"Now, Tommy, let's hear your idea," said Mr. Conne, indulgently, as he worked his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. "I find there's generally a little fire where there's a good deal of smoke. There's somebody or other, as you say, but the trouble is we don't know who he is. We think maybe he looks like someone you've seen. We think he may have a patent ear." He looked at Tom sideways and Tom could not help laughing. Then he looked at the mysterious letter with a funny, ruminating look.

"What can we—you—do?" Tom ventured to ask, feeling somewhat squelched.

Mr. Conne screwed up his mouth with a dubious look. "Search everybody on board, two or three thousand, quiz a few, that's about all. It'll take a long time and probably reveal nothing. Family resemblances are all right when you know both members, Tommy, but out in the big world—Well, let's look this over again," he added, taking up the letter.

Tom knew that he was not being consulted. He had a feeling that his suggestion about breed marks and personal resemblances was not being taken seriously. He was glad that he had not put his foot too far in by telling of his other precious idea. But he was proud of Mr. Conne's companionable attitude toward him. He was proud to be the friend of such a man. He was delighted at the thought of participation in this matter. He knew Mr. Conne liked him and had at least a good enough opinion of him to adopt the appearance of conferring with him. Mr. Conne's rather whimsical attitude toward this conference did not lessen his pride.

"Let's see now," said the detective. "This thing evidently went through Holland in code. It's a rendering."

It was easy for Tom to believe that Mr. Conne was re-reading the letter just to himself—or to himself and Tom.

"Let's see now—but, as you say, everything for the Fatherland. If you receive this, let them know that I'll have my arms crossed and to be careful before they shoot. I wish he'd cross his arms when he comes ashore. He's evidently planning to get himself captured. If you don't get this I'll just have to take my chance. The other way isn't worth trying. Hmm! Probably thought of deserting at the wharf and getting into Holland or Belgium. No, that wouldn't be worth trying. As for the code key, that'll be safe enough—they'll never find it. Hmm! If it wasn't for the—what's all this—the English swine. Humph! They fight pretty good for swine, don't they, Tommy? As far as I can ascertain, we'll go on the T. P. We know that much, anyway, thanks to you, Tommy." (Tom felt highly elated.) "There was some inquiry about my close relationship to you, but nothing serious. All you have to do is to cheer when they play the S. S. B. over here. Humph! That's worth knowing. It isn't known if Schmitter had the key to this when they caught him——

"He didn't," said Mr. Conne dryly; "I was the one who caught him.—because he died on Ellis Island. But it's being abandoned to be on the safe side. Safety first, hey? I have notice from H. not to use it after sending this letter. If we can get the new one in your hands before—Seems to be blotted out—in time so it can be used through Mexico. I'll have much information to communicate verbally in T. and A. matters, but will bring nothing in —— —— form but key and credentials. He means actual, concealed or disguised form, I s'pose. The idea is L.'s. I suppose he means the manner of concealing the key and credentials."

"Yes," said Tom rather excitedly.

Mr. Conne glanced at him, joggled his cigar, and went on,

"You remember him at Heidelberg, I dare say. I brought him back once for holiday. Met him through Handel, who was troubled with cataract. V. has furnished funds. So don't fall to have them watch out."

"Hmm!" concluded Mr. Conne ruminatively. "You see what they're up to. We caught Schmitter in Philadelphia. They think maybe Schmitter had the key of a code with him. So they're changing the code and sending the key to it across with this somebody or other. That's about the size of it. He's got a lot of information, too, in his head, where we can't get at it."

"But his credentials will have to be something that can be seen, won't they?" Tom ventured to ask.

"Prob'ly. You see, he means to desert or get captured. It's a long way round, but about the best one—for him. Think of that snake wearing Uncle Sam's uniform!"

"It makes me mad, too—kind of," said Tom.

"So he's probably got some secret means of identification about him, and probably the new code key in actual form—somewhere else than just in his head. Then there'd be a chance of getting it across even if he fell. We'll give him an acid bath and look in his shoes if we can find him. The whole thing hangs on a pretty thin thread. They used to have invisible writing on their backs till we started the acid bath."

He whistled reflectively for a few moments, while Tom struggled to muster the courage to say something that he wished to say.

"Could I tell you about that other idea of mine?" he blurted finally.

