The instant Kitty made that threat she was appalled at her daring. Lieutenant Cary might have a pistol and fire in her direction in the darkness. Terrified she crouched in the chair. Cary didn’t move or speak for what seemed an eternity. Then she heard an almost imperceptible rattle of paper. He must be trying to slide those orders from under his coat, to remove the evidence of his guilt.

“Leave those papers under your coat!” she ordered.

The paper rattling ceased. Then suddenly she caught the sound of footsteps in the hall. It would do no good for her to scream and call for help. Anyone passing down the hall was not likely to have a key that would fit this door. She couldn’t forget that Cary might have a gun. But would he dare use it with someone in hearing?

Kitty decided this was the best moment for action. Her bare feet made no sound as she glided across the floor. If she could only reach the door while someone else was near she might have a chance. Even after having been in darkness for quite a while her dilated eyes could distinguish little in the room. No doubt their surroundings were still more veiled to Cary.

She had only reached the back of the desk when she heard a key slip into the door lock. Relief flooded over her in a great wave, only to be followed by stark terror at what Cary might do if her father came in and found him here.

The door swung in and the light flashed up. Almost at the same moment Cary hurled himself at Chief Carter. The impact was so completely unexpected that Carter was thrown back against the partly open door, and it closed with a bang.

“So, it’s you, Cary!” exclaimed Mr. Carter, even as he went down.

Kitty seized Cary’s coat as he made a lunge at her father. A moment later she realized that someone, who had been coming here with her father, had been shut out by the banging door. He was now pounding it impatiently. Kitty sprang to open it, and a blue-uniformed officer, whom she had never seen before, rushed to her father’s aid. Fortunately he was armed, and a minute later had backed Cary into a corner. The order sheets from Chief Carter’s desk had slipped from under the physician’s coat and were scattered over the floor.

Her father got to his feet and faced the officer. “Well, Captain Rogers, this is a bit of luck!”

The Captain laughed shortly, without shifting his gaze from Cary. “We scarcely dared hope to catch him in the act.”

“I expect we’ll have to give credit for the catching to my daughter,” replied Chief Carter, glancing proudly at Kitty.

“How did you manage it, young lady?” asked the severe-looking Captain.

Kitty thought how terrified she would be to face him at a trial. He had the look of a man whose dealings with law-breakers had soured him on the world.

“I must confess I didn’t do any managing,” Kitty admitted ruefully. “I was sitting here waiting for Dad when in came Lieutenant Cary.”

“Waiting in the dark?” her father asked.

“I turned off the light to watch the storm—see what I could see outside,” Kitty floundered.

“So—he didn’t realize anyone was in here?” asked the officer.

Kitty’s excited breath caught in her throat a moment before she could explain, “He went straight to Dad’s desk with a flashlight, and picked up those order sheets.” She pointed to the papers strewn over the floor. “He stuffed them under his coat.”

“We must have come just as he did that,” surmised her father.

“No! It seemed an eternity. I told him not to move or I’d shoot.”

“But Kitty, you had no gun!” exclaimed her father. “Why do you take such foolhardy chances, my child?”

“Then you came! I was going to try to get out the door while someone was passing. I didn’t dare hope it was you.”

Though Captain Rogers hadn’t taken his eyes off Cary for a moment, Kitty saw the shadow of a smile twitch around the straight lines of his mouth. Then he spoke suddenly, “Mr. Carter, please phone Minger to come up with some handcuffs. Our Lieutenant here looks like a volcano that may erupt at any moment. No doubt it’s bitter for him to know he has been caught by this alert young lady.”

Cary, at bay in the corner, seemed turned to stone. His baleful glances had swept from one to the other as they spoke, but otherwise not a muscle of his face changed to betray his real feelings. No doubt the Nazis had trained him so well, that to die for the Fuehrer, in an attempt to serve him, was a coveted sacrifice.

The Petty Officer with the handcuffs came up in an amazingly short time, Kitty thought. He, too, was a stranger to her. When the irons had been snapped over the physician’s wrists Captain Rogers said, “Take him away, Minger. I’ll join you later.”

