Charlevoix County Herald

Pearl of the Army
By Guy W. McConnell
A Story of "America First," Unmasking America's Secret Foes

Synopsis.

Capt. Ralph Payne, U. S. A., is given secret plans of defense to deliver to Panama. He attends a ball at the Granada embassy with Colonel Dare's daughter, Pearl. As a climax to a series of mysterious incidents he is arrested for treason. The ambassador of Granada is found dead and the plans missing from Payne's coat. Major Brent, Payne's rival, enters into suspicious negotiations with Bertha Bonn. Pearl Dare follows a burglar from her home; is drugged and left in a field, and later overhears plotters, who almost capture her. Payne is sentenced to life imprisonment. A train carrying Pearl, Bertha Bonn and Payne on his way to prison is wrecked and Pearl sees Payne's lifeless body at her feet. She meets a mysterious stranger who offers her his services to trace the traitors. She learns that he has the plans. Pearl finds Adams in Washington and learns of his peculiar relations. Adams warns Senator Warfield that he is in danger from a ring of spies. While they talk the senator's office is attacked by conspirators. Bertha Bonn asks Pearl to hand Adams a package which proves to be the plans. Adams is made Colonel Dare's orderly. They are ordered South. The Granadians capture Pearl and Adams to get the plans. Pearl begs Adams to let her take his belt which contains the defense plans. They escape and Adams steals the belt from her. Brent confronts Adams communicating with the enemy. Bertha Bonn warns Pearl against her professed friends. Pearl is captured again by the Granadians. She is rescued by Adams. Disguised as his brother she accompanies him into the camp of the conspirators and poses as a chemist. They are recognized; in the fight Adams saves Pearl from harm. Colonel Dare arrives with American troops. The black scarf appears.

Eighth Episode
International Diplomacy.

The dramatic end of Bolero in his stronghold at Eaglita on the western boundary of Granada and the recovery of the Canal defense plans, proved several important things to the United States government.

It established absolutely the existence of a foreign alliance; it cleared the Granadian government of responsibility in the Payne case, it being proven that Bolero and the murdered Granadian ambassador, De Mira, were traitors to their own country, secretly and independently in league with the foreign alliance in the furtherance of their personal ambitions; it welded the two nations more closely together than they ever had been. This marked the birth of a united American spirit to defend the Monroe Doctrine against invasion from overseas.

Perhaps no more startling international plot ever had been woven than the attempt of the foreign alliance to embroil the United States and Granada in a war for the purpose of exposing our unprepared position to defend a counter-attack at our weakest place: the Canal. The government took the death of Bolero as an indication of the failure of the plot.

If only to settle public unrest, some 5,000 experienced soldiers were now added to the military garrison on our 10-mile strip on the isthmus; negotiations to purchase the Danish West Indies were started for the purpose of making a new naval base in the Caribbean; a more watchful gunboat patrol was maintained on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the big ditch; and with that the incident became a closed one, so far as the public knew.

But the incident was by no means closed in inner government circles.

First was the unsolved mystery in the Payne case. It was now admitted by everyone connected therewith that there was more than reasonable assumption of doubt of Payne's guilt, which made his untimely death all the more regrettable. Yet, there was the testimony of Colonel Dare's orderly, T. O. Adams—who claimed to have found the Canal defense plans in Captain Payne's military belt, or at least in a belt which he swore on his oath came from Payne's body.

Pearl in the Power of the Silent Menace.

Adams had so firmly re-established his position that his word was accepted as the truth. Careful investigation of a man answering his description, hailing from Monk's Corner, Nebraska, and in the various kinds and places of employment represented by Adams was made, verifying his claims.

Between Toko and Adams quite a jealousy sprang up, and between one other person and the colonel's celebrated orderly a hostile feeling existed. This was Major Brent. The major, who had satisfactorily explained the muffler affair, could not get over the fact that Adams had come back a hero in the estimation of the government and the Dares.

It was Major Brent who, while Adams was being examined by the general army staff, tried to pierce his testimony full of holes and make him out anything but a well-meaning and patriotic fellow.

"You knew that the Canal defense plans were in Captain Payne's belt from the very beginning, didn't you?" queried the major at that time.

"I d-didn't," answered Adams to the point.

"When did you discover them to be concealed there?" interposed the chief of staff.

"On the day Major Brent t-took them from me."

"In the hut of the old woman in Granada?"

Adams nodded.

"Why then did you resist arrest and conceal the information you now vouch?"

