way out, Davenport, " 
 she said dully. 
 
 156 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 157 
 
 He pointed to the revolver he had laid on her 
 dressing-table. 
 
 "That, Frieda, is the only friend you have in 
 all this world tonight. " 
 
 "Oh, my God! Are you heartless? Have 
 you no pity, no love, no 
 
 i 1 1 have pity, nothing more. Love ? I have 
 given you love for twenty years and more. 
 You have defiled it. Do not speak of love I" 
 
 "You know I love you you know I would die 
 for you a thousand times over. You are my 
 man, my master, my " 
 
 "Enough, Frieda ! You have played a great 
 game, but an ignoble one, and you have lost. 
 You have begged me to to become your execu 
 tioner. You ask me to kill you. You " 
 
 "I do not ask it now," she broke in, looking 
 him full in the eye. "Go, Davenport. Leave 
 me to myself. Thank you for for being kind 
 to me tonight, after all. I have told you the 
 truth, you know everything that my conscience 
 permits me to reveal. You know more than 
 that man who sits out there like a vulture, wait 
 ing for waiting for me. What I have con- 
 
158 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 fessed to you I would die a thousand times over 
 rather than confess to another living soul. 
 They could take me away tonight and torture 
 me till I died, and not one word of what I have 
 said to you would pass my lips. They know 
 enough, but you alone know all. You say the 
 world will never know what I have done. I do 
 not care. Let the world know. I am proud of 
 my blood I rejoice in the little I have been able 
 to do for " 
 
 Hush! Do not say it." 
 
 "Very well. It hurts you. I do not want to 
 hurt you now, husband. The world is to believe 
 that I that an accident a sudden " She 
 buried her face in her hands. Her body shook. 
 
 "I would spare your son, Frieda," said he. 
 
 She looked up, dry-eyed. A quick flash, 
 could it have been of joy? lighted her haggard 
 face. 
 
 "Yes, yes, he must be spared," she cried. 
 A deep, inscrutable expression came into her 
 eyes. She drew a deep, full breath. "Thank 
 God! He is young, he has a long and useful 
 life to live. I gave it him. That is the best, the 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 159 
 
 biggest thing I have done. Now, go, Daven 
 port. Shall we say good-night ? 
 
 The following day, in the noon issues all 
 of the New York evening papers printed, under 
 varied headlines, the details, so far as available, 
 of the shocking accident which resulted in the 
 death of Mrs. Davenport Carstairs. She had 
 fallen from a window in her bed-chamber to 
 the brick-paved courtyard ten stories below. 
 Death was instantaneous. " Accidental, " was 
 the prompt decision of the coroner. 
 
 Deduction readily established the fact. Mrs. 
 Carstairs must have become ill in the night. A 
 bottle of smelling salts was found on the floor 
 near the window which was open to the full. 
 Evidently, she had gone to the window for air. 
 After opening it wide, a sudden faintness or 
 dizziness caused her to topple forward. . . . 
 Before retiring for the night, she had com 
 plained to her husband of a dull, throbbing 
 headache, due, no doubt, to anxiety over the 
 alarming illness of her niece, Miss Hansbury. 
 . . . Sometime after one o clock, Mr. Carstairs, 
 
160 SHOT WITH CRIMSON 
 
 in the adjoining bed-room, heard her moaning 
 as if in pain. He arose instantly and opened 
 the connecting door. She was lying on her 
 bed, and, in response to his inquiry, begged him 
 not to worry about her. Dr. Browne, called in 
 to attend Miss Hansbury, had decided to re 
 main for the night. He was lying down in a 
 guest-chamber, and had fallen asleep. 
 
 Uneasy over his wife s condition, Mr. Car- 
 stairs awoke the physician and together they 
 returned to her room. A knock on the door 
 brought no response, but some relief in the 
 thought that she was asleep. The husband 
 opened the door slightly and listened. There 
 was no sound. He entered the room, which was 
 dark, and approached the bed. Then, he called 
 out to the doctor to switch on the lights. . . . 
 A cold icy draft, the Night- Wind, rushing 
 into the room through the open window. . . . 
 
 Continuing, the papers spoke profoundly of 
 the great loss to society, of the qualities that 
 made Mrs. Davenport Carstairs one of the most 
 sincerely beloved women in all the great city, 
 of her prominence in the conduct of important 
 
SHOT WITH CRIMSON 161 
 
 war charities and reliefs, of her unswerving de 
 votion to the cause for which America and her 
 sons were fighting, of her manifold charms and 
 graces. Her untimely death created a void 
 that could never be filled. Eulogy upon eulogy ! 
 
 Among the hundreds of telegrams of con 
 dolence received by Davenport Carstairs was 
 one from Mr. Paul Zimmerlein, couched in most 
 exquisite terms, conveying tribute to the dead 
 and sympathy to the living. It was sent on the 
 second day from the smart club to which he be 
 longed; on the third flowers went up with his 
 card. . . . 
 
 As business went on as usual at the offices of 
 Mr. Paul Zimmerlein, it would be sheer pre 
 sumption to even suggest that this unhappy 
 chronicle has reached 
 
 THE END 
 
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