"You sure can, Tommy. That's about all we're likely to get—ideas." And he glanced at Tom again with that funny, sideways look. "Shoot, my boy."

"It's only this," said Tom, still not without some trepidation, "and maybe you'll say it's no good. You told me once not to be thinking of things that's none of my business."

"Uncle Sam's business is our business now, Tommy boy."

"Well, then, it's just this, and I was thinking about it while I was riding just after I started away from Cantigny. Mostly I was thinking about it after I took that last special look at old Piff——"

Mr. Conne chuckled. "I see," he said encouragingly.

"Whoever that feller is," said Tom, "there's one thing sure. If he's comin' as a soldier he won't get to the front very soon, 'cause they're mostly the drafted fellers that are comin' now and they have to go in training over here. I know, 'cause I've seen lots of 'em in billets."

"Hmm," said Mr. Conne.

"So if the feller expects to go to the front and get captured pretty soon, prob'ly he's in a special unit. Maybe I might be all wrong about it—some fellers used to call me Bullhead," he added by way of shaving his boldness down a little.

But Mr. Conne, with hat tilted far down over his forehead and cigar at an outrageously rakish angle, was looking straight ahead of him, at a French flag across the way.

"Go on," he said crisply.

"Anyway, I'm sure the feller wouldn't be an engineer, 'cause mostly they're behind the lines. So I thought maybe he'd be a surgeon——"

Mr. Conne was whistling, almost inaudibly, his eyes fixed upon the flagpole opposite. "He was educated at Heidelberg," said he.

"I didn't think of that," said Tom.

"It's where he met L."

Tom said nothing. His line of reasoning seemed to be lifted quietly away from him. Mr. Conne was turning the kaleidoscope and showing him new designs. "He took L. home for the holidays," he quietly observed. "Old Piff and the boys."

"I—I didn't think of that," said Tom, rather crestfallen.

"You didn't ride fast enough and make enough noise," Mr. Conne said. His eyes were still fixed on the fluttering tricolor and he whistled very low. Then he rubbed his lip with his tongue and aimed his cigar in another direction.

"They were studying medicine there, I guess," he mused.

"That's just what my idea's about," said Tom. "It ain't an idea exactly, either," he added, "but it's kind of come to me sudden-like. You know what a hunch is, don't you? There's something there about somebody having a cataract, and that's something the matter with your eyes; Mr. Temple had one. So maybe that feller L. that he met again is an eye doctor. Long before the war started they told Mr. Temple maybe he ought to go to Berlin to see the eye specialists there—'cause they're so fine. So maybe the spy is a surgeon and L. is an eye doctor. It says how he met him again on account of somebody having a cataract. And he said the way of bringing the code key was L.'s idea. I read about a dentist that had a piece of paper with writing on it rolled up in his tooth. He was a spy. So that made me think maybe L.'s idea had something to do with eyes or glasses, as you might say."

"Hmm! Go on. Anything else?"

"But, anyway, that ain't the idea I had. In Temple Camp there was a scout that had a little pocket looking-glass and you couldn't see anything on it but your own reflection. But all you had to do was to breathe on it and there was a picture—all mountains and a castle, like. Then it would fade away again right away. Roy Blakeley wanted to swap his scout knife for it, but the feller wouldn't do it. On the back of it it said Made in Germany. It just came to me sudden-like that maybe that was L.'s idea and they'd have it on a pair of spectacles. Maybe it's a kind of crazy idea, but——"

He looked doubtfully at Mr. Conne, who still sat tilted back, hat almost hiding his face, cigar sticking out from under it like a camouflaged field-piece. He was whistling very quietly, "Oh, boy, where do we go from here?" He had whistled that same tune more than a year before when he was waiting for a glimpse of "Dr. Curry," spy and bomb plotter, aboard the vessel on which Tom was working at that time. He had whistled it as he escorted the "doctor" down the companionway. How well Tom remembered!

"Come on, Tommy," he said, jumping suddenly to his feet.

Tom followed. But Mr. Conne did not speak; he was still busy with the tune. Only now he was singing the words. There was something portentous in the careless way he sang them. It took Tom back to the days when it was the battle hymn of the transport:

"And when we meet a pretty girl, we whisper in her ear,
Oh, Boy! Oh, Joy! Where do we go from here?"