"I had a notion that I could k-ketch that there Silent Menace. I wanted to c-cop the credit. Ain't that natural? I jest let Major Brent think t-that I was a Granadian spy."

"But who other than you could have given the Canal defense plans to Bolero?" interjected Brent, sarcastically.

"Why, the Silent Menace, himself!" answered Adams in surprise at such a question.

"It was not you, then?"

"I told you before it w-wasn't me," maintained Adams, his features flushing in anger.

"The Silent Menace ain't been about l-lately—ever since I shot Bolero."

To that suggestion there could be only vague comment.

Major Brent fell silent and bided his time.

"You'll git me yet, w-won't you, major?" ironically inquired Adams one day when the two were for a moment alone in Colonel Dare's library.

The major eyed him ferociously.

"You may depend upon it. I will."

"I'm terribly scared of you," laughed the orderly. "M-me and Miss Bonn we're afeared t-to open our mouths. Have you seen the lady l-lately? And that reminds me, major—you'd give a hull h-heap to have that photygraph back, wouldn't you? I ain't n-no blackmailer, but—"

Brent held up a protesting hand, for Miss Dare was approaching.

Adams withdrew into the hall. He chuckled when he overheard Miss Dare's greeting:

"Thanks for the flowers, Thornton."

She wore a beautiful and becoming corsage. "It was as usual thoughtful of you."

Then she changed the subject.

"I wonder what has become of Miss Bertha Bonn?" she asked, innocently.

"Miss Bertha Bonn?" repeated Major Brent, blankly.

"The girl we saved from Bolero. I haven't seen or heard of her since we left the Granadian border."

Adams lingered in the hallway, listening.

"I know nothing about her," lied Major Brent in the manner of one dismissing an uninteresting subject.

"Will you look her up?" persisted Pearl, clinging to her theme.

"If you ask me to, yes."

"Obtain her address, please. I'll ask her to call. I want to set her straight about—"

"About what?" Brent faltered.

"Don't pry into women's secrets, Thornton," she warned in an arch manner. "I may possibly want to discuss—you."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Brent, trying to be comical, but failing utterly.

He was in hot water and showed it by muttering something about Adams.

"Did you call me, Miss Dare?" interrupted Adams, suddenly appearing in the doorway. His laughing eyes were fastened upon the disconcerted major.

"I don't see how you can stand that awkward gink around," growled Brent as Pearl dismissed the orderly with a kindly motion.

Pearl's eyes opened wide. "He's not awkward. He's handsome."

"You'll rue it," warned Brent, sighing as one who knows.

Subsequently Adams, obtaining leave from Colonel Dare, went uptown and paid an unexpected call on Miss Bertha Bonn in her apartment in the Hotel Wilton.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed, feeling a bit awkward in her luxurious sitting room. "It m-must cost you a heap of money to live here."

Bertha laughed and offered him a cigarette from her gold case, lighting one herself.

They sat down.

"I knew that you would come some time. I'm not afraid of you any more, T. O. Adams. In fact, I believe that we can get along well together," she began, cordially.

"What do you think I c-come for?" inquired he, looking at her steadily.

"To talk with me about Major Brent's photograph and my locket," was her frank and quick response.

"That's about it," he admitted, showing that he was a little surprised.

"I'd like t-to have that photy."

She did not seem to understand him.

"You would like to have it? Haven't you got it?"

He ignored her question with a stare.

"Didn't you steal it from me and then decoy me to the Granadian frontier with a promise to return it if I helped you out of that scrape when they nearly had you caught at the senate building?"

"I didn't," he replied emphatically.

"Didn't your messenger send me to Senator Warfield's office with the packet and note when everybody thought that you had stolen the preparedness budget?" the girl insisted.

"He w-wasn't my messenger. Did you know the c-contents of that packet and note before they were opened?"

Her reply gave him a start.

"The note, no. The packet—it contained the Canal defense plans. I recognized the wrapper, most naturally."

His eyes narrowed. "And yet you l-let me get away with the plans—you saw me stuff them i-in my pocket and hand over the budget instead?"

The girl merely nodded.

"I knew all the time that you were the thief they were after."

Adams winced at the ugly word.

"I wasn't the t-thief," he denied. "I kin explain a-all that if I want to."

"Tell it to the marines, Adams!" she derided.

"W-why haven't you squealed on me, if you're s-so smart?"

"That's what I call coming straight to the point. I told you a moment ago that I think we can get on well together. I'll forgive you everything and keep your secret forever, if you give me back my locket and Major Brent's photograph."

