This is the reply "the baron" gave to the question put to him by Irving at the close of the preceding chapter. The spy put the question in accord with a suggestion made by Col. Evans in the course of his instructions behind the Canadian lines. The intent of this move was to obviate suspicion that he had delivered a fake message when discovery was made that the information it contained did not answer its professed purpose.
"Have you any reason to believe that they discovered the nature of the information you brought in that message?" asked the high Prussian official after he had answered the spy's question.
"I'm afraid I have," the latter replied. "Why didn't they arrest you?"
"Because they didn't know where to find me. I was lost somewhere in the Canadian army. They probably had no way of identifying me. However, they must have made a search for me when they learned what had been going on--maybe they're searching yet."
"Do you know what they learned that a message of this kind was being brought over here?"
"I know enough to feel that there is grave danger that they made such a discovery."
"How did you find that out?"
"This way: One of the boys in the company to which I belonged received a letter from his cousin in Canada that told almost the whole story, and I read the letter. That cousin told a long story about his going to Toronto to visit some friends and getting sick while there. He was taken to a hospital--our hospital, by the way--and while he was convalescing, he strolled out in the hall and saw the tattooing operation on my arm. The two men who were doing the work saw him standing there and gazing through the glass door, and they rushed out, collared him, and dragged him into the laboratory. But he satisfied them that he was merely a curious onlooker and they let him go.
"However, they had him watched, and after he left the hospital he was followed everywhere he went. He communicated with government officials and a week or two later the hospital was raided. This is all the information the letter contained, but it is possible that they compelled somebody to reveal the contents of the message that was tattooed on my arm."
"Very possible," agreed "the baron," leaning forward with a look of hard and harsh concern in his eyes. "And where were you in the meantime?"
"On my way on a transport for England. The spy in the hospital, I suppose, did not observe me very closely. Fortunately I had my coat off and perhaps he did not identify me as a soldier. At any rate, I was not interfered with, and I am here."
"No doubt of that," returned the intelligence official rather absently; "and you brought the message. Well, all we can do is remember the circumstances you have just related and take them into consideration if developments don't prove satisfactory. I'm glad you told me about this, for it may prevent a lot of confusion. It wouldn't be well for you to venture back into Canada with that picture on your arm. You'd be picked up as a deserter, and the intelligence officers wouldn't be very slow finding out that you were the fellow they've been hunting for ever since the raid on that Toronto hospital. As a matter of fact, I doubt if you can be of much use to us in any of the countries of our allied enemies with that thing on your arm."
"I have an idea to remedy that," said Irving with a smile that suggested something of a novelty in his mind.
"What is that?" asked "the baron."
"Peel this picture off and graft some new skin in its place."
The intelligence official laughed, but he was interested as well as amused.
"That isn't a bad idea at all," he said. "On the whole I am inclined to take you seriously. You seem to have a scientific turn of mind, and that always appeals to an intelligent German. I'm going to put you to work under the direction of a man who will give you a thorough tryout, and we'll find out what you're good for. You seem to be ambitious and intelligent and have a good record behind you. Go ahead now and show us what you're worth."
This announcement and the accompanying instruction delighted the spy beyond measure. If his recent experiences had not schooled him in the very wise habit of self-restraint, his first joyful impulse might have got him into trouble.
"Just wait a minute and I'll fix you up with an order for some money and some clothes," said "the baron" after a few moments of silence.
He picked up a pen and busied himself filling out a form and writing a note on a letterhead of the department. These he folded and placed hi separate envelopes. The envelopes he addressed and handed to the spy.
"There, that's all today, I think," he said. "Whatever you need hereafter will be taken care of by Mr. Herrmann. Inquire outside and you'll be directed where to go to have this order cashed."
Irving thanked him and left the office. Ten minutes later he was outside the building with a comfortable roll of bank-bills in his pocket. As he started up the street with directions in his mind for reaching the quartermaster's office, he saw Blau on the opposite sidewalk and was reminded of the instruction given that intelligence operative to shadow the young spy's shadower.