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"So you propose to break into his shop to-night and steal the book?" "There seems to be nothing else to do, Mr. Vaux." "Of course," he remarked sarcastically, "we could turn this matter over to the proper authorities " "I WON'T! PLEASE don't!" "Why not?" "Because I have concluded that it IS part of our work. And I've begun already. I went to see Lauffer. I took a photograph to be framed."
"Well, then, Lauffer must have it in his apartment upstairs." "Which apartment is it?" "The fourth floor. His name is under a bell on a brass plate in the entry. I noticed it when I came in." She turned off the electric light; they went to the door, reconnoitred cautiously, saw nobody on the avenue. However, a tramcar was passing, and they waited; then Vaux flashed his torch on the bell-plate.
Was it possible that the Great Secret, of which the Lauffer cipher letter spoke, was locked within the breast of this young fellow who now lay unconscious in the Samaritan Hospital? Was this actually the escaped prisoner? Was this the man who, according to instructions in the cipher, was to be marked for death at the hands of the German Government's secret agents in America?
"It's utterly impossible to solve that unless you have the book," he remarked; "therefore, why speculate, Miss Erith?" "I'm going to try to find the book." "How?" "By breaking into the shop of Herman Lauffer." "House-breaking? Robbery?" "Yes." Vaux smiled incredulously: "Granted that you get into Lauffer's shop without being arrested, what then?" "I shall have this cipher with me.
And, if this truly were the same man, was he safe, at least for the present, now that the cipher letter had been intercepted before it had reached Herman Lauffer? Hour after hour, lying deep in her armchair before the fire, Miss Erith crouched a prey to excited conjectures, not one of which could be answered until the man in the Samaritan Hospital had recovered consciousness.
"Not unless we go up and knock this man Lauffer on the head. Do you want to try it?" "Couldn't we knock rather gently on his head?" Vaux stifled a laugh. The girl was so pretty, the risk so tremendous, the entire proceeding so utterly outrageous that a delightful sense of exhilaration possessed him. "Where's that gun?" he said. She drew it out and handed it to him. "Is it loaded?" "Yes."
Cassidy came back with the garments he had been looking for an overcoat, coat and vest and he carried them into the kitchenette, whither presently Vaux followed him. Cassidy had just unlocked the handcuffs from the powerful wrists of a dark, stocky, sullen man who stood in his shirt-sleeves near a small deal table. "Lauffer?" inquired Vaux, dryly.
"How did YOU get in?" asked Miss Erith, flushed with chagrin and disappointment. "With keys, ma'am." "Oh, Lord!" said Vaux, "we jimmied the door. What do you think of that, Cassidy?" "Did you so?" grinned Cassidy, now secure in his triumphant priority and inclined to become friendly. "I never dreamed that your division was watching Lauffer," continued Vaux, still red with vexation.
What's his name, Miss Erith?" glancing down at the yellow envelope. "Oh, yes Herman Lauffer hum!" He opened a big book containing the names of enemy aliens and perused it, frowinng. The name of Herman Lauffer was not listed. He consulted other volumes containing supplementary lists of suspects and undesirables lists furnished daily by certain services unnecessary to mention.
Finally he shoved aside the pile of letters which he had been trying to read, unhooked the telephone receiver, called a number, got it, and inquired for a gentleman named Cassidy. To the voice that answered he gave the name, business and address of Herman Lauffer, and added a request that undue liberties be taken with any out going letters mailed and presumably composed and written by Mr.
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