"Are you the boy that found the paper in the book?" they asked me. Then they wanted to know what kind of a book it was, and I told them it was a book about German history and they screwed up their faces and looked very suspicious.
"You say that the man spoke broken English?" one of them asked Pee-wee.
Pee-wee was kind of nervous, I could see. "It--it--well it wasn"t exactly broken," he said.
"Just a little bent," I said, and oh, you ought to have seen the frown Mr. Ellsworth gave me.
"It was kind of--just a little--" Pee-wee began.
"We understand," one of the men said. Then the other one spoke to us.
He said, "Boys, we want you to go over with us and we want this youngster to identify the man. You needn"t be afraid, Uncle Sam is with you."
But, cracky, I didn"t like it and I guess Pee-wee didn"t either. I"ve read stories about boys that had men arrested and all that, and I always thought I"d like to be one of those regular heroes. But when it came to really doing it, I knew then that I didn"t like to help arrest anybody, and I bet most real fellows feel the same way. I felt funny, kind of.
That"s why I have no use for young detectives in stories, because I know you"ve got to be a grown-up man to feel that way and do things like that.
They had an automobile right near the tennis courts and we all got in and Pee-wee and I sat in back with our scoutmaster. Cracky, I was glad our scoutmaster was along, that"s one sure thing. Pretty soon we got to Little Valley and Pee-wee pointed out the big white house with the lawn and the flag flying there. Jiminy, but it looked good and I wished we were up at Temple Camp, raising our colors near the boat landing.
While we were going up the gravel path; the old gentleman came out on his porch and looked at us and I felt kind of ashamed and I could see Pee-wee did too. But, cracky, I"ve got no use for spies, that"s one sure thing. Pee-wee and I kind of hung behind and I guess he felt funny, sort of, when the old gentleman waved his hand to him, as if they were old friends.
I can"t remember all they said but the two men who I knew were detectives showed the old gentleman the paper and asked him what it meant. First he seemed kind of fl.u.s.tered and angry and I know Pee-wee"s heart was thumping-anyway it would have been thumping, except that it was up in his throat.
Then the men said that they"d have to search the house to see if there was a wireless and then the old gentleman got angry; then all of a sudden he sat down in one of the wicker chairs on the porch and began to laugh and laugh and laugh. Then he looked at Pee-wee and said, "I suppose this is the young gentleman who succeeded in trapping me. I must take off my hat to the Boy Scouts," and he smiled with an awful pleasant kind of a smile and held out his hand to Pee-wee.
Well, you should have seen Pee-wee. It was as good as a three-ringed circus. He stood there as if he was posing for animal crackers. And even the detectives looked kind of puzzled, but all the while suspicious.
"Are you the spy-catcher?" the old gentleman said to Pee-wee, but Pee-wee looked all flabbergasted and only shifted from one foot to the other.
"I hope you don"t mean to kill me with that belt.
axe?" the old gentleman asked. But Pee-wee just couldn"t speak.
"He must be a telephone girl--"he doesn"t answer," I blurted out, and even the detectives had to laugh.
"Gentlemen, if you will step inside, I"ll make full confession and then give myself up," the old man said; "for I see there is no use in trying to escape the Boy Scouts. It was I who wrote that treasonable memorandum and I may as well tell you that I have a wireless. I will give you my whole history. I see that my young friend here is a most capable secret service agent."
"We"re only small boys--we belong to the infantry," I said, for I just couldn"t help blurting it out.
Well, we all went inside and I could see that the Commissioner and the detectives kept very near the old gentleman as if they didn"t have much use for his laughing and his pleasant talk. I guess maybe they were used to that kind of thing, and he couldn"t fool them.
When we got into his library I saw books all around on the shelves, hundreds of them I guess, and the desk was covered with papers and there was a picture of Mark Twain with "Best regards to Mr. Donnelle,"
written on it. Gee whit taker, I thought when I looked around; maybe Mr. Donnelle is a deep-dyed spy all right, but he"s sure a high-brow.
"You"d have to take an elevator to get up to him," I whispered to Pee-wee.
"Shhh," Pee-wee said, "maybe he isn"t dyed so very deep--there"s different shades of dyes."
"Maybe he"s only dyed a light gray or a pale blue," I said.
Then Mr. Donnelle got out a big fat red book that said on it "Who"s Who in America" and, jiminy, I"m glad I never had to study it, because it had about a million pages. I hate biography anyway--biography and arithmetic. Then he turned to a certain page.
"Now, gentlemen," he said, "if you will just read this I will then consent to go with you," and he smiled all over his face.
The four men leaned over and began reading, but Pee-wee and I didn"t because they didn"t ask us and Boy Scouts don"t b.u.t.t in.
"I bet it tells all about German spies and everything, and now he"s going to make a full confession," Pee-wee said; "maybe our names will be in the New York papers, hey?"
"They"ll be more likely to be in the fly-paper," I said; "there"s something funny about this."
"I bet he was going to blow up some ships," Pee-wee said.
"I bet he"ll blow us up in a minute," I told him; because I could see that he was saying something to the men while they all looked at the book, and that the whole four of them were laughing--especially Mr. Ellsworth.
"It was the elder boy who discovered it," I heard him say, smiling all the while.
"Good night!" I said to Pee-wee, "I thought we had a German in custody, but instead of that. We"re in Dutch!"
"Will they send us to jail?" he whispered.
"I think we"ll get about ten merit badges for this--not," I said; "he"s no spy."
Well, the men didn"t pay much attention to us, only strolled over to one side of the room and began chatting together, and Mr. Donnelle got a box of cigars and they each took one.
"I wouldn"t smoke one of those cigars," Pee-wee said, "they might be bombs. The Germans are pretty tricky--safety first."
Then Mr. Ellsworth came over to us, smiling all over his face. "Well, boys," he said, "I"m glad to say that our spy quest has gone up in smoke. Mr. Donnelle is one of the best known authors of America. He is writing a story of the war and our dark memorandum is just a little literary note of his about a spy among the American forces. I think we shall find it a most interesting story when it is finished. It is full of German intrigue and you will be glad to know that the imaginary spy is caught and court-martialled. You have done a fine thing by your discovery, for Mr. Donnelle has become greatly interested in the Scouts, and especially in our young scout author." Then he gave me a funny look.
"So you see our dark memorandum was not so dark after all."
"G--o--o--d night!" I said; "it was a kind of a pale white."
"And I dare say," Mr. Ellsworth said, all the while slapping me on the shoulder, "that our deep-dyed villain is going to prove a very good friend."
"Even if you"re deep-dyed," said Pee-wee, "sometimes the colors will run and you won"t be so deep-dyed after all. My sister had a skirt and she dyed it a deep--"
Honest, that kid is a scream.
CHAPTER IV
THE PLOT GROWS THINNER--OR ELSE THICKER
Pee-wee says it grows thicker and I say it grows thinner, so I put it both ways. I told him things would begin to stir up in this chapter and he said a thing always gets thicker when you stir it. I should worry.
"Suppose we should go boating or something like that where there"s a lot of water," I told him; "that would thin it some if you added water wouldn"t it?"
"You"re crazy," he shouted.
Westy Martin wanted to name it The Deep Dyed Villain--so you can call it that if you want to--I don"t care.