Lieutenant Cary’s head was held high as he walked out. His only act of defiance was to step deliberately on the scattered order blanks.

Kitty could scarcely wait for the door to close before she asked, “Oh, Dad, tell me about Brad. Is he going to be all right?”

“We hope so, Kitten,” her father replied gently. “The wound isn’t so bad. The bullet was extracted without too much trouble, and no bones were shattered.”

“He lost so much blood before I could do anything for him,” she said with regret.

“His strength will come back as soon as he has a transfusion.”

“Oh, Dad, it’s all been so awful!” wailed Kitty. Suddenly she threw her arms over his shoulders and burst into tears.

Her father held her to him a moment consolingly. “This last experience was a little too much, eh, Kitten?”

“I just knew he was going to kill you the minute you opened that door!”

“Well, he didn’t! Let’s hope the worst is over now.” Mr. Carter went toward a cabinet in the corner. “I’m going to fix you a small dose of medicine to calm your nerves.”

“Oh, I’ll be all right in a moment.”

“No, you’d better take this,” her father insisted. “You’ll need it to fortify you. We still have much to talk about. Captain Rogers may want to ask you some questions.”

“Why? Is he—”

“Yes. He’s the man I sent for when you told me all you had uncovered the other day.”

Kitty felt rather stunned at this information, yet relieved, too. She would be glad to get the whole business off her mind, and all this information into responsible hands.

Captain Rogers had gathered the scattered papers and was examining them while Kitty drank the medicine and let her father lead her again to the big armchair. He placed two other chairs close, then found an old sweater and wrapped it around his daughter’s bare feet.

“You mustn’t get chilled after such a trying day,” he said.

Then he joined Captain Rogers at his desk and they stood conferring in low tones for a few minutes. Gradually Kitty began to feel relaxed, and infinitely relieved that the suspense of these last weeks had at last reached a climax. She was now impatient to talk over everything with her father and his superior officer. There was much she wanted to know, too.

“Feeling better?” asked her father, coming back and standing by her chair. He took the damp kerchief from her head, and ran his fingers through her tumbled curls.

“Oh, much!”

“Well, suppose you tell us what happened this afternoon when you and Brad went out to Terrapin Island.”

Captain Rogers came over and sat astride a straight chair, his arms folded over the back as he faced her. This informality instantly put Kitty at her ease, while she gave a detailed account of her afternoon up to the time she had brought Brad home.

“Young lady, you have shown remarkable keenness in handling this situation,” said the Captain.

Kitty flushed. “Oh, no. I’ve made lots of mistakes. You don’t know.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” he retorted. “Your father has told me everything up to date. However, I must admit you made one mistake in the very beginning.”

She met his piercing brown eyes squarely. “I know,” she nodded. “I should have reported my very first suspicions to the FBI.”

“Exactly! No sensitive young lady should attempt to deal with Nazi or Jap saboteurs.”

“But I was afraid to tell anyone until they had been maneuvered into a position where they could really be caught.”

Captain Rogers laughed unexpectedly. “She doesn’t have a very high regard for the secret investigators of her country, eh, Carter?”

“Oh, I don’t mean it that way!” Kitty hastened to apologize. “But you see from the very beginning I—I was afraid that somehow this office—Dad’s office—was involved. One doesn’t run to the FBI about things where one’s father may be concerned.”

Captain Rogers glanced significantly at the Chief Pharmacist’s Mate. “Well, Carter, I suppose that puts a stop to my scolding.” He suddenly grew serious again as he turned to Kitty to say, “Young lady, if you had known what perfect confidence we have in this dad of yours you would have had no fears. When we sent him here we knew he was the one man who could stop the dirty business going on—if anyone could.”

It was Chief Carter’s turn to look surprised. “But I asked to be sent here!” he exclaimed.

Captain Rogers laughed. “You were only one step ahead of us. We had planned to ask you to take this post in hopes of clearing up the trouble.”

“Then you knew the fault was not in this office?”

“Certainly.”

