"How-do?" gulped Clare, giving the French girl her hand. "I _am_ glad Ruth brought you. But it was only yesterday--"
"What was only yesterday?" asked Ruth, as the hostess began to set out the tea things.
"Oh, Ruth! Haven"t you heard something about the awful thing that happened here? That Professor Perry--"
"Ah! What about him?" asked Ruth. "You know what I wrote you-that I had heard there was trouble in the Supply Department? You haven"t answered my letter."
"No. I was too worried. And finally-only yesterday, as I said-I was ordered to appear before the prefect of police."
"A nice old gentleman with a white mustache."
"A horrid old man who said the _meanest_ things to dear Madame Mantel!"
cried Clare hotly.
Ruth saw that the Western girl was still enamored of the woman in black, so she was careful what she said in comment upon Clare"s story.
All Ruth had to do was to keep still and Clare told it all. Perhaps Henriette did not understand very clearly what the trouble was, but she looked sympathetic, too, and that encouraged Clare.
It seemed that Mrs. Mantel had made a companion of Clare outside of the hospital, and Ruth could very well understand why. Clare"s father was a member of Congress and a wealthy man. It was to be presumed that Clare seemed to the woman in black well worth cultivating.
The Kansas girl had gone with the woman to the cafe of the Chou-rouge more than once. Each time the so-called Professor Perry and the Italian commissioner, whose name Clare had forgotten-"But that"s of no consequence," thought Ruth, "for he has so many names!"-had been very friendly with the Red Cross workers.
Then suddenly the professor and the Italian had disappeared. The head of the Lyse hospital had begun to make inquiries into the working of the Supply Department. There had been billed to Lyse great stores of goods that were not accounted for.
"Poor Madame Mantel was heartbroken," Clare said. "She wished to resign at once. Oh, it"s been terrible!"
"Resign under fire?" suggested Ruth.
"Oh-you understand-she felt so bad that her department should be under suspicion. Of course, it was not her fault."
"Did the head say _that_?"
"Why, he didn"t have to!" cried Clare. "I hope _you_ are not suspicious of Madame Mantel, Ruth Fielding?"
"You haven"t told me enough to cause me to suspect anybody yet-save yourself," laughed Ruth. "I suspect that you are telling the story very badly, my dear."
"Well, I suppose that is so," admitted Clare, and thereafter she tried to speak more connectedly about the trouble which had finally engrossed all her thought.
The French police had unearthed, it was said, a wide conspiracy for the diversion of Red Cross supplies from America to certain private hands.
These goods had been signed for in Mrs. Mantel"s office; she did not know by whom, but the writing on the receipts was not in her hand. That was proved. And, of course, the goods had never been delivered to the hospital at Lyse.
The receipts must have been forged. The only point made against Mrs.
Mantel, it seemed, was that she had not reported that these goods, long expected at Lyse, were not received. Her delay in making inquiry for the supplies gave the thieves opportunity for disposing of the goods and getting away with the money paid for them by dishonest French dealers.
The men who had disposed of the supplies and had pocketed the money (or so it was believed) were the man who called himself Professor Perry and the Italian commissioner.
"And what do you think?" Clare went on to say. "That professor is no college man at all. He is a well-known French crook, they say, and usually travels under the name of Legrand.
"They say he had been in America until it got too hot for him there, and he crossed on the same boat with us-you remember, Ruth?"
"Oh, I remember," groaned the girl of the Red Mill. "The Italian, too?"
"I don"t know for sure about him. They say he isn"t an Italian, but a Mexican, anyway. And he has a police record in both hemispheres.
"Consider! Madame Mantel and I were seen hobn.o.bbing with them! I know she feels just as I do. I hate to show myself on the street!"
"I wouldn"t feel that way," Ruth replied soothingly. "You could not help it."
"But the police-ordering me before that nasty old prefect!" exclaimed the angry girl. "And he said such things to me! Think! He had cabled the chief of police in my town to ask who I was and if I had a police record. What do you suppose my father will say?"
"I guarantee that he will laugh at you," Ruth declared. "Don"t take it so much to heart. Remember we are in a strange country, and that that country is at war."
"I never shall like the French system of government, just the same!"
declared Clare, with emphasis.
"And-and what about Mrs. Mantel?" Ruth asked doubtfully.
"I am going over to see her now," Clare said, wiping her eyes. "I am so sorry for her. I believe that horrid prefect thinks she is mixed up in the plot that has cost the Red Cross so much. They say nearly ten thousand dollars worth of goods was stolen, and those two horrid men-Professor Perry and the other-have got away and the French police cannot find them."
Ruth was secretly much disturbed by Clare"s story. She believed that she knew something about the pair of crooks who were accused-Rose Mantel"s two friends-that might lead to their capture. She was sure Henriette Dupay and she had pa.s.sed them with their stalled automobile on the road to Lyse that morning.
In addition, she believed the two crooks were connected with those people at the Chateau Marchand, who were supposed to be pro-German. Now she knew what language she had heard spoken by Jose and the hard-featured Bessie of the chateau, there by the wayside cross. It was Spanish. The woman might easily be a Mexican as well as Jose.
Should she go to the prefect of police and tell him of these things? It seemed to Ruth Fielding that she was much entangled in a conspiracy of wide significance. The crooks who had robbed the Red Cross seemed lined up with the spies of the Chateau Marchand.
And there was the strange animal-dog, or what-not!-that was connected with the chateau. The werwolf! Whether she believed in such traditional tales or not, the American girl was impressed with the fact that there was much that was suspicious in the whole affair.
Yet she naturally shrank from getting her own fingers caught in the cogs of this mystery that the French police were doubtless quite able to handle in their own way, and all in good time. It was evident that even Mrs. Mantel was not to be allowed to escape the police net. She had not been arrested yet; but she doubtless was watched so closely now that she could neither get away, nor aid in doing further harm.
As for Clare Biggars, she was perfectly innocent of all wrong-doing or intent. And she was quite old enough to take care of herself. Besides, her father would doubtless be warned that his daughter was under suspicion of the French police and he would communicate with the United States Amba.s.sador at Paris. She would be quite safe and suffer no real trouble.
So Ruth decided to return to Clair without going to the police, and, after lunch, having delivered the bags of grain which had filled the tonneau of the car, she and Henriette Dupay drove out of town again.
They were delayed for some time by tire trouble, and the French girl proved herself as good a mechanic as was necessary in repairing the tube. But night was falling before they were halfway home.
Ruth"s thoughts were divided between the conspiracy, in which Mrs.
Mantel was engaged, and her worry regarding Tom Cameron. She had filed a telegraph message at the Lyse Hospital to be sent to Tom"s cantonment, where he was training, and hoped that the censor would allow it to go through. For she knew she could not be satisfied that Tom had not been wounded until she heard from him.
The American girl"s nerves had been shot through by the affair of the early morning, when the note from Tom had been brought to her. What had followed since that hour had not served to help her regain her self-control.
Therefore, as Henriette drove the car on through the twilight, following the road by which they had gone to Lyse, there was reason for Ruth suddenly exclaiming aloud, when she saw something in the track ahead:
"Henriette! Look! What can that be? Do you see it?"
"What do you see, Mademoiselle Ruth?" asked the French girl, reducing the speed of the car in apprehension.
"There! That white--"
"_Nom de Dieu!_" shrieked Henriette, getting sight of the object in question.