After an uncertain pause, Adams carelessly inquired:

"What if I told you t-that I never seen that locket or photy? W-would you believe me and still keep my secret?"

"I don't see how I could do the former, at least," she retorted, inspecting him curiously.

"The latter, possibly—if only for, well let us call it a diplomatic reason."

It puts you up as a better kind of crook—not a murderer.

"I f-feel that way myself," he agreed, still mumbling.

He lighted a fresh cigarette to cover his uncomfortable feelings.

"I guess we're go-ing to b-be friends, Bertha B-bonn."

She stepped up to him, extending a hand.

"Shake!"

"Same here!" stammered her visitor, grasping it.

"Now, what do you want me to do?" she inquired, resuming a lounging attitude, making a fascinating picture.

"I'll go the limit with you."

"You're o-on," he replied, bluntly.

"You're going to r-receive a summons from Miss Dare. Don't answer it w-when it comes until I g-give you the high sign."

Bertha consented to the proposition, and more of this kind of talk followed.

Meanwhile, the Canal defense plans lay in the vaults of the war department undecipherable, for every invisible ink expert in the government laboratories failed in the test for want of the necessary chemical combination.

A session of the general staff to discuss the subject was presently called.

Adams attended this meeting.

"You are probably the only living person to whom the Canal defense plans have been revealed," the chief of staff said to Adams when he was brought before him.

"This document has been in the hands of the foreign alliance. We do not know whether its secret is known to them or not.

Sooner or later we hope to find that out if the alliance is still in existence.

If the visibility of the ink faded immediately after the application of the chemicals, it is possible that the foreign alliance is still in ignorance. Were the drawings not clear when you read them?"

Adams met the general's eyes unflinchingly and responded with the truth.

"They were clear, general, but I couldn't make them out because it was very dark. All I r-remember is that there was something about mines, as I have t-told you before."

The general frowned.

"You cannot recall the location of these mines?"

"No, sir."

"Let's git down to a b-basis," he proposed after another silence.

"Were they ranean cable"

Surrounded by Masked Figures.

"think that I g-got the locket and photy -that I'm t-the trouble maker, that there Silent Menace—what do you think about M-major Brent?"

"You've bought him, body, mind and soul—that's why I'm your friend."

Adams had difficulty in restraining a desire to laugh in her face, for this was not true.

"You got it in f-for him hard, ain't you? You're jealous of someone, eh?"

The abrupt question startled Bertha.

"Of Miss Dare, yes," she admitted, her eyes flashing. Then, with a catch in her voice,

"I'm afraid to analyze my real feelings for Thornton. To do so might lead me into rash behavior."

"You don't m-mean to say you love him?"

"I hate him!" she began, impetuously; adding with doubt, "I think."

"There is something b-between you —something big?"

"There was something—big," she responded, her eyes fixed upon the floor.

"You know all about that."

Then as the hush of twilight fell upon them, Bertha told Adams of her girlhood romance as though she were repeating to him a familiar story: of her futile attempt to regain Brent's affections; her threat to expose him to Captain Payne or Miss Dare through the medium of the locket miniature which proclaimed him to be her husband; of the disappearance of the locket and its contents on the night of De Mira's supposed suicide and Payne's arrest for disposing of the Canal defense plans to Granada; the making of her a secret messenger with the plans to be delivered to someone unknown on the Granadian frontier—with the return of her lost treasure as the reward for these pains.

"I would have denounced you long ago to the army police as the Silent Menace, which you are," she concluded with a sigh, "but for a doubt I have always had concerning Payne. Somehow I can't get rid of the notion that he was mixed up with you and that he got his just desserts when they cashiered him. You deserve to be shot if he wasn't."

"Payne was mixed up with me," admitted Adams, thickly.

"I knew it! I'm glad you've con-"

"T-there was something about a c-cable, general," Adams reflected, knitting his brows.

"Would you be able to fix the loca-tion if we sent you to the Canal zone?"

"That w-wouldn't help any, general I've b-been there."

"So you've been to the Zone, have you?" inquired the chief of staff, interestedly.

"Recently?"

"Not l-long ago. I know all about the place up to date. I used to w-work down there as a telegraph operator."

The general dismissed Adams with a nod.

The chief of staff sighed.

"The question is, what are we going to do to obtain chemicals to decipher the document?"

It was finally decided to advertise in a Washington newspaper.

"Be careful when you examine the replies you will receive," Colonel Dare warned the chief of staff. "You're apt to find fakers among them with hostile intent. Every foreign spy in America will answer that ad."

"The ad, therefore, may serve two purposes, perhaps," replied the general, drily, as the meeting broke up.

In the Washington newspapers that night the following advertisement appeared:

10,000—Invisible ink expert wanted. Apply. Chemical Building.

The advertisement was repeated in the morning editions. To the amazement of the general army staff, this reply followed directly under it:

Will be on hand tonight. Ten sharp.
S. M.

"The Silent Menace!" gasped Colonel Dare.

He was alone with his daughter at the breakfast table.

Later Major Brent was announced.

He entered in great haste, a copy of the newspaper in his hand.

"Colonel!" cried the major, waving the newspaper. "Are our eyes deceiving us this morning? I note that you have observed the incredible thing! Where is he?"

"Who?" asked Pearl, with a thoughtful inflection.

"Adams!"

A curious silence fell among the three.

"Absurd, major!" the colonel finally declared, rising and leaving Brent to himself.

In the Dare garage that morning, Adams had a long talk with Toko about the bold advertisement of the Silent Menace.

"He's g-got the nerve all right," he concluded with a quick upward glance at the chauffeur who was lounging in one of the automobiles. "Do you think t-that he can get away with it?"

"With what?" Toko asked bluntly, rolling a cigarette.

"That's a fact," echoed Adams, perplexed.

He strolled away in deep thought.

Toko eyed his retreating figure in passive silence.

Colonel Dare had privately instructed him to watch Adams closely all day and that night and to report at once if he appeared to act suspiciously—a precaution proposed by Major Brent.

Once during the day Adams was unaccountably absent from duty. Toko asked him where he had been when he showed up.

"Remember your little friend and f-fellow captive at Bolero's—Miss Bertha Bonn?" asked Adams, a trifle confused.

Toko admitted that he did.

"Waal, I've been having a c-chat with her," Adams replied in a noncommittal way.

Toko ceased to question him further. When the first opportunity arrived he reported the matter to Major Brent.

Brent raised his eyebrows and reflected. "That is of no consequence, Toko," he presently commented. "You need not mention it to either the colonel or Miss Dare."

But Toko did report the incident to his mistress, and she sent for the orderly.

"I didn't know that you were continuing in Washington your frontier acquaintance with Miss Bertha Bonn," she said to Adams, more piqued than she let on.

Adams laughed lightly. "Toko t-told you that, did he? Is there any r-reason why I should not know Miss Bonn?"

"On the contrary, I think that you are favored. She is a very beautiful girl if my memory serves me right. When you see her again, remember me to her."

"That will be tonight," responded Adams, drily. He scented something in the air.

Pearl pouted at Adams. "I should like to see her myself. At what hour is your appointment?"

"At ten sharp in f-front of the chemical building," was the orderly's startling reply.

That evening after dinner the Dares were not greatly surprised when Adams asked for leave of absence for the night. It was granted without question. But when he left the house two unseen persons followed him. One was Toko. The other was Pearl.

It was along about dark when Adams stopped at the Hotel Wilton, entered the elevator and went to Miss Bonn's apartment.

He admitted himself without knocking.

Bertha in street attire, greeted him in a manner to indicate that he had been expected.

"Have you g-got 'em?" he asked eagerly and anxiously.

Without replying she gave him a little round cardboard box.

"By gosh! Bertha Bonn deserves a gold m-medal!" cried he more excited than she had ever seen him.

He opened the box and dumped the contents into the palm of one hand.

There were two paraffinelike wafers, each about the size of a fifty-cent piece. "By gum! It's them. It's the chemicals to make the i-ink in the Canal defense plans visible!"

He replaced the wafers and put the box in his vest pocket. "Don't forget," he said, putting on his hat to go; "I g-got a date with you at the Chemical building about ten. If I f-fall to show up, you know what to do." And he hastened away.

Adams leaped into a "sea-going" hack, for which Washington is famous among tourists, and drove from the Wilton as if on a pleasure jaunt. Toko followed in one taxicab; Pearl Dare in another.

After a circuitous route through parks and side streets, he stopped before an empty tenement house in the cheaper section of the city, paid his fare, dismissed the cab and hurriedly entered. Toko stopped his taxi half a block away and stole after him. Pearl ordered her driver to draw up on the other side of the street, where she waited in readiness for the unexpected.

Three automobiles containing soldiers now raced by. She caught a fleeting glimpse of her father and Major Brent in the first car and raced after them.

"Toko is sleuthing Adams in a suspicious-looking house in the next street," she whispered excitedly to her father when abreast of his car. "Don't you think you better search the place?"

Colonel Dare quickly gave the orders to his driver to follow his daughter's taxi and instructed the other two cars to proceed to their destination, which was the Chemical building.

A curious crowd gathered on the sidewalk as the colonel's men entered the house indicated by Pearl.

In the meantime Pearl saw a fourth automobile containing infantrymen dash by. Colonel Dare and his men, including Toko, returned to the sidewalk almost immediately. He was in a great hurry.

"Toko will explain," the colonel informed Pearl in a hoarse whisper as he followed his men into his automobile and sped away.

Pearl turned to Toko, who entered her taxicab and handed her a note.

"This, I found in the house."

Pearl read the note hastily.

I made my appointment with you—not here—but at the Chemical Building at ten sharp.
B.M.

"Adams?" cried Pearl, sharply.

"He is not there," was Toko's grim reply.

Pearl glanced at her wrist watch.

It was 9:30. They dashed to the Chemical building just in time to file through the gates with the soldiers.

Around the Chemical building and in the near vicinity were scattered a great number of secret service men in plain clothes. The wide open and inviting gates were guarded from the inside by soldiers.

It was exactly 10 p. m. when Adams appeared suddenly on the empty street, rushed across it through the gates and into the building. He shoved the heavy iron doors shut in the faces of the startled guards, and flew down a stairway leading into the basement before they could get them open. Simultaneously the whole building was thrown into darkness.

Adams ran to a bolted iron door in the rear of the basement and knocked three times. At that moment Pearl Dare rushed up from behind. He knew it was she from the swish of her skirts.

Toko was on her heels.

All three were dragged inside the door, which opened and closed in a twinkling.

Then a lock snapped.

It was pitch black: a terrifying and silent struggle began. Someone caught hold of Pearl and forced a little round cardboard box into her hand. A voice remarkably like that of Adams whispered into her ear:

"The chemical wafers, girl—hide them!"

Then came a quick short flash from an electric torch. In the fleeting light Pearl glimpsed masked faces and shrouded forms.

"The foreign alliance!" the voice of Adams whispered.

"Toko!" Pearl cried in great fright, all her fears of Adams returning.

A grating, choking sound came from Toko's throat. That was all. Pearl heard the bolt rattle, the door opened, a rush of many feet and a shifting, moving, and the collision of many persons groping in the dark. Oaths and cries filled the place.

Suddenly the lights flashed back.

The basement was jammed with soldiers and no one else. The foreign alliance seemed to have melted into air.

Pearl saw her father and Major Brent.

She saw Toko and Adams.

Bewilderment prevailed upon the faces of all.

"Where is the Silent Menace?" Pearl cried, unable to restrain the question longer.

The lights flashed out again.

"He is here, Mees Dare!" from somewhere a soft European voice was heard to say.

In the grim silence stealthy footsteps mounted the basement stairs.

All rushed after them in a panic, dashing into the street like a pack of hounds seeking a lost trail.

"Orderly Adams?" cried Colonel Dare, glaring at the dense crowd surrounding the building.

"Here!" Adams stepped forth from among the sea of people.

"Arrested, sir!" bellowed the colonel, and he called a corporal and seven privates to take charge of Adams.

Pearl Dare jumped into the same automobile with Adams and the squad of soldiers, determined to follow him to the guardhouse and prevent any possibility of his escape. Later on, when the excitement abated she could deliver the box of wafers to her father.

This was so like Pearl that Colonel Dare raised no objection. With Major Brent and Toko, he hastened back to the basement of the Chemical building.

The place was now alight.

A careful search began ending with a surprising discovery in one of the coal bins. There they found a number of thick black mufflers and as many somber looking shrouds, to one of which was fastened a note addressed to Colonel Dare. It read:

I kept my appointment and have obtained the chemicals to decipher the Canal defense plans. Tell Adams not to try that trick again.
S.M.

"What trick? Has this place been robbed? Does anyone know what this means?" thundered the colonel.

"Colonel Dare!" responded a junior officer rushing to the scene. "A horrible mistake has been made. The corporal to whom you delivered Adams was not a real corporal nor were his men real soldiers. Both your daughter and your orderly have been carried away by persons masquerading in our uniforms. All trace of them has been lost!"

(END OF EIGHTH EPISODE)