“But you dumped Chief Dawson down in Santiago.”

“That was only a blind to throw the guilty parties off the track until we could pin the goods on them. Dawson understands all that, but is pledged to secrecy.”

“Well, for goodness sake!” burst forth Kitty. “If I’d had any idea of all that I would have told everything long ago.”

“If several people had had an idea of all this we might never have sprung this trap,” explained Captain Rogers.

“You speak as if it were really sprung,” said Kitty eagerly.

“It is—practically.”

“It seems rather certain that Punaro is responsible for young Brad Mason’s wound. He was away from the hospital all afternoon. I’ll order his arrest shortly. As for Beeson, he’s practically a prisoner on that island until this blow is over. We’ll be prepared to handle him as soon as we can get out there.”

“You won’t let anything happen to poor Uncle Mose?”

“We’ll do our best. The old darky is certainly entitled to his reward, too, in opening your eyes to so much.”

“But there are others. Brad thinks one of the ward attendants may be helping, too.”

“Oh, yes. They figure they have a perfect set-up,” said Captain Rogers. “First they put the incinerator out of order to make an opening for traffic into the marshes. Lieutenant Cary, with the assistance of your father’s stenographer—”

“Dad’s stenographer?” exclaimed Kitty, completely shocked.

“I was just as surprised as you, Kitten, when that amazing fact dawned on me,” explained Mr. Carter. “Miss Dales seemed such a quiet, clinging vine sort I couldn’t feature her daring to mix in anything like this.”

“Why, Dad, I can’t believe it! She acted as though she would do anything in the world for you.”

“She had been Dawson’s secretary, so I thought surely she was all right.”

“We were rather relieved you kept her on,” put in Rogers. “We had our suspicions of her all along. Any change might have put them too much on the alert.”

“If you hadn’t given me a hint about her, Captain Rogers,” said Carter, “I might not have thought of setting this trap tonight. We finished up these order sheets just before I left the office and I told her to mail them.”

“Instead she left them where Cary could get them tonight—as she has done numberless times before, so he could add his order for medicine for the German subs, above your signature.”

“Exactly!” said Mr. Carter.

“So that’s why there’s been so much suspicion about the orders that go in,” said Kitty. “But how has Lieutenant Cary been getting hold of the extra supplies when they come back?”

“The shipments are carried to Cary’s office. That’s in the normal routine. It is a very simple matter for him to take out the extra things he has ordered. Punaro, in collecting rubbish, places the supplies intended for German subs under the trash in his dump cart, and later hides it aboard the rubbish barge.”

“And Beeson?” asked Kitty. “You really think he’s the middleman?”

“No doubt of that,” replied Captain Rogers. “He probably carts off quite a bit of fresh food with him when he comes for scraps for his hogs.”

“That’s just what we figured,” said Kitty. “And I suppose Hazel Dawson was right about Lieutenant Cary playing chess with Krome to keep him occupied while Punaro gets away with the dirty work in the galley?”

“No doubt that’s been his program.”

While they had been talking, the fury of the wind had increased. Mr. Carter kept glancing uneasily toward the rattling windows.

“Captain, if you’ll excuse me I think I’d better go back to our bungalow and bring my little boy and his nurse here. This wind is reaching an alarming force.”

“Yes, yes, of course! They say it’s likely to reach hurricane proportions by morning.”

Mr. Carter got up quickly. “I’m afraid it’s going to be ahead of schedule. Our small cottage is no place to spend the night.”

Kitty threw aside the old sweater and jumped to her feet, frightened for Billy.

“No, dear, you’d better not come with me. No use for you to get wet again,” said her father. “You’ve been through enough for one day. Hazel is on night duty. You can get some sleep in her room.”

“Yes, young lady, you mustn’t take any more chances. We may need you here in the morning anyhow to answer further questions.”

“I’ll stop by and tell Hazel you’re going to her room,” said her father when they started out. “I’ll arrange for Billy and Jane somehow here. Restrictions will be let down for such an emergency. So you just put everything out of your mind and get some